Riding alongside but not with the group was the king. He rode a handsome black stallion. Behind him, a litter slung between two beasts carried the prize. No one accompanied him; I mean, who was going to bother the king? Nobody would, especially not a king as well prepared for an attack: Hank was in full armor, carrying a sword, sixteen spears including the famous Broken Spear, a dagger in his belt and each boot, bandoliers of throwing stars, a shield, a mace, and a morning star. So far, everything was running well. With Aahz keeping an eye on the action down below, and me up here, nothing should go wrong.

"You!" I demanded, as Nunzio slunk out of the shadows. "What are you doing here? You ought to be back there keeping an eye on Gleep."

"He doesn't need me, Aahz," the Mob enforcer said. "I had to talk to you in private."

I eyed him. "What's going on that you couldn't ask me back there? Who don't you want to hear you?"

"Massha," Nunzio sighed, sitting down on a stone and fanning himself with his broad-brimmed hat. "She's queering the whole deal."

"What deal?" I glanced over his head. No sign of the dragon pack yet, but they couldn't be too far behind me. "Talk fast."

"The safe, the first prize, isn't supposed to be in circulation. It was going to be stopped, but there's been a mix-up."

"What kind of mix-up?" I asked. "Who doesn't want it out there?"

"The Council of Wizards."

"Uh-huh," I nodded, thinking hard. The COW was a transdimensional advisory board that had a representative for every gateway to a dimension that used magik. They did a pretty good job of helping keeping items out of a place that wasn't ready for 'em, but there were occasional slip-ups.

"Yes. The safe was a prototype, designed to protect irreplaceable artifacts, but once the scientists let the critics get a look at it, they figured out it was just too easily used for ill-gotten gains," Nunzio said. "Think of what would happen if you put loot from a... business transaction into it Law enforcement could retrieve the merchandise, but all a perpetrator would have to do to get it back again was to reach into the safe ..."

"I get it," I said. I let out a long whistle. "Pretty smooth. Another case of technology running too far ahead of the law. So of course they've got to get it out of circulation again. You'd think something like this would have a major APB out. I never heard anything about it."

"You might not have, perhaps because you've been a little out of the loop lately." Nunzio looked abashed, thinking he'd hurt my feelings. I felt a twinge, but he was right I had had a lot of other things on my mind.

"So the transaction's going to take place where no one can see it Who's out there?"

"Someone from COW," said Nunzio. I shrugged again. Who was I to disagree with COW? "They're going to stick up the king."

"What?!!?" My voice echoed down the narrow valley. "Let it happen," Nunzio said, quietly. "He's the one who called COW in the first place and told them he had it He's an honest man. A crook would never have let it go."

I peered closely at Nunzio. "So he never intended to give it away at this race?"

The race is good cover," the enforcer said. "So's a robbery. Otherwise there might have been too many questions asked, the king just giving up a choice piece of merchandise like that. It's a shame that Princess Glory caught some mention of it She called Massha, Massha called you, and here we are, where none of us ought to have been in the first place."

"Uh-huh." I nodded, as all the pieces fell into place. "So that'd explain the figure in the woods." Another truth dawned on me. "So I'm getting saddle sores for nothing!" I bellowed. Fireball danced under me, responding to my outburst. Nunzio looked really embarrassed. "All right All right! Ill look the other way. Crom save me from future eavesdropping princesses."

Nunzio nodded once. He was a man of relatively few words; once he knew he'd convinced me he didn't waste any more of them. He slid into a crevice, vanishing among the shadows. Pretty good disappearing act for someone with no magik. I gave Fireball a kick to get him started again. He didn't need it Just as Nunzio disappeared, the knot of dragons caught up with me. Fireball whinnied and took off, me clinging to his neck. We bounded down the canyon with the yelps of thirty couples of drakes, wyverns, wurms, firebreathers, and Gleep behind us.

While Fireball ran I had time to think. I needed to figure out a way to distract Massha and the other judges at the time of the stickup. I glanced up as the airborne quintet zoomed overhead. I owed it to her to tell her the truth, but there wasn't any time. The day was rushing by.

I had to get out of the way of the dragons. With the help of the tracker I located the next handy pocket canyon, and yanked Fireball aside as we reached it. The horde thundered past me with the hunters in their wake. Now that I knew none of the others were involved I could stop babysitting them. As he rode by. Prince Bosheer tipped me a merry wave and a salute. I grimaced back. Whelves wrote the book on cheerfulness. I could only take them in small doses.

Now, to locate the king.

I quivered with joy as we flew along above the hunters. We were in the ride to the finish. Over the top of the trees the castle came back into sight. Glory was going to make it!

Down below I saw Aahz rejoin the pack. He gestured furiously at the Samiram, and made a throat-cutting gesture with his finger. That must be our man. I thought he was too scaly to live. I was going to keep an eye on him. Mr. Wrong was never going to have a chance to blow the contest. I tipped a thumbs-up to Aahz, but he was already zipping back into the woods.

Glory was on her way. She was in the zone now, running hard, her cheeks bright pink. She stumbled, and the dragons let out a howl of delight as they gained a few steps on their prey. With the castle so close she couldn't afford to make any detours, or the hunters would cut her off. She was still on top of her game, with lots of energy left. I was so proud of her.

Little Gleep turned out to be amazingly fast for his size. He zoomed out ahead of the pack until he was running side by side with Glory. She reached out and patted him on the head, earning a wide-eyed look of adoration. That dragon was just a love sponge. The big green dragon in the lead, shoving out into the open field, took a few steps and launched himself into the air, gaining on Glory. He set down within a few paces of her. Gleep wheeled on his little blue tail and hissed. The big dragon was so surprised it sat back on its tail, causing a huge pileup as the other dragons caught up with it.

I grinned. The little guy was amazing. Skeeve ought to be proud of him. Later I planned to tell him all about Gleep's adventures, with some judicious editing. It bothered him to hear too much about Aahz.

He still felt guilty for Hot Stuff being without his magik, as if it was his fault that the moronic Imp assassins hit Skeeve's old master before he restored Aahz's powers. Skeeve also blamed himself for not catching and understanding all the words of the antimagik spell; the counterspell had to be exact, or it would make matters worse. Aahz would never get his powers back, and he might have some other problem. Skeeve wanted to make sure that would never happen.

Glory was in the straightaway now, with the drawbridge directly ahead of her. Out in the open for good, she wove from side to side. Now and then she threw a handful of brimstone out wide. The dragons on her tail couldn't resist the noxious little pellets, diving for them and crunching them up with gusto. They got in each others' way, squabbled over the titbits, and, suddenly, fell into pits that Glory had dug days before to delay them. She wasn't going to get caught, not if she could help it.