They strung the two bestial assassins up on the wall of the keep the next morning, as a warning to anyone else who would dare to threaten the life of a knight of Klinberg.

Tahlia stood at the edge of the busy central-courtyard and watched as the chains that bound the creatures were hauled tight, splaying their six limbs apart across the metal wall above the wide pemtagrin door. The sun had already risen above the barbican, and in its light the creatures' skin was pale and sickly grey.

The fortress was still being searched. Even though no trace of further intruders had been found, Tahlia, along with the other children of the Order, had been commanded to remain in the keep. Fortunately, Mistress Oleander had declared, there was no reason for the unfortunate incident of the night before to interfere with the day's lesson of kitchen lore.

Tahlia rather thought that there was.

Mistress Oleander had commanded the girls to remain in their rooms and wait to be escorted to the classrooms. Tahlia had taken the opportunity to slip away and had then made her way down to the central-courtyard, where all the excitement seemed to be.

The courtyard had been filled with masdon carts, bringing in the harvest of first summer. The place was filled with the hubbub of consternation from the farmers, who sat upon the driving platforms of the carts, or stood muttering in groups outside the supply-depot, because its gate had still not been opened.

She had been happily watching a rather red faced Unit-leader, who had been trying to explain to the waiting wagon drivers what the cause of the delay was, when they had brought the creatures out to hang on the wall of the keep. Everyone in the courtyard had craned their necks to look at the strange beasts as they were strung up.

It had not taken long for the scavengers living among Klinberg's towers to emerge and begin their grim investigation of the two carcasses. The fat yellow blowflies were first to arrive, hovering sluggishly about the creatures' faces, landing to investigate the dull pink globes of their eyes, before falling back to clumsy flight. Then the archapids skittered from the shadows, crawling over the creatures' legs and tails, prodding and probing with their tail-pincers as they climbed upwards, seeking out the nicest of meats. But the small black and orange critters suddenly scattered in a frenzy of movement as two red feathered crak fell squawking from one of the fortress's towers. The ugly birds grasped at the two creatures with prehensile talons and began ripping at their pale dead flesh with serrated beaks.

The two dead creatures hung with their malformed heads drooping forward on their long necks. A third red crak swooped down and landed beside the arrow, which still protruded from the back of one of the creatures' heads, and it perched there, tapping experimentally at the wound with its beak. Tahlia had asked her mother why she had not removed the arrow to use again, and her mother had explained that it had been tainted and was no longer fit to hunt karabok.

That morning, Tahlia had filled the pouch at her belt with handfuls of krakla berries from the breakfast table, and as she watched Klinberg's scavengers above her begin to feed, she popped them idly into her mouth, chewing them one by one.

"Ugly 'enthey," said a throaty voice by her ear.

Tahlia turned to see a short stooped figure standing beside her. The face that peered up at her was square and lined with more odd angles and crevices than a proper face should have been allowed to have. Black eyes peered out from two deep holes, shadowed by the hood, which was pulled far forward over its face. The robes to which the hood was attached were those of a Grower, and they covered the creature's body completely. All that could be seen of the thing was its gnarled face and one equally gnarled talon-like hand, where it emerged to grip a wide headed shovel. A basket made of woven wood was slung across its wide shoulders, and from it rose the unmistakably rich odour of masdon dung.

"Pardon?" said Tahlia.

"I zed, ugly 'enthey."

The Grower gestured up at the two creatures hanging above.

"My father killed one," said Tahlia in reply. "And my mother, the other."

"Zat so? Y'now, I heard naj bones be good for firehorns. Naj bones 'n kaddena blood 'n sand fro' the beach o' Peroclee."

"Really?" said Tahlia. "Only the beach of Peroclee?"

"Z'right. Zump't in't water and zump't in rocks there 'bouts."

Tahlia nodded, a look of solemn understanding on her face. She reached into her pouch, pulled out a handful of slightly squashed krakla berries, and offered them to the ugly Grower. The creature scrunched its face into an even more complex series of creases and angles, and shook its head.

"Keep 'em f'you."

