Two trikes tear down the winding canyon at speeds that are frankly madness, slaloming around stray boulders with last-second swerves. Atrax keeps his distance from Slaughterborne, fading away when the raider chief tries to close. He's got a lead of a trike-length or so, slowly lengthening as the growling machines continue to accelerate.

  But we're running out of room. The canyon narrows for a stretch before it reaches Redtop, barely wide enough for both trikes to pass. In the back of Slaughterborne's trike, Hunter hefts his first harpoon, an unwieldy-looking thing with a strangely bulbous head. It takes me a second to recognize the design, and then I kick the back of Atrax's chair.

  "Brake!" I yell, as the war-priest throws.

  Atrax turns the trike into a skid, Slaughterborne shooting by on our left. The harpoon hits the sand ahead of us and the bomb on its tip blossoms into an orange fireball. Our momentum carries us into it, and I feel my exposed skin burn and my eyebrows frizzle, but we come through the other side basically intact. Atrax stomps on the pedals and shifts rapidly, pulling out of the skid and gunning it after the other trike.

  "Bombs?!" I shout in his ear. "Bombs are allowed?"

  "I don't think we specified what of harpoons," he yells back, sounding almost impressed at his adversary's cleverness.

  I pick up one of my own weapons as we pass into the narrow part of the canyon. The distance between the trikes closes by the second. Hunter's bending over to grab another harpoon, giving me his whole broad back as a target. I try to pivot on one foot like Grindau showed me and let the weapon fly. The wind takes it immediately, and rather than the neat parabola I envisioned it crashes into the earth so close that it nearly clips the side of our own trike.

  Right. Throwing is a lot harder than sideways or back. As if reading my thoughts, Hunter raises another harpoon, this one with an ordinary head, and hurls it straight at my heart. That would have been the end of me if not for Atrax, who swerves violently just as the war-priest throws. The trike skids again and the harpoon thunks into the frame, burying itself in the thin metal.

  "Right side, right side!" Atrax screams, fighting the wheel. I throw my weight out over the edge of the bucket as the skid threatens to turn into a spin, rebalancing the trike. Slaughterborne has pulled ahead again. As the canyon opens up, he picks up speed, and we're no longer gaining.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Can we still catch him?"

  I've been a piss-poor second so far, but Atrax still sounds confident. "We're just getting started. Move the red lever all the way to the right."

  I lurch to the back of the bucket and find the handle on top of the spitting bulk of the engine. It's so hot to the touch that I leave patches of skin behind. Immediately the growl of the motor changes tones, becoming a loose, throaty roar, and the trike leaps forward so fast I'm almost pitched over the tail. Atrax shifts and shifts again, head down and teeth gritted. The other trike starts to grow closer. Redtop looms ahead, a single flat-topped mesa surrounded by a jumble of shattered rocks.

  By the time we're approaching the rock formation, we're nearly neck and neck, and we have the inside track as we go into the turn. For some reason Slaughterborne doesn't press in, letting us pull ahead as Atrax cuts as close to the base of Redtop as he dares. I grab a harpoon, ready for trouble, and a fresh sound of engines confirms my fears.

  "There!"

  Three raiders on bikes are bouncing down from the rocks. They've all got long, jagged spears, and they're aiming to intercept us in the middle of the turn, when nobody from the camp can see what's happening. Atrax swears violently and tries to drift away from them, while Slaughterborne hangs well back in case we wreck.

  Hopefully my own little cheat is in place. ""

  "MuuuuuuuuuurDER!" She leaps down from a hiding place among the rocks, her legs sharpened into pair of blades as she descends with pinpoint accuracy. One biker is punched clean off his machine, which goes into a wild skid, throttle stuck open. Mercy surfs him across the canyon floor and grabs ahold of our trike as we rocket past; a normal human would break a dozen bones trying that, but she only swings into the bucket beside me with a broad grin. "Murder!"

  " murder!" I shout, then "Down!"

  We duck. Another biker zips past, her spear slashing above the trike at head height. I pop up and hurl the harpoon after her, and by some million-to-one chance I actually hit what I'm aiming at. The harpoon lodges in her front wheel and jams against the spoke, sending the bike flipping end over end and the rider whipping into the canyon wall. Behind us I can Slaughterborne mouthing curses.

  The final biker closes in from behind, more cautiously. His spear jabs at the rear of the trike, striking sparks from the engine. I glance at my last harpoon, then at Mercy. She can't be with us when we come out of the turn, or else Slaughterborne will just say we cheated --

  "Murder!" she says brightly, as if she understands. She vaults up onto the engine, then leaps down at the biker, her arm blade extended in a killer clothesline. His goggled head shoots off, spraying a spiral of blood, while his bike wobbles drunkenly before toppling over. Mercy hits the ground behind him in a roll, then pops up and skids to a halt in a cloud of dust. She give me a cheery wave before she vanishes around the corner.