Challis took a slow breath to calm the chittering in her stomach. Now that she had actually gotten to where she was now, she could hardly think past the trembling in her hands.

Another breath, and whatever you do, don't throw up.

"Please don't," Thax said lightly. Challis blinked in confusion, then bit her lip. She took her urge to turn and run, and stuck it into the ground with a sharp piece of effort. Then she turned to speak toward the other two.

"What have you done with the people you've been hunting down?" Her grip tightened on the ropes. "What's happened to them?"

Someone took a step in the water to the left, and a man's voice revealed his position. "Now, then. This isn't what it looks like."

"He's right," Thax added. "I was already here. I'm grounded, by the way. Let me handle this."

A faint click sounded in front of her, perhaps fifteen feet away. Challis tilted her head up a bit, pressing every bit of concentration into her hearing. It could have come from Thax, maybe the little weapon on his forearm, but it seemed to have come from a little higher than where his voice was. The men had circled.

"What it sounds like," she said, drawing it out, "is that you're working with Shaw. He send you out to find the rest of us?"

"Aye. And to bring you all in, chatty and troublesome as you be." Keefs splashed toward her. "Hand over those reins, lass. You're about to see more of these horses than you ever wanted to."

"So are you," Challis said warmly. "If you come any closer, I'll careen them into a panic like the first time and let them trample you to pulp."

A short silence struck the men, and Challis hoped they couldn't hear the incriminating pounding of her heart. She cleared her throat slightly, and sent a quick movement of her head toward Thax. She could only hope he saw it.

"That was –" Keefs, or Nash, grunted and then laughed. "That was you! The secret horse whistle that turned everything all wackadoo."

"Who ever heard of a horse whistle?" the other interrupted. "This'll make Shaw's day, pike my beanpole, if only we could…"

As they went on, Challis glanced toward Thax again, and caught the low murmur just loud enough for her to hear as she was listening for it.

"In her bag," he said softly. There was something else, it may have been "Not yet", but she missed it completely under the talk of the others.

In her bag. He must mean Flantain's saddlebag. Challis' thoughts bounced back and forth, then snagged on something. Thax was 'grounded,' he had said, whatever that meant, and fostering a shooting truce. Flantain was wisely keeping her mouth shut. Somebody had to do the stupid talking. There were only her, two raiders, two horses and a thrike to work with. And something she remembered in all the discussion about Shaw.

"I've got an offer for you," she said, drawing the men's attention back to her. "An alternative to zapping your beasties."

"Do you? Is this where you bring out the sacrifice play?" The man's tone was amused. "If you say take you and leave them, that'll just about fill in that sweet tooth of mine for cheap drama-hopping, sweetskirts."

Challis shook her head once. "Not me. The pterosaur."

Someone let out a short laugh, more scornful than before. Challis took a set of reins in each hand, holding them loosely as she set her feet on the bank. She turned again to Thax.

"Are there only two of them?"

"Mm-hm."

Challis paused meaningfully, then went on to the others, "This doesn't have to get rough. Take the pterosaur, and act like you never saw us. And I'll leave you and your horses alone."

Thax chilled, and it wasn't from the sudden relief as Shoot shifted off his leg in the water. She couldn't just do that, could she? The idea of thrikes as Oedolon property was drilled into every handler from day one, and the idea of treating them as coworkers even more so. He still harbored a heavy ache in his gut at the memory of Punge, literally shot out from under him and left for lost. The animal had served a good run in Polescos, and now another one of the best was on the line. Thax noted the uncertainty of the Perraxis raiders as they shared another glance. Hope sparked into him. They wouldn't just do that. Would they?

"Shaw knew what was what," he said, starting to worm his way up to a better sitting position. The shock of his injury had started to fade, but was replaced by deep, shooting pains in his side. He eased back down and gasped, "You take this pterosaur, and the material value of its individual parts will bring you more than if you turned it in alive. Thrike hide alone is up to twenty units a pound if you go about it smart." The atrocity of the idea almost choked him, but he swallowed it and kept going. If Hammond could hear him now. "Especially this one. You're looking at maybe three hundred pounds of quality leather right there. It's a good deal." His face twisted up, pale again, but confidence filled his voice as if he were a slave dealer calling out rates from a platform. "Take it or leave it, mates."

Keefs, to Thax's discomfort, just drew the blade from over his shoulder. Holy crickets. So much for that.

"You two can sweet talk," he chuckled, then gestured toward Thax with the blade. "I'd get ahold on those reins if I were you, lad. We're going to tie that animal to a horse, and if it jumps us, you'll be hurtin' first."

Thax didn't miss the gleam in his eye as Keefs looked over the thrike. The thought struck him that they had been eyeing Shoots earlier, not Flantain, if Challis was right about the Perraxis crowd being more loyal to their own pockets than to Brumelo. Nuts, but he just couldn't be sure. He carefully took up Shoots' reins again. "Alright. I need a hand here, though."

Nash stepped in and eased Thax onto his feet, hairy hands gripping around the young man's shoulders as if he were standing a fence post on end. Thax managed a step, then another, the other man helping him toward the bank where Challis waited. Shoots heaved its bulk up to follow.

"Easy, Shoots. Easy, buddy," Thax found himself saying. Then, "We need to get her off his back. He won't stick to a horse's muzzle if he's got a rider." The lie spun off his tongue easily enough. He stopped advancing with Shoots right in front of Challis and almost beak-to-nose with the closest horse.

