Tahlia peered around the bottom turn of the stairs again. The two guards had gone, presumably to patrol further down the corridor.

As she crouched there, panting to regain her breath, she tried to piece together the fractured conversation she'd heard in the tent the previous day, but the details kept slipping away. One memory, though, remained clear.

'..why don't you send word to him? Ask him what to do with her.'

Who could she trust?

She suddenly heard footsteps on the stairs above her, maybe only a few turns up. The soldier who had pursued her from the ladies' quarters was still on her tail, and getting closer. She jumped to her feet and ran to the cross-junction where sh'd seen the guards pass. She peered around the corner, and sighed with relief. She had found just the place she had been looking for.

"Hey, girl!" came a stern shout from the stair behind her.

She leapt around the corner and ran. It seemed to take her an age to reach the double doors at the corridor's far end, so much so that she had time to study each bash and dent in their lower panels, made by the passage of the laundry carts. She did not slow down when she reached the doors, but ran straight on, sending them swinging back as she flew into the room beyond, which was large and had an identical set of doors on each high white wall.

Four wide metal tubes stood in the centre of the room, connecting ceiling to floor. Tahlia ran to the nearest double door and shoved it open before turning, and with a fluid movement and no pause for thought, caught the two edges of a hatchway set in the nearest tube, swung her feet up, and jumped inside.

Her head had barely disappeared before the doors she had entered through were flung open and a soldier ran into the room. He took one look at the other set of doors, which were still swinging back and forth, and never having been engaged in a pursuit with Tahlia before, pushed his way through them. He found a corridorbeyond, which was full of waiting laundry carts, but quite empty of CommanderKralaford's daughter. 

* * *

The first time Tahlia had jumped into one of the laundry chutes, she had screamed all the way down. Not out of fear of course, but out of the sheer exhilaration of it. She had learnt since then about the benefits of not screaming like a jigger while attempting to avoid apprehension, so held her breath for the first steep plummet. Even in the midsts of her mind's turmoil, she could feel the giggles close in her chest as the tube levelled to a shallower drop, before turning suddenly and twisting her left and right, before turning straight down once more. She continued hurtling downwards in total darkness, and after more stomach flipping turns and one final steep plummet, the tube levelled out. She flew down it at a steady angle for several metres before the top curve of it disappeared, so that she was left sliding down an open chute in the high roofed cavern of the upper washing room.

She brought up her knees and pushed her heels tight against the curved metal of the chute, and was thankful that her feet were bare, because they slowed her all the quicker. She muttered a prayer of thanks for that fact as she came to a squeaking halt three meters above the floor of the laundry bin. Although the air was damply warm, and still filled with the sharp scent of wash salt, the night's washing had been done, and the bin below was empty, devoid of its usual comfortable landing.

Tahlia looked cautiously around the upper washing room, which seemed strange and unfamiliar for its emptiness. The pipe she had entered down was one of dozens that curved from the room's high ceiling, to be supported to the ground on high gantries. Walkways wound back and fourth among the gantries, passing beneath the lips of each chute, and beside the pipe's open ends were racks where long handled hauling hooks and pummelling sticks were stored.

Tahlia rolled herself onto her stomach, slipped over the chute's lip, and swung herself onto the nearest walkway, making a loud metallic clang as she landed. She peered down through the metal grillwork of the floor to the lower washing room, and could see that it was equally empty. She could hear noises coming from the archway to the drying room, though it was not the sound of the spinners, or the heavy clanging of the doors to the wind chimneys. It sounded more like the chattering of a dozen tongues, and Tahlia surmised that it was coming from the distant folding room, where the night's work was being completed.

As she ran around the walkway and slid down one of its ladders to the wash room floor, she tried to work out how much time had passed since Mistress Oleander had woken her with the news of her brother's kidnap. Less than twenty minutes, she was sure, but it would take another twenty to reach the arena-field, and she began to worry that her father might no longer be there. She wondered what was being done to find her brother. Surely they would be searching the Encampment, but would they be looking in the right places? Probably not.

She had to find her father and tell him everything she knew, but first she would have to get the memories in her brain straight. They were still cloudy and jumbled. The identity of the two voices in the tent still eluded her, but that did not matter. She may not have known who they were, but she at least knew where they were.

