The afternoon cooled and Halmarain was impatient to continue their journey. Since the kender had totally explored the small copse they had no objections and quickly saddled their ponies. The old pony, left them by the dwarves, seemed relieved to be carrying a lighter load.
The gully dwarves still had not learned to control their own mounts, but they had a talent for making useful items out of any material at hand. Umpth had found a length of rope he insisted had been left behind by the dwarves. He fashioned it into a series of three loops and attached it to the left stirrup of Halmarain's saddle. With a practicality belied by their otherwise childish behavior, he had even tied a short length of rope to the bottom loop. The little wizard used the loops to climb into the saddle. When she mounted she could pull her makeshift ladder up behind her and keep it from snagging on weeds and bushes on the trail.
"I guess Aghar have their uses after all," she admitted after she tested her new method of mounting her pony.
Trap was ready to lead the way and Halmarain kept the leads of Beglug's mount and the pack animal tied to the back of her saddle. Ripple brought up the rear leading Grod's and Umpth's mounts. The Aghar's wagon wheel, again set in it's travois-like frame, rolled along behind Umpth.
The road that ran north between the village of Deepdel and the fortress of Ironrock curved to skirt the foothills. The stand of woods where they had taken shelter from the midday sun gave way to gentle brush-covered slopes that rose to meet the mountain range beyond.
Before they began their journey Trap, Ripple, and Halmarain sat their mounts in a row, taking another look at one of Trap's maps.
"You'd think with all the pains the cartographer took with that picture, he would have added some practical detail," the wizard said with a snort. "He didn't even show Deepdel or the road to Ironrock."
"Still, it's a beautiful map," Trap said, defending his ill-gotten possession. He carefully rolled it, tucked it back into a pouch, and was just urging his pony forward when Umpth gave a hoot.
"Dwarves come back," the gully dwarf announced.
Trap looked back over his shoulder to see the dwarves galloping up the road. The kender stood up in his saddle. He was about to wave when Halmarain reached over and slapped his hand down.
"What did you take from them?" she asked, her eyes blazing in anger.
"Nothing!" Trap retorted. "You know that! You put a spell on us until we promised we wouldn't."
"Not soon enough, apparently," she spat out the words as she looked back at the road. "They're riding like they're chasing someone or being chased, and there's no one behind them. Get us out of here before they find us." "Wizard fuss again," Umpth muttered.
"Not really fussing, she's just tired," Trap said, giving Halmarain the benefit of the doubt. "She'll apologize when she's in a better mood, but I know what you mean, she does get-"
"Enough of that," Halmarain practically growled. "Let's go."
"They've probably discovered they took the wrong pony and they're bringing it back," Ripple suggested.
"Tell another one," Halmarain said. She picked up her own reins, turned, and raced back into the small wood. Behind her, Beglug's mount and the pack animal followed on their leads.
"Trap tell one," Grod said as Ripple followed the wizard. "Him tell good tales."
The kender didn't answer the dwarves. Ripple's attention was on her route, not because of the ponies, but to protect the wagon wheel that bounced along behind Umpth. Since Halmarain had taken the lead, Trap rode beside his sister.
"I didn't get near their packs," he told Ripple with a sigh. "I would have enjoyed seeing what was in them, but I didn't get a chance."
"Neither did I," she replied. "They couldn't be after us. I wish she wouldn't be so suspicious." Ripple threw an angry look at the departing Halmarain.
"They probably want to return the pony," Trap said, agreeing with the suggestion Ripple had made earlier.
"They can't trade it for their animal if Halmarain keeps running away," Ripple said. "And if we don't hurry, we'll lose her."
Trap was forced to agree. The sun, still hot on their backs since Halmarain was leading them east into the hills, was dipping toward the horizon. In minutes the road was left behind and they were working their way between the foothills. Halmarain had been riding furiously, anxious to lose the dwarves. The kender galloped after her, keeping her in sight until she suddenly changed course, traveling south. "Hurry, she's gone behind that hill," Ripple said.
"She could wait for us," Trap complained. He had not seen the dwarves turn off into the copse. They might have been hurrying up the road for some reason that had nothing to do with the kender and their party. Tolem's group could have lost something on their way south and they could be returning to find it. As far as the kender knew, they had not left anything behind in the copse except a length of rope. The kender had been bored and they had been looking for any diversion. They would have noticed.
