"There's a woodcutter's track not far to this side," Wolf said, pointing. "We only
have a little farther to go." And he set off again, following the edge of the dark
woods, with Garion and the others stumbling along behind him. "Here we are," he
said finally, stopping to allow them to catch up. "It's going to be very dark in there,
and the track isn't wide. I'll go first, and the rest of you follow me."
"I'll be right behind you, Garion," Durnik said. "Don't worry. Everything will be
all right." There was a note in the smith's voice, however, that hinted that his
words were more to reassure himself than to calm the boy.
It seemed warmer in the woods. The trees sheltered them from the gusty wind,
but it was so dark that Garion could not understand how Wolf could possibly find
his way. A dreadful suspicion grew in his mind that Wolf actually did not know
where he was going and was merely floundering along blindly, trusting to luck.
"Stop," a rumbling voice suddenly, shockingly, said directly ahead of them.
Garion's eyes, accustomed slightly now to the gloom of the woods, saw a vague
outline of something so huge that it could not possibly be a man.
"A giant!" he screamed in a sudden panic. Then, because he was exhausted and
because everything that had happened that evening had simply piled too much
upon him all at one time, his nerve broke and he bolted into the trees.
"Garion!" Aunt Pol's voice cried out after him, "come back!"
But panic had taken hold of him. He ran on, falling over roots and bushes,
crashing into trees and tangling his legs in brambles. It seemed like some endless
nightmare of blind flight. He ran full tilt into a lowhanging, unseen branch, and
sparks flared before his eyes with the sudden blow to his forehead. He lay on the
damp earth, gasping and sobbing, trying to clear his head.
And then there were hands on him, horrid, unseen hands. A thousand terrors
flashed through his mind at once, and he struggled desperately, trying to draw his
dagger.
"Oh, no," a voice said. "None of that, my rabbit." His dagger was taken from him.
"Are you going to eat me?" Garion babbled, his voice breaking.
His captor laughed.
"On your feet, rabbit," he said, and Garion felt himself pulled up by a strong
hand. His arm was taken in a firm grasp, and he was half dragged through the
woods.
Somewhere ahead there was a light, a winking fire among the trees, and it
seemed that he was being taken that way. He knew that he must think, must
devise some means of escape, but his mind, stunned by fright and exhaustion,
refused to function.
There were three wagons sitting in a rough half circle around the fire. Durnik
was there, and Wolf, and Aunt Pol, and with them a man so huge that Garion's
mind simply refused to accept the possibility that he was real. His tree-trunk sized
legs were wrapped in furs cross-tied with leather thongs, and he wore a chain-mail
shirt that reached to his knees, belted at the waist. From the belt hung a
ponderous sword on one side and a short-handled axe on the other. His hair was
in braids, and he had a vast, bristling red beard.
As they came into the light, Garion was able to see the man who had captured
him. He was a small man, scarcely taller than Garion himself, and his face was
dominated by a long pointed nose. His eyes were small and squinted, and his