I'm dedicating this chapter to gregor1180 for reading and commenting. She's got some fine work up on Wattpad so please take a look and give her your support. I can heartilly recommend 'The House of Sept'.

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As Hakansa stalked down into the basin of grass and rock, Sir Kralaford studied the two prisoners kneeling by the water's edge. One was a clansman of Monmellier, and though Sir Kralaford was well versed and familiar with them, he could not identify by his markings which Clan the man was from. The marks covered his arms, and showed on his upper chest above his tunic, but there were none on his face except for the thick ugly stain in the centre of his forehead that branded him as outcast. He was not, therefore, of high rank, a fact confirmed by the few marks that Sir Kralaford could identify on his forearm, which showed that he had once been a ghat clipper, and later a warrior.

The other man was younger, not even twenty seasons. He bore no Clan marks, so Sir Kralaford took him to be of plain's stock. The outcast from the Clans glared with clear hatred as he approached, while the younger man's look was nervous, his eyes flicking between him and the other madriel riders in the basin.

As Sir Kralaford halted before the basin's pool, and Sir Unsaethel drew up alongside him, the steeds of the two lower Echelon knights positioned on either side of the prisoners became agitated at the proximity of the alphas. Their riders gave quick words of command to stop their young beasts' growling.

On the flat platform of rock, which sloped down to the pool's shallows, was Lau, Madriel–mistress of Justice, accompanied by a senior Hunt-mistress, but their old steeds remained calm and impassive in the presence of the two Pride-alphas.

The pool itself lay in the shade of a high outcrop of bedrock that broke through the dry soil of the plains, forming a haven from the sun for the members of the Pride that had marked it as their own. But on that day the place would serve a different purpose.

"Let the Court of the Order of the Plains begin its judgement," said Sir Unsaethel. "Clerk of Justice; name the prisoners."

A tall man in the uniform of a senior clerk stood on the high rock above the pool, and a woman stood beside him, equally tall and dressed in rough riding gear, with a thick rope lasso coiled over one shoulder.

The clerk took a hand-ledger from where it had been tucked beneath his arm, and glanced at it briefly.

"The prisoners are named as Sacachwa of no Clan, and Harl, formally of Grasshallow, decreed outlaw since the depths of last fallows."

"And their crime?"

Again the clerk looked at his ledger, but it was clear he had already memorised his lines.

"Tragasaur poaching. They were captured at the border of Solridge while participating in the attempted theft of a female from the stock of the ranch of Cathajack."

He indicated the woman standing beside him.

Sir Unsaethel addressed the two knights.

"Your testimony?"

"We had been returning from our duty at the Rhebus," said the senior of the two knights. "And came across the outlaws as they attempted to drive the captured tragasaur across the river. We pursued them immediately, but succeeded only in capturing these two and freeing the stolen property."

"And their accomplices?"

"They escaped across the border into Solridge and we thought it unwise to pursue them."

"Doubtless a prudent decision."

Sir Unsaethel then addressed the two kneeling prisoners.

"You have conspired to steal from Cathajack, who is a tenant of the Order, and therefore you have conspired to steal from the Order. You must answer for your crimes."

"Not to you," said the outcast Clansman.

The knight standing behind him lowered his lance and struck the man's shoulder with the tip's side.

"Respect, borak!"

Sacachwa was knocked forward by the blow so that he was forced to stop himself from sprawling on his face with his hands.

He lifted his eyes to the two Pride-commanders.

"Why should I answer your questions if you've already found me guilty?"

The knight raised his lance again.

"Show some restraint, Sir knight," said Sir Unsaethel mildly.

The young knight looked to Sir Kralaford for his orders. Sir Unsaethel was not Commander of his Chapter.

"Let him speak," said Sir Kralaford.

The knight lowered his weapon, and the Clansman rose to his knees, swiping his hands together to free them of dirt.

"You have already decided my punishment," he said. "So why should I waste what's left of my life answering your questions?"