Tahlia shrugged and tipped the berries into her mouth. As she tilted her head back and looked upwards, she caught sight of a shape falling rapidly from the clear blue of the sky.

"It's Goodraze!" she said excitedly, pointing upwards, her mouth full.

The shape grew larger as it plummeted towards her, then it seemed to expand as it unfolded its wings, and the dive turned into a swoop that carried the shape in a long spiral behind the keep, where the sight of it was lost. More red crak had joined the others to tease and peck at the two corpses above, but with a sudden aggrieved clacking, they all burst into flight as a shadow closed over them. A swift dark shape followed after, skimming between the four towers of the barbican. It glided on featherless wings the colour of the fallow's plains, angling swiftly down on a course that would surely dash it against the wall of the keep.

The farmers in the courtyard stared upwards to watch it descend in its suicidal course, but before the creature struck the keep, a sharp crack echoed around the courtyard. Its ridge wings unfolded and it seemed to hover suspended in the air, before its long clawed legs grasped at one of the hanging corpses, and its hind wings folded upwards. The talons at their tips found purchase on the chains holding the creature to the wall, causing them to rattle and shake and make the dead thing's head loll sickeningly up and down.

The new arrival's head appeared from beneath the elaborate folds of its wings, and turned on its long neck to survey its landing ground, before it pulled back its lips and gave a low snarl of warning. The red craks settled themselves noisily on the higher towers, from where they snapped their bloody beaks and squawked amongst themselves.

Tahlia continued to gaze upward at the creature as it stretched its ridge wings, before settling them neatly across its back. It began to sniff at the corpse on which it had landed with its wide nostrils, and then it opened its heavy jaw to give another low staking growl.

"Goodraz y' call 'it?" said the gnarled Grower, who still stood by Tahlia's shoulder.

"That is what the guards on the watchtower call it," said Tahlia. "Its got a nest up there somewhere."

"That 'taz. Bin 'ere fs' long as I 'member, but us Growes don't call 't Goodraz."

"Oh! What do you call it?"

"Jahalim Derish o' the Khensislan."

"That is a rather long name."

"Aye. Zat 'tis. 't means 'ting that drops fro' the sky.'"

Tahlia looked up at Goodraze as it continued its investigation of the two dead creatures above. Eventually satisfied, the creature opened its heavy muscled jaw and took a great bite into the chest of one of them, cracking bone and tearing open the ribcage. Dark blood suddenly flowed over the thing's grey skin and down its legs to drip into the guttering over the pemtagrin door.

The Grower by Tahlia's side shook its head.

"Shunt be watchin' this sorta' ting," it muttered. "Gil o' your age!"

Tahlia did not reply. She did not care. She had lived in the fortress all her life, and was used to the grosser side of its nature. She had watched the butchers in the kitchens, at work with their cleavers and boning knives, and she had watched the females of the Pride on the grasslands of the great-bailey as they hunted the wild karabok. She had only ever seen the killing and the subsequent brutal dissection from a distance, but she did not imagine that, up close, it would be that much more gruesome. But then, as Goodraze continued its bloody work on the creature's body above her, Tahlia did start to experience a very slight feeling of uneasiness; a splitting of her mind between curiosity and horror. Though she would never admit it, she was almost relieved when she glanced down at the wide pemtagrin door of the keep and saw the indomitable form of Mistress Oleander standing there, scanning the courtyard with her fierce eyes. She was flanked by two of the Fortress' guard.

"Groos' bis' zat," said the Grower as it watched Goodraze work. "O'corse, intrestin' ting 'bout Jahalim Derish o' the Khensislan, is spore from 'im..."

The Grower looked down.

"Oh. Zi gone!"

* * * * *

Tahlia ran under the supply-depot's slowly opening gate, down its dark slope, and into the depot itself, where she stood panting and gazing up at the curved ceiling high above. She had been lucky. The central-courtyard had been stilled by the stringing up of the creatures that had tried to kill her father, and evasion was always more difficult in places where people were not moving about. She had made it to the courtyard's far end and had been crouched behind the tall wheel of a masdon cart, listening to the sound of Mistress Oleander's voice drawing closer as it ordered people out of her way.

