"Gee! People! We're not the only ones traveling through the hills," he told his sister as he paused to study the prints. He frowned at one. Grod came up to stand beside him. The gully dwarf pointed at the indentation in the firmer mud.

"Wizard's pony," he said. "Maybe pony magic. It find her."

"Big jiggers, it is Halmarain's first pony," Ripple said with surprise. She pointed to the irregularity in the hoof print that the gully dwarf had noticed. "The one the dwarves took by mistake."

"Is," Umpth said as he drudged across the stream carrying the wheel. The magic artifact of the Aglest clan was unsoiled but the gully dwarf had managed to get mud on his hands, face, beard, and helmet.

"I thought the Neidar were following us," Ripple said with a puzzled frown.

"It's strange," Trap said thoughtfully. "The stranger and the kobolds are following us, but they're up ahead, and the dwarves are supposed to be trailing us but they've passed us too."

"Maybe following is different here," Ripple said.

"How different?" Umpth asked, his dark wrinkles deepening as he tried to work out the solution.

"In Hylo, when you follow someone, you stay behind them," Trap explained. "But here, we're behind everyone who's after us. I'm glad they're not chasing us, we might never catch up."

Astinus of Palanthus described the scene…

Jaerume Kaldre stilled the horse that fidgeted under him. He waited on the ridge of the mountain spur, hidden from the trail below by a clump of bushes and the limbs of a small tree. Below him, the string of seven ponies led by the kender, the gully dwarves, and the dwarf, wound their way up the mountain trail, slowed in their ascent by the mud of the recent rain.

Luck and the blessing of Takhisis had finally favored him. When the sudden rain ceased, he soon realized he had somehow missed the kender and the little fiend. He had been on their trail, had even seen their tracks. During the rain any prints left by his quarry would have been washed away, but when the rain stopped Kaldre knew the ensuing mud would show the party's trail. Soon after he found himself leading the kobolds along a muddy track free of any prints. The kender and their companions were behind him. He forced the protesting kobolds up the steep sides of the mountain until he spotted the party traveling around the hills just west of the mountains.

His plan for the ambush was hasty, but his motley group of humanoids were in place. All he had to do was wait.

Beside the death knight, Malewik, the kobold leader, fidgeted too. His expressed reason for his impatience was to join the band of kobolds that were waiting to ambush the travelers. Kaldre knew the humanoid's desire to be on his way stemmed from his wish to part company with his undead commander. Far from resenting the kobold's nervousness and fear of him, Kaldre enjoyed it. His ability to instill fear was a heady power.

"Keep your group hidden in the bushes and behind boulders until the travelers are even with you," the death knight cautioned. "Then capture the two kender and the little fiend. They are not to be injured."

"Kill the others," Malewik nodded, wrinkled his nose, and opened his mouth in a silent laugh.

"Kill them or leave them, I don't care," Kaldre said. He was not interested in three dwarves. Gully dwarves were of no use to him, and he had never understood the purpose of the small one that was traveling with them. His orders were to get a stone the girl kender had in a pocket or pouch and to secure the little fiend. The male kender had a magic viewing disk belonging to Draaddis Vulter, and the wizard wanted it back, but the death knight's priorities were plain.

"Kill the kender if you have to, but bring them to me to search," he ordered Malewik. "Do not harm the little fiend or I'll skin you alive." With those last instructions he sent the kobold leader down the hill to join the others.

Kaldre knew he would have to watch the thieving humanoid. Malewik's eyes had brightened when the death knight had ordered him to bring the kender to him to be searched. Kobolds were alert to anything that smacked of value and could be stolen.

"Remember, we're taking what the kender carry and the fiend to the wizard," Kaldre reminded Malewik. "You don't want to fail Draaddis Vulter, do you?"

"Kobolds is not making wizard mad," Malewik said and for once he did not laugh.

Kaldre wanted to ride down the mountainside himself, but the fear that he engendered in the kobolds radiated from him like a cloud and might alert the kender before they reached the ambush. There were drawbacks to his renewed existence, he decided. Still, once the kobolds sprung the trap, he could be on them before they had time to search the kender.

Fear of Jaerume Kaldre would make them capture the kender and the little fiend, but they should then be too interested in killing the dwarves to do more than disarm the prisoners and hold them until the bloody work of destruction was over.

Below him he could see Malewik working his way down to his people. They were crouched behind bushes and boulders on both sides of the trail where a gentle slope gave them easy access to their prey.

Movement off to Kaldre's left caught his attention. He turned his head just in time to see a goblin slip behind a bush. The death knight recognized the hardened leather helmet with the rusting metal plates attached. The humanoid was the leader of the band that had attacked the kobolds in the maze of gullies at the southern tip of the Vingaard Mountains.

The stupid humanoids were still following, wanting revenge for the attack.

Kaldre had lost five of his followers to the goblins before he had routed them, more with fear than with weapons. He had killed three, but they had numbered more than forty. While he watched, four advanced toward the ambush. They were moving cautiously, as if not sure whether to attack or not.

Not, he decided.

He had routed them once, he could do it again. He turned his horse and moved slowly over the crest of the ridge. Hidden by the growth at the top, he was able to ride out of sight of the trail. Cursing the kender, who had alerted the goblins by shouting up and down the gullies, he gritted his teeth and spurred the horse along the steep slope.

Because of the kender he had to leave the scene of the ambush to drive off the goblins. Because of the kender the kobold might find the gate stone the female carried and damage it in some way before the death knight could get back to them.

A shout might have warned the goblins off, but it might also alert the kender who were said to have sharp ears. Kaldre rode straight at the goblins, hoping they did not cry out. Unfortunately he had not seen all the band. Two had crept closer to his position than he had realized. His eye had been on the leader and he flushed two who were further up the slope and nearer to him, though they had been well hidden until he rode by the bushes where they had taken cover.

They broke and ran, shouting a warning as they went. Neither took more than ten steps before the death knight was on them. His swinging sword decapitated one and hacked through the shoulder of the second, leaving the goblin on the ground, screaming in misery. The rest of the goblins broke away, all except one, smaller than the rest.

A goblin shaman.

Unafraid of the death knight, he threw a spell, a greenish cloud that spread itself as it neared Kaldre. Not sure what the magic of a goblin could do to him, the death knight hauled back on the reins of his mount. The horse skidded and managed to turn away from the greenish cloud, but he slipped and lost his footing on the muddy mountainside.

As Kaldre went down, he saw another, blue white mist leave the hands of the shaman. He was crouched, just getting to his feet and knew he could not escape the second spell. As it closed over him with a cold deeper than death, his arms and legs froze into immobility.