Challis watched the bobbing head at the end of her reins. The ears were long and upright. The first hour in the saddle had already settled deep in the muscles of her thighs and lower back as the barrel body of a mule, Speck, rolled back and forth between her legs. Challis was forced to counter by keeping her hips loose, though sitting up straight didn't help to ease the aches, and slouching made it worse. And that was only the motion of the ride. Her awareness of the stumpy mule's power sat forefront in her mind, and not as a comfort – Speck was no puny beast, despite the name. An equine's control of its own mind and body was the first lesson Challis had ever learned at the horse barns in Polescos, and now the thought seemed to seize at the edges of her sanity, as a threat, unearthing the nightmare from six years ago when a horse had gotten out of control.

Speck tugged irritably at his bit, and Challis let her arms relax. At least he seemed to be following the horse in front of him without much complaint. Challis was relieved, as she felt he wasn't even noticing when she squeezed with her knees. If he took off on his own track, she knew, she needed to be ready to pull with everything she had. Speck the Chunk could tackle any terrain, though working with one out of one hundred fifty horsemen and thrikes in a caravan was not as easy as it had sounded at first. The crowd and its noise could have been a thousand for all Challis could tell.

Theopassus Passage cracked apart the mountain peaks ahead, flanked by twin summits that stood as sentries on the edge of the rainforest. From this distance, their bases were plastered with green sheaths that didn't reach too far around the sunbaked rocks. That glimpse of fresh color seemed to urge on the company, especially as midday had cooked them all to exhaustion and the caravan leaders had relayed a hope to reach the outpost town of Mawsch before half-light.

"He's not going to calm until you do," Rasalas said beside her, again. Challis tried to ignore him. He had already told her that four times. His own horse, a sturdy brown tosser, was his by request because of how easily it accepted the presence of the pack mule. On his other side, an experienced horseman from the famed Powder Horse Ranch in Eastwedgen kept pace with them, claiming to keep an eye on the mule's interaction with the other horses. Rasalas wasn't sure he was watching the mule. Over the past few days, the handsome Officer Mencken had escorted them and a few others across Oedolon to meet up with the rest of the horseback hoard in Eastwedgen, and he had stuck to them like glue since leaving the canyon city.

Challis twisted around to look behind, but Oedolon had long disappeared into the shallow mountain terrain. Dotted with boulders and prickly scrub brush, broad slopes descended at a gentle grade that would soon bring them to the only pass to the rainforest big enough and safe enough for the whole band. At least, according to the thrike patrols at the head of the excursion.

"Maybe he's just stubborn," she said, glancing over at her brother. "I'm used to mules in my day-to-day life."

He grinned at her and tapped the brim of his hat. Challis was cheered by his response, and the reminder that aside from on horseback, they were exactly where they wanted to be. A shiver ran down deep and settled cozily inside her with a rare thrill of pleasure. A breeze piled down onto them from the mountainside, and Challis lifted her chin toward it, up toward a sky that had always seemed so distant from inside the canyon.

Officer Mencken clopped in closer to them. "I hear you were specially snagged by Agent Haske," he called out, his voice gruff and chummy. "Good horsers. Branegan, is it?"

He had leaned forward to talk around Rasalas at Challis. She adjusted herself on the saddle and sent a smile to his horse. "Gannagen. And is that what he told you, sir?"

"Ah, Gannagen, of course. My off, ma'am. There was this little seafood pub where I come from, called Branegan's. Best mackerel chowder this side of Petchkan."

"Oh," Challis said, without quite sighing. She wiped at the sheen of sweat gathering on her forehead. "We've never had mackerel. Too far north. Where are you from?"

"Ah, shame." Officer Mencken sounded genuinely appalled. "You need to get out more. Shoot, born and raised barrio myself and all."

She shot him a glance. "Barrio, sir?"

"Barrio," the other said again, his voice firm. "I see it in your faces. Had it rough, you two. I know slum when I see it." At that, Rasalas turned around to face him, but Mencken held up a good-natured hand. "Not a put-down, lad, I'll take your kind of grit any day."