She'd run out of places to hide, and had been considering simply giving herself up and relying on a guileless act of obliviousness to evade the worst of Mistress Oleander's admonishments, when the doors to the supply-depot had begun to open. Clerks, bearing hand-ledgers, had emerged to rouse the farmers into action. She had taken the opportunity from the resulting activity to emerge from her hiding place and make a quick dash for the safety of the depot.

The scant lighting in the room was hard to see by, but she could make out the vertical slashes of light in the ceiling high above, where the arrow slits looked down upon its floor. Also, at the far end of the room, were four large glow-lights on the wall above the doors of the supply lifts. The only other light was a bright rectangle on the wall far to her left, and she crept towards it, keeping a sharp eye on the rest of the vast space. The light was bright, and it lit a section of the floor all the way to the six flat domed grain silo lids, which stood in two lines down the centre of the room. Its source was a large opening where a counter was set in the wall. When Tahlia reached it and peered over, she saw that the large room behind, walled with shelves of thick ledgers, was empty. Sets of chamber pens and line rules were laid out on the counter in front of three chairs.

"Can I help you, young lady?"

Tahlia turned to the man standing behind her. He was tall and round shouldered, and the clerk's uniform he wore was stretched tight over an enormous stomach. It was a fine uniform of yellow and black and it, with the man's lofty bearing, would have given him a look of authority if it were not for the cake crumbs clinging to its front. There were also crumbs caught in the whiskers of his greying beard, and he was clutching a large paper bag in one plump hand.

"Hello Jerrus," said Tahlia. "I was just looking around."

"Looking around, Tahlia, or looking for trouble or..." The clerk lifted a hand to scratch his beard. "Are you trying to avoid trouble?"

"Something like that," said Tahlia.

"Well, as senior clerk to Pantler Heb, and the one in charge of this facility, I really cannot allow you to be down here."

Jerrus put the bag he was carrying down on the counter and then, seeing the state of his uniform, began hastily flicking the crumbs from the front of it.

"I would expect that my father would be interested to know why the supply-depot's office has been left unattended," said Tahlia conversationally. "What is in the bag?"

Jerrus looked at her shrewdly, then gave her a wide smile, which stretched his ruddy red cheeks. He reached into the bag and pulled out a large round cake, covered in velusberry icing and sprinkled with yow husks.

"Have a cake," he said. "And let's keep the fact that the two of us were not in the correct place today from your father. What do you say?"

Tahlia did not really think her father would be interested in Jerrus' absence, but a cake was a cake.

"Okay," she said, taking the cake from the large clerk.

"And now I must be getting on with my duties," said Jerrus. He opened the door to the office and went into the room behind the counter. He disappeared between two of the high shelves, where he must have activated a glow-light lever because suddenly, high above in the hall, the lights rippled on, brightening the huge room and dispersing the shadows.

Jerrus came back and settled himself into one of the three seats, which bore his weight solidly. He reached into the bag and pulled out a cake.

"A man needs sustenance this early in the morning," he said to Tahlia, and took a large bite from it, sending crumbs and yow husks cascading down his uniform to replace the ones he had recently brushed away.

A sudden rumble from the gate behind Tahlia announced the arrival of the first of the farmer's waggons, which was entering down the depot's slope. A clerk came with it, walked over to the counter where Jerrus sat, and set his hand-ledger in front of him.

"Who have we first, Pel?" asked Jerrus, leaning forward to look at the ledger, covering it in crumbs as he took a second bite of the cake.

"We have a sixth share from the farm of Mahkee; Sir Trowin's."

The clerk went through the door and disappeared behind the shelves, while Jerrus inspected the hand-ledger in front of him.

"Larakkos and jepsil!" he exclaimed. "Excellent!"

He looked up as one of the lift doors rattled open. Depot haulier's exited the lift, pushing handcarts, whose wheels ground hollowly on the metal floor and filled the tall room with more noise.

"Bay five!" Jerrus bellowed at the wagon driver, and the power of his voice made Tahlia wince and put her hands to her ears. He pointed to the far end of the hall and the wagon began to move slowly away.

