He looked around the camp, dimly lit by the dying campfire and suddenly he understood the reason he had awakened so suddenly. The little wizard was supposed to be on watch, but she was sitting with her back to a boulder, sleeping soundly. She made little wheezes like whispers when she slept.
And over on the other side of the camp, Lava Belly was creeping toward Pretty Kender. His eyes were shining red like they did when he was ready to attack something.
'Wizard!' Grod gulped, so terrified on Ripple's behalf that his voice was hardly more than a croak. He launched himself in Beglug's direction, charging across the camp, butting the fiend with his head and they both went over in a heap.
Beglug was the first to gain his feet. He growled deeply, softly, his voice low, throaty, full of menace. He extended his claws and bent his knees, ready to pounce on the still rolling gully dwarf.
Grod, realizing his danger, was attempting to flee when behind him he heard the little wizard chanting. Her spell took effect after the merchesti launched himself at Grod, and even as he landed by the gully dwarf his eyes had lost their bloodlust.
'Beglug, go back to sleep,' Halmarain snapped as she trotted over. 'Did he hurt you?' she asked Grod in the gentlest voice she had yet used when addressing the Aghar.
'Him no hurt me. Go hurt Pretty Kender,' he told the wizard.
'It's a good thing you woke up, you saved her life,' Halmarain said.
'Me tell me wake. Lava Belly evil. Do bad things,' Grod insisted, glowing with the idea that he had saved the kender girl's life. 'Find big wizard soon. Beglug go his This Place. No hurt ponies and Pretty Kender,' he suggested, speaking more at one time than he usually did in a week. Still, it puzzled him that the wizard was giving him such a hard, speculating look as if she could see into his brain.
'You're a lot smarter than you pretend, aren't you?' she said, making her remark a question that he did not know how to answer. Then a pelter of raindrops drove Halmarain's question from his mind.
'Wake the others. We should get out of this gully,' she warned as she scurried around to gather up their belongings. 'If the rain is heavy this ditch might flood.'
Trap did not need Grod's help to wake up. The cold rain, falling on his face brought him to full consciousness. Ripple, Umpth, and Beglug were already struggling in their blankets. The merchesti whined and shivered.
Halmarain repeated her warning about flash floods and in a short time they had saddled the ponies and slung the packs across the saddles. Beglug and Umpth complained about being awakened in the night but they followed the two kender who led their mounts. They crossed the stream at the foot of the gully and traveled up the little watercourse. By the time the worst of the storm hit they had found another depression that led into the mountains and used it until it began to fill with water.
'That way,' Ripple shouted to her brother. She had remembered a small, blind valley they had discovered that morning. They could not subject the ponies to the fear of the darkness and the echoes of a mine, and the valley seemed the perfect place to leave them.
The entrance was narrow, and could be easily blocked with cut brush. It was a perfect place to leave the ponies. Near the entrance, the hillside was dotted with large thorn bushes, some of which they cut. It made an excellent fence.
'Now, would be the best time to approach the dwarf camp,' Halmarain said, gazing at Grod. 'Do you remember the way?'
'Dark,' the dwarf objected. 'No see where go.'
'I can,' Trap said. 'I know where he was when he spotted the dwarves.'
'Why go now?' Umpth complained. 'Dark, cold, wet.'
'And the dwarves will be huddled in their blankets around the fire,' Halmarain answered him. 'They won't be expecting us.'
'No believe we so dumb,' Grod muttered as he fumbled with his bedroll and pulled out his blanket to use for a cloak. Over it he draped the waterproof ground sheet. He followed Trap, huddled inside his blanket as he trudged along, dragging the ends in the mud of the hard summer rain. Umpth had followed his brother's example, and Beglug had whined until he was similarly protected. Umpth had a problem as he tried to hold his blanket and roll the wheel at the same time.
'I'm beginning to think they've got more sense than I gave them credit for having,' Halmarain said after they had been walking for an hour. She was soaked to the skin and shivering.
'Wizard learn,' Grod said in a smug voice that angered the little human. She clamped her jaws shut and tramped silently behind the two kender.
Trap grinned. Halmarain could not have used her blanket and ground sheet even if she had wanted to. In the darkness they had overlooked her bedroll and left it in the gully. She wasn't too happy about it, but believing they would soon reach the wizard, she had not complained too loudly.
Chapter 33
Down in the foothills, on the ten foot promontory that jutted up above the intersection of the gully and the stream, a rabbit, taking advantage of the higher, dryer ground, was startled as a dark shape suddenly appeared within five feet of him.
The rabbit dashed away, too frightened to notice the shape was one made by a human in a long black robe and cowled hood. Even if the creature had recognized clothing he would not have understood the runes that trimmed the robe, or that he was looking at a wizard.
Draaddis Vulter staggered with fatigue. He had been searching for the kender and the merchesti without pause for two days.
Draaddis had mentally traced the party on its travels. Since they crossed the southern Vingaard Mountains after turning east, they had skirted around the northern ends of the Garnet Mountains and around the north end of the little range that stopped only a few miles from Pey.
When he had left his laboratory Draaddis had tele-ported into the mountains where he knew another band of goblins made their home. Takhisis said he was not to depend on humanoids again and he would not, but he needed them to search. The foothills and the deep gullies hid the travelers, and depending on their direction of travel they could have been anywhere within an area that covered nearly three hundred square miles.
He had sent most of his goblins northwest, beyond the Castle Kurst, thinking the kender and their party would continue to avoid mountain travel if they could.
Most of the goblins were out of reach when he discovered a set of pony tracks traveling due east from Pey. He followed them but to his disgust, he found a group of six dwarves at the end of the trail and had to start again. Just before the rain started he discovered a second set of tracks that had disappeared into the gully at his feet. The runoff from the surrounding hills had half filled the little arroyo.
Several charred pieces of wood had been washed against a small outcrop of rock and gave evidence of an abandoned campsite. Had they left it by choice or had the torrent of water, now washing down the gully, carried the campers and their gear away?
Draaddis spoke a word of command and a tiny ball of light appeared just above the rushing torrent. He sent it downstream until he saw a deeper shadow, and hurried down the bank. The light bobbed above a blanket that had been caught on a thorn bush at the stream's edge.
His quarry had been caught in a flash flood, he decided, and hurried downstream, along the bank of the rushing water. He wondered how far he would have to follow the watercourse before he found the bodies of two kender and the merchesti.
