As Maddock climbed the final slope of the hill, one of the cart's wheels hit a lump of stone half imbedded in the track bed. The whole thing leapt and jolted loose a splinter of thigh bone from the pile, which rolled from the back of the cart and away under his feet. Maddock set the cart down carefully before he stooped and picked up the fallen bone, its bloody stickiness now covered in plain's dust. He threw it back into the cart, took the time to clean his hands on his tunic, then lifted it to wipe the sweat that coated his face.

"It is hot, is it not," said a voice from behind him.

Maddock spun around, hastily pulling his tunic back down over his stomach.

Not far behind him stood a girl, dressed in creased and sweaty riding clothes, her tawny hair tied untidily back behind her head.

"Hello again," she said.

"Hello," said Maddock. "It's..."

"Tahlia," said Tahlia.

"Yes, I remember. I'm not daft!"

"Oh, I am sorry, I rather thought you might be."

Maddock scowled at her.

"What do you want?"

"Well, I have just had another terrible morning with Mistress Battista, and I was going to find something nice to eat to cheer myself up, when I saw you, and it occurred to me that you never got the chance to thank me the other day. You know, for stopping my brother from giving you a beating."

Maddock continued to stare at her.

"And, by the way, you should really address me as 'my lady'."

"My lady?"

"Exactly!"

Maddock shook his head.

"So why are you here? Did you just happen by, saw me, and decided that you were due some thanks?"

"Actually, I have been following you since you left the abattoir-shed."

"Why?"

"Oh, just because I have not got anything better to be doing."

"Well, it's all right for some."

Maddock lifted his cart of bones and gristle, and pushed it off up the hill.

"That is no way to talk to a lady!" said Tahlia.

"It's all right for some, my lady!"

"That is better."

Maddock didn't look behind him, but he knew the girl was following him because he could hear her whistling an annoyingly tuneless tune.

"Where are we going?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Well I'm going to the composting-pits. Don't know where you're going."

"I think I will go there as well. How lucky for you."

Maddock turned to look at her fiercely.

"Why? Are you going to help me push the cart or something?"

Tahlia giggled.

"Oh you are funny," she said, then jumped off the path and ran past him up the slope.

* * * * *

When Maddock eventually pushed his way through the krodillis vine, he found the composting-pits curiously quiet. The triangles of tragasaur tarp had been tightly closed around the water tank. Nothing could be seen of the Pit-master beyond them, and the only Grower he could see was the tall three legged Sofree. The creature stood alone beside the Pit-master's pool, its trunk-leg standing in the water with its wrapping removed and resting on the pool's side.

"Hello?" said Maddock cautiously.

The long feelers at the front of Sofree's head waved towards him, but the Grower showed no other signs of awareness.

Tahlia pushed her way through the hanging vines behind him and walked to the centre of the pit area.

"Hello!" she shouted, a lot louder.

"Hey, new boy and trespass girl, you be quiet down there! Sofree dormant."

The voice came from the top of the colonnade behind them, and Maddock turned to see a mowmok looking down at them, its six eyes blinking rapidly. He thought it was the same creature that he had spoken to on his first visit to the pits, but he couldn't be sure. As he watched it jump nimbly down from its perch, he could see no features on it which would distinguish it from any other mowmok.

"What did you just call me?" asked Tahlia, her voice sounding inquisitive rather than indignant.

"Trespass girl. That your name here because you are always around where you should not be, though this time you make more noise than usual. You be careful; Sofree dormant and so is Pit-master, more to point. Don't want to rouse him from dormant unless you want to be made into compost."

Maddock glared at Tahlia, who just shrugged.

"Sorry," he said.

The mowmok had scuttled across the ground and was standing on its two rear legs to inspect the contents of Maddock's cart.

"Bones for bone pit," it said. "Don't need PM to inspect this." It pointed with one long fingered hand to the far corner of the pits. "We go over there."

And it bounded away to where a stub of stone cylinder extended from the ground. Maddock picked up the handles of his cart.

"I like the mowmok," said Tahlia. "They are the funniest little creatures."

Maddock ignored her and wheeled his cart over to where the creature waited.

The cylinder was a metre in diameter and capped with a wooden hatch, held in place by two heavy spring latches.

