Danica felt certain that these tracks had been made by someone intent on concealing himself.
In the wilds of the mountains, that rarely boded well for travelers.
A few hundred yards down the trail, Danica found further signs of passage. This time even Ivan could not discount the obvious boot print in the soft trail, though half of it had been just as obviously brushed away.
The dwarf put his hands on his hips and looked about, focusing on the crook of a low branch hanging over the trail.
"I seen some rocks aside the trail just a dozen yards back," the dwarf began.
"Uh-oh," muttered Pikel, suspecting what his brother was getting at.
"Got some big enough trees hanging over the trail," Ivan continued, not hearing Pikel's flustered sigh. He looked at Danica, who seemed not to understand.
"Could set us a trap," Ivan spouted. "Could haul a rock up one of them trees and - " Pike) slapped him across the back of the head.
"You've tried that before," Danica reasoned from the sour look on Pikel's face.
Pikel groaned and Ivan glared at him, but the yellow-bearded dwarf took no retribution against his brother. They had indeed tried that trap before. Although Ivan stubbornly, if with little real conviction, insisted that it had been a success (they had clobbered an ore with the rock), Pikel just as stubbornly insisted that the meager kill had hardly been worth the terrific effort of putting the rock in the tree in the first place.
Knowing that this time there would be another witness, Ivan would have conceded the point and gone along without further mention of the trap and Pikel's assault - it was only a slap, after all - but then, without explanation, Pikel whipped his club up in front of Ivan's face. To Danica, standing to the side, it seemed clear that Pike! tried to halt the weapon's momentum short of Ivan, but the club still connected with Ivan's great nose. It knocked him back several steps and sent a stream of warm blood flowing over the dwarfs hairy lip.
"What'd ye . . ." Ivan stammered, hardly believing the attack. He took up his double-bladed axe, snarled, and stepped toward his frantically squeaking brother.
Pikel couldn't explain the action to either Ivan or Danica, but he did manage to turn his fat club around in time, revealing a heavy dart buried halfway into the hard wood.
Now came Ivan's turn to do his brother a good deed. Looking to the thick bushes past Pikel, to where his warrior instincts immediately told him the dart had come from, he saw a crossbow leveled Pikel's way.
A tall form fell from a branch to land softly behind Danica.
Ivan's pointing finger made Pikel turn about.
"Uh-oh" the green-bearded dwarf squeaked, knowing he had no time to get out of harm's way.
Ivan hit him just before the quarrel, though, taking him down in a perfect tackle as the bolt flew harmlessly past. Ivan did not relent. As he rolled, he heaved Pikel right over him, and Pikel understood the tactic, likewise heaving Ivan back over him. Like a rolling boulder the dwarven brothers barreled into the brush, forcefully enough to tangle the two men concealed there.
The Night Mask behind Danica, his sword bared and held high, had no reason to believe that the woman, intent on the spectacle of the dwarves, even knew that she was about to die. His surprise was complete when Danica snapped into a bend at her waist, her leg shooting out behind her, high enough to connect on the man's chest.
He flew back several feet, slamming into a tree trunk heavily, but managed to regain his dropped sword. More wary, he began backing away defensively, step for step with the dangerous woman's approach.
Danica broke into a run and came in hard and fast, but skidded suddenly to her knees and dipped her head as another form appeared from behind the trunk and launched a shoulder-high swipe at her with a short, slender staff. The weapon banged hard against the tree, spitting flakes of bark.
Danica slipped one foot back under her and kicked out with the other, thinking to break this second enemy's knee. He got his staff down in time to deflect the attack, though, then countered with several sharp and furious thrusts.
The young monk knew at once that she was in trouble. These were not ordinary highwaymen, though their dress seemed ordinary enough. She managed to fall out of the way as the other's sword flashed at her skull, but