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  She turned her back on him.

  "Well, I think," Robin announced, "you should give the crystal to Felice."

  "Why?" Cornelius asked.

  "Why?" I echoed.

  "Just in case it has healing powers."

  "The old man said no," I reminded Robin.

  "The old man said he didn't know."

  Sulkily Cornelius handed the crystal over to my mother.

  "You don't know what that does," I told her as she slipped it over her neck.

  "Oh, Harek," she said as she adjusted it, "you worry too much. This is just a game."

  Oh yeah? I thought. Since when?

  I waited two seconds. Then I asked, "Well, does it work?" Silly question. One look at Mom's face had already told me it didn't.

  "Maybe you have to wish on it," Thea suggested.

  Mom clutched the tiny crystal fervently.

  "Maybe you have to wish out loud," Cornelius said.

  Mom clutched the tiny crystal and said, "I wish my headache would go away."

  "Maybe you have to wear the necklace, walk in the boots, and kill an ore with the sword, all at the same time," Robin said.

  "Maybe the thing is worthless," I snapped.

  Robin spared a dirty look for me before he turned back to Mom. "Well, keep it for a while and see what happens."

  "Yeah," I added. "If you start to develop warts and leathery skin, let us know." A moment later I realized how bad that sounded, but by then it was too late.

  "Let's get going," Thea said. "The afternoon's already half gone."

  And how are Marian and her group doing? I wondered.

  Heading back to the horses, I heard Cornelius muttering under his breath.

  I gave him a shove and told him, "You have something to say to me, you say it to my face."

  "I didn't say anything," he protested. "I mean, I was just repeating the poem from the boots, trying to figure it out." He looked for support from Robin, Thea, and Mom, all of whom had heard my outburst and were watching me warily.

  My face went all hot. "Sorry," I muttered. They were ganging up on me even when they weren't ganging up on me.

  " 'Northward, Southward...,' " Cornelius repeated as we tightened our saddles, checked the bindings on our provisions. He shook his head. "What is the magic word?"

  "The whole rhyme?" Robin suggested.

  "I've said the whole rhyme," Cornelius told him.

  Thea said, "The poem is written twice, once on each boot. Maybe you have to say it twice."

  Cornelius took a deep breath. "'Northward, Southward, Eastward, Westward, Inward, Outward, Always Homeward. Northward, Southward, Eastward, Westward, Inward, Outward, Always Homeward.'"

  "Kind of catchy, huh?" Robin asked.

  "No." I was watching Mom, who looked all tired out and not very steady. "Maybe you should find out what the spell does before you try to figure out how to do it," I suggested.

  "It's a traveling spell," Cornelius said. "Obviously. 'Northward, Southward...'"

  Thea said, "The boots said, 'That is the magic word.' Not 'Those are.' It must be a one-word spell."

  You could see the light bulb go on over Cornelius's head. "You say where you want to go," he cried. "And you get transported there." Then, before anyone could warn him to be careful, "Sannatia!" he said.

  Nothing happened.

  "Rasmussem!" he said.

  Still nothing.

  "Princess Dorinda!"

  "That's two words," I told him.

  "You're no help at all, Harek."

  "Maybe you're not getting the poem right," I said. "Maybe you're leaving out a word."

  "Harek," Cornelius said, "the poem is not so very hard to remember. It's only eight words long."

  "Look, to be sure," Thea said.

  Cornelius sighed. Angrily he flung himself down onto the dusty road and picked up one foot. "'Northward-SouthwardEastwardWestward,'" he read in a rush. "'inward-OutwardAlwaysHomewardThat—'"

  He wasn't there anymore.

  The air shimmered the way it sometimes does over the road on a real hot day, or when you look directly at a fire. But then the air unwrinkled, and all that was left was the dust settling slowly back to the road.

  Thea yelped, "My sword!" and indicated her sword belt, where there was nothing. Mom touched her neck, where there was no necklace.

  "That," I moaned. "That is the magic word."

  Everyone groaned.

  "Stupid thing," Robin mumbled.

  We went back around the cottage and found Cornelius pulling the boots off the troll again.