Challis pulled in on the reins, harder until Speck stopped, his nose almost on the rump in front of him. "Why are we stopping?" She looked around to see they had drawn up to the base of a cliff, where a steep rock wall grew upwards into a towering height of almost three hundred feet. The clatter of hooves rebounded from the stone, disguising the gentle sound of water trickling somewhere out of sight.

"We'll refresh here," a man's booming voice called back over the portion of the company surrounding them. "The outpost town is a quarter mile on, but take advantage of the natural water flow here, then enter the town on foot. Chief's orders."

Officer Lars had been the other authority in Polescos with Mencken to relay information to Drunnel the previous week. Though his named rank was Major General among the Eastwedgen crowd, the mishmash of ground recruits and air recruits on this expedition had titled him simply 'Primary Officer,' though he preferred the generic 'Officer Lars' as if to revel in the ambiguity. He was the primary loudspeaker for Chief Bosk, who was head of municipal operations at the FHF and leader of the expedition. Challis heard the words repeated behind her to the rest of the riders.

"Thank the powers," Mencken muttered. "Needles in my niggles and I'm starving."

They dismounted, jostling a bit in the space as riders behind them came in too close before halting themselves. Challis kept her boots carefully back from the mule's hooves. She didn't want Speck to break her toes before they'd barely started the first leg of their journey.

Still, she was glad to be on the ground again. Even her shoulders ached, though she realized she had been holding them tense since the moment she had climbed into the saddle. She and Rasalas moved smoothly into rubbing down their mounts. Speck's mottled white and gray hide was soaked through with sweat beneath his gear, and Challis wiped at the sticky fabric coating her legs. They had ridden without stopping since half-light this morning, and she wasn't sure whose sweat was whose between her and the mule.

The natural water flow turned out to be not much more than a rivulet amid the gnarled trees near the base of the cliff, but the riders took eager turns to splash faces and refill canteens. Mencken had offered to hold Speck and Rasalas' horse – Challis thought its name was Lickspittle, or Lackadaisy – for them.

"Is that what I think it is?" she demanded, twisting the top of her canteen. Water washed over one of her boots, almost tipping over her disinfectant drops container. Rasalas had tromped back into sight and stopped at her words. Challis glanced up to see him refastening his belt with an odd look, and she rolled her eyes. "Around your neck. Really, Ras?"

"It's Lakko's," he said. "I, uh, borrowed it. Just trying it out. And I need to have it ready at hand, you know? To throw back to him at a distance before he kills me for taking it."

"Why do you even have it?" she asked. Then, without waiting, she went on. "Say, what happened to that one that you got from the cavern a week ago? It doesn't work, does it?"

"Not yet," Rasalas said with a sigh. "I need Drunnel's help but I can't just tell him where we found it. And keep it down, will you?"

"Can I try it?" she asked suddenly. "Lakko's. I only got a little taste of it."

He gave a scornful laugh, kneeling to fill his own canteen. Other conversations sounded around them in the trees as others did the same. Challis leaned forward to grab his arm.

"I mean it. Please?"

He didn't look at her. "No."

Challis scowled and stood up. She returned to Mencken, who had tied Speck and Lackluster, or Lemongrass, to a tree while currycombing his own Powder horse. His attempts at conversation were met with silence, and when the brother returned Mencken went off without another word to the waterside alone.

"Here," Challis handed Rasalas the reins to both Speck and Mencken's horse. As soon as he had both hands full, she reached at his collar and pulled out the tripwire quick as a wink.

"Hey," he cried out. "Challis!"

She backed away, slinging the wire around her neck and crossing it in front just like she had seen Lakko do before. Rasalas' eyes were wide, angry.

"Stop it. You don't know –"

"Do I just yank it?" Challis asked, a nervous laugh trembling through her voice. "That's so backwards."

