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double, whom Jack and Ellayne had delivered to the city just in time to take the king’s place when Ryons disappeared. The real king now was safe in Lintum Forest with Helki and his army. Jack wondered what would become of Fnaa.
     
    “Never mind Fnaa! What’s going to become of me?”
     
    “Lord God,” he prayed silently, “if you don’t get me out of this, I don’t know who will! Please don’t forget that I climbed Bell Mountain when you told me to and went under the Old Temple to find King Ozias’ Lost Book. Please don’t forget!”
     
    He prayed again and again as he bounced up and down atop the outlaw’s shoulders, and the afternoon wore on, and he was carried farther and farther away from Ninneburky.
     

 
    CHAPTER 6
    The Superstitious Troopers
     
    Having lived and worked on the river all his life, Herger was able to find his way even by night. The road only roughly paralleled the river. Where the bank was heavily wooded, the road might be two or three miles from the water. Herger knew where to leave the road and push through the woods, and before the sun rose, he’d led the patrol directly to the campsite. They would have reached it sooner, but no one wanted to gallop recklessly down a narrow path overhung with heavy branches.
     
    “This is it,” Herger said. Dismounting, he led his horse toward the water. “This is where they jumped us.”
     
    Kadmel halted the patrol. “Everybody stay put,” he said. “We don’t want a lot of boots and horseshoes trampling out whatever tracks there might be. Anyhow, the horses will have to rest before we can go any farther.”
     
    Ellayne had ridden all the way behind a trooper named Aswyll. She’d had no idea that riding horseback could make you so sore—it was like falling down a long flight of stairs and bouncing your bottom off each one. That had never happened when she and Jack used to double up on Martis’ horse, Dulayl.
     
    “Ellayne, let’s see Wytt do his stuff.” Kadmel smiled at her. “And I guess you’ll be glad to get off that horse for a while! Help her down easy, Aswyll. Troop, dismount!”
     
    It took a few moments for Ellayne’s legs to stop wobbling. Then she opened her knapsack, and Wytt jumped out. Although they’d been told what to expect, some of the troopers flinched when they saw him. Some caught their breath, and all of them stared. “Heaven preserve us!” one or two men muttered. Many Obannese have superstitious beliefs about Little People. A few of the troopers stared at Ellayne as if she were a witch.
     
    “We have to find Jack, Wytt,” she said. “This is the place where the bad men got him. See if you can find his scent.”
     
    “Those men are afraid,” Wytt said, looking up at the troopers.
     
    “Never mind them,” Ellayne said.
     
    He scampered all over the ground, stopping here and there to sniff and study. In the feeble predawn light, he must have looked to some of the men like a kind of goblin, or a devil. But their horses ignored him.
     

     
    Wytt was overjoyed to be out of the sack. He ran to stretch his legs. He knew most of the horses in Ninneburky, and they knew him. But he didn’t like the way that fear came oozing off the horsemen. He would rather not have been seen by them at all. He didn’t like being around so many Big People at once, but he understood the need for it.
     
    To him the scene of Jack’s abduction was as easy to read as a picture book, illustrated with odors instead of colors. Herger, standing close by, gave off a scent of fear that almost drowned out the other scents.
     
    What everyone soon saw, of course, was the dead body lying crumpled on the stony shore. When Ellayne first spotted it, she feared it might be Martis. But Wytt gave it only a brief examination.
     
    He understood that the Girl was anxious about the Boy, and after he’d learned what he wanted to know, he scampered back to Ellayne.
     
    “Men took Boy, but first Whiteface killed that one. Only Boy’s