"Of course it does, dear," she said calmly. She dipped a cloth in a pail of cold water and held it to the lump. "You're going to have to learn to protect your head, Garion. If you keep banging it like this, you're going to soften your brains."

Garion was about to answer that, but Hettar and Mister Wolf came back into the firelight just then.

"They're still running," Hettar announced. The steel discs on his horsehide jacket gleamed red in the flickering light, and his sabre was streaked with blood.

"They seemed to be awfully good at that part of it," Wolf said. "Is everyone all right?"

"A few bumps and bruises is about all," Aunt Pol told him. "It could have been much worse."

"Let's not start worrying about what could have been."

"Shall we remove those?" Barak growled, pointing at the bodies littering the ground near the brook.

"Shouldn't they be buried?" Durnik asked. His voice shook a little, and his face was very pale.

"Too much trouble," Barak said bluntly. "Their friends can come back later and take care of it - if they feel like it."

"Isn't that just a little uncivilized?" Durnik objected.

Barak shrugged. "It's customary."

Mister Wolf rolled one of the bodies over and carefully examined the dead man's gray face.

"Looks like an ordinary Arendish outlaw," he grunted. "It's hard to say for sure, though."

Lelldorin was retrieving his arrows, carefully pulling them out of the bodies.

"Let's drag them all over there a ways," Barak said to Hettar. "I'm getting tired of looking at them."

Durnik looked away, and Garion saw two great tears standing in his eyes.

"Does it hurt, Durnik?" he asked sympathetically, sitting on the log beside his friend.

"I killed one of those men, Garion," the smith replied in a shaking voice. "I hit him in the face with my axe. He screamed, and his blood splashed all over me. Then he fell down and kicked on the ground with his heels until he died."

"You didn't have any choice, Durnik," Garion told him. "They were trying to kill us."

"I've never killed anyone before," Durnik said, the tears now running down his face. "He kicked the ground for such a long time - such a terribly long time."

"Why don't you go to bed, Garion?" Aunt Pol suggested firmly. Her eyes were on Durnik's tear-streaked face.

Garion understood.

"Good night, Durnik," he said. He got up and started toward one of the tents. He glanced back once. Aunt Pol had seated herself on the log beside the smith and was speaking quietly to him with one of her arms comfortingly about his shoulders.

Chapter Five