“We’ve got to get off this road,” he shouted, spitting out dust. “Is there someplace we can turn off?”

“How should I know?” Dancer shouted back. He looked ahead, squinting against the declining sun. “It’s been a while.” They thundered on another half mile, and then Dancer called, “You know, there is a place up ahead where we might lose them.”

Delphi Road followed a clear trout stream, sharing the valley it had carved through the declining Spirits to the south. Dancer looked off to the left, seeking a landmark. Han rode up beside him, trying to maintain their breakneck pace.

“Along here Kanwa Creek turns west, and the road runs due south,” Dancer said. “We can turn off and follow the creek and maybe lose them. It’s a narrow canyon, rocky and steep. Made for ponies, not for flatlander horses. Look for a rock shaped like a sleeping bear.”

The turnoff couldn’t come too soon. As the sound of pursuit grew louder, Han turned his head and saw that the two wizards were now only three or four pony lengths behind them. When Fiona saw Han looking, she stood in her stirrups and dropped her reins. Fumbling at her neck, she extended her other hand.

Flame rocketed toward Dancer. Had Fiona not been on horseback, it might have struck true. As it was, it seared Wicked’s shoulder. The pony screamed and veered to the left, crashing into Ragger and nearly launching all of them from the road.

Han struggled to keep his pony from going down, while Dancer wrenched Wicked’s head back into the straight.

The message was clear: Fiona Bayar wanted Han alive, but Dancer was fair game.

Han yanked his blade free, expecting to find their pursuers right on top of them. When he looked back, he was surprised to see Fiona and Wil falling behind, fighting to regain control of their rearing and plunging horses. The bluejackets bunched up behind them, trying to avoid colliding with the two wizards. It seemed the wizards’ blueblood mounts weren’t trained to carry riders launching flaming attacks.

“There it is!” Dancer pointed ahead to where a massive granite boulder bulked into the road, squeezing it from the left. It did, indeed, resemble a sleeping bear, its head resting on two massive paws. As if recognizing it as a sanctuary, Wicked surged forward, Han and Ragger following close behind.

The bluejackets and charmcasters must have got themselves sorted out, because once again Han could hear horses pounding after them.

Han and Dancer swerved around the promontory of rock, temporarily out of sight of their pursuers. Just on the other side, the ground fell away into dizzyingly steep rock terraces. Kanwa Creek plunged over a series of cascades between sheer stone walls and out of sight. The roar of falling water echoed up through the canyon.

“You mean to go down there?” Han looked around for other options. Ragger being his first horse, he didn’t want to see him lamed his first week out. Not to mention stumbling and sending the two of them head over heels into the chasm.