"I swear by the horns of Sargas."

They were interrupted by the arrival of three other minotaurs. Helati tensed, then saw they were ones she was certain she could trust.

"You see?" said the foremost, a dark-furred, bulky male with wide eyes who acted as smith for the settlement. "I told you I heard weapon play."

The other two nodded. One of them looked at Helati. "Are you all right, Mistress?"

"I am, but Brogan is wounded."

He waved off assistance. "It'll heal right enough. Someone should take care of this one, though, Mistress Helati. We also need to dispose of these two carrion."

"Agreed." She pointed at one of the newcomers. "You. Get some help to drag these two back to the main part of the settlement. I want this one bound and locked up in the storage house."

They moved to obey. Brogan joined Helati.

"What of me?"

"I'll take a chance on you, but you have to tell me what you did that made him fear you so."

He smiled ruefully. "I've got something of a reputation. Much of it is exaggerated, but… seme of it isn't." His tone darkened. "I don't make excuses for that. I'll tell you anything you want to know about my past, but I ask that you leave that for tomorrow. I think I'm going to collapse soon if I don't tend to this shoulder."

Helati had almost forgotten about his wound. "Let me help you."

"I can minister to it myself. You have enough to concern yourself with. Get some sleep. Mistress." He nodded.farewell, then walked toward his dwelling.

"One more question," she suddenly called.

"What?"

"You seemed to know that something was going to happen. How did you?"

He looked somewhat guilty. "It seemed like the sort of ambush I might've planned once."

She made no attempt to stop him when he turned away. Perhaps there was reason to be suspicious of him, but Helati doubted that Brogan was lying.

What about Kaz? Yestral's words haunted her. Kaz had ridden into a trap, after all. They knew he would ride to Nethosak and try to rescue her brother. What had happened to him?

I have to go rescue him, Helati thought. I have to go after him before it's too late… but what about the children?

Brogan had offered to organize an armed force. She knew that if she asked for aid, he and most of the others would offer themselves, but to take so many into what certainly had to be the maw of danger…

I have to go alone. There's no way around it. Ayasha will have to tend the children. She loves them as if they were her own.

She shivered, thinking about that. It was fortunate that her friend cared for the twins so much. It was all too likely that if Helati did not return from Nethosak, Ayasha might find herself acting as mother to the young pair for the rest of her life.

Delbin looked around the chamber. The chains holding him against the wall had so far defied his supreme lock-picking skills, which really impressed him. That left him with only sleep or staring at the wall, but he was too curious to sleep. Why did a minotaur cleric desire his presence? Maybe he had never seen a kender before and was just curious. More likely, the bad minotaurs wanted to use him against Kaz. Delbin hoped someone would come by soon before things got too boring. So far, the only visitor to his chamber had been a guard who had inspected his head for injuries.

His head still throbbed, but not nearly as much as earlier. At least now Delbin could see clearly, not that there was much to see in the room. It was nicer than he would have expected from a prison cell. The place was clean and orderly. There was even a bed to one side, though he certainly had no way to reach it at the moment. A table and two chairs stood not far from the bed, also out of his reach. The room was dim at the moment because the only light source came from a pair of torches in the hall beyond his cell door. But Delbin's night vision remained exceptional.

With nothing else to do, he occupied his thoughts with the memories of the dream he had experienced just before blacking out. The man in gray again. The kender wondered why he had dreamt of the strange figure yet another time. True, the dream had been interesting, even entertaining at times, but why the gray man? Why had he not dreamt of being rescued by Kaz instead?

It did not matter. What mattered was that the gray man had reassured him, saying there was still hope. Hope for what, Delbin could not say. What the gray man had said after that was a hazy memory, but the kender had no difficulty keeping his spirits up. Already he began wondering if, by using the pick he had secreted in his hand, he might be able to unlock the fascinating mechanism that kept the manacles sealed…

A murmur from the hall distracted him. It was not one of the guards, but rather what sounded like a child shuffling down the outside corridor.

A moment later, a bedraggled-looking head popped up at the door. Actually, it looked more like the upper half of. a face that belonged to a gully dwarf. He had seen a few of them running around, cleaning refuse off the streets, but this was the first one he had seen up close.

"Hello, my name's Delbin. What's yours?"

The gully dwarf blinked, then replied, "Galump. Galump is Galump's name. Delbin's a kender."

"Yes, I am. What're you doing down here? Are you a prisoner, too? Did you escape? They certainly have good chains here, so if you know how to unlock them, I'd sure like to know."

It took the raggedy figure some time to digest this before finally answering, "Galump's no prisoner. Galump does what minotaurs say he do."

Delbin recalled the collars he had seen the gully dwarves wearing. He did not think it was nice that the minotaurs made the poor creatures do such tasks and wear such nasty collars.

The gully dwarf suddenly dropped out of sight. Delbin recalled almost too late the short attention spans of these lowly creatures. "Wait, Galump!"

Galump popped back up into sight. He had to hang on to the door to be able to peer inside. "What Delbin want?"

"Can you help me get out of here?"

This seemed to sadden the gully dwarf. "Galump can't do that, no, he can't. If he could, he would help nice human girl, nice girl who mean bull who hits Galump keeps in cell."

Another prisoner? "If you help me, maybe I can help her. We could all escape together."

Even though all Delbin could see of Galump was the top half of his head, the gully dwarf's fearful reaction was evident. "No! Galump could not do! Disobey the high one and he'll eat us like he eats the others!"

"Eats the others?" People thought it was difficult to keep track of what Render said, but Delbin thought Galump's kind was the most baffling race. "What do you mean? You don't mean he actually eats them, because that's highly unlikely. What you probably mean is that he punishes them badly, but don't worry, because if we get the girl-a human girl?-out, then we can go to my friend Kaz and he'll protect us-"

"No!" The gully dwarf dropped out of sight, his disappearance followed a moment later by the sound of light, receding footfalls.

He sure is afraid of the high priest, Delbin thought. He really believes the high priest minotaur will eat him, but minotaurs don't eat other races, as far as I know, even though they're descended from ogres and long, long ago, like my friend Kaz told me, ogres sometimes…

A human girl?

"Now what would a minotaur want with a human girl?" Delbin whispered to the emptiness. "Maybe she's a slave like poor Galump. Maybe she's a princess the high priest is holding hostage." Delbin cared very little for this high priest. He was not a nice minotaur, not if he was making gully dwarves and little human girls into slaves.

"Well, I'll just have to save her, and Galump… and all the other gully dwarves and prisoners the high priest has and deliver them to Kaz. He'll know what to do. He will."