She angled west. Soon she observed a path of trees being knocked down as the ogre traveled the only way he knew how—straight ahead, bashing any obstacles out of the way. The average tree didn't like the average ogre much, but didn't have much choice about contact if the ogre came its way. Some trees, however, did fight back, like the tanglers. It was said that an ogre-tangler battle was worth watching—from a distance.

She flew on past the ogre to the goblin camp. The goblins spied her and shook their little fists at her. But there was no sign of Che. That was reassuring—

"Unless they cooked him already," Grundy remarked.

Chex almost fell out of the sky. What a genius the golem had for the wrong thought!

"But they don't have a pot going," Grundy continued. "They couldn't have done it in this time."

Maybe it was the right thought after all! He was right: there was no smoke, no fire. So either Che had not been cooked or he wasn't here at all. She wasn't sure which to hope for.

She flew back to the ogre. "They're right ahead," she called. "Keep an eye out for the foal!"

"Me goal save foal," he agreed.

Well, he had the right attitude. But she felt better now that it seemed unlikely that the foal was there.

"Next group is human, checking the centaur village north of the Gap," Grundy said.

Chex knew why no centaurs were participating in the search: they did not accept her as one of them. Indeed, they considered her a monstrosity, a degenerate crossbreed. She had been welcomed by the winged monsters but not by her own kind. But she tried not to dwell on that; there was nothing to be gained by it. In time there might be an established species of winged centaurs, needing no affiliations with the ground-bound centaurs, just as the winged dragons survived nicely independent of the land dragons. But not if Che was lost!

The human party consisted of three milkweed maids. They must have been given some kind of speed-up spell, because they could not have gotten this far this fast otherwise. They were crossing the invisible bridge, seeming to be in midair, and giggling as they teased each other about what monster below might be seeing up whose skirt. There was no monster below; the Gap Dragon had joined the search effort. But milkweed maids tended to be silly anyway; it was said to be one of the features that made them attractive to men. Chex did not quite understand that, but of course she wasn't human.

She swooped low. "Have you seen anything?" she called.

"Just trees!" one called. "But we haven't started looking yet, because our assignment is the centaur village. Someone else is checking the forest south of the Gap."

"Good luck!" Chex said. But she didn't think Che would be at the centaur village, because though the centaurs did not approve of winged crossbreeds, they were honorable folk who would not interfere. They would not have cared to use so much magic, either, or to conceal their activity, for pride (some said arrogance) was a centaur's nature.