"Found trail once," Umpth said.
"Did-did you find any sign…" Trap stopped, not wanting to voice his niggling fears over Ripple.
"Yes, and we know they were both alive this morning." The little wizard nodded. "Where they crossed a stream, we could see the marks where Beglug struggled to keep from stepping into the water. Off to the side were footprints Grod insisted were Ripple's. This was looped over the branch of a bush." She held out a blue feather with two green beads sewn to the quill. Around it was a thin blue leather thong.
"It's Ripple's," Trap crowed with delight. Occasionally she wove feathers into her topknot, and he had often seen her wear that particular decoration.
"If Beglug can fight and she can leave signs for us, they are both alive and uninjured," Halmarain said. "They are being taken east."
"Then let's hurry," Trap said, leading the way again. "And on the way we'll make a plan."
Trap found a low saddle between the mountains. Since they were not seeking a trail, Trap paced Halmarain. He was busy with his plans to rescue the captives.
"Here's what I think we should do," he said. "When we catch up with the kobolds, you, Grod, and Umpth will climb up in a tree where a limb juts out over-"
"How do you know there will be a tree?" the little wizard asked. "And if the gully dwarves can't mount a pony without help, how can you get them up a tree?"
Trap frowned. "Then we'll do this: we'll take a wagon-"
"Where are we going to get the wagon?" Halmarain asked.
"Thorns! Thistles! You don't like anything. Do you want to help rescue Ripple and Beglug or not?" Trap demanded.
"Yes!" the wizard spat out the word. "But you can't make a plan until we find them."
"Lava Belly eat kobolds, maybe," Grod suggested.
"He wouldn't do that," Trap objected, conveniently forgetting the innkeeper's dog in Deepdel.
"Oh, you never know, and it would be a fitting revenge," Halmarain smiled. "They may wish they had never taken him."
"Why take Beglug?" Grod asked. "Kender pretty, but Beglug mean."
"Because…?" Trap's explanation became an echo of Grod's question.
"I don't know, and I don't like it." Halmarain's eyes, already dark with worry, seemed to deepen.
"I certainly don't," Trap announced pugnaciously, as if he resented anyone else's criticism of the capture. Ripple was his sister, and he was the most concerned.
"There's more than kobold meanness behind this," Halmarain said. "That's why we should be careful."
"Man in black cloak," Grod said, nodding.
"Oh. Yes. I'd forgotten about him," Trap said. "Was he with the kobolds?"
"I didn't see him," the little wizard said. She and Trap turned inquiring gazes on the gully dwarves who shrugged their shoulders.
"He was with the kobolds on the mountains," Halmarain said thoughtfully. "And before that in the maze?" Trap nodded in response to her questioning frown. "And they fought with goblins who could have followed them," she continued. "I think we can expect to find him with the kobolds when we catch them."
"Who is he?" Trap asked. "How do you know where they are heading? Do you know him and where he lives?"
"Lives? I doubt he lives; but yes, because of him I think I know where the kobolds are going." Trap waited, but when the little wizard didn't explain, his natural impatience overrode his usual good temper.
"Well, are you going to tell us?"
"No. I'm not sure I'm right, and if I am you don't want to know," she said, spurring her pony to greater speed. She kept the ponies at a gallop for a few minutes, but when her mount faltered she pulled him up.
"We've been riding these animals too hard," she said. "We should walk them and let them rest after we cross that stream." She pointed a hundred yards ahead.
"Here's Ripple's print and Beglug's," Trap said when he reached the bank of the stream. "And the dwarves are ahead of us again."
"The same ones?" Halmarain asked.
"It must be, because here is your pony's print. They crossed after the kobolds," Trap told her as he studied the ground intently. "Gee, look at this, a snail is crossing too."
"How far ahead?" The little wizard asked.
"You'll pass him by the time you get to the water if you don't step on him."
"Oh, forget it," the wizard snapped. She forded the small stream and descended from the saddle. The gully dwarves dismounted and walked on ahead, rolling the wheel. They had not traveled far when Grod came running back.
"Wheel tell goblins come," he gasped. "Oh now it's telling the future," Halmarain snapped.
"No tell, fall down!" the blond gully dwarf insisted. "Umpth stop to pick up. Look back and see. They come." Grod pointed back toward the top of the pass between the mountains.
"That doesn't mean the wheel found them," Halmarain argued.
"She no like wheel," Grod muttered, glaring at the little wizard, his blue eyes sparkling with anger.
"She really didn't mean it," Trap soothed the feelings of the gully dwarf. "Remember, she can do magic, but she can't tell if people are coming like the wheel can."
"Oh, I really needed that!" Halmarain snapped. "Still, if they're coming we'd better hide."
Trap was ready to argue, but she forestalled him.
"If we let them pass us by we can be on our way that much faster."
"I know!" Trap pointed to the left where deep shadows lurked beneath a small, dense forest. The others nodded. It seemed the best of a few unsatisfactory choices.
The entire party moved through the high, dense brush, but none of them doubted the goblins could follow their trail. Trap bent occasionally to pick up stones for the sling of his hoopak as he led the way toward the trees.
By common and unspoken consent, they moved quietly. They tried not to frighten the wildlife and any birds that might fly up and give away their position. The fallen leaves of the thick brush near the eaves of the wood muffled the ponies' steps. Fifty yards inside the wood they entered a small, muddy stream. They walked their mounts a hundred yards east before turning back on their trail again. If the goblins did follow their trail, they would fall into an ambush.
Since the morning had passed and the sun had reached its zenith, Trap raided the ponies' saddle bags and handed around a small midday meal. They had all found hiding places when they heard the first voices, some distance away, raised in argument.
Trap was a moment realizing that the sounds came not from the southwest from where the goblins approached, but from deeper in the woods. To his right, Halmarain peered from behind her bushy shelter and mouthed the word, "Dwarves."
Trap slipped out of his hiding place and hurried through the forest, slipping from tree to tree. Before long he could see into a small clearing where a group of sturdy hill ponies grazed. He recognized the six dwarves who had been chasing them. They appeared to be in council, and in strong disagreement.
The kender slipped away and returned to his defensive position. When Halmarain raised her brows in silent communication he used his hands, running his fingers from his neck in a circle on his chest to indicate the stolen necklace. She sighed as she realized he'd identified the dwarves.
Then he drew back into his own bushy shelter just as the goblins stepped out of the high brush, heading for the eaves of the forest. To his surprise, they were not following the trail of the kender, wizard, and gully dwarves, but strolled along more than sixty yards west of the trail left by the small party.