Twilight Velvet and Daring Do continued to watch River Rapids’ mercenary team scan the area. Their conversations had since atrophied into sporadic small talk about the weather and Shadow Spade books. Velvet thought she saw Daring bite her lip at the mention of the latter, but decided not to pursue the thought further. Not when there were more pressing matters…

…like Rapids climbing the pile of crates Velvet had used earlier to get to the top.

Velvet and Daring backed away and out of sight from the mercs. Rapids was already one container height from the ground—closer than any of the other mercs were at that point.

The faint, familiar sound of Daring’s trowel sliding past leather reached Velvet’s ears. Its blade glistened under the sun while its owner’s eyes locked themselves onto Rapids. “Alone, back turned, and hidden behind those crates,” noted Daring. “Time to close in.”

Daring stepped forward.

“Wait!” Velvet grabbed Daring by the withers. “No, no, no, we can’t kill her!”

“Why the hell not?” Daring frowned, then blew a puff of air to her mane. “She’s an easy target.”

Velvet’s eyes darted. “Uh…um… if you kill her, you’re going to have to kill her squadmates, too.” She pointed at the grenadier and the commander. “If you don’t, they’ll smell a rat when they realize one of their number is missing.”

“Velvet, we took down an entire platoon of troops in the San Palomino Desert. Three guys in an area with lots of cover is nothing.”

“Yes, but their command post will also smell a rat if this squad doesn’t report back. Plus—” Velvet’s forehead creased as she raised her eyebrows “—I made a promise to Thunderhooves: bring River Rapids back alive. You wouldn’t want to let our only allies in this mess down, would you?”

“But–”

“Think about it this way.” Velvet ducked her head just as Rapids turned her head. “I’m sure Thunderhooves’ tribe would be real grateful to us if we brought Rapids back. Maybe they’d be even more willing to give you help in your next excursion!”

Daring lowered her head, visibly ruminating on Velvet’s words.