Doctor Bothy, being the fatter of the two, especially attracted the troll’s attention. The creature gazed at him with its black eyes and smacked its leathery lips in anticipation.

“A troll!” Conundrum gasped. He had heard of such monsters, but it was the first he had ever seen. It was nearly as tall as the chaos beast that had nearly eaten him a few weeks ago, and it was tremendously strong, as it proved when it strode over to the towering oak from which the gnomes dangled, grabbed its massive trunk in its claws, and shook the tree vigorously. Doctor Bothy and Sir Grumdish tossed and jangled at the end of their ropes, but they did not fall. The troll growled in annoyance and stared up at them.

“Isn’t this the same place where-” Conundrum began.

“Where we buried the haggis, yes,” Razmous finished for him.

“Well, that’s awfully convenient. It makes things much easier.”

“Easier? How?” Razmous asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a idea!” Conundrum said, scrunching up his eyes in a huge grin. Razmous leaned close as Conundrum explained his plan. The kender only smiled more broadly as he heard it. He clapped a hand over his mouth to suppress a giggle.

“Can you do it?” Conundrum asked.

“Certainly!” Razmous bragged. “No problem.”

“After you do your part, I’ll skinny up the tree and cut them down,” Conundrum said.

“Then you’ll need this,” Razmous said as he dug through his pouches. He removed something and pressed it into the gnome’s hand. Conundrum opened his fingers and looked at it.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Commodore Brigg’s remarkable all-purpose-thousand-in-one-uses-folding-knife. He must have dropped it while we weren’t eating our haggis, and I forgot to give it back to him,” Razmous explained. “When I give the signal, you can start.”

With that, he dashed away as silently as a cat.

“Signal? But what’s the signal?” Conundrum asked, but Razmous had already gone, vanished, as quiet as quiet can. He had left his pouches, which meant he meant business. Conundrum chewed his lip and peered back through the gap in the vines, waiting and listening.

“I don’t think I can skinny up anything,” he muttered, having second thoughts. “Oh, well. I’ll solve that puzzle when I come to it.”

The troll apparently had a new idea for getting at the gnomes. In one huge long, knobby hand it held a largish stone, about the size of mush melon, and it was at the moment searching the ground for another. Conundrum had no doubt that, once it had dug up a similarly-sized boulder, it would fling them at his friends, like a child trying to knock a beloved toy from the crook of a tree. Conundrum gripped Commodore Brigg’s wonderful all-purpose knife and waited. He wondered for a moment whether it had a tool that might prove of use against trolls. He knew it had one for clipping nose hairs, but he didn’t know if trolls had nose hairs, nor did he much care to get close enough to find out. But they did have jolly big noses, of that he was sure.

Then he heard the kender’s voice on the other side of the clearing. Razmous was shouting in a mocking singsong voice, “I say, you’ll never get them down that way. What you need is a ladder or longer arms. But I don’t suppose you have thought of that, have you, your being a troll and all?”

The troll stopped and glared around, its piggy black eyes prying into every shadow. Conundrum felt sure he would be seen, despite the screen of the vines. He crouched down and gripped the all-purpose knife more tightly.

Meanwhile, Razmous continued. “I heard once that trolls reproduce by budding, but I don’t believe it. They say that when you want to have a family, you just rip off various body parts and throw them on the ground to grow new versions of yourself. That must be why you are all so butt-ugly. But of course, that can’t be true, because everyone knows that trolls are so ugly when they’re born the doctor slaps the mother.”

The troll dropped his boulders and growled. His long warty nose tested the air.

“And their noses are so long because that’s what the doctor steps on when he pulls out your tails,” Razmous taunted. His voice seemed to come from various places within the forest, first here and now there, so that the troll was making itself dizzy turning round and round.

“Of course, when he pulls out your tail, most of your brain comes with it, the troll butt being the scientifically proven location of the troll brain. Or, I should say, what’s left of the troll brain. When you sit down, aren’t you afraid you will smother yourself?”

With a howl of rage, the troll tore off into the forest. Razmous’s voice floated back, pitched high to carry over the troll’s infuriated thrashing through the forest.

“Now, Conundrum!”

Conundrum scurried from his hiding place into the clearing and ran over to the trunk of the tree where Doctor Bothy and Sir Grumdish hung, their mouths open wide in surprise. Searching all around the tremendous bole of the tree, Conundrum found no way to ascend and rescue his companions. He was as stuck as the troll, even more so. He stood beneath his friends, looking up at them helplessly.

“You need a ladder,” Sir Grumdish said. “I don’t suppose there is time to hurry back to the village. That troll won’t chase him long. There hasn’t been a troll born that could catch a kender in a wood.”

“But I don’t have a ladder,” Conundrum cried. “What can I do?”

“It’s a shame Commodore Brigg isn’t here,” Doctor Bothy sighed. “He’d have a an idea. Born leader, the commodore is.”

“Oh, please, Bothy! Be reasonable. The lad feels bad enough as it is. No use comparing him to the good commodore. He’s a great gnome, but he certainly doesn’t go about with ladders in his pockets.”

“Oh, but he does!” the doctor protested. “He has the most wonderful knife, invented by the master of the weapons guild in Mount Nevermind.”

“I have it here!” Conundrum exclaimed. He showed it to them, holding it up on the palm of his hand.

“That’s it! Glory and salvation, Conundrum, how did you come by it?” the doctor asked.

“Razmous!”

“I might have guessed,” Sir Grumdish said. “Are you trying to tell us, Bothy, that thing has a ladder in it?”

“Yes!” Doctor Bothy said. “A mini-extension ladder. See if you can find it, Conundrum.”

“I’ll try.” He began flipping out the knife’s various tools and apparatuses. There was a curly-cue wire useful for removing corks from bottles of medicine and whatnot, a thin, flat shim such as a burglar might use to slip open the latch on a window, a tiny pair of scissors not useful for much of anything, a larger pair of scissors useful for trimming hedges or the beards of dwarves, a backscratcher, a small plow, a bronze birdbath with a sundial in the middle, a spoon, a fork, even a tiny plate and frying pan. Conundrum wondered if he might not soon come across the stove, and the dinner, too! Before long, he looked as if he had the entire contents of a kender’s bedtable drawer clutched in his hands.

Suddenly, out of the commodore’s pocket apparatus sprang a thirty-foot ladder with rubber safety pads on the feet to keep it from slipping. Conundrum nearly fell over in surprise, which would have been disastrous, as he would likely have been skinned, filed, polished, trimmed, julienned, and uncorked all at the same time.

“Good show!” Sir Grumdish shouted. “Now climb up here and cut us down.”

“Um…” Conundrum hesitated, still flipping through tools.

“What is it?” Doctor Bothy hissed. “Hurry, before the troll comes back!”

“Um, there doesn’t seem to be… um, a knife,” Conundrum said as he looked up in dismay. Then he spun round, for something was coming through the woods toward them.

Razmous Pinchpocket ran for his life, as only a kender can run when a troll is hot on his heels. He could almost feel its hot, reeking breath on his neck as his topknot cracked like a flag in the wind of his speed. The dark forest flashed by, and he dodged, dipped, ducked, and leaped like a whirling dervish, avoiding low-hanging branches that would have brained him, groping roots that would have tripped him, and looming trunks that would have pulverized him had he run into them head on.