The air intake that Torch had used to create their back door into Aegis Mountain lay several kilometers to the northwest of their landing position. Jensen was pretty sure he could find it, but he knew better than to head directly there. If Security or the Ryqril succeeded in catching them, he didn't want their travel vector pointing directly toward their goal. Instead, he led Flynn due west, keeping a couple of ridges north of the highway that ran past the Ryqril base, watching for a good spot to start veering north.

They were perhaps two hours away from first light when he finally found it.

"Well, this is fun," Flynn groused as they waded ankle-deep through the icy rushing water of the creek.

"You wilderness instructors are always talking about the marvels of running water as a way to hide your trail. You never mention how slippery these creek beds are. How far upstream are we planning to go?"

"Not too far," Jensen said, peering off to their right. Halfway to the eastern horizon, he could see the

faint blue-violet grav light of several aircraft crisscrossing the sky, clearly searching the likely landing area from the evening's drop. He hoped it was just standard surveillance, and not an indication that Skyler or one of the others had been caught.

He hoped, too, that they didn't take it into their minds to extend their search farther west.

"How far is not too far?" Flynn persisted. "The reason I'm asking is because if I remember the maps right, this stream will take us too far to the east of our target."

"You're right, it will," Jensen agreed. "The trick is going to be with the timing and placement of our

departure. You see, the problem with the running water trick is that everybody knows it. That means that if, say, a pursuing Ryqril chase squad tracks us to this creek, they'll know we've gone one of two directions. All they have to do is split up and try to find the spot where we left the water."

"So we look for a rocky area where our tracks won't show?"

"No, because they know that one, too," Jensen said. "They'll stop at every such likely spot and search the area where the rocks quit, looking for the spot where we would have had to take to softer ground."Flynn pondered that a moment. "So, what, the goal is just to keep them busy running down blind alleys until we've built up a decent lead?"

Jensen smiled. "Actually, I had something a little classier in mind. I'll let you know when I find it."

Fifteen minutes later, he did.

"Here we go," he said, the water swirling around his boots as he pointed to their left.

"Here we go where?" Flynn asked, clearly bewildered as he looked at the wide patch of open mud that

stretched eight meters from the edge of the creek to the trees beyond. A few patches of grass poked out of the mud, and a few leaves and bits of bark and rotted wood were scattered around, but aside from that the mudflat was pretty much empty. "We cross that and we'll leave tracks a toddler could find."

"O ye of little faith," Jensen said reprovingly, slipping his pack off his shoulders and pulling out his

grapple and a length of slender line. "Watch and learn."

He fastened the grapple to one end of the line and draped the rest in a loose coil across his left forearm.

Holding the line half a meter below the grapple, he swung the hook in a slow vertical circle, studying the row of trees bordering the far side of the mud flat. What he needed was a sturdy branch at least three

meters from the ground, and he had exactly one chance to nail it. If the grapple didn't catch and he had to drag it back to himself through the mud, they would have to go on and try a different spot. Picking a likely looking branch, he aimed at its intersection with the trunk and sent the grapple on its way.

Years of practice paid off. The grapple arced almost lazily through the air and dropped neatly into the notch between branch and bole. Pulling back carefully on the line, he felt the hooks dig themselves solidly into the wood.

"Very nice," Flynn complimented him. "I hope you're not expecting us to do a group Tarzan swing."

"Not to worry," Jensen assured him, handing him the rope. "Here-keep some tension on it."

Flynn took the line, draping it over his arm as Jensen had and holding the grapple end firmly. Jensen

backtracked a few steps down the creek, studying the vegetation and terrain on their right. Across from the mud flat the ground rose sharply from the creek bed, cresting into one of the many ridges that wrinkled this part of the world. Fortunately, despite the angled ground, there were several trees situated only a meter or two back from the edge of the water. Picking the one directly across from where he'd hooked the grapple, he pulled out a shuriken and hurled it into the trunk three meters off the ground, burying it vertically nearly to its center.

Flynn was gazing thoughtfully at the throwing star as Jensen rejoined him. "Okay," the boy said. "But how do we anchor it?"

