"I don't need anyone to apologize for me!" Halmarain snapped.

Trap, leading the way, threw a dark look back over his shoulder. He was forming his objection to the wizard's unjust accusation, but the gully dwarves beat him to it.

"People not like kender?" Umpth asked Grod as he rolled the wagon wheel along beside his pony.

"Like kender more than wizard," Grod said.

"Wizard have bad mood," Umpth said.

"Wizard live in bad mood," Grod agreed.

"I don't need any criticism from filthy gully dwarves," Halmarain snapped.

"Better dirt on body than in head," Ripple announced. She was imitating Aghar speech, but her voice was sharp with irritation. "Personally I prefer gully dwarves to little humans with little minds."

"Do you think large humans have better minds?" Trap asked his sister. "Wonder what giants are like?"

"I hope you find out," Halmarain announced. Her face red with anger. She fell back, allowing the kender and the gully dwarves, their ponies led by Ripple, to go on ahead.

The kender, never angry long or in a bad mood, began to speculate on what they would find in Ironrock.

"The name sounds as if it would be a dwarf town," Ripple suggested. "It will be interesting. Dwarves make wonderful things."

"It's a fortress," Halmarain called to them when she overheard the conversation. "Built back in the time of Huma, I believe."

They had been riding for an hour. The kender keeping up a fruitless, but running speculation on Ironrock that kept pulling the gully dwarves' attention away from the wagon wheel. The third time they dropped it and the entire party stopped while Trap dismounted to get it, he stopped and stood staring from it to a small stand of sap-lings nearby.

"Well?" Halmarain asked with her customary impatience. "Are we continuing our journey or not?"

"Yes, right-sure we are," Trap led his pony off the rutted road and tied it to a sturdy tree. "But I've got a good idea. Ripple, come help me."

While the little wizard sat on her pony and complained at the delay, Trap explained his idea to his sister. Using their belt knives, they each cut a slender sapling with a fork at the end. They compared them to make sure each was the same length, about seven feet long. Then Trap cut a sturdy one-foot length and they carried the three pieces back to the wheel.

"Now all we need is some rope or leather thongs," Ripple said. She and Trap searched their pouches. She pulled out the bracelet she had picked up when the Lyt-burg jeweler's display had tilted and looked at it in surprise.

"I thought I gave this back to him."

"Where did these come from?" Trap held up three small glass vials with dark liquid in them.

"They're mine, you thief," Halmarain snapped.

"Well, you shouldn't leave them lying around or I wouldn't have to pick up after you," Trap said, absently returning them to his pouch. He found his ball of strong cord and some thin strips of leather.

The gully dwarves watched anxiously as Ripple held the wheel while Trap slipped the foot long length of wood through the hub. He tied the forked end of the poles to the short axle length.

"Wheel is magic, is not for work," Umpth said.

"Not for work," Grod echoed his bother.

"Why not? You've been working to haul it around ever since we've known you," Trap retorted. "This way you won't keep dropping it."

Working quickly, they notched the blunt ends of the two poles and attached them to Umpth's saddle.

"Now the wheel won't get away from you," Trap said, looking with pride on his invention, a variation on a travois. "Maybe now we can continue?" Halmarain demanded.

Trap turned, his face crinkled in a frown but he forgot his anger with the little wizard. He laughed at the sight behind her.

"Hey, look! Beglug liked his clothes better than we thought," he laughed.

During the hot morning, the little fiend had apparently decided he was warm enough without clothing. He had used the stop to pull off his trousers and shirt. The pants had disappeared. Only one sleeve of the shirt remained. He was stuffing it in his mouth.

"The monster!" Halmarain looked as if she might kill the merchesti.

"You were supposed to be watching him," Ripple said, laughing along with her brother. "Don't blame him if he has a healthy appetite."

The merchesti was a funny sight in his metal helmet and dwarf beard, naked except for his boots. They had been careful to keep the flesh-colored paste on his hands and face, and he did look strange, since the rest of his body was a deep gray-green.

"How did he get his pants off over his boots?" Ripple asked as she pulled her cloak from her pack and mounted her pony.

"The next time he does something funny when we're not looking, we should watch," Trap said. He took Ripple's cloak and tied it around Beglug's neck. They had to cover his strange gray-green body or leave the road.

"Hey, I like that! We'll watch when we're not looking," Ripple laughed as she led the gully dwarf's ponies on up the road.

They rode on through most of the morning, but the sun in the cloudless, windless sky fulfilled the promise of a hot day. The road seemed nearly straight, but it rose at a constant slope, and the ponies's head's were drooping. Hot dust rose from their passage. When they came to a small copse of woods with deep shade and a running stream, even the little wizard was willing to stop.

They unloaded the animals, gave them a drink from the stream and tethered them so they could crop the sparse grass and lush underbrush. After the hot dust of the road, the moist air around the little creek smelled fresh and sweet.

Halmarain had slept the least the night before, and she sat leaning against a tree, dozing. Umpth and Grod poked around under the trees, and Beglug munched on a fallen branch held in his right hand, while with his left, he used a second sturdy stick to swat at a squirrel that was well out of reach.

The kender sat by the stream and used the time to redistribute the contents of their pouches, an ongoing chore as well as a favorite pastime.

"Oh, that's nice," Ripple said as Trap examined a cunning sparker, clearly dwarf made. "When did you get it?" she asked, holding out her hand, wanting a closer look.

"I don't know," Trap replied. He handed it to her, but frowned as he tried to remember it. He was certain it had not been in the pouch the day before.

"When, was probably yesterday," Halmarain said sleepily. "And where, was doubtless out of someone's pocket."

"Not true!" Trap said. "I would have remembered it. It's interesting." He pulled several other items from his pouch: a cluster of folded metal rods that opened up to be a roasting rack, a cluster of feathers tied with beaded string, and a small knife with a jeweled handle.

"Someone must have mistaken my pouch for his own," Trap said. "He sure has good stuff. I wish I knew who he was, I know he'd like them back." He also found items he did remember, like the cunning little glass bottle that he had taken from a dwarf's pocket, fingered, and inspected. When he'd tried to return it the dwarf had moved away.

The wizard snorted and closed her eyes as if unwilling to see what else the kender might pull from his pouch.

Ripple was the next one to be surprised. "I didn't think I had so many steel pieces," she said. "No wonder this pouch felt so heavy." She frowned, searched in another pouch and pulled out a small leather drawstring bag. "Here are mine. Where did these come from?" She held up a hand, heaped with coins.

The conversation brought Halmarain to full wakeful-ness. She sat up and glared at the kender.

"You've been helping yourself to Orander's purse!" she accused.

"I have not!" Ripple denied heatedly.

"No, she hasn't," Trap held up the wizard's coin bag, red with runes around the sides. "It's so full another piece would cause it to split."