She looked at him inquiringly.
"Their army's going to be advancing right behind the storm," he explained. "There's no point in trying to hold it back now. It's got too much momentum. What we want to do is break open the rear edge of it and let it spill back over the Angaraks."
"How many Grolims are working on the storm, Uncle?" she asked him.
"Who knows?" He shrugged. "But it's taking every bit of effort they can muster just to keep it under control. If the four of us hit the back side all at once, the pressures in the storm itself will do the rest."
"Why not just let it pass over?" Durnik asked. "Our troops aren't children. They won't fall apart just because of a little squall."
"This isn't just a little squall, blacksmith," Beldin said acidly. Something large and white thudded to the ground a few feet away. "If you get four or five of those hailstones on top of the head, you won't care how the battle turns out."
"They're as big as hens' eggs," Durnik said in astonishment.
"And they'll probably get bigger." Beldin turned back to Polgara. "Give me your hand," he told her. "I'll pass the signal to Beltira, and we'll all strike at the same time. Get ready."
More of the hailstones thudded into the springy turf, and one particularly large one shattered into a thousand fragments as it crashed down on a large rock with stunning force. From the direction of the army came an intermittent banging as the hailstones bounced off the armor of the Mimbrate knights or clanged down on the hastily raised shields of the infantry.
And then, mixed with the hail, the rain squalls struck-seething sheets of water driven before the wind like raging waves. It was impossible to see, and almost impossible to breathe. Olban jumped forward with his shield raised to protect Ce'Nedra and Errand. He winced once as a large hailstone struck his shoulder, but his shield arm did not waver.
"It's breaking, Pol!" Beldin shouted. "Let's push it once more. Let them eat their own storm for a while."
Polgara's face twisted into an agony of concentration, and then she half slumped as she and Beldin unleashed their combined wills at the rolling sky. The sound of it was beyond belief as the vast forces collided. The sky ripped suddenly apart and lightning staggered and lurched through the smoking air. Great, incandescent bolts crashed into each other high above, showering the earth beneath with fireballs. Men fell, charred instantly into black, steaming husks in the driving downpour, but the casualties were not only among the men of the west.
The vast storm with its intolerable pressures recoiled as the combined wills of Polgara and Beldin on the north bank and the twins on the south bank ripped open the back edge of it, and the advancing Malloreans received that recoil full in the teeth. A curtain of lightning swept back across their close-packed ranks like an enormous, blinding broom, littering the earth with their smoking dead. As the fabric of Grolim sorcery which had driven the stormfront toward the river ripped apart, the gale winds suddenly reversed and flowed back, shrieking and howling, confounding the advancing Angaraks with rain and hail.
From out of the center of the dreadful cloud overhead, swirling fingers of murky black twitched and reached down toward the earth with hideous roaring sounds. With a last, almost convulsive jerk, one of those huge, swirling funnels touched the earth in the midst of the redclad Malloreans. Debris sprayed up and out from the point of the dreadful vortex as, with ponderous immensity, it cut an erratic course two hundred yards wide directly through the enemy ranks. Men and horses were ripped to pieces by the insane winds within the swirling column of cloud, and bits of armor and shreds of red tunics - and worse - showered down on the stunned and terrified Malloreans on either side of the swath of absolute destruction moving inexorably through their midst.
"Beautiful!" Beldin exulted, hopping up and down in a grotesque display of glee.
There was the sudden sound of a great horn, and the close-packed ranks of Drasnian pikemen and Tolnedran legionnaires facing the faltering ranks of the Malloreans opened. From behind them, his armor streaming water, Mandorallen led the charge of the Mimbrate knights. Full upon the confused and demoralized Malloreans they fell, and the sound of the impact as they struck was a terrible, rending crash, punctuated by screams. Rank upon rank was crushed beneath the charge, and the terrified Malloreans wavered and then broke and fled. Even as they ran, the clans of Algar swept in among them from the flanks, their sabres flashing in the rain.
At a second blast of Mandorallen's horn, the charging Mimbrates reined in, wheeled and galloped back, leaving a vast wreckage behind them.
The rain slackened fitfully, little more than errantly passing showers now, and patches of blue appeared among the racing clouds overhead. The Grolim storm had broken and dispersed back across the plains of Mishrak ac Thull.
Ce'Nedra looked toward the south bank and saw that the storm there had also dispersed and that the forces under the command of King Cho-Hag and King Korodullin were assaulting the front ranks of the demoralized Murgo army. Then the princess looked sharply at the south channel of the river. The last bridges of Cherek ships had broken loose during the violent storm, and there was now only open water on that side of the island. The last troops remaining in the city were streaming across the bridge over the north channel. A tall Sendarian lad was among the last to cross. As soon as he reached the bank, he came immediately upriver. As he drew nearer, Ce'Nedra recognized him. It was Rundorig, Garion's boyhood friend from Faldor's farm, and he was openly weeping.
"Goodman Durnik," he sobbed as he reached them, "Doroon's dead."
"What did you say?" Lady Polgara demanded, raising her tired face suddenly.
"Doroon, Mistress Pol," Rundorig wept. "He drowned. We were crossing over to the south bank when the storm broke the ropes holding the ships. Doroon fell into the river, and he didn't know how to swim. I tried to save him, but he went under before I could reach him." The tall young man buried his face in his hands.
Polgara's face went absolutely white, and her eyes filled with sudden tears. "Take care of him, Durnik," she told the smith, then turned and walked away, her head bowed in her grief.
"I tried, Durnik," Rundorig blurted, still sobbing. "I really tried to reach him - but there were too many people in my way. I couldn't get to him in time. I saw him go under, and there was nothing I could do."
Durnik's face was very grave as he put his arm about the weeping boy's shoulders. The smith's eyes were also filled, and he said nothing. Ce'Nedra, however, could not weep. She had reached out her hand and plucked these unwarlike young men from their homes and dragged them halfway across the world, and now one of Garion's oldest friends had died in the chill waters of the River Mardu. His death was on her head, but she could not weep. A terrible fury suddenly filled her. She turned to Olban. "Kill them!" she hissed from between clenched teeth.