"Watch who you're calling a blockhead, you jackass!"

Without any further discussion, Besher punched Varn in the mouth, and the two of them began to pummel each other, reeling about and knocking over benches and tables.

"They're both wrong, of course," another miner sitting at a nearby table observed calmly, watching the fight with a clinical detachment. "You keep going straight after you get through the juniper grove."

Several burly men, wearing loose-fitting red tunics over their polished mail shirts, had entered the tavern unnoticed during the altercation, and they stepped forward, grinning, to separate Varn and Besher as the two rolled around on the dirty floor. Garion felt Silk stiffen beside him.

"Malloreans!" the little man said softly.

"What do we do?" Garion whispered, looking around for a way of escape. But before Silk could answer, a black-robed Grolim stepped through the door.

"I like to see men who are so eager to fight," the Grolim purred in a peculiar accent. "The army needs such men."

"Recruiters!" Varn exclaimed, breaking away from the red-garbed Malloreans and dashing toward a side door. For a second it looked as if he might escape; but as he reached the doorway, someone outside rapped him sharply across the forehead with a stout cudgel. He reeled back, suddenly rubber-legged and vacant-eyed. The Mallorean who had hit him came inside, gave him a critical, appraising glance, and then judiciously clubbed him in the head again.

"Well?" the Grolim asked, looking around with amusement. "What's it to be? Would any more of you like to run, or would you all prefer to come along quietly?"

"Where are you taking us?" Besher demanded, trying to pull his arm out of the grip of one of the grinning recruiters.

"To Yar Nadrak first," the Grolim replied, "and then south to the plains of Mishrak ac Thull and the encampment of his Imperial Majesty 'Zakath, Emperor of all Mallorea. You've just joined the army, my friends. All of Angarak rejoices in your courage and patriotism, and Torak himself is pleased with you." As if to emphasize his words, the Grolim's hand strayed to the hilt of the sacrificial knife sheathed at his belt.

The chain clinked spitefully as Garion, fettered at the ankle, plodded along, one in a long line of disconsolate-looking conscripts, following a trail leading generally southward through the brush along the riverbank. The conscripts had all been roughly searched for weapons-all but Garion, who for some reason had been overlooked. He was painfully aware of the huge sword strapped to his back as he walked along; but, as always seemed to happen, no one else paid any attention to it.

Before they had left the village, while they were all being shackled, Garion and Silk had held a brief, urgent discussion in the minute finger movements of the Drasnian secret language.