"Do you understand, Vulter? I will have the kender; I will have that stone."
"I shall begin my search at once," Draaddis bowed to his queen. He did not tell her that the hills between Pey and the westernmost range of the Khalkist Mountains were riddled with deep gullies, all looking just alike.
Two hundred feet above the laboratory the old wolf had leaped from his bed of leaves and streaked out into the night. He kept his left hind leg raised, because some creature with claws had reached from a cloud and had torn his flesh.
He raced around the ruins and as he turned the corner, he passed two squirrels who were squabbling over a place to bury some early ripening nuts. Bowled over, the squirrels rolled in the high grass as the wolf went by.
He ran for half a mile before he realized he had begun to use the injured leg. He slowed to a trot and then a walk and stopped. The place seemed safe and he wanted to clean the wound before it began to hurt again. He inspected his fur and found no mark. What was happening to him?
Chapter 32
My Uncle Trapspringer once told me that sometimes the hardest part to unlocking a lock or springing a trap was in locating it. He also told me he learned that particular lesson on his first journey…
"Finding Neidar mine hard," Umpth said. "Tired." He plopped down on the ground, sending the dust flying.
"Bugs and worms! You're as bad as Halmarain. We won't have any trouble," Trap said. "We just have to find the right place."
They had left Halmarain in camp and been searching for nearly the entire day. The dwarves were tired and so were the kender, but the latter were thoroughly enjoying their escape from the little wizard's fears and gripes.
"Hey! Big jiggers! I forgot! I know what we should do," Trap said as he pulled the dwarf necklace from his pouch. He had purloined it from Halmarain's bag. It was the first time he had deliberately taken anything from her, but he thought they might need it. Just before they left camp he remembered there had been tiny drawings around the rim of the disks and many of them were of mountains. If they represented the terrain above the dwarf mines he might find a match. That had been his intention when he took the necklace. Shortly after leaving camp he had become absorbed in the surroundings and had forgotten all about the disks and his need for them.
While Umpth sat on the dusty ground, Grod had announced his intention to search for another dead animal to use for Aghar magic and walked up the mountainside a short distance. He occasionally splashed in a tiny brook before he dropped to sit under a tree.
"Cool here," he called to his brother.
The kender knew the gully dwarves would not be traveling further until they rested, so brother and sister found a boulder and sat close together. Trap took one side of the necklace and Ripple the other, looking for sketches of mountaintops and comparing them with the scene in front of them. They were working their way steadily around the string of disks when Trap looked up, back at the disk he held, and crowed.
"Look! See the double peak?" He pointed first to the mountain and then to the disk. "And right beyond it is that tall rock formation."
"Yes. That's the right disk," Ripple said, but I don't see the mountains in front of it." They stood and looked around, trying to decide from which angle the tiny sketch had been drawn.
Grod had apparently had enough rest; when the kender started walking about, he came down the hill to join them. Each time they had inspected the string of carved disks the smaller gully dwarf had expressed an un-Aghar interest, but this time he ignored it. He walked over to his brother who still sat in the dust.
"Tired, tired, hungry," he said. "Go camp. Sleep."
"Eat, then sleep," Umpth said, getting the priorities in the correct order. He scrambled to his feet.
"No! Not yet, we still have some daylight left," Ripple objected, but this time the gully dwarves were not amenable to persuasion.
"Go now," Umpth said, and kept walking east.
"Stop! Wait! We've found the disk…" Trap had started to object and gave up. He understood how they felt. They had ridden all night and had spent the day wandering in the mountains. He was tired too, but he resented the defection of the dwarves, but even he was too tired to argue very much.
"Thorns and thistles. A plague on gully dwarves. We can't let them go alone," Ripple said. "They'll get lost in all those gullies."
The sun was dipping below the mountains to the west when they reached the camp in the arroyo. They found Halmarain quarreling about carrying water for the stew only to have Beglug pour it out on the ground where he was busily playing with the softened clay. He had plastered himself with the quickly hardening mixture.
"At least he didn't try to eat any more ponies," the little wizard said with a sigh.
"Or the stew," Ripple said appreciatively. During their ride the night before, Trap had been lucky enough to kill three rabbits. One had satisfied Beglug's growing appetite for meat. The other two were simmering in a savory stew.
The gully dwarves were trying to help themselves when Halmarain slapped Umpth's hands with her wooden spoon. She hurriedly dished out two large helpings before the Aghar reached in the pot with their dirty hands.
She filled bowls for the kender and they all sat in a circle as they ate. After a good sleep, the little wizard was more hopeful and more cheerful than she had been that morning. She said nothing when the two kender told her about finding a mountain peak that corresponded with the drawing on one of the disks, but her eyes brightened.
Even the kender were too hungry to talk much during their meal. The gully dwarves gobbled down their first helping and finished off another while the kender were still on their first bowl.
"Sleep now," Umpth announced in a tone that brooked no argument. He picked up his bedroll and stumped over to a level area.
"Sleep good," Grod agreed, following his brother. "Door no go 'way. Dwarves no go 'way too."
"What? What door? What dwarves?" Trap put his half filled bowl aside and jumped to his feet, following Grod. "What dwarves? Where were they?"
"Hey, don't glare at me. I didn't see any dwarves," Ripple said when Halmarain turned a questioning eye on her.
"See from hill," Grod said as he curled up in his blanket and closed his eyes.
"From what hill?" Halmarain demanded, but the gully dwarf, with the single-minded pragmatism of his race was already drifting off to sleep. While the two kender and the tiny human traded looks, his greasy long mustache fluttered with his first snore.
"Wretched creatures," Halmarain glared at him before walking back to the campfire. "Do you think he did see the dwarves?"
"Yes," Trap said slowly. "Umpth and Grod don't lie."
"No," the little wizard replied. "They don't have the imagination for it."
Trap didn't agree. He thought the gully dwarves showed a lot of imagination and a good deal of shrewd-ness, but to say so to Halmarain would only cause an argument, and he had other concerns. If Grod said he had seen the dwarves, he had seen them.
"You think the dwarves are the ones who were following us," he said, gazing at the apprentice wizard. "Maybe they're not."
"Of course they are," Halmarain snapped. "They have to be."
"Why?" Ripple demanded. Like her brother she failed to see the little wizard's reasoning.
"We took the necklace-" "We didn't take it," Trap objected.
"Grod took it, but they don't know that," Halmarain sounded exasperated. "To them that string of disks, which appears to be a map of the entrances and traps in their mines is a priceless thing. They'd never believe the gully dwarf just wanted it to give it to Ripple as an ornament."