The heat had plastered her tunic to her shoulders, and Challis felt sweat sliding down next to one ear. The ropes at her boots were fumbling apart, sliding away to leave hot lines of ache on her legs. Nuggets, she was sick of the saddle. And horses. She dismounted at the command from Bosk. The ground hit her feet, hard, and her knees almost gave way before she could grab Speck's saddle for support. As she did, she reached into her saddlebag and pulled the wire-wrapped blade out of its casing and into her palm.

"Note for yourself, we are not a threat," Chief Bosk kept his voice going. "Let my crew safely into the city, and I will gladly consider deliberations with you there. This doesn't need to be a mass hostage situation."

The Perraxis leader, who had called himself Shaw, released a grim laugh. "Your negotiations" (he pronounced it NEE-gotiations) "are flim-flammery to me, Cap. Give me your thoughts on this: release those winged squawkers to us, and we'll let you go. Unharmed."

"You want the… the pterosaurs?" Director Haske spoke up.

A low murmuring came from Challis' companions. She bit her lip, wincing in distaste at the idea. The thrikes may be valuable, if excitable, but they were companions by nature, with a firm sense of possessiveness. They couldn't be handed off to just anyone like horses could. What did Perraxis raiders want with them? Some faint notion of a thrike as mere material value, its textured hide perhaps, ran through her head before she pushed it away.

"That's it," Shaw drawled. "We'll even walk you to the city, then you all can walk free. Without your wings."

There was a long pause while Bosk considered. Challis focused, quietly locating Drunnel just behind her and to the right. She turned her head to him, keeping her face low.

"Director," she whispered. Then, a little sharper, "Drunnel!"

"What?" he breathed back.

Challis gestured slightly with her hand. "What's the landscape? Tell me a map."

A moment of puzzled silence passed until he responded, his voice in the softest buzz he could manage. "Mountains behind, one mile. City left, four or five. Dogoby's Reach front, forty yards. Jungle right."

The Reach, a long stretch of steep ravine terrain, protected the fortress city of Hannowold from the east. The city had grown up around a military base camp, Challis remembered, between 700 and 750 Crosiac. The ravines had plunged almost twice as deep since that time, worn down by the River Vagrant on its way north.

Challis tucked away the blade and took the tripwire's knots in her hands. But she couldn't do it here and now, she realized with grinding frustration. Who knew how many weapons were trained on her. She thought about ducking close to the ground, but Speck and the Director's horse were stamping nearly on her toes.

"Drunnel," she hissed again. "I need a distraction. Away from me. One that won't get us all killed."

"Beg pardon?"

"Just for a minute. I'm going to use the tripwire. Use those words of yours."

Before anything could happen, however, Chief Bosk called out again. "We'll accept your offer. On one condition, that –"

"Chief!"

Challis jumped at Drunnel's outburst. The abrupt silence sent a shiver down her back. Then Drunnel went on, his voice thrumming over the company. "This whole arrangement is coming from a terrible misunderstanding. Tofflar, with me." He started pushing his way vigorously through the group, continuing his tirade in a show of confidence. "Aren't those two, next to the crecopia tree, the same men accompanying that ledgerman we crossed in Mawsch not three days ago? We had settled on a mutual pact of safe passage once inside Hannowold Territory. Shaw, there is already a prior bargain in place that I only hope you are fortunate enough to have been made aware of."

Thax jumped in, his voice earnest if a little loud. "Of course, we can't assume, sir, that in a sizeable Perraxis gathering such as this that more than a few could have been informed."

"Quite right. You there," Drunnel snapped. "What is the meaning of this double-crossery? You sit there as if we'd never set eyes on each other."

"What are you on about?" a distant hairy voice growled.

The leader cut in with a lolling, lazy tone that nevertheless carried suspicion. "Hang it, Munton, what you been up to now?"

"I haven't no idea what he's yapping, Shaw," the other insisted.

"Like hell you don't, Munton," Drunnel raged, "That's the worst tall lie I ever heard."

Challis could hear them moving further away, and horses thudding and jangling as the FHF convoy made room. She smoothly untied and shook out her hair to hide the tripwire. Then, the far voices still loudly bickering, she ducked in close to Speck and yanked hard on both ends of the wire with a focused determination. A rush of sharp, spiraling energy coursed through her, zapping down to her toes as she fought to stay upright. Even so, she fell against the expanse of heavyset muscle that was Speck's neck. The sweaty stench of his hide against her face came in waves as she breathed hard, her heartbeat loud enough to draw anyone's attention if they had been looking at her.

She replaced the tripwire, shaking in anticipation, and deftly flung her mind out toward the now-obvious circumference of foreign horses. The Perraxis breed was restless, flighty, and wholly different from the robust maccoton-herders that had hauled all the way from Oedolon's Powder Horse Ranch. Challis could sense each and every trilling heart pumping life through lean, energy-mottled bodies that were nearly dancing with impatience by now. There were upwards of thirty of them, all facing inwards, and a deep trench in the rainforest just beyond where they stood.

And they were hers now.

She thrust forward into them, taking hold of one after another as surely as if she had their individual reins in her hands. Whiffling noises and stamping hooves only strengthened her resolve as she went. It was easier now, faster, and the exhilaration of the tripwire's power drove her into bright, delighted laughter. A surprised chorus of shouts and oaths broke over her in a shower of success and Challis pushed forward with all the determination she could gather.

Horses tore free of their rider's control, one after another, wheeling around in tight circles under the stronger hands or completely flinging away in frantic gallops toward the edge of Dogoby's Reach. The commotion and confusion in that minute smashed like a thunderclap into Challis' head, rebounding inside her skull in a sudden, appalling memory. High-pitched whinnying, then a vicious crunch of stone as she fell, sideways and over the edge of a tilting wagon. Wild shouts and a hand seizing her, her mother's, before a steep canyon wall pitched them both down into miles of red rock and blinding darkness.

The steady, popping racket of firearms jolted her out of it. Challis heard surprised grunts punctuating the angry shouts from the Perraxis raiders. Her grasp on the minds of the horses was falling to pieces, but not before a small crowd of thrikes burst into her awareness on the edge of the panicked mob. A gasp stuck in her throat. It was Groffoco and the rest of his team, and probably Calstone and Vanner, all caught in their approach by the crowd of riotous enemy horses fleeing west toward the ravine. She had guided them straight into each other.

Thundering hooves crashed through the underbrush all around her as, she realized, her own FHF team had mounted again and was charging toward the mountains in the opposite direction. Challis couldn't hear her own cries as she stumbled, desperate to get out of the way. Her hands found the smooth surface of a horse's flank, but only just as the huge body trundled into action and knocked her to the ground. Where in the world was Speck? Challis' flurry of panic was cut off short when she backed into a sturdy tree trunk. She scrambled to her feet and pressed close to it, shielding her face with her arms as another horse jangled past.

A strong set of arms wrapped around her waist. Her scream of shock wailed up and down as she was hauled bodily onto her stomach over the blessed curve of a saddle. The horn crammed painfully into her ribs, but she grabbed at the saddle's edges and held on for dear life as whoever had saved her followed her up onto the horse. His thighs shoved into her armpit and hip as he kicked the horse forward, but Challis' legs swung without support as the world became a bumping, breathless, mad dash to safety.