"The details of our judgment are yet to be decided," said Sir Unsaethel. "If you show cooperation, then we may show some leniency; you may yet have a chance of life."

"You lie! You don't even have proof of our guilt."

"These two knights have sworn by Fortak to what they have seen. Their word is the only proof the Order needs to judge you guilty."

"You have no right to make such judgements. The Orders of Fortak have no more right to govern here than they do in the mountains. Fortak is beyond you and your purpose is lost."

Sir Unsaethel scowled.

"So, a heretic as well as an outlaw."

Sacachwa spat on the floor.

"What Clan are you from?" asked Sir Kralaford.

"Sepra Hola, if it is any of your business."

"One of the Free Clans?"

"One of the free," the Clansman confirmed.

"Why did they make you outcast?"

Sacachwa did not reply. He merely scowled up at him.

"And you?" said Sir Unsaethel, turning to the second man. "Will you tell us why you thought it proper to attempt to steal from the Order of the Plains?"

"You don't have to answer any of his questions!" said Sacachwa.

Sir Unsaethel raised his hand.

"Quiet," he said calmly. "You have had your chance to speak and now it is your friend's."

He turned back to the younger man. Harl looked quickly between Sacachwa and Sir Unsaethel.

"We need food. We have families."

"But a tragasaur," said Sir Unsaethel, chidingly. "Is not wholly palatable. Is that not right, Rancher Cathajack?"

He addressed the last to the woman who was standing above with her arms folded, watching the two kneeling men.

"Barely edible, even if you boil it for a night. We normally feed the meat to the felgar."

"Rather a lot of trouble to go to for something so distasteful."

Harl glanced over at Sacachwa, but received no help from the outcast Clansman, who remained staring resolutely ahead.

"We're desperate," said Harl. "We would hunt wild ghat in the hills, but..."

He glanced again at Sacachwa.

"The hills are not safe," said the Clansman, without looking up.

"Volus," said Harl. "They have come down from the mountains early this year, so the hills are dangerous."

"If you had not made yourself outlaw," said Sir Unsaethel. "And forsaken the safety that our Order provides, then you would be entitled to our protection and would not have to worry about volus."

"Why did you leave Grasshallow?" asked Sir Kralaford, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

"We were only a small farm, and the Order took so much..." Harl's voice trailed away, and he dropped his eyes swiftly to the ground. "I thought I could find something better, so I took my wife to Solridge."

"Where you found starvation and volus from the mountains," said Sir Unsaethel. "And the company of outlaws."

"At least we were free," said Harl, but to Sir Kralaford the words held little conviction.

"And once you had your precious freedom, you decided that you would steal from those sworn to protect you?"

Harl answered the question with a nervous stare.

"Has either of you anything else to say?" asked Sir Kralaford.

Neither of the two men gave an answer.

"Very well," said Sir Unsaethel. "Your crime is clear. Commander Kralaford. Shall I pass judgement?"

Sir Kralaford gave a curt nod. Sir Unsaethel was right. The men's crime could not be disputed, but he was still not happy at the justice about to be served.

"For the crime of tragasaur poaching, Sacachwa of no Clan, and Harl, formally of the farm of Grasshallow, you will be given to the Pride."

Harl looked up at Sir Unsaethel, fear infusing his eyes, but Sacachwa gave no reaction to the sentence.

"Take them to their mark," said Sir Kralaford.

The men were ordered to their feet by the younger knights and driven away from the pool's edge, up the far side of the shallow basin, to where a single slender ascension marker stood.

"May the records show that the prisoners were given one minute's grace," said Sir Unsaethel.

The clerk made a note in his hand-ledger and then went to join the knights at the ascension maker, as did the two Madriel-mistresses. Only the tall Rancher remained standing on top of the rock above the pool.

"Commander Kralaford?"

"Yes, Rancher Cathajack. Do you have something you wish to say?"

"The outlaws of Solridge are becoming more than a nuisance. They have already taken two of my beasts this year."

