Chapter Ten (part b)

As they walked into the woods to look for him, Jennifer thought about her dream. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that the field was somewhere nearby. She was just beginning to think she knew where it was when she heard a great commotion of crashing and smashing coming towards them through the trees on the other side of a small clearing just ahead.

A squirrel darted out of the underbrush and scrambled up the trunk of a tree, chattering angrily at the ground below. The birds in the nearby branches took up the alarm and cried it out to the rest of the forest. A small deer came dashing out of the bushes, shied to one side of the startled children and fled off into the woods behind them. Jennifer looked nervously back across the clearing. Something was heading their way and it sounded dan gerous. She had a feeling she knew just what it was.

"Duck down behind the bushes quick!" she whispered.

They hid just in time. Two dwarves came stomping into view and Jennifer knew they were the very same ones she had seen before. The fat dwarf was smashing at low lying branches with his rock hammer and cursing loudly. The one with the warts had a large leather sack slung over his shoulder. It was obviously very heavy. When he reached the clearing he flung it down to the ground.

"I ain't gonna carry it one more step!" he yelled.

"Yeah? Well, I ain't gonna do it either!" the fat dwarf shouted back at him.

"So what!" yelled the dwarf with the warts. "Who cares what you do? I don't care nothing!"

"It ain't my fault we gotta walk so far!" shouted the fat dwarf. " Humans! They make me sick!"

"Yeah? Well, we'll get even with them! Wait'll we get one of them new-moon stones, then they'll see!"

"Yeah!" agreed the fat dwarf. "Or better yet we could maybe get our hands on the source stone even!"

"The source stone? What do we need one of them for?"

"The source stone's got power, whatever we want!" yelled the fat dwarf. "We get ahold of that and no humans'll mess with us anymore!"

"Sure, but first we gotta get to the place where you find them," grumbled the dwarf with the warts. "So where is it anyways? All this walking gives me a pain!"

"We'll get there!" yelled the fat dwarf. "We'd be there now if that sprite hadn't given us the slip yesterday!"

"Yeah! He gives me a pain too!"

"Sure he does!" agreed the fat dwarf. "But what do we care, we don't need him anymore! We got a better plan now for finding where the new-moon stones are!"

He untied the top of the sack and dumped it inside out. "Okay wolf! Time to go to work!" he shouted.

The wolf that tumbled out onto the ground was very much the worse for wear. His hair was all matted and spattered with mud. He was very thin and he obviously hadn't eaten for a very long time, but even so his eyes were bright and despite his bedraggled appearance and desperate condition he looked like he could still hold his own if given the chance. The dwarves were aware of just this possibility. A strong leather strap was wrapped round his muzzle. A good stout rope was tied around his neck. The dwarf with the warts grabbed it and gave it a sharp tug.

"Take us to the new-moon stones!" he shouted.

The wolf just glared at him and growled.

"Maybe he don't know where to go," said the fat dwarf.

"He knows. Wolves go all over and they know all the places. He'll take us there if we make him!"

Both dwarves yelled at the wolf and jerked at the rope. The wolf tried to resist but he couldn't escape, and in the end he had to do what the dwarves wanted.

"The poor animal!" thought Jennifer and she wished she could help him, more than anything she wanted to leave the safety of her hiding place and run to his rescue. She kept trying to tell herself that the dwarves weren't that tough and she was just as big as they were. But she knew it wasn't just the size. It was something else entirely, and whatever it was, she didn't want anything to do with it at all.

The dwarves finally forced the wolf to lead them away into the woods. Everyone was very relieved to see them go.