Trap fell back as Ripple followed the wizard. He was sure the dwarves were not after them. As his sister led the mounts of the gully dwarves around the base of the hill behind which Halmarain had disappeared, Trap decided to put the wizard's doubts to rest. He dismounted, tied his pony to some high brush to keep it out of the sight, then walked back up to the top of the nearest knoll.
He stood watching, fully expecting to see the dwarves race by the woods and on up the road, but they had disappeared. In minutes he saw them again. They came out of the woods, traveling east. They moved more slowly, watching the ground as they followed the trail left by Trap and his companions.
One of the dwarves looked ahead, spotted the kender on the hillside, and shouted. The rest gave up their inspection of the trail and galloped toward Trap.
"Hello again," he called as they rode up. "I thought you were on the way to Deepdel. Did you come back to return our pony and get yours?"
"Thieving kender!" the leader shouted. "I'll have your head off your shoulders quick enough."
"But why? I don't know why you're so angry, because you were the one that left your pony. We didn't keep your animal on purpose and you took one of ours," Trap said, trying to be patient and understanding. He was getting tired of the accusations made against him, but he was willing to be reasonable.
"And we don't have any of your belongings. Here, I'll show you if you like," Trap said, opening the first of his pouches and reaching inside. He was not adverse to displaying his belongings. They were fun to look at and he would enjoy telling any tales that accompanied them. Perhaps he could even trade for something new and more interesting.
As he reached into the pouch, he felt an object he could not identify and pulled it out. He stood a moment gazing down on a gold ring he could not identify, until he remembered it had come from the wizard's chest beneath Orander's bed. He had intended to put it back, but in their hurry to leave he had forgotten it. To keep it from getting lost, he slipped it on his finger and held up his hand for the dwarves to see.
"This isn't yours, it belongs to a-" Just in time he remembered not to say wizard. "To a friend of mine," he said, taking a step forward, intending to show the dwarves the ring.
The step should have moved him forward approximately two feet. He heard the wind singing in his ears and he found himself standing fifty feet farther down the hillside. He gazed around him, wondering what had happened.
He heard dwarven oaths behind him and turned around. The dwarves were still sitting on their ponies, surrounding an empty space.
"Wow, that was interesting," he said.
The nearest dwarf heard the kender, twisted in his saddle, and stared at the Trap, who smiled back.
"Wonder how I did that?"
"There he is!" the dwarf shouted. "He's using some filthy wizard's spell."
"I did not!" Trap objected, and then changed his mind, though he decided not to mention it to the dwarves.
The nearest dwarf turned his mount and galloped toward the kender. Trap was still willing to turn out his pouches and prove he had nothing of theirs, but thinking the dwarf might run him down in his haste, Trap took a step to the side. He found himself another fifty feet away, this time to the north.
"A person should wear a hat when he uses this ring," he said, more to himself than the dwarves. The wind, whistling in his ears, was enough to give him an earache.
The first dwarf was still galloping toward where the kender had been before he took his last step. A second charged Trap's new position.
"What a wonderful game," he said and took another two steps, completely bypassing the four still on the slope. He stopped twenty feet away. Tolem, the leader, started toward him.
"Can't catch me," Trap caroled as he leaped into the air, spinning around. Definitely a mistake, he decided. He continued to spin four feet above the ground as he whipped through the brush. He seemed to be flung in several directions at once.
The dwarves charged in all directions, trying to catch him. He saw their faces, red with rage, and their glaring eyes as he sailed by them.
For a moment Trap seemed to hang in the air right above Tolem who reached up to grab him. Then by some perversity of the ring, he whipped around and dropped to sit on the croup of Tolem's pony, facing backward.
The startled animal reared. Tolem lost the reins as he grabbed at the saddle to keep from falling. Trap slid off the croup, stumbled twice, and found himself more than a hundred feet away, standing at the bottom of the hill.
He lost his balance and sat on the ground, his head still spinning. The dwarves had not spotted him, so he stayed where he was, letting his equilibrium settle while they raced around looking for him. Four of the six had pulled out their axes and were shouting threats and imprecations.
"Find that thief!" Tolem shouted to the other dwarves.
"There they go again, calling me a thief," Trap muttered. He was growing irritated with all the distrust.
"I know! I'll show them!" he announced, speaking at large to the nearest bushes. Ten magic steps took him around the hill and to his tethered pony. He retrieved his hoopak. Then, careful to measure his steps, he came to a stop in the exact middle of the group of angry dwarves.
