Even after they discovered there was no sign of the city locking down, their exit from the city worried Theo. The guards would no doubt include some Archcrafters, and above all they couldn't afford to bring higher authorities - and Authorities - down on them. But in the end, Fiyu had persuaded him to try her stealth technique, which she had been strengthening.

Theo made the sleigh weightless, allowing the levitation materials to lift them well above the surface, then Fiyu extended her sphere around the entire vessel. With those combined, they avoided the bridges entirely and glided over an empty part of the lake. Though he worried the entire time, and watched the ripples extending beneath them despite his best efforts with gravitational fields, in the end they slid out of Nlukoko and into the northern wasteland.

"Well done, Fiyu!" Nauda beamed up at her as Fiyu sat happily in the central seat.

"The walls are completely reinforced with the reflective bark, and I've completed my central carving. The chamber is finally complete." She folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. "I will focus on attempting to resist Archcrafter observation while you move us away."

Though Theo's imagination conjured sleds racing after them or Authorities rising out of the city, he didn't see any sign that they had been followed. Far from being a tense chase, they cruised away from the city peacefully until Nlukoko vanished in the distance.

That took less time than it normally would, because the ground only became more twisted and hilly as they continued. The sleigh wanted to remain a constant distance above the ground, which meant they ended up weaving up and down the hills. He saw a few scraggly trees at first, but vegetation receded and even the ground seemed leeched of life.

It was so alien to Tatian that he wondered if this region had been damaged in a past battle between powerful soulcrafters. The Landguard might be formidable, but they couldn't prevent all collateral damage. He wasn't completely sure about the details, but he knew that the strongest soulcrafters could have a radical effect on the world around them, creating effects that, if not permanent, could last for generations. Perhaps this was a blighted zone, perhaps even tied to Nauda's past.

"Sporp!" Senka let out another nonsense exclamation and he tried to ignore her, but a moment later he heard Nauda's intake of breath and turned back to look.

A silver mote winked in the distance, another sleigh rising and falling over the hills. No, when he watched more carefully, he realized that there were two silver vehicles in pursuit.

"Don't worry, everyone." Nauda hefted her staff while putting on a false smile. "I'm sure that's just a friendly Deuxan group that happens to be going on a picnic in the same direction."

"He can see us." Fiyu wilted in her seat. "I thought we were so close to invisible..."

"It isn't your fault, Fiyu." Though Nauda turned back to give her a real smile, she soon focused behind them again. "I'd bet that Esaire is on that sleigh, and I think he has a full chamber dedicated to an Archcrafter-tier observation technique. That, or he has some entirely different way to track us."

Though Theo eyed Senka suspiciously, her face actually looked concerned, and she had been the one to warn them. He decided to cut through Fiyu's unhappiness and get her focused on what mattered. "We don't have time to figure out his observation technique now, the question is if he's gaining on us. I was already going as fast as the sleigh can manage, so just judge his speed."

It wasn't long before he got an answer from Nauda. "I think he's gaining, but extremely slowly. Their sleigh seems to be faster, but they're not navigating the hills as smoothly."

"Then let's increase that advantage." Theo again wished that he could apply gravity directionally, but instead removed their gravity as they arched up the next hill. The sleigh shot into the air before he removed the field, skipping the valley entirely and instead landing on the next slope.

Unfortunately, with his attention on driving, he couldn't reduce their momentum perfectly, so the impact was a bit jarring. Fiyu gasped as she was jolted from her seat, only just gripping the next to reduce the shaking. They needed something else...

"Nauda, can you use your binding technique on the sleigh?"

"Not enough to fly or anything like that..." Nauda still hefted her staff and picked up her broken fork. "But you just want to reduce the impacts, right? I'll see what I can do."

It took them several jumps to coordinate properly, but soon they managed it: instead of weaving up and down the hills, they skimmed over the top of each. The sleighs didn't lose much momentum on inclines, but their path was still a straighter line. Behind them, the silver sparks began to recede into the horizon, only occasionally winking from between the hills.