"You help me with this, please!" said the mowmok as it went to one of the latches and pulled it back. Maddock went to the other and dragged it from its bracket, and together they heaved the hatch open to reveal a shaft of darkness into the earth.

"You know how to feed bone pit?" asked the mowmok as it leapt carelessly over the hole to Maddock's side.

"No," he replied as he gazed down into the shaft, his eyes straining for details.

Tahlia crept close to the edge and peered down.

The shaft was edged with neat cut stone, damp but free of moss.

"Little at a time," said the mowmok as it leapt onto Maddock's bone cart and picked up a chunk of shattered bone, ignoring the cloud of flies that it disturbed. "You give it too much in one go and it go loco and start crunching itself."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked Tahlia.

"See."

The mowmok threw the bone fragment and it curved through the air, into the hole, where it ricocheted off the wall of the shaft and tumbled into the darkness. There was a distant echoing splash, and a play of sudden ripples on a previously black surface of water. Maddock strained to see, but could make out little detail, except for the sudden white churning of water, the sound of which echoed up to him. A second piece of bone arced over his head to disappear into the depths, and this time, above the agitated waters, Maddock heard the distinct crack of a shattering bone and imagined that he could see dark shapes moving in the wet turmoil below.

"You feed it nice and slow now," said the mowmok as it leapt down from the cart, a piece of broken skull held in two hands. "And don't fall in or we not see you again." It dropped the chunk of bone into the pit, causing another churning eruption in the waters below. "Ever."

Then it bounded away to where Sofree still stood, somnolent and unmoving by the Pit-master's pool.

Maddock looked up at Tahlia.

"You had better get on with it then," she said.

Maddock merely grunted and began throwing the bones, one after the other, into the pit.

The Order girl sat cross-legged by the open hatch and watched him work.

"You still have not said thank you, by the way."

"If I say thanks, will you stop going on about it?" said Maddock as he watched a chunk of thigh bone fall to the water to be instantly snatched up by an unseen shape.

"Yes," said Tahlia, smiling sweetly. "Well, maybe."

"All right then, thank you. You're right; your brother would have given me a good beating."

"He would. He is always getting into fights. Fortunately, he is very good at them."

"Well, one day he'll get a good thumping."

Tahlia laughed.

"You do not mean by you! That is ridiculous! Grifford is a knight's son and he has been training with a sword since he could walk, and you are merely a Field-hand."

"I won't always be a Field-hand," replied Maddock angrily, picking up another piece of bone.

"Oh, what will you ever be to cause a threat to my brother?" said Tahlia, a mocking look plastered on her face.

"One day, I'm going to be a knight!"

Maddock didn't know why he said it. All he knew was that he was angry and he wanted to wipe the look of conceit off the girl's face.

It didn't work. Tahlia burst out laughing again.

"It's not funny," said Maddock, throwing the piece of bone that was in his hand into the pit.

Tahlia stopped laughing, long enough to look him in the face, before collapsed once more into fits of laughter.

"Hey, hey," said the mowmok, suddenly beside them again. "You work quiet now. If Pit-master wakes, you in deep doo."

The creature hopped back to the Pit-master's pool, where he was tying the tragasaur covering back over Sofree's trunk leg.

"It is funny," said Tahlia, now watching the little mowmok work. "I would even go so far as to say that it is the funniest thing I have ever heard."

"Why! What's so funny about it?"

"I mean look at you! You're too small for a start, and I do not think your skull is thick enough to be a knight."

She turned back to him and rapped her knuckles on his head to emphasize her point. Maddock jerked his head away angrily.

"Well is it not true?" she said. "Look at them all. Look at my brother! Nothing between his ears but the sound of sword on rail-shield."

"Bet I can ride a madriel better than your brother," said Maddock. "I've ridden a felgar on Jathanca's Ranch. She let me ride with her all the way to the Sanctuary and back."

Tahlia snorted derisively.

"Felgar are just ranch beasts. Good for rounding up tragasaur, but that is about all."

"Doesn't matter now I've got my own madriel. I can train him how I like, and my brother's teaching me how to use a sword. He's a soldier; the best swordsman in his section!"

"That will not make a difference. You will still never be a knight."

"Why?"

"Because you need to be of birth, of course. Do you belong to one of the families?"