"Hm," Nash grunted. "Hold it down then. Keefs."

Both men made a move to start cutting Flantain free from the thrike's back, but not before Challis broke in.

"I can," she said, pushing the horses' reins at Keefs so he had to take them. She had her own little blade already ready, Thax noticed, and she started sawing at the vines holding Flantain and the pack.

Nash caught Flantain just as she regained consciousness.

The young woman didn't cry out, but in the space of a breath she jerked into a reaction that both surprised Nash and turned her into a slippery fish. She slid straight down through his arms to land in a heap, knocking into Thax's shins so he crumpled down on top of her. The thrike whipped its head loose and let out a squall that could have summoned an army on the other side of the rainforest.

Challis almost dropped the saddlebag at the noise. One of Shoots' mighty wings whooshed up, however, and knocked the bag flying.

"No!" Challis shouted. The batlike wing caught her in the middle and she ducked into a huddle. Heavy claws chomped up the pebbles on the creekbank next to her, and so did the hooves of the dancing Perraxis breed. Their nickers of alarm broke havoc in the echo of the thrike.

Challis frantically felt around for the saddlebag, expecting at any minute to be stepped on. The men must have been holding both horses and the thrike, shouting back and forth to each other while who knew where Thax and Flantain were. It was all for lost now – the men would take them all back to Hannowold and, if Thax was right, hostile Brumelo territory. Legal proceedings could keep them there for weeks, maybe months. They would take her tripwire.

A whistling crack punctuated the action, then a short yell and a splash. The horses sloshed through the creek and plowed their way up the opposite bank with whinnies of panic. Before Challis could make sense of the direction, two more shots burst out. A hoarse shout followed from the other raider, a scrabbling noise, then the bright clink of metal.

Shoots flapped again as if trying to take flight, then pushed past Challis away from the water. Maybe Flantain was over there. A furious curse from Thax sounded in the opposite direction, accompanied by the grunts and gasps of a struggle.

"Drop it," Nash called out, breathing hard. "I'll slice his throat!" His short sword clinked again on the bronze buttons of Thax's collar.

"Go ahead," a commanding voice called from the treetops. "When he's dead I'll have a clear shot at you."

Nash gave a defiant laugh, and another splash sent spray up onto Challis' boots. Her heart jumped into her throat as she spun around to face him, bracing her hands on the root-choked bank behind. She didn't want to be next, but if Nash was coming for her, she would have to behave like Flantain and go for slippery quick. She lurched for a stance on the balls of her feet. Then a short metallic grinding noise ended in a loud pop that made her flinch.

The Perraxis raider let out a gargling scream as Thax's custom semicircle sidearm punched a barbed bullet straight up his nose. He collapsed into the water, pulling Thax down with him.

When Challis remembered to breathe again, the air still quivered with an energy that she didn't need the tripwire to feel. Dizziness tipped her back against the bank. A headache pounded behind her eyes, sending cold shakes all along her limbs until she had to sit down or be blown away like a leaf.

The voices of the Director and Groffoco came closer, and something of a relief poured onto Challis. For the first time in thirty-six hours, the threat of unknown pursuers vanished completely, and was soon replaced by a weariness that would have dropped her to the ground if she weren't down already. She was tired of waiting, sneaking, and tired of the blankness that filled her sight when she wasn't actively trying to inhale her surroundings.

The thought of Groffoco and his backpack made her stomach curl in on itself, scraped-bowl empty and growling.

Thax dragged himself with whiffling gasps up onto the bank near where she sat.

"You hurt?" she asked, his groans jogging her memory. He huffed out an affirmative. Challis rubbed at the mud on her hands and tried to wipe it on her skirt flaps before remembering the tree sap from when she'd slid down the trunk to follow the raiders.

"Are they dead?" she went on softly.

Thax groaned again at the treetops. "Better be. Or I want my money back." He kept his breathing shallow, and his words came out in short, gritted bursts. "I told you… to let me… handle it… Gannagen."

"I know."

Any more words took too much effort, so the two went dropped into silence as they waited for the others. Drunnel was first, calling out orders as if Thax and Challis had never left.

"Not a moment to lose. Captain, help the lady with the pterosaur. Tofflar, on your feet. Challis," he said, boots tromping up in front of her. "How could you let things get this far?" The last word cut off short, and his tone turned dangerous. "What the hell have you done with the tripwire?"

Challis, her head still pounding, waved a hand to her right. "I would ask him."

Drunnel took a breath as if about to, but Thax interrupted in a wheeze. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over my broken ribs. Director, what should we do with the bodies?"

Both Challis and Drunnel turned on him, but Groffoco's voice came next. "Um, sir. Over here. She can't walk on her own. I can crutch one side and help her, but we'll need to wait until dark to get her up to the hideout."

Drunnel gave a sigh. "Of course. Challis, you've got to get eyes out there. Now, someone will tell me where the tripwire is if you don't want to be caught unawares again."

A weighty silence was broken by both Challis and Thax at the same time. "In the bag," they said. Then he added, "Sir."

Solid steps splashed on the edge of the creek. "This one?" Drunnel rooted around inside the saddlebag, then came back to Challis and thrust the loose wire at her hands. "Don't lose it again."