"Do you think they'll follow us forever?" Fiyu asked. Now that Nauda had adjusted to catching them each time they came down, she was able to answer smoothly.

"They've already left their home world, negotiated with Nlukoko, and come this far." She shook her head slowly. "I doubt their determination will run out, but their supplies might. They're probably underestimating how far we intend to go... I'm not sure what will happen."

"What matters for now is reaching the gate," Theo said. "If we actually reach a hub city, their authority won't mean anything, plus we can disappear into the crowds."

"I'm not sure it will come to that. We have a long way to go."

Part of Theo had been slightly disbelieving Nauda, assuming that she'd overestimated the distance in her mind, but as the hours wore on, it became obvious why they'd needed a vehicle. Even flashing forward at their current speeds, they didn't seem any closer to their destination. Judging from the food she'd brought along, Nauda expected the journey to be much longer.

As the journey continued, Theo taught the others how to use the control spheres. Fiyu seemed confused by their design, but rapidly became skilled at sliding around the hills, while Nauda grasped the basics right away but didn't seem to enjoy driving. They couldn't maintain their pace skimming over hills for long, so they slowed down and watched the horizon.

The days stretched on and they fell into a strange rhythm. They traded off driving, sleeping, eating, and soulcrafting to maintain their pace day and night. Once, at the top of a very large hill, Nauda caught a glimpse of a sleigh still following them, but they remained in the lead. When Theo and Nauda were both awake they returned to skimming, just in case their pursuers had other tricks up their sleeve. Overall, it seemed that they might make their escape successfully.

Three days into the journey, Theo finally saw a black structure on the horizon. After so long over dead land with no sign of Tatian civilization, he was eager to examine it... until he realized that it wasn't a building.

"Pull up, up!" Nauda had been partially asleep but now pounded on his back in abrupt panic. He acted without thinking, sending their sleigh high into the sky.

The building unfurled, enormous jaws lunging into the sky toward them.

Theo had no time to look at it, just cast another gravitational field to send them higher. Fiyu partially rose and unleashed a hail of bolts with one hand, but they dissipated against the beast's rocky skin. The jaws slammed shut beneath them and the beast fell back down, leaving Theo to desperately shift fields to keep them from slamming back to the ground too violently. Being so high might make them visible to their pursuers... though they had a much bigger problem, including in the literal sense.

While sending them coasting back down, Theo finally looked back toward what had lunged at them. It crouched on all fours, much larger than a house, but its shape was a strange amalgamation he'd never seen before. The body was bulky with trunk-like legs ending in heavy paws, while the back end curled into a scorpion-like tail. Strangest of all, the head was roughly humanly shaped, unnaturally flat with an enormous mouth and dully glowing eyes.

It certainly looked dangerous, a fact confirmed by his glance at its soul. Clearly a sublime beast, one with several concentric rings of dark rock. He couldn't get a good look but estimated at least three, suggesting that the sublime beast would be a match for even a Ruler.

"What," Theo asked icily, "is that?"

"They're not usually up here..." Nauda took a deep breath, staring at it with an expression he couldn't read. "It's called an eryo, and it's going to chase us."

The eryo had been staring after them, but almost as if prompted by her words, it grasped a hill and pushed itself into the air. A single bound ate up a startling amount of the distance between them and Theo wished that he had more resources. Attacks were clearly useless, so if they couldn't outrun it...

"It's much too strong to fight, and I'm afraid it's too fast, but they're stupid." Nauda looked forward, eyes scanning the horizon carefully. "They're also not very good hunters, instead sitting still and relying on prey to get close to them. So our best hope is to hide until it gets distracted, hopefully by our pursuers. Fiyu, bring your sphere back as soon as we get out of its sight."

Since Nauda was the local expert and the eryo had taken another leap after them, Theo began looking for a hiding place without a word. He would have to ask Nauda some hard questions later, but that could come after they'd escaped the vicious monster.

Fortunately, what Nauda had said about the beast's intelligence proved correct. Even just curling around the side of a hill and changing direction misled it, the eryo rumbling forward for several leaps before realizing they had shifted. It looked around after that, and unfortunately he couldn't drop low quickly enough to avoid its gaze, but he had the beast's number.

