"Trip spell?" she asked, pointing to the branch.

Joel nodded as he wrapped his arms around her neck.

Jas took off, flying low, until she reached the end of the valley. She struggled to gain altitude until a thermal of air caught her and practically dumped her and her passenger on the mountain slope.

The needle was an excellent defensive position. It was a thin cleft in a wall of rock situated on a smaller peak just in front of the major peak. Except for a stretch of steeply sloped shale, the other sides of the lesser peak were cliffs. The base of the major peak and the saddle that led to it were all cliff faces. The valley below was a gorge, and the only way up out of the gorge was through the needle on the minor peak.

Holly stood just behind the rock needle, her crossbow loaded, her sword drawn.

Joel looked at the ground just behind the needle. It was worn smooth and flat, like a trail cut into the rock. It went down along the saddle to the major peak before it disappeared beneath another shale slide.

"This led somewhere once," Holly said. "Did you see any sign of a cave from the air? My people used to use them as crypts."

Jas shook her head. She began gathering up large rocks in her cloak. "You don't have to stay, you know,' Joel pointed out.

Jas stood up and looked at Joel. "Like that old joke about two guys running from a bear."

Joel grinned.

"What joke?" Holly asked.

"Two guys are running from a bear," Joel explained. "One says to the other, "We'll never outrun this bear.' The other guy says, 'I don't have to outrun the bear'-'

" 'I only have to outrun you,' " Jas finished.

"That's terrible," Holly said.

"That's life," Jas said. She looked at Joel with a grim expression. "I'll stay until I have no reason to stay," she said.

Joel nodded. She expected to be the last standing, or flying. When he and Holly had fallen, she would be free to fly away.

It seemed to take forever for the Xvimists to reach the base of the mountain. Joel squinted into the sun. Leading the hunt was the loping figure of a man-beast If it wasn't Bear, it was his twin brother.

"How did he survive?" Holly wondered aloud.

"Maybe he wasn't quite dead and the priest of Xvim healed him when they found him," Joel suggested. "Or maybe there was some sort of regeneration spell woven into his transformation,"

"I've got to remember to start cremating the things I kill," Jas muttered.

Below them, Bear howled, even though his master, the priest of Xvim, rode right behind him.

"He's doing that just to annoy me," Jas snarled.

They counted fourteen others behind Bear and the priest. One wore robes like a mage, but the rest were dressed as Zhentilar. Nine of the soldiers were on foot. The trip trap Joel had left behind must have injured their mounts.

The horses balked at the shale slope. The riders dismounted and eyed the slope warily.

Holly turned to Jas and whispered, "If you find Anathar's Dell, tell Lord Randal everything that happened. Tell him I thank him for the trust he had in me. Tell him I died fighting the Zhentilar and the servants of Xvim in Lathander's name."

"I'll never remember all that," Jas said, giving the girl a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "You'll have to live through this and tell him yourself."

Listening to the paladin's pious words, Joel thought again of his own god. Nothing personal, Joel thought, but I'm not really fighting this one for you. He intended to sing a blessing for strength just before the soldiers reached the needle, but in the interim, he wondered if there was anything else he should try praying for. Finder had helped him escape once, but there really wasn't a lot of time for a fresh vision of Jedidiah. He could pray for a quick death so Bear didn't have the opportunity to gloat over Joel's torture. He could pray for courage. His stomach was feeling queasy, and the sword in his hand felt heavy and strange. Mostly he felt regret that he'd never become comfortable in the role of a priest, never lived up to what he thought Jedidiah or Finder needed from him. "Sorry if I was a disappointment, Finder," he whispered.

It wasn't a battle cry, but the words left his spirit feeling a little lighter.

The priest of Xvim finally goaded the soldiers into moving up the shale slope. For all their faintheartedness, the soldiers looked grim and strong, and their weapons sharp and deadly.

At the base of the shale, Bear howled and capered back and forth before the priest of Xvim. Joel could hear him panting. The beastlike sound made Joel's flesh crawl. Bear disgusted him. He didn't want to be near the man-beast again. Suddenly he was gripped by the desire to keep the beast away from Holly. That, at least, could be accomplished.

"Jas," he whispered, "take Holly and get away from here. If you catch one of those thermals, you should be able to get over the first line of peaks. Bear will never be able to follow you over them. He said he can only sense where your feet have touched the earth. He can't track you as long as you're flying."

"No," Holly whispered. "I'm not leaving you."

Jas exchanged a look with Joel, but before the two adults could come to an agreement, there was a sudden flash of light to Joel's left, followed quickly by the boom of thunder. Joel looked up in the sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. As if of one mind, the remaining horses of the foe neighed in panic and galloped off back down the valley.

From the major peak came a great roar. Joel squinted, fully expecting to see a dragon. The roar increased until it sounded like a hundred dragons. Suddenly Joel felt as if he were bouncing on a galloping horse. The very ground beneath his feet was shaking. The shale on the major peak began sliding down the cliff like a great black waterfall. The loose rock parted around the minor peak where they stood, like a stream about a rock. Then the shale continued to spill down the side of the cliff until it nearly filled the gorge below, burying the Zhentilar and the priest of Xvim and the capering Bear.

It was over in less than a minute, although it took much longer for the dust to settle. The noise had so startled all the wildlife that the valley had become deadly silent.

Then Joel heard what sounded like applause. It came from the direction of the high peak on the opposite side of the saddle. Joel peered through the settling dust. A figure stepped out from behind a boulder and began crossing the saddle toward them. It was a man with white hair and a white beard. He wasn't actually applauding, Joel realized, but clapping the dust off his black trousers and red tunic. He smiled up at Joel, and his face crinkled in wrinkles.

"I don't believe it!" Joel muttered, recognizing the man at once.

Holly and Jas half raised their weapons, but they were too astonished to actually attack. With a wave of his hand, Joel indicated that they could relax. He stepped out onto the saddle, spat some dust from his throat, and called out, "Jedidiah! Well met!"

The elder priest of Finder raised his brass glaur over his head in a little victory salute. Jedidiah had once claimed that the valved horn had magical properties that could "bring down the house." Joel realized that he had just witnessed a demonstration of the instrument's power.

"Well met, Rebel Bard," Jedidiah answered his pupil. "You've come a long way."