As the melee surged across the polished floor, the nobles and ladies scurried this way and that to avoid being overrun by the struggling men. Nachak watched with dismay as his knights were systematically destroyed before his eyes. Then, quite suddenly he turned and fled.

"He's getting away!" Garion shouted, but Hettar was already in pursuit, his dreadful face and blood-smeared sabre melting the courtiers and their screaming ladies out of his path as he ran to cut off Nachak's flight. The Murgo had almost reached the far end of the hall before Hettar's long strides carried him through the crowd to block the doorway. With a cry of despair, the ambassador yanked his sword from its scabbard, and Garion felt a strange, momentary pity for him.

As the Murgo raised his sword, Hettar flicked his sabre almost like a whip, lashing him once on each shoulder. Nachak desperately tried to raise his numbed arms to protect his head, but Hettar's blade dropped low instead. Then, with a peculiar fluid grace, the grim-faced Algar quite deliberately ran the Murgo through. Garion saw the sabre blade come out between Nachak's shoulders, angling sharply upward. The ambassador gasped, dropped his sword and gripped Hettar's wrist with both hands, but the hawk-faced man inexorably turned his hand, twisting the sharp, curved blade inside the Murgo's body. Nachak groaned and shuddered horribly. Then his hands slipped off Hettar's wrist and his legs buckled under him. With a gurgling sigh, he toppled backward, sliding limply off Hettar's blade.

Chapter Eleven

A MOMENT OF DREADFUL SILENCE filled the throne room following the death of Nachak. Then the two members of his bodyguard who were still on their feet threw their weapons down on the bloodspattered floor with a sudden clatter. Mandorallen raised his visor and turned toward the throne. "Sire," he said respectfully, "the treachery of Nachak stands proved by reason of this trial at arms:"

"Truly," the king agreed. "My only regret is that thy enthusiasm in pursuing this cause hath deprived us of the opportunity to probe more deeply into the full extent of Nachak's duplicity."

"I expect that the plots he hatched will dry up once word of what happened here gets around," Mister Wolf observed.

"Perhaps so," the king acknowledged. "I would have pursued the matter further, however. I would know if this villainy was Nachak's own or if I must look beyond him to Taur Urgas himself." He frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head as if to put certain dark speculations aside. "Arendia stands in thy debt, Ancient Belgarath. This brave company of throe hath forestalled the renewal of a war best forgotten." He looked sadly at the blood-smeared floor and the bodies littering it. "My throne room hath become as a battlefield. The curse of Arendia extends even here." He sighed. "Have it cleansed," he ordered shortly and turned his head so that he would not have to watch the grim business of cleaning up.