She asked this last with a tone of mocking gravity.

"Of course I'm not!"

Tahlia folded her arms and regarded him with an inquisitive look.

"I must say, you are very impertinent for a Field-hand."

"And you're very rude for a lady of the Order."

"You cannot talk to me like that," she said, as though talking to a fool.

"Don't see why not."

"You do know who I am, do you not?"

"You're the daughter of a knight."

"Not just any knight," the girl replied, her voice rising in indignity, all the careless mocking gone from it. "Do you know who my father is?"

"I don't care who your father is."

"How dare you..!" Tahlia cried, her voice growing suddenly shrill.

There was a sudden tearing noise behind them, and the aggrieved cry of the mowmok. Maddock spun around in time to see it leap up the side of the water tower as one of the triangular sheets beneath it was ripped aside by a thick gnarled claw. Sofree was galloping clumsily away across the bridge, its half tied tragasaur skin cover trailing behind it.

Another sheet was torn away to reveal the Pit-master, its strange segmented body standing straight and quivering as the water in its pool sloshed about and cascaded over the rim. All of its red tendrils pulsated alarmingly, before they seemed to erupt as a multitude of the red tentacled creatures poured down its front.

"Uh-oh," said Maddock.

The Pit-master's long branch-like arms clawed at the empty air in front of it, as the creatures clambered over the pool's rim and began rolling out across the area of the composting-pits.

The mowmok, meanwhile, leapt from the tower and sped nimbly across the rear wall of the terrace towards them.

"You run now, foolish children!" it said as it sped past them. "You run and don't stop."

Tahlia was the first to run, and Maddock did not wait before following her.

The red creatures made little noise as they moved, but together they made a susurration, as though a menacing breeze was following him. Maddock had seen the creatures move before, and he knew they were nimble, but didn't know how fast they could shift when pushed to it, so he ran as fast as he could towards the terrace's surrounding colonnade. He forced his way through the krodillis vines just behind Tahlia, and skidded a little way down the stone ramp beyond, before coming to a stop. Looking back, he could see nothing until the krodillis vines gave a quick rustle and red tentacles whipped through the pale leaves, tasting the air. Maddock saw another of the creatures twining its way along the top of the colonnade, and though they showed no signs of coming any further, he decided that it was probably best to put some distance between him and them.

He found the girl sitting waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp.

"Well, that was fun," she said brightly.

"Fun!" Maddock fumed. "I'll be in trouble with the Growers now! Master Sprak as well, probably."

"Oh nonsense; you will be fine."

Tahlia fixed him with a serious glare.

"Anyway, I have not done with you yet."

"Oh we're done, girl!"

"No, I do not think that we are. You have to come up to the fortress with me, so I can show you something."

"No I don't! I'm already in enough trouble as it is without heading up there. I have work today."

"What about tomorrow? You cannot be working tomorrow; it is Glok's Ascension Day."

"I have the afternoon off," Maddock conceded, folding his arms. "But I have plans. What do you want to show me anyway?"

"I am going to show you something that will make you understand why you cannot be a knight."

"Not interested."

"Oh, I am sure you will change your mind," said Tahlia, fixing him with a look that he could not identify.

"Sure I won't."

"Two o'clock," said Tahlia, standing up and brushing some of the dust from her creased trousers. "Be in the central-courtyard beneath the pemtagrin door."

"I told you I..."

"See you then," said Tahlia brightly, before she turned and ran down the ramp that led to the lower gardens.

"Pleased with yourself, new boy?" said a querulous voice above him.

He looked up to see the mowmok hanging upside down by its tails from the krodillis vine, its two pairs of arms folded across its chest.

"I'm sorry," said Maddock. "It wasn't my fault. It was that girl..."

"Girl you brought here."

"I didn't bring her. She just came!"

"Tall pain in the tails is what she is."

"You're not wrong there," said Maddock. "What do I do now?"

"You go back to abat-shed and get more bones. Pit-master will be calm when you get back. Rage always short."

"What about the cart?"

"You come back later for it. Make extra trip up hill in bright sun."

Maddock scowled.

"Don't blame me. Blame your noisy friend."

"She ain't my friend," said Maddock, turning on his heel and stamping away down the ramp in the wake of the troublesome girl.