  "That," I said, just in case he hadn't caught on. "Don't use the word that."

  "I'm not an idiot," he said.

  I didn't argue. I only told him, "You better not put those boots back on. There's no telling when and where you might unexpectedly end up back here again."

  "Well, now I know," he said, handing the sword back to Thea, the crystal back to Mom. He'd snapped the chain, then tied a knot in it. "I'll be careful."

  "You'll never be that careful," I said.

  He winked and pointed, to indicate he'd caught me using the magic word, which he'd be too clever to do accidentally.

  Thea bundled her sword away, but said, "We're not coming back for you again."

  For once she was on my side.

  15. NONPLAYER CHARACTER

  Late in the afternoon we rode around a curve in the road and found dead bodies.

  Two men. Two horses. Their deaths were recent enough that the bodies hadn't yet begun to smell, but something had gotten to them already. Something that had eaten major portions. Mom was looking anywhere but at the bodies. The others seemed excited at the prospect of a new adventure, gruesome or not. I felt the reverse: this was gruesome, adventure or not.

  Cornelius went into his Reveal Evil routine, before he remembered he'd already used that spell up for that day.

  "Eventually," Thea pointed out, "we're going to have to go past them."

  I was determined not to let her show me up, so I dismounted and examined the tracks in the road.

  "Wolves." I pointed at the tracks. "A lot of them. And it looks like when they finished here, they headed off in the same direction we're going."

  "Did the wolves kill these guys," Cornelius asked, "or were they dead before?"

  That was exactly the kind of thing I'd been doing my best to avoid seeing. "Ahh, no sign of arrows," I said, though I certainly hadn't examined enough to go around making pronouncements like that.

  Mom said, "Wolves don't attack people."

  "Maybe not at home," Robin told her. "But things are different here."

  I searched the ground for more clues.

  With a sigh, Thea brushed past me and moved in closer to the bodies. She turned one over on its back and stooped for a closer look. "Still warm," she said.

  I had difficulty with my next swallow.

  Then she got up and strolled around the area, seeming pretty nonchalant about the situation. "I don't know," she announced. "It's impossible to tell whether they had sword wounds before the wolves came."

  "So what does that mean?" Mom asked.

  "Nothing." Thea wiped her hands on her pants, though I hadn't seen that she'd gotten any blood on them, and swung back up on her horse. "Either they were killed by a pack of wild wolves, or they were killed by something or somebody first and then scavenged by wolves right after. But in any case, they were killed just a few minutes ago. That means we have wolves, and possibly something or somebody else, uncom fortably close to us. And it's going to be dark soon." She suddenly turned on me. "Come on, Harek, let's go. Stop being such a ghoul."

  Me? I wasn't the one going around touching dead people to find out corpse temperatures. But I remounted without saying anything and we rode on. It was my turn up front, and I slowed our already slow pace. I jumped at every rustle of leaves, nearly had a coronary each time a bird or a squirrel decided to shift position.

  After about the fourth time I'd motioned for
the others to stop talking so loud, Cornelius rode up to me and said, "Would you knock it off, Harek? You're making everyone crazy. What do you think you—"

  From just ahead, a wolf howled.

  Cornelius almost fell off his horse. But while I sat there like a lump of cold oatmeal, he recovered immediately and spurred his horse ahead. Thea and Robin tore in right behind him. I came to my senses enough to get going before my mother left me in the dust.

  We burst into a clearing. It was about as big as the parking lot at school. And like the parking lot after a rain, there was a small lake at the far end. Running along the edge of that lake were about two dozen large wolves. Running maybe two seconds ahead of the lead wolf was a man.

  Cornelius raised his hands and flung out Wizards' Lightning. There was a crackle! then the two front-running wolves disappeared into a fuzzy blue explosion of burnt fur and sulfur.

  Still running, the man turned his head toward us. Despite the distance, I could read the fear and horror on his face. I didn't blame him. Five of us, more than twenty wolves. And they were about five feet behind him, while we were the entire length of the clearing away.

  Thea and Robin had already fitted arrows to their bows, and I reached behind for my quiver as they released. Mom, who didn't have a bow but only a slingshot, was bouncing up and down in her saddle, waving for the man to run toward us.