She ran quickly across the washing room floor, but its metal grillwork on her bare feet slowed her. It was probably fine for the heavy work shoes of the servants, and the wheels of the laundry carts, but it had clearly not been designed to be run across in bare feet. She was doing all right, but then her toe stubbed into one of the square holes of the grillwork, and she tripped with a curse that High Madriel-master Sprak would probably have been proud of. She picked herself up and ran on, limping between two of the floor's round-drops.

She had run this way many times before, usually to the accompanying shouts of busy servants, and had never been bothered by the view to the washing vats below. Not even when they had been full, and the paddles had been spinning back and forth, beating the water and laundry into a maelstrom of noise and white water. Now though, when she looked down into the empty vat, its paddles still and silent on their spindle, and its metal walls beaded with water from the last wash, she felt suddenly light headed. She forced herself away from the drops and into the tunnel that curved up to the loading docks. As she climbed, she left behind the clean scented humidity, and could feel the draft of night air ahead of her, which served to clear her head a little.

When she crept out of the tunnel's end, there was a chain-carriage waiting at the station above the dock, swinging gently beside the platforms. She crouched against the wall that separated the tunnel she had climbed from an adjacent tunnel, this one sloping back down into the  lower levels of the laundry.

The loading dock was a wide semi-circular platform, with the hexagon tower at its centre. Three wide gantries projected out from the fortress battlements, one immediately beneath the platform of the chain-carriage station, and two on either side. From the bottom of the waiting carriage hung its two wooden cargo baskets, level with the gantries.

From her place in the shadows, Tahlia peered carefully around the dock, paying close attention to the mouths of the other tunnels that ringed it. Then she was shaken by a sound from above, and she looked upwards to see a unit of soldiers marching across the bridge to the lower platform, their feet echoing on its metal surface. She crouched further back into the tunnel's mouth, but as she watched them file methodically into the carriage's lower deck, none looked down.

Although she could not see them, she guessed there were soldiers still on the platforms above, because she could hear them talking in low voices. Then the voices were suddenly silent, and Tahlia could hear footsteps on the metal stair that circled the tower. A silhouette showed against the carriage's glow-lights as a soldier stood at the edge of the upper platform and looked down. Tahlia froze, and it seemed that the soldier, though she could see no details of his face, was staring into the shadows straight at her.

"Has anyone been stationed on the loading docks?"

The voice from above was harsh and commanding.

"No, Executive Officer Stellos," came the voice of an unseen soldier.

"Why not! I ordered the carriages guarded."

"We were only told to guard the platforms, sir, not the docks."

"Use your initiative man! By Fortak, It is any wonder those rogues could sneak in here and be away with Kralaford's son, with the fortress guarded by idiots!"

"Sorry, sir!"

"Get two squads down there and secure it!

"Yes, sir!"

Tahlia heard the sound of feet running back up the metal stair, but the silhouette of Executive Officer Stellos continued to stand, staring down into the shadows where she still crouched, unmoving, her heart beating quickly in her chest.

Then there came more footsteps on the spiral stair.

She got the impression that Officer Stellos had turned, and with his back now to her, she prepared to make a run across the docks, but she was stopped by another voice from above.

"Executive Officer; it is time for the carriage to be leaving."

"Of course, Engineer."

There was the echoing tread of boots on the platform above, followed by the sounds of the carriage doors, then the platform gates, being closed. Then there was quiet again. Tahlia looked up at the dark outline of Officer Stellos, who hadn't moved from the platform's edge. She could not be certain if he still had his back turned to her, or if he was again looking down to the docks, so she remained where she was in the darkness.

She knew she could not remain there. The soldiers that Officer Stellos had dispatched would surely be arriving soon, and she could not be caught. They would return her to her room, and she had to get to her father.

A heavy clunk echoed above, from the gear house of the chain-carriage, then there came a hissing bellow of steam and the vast wheel encircling it began to turn.

"And about time!" hissed Tahlia under her breath.

With a slow roll, the carriage began to pull away from the station, and the cargo baskets started to sway. Above the grinding of the gear house's wheel, she could hear the tramp of marching feet from the tunnel behind her.

