Chapter 13
"Sendaria?" yelled Garion. He got up and began to pace back and forth. "Why Sendaria? Why not Algaria? Boktor? Nyissa? Marag? Why Sendaria? Even Riva! Just not Sendaria!"
"How should I know?" Javelin asked. "They're moving down the Great Southern Road, and Muros is at the other end. It's obvious they're going to Sendaria."
Garion growled deep in his throat. "We've got to head them off! We've got to stop them!"
"That's what we've been trying to do, Garion," Varana said patiently.
Garion fell into a chair. "Sendaria has almost no defense. No army, no militia, no nothing! They're not helpless, but they're not ready!"
"It looks like I don't have to support my case," Fulrach murmured to Cho-Hag.
"Garion was born and raised in Sendaria, after all," the quiet king of the Algars said, shrugging.
"Garion, we'll try to get the legions to curve around and intercept them, but it might be difficult."
"Wait." Belgarath stepped forward. "I have an idea. We'll march the Mimbrates, the Tolnedrans, the Chereks, Rivans, Drasnians, and Algars home. We" He indicated the nine sorcerers present, "will go to Aldurford, to try to bar the way of the army with our skills. Nine of us will surely be able to stop the army and defeat the leader."
Varana frowned. "Really, we shouldn't rely on--"
Anheg, seeing the problem, intercepted, "We can march the forces to the Sendarian border, just in case. If for some strange reasons your talents fail, or you get really tired or delayed, there'll still be a final barrier to stop them."
Belgarath threw up his hands. "All right, all right, but it'll be a waste of time. Two sorcerers, one sorcerer, whatever, and their illusions will be no match for us."
Varana snorted. "We need a plan of battle anyway. What if Durnik there trips and falls off a cliff and you're all delayed because you're so worried that he's going to die? I say we set up a advancing line of legionnaires, with their shields held in front of them to deflect the daggers. Then others can poke their spears out through the gaps. Mimbrate knights can harry the soldiers from the sides, and Asturians can fire over the heads of both to the rear. The Chereks can try to get to the sorcerers when they aren't noticing, and if they can't, they can bash through the rear. We'll grind them up against the Tolnedrans and the Chereks, or we can dig a pit in the space where we're forcing them, and have the Nyissans toss powder down on them."
Anheg rubbed his chin, tracing a map with his finger on the table. "There's several passes in the mountains where the Great Southern Road makes its way to Muros. It shouldn't be too hard to trigger a few avalanches there, and also rain arrows down from cover. Where the pass widens, we can charge head-on with the Mimbrates, and attack from behind with the Tolnedrans, using that shield formation you were talking about."
"We can squash them in the middle, with arrows raining down the sides of the pass to keep any from climbing," mused Kheva. "Interesting."
"You're going to let them come into Sendaria?" asked Garion, his voice going up a notch.
"A league or so," Varana said, running a hand through his iron-gray hair.
"You're letting INVADERS march into SENDARIA?" repeated Garion, almost yelling now.
"Garion, please," Anheg told him. "It's not like we're telling a thousand Sendars to go distract the Morindim by offering themselves up as sacrifices."
"Morindim don't make sacrifices," Belgarath said.
"That's not the point," Anheg said, annoyed. "The point is that letting Morindim march a few leagues into uninhabited mountains does not cause any serious problems."
"But you're letting them into Sendaria," protested Garion, unable to say why he felt this way, but feeling it all the same.
"Garion, calm down," Fulrach told him. "They probably won't get that far, since you sorcerers have enough power to stop them in their tracks."
Garion nodded dubiously. "Yes, I suppose so."
"Any word?" the figure's ice blue eyes bored out over the landscape.
The demon illusionist paused, not sure how the leader would take the news. "None, my lord. It seems your enemy has taken refuge deep in Sendaria."
"He is wise," the figure hissed. "Very wise. But I shall come for him. These pitiful sorcerers and their spells, these incompetent beserkers and their armies, they shall not stand in my way. I shall seek him out and find him, and then I shall destroy him."
"He will not escape you again, my lord."
"No. We have played this game for a long time, my faithful servant. A very long time. At last, it shall end."
"In your victory."
"Your trust in me is flattering, my faithful servant. Yes, of course in my victory. I have always been the stronger. That is why he hid from me, hid for many years. Sendaria!" he spat. "I should have guessed long before. Sendaria is a peaceful country, a country that makes no distinction between race, or whether a person has none, a country deep in the heart of the West."
"Belgarion the Overlord was raised in Sendaria, my lord. He has great attachment to it, and so would defend it all the more."
The figure nodded, a slow assent. His dark, lank hair blew about his face, dark lines on the ivory skin. "Yes, that too. My enemy is clever, very clever. But he did not think I would bring an army after him."
"Who could have expected that, my lord? He may be clever in knowing what to do in the moment, but your mind soars above all others, seeing ahead."
The figure laughed, a surprisingly neutral sound. "Nice phrasing, my faithful servant." His expression turned to longing. "It has been so long..."
I guess I could have put this chapter with the one before it, but when I added the thirteenth chapter I thought it should kind of be a chapter in itself. As I said before, if you know or have a very good idea who HE is, don't say so in a review. I want it to be a surprise, and you can gloat in you knowing when no one else does. I need to know how I'm doing so far, though.