After a couple of miles they reached the top of a hill and looked down at the battle below. Two grim, black castles faced each other across a broad valley, and several villages dotted the plain on either side of the road. The nearest village was in flames, with a great pillar of greasy smoke rising from it to the lead-gray sky overhead, and serfs armed with scythes and pitchforks were attacking each other with a sort of mindless ferocity on the road itself. Some distance off, pikemen were gathering for a charge, and the air was thick with arrows. On two opposing hills parties of armored knights with bright-colored pennons on their lances watched the battle. Great siege engines lofted boulders into the air to crash down on the struggling men, killing, so far as Garion could tell, friend and foe indiscriminately. The valley was littered with the dead and the dying.

"Stupid," Wolf muttered darkly.

"No one I know of has ever accused Arends of brilliance," Silk observed.

Mandorallen set his horn to his lips and blew a shattering blast. The battle paused as the soldiers and serfs all stopped to stare up at him. He sounded his horn again, and then again, each brassy note a challenge it itself. As the two opposing bodies of knights galloped through the kneehigh, winter-yellowed grass to investigate, Mandorallen turned to Barak. "If it please thee, my Lord," he requested politely, "deliver my challenge as soon as they approach us."

Barak shrugged. "It's your skin," he noted. He eyed the advancing knights and then lifted his voice in a great roar. "Sir Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor, desires entertainment," he declaimed. "It would amuse him if each of your parties would select a champion to joust with him. If, however, you are all such cowardly dogs that you have no stomach for such a contest, cease this brawling and stand aside so that your betters may pass."

"Splendidly spoken, my Lord Barak," Mandorallen said with admiration.

"I've always had a way with words," Barak replied modestly. The two parties of knights warily rode closer.

"For shame, my Lords," Mandorallen chided them. "Ye will gain no honor in this sorry war. Sir Derigen, what hath caused this contention?"

"An insult, Sir Mandorallen," the noble replied. He was a large man, and his polished steel helmet had a golden circlet riveted above the visor. "An insult so vile that it may not go unpunished."

"It was I who was insulted," a noble on the other side contended hotly.

"What was the nature of this insult, Sir Oltorain?" Mandorallen inquired.

Both men looked away uneasily, and neither spoke.

"Ye have gone to war over an insult which cannot even be recalled?" Mandorallen said incredulously. "I had thought, my Lords, that ye were serious men, but I now perceive my error."

"Don't the nobles of Arendia have anything better to do?" Barak asked in a voice heavy with contempt.