"We are bound to protect the tenants of Klinberg!" said Sir Unsaethel angrily. "Not their animals. That is your duty, is it not? Do not try to blame the Order for your own failings."

"I can protect my animals from volus and kaddena, but the outlaws are growing too numerous."

"Rancher!" snapped Sir Unsaethel. "If you have a grievance, then you must voice it in the hall of petitioners. We cannot answer your concerns here."

Cathajack bowed her head, but her expression remained resolute.

"The stolen animals were of valuable breeding stock."

"I will make allowances for the loss of your animals when my men collect this year's tithe," said Sir Kralaford. "But it is not a matter that I will discuss here."

Cathajack nodded her head in acknowledgement.

"Do you wish to watch justice being served, Rancher?" asked Sir Unsaethel.

"No. I will trust that it will be done."

"Then Mistress Lau's women will escort you back to the fortress."

Cathajack gave a final nod, then turned on her heel to walk down the rock's far face to where two Madriel-mistresses stood waiting beside their steeds.

"You are too soft on your assets," said Sir Unsaethel when she was barely out of earshot.

"I choose to treat them fairly," said Sir Kralaford.

Sir Unsaethel began to scratch at the front of his tunic, suddenly preoccupied with a smear of dirt on the tattered material.

"Rancher Cathajack is right, though. The outlaws of Solridge are becoming more than a nuisance."

Sir Kralaford gestured at Harl, who now stood on the basin's lip with Sacachwa, waiting for his fate.

"The thing concerning me most is that if we are driving those who we have sworn to protect to join them, then surely we are failing in our duty to Fortak."

"You do not believe that boy do you? No one would choose to exile themselves and become outlaw because they felt our authority unfair. Doubtless our friend Harl committed some crime from which he escaped punishment, then joined all the other criminal filth that hide from our justice in the borders of Solridge. Solridge is the true problem before us."

"And one that will not be resolved if Commander Galder takes Lord Morath's place."

"We will have to hope that Zembulla will impede his rise."

"Or that someone else will."

Sir Unsaethel finished scratching at his tunic and pulled it back straight.

"Not you," he said. "You will not have support this year."

"Maybe I do not need the willing support of my fellow Commanders."

Sir Unsaethel shook his head.

"Those sound like your father's words."

Sir Kralaford's hand went to rest involuntarily on the pommel of the sword at his side.

"I believe they are ready to begin," he said, motioning towards the men and madriel riders standing at the basin's lip.

He urged his steed around the pool, and Hakansa moved swiftly up the basin's far side, following its contours where they curved to meet the jut of bedrock rising above the plain. With an easy bound, his steed leapt onto the rock's flat surface and paced to its highest point. Sir Unsaethel ordered Falsch to follow, and the older animal leapt up with equal litheness, to the height of the rock beside Hakansa.

He looked down upon the two prisoners, and Sir Kralaford followed his gaze. The captives were still flanked by Mistress Lau and the Hunt-mistress, who had taken a long curled karabok horn from its sling beside her saddle. The two younger knights kept their beasts behind and stood with their lance points raised.

Sir Kralaford lifted his eyes and looked out across the grasslands, to the distant tall shape of his Chapter's assigned refuge marker. In the expanse of land to either side, two lines of Madriel-mistresses sat watchfully upon their steeds. The grass beyond them seemed empty, though Sir Kralaford knew that it was not.

"Ready the prisoners, Madriel-mistress Lau," Commander Unsaethel called down to the group below them.

Mistress Lau touched her scarred training stick to her temple in acknowledgement. The Madriel-mistress of Justice was old, her fine face lined with age and old scars, and her grey hair was wild and barely constrained by the two metal combs that pinned it back against her head. Her steed was equally wild, with one eye sharp green, and the other dead from an old wound that had left twin scars down the side of her once elegant head.

Lau turned to the two prisoners and pointed across the grassland to the distant refuge marker, five hundred metres away.

"The judgement has granted you grace of one minute. There is your target. You will begin to run when the signal is given. If you reach that mark, then you are free men."