"No, don't!" He was practically shouting now. Heads turned towards them, and Challis half-realized that it was mostly thrikes and their handlers scattered around them, not the horse crowd. Most of the horseriders didn't know the Gannagens, except for perhaps a vague rumor about the accident that had killed their mother and permanently damaged Challis. Most of the thrike crowd, on the other hand, did know them. The glances that came their way, then, didn't care what was happening between the Gannagen twins any more than they cared about two rats fighting over garbage. Nobody intervened.

Challis tried to channel Lakko's determination as she yanked hard on both knots. The wire stuck. It didn't just not work, it stuck to itself where it crossed and didn't loosen even when Challis stopped pulling. It shut off her air and she felt a flash of panic.

The patch on her neck buzzed, the noise too loud in her ears, whizzing higher and higher in pitch. Hot blood rush pounded behind her eyes, and pain erupted in her lungs. Rasalas was shouting. In her overlapping double visions, she saw her own body drop, slumping down in halting movements almost completely beneath the body of a horse.

Then she was dragged roughly across the dirt, away from Laughingstock's hooves, Rasalas' hands alongside hers as they both clawed at the wire on her neck. Challis choked, blinded by heat and tears, her body writhing even as Rasalas finally pinned her shoulders to the ground. Duty calls. He hammered out words, each one loudly and clearly in front of her face.

"No. Fear," he said, his own voice catching, then, "Stop. Being. Afraid. It's the only way out. Trust me."

Challis' vision tunneled into blinding spots of light, a sickening blur of color. The words came again, each one accompanied by fingers snapping right next to her ears.

"Stop being afraid!" Rasalas barked. "Please, Challis. Trust me!"

Afraid. Don't be afraid. Challis had imagined death so many times in the last six years that the phrase came naturally. She had imagined welcoming it. It meant better things to come. In a desperate grasp, she pushed away the surging terror and prayed, prayed for courage, with one word: help.

A gurgling rush, then the pressure on her throat snapped away, slicing straight through her neck in an electric shock. Rasalas' hands were closed over hers, forcing her fingers into fists around the knots. Challis burst out strangled coughs, heaving in frantic lungfuls of air though each one burned all the way down. She tried to roll over but couldn't, so she wrapped both arms around her belly and coughed and gasped for life again and again.

Then Rasalas really did slap her. Stupidity calls. He braced his knees on the ground where they straddled his sister's hips and whirled the entirety of his upper body strength straight at Challis' face.

Even her shoulders came off the ground. Her hands flew to her cheek and she stared up at him, shaking. When anger drowned out the shock, only a piece of it was her own. It thrummed in the air between them like heat waves, and within moments an explosion of emotions, terror to panic to fury, then an uncomfortably close sense of hunger and keenness from the thrikes, broke over her mind in a frenzy. They came raining in from the company of animals and riders around them. Her pain vanished for a moment. So did her double vision. Rasalas' expression and even his scruffy sideburns stood out in perfect detail, as did the textured horse saddles behind him, and thrikes and trees and people and the whole blooming mountainside behind them.

Then, tears welled up as the whole left side of her face surged into stinging throbs with every blessed heartbeat.

"You…" Rasalas still loomed over her, clutching the tripwire in both of his fists and twisting it as if to squeeze the life out. "Do you have any idea…" Yellow eyes glared, and he was shiny with sweat. Challis tried to scoot out from underneath him, her breath still coming hard.

Rasalas mistook her silence for shame, and forced himself to look up and away. Mencken had hold of both loose animals. He had heard the shouts, ran back and managed to snatch his own horse and grab the halter of the mule before either could wander off. His voice ran on in soothing, nonstop syllables but he was staring at the twins. Challis sat on the ground with her arms around her knees, eyes up and mouth open as if in a daze, the weird spot of color on her neck flashing bright orange like a warning signal. Her brother stood and stalked over to his own horse, throwing the coil of wire into his saddlebag with an oath.

He turned on Officer Mencken. "We're fine, sir. We'll meet you at the outpost."