Free Guardians of the West by David Eddings Page A

he said, swaying back and forth and peering at her with his bleary eyes.
    "Greldik," Belgarath said admiringly, "you're the bravest man alive."
    "The sea doesn't frighten me," Greldik replied.
    "I wasn't talking about the sea."
    About noon of the following day, Greldik's ship was running before a freshening breeze through foaming whitecaps.
    A few of the less indisposed members of his crew lurched about the deck tending the lines and keeping a more or less alert eye on the stern where Greldik, puffy-eyed and obviously suffering, clung to the tiller.
    "Aren't you going to shorten your sail?" Belgarath asked him.
    "What for?"
    "Because if you leave full sail up in this kind of wind, you'll uproot your mast."
    "You stick to your sorcery, Belgarath," Greldik told him, "and leave the sailing to me. We're making good time, and the deck-planking starts to buckle up long before the mast is in any danger."
    "How long before?"
    Greldik shrugged. " Almost a minute or so -most of the time."
    Belgarath stared at him. "I think I'll go below"' he said at last.
    "That's a good idea."
    By evening the wind had abated, and Greldik's ship continued across a quieter sea as night fell. There were only occasional glimpses of the stars, but they were sufficient; when the sun rose the next morning, it was, as the wayward captain had predicted, dead astern. By midmorning, the dark, rocky crags and jagged peaks that formed the crest of the Isle of the Winds were poked above the western horizon, and their ship was once again plunging like a spirited horse through the whitecaps under a crisp blue sky. A broad grin split Greldik's bearded face as his ship swooped and lurched and shuddered her way through the hammering seas, throwing out great sheets of sparkling spray each time she knifed into a wave.
    "That's a very unreliable man," Polgara said, giving the captain a disapproving stare.
    "He really seems to be a good sailor, Pol," Durnik said mildly.
    "That's not what I was talking about, Durnik."
    "Oh."
    The ship tacked smoothly between two rocky headlands and into the sheltered harbor of the city of Riva. The gray stone buildings mounted steeply upward toward the grim, menacing battlements of the Citadel which brooded over the city and the harbor below.
    "This place always looks so bleak," Durnik noted. "Bleak and uninviting."
    "That was sort of the idea when they built it, Durnik," Belgarath replied. "They didn't really want many visitors."
    Then, at the end of a starboard tack, Greldik swung his tiller hard over, and his ship, her prow knifing through the dark water, ran directly at the stone quay jutting out from the foot of the city. At the last possible moment he swung his tiller again. To the flapping of her patched sails, the ship coasted the last few yards and bumped gently against the salt-crusted stones of the quay.
    "Do you think anybody saw us coming and told Garion?" Durnik asked.
    "Evidently so," Belgarath replied, pointing toward the arched gate that had just swung open to reveal the broad flight of stone stairs mounting upward within the thick, high walls protecting the seaward side of Riva. A number of official-looking men were coming through the gate; in the center of the group strode a tall young man with sandy-colored hair and a serious expression on his face.
    "Let's step over to the other side of the ship," Belgarath suggested to Durnik and Errand. "I want to surprise him."
    "Welcome to Riva, Captain Greldik." Errand recognized Garion's voice, even though it sounded older, more sure now.
    Greldik squinted appraisingly over the rail. "You've grown, boy," he said to the King of Riva. A man as free as Greldik almost never felt the need for using customary terms of respect.
    "It's been going around lately," Garion replied dryly. "Almost everybody my age has come down with it."
    "I've brought you some visitors," Greldik told him.
    Grinning, Belgarath moved across the deck to the quayside railing with Durnik and Errand close behind