"We don't," Jensen said. "I do. Give me the rest of that line, but keep tension on the grapple end."Flynn handed back the coil. Stepping to the edge of the stream, Jensen tossed a loop of the line over the embedded shuriken, dropping it between the sharpened points where it could lie against the nonsharp center. "Ah," Flynn said, nodding, as Jensen pulled on his end of the rope and took in the slack. "But wouldn't a branch work better? This way we're going to have to leave the shuriken behind."

"True, but if we used a branch we'd probably leave some rope burn behind that would indicate the direction we'd gone," Jensen explained as he pulled the rope tight around the shuriken. "This way, there's no burn, and they're just as likely to conclude we used the shuriken to haul ourselves up into the trees and over the ridge and are doubling back east toward civilization. That's if they even lift their eyes high enough from the creek to spot the star at all, which I'm guessing they won't." Wrapping the rest of the line around his waist, rappel-style, he braced himself and nodded. "Go."

Flynn leaped upward and caught the taut rope now stretching between the shuriken and the grapple. For a moment the line sagged as the sudden weight tried to pull Jensen off his feet. The blackcollar got his balance back and leaned hard against the strain, and the rope once again tightened. Flynn was already on the move, rapidly walking hand over hand over the mudflat. He reached the other side and pulled himself into the tree. "Clear," he called softly.

Unwrapping the rope from his waist, Jensen tied a loose, multiple knot in the end, making sure he had enough line left over to make it all the way across the mud. Then, again swinging it over his head, he threw it to Flynn.

The other caught it and wrapped it a couple of times around another thick branch, this one on the far side

of the tree, and braced himself. "Go," he called.Leaping upward, Jensen caught the rope. Thirty seconds later, he was across the mud and crouched in the branches beside Flynn. Taking the loose end from the boy, he gave the line a little slack, then flicked his wrist to send a ripple wave through it toward its shuriken anchor. The wave hit the shuriken and popped the line free; yanking his end hard, Jensen whipped the whole line over the mud to catch in the branches of their tree."See?" he murmured as they gathered in the rope and freed the grapple. "Piece of cake.""Cake wasn't exactly the word that came to mind," Flynn countered dryly. "But it did work.""Which is really all that matters," Jensen pointed out. "Besides, considering the crazy moves Mordecai's been teaching you, you're hardly in a position to point any fingers. I'll finish with the rope; you get going

down the far side of the tree and see how we get out of here. And watch where you step."

The first hundred meters of terrain turned out to be considerably rougher than they'd had to cross thus far, and more than once Jensen wondered if they should backtrack to the creek and look for a clearer route. But by the time the stars in the east began to fade into the approaching dawn, they had made it through and into a much clearer area.

"How much farther are we going?" Flynn asked as they crossed another, narrower stream and started up

yet another slope.

"Let's get over the top here and see what's on the other side," Jensen said, pointing upward. "Must have had some bad storms come through this past winter-see how many trees have had their lower branches bent over nearly to the ground. We'll find one big enough to hide both of us and wait out the daylight."

"Sounds good," Flynn said. "Too bad we don't have any entrenching tools."

"Well, we weren't exactly planning an excursion outside the bounds of civilization this way," Jensen reminded him.

"Weren't we?" Flynn asked, a slight edge to his voice.

Jensen gave him a long, cool look. "Are you implying something, Trainee Flynn?"

And because he was looking at Flynn and not where he was going, he stepped around a scraggly pine

and got a full three steps into the small clearing beyond before he spotted the bear.

"Freeze!" he hissed, braking to a sudden halt.

But it was too late. With a roar, the bear reared up on its hind legs, its paws stretching threateningly

toward the sky. Jensen had just enough time to notice a small cub bolting away across the clearing; and then, with a thud he could feel ten meters away through the ground, the bear dropped back to all fours and charged.