Harl's face held a brief hopeful look at the mention of freedom, but when he gazed across to judge the distance to the marker, and then looked to see where the mounted Madriel-mistresses were holding the Pride's females, his face dropped once more in despair.

"What if we refuse to run?" asked Sacachwa, looking up at Sir Unsaethel.

"Appraise the prisoner of the outcome of such an action, Madriel-mistress Lau."

Mistress Lau pointed at the Madriel-mistresses arranged across the field.

"We hold the oldest and the best of the Pride furthest away, and the youngest are allowed closest to their prey to allow them some practice at the kill. If you run slowly, or you refuse to run, then the youngsters will reach you first, which is a thing you do not want. The elder females kill quickly; if you are lucky enough to be caught by one of them, then you will be dead before you feel her breath on your neck, but if you are caught by a youngster, well..."

Madriel-mistress Lau shrugged.

"I remember a band of outlaws who faced the Pride's justice after they were caught robbing on the Trehlsvale road," said Sir Unsaethel. "There were five of the rogues, and I remember one unlucky soul was caught by the youngsters and they fought over him for fifteen minutes. Tugged him about between them like a carcass, and he was still screaming at the end when one of them finally tore out his throat."

"I remember it well," said Mistress Lau. "A nasty business that day was."

"Everyone who faces the Pride's justice receive what they deserve," sighed Sir Unsaethel. "If you do not wish to run, then stay where you are. At least then you will have some mastery over your end."

Harl's face was immobile in a mask of horror. He could probably hear the deep mewling and growling of the young madriel beyond the closest riders, but doubtless more terrifying than that would be the stillness and the quiet in the grass beyond the distant Madriel-mistresses, where the old huntresses of the Pride lay waiting.

"Do not listen," said Sacachwa, whose face remained still. "They are trying to scare you with their talk."

"Carry on, Mistress Lau," said Sir Unsaethel. "Give the Pride their hunt."

Mistress Lau leant forward and placed her fingers on the side of her steed's neck, pushing them beneath the pale fur to feel the steady pulse of blood beneath. The timing would be as accurate as an Engineer's watch.

"On the first note, you will run," she informed the prisoners. "On the second, the hunt will be released. Is there anything you would like to say before we begin?"

Harl looked to Sacachwa, but the Clansman remained immobile. Then he gave a panicked look, first at Mistress Lau, then up at Sir Unsaethel.

"We have nothing to say," said Sacachwa.

"Harl of Grasshallow," said Sir Kralaford. "Is there something you wish to say?"

Harl glanced once more at Sacachwa.

"There is nothing that either of us wishes to say," said the Clansman.

The Hunt-mistress lifted the karabok horn to her lips, and Mistress Lau held her arm above her head, still feeling the pulse of blood at her steed's neck. She looked up at Sir Unsaethel, who simply nodded.

Mistress Lau dropped her arm, and the karabok horn blew.

Sacachwa leapt immediately away and ran, without once looking behind him, straight at the distant marker and his point of freedom, but Harl remained immobile and fixed to the spot in fear.

"Wait!" he said, looking up at Sir Kralaford.

"Run, Harl of Grasshallow," said Sir Unsaethel. "Your sentence has been passed."

"There is something else!"

Sir Kralaford leant forward in his saddle.

"What?"

Harl glanced at the retreating figure of Sacachwa.

"Sacachwa wasn't an Outcast! He was still in contact with the Clans!"

"With whom?"

Harl looked up to Mistress Lau, who still had her fingers pressed to her steed's neck, though she was watching the man with hard eyes.

"With whom?" urged Sir Kralaford again.

"Save me," Harl pleaded.

"Mistress Lau?"

"I can't stop the hunt now, Commander Kralaford. Sentence has been passed, and you know the laws."

She raised her hand above her head, her counting almost done.

Sir Kralaford looked down at the young man on the grass beneath him.

"Run, Harl of Grasshallow."

Harl gave him one last pleading look, but saw no mercy in his face.

He turned and ran.