Several swerves later, they hid underneath a rocky crag, listening to the eryo storming further away from them. He realized that it didn't growl or roar, which might make sense if it was an ambush predator. Fiyu renewed her stealth technique and they waited above the rocky ground, hoping that they had evaded it.

Aside from questions of why such a sublime beast was on Tatian, Theo thought they had a bigger problem: what Esaire and the others would do. No doubt they'd seen both the sleigh and the eryo, so the question was how they would respond. In an ideal world, their hiding place would remain hidden from both of them, or Esaire would retreat at the sight of the danger. But given the world they lived in, Theo assumed that they wouldn't be so lucky.

They were all silent until suddenly Senka began struggling over the side of the sleigh. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"It's scary! Senka is scared!"

Though he lunged to try to catch her, he was an instant too late and she slipped over the side. Landing lightly on the wasteland below, the brat scampered into a pile of rocks and hid with her hands over her face, as if no one could see her that way. Nauda sighed and started to get up after her, but Theo cut her off with a gesture.

"Let her. The eryo might come back at any moment, and we need to react instantly to have a chance at escaping it. We can't let her sabotage us."

Though Fiyu obviously disliked that idea, she let it pass, given the obvious danger. Soon Theo no longer heard the eryo thumping into the ground at all, which should have been comforting but actually made him more nervous. Maybe it had passed out of range, but it was also possible that it was moving cautiously now, creeping back in their direction, its maw ready to appear overhead at any moment.

Minutes crept onward and he started to believe that they might have escaped... until a silver sleigh floated through a canyon beside them.

"This has proved a much more interesting trip than I thought." Esaire jumped up onto the front of his sleigh, regarding them directly through Fiyu's technique. "But I've wasted our family's resources on this, so I'm afraid I need to have something to show for it."

"Are you really attacking now?" Theo decided to risk leaving the sleigh, since having it damaged would be an even greater threat than a direct fight. "You saw that sublime beast, didn't you?"

"Powerful, but stupid. Your hiding place wasn't enough to escape me."

"You're going to die!" Delarde jumped out of the second arriving sleigh with his pike in hand, though he wasn't foolish enough to yell. "You've gone too far against the Armeau family!"

"This is stupid." Nauda slipped to the ground as well, her armaments ready. "You said that anything taken during a hunt was fair game, so we hunted your sleigh. The insult can't possibly be worth all this trouble."

"You don't understand." Esaire stepped off the sleigh and landed unnaturally lightly, his cloak of cantae flaring up around him. "The family's prestige is everything, and you dealt it a serious blow. Being forced to walk back to Anguedan... I can't allow that to stand."

While they spoke, Theo analyzed the others in the sleigh, and he didn't like what he saw. In addition to Esaire and Delarde, there was another Archcrafter and seven first-tier soulcrafters. Every single one of them had a decently-sized soulhome and he doubted that any were inexperienced. Assuming that they'd all soulcrafted a defense against his gravity, he didn't see any possible way to overcome the gap in power.

When Esaire moved, it wasn't to attack, it was a signal to the unnamed Archcrafter. The woman hurled a shining orb directly at them, and Nauda stuck out her staff to bind it... but the sphere just kept coming. Nauda grunted and twisted, barely managing to redirect it. Whizzing past them, the sphere struck the cliffside silently and silvery matter began spreading over the rocks.

Esaire smiled and readied his gauntlets, confident in his superiority. Theo took a step back, since he didn't see any chance of victory. Yet with this group and those unknown projectiles, escape was also a poor gamble. The female Archcrafter tossed and caught another sphere in her hand, Delarde lowered his pike at them, and Esaire took a step forward.

A rock tumbled down the side of the cliff, striking another, and as a cascade started they all looked up to the top.

"Oopsie?" Senka had somehow fallen flat on her face, but now looked up in surprise as the falling rocks turned into a small avalanche that made both sides retreat. For a moment Theo glared at her, but only a moment.

Then a roar echoed over the canyon and they heard the eryo begin thundering toward their position.