Pel the clerk had returned and placed a heavy ledger open beside Jerrus.

"Sir Trowin's tithe debt."

Jerrus glanced down at it, pulled out a half page, made a note on the opposite page of the ledger, signed it and then fixed the half page to the clerk's hand-ledger before handing it back to him.

"Have a cake, Pel," he said, gesturing to the bag sitting at the edge of the counter.

Pel glanced at the bag.

"Maybe later," he said, before picking up his hand-ledger to study the new attachment and then signing it.

"You'll be lucky if there is a later for these cakes," chuckled Jerrus, and then bellowed across the hall at the men with the handcarts, who were standing around the masdon cart. "Get a move on there, lads! Weighed and down to the darkest cellars for those roots. There's a queue waiting outside."

The men began to haul the sacks of larakkos and jepsil roots from the wagon and onto the weighing platform beside it. Pel the clerk crossed to where the men laboured, hand-ledger in hand.

Meanwhile, another clerk had laid his ledger before Jerrus.

"Kernik flour! Excellent, excellent!" he said, glancing up at the next wagon in line before bellowing. "Silo four! Second on your right, please farmer!"

Another ledger had been laid in front of him, which he studied before detaching a page as before. A third clerk was already at this shoulder.

"Have a cake, boys," Jerrus said as he worked. "Need energy for counting. Yes, Mistress, how can I help you?"

This last was to the tall bulk of a lady who had appeared at the counter in front of him, blocking his view of the depot and the waiting masdon carts. She was flanked by two fortress guard.

"I am looking for a child," she said, leaning forward and peering into the room of shelves behind him.

"No children here," said Jerrus as he studied the next hand-ledger. "Far too busy to be having children in here."

"It is the daughter of Sir Kralaford I am looking for," said the lady, stressing the statement with the deepest gravitas.

"Well, mistress, she is not here."

Jerrus leant over deliberately to look around the side of the lady.

"She was seen in the central-courtyard not five minutes ago."

Another clerk was now standing beside Jerrus' counter, waiting for his attention.

"Mistress Oleander," said Jerrus. "I am very busy. Will my assurance that there are no children in here send you on your way?"

The lady gave him a look of piercing suspicion.

"Very well," she said, after Jerrus showed no sign of giving way under the glare. "You will keep an eye out for her, of course."

"Of course," said Jerrus. "Now, please?"

He gestured to the depot's open gate.

Mistress Oleander gave the counter and the room behind another sweeping look of suspicion, before turning without further comment and leaving. The two guards turned and followed immediately.

"Bay two!" Jerrus bellowed to the waiting carts, before handing the clerk his ledger, and then taking another from the next clerk standing in line. "Maylard shoots! Very good!"

Then he leant down and looked under the counter.

"You can come out now. She's gone."

Tahlia poked her head out and looked about her.

"Are you sure?" she said, around the last mouthful of her cake.

"Sure as sure is. And it's time you were off as well, in case she returns. I don't like being on the wrong side of Mistress Oleander, and she could easily make a misery of my life if she were to discover the lie I just told her."

"Well, all right," said Tahlia climbing out from under the desk.

Jerrus stood and smiled, his whiskers still coated with icing and crumbs.

"That's the idea. If you want a way without being spied, I suggest you look behind the pile of packing boxes beyond the lifts. There is a double door there which will be locked, but there is a smaller door you can pass through."

Jerrus bent down again and whispered conspiratorially.

"The door is broken and I should have a word with the Engineers to get it fixed, but I have not found the time. When you are through the door, take the first stairway upwards and you will find yourself in the old siege kitchens that serve the keep's eastern towers."

Tahlia was quite familiar with the disused kitchens, and she grinned her gratitude.

"More Jepsil roots! Excellent, excellent."

Jerrus had returned his attention to his ledgers.

"Bay three!" he bellowed.

Under cover of the noise and the bustle of the waiting clerks, Tahlia fished another cake from the bag, which still sat on the corner of the counter. Then she ran towards the stack of packing crates which cast the far corner of the room in shadow.

It was time, she thought, to find somewhere to hide out for a while. Fortunately, she knew one such place where she knew she would not be found.