  But whether he was reluctant to bring the wolves on us, or was afraid to put himself between our weapons and the wolves, or was just too confused to know what he was doing, he continued to run along the shore of the little lake. He was about halfway down its length. If he didn't change direction soon, he'd reenter the forest on the far side and there'd be nothing we could do to help him then.

  Robin's arrow hit one of the wolves. Thea, using a shorter bow, didn't have the distance. But the wolves seemed aware of us now and were beginning to slow down just the tiniest bit. I'd finally gotten my crossbow ready and fired a bolt. It hit the new lead wolf, who collapsed and disappeared in a flurry of gray-and-white wolf bodies moving too fast to avoid trampling him.

  Next to me, Cornelius shot another round of Wizards' Lightning, and two more wolves disappeared.

  Mom had started yelling for the man, "Come here! Come to us!" despite her aching head.

  Finally he seemed to catch on. By then the wolves had had it, and once he headed toward us, they dropped way behind.

  Robin and I each got off another arrow, although we ended up shooting the same wolf. Cornelius, who could only use his Wizards' Lightning a limited number of times each day—depending on how much energy he put into each one—held back when he saw the wolves had given up the chase. As though on a command, they wheeled around from watching the man they'd been pursuing, from watching us, and disappeared into the forest.

  The man we'd rescued kept looking over his shoulder. Once the wolves were gone, he slowed to an unsteady walk. He had his hand pressed to his side. As we approached, he dropped to his knees, looking exhausted. Then he coughed, and spat up blood.

  "Thank you," he said with what little breath he had left. "Thank you. Friends. You saved my life."

  "Don't try to talk," Mom warned him. She didn't look like she should be talking either. Now that the excitement was over, she looked like she might fall out of her saddle. Suddenly I thought she was falling and reached out to grab her, but then realized she was simply dismounting. I hid my movement by getting down also.

  Mom knelt by the man. He had the look of someone who'd been around. Our kind of people perhaps, a mercenary, an adventurer. His hair was that color people call salt-and-pepper: the same amount of white as dark, which put him at about Mom's age—her real age, not Felice's. But he looked strong—at least a head taller than Robin, the tallest of our group, and his shoulders were about as wide as any two of us put together. He wore a leather breastplate which had seen better days, and he had on a wolfskin vest. Maybe the wolves had recognized it for what it was. Maybe that was why they'd pursued him so intently.

  "Your arm," Mom said. "You've been hurt." She tried to push his bloody sleeve up his arm, but he pulled away from her, pressing his arm against himself. He wiped his other arm across his face, smearing the trickle of blood that came from the corner of his mouth.

  "I'm all right," he assured us. "If you hadn't come when you did..." He shook his head and didn't finish his thought. He didn't need to.

  Cornelius said, "What happened? Were those your companions?"

  The man looked up sharply.

  "Cornelius," Thea said in a warning tone. Then to the man, "Sorry. Sometimes he doesn't stop to think before he talks. I'm Thea Green leaf, of the Greenmeadow Clan. This model of discretion is Cornelius. This—"

  "The Magnificent," Cornelius interrupted.

  "The Magnificent," Thea added. "This is Robin. Felice. Harek Longbow."

  Each of us bowed or smiled in turn.

  The man looked at us somewhat warily. "My name is Wolstan," he said, just when I was beginning to suspect he had no name. Slow-witted or in shock? In shock, I hoped.

  Thea licked her lips, no doubt wondering how to broach the subject delicately. Good old Cornelius took over for her. "So, were those your friends up there on the road?" At least he didn't add, "Mangled and lunched on by the wolves."

  Wolstan gulped. "Yes," he said slowly. "The wolves..." He glanced away.

  "The wolves killed them?" Thea asked gently. "Or did something else?"

  "The wolves. It happened so fast. One of the wolves jumped—landed right on my horse's rump. The horse panicked, bolted. I panicked," he admitted with another quick glance at us. "I could hear my brothers screaming ... There was nothing I could do..." He buried his face in his hands.

  "Your brothers?" Mom asked, her voice hardly more than a breath.