"Get out of here," Jensen snapped to Flynn, reflexively snatching out a shuriken and hurling it at the bear's head. But a weapon tailored to penetrate rubbery Ryqril skin was no match for fur and thick bone. Instead of collapsing, the bear merely roared in pain as the throwing star buried itself in its forehead and paused to bat at the irritant with a paw. The shuriken popped free and spun off into the matted leaves covering the ground, and the bear resumed its attack.

There was, Jensen knew, no way he could outrun the creature, particularly not on uneven ground.

Without any other real options, he waited until the bear was too close to change direction, then threw himself in a flat leap to the right.

The bear was faster than he expected, slashing out its paw and catching the edge of his coat with a multiple tearing sound as the claws sliced through coat and shirt and scraped across the flexarmor beneath. Even the relatively slight impact was enough to throw Jensen off balance and send him into a fall that could have left him flat and helpless on the ground.

Fortunately, he was fast, too. As he hit the ground he let his leading leg collapse beneath him, turning the fall into a roll that brought him back to his feet with nunchaku ready in his hand. The bear braked to a halt and turned back toward him, growling angrily as it lumbered again to the attack. Jensen braced himself; and as the bear got within range, he leaped aside again, this time bringing the nunchaku blurring through the air to slam into the side of the bear's head.

But again, the furry animal was tougher than any Ryq Jensen had ever faced. For a moment it seemed to

stagger, but then it shook itself and turned again to its prey.There was a faint whistling sound from the side and something shot nearly invisibly across the clearing to ricochet off the side of the bear's head. Jensen glanced over in time to see Flynn hurriedly loading a second pellet into his slingshot. But the bear paid even less attention to the pellet's impact than it had to the nunchaku. Bracing himself for another slash-and-leap maneuver, Jensen waited for the bear to reach the right spot.

But as he started to push off the ground, something unseen beneath the matting of dead leaves shifted beneath his feet. His leap faltered, and for a crucial fraction of a second he was caught flat-footed.

And before he could recover, the bear's swinging paw caught him squarely across his left side.He gasped as a multiple spike of agony stabbed through his rib cage. The force of the blow spun him around in midair, sending him crashing bodily into a squat bush. Clenching his teeth against the pain in his side, he tried to bring his nunchaku back into fighting position. But the weapon had gotten itself ensnared in the bush's branches. Letting go, he instead dug a knife from its forearm sheath and twisted it up to point at the bear loping toward him. He would have only one chance at this, he knew; one chance to catch the animal in the eye and hopefully kill it quickly enough that it didn't have time to deliver a killing blow of its own. The bear closed to within two meters, its jaws opening wide to show huge white teeth- And like a black-clad cannonball, Flynn shot into view, his body sideways and flat to the ground, his knees curled tightly to his chest, arcing straight at the bear's side. His legs straightened out in a convulsive double kick, the heels of his boots catching the bear with devastating force in the side of its neck and sending the animal toppling over onto the ground.

Flynn hit the ground and scrambled to his feet, nunchaku in hand. But the bear had finally had enough. Hauling itself upright, it bared its teeth once more at its attackers and then turned and lumbered off in the direction the cub had taken. A few seconds later, it was out of sight.

"That has got to be the single craziest move I've ever seen," Jensen said, breathing as shallowly as he could. His whole left side felt like it was on fire, with someone jabbing a poker in the blaze with each breath. "Must be one of Mordecai's."

"It's called a door-clearer," Flynn said, shoving his nunchaku back into its sheath and dropping to his knees beside Jensen. "You all right?"

"Hardly," Jensen admitted, probing gently at his side. "I'm guessing I have a broken rib. Possibly more than one."

"Damn and a half," Flynn muttered, carefully peeling back what was left of Jensen's coat and shirt. "At

least the claws couldn't get through the flexarmor."

"No, this way I get to bleed to death internally," Jensen agreed. "Much tidier that way. I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he hastened to add as Jensen's eyes went wide. Sometimes he forgot that these trainees were only kids, without the history of dark wartime humor he and the other blackcollars shared. "Actually, I don't think I'm bleeding at all, at least not very much. Besides, any fight you can walk away from counts as a win. Speaking of which, help me get up."