the creature still squatting nearby.
“That Krog?” someone asked.
“Krog,” Drule assured them.
“What Krog?” another demanded.
“Dunno,” she shrugged. “Just Krog. That all he
remember. All come on now. Got to find Highbulp.”
“Why?” several of them wondered. Then one added,
“We don’ like Krog. Make him go ‘way.”
Drule stamped her foot impatiently, then turned and
walked to Krog. “Go ‘way, Krog,” she said. “Shoo!”
Obediently, the creature stood and backed away
several steps.
“More go ‘way than that!” somebody called from the
hole.
“Shoo!” Drule repeated, waving her arms at Krog.
“Shoo! Shoo!”
Looking very puzzled, the creature retreated farther,
then squatted on its haunches again, a smile of contentment
on its face.
It was some time before the Lady Drule got all of her
people out of the hole. When she did, they crowded around
her, staring at the creature she had found. She was so
hemmed in that she could hardly move, and began pushing
her way out of the crowd.
” ‘Nough look at Krog!” she commanded. “Come on.
We gotta look for Highbulp!”
A layer of dust had settled on the hilltop, and there
were tracks all around. Three distinct sizes of footprints –
gully dwarf prints, human prints twice their size, and Krog
prints twice the size of the human prints.
She showed the rest of them the tracks, then pointed.
“Highbulp an’ rest go that way with Talls.”
Hunch stared at the tracks, frowning. “Highbulp real
dimwit to go with Talls,” he declared. “Why do that?”
“Dunno.” The Lady Drule shrugged. “We go see.”
She set out northward, the rest falling in behind her.
Behind them, Krog realized that they were leaving. He
stood up.
“Mama?” he rumbled. “Wait for me.” He hurried to
catch up with the Lady Drule, and gully dwarves scattered
this way and that to avoid being stepped on.
Drule looked back at the confusion and shook her head.
“Ever’body come on!” she demanded. “No time for fool
around!”
“It not us fool around. It Krog!”
“Make Krog go ‘way.”
After they had gone a few miles, the Lady Drule gave
up on getting rid of Krog. She had tried everything she
could think of to make the creature “go ‘way,” and nothing
had worked. Faced with the inevitable, she accepted it and
just tried to ignore him. It was difficult. Every time she
turned around, the first things she saw were enormous
knees. Even worse, he insisted on calling her “mama,” and
kept trying to hold her hand.
Worse yet, Krog’s presence tended to discourage the
others from following closely. Sometimes, when the Lady
Drule looked back, they were barely in sight. Then, when
the smoky sun was setting beyond the mountains to the
west, she looked around and couldn’t see them at all.
On the verge of exasperation, she climbed a broken
stump and peered into the brushy distance. “Now where
they go?” she muttered.
“Who?” Krog asked.
“Others,” she said. “S’posed to be followin’. Can’t see
’em.”
“Oh,” he rumbled. “Here.” Great fingers circled her
waist, and he raised her high. “See, mama? There they are.”
A half mile back, the others had stopped at the edge of
a fallen forest and were scurrying about. They had built a
fire.
“Oh,” the Lady Drule said. “Time for eat.”
“Yeah,” Krog agreed, setting her on her feet. ‘Time for
eat. What we eat?”
“Make stew,” she explained. “What else?” With a sigh,
she started back.
“What else?” Krog rumbled, and followed.
Partway back, on a wind-scoured flat littered with
fallen stone, Drule saw furtive movement among some
rocks, and her nose twitched. “Rat?” she breathed. She
circled half around the rocks, saw movement again, and
dived at it, her fingers closing an inch behind the rodent’s
fleeing tail. She stood and shook her head. “Rats,” she said.
Krog watched curiously, repeated, “Rats,” and squatted
beside a boulder. With a heave, he lifted it, and several rats
scurried away. The Lady Drule made a dive for one, missed
it. Her hand closed around a stick. A second rodent raced
by. Drule swatted it on the head.
She picked it up, looked at it, then looked at the stick in