The Wyvern's Spur - Kate Novak [48]
Aghast, Giogi asked, "Why would Steele do such a thing?"
Cat made a series of hissing and growling noises, which Giogi could not begin to comprehend. The belligerent kobold answered in kind.
"To find out about the spur and the thief," Cat explained. "She convinced him to follow her into this booby trap."
"Can you tell her I will take him away so he can't hurt any of them again?"
Cat spoke again in the tongue the kobolds understood. The lead kobold growled and chittered some more, and Cat snarled back at it. The gaze of both, human woman and kobold female, locked onto one another with a long, menacing glare.
After a minute, the staring contest ended. The kobold looked down, spat on the ground in Cat's direction, and ran off into the darkness. The other kobolds followed.
"She would have preferred that you left him here. I think you spoiled their fun," Cat said with a wry smile.
Giogi shuddered. "Let's get out of here."
When they'd rejoined Olive, Giogi pulled a blanket out of the burro's saddlebags and covered his cousin's unconscious body. Then the party began carefully retracing its steps using Giogi's map and the numbers painted on the walls.
Olive plodded beside Cat's magic disk and took advantage of the time to study the unconscious Steele. He had the Wvvernspur face, all right. Considering Steele's sadistic streak, which Cat had just revealed to them, he seemed even more likely to be Jade's murderer. Unfortunately, while the murderer had looked far younger than Nameless, he had also looked somewhat older than Steele. Steele wasn't any older than Giogi. Besides, Steele had a mole by the right side of his mouth, which Olive was certain the murderer had not possessed.
Of course, that left the possibility that Steele might have been disguised. It was hard to imagine, though, that a young man foolish enough to walk into a kobold ambush was really a powerful mage. Ruling out Steele left the halfling with Frefford and Drone, and any other male relatives Giogi might have who he hadn't yet mentioned.
Plodding along behind Giogi and Cat, Olive hadn't paid much attention to their progress. They'd crossed or turned at six intersections when Giogi looked up from his map with a puzzled expression. "We can't have come this far already," he said, reaching out to touch the numbers on the wall. His fingers came back with paint on them. "Odd. This should have dried by now."
From one of her robe pockets Cat drew out her own crudely drawn map.
A sinister giggling echoed around them.
"The kobolds," Cat whispered with alarm. "They've tricked us with false markings."
Giogi held the finder's stone up high to see if he could catch a glimpse of the monsters. The light sprang out down one corridor of the intersection, but left the other three in the dark. Giogi spied no kobolds, but he did spot a piece of paper on the floor. He led them toward it and picked it up.
"This is from your cheese sandwich," he said. "I can find our way from here." He rolled up his map and slipped it back in one of the burro's packs. Remembering what Samtavan Sudacar had told him about the finder's stone, the nobleman followed its light with confidence. Whichever way it shone the brightest, he turned.
"Are you sure you're headed in the right direction?" the mage asked uncertainly.
Giogi nodded with a sly grin.
Olive, aware of the finder's stone's powers, thought, The boy's smarter'n he looks, girl. Take his word for it.
Giogi's party wasn't too far from the stairs to the crypt when a huge shadow blocked the corridor ahead.
"Bother!" Cat growled. "Not him again."
"What is it?" Giogi asked nervously, trying to make out the great shape's identity by squinting.
"Bugbear."
"Right," Giogi said with a gulp. Maybe if I charge with a veil, he thought, I can send it running, as I did with the kobolds. He raised his foil and took a deep breath.
Cat put her hand on Giogi's sleeve again. "Let me handle this," she said. She pulled out Giogi's hip flask-which she had never returned-and unstoppered it. With