She looked up, but Officer Stellos had not moved.

The first of the cargo baskets slipped slowly past the end of the loading gantry and out into the empty air.

She stood, and as she moved, the glow lights lining the corridor where she had been crouching suddenly swirled to life and then, one by one, the lights that ran around the dock's encircling wall started their dim rippling glow.

Tahlia took a deep breath, and ran.

* * * * *

When Master Tzarren ushered him through the front door of the chain-carriage, Grifford found it filled with the ladies of the Order, though they were dressed much differently than they had been the previous night. Gone were the fine dresses and glittering jewels. They had been replaced with hunting gear of karabok skin, and the hands that last night had been bedecked with jewels, now gripped bows, or were expertly sharpening hunting knives with whet stones. Their eyes were hard, and their mouths set and determined, but when they looked up at him from their sharpening, or their hushed conversations, their eyes softened as only the eyes of mothers could.

As Master Tzarren guided Grifford to the front of the carriage, the ladies gave him encouraging smiles, and some lay comforting hands on his shoulder or head as he passed. He was glad to get to the front so that he could stand with his back to them and not have to meet their looks of sickly compassion. Also standing in front of the carriage's wide window was the Lady Mandassa, wife of Sir Zembulla, dressed in her own dark hunting gear. The thick black tresses of her hair, normally pilled on her head and pinned with glinting jewels and chains, were tied back with a rough skin band.

"My Lady," said Master Tzarren, giving the slightest of bows.

"High Lance-master Tzarren," replied Lady Mandassa in her rich voice. "And Squire Grifford."

She placed a hand on his shoulder, and with firm pressure turned him towards her. He looked up into her dark eyes, which did not soften as they met his gaze.

"We will find your brother," she said simply.

"What is happening?" he asked her.

Lady Mandassa indicated the other ladies in the carriage with one efficient gesture.

"We are going hunting."

"But..."

"At this time, we do not know what has happened to your brother," said Master Tzarren. "He may already have been taken from the great-bailey, and who better to track down his abductors than the huntress' of the Pride?"

"But my brother is not of your Chapter, Lady Mandassa. He is not your concern."

"Ah, child," said the Lady Mandassa. "How little you understand our Order."

Just then, with its usual sway, the carriage began its journey to the battle-grounds. Grifford took hold of the front rail to keep his balance, but Lady Mandassa remained steady on her feet.

"Look," said Master Tzarren, turning him to face the front window. The plains of the great-bailey were lit by the Khensis moon, and though the sky in the east was growing lighter, the battle-grounds were still covered by the fortress' shadow and lay in darkness. But it was a darkness filled by a myriad of glow lights, the early morning mist giving them a nimbus shimmer. They seemed to be spreading out from the arena-field, and Grifford could see their strands reaching out into the darkness of the Encampment.

Beyond the fortress' shadow, the great-bailey was busy with activity as madriel riders moved through the moonlit grass. He could also see larger groups of riders heading out, their paths true, from the battle-grounds, out onto the plains.

"The Pride is riding out," said Master Tzarren.

"Everyone!"

"There are hundreds of farms and ranches beyond the great-bailey, and your brother could have been taken to any one of them, but do not worry. The Order will not rest until he is found."

"We will track down whoever has taken him," said Lady Mandassa. "However far they have gone, it will not be far enough."

High Lance-master Tzarren smiled grimly.

"Just be sure that when you do catch them, they remain alive. I am sure Commander Kralaford will be eager to question them."

"I do not presume to tell you how to use a lance, Master Tzarren. Please do not advise me on how I should hunt."

"I would not dare," said Master Tzarren, his face impassive.

"We will do our utmost to bring back Kralmir's abductors alive. I cannot say the same, however, if the Lady Tahlessa finds them first."

"Mother has gone!" said Grifford.

"From what I hear, she was the first to ride out, despite the protests of your father."

"I had not heard of this!" said Master Tzarren.

"Do not worry, Squire Grifford, she did not ride alone."

Grifford returned his gaze to the window, and stood watching as the battle-grounds drew ponderously closer. He felt some good humour that the activity in the great-bailey below was all for the benefit of his little brother, but he wondered if the same trouble would have been taken if it were he who had disappeared.