  "How terrible," Thea said.

  "Then my horse threw me, and I started to run." He shook his head and looked up. "It's all my fault," he said. "If I'd handled things better, been braver and quicker, my brothers might still be alive."

  I could sympathize with that feeling. I patted his shoulder but didn't know what to say. For a moment I even wished that pain-in-the-buns Marian was still with us: she seemed to have a knack for comforting people.

  Not like Robin who, somewhat callously I thought, brought everyone back to our business. "We were headed for Sannatia," he announced.

  Wolstan started, as though he'd been slapped.

  "We're on a quest," Robin explained, ignoring my dirty looks for his timing, "To rescue the Princess Dorinda."

  Wolstan's dark eyes widened in amazement. "To rescue...," he repeated, "the Princess Dorinda...?"

  "She's been kidnapped," Robin said. "Disappeared. Members of the Grand Guard killed. She appears to have been taken to Sannatia."

  "Yes," Wolstan said. "I know. We—my brothers and I—we'd heard the same story." His eyes shied away from ours again. He stared at his hands, clasped in his lap. "We too ... wanted ... to rescue the princess."

  Robin flashed me a self-satisfied grin to show his had been the right approach all along. "Would you like to come with us, then?"

  Wolstan's gaze went to each of us in turn. "Yes," he said. "If you'll have me."

  "Of course," we all said.

  We sat down on the grass while Wolstan went to the lake to clean off the wound on his forearm ("You don't have a cleric with you?" he'd asked) and to wrap it with a makeshift bandage ripped off the bottom of his shirt. Mom offered to help, but he wanted to do it himself. Maybe to prove he was a tough guy. OK with me. His sleeve was soaked with blood and the arm must have been a mess, though he acted like it was nothing.

  "Think he's a coward?" I asked. "Is he going to be a liability?"

  "Arvin!" Mom started, obviously shocked. But it must have hurt her head to talk, for she didn't say anything else.

  Cornelius, however, was never at a loss for words. "What a terrible thing to say, Harek. The poor man's been through a lot."

  "Yeah," I said. "And he
ran away from it."

  "Think you would have done better?" Thea asked.

  Ouch, that hurt. I nibbled on a blade of grass. "The point is, the way this game is going, I'm not expecting much help from Rasmussem."

  Robin reached over and whacked my arm. "You worry too much," he said.

  I'd strangle the next person who said that, I decided.

  "Now quiet," Robin said. "He's coming back."

  Wolstan approached, the bandage around his arm already bloodied.

  "You sure you'll be all right?" Thea asked.

  In answer, he bent his arm and straightened it several times.

  Thea said, "Then we'd better get going, or we'll be caught out here by dark."

  "But," Wolstan said, "surely we should camp here for the night?"

  "With all those wolves hanging around?" Cornelius asked.

  "Better them than the caves," Wolstan said.

  We looked at each other. "What caves?" I asked.

  "The Shadow Caves." Wolstan was obviously amazed that we didn't know. "They're just ahead. That's the way to Sannatia. They'll bring you almost to the desert's edge. Unless you go around the long way, which takes two days instead of half."

  "Wolstan," Robin said, "why is that bad?"

  "It's not—during the day. But at night, orcscome out of the side tunnels." He shuddered. In a quiet voice he added, "I hate ores."

  Robin wiggled his eyebrows at me.

  Thea looked excited about the prospect, but she only said, "Yes but, Wolstan, if we stop now and wait till dawn, think of all the time we'll lose."

  "If you don't want to come with us," Cornelius said, glancing at us for approval, "we could still give you a horse."

  We told him about the extra horse we had now that Brynhild was gone. We didn't, of course, tell him where Brynhild had gone.

  "But you're going on?" Wolstan asked.

  "We have to," Cornelius said.

  Wolstan sighed. "Personally, I'd rather deal with the wolves." He shook his head. "But I'll come with you."

  We gave him Brynhild's sword, which she'd kept wrapped in her saddle roll. It was a bit short for him, since she'd been a halfling. But we were glad of his company. If we were going to be meeting a horde of ores—on their own ground, no less—we could use any help we could get.