He appeared so suddenly that the dwarves' surprise slowed their reactions, but Trap was ready. Using the pointed steel end of his hoopak he poked one rider in the rear. The dwarf gave a yell, jumped up in the saddle, and fell off his mount.
The rest waved their axes and charged him.
Confident he could elude his pursuers, he took two long steps and moved six feet.
"Oops," he muttered and ducked behind a bush as the dwarves charged, so intent on him they nearly struck each other with their weapons.
"Excuse me!" he said, ducking down into the under-brush. Keeping his head down, he scampered from bush to bush, narrowly escaping the dwarves. He dashed into a thick, high clump of bushes. Momentarily out of sight, he picked up a stone. Using the sling of his hoopak, he sent it skittering along the ground to the north.
The dwarves charged the sound of clattering rock. Trap crept south and then back toward the small copse of woods, the direction the dwarves would not expect him to go.
Still, they might think of it, and it would be best for them to think he was seeking the safety of the trees. He found a spring with a muddy bank and was careful to leave footprints heading west until he was on firm ground again. Then he turned south and hid under a large, thick bush.
Safe for the moment, he gazed down at the ring, took it off and inspected it closely. He shook it and held it up to his ear. Then he decided magic wouldn't slosh like water in a jug. He put the ring back on his finger and took another cautious step. No magic widened his kender pace. Disappointed, he took the ring off and slipped it back into his pouch.
He hated to think he had used up all the magic. Taking giant steps had been fun. Even spinning around in the air had been interesting. And he had accomplished some-thing important. He had kept the dwarves, now milling about trying to find him, from following Ripple and Halmarain.
But the sun was down, it would soon be dark, and how was he to find his sister and the little wizard?
Trap sat on the ground inside a clump of bushes and thought about the dwarves as well as his friends. The dwarves were still beating the bushes when one found the footprints by the spring.
After a short conference they dashed off toward the woods. The little wizard, Ripple, and the animals they led had been out of sight when the dwarves appeared. Trap had hidden his mount, the dwarves seemed to think that their quarry had returned to the copse and the road.
The kender worked his way through the underbrush until he reached his mount and set out in search of the rest of his party.
"The way they brandished those axes, they certainly weren't friendly anymore," Trap told his pony. "And I'm tired of being called a thief. I didn't take anything from them. Not one even came close enough to me to drop anything in my pouches."
To make certain, he opened them one at a time, fingering and identifying various items. Except for a pretty little stone he had found in the creek, he could not find a single item he had not possessed before he met the dwarves.
He pulled it out and held it close to his face since the sun had set and he could barely see it. He considered it as the pony picked its way through the brush. It was only a rock, smoothed by the stream. He had picked it up before the dwarves arrived. In putting it back into his pouch he found another one. He pulled it out too. By that time the twilight had deepened until he could not see the second stone, but by touch he remembered it. It was not stone at all, but the little gray-green disk of glass he had found on the floor of the wizard Orander's workroom after the attack of the merchesti.
"And I had this one long before I met the dwarves," he said as he put it back in his pouch. Since he could not see the trail in front of the pony, he dismounted and led the animal as he went in search of his sister and his friends.
He wandered for hours trying to find the others. Unable to see their trail, he had decided to stop for the night and continue his search at dawn. He was looking for a likely place to stop for the night when he stumbled on their camp. He startled them as he walked out of the darkness.
"Trap!" Ripple cried out and jumped up from the fire.
"Him dead, make a good tale…" Grod said. At the approach of the pony he had jumped up and waved his dead squirrel in an attempt to ward off anything unfriendly. Umpth stood holding the wagon wheel.
"I'm not so dead!" Trap replied with heat as he led his pony into the shallow cave which was hardly more than a depression in the stony hillside.
Ripple filled her cup with hot tea and cut him a generous slice of ham. She tucked it into a bun of day old bread and he was munching away when Halmarain looked up from the study of her spellbooks.
"You were able to keep the dwarves from following us," she said. She made a statement as if she expected no less from the kender.
"Of course I did!" He accepted the credit as if he had planned the outcome of his adventure "They were certainly mad and I don't understand it at all," Trap said. "They kept calling me a thief, but you know we don't have anything of theirs."
"Of course I do," Halmarain mocked Traps tone.
"Then you might reward him by doing some nice magic," Ripple said, a martial light in her eye.
"Then Trap tell story," Grod said with a grin.