Dak was not by Maddock's bed when he woke up, because she had gone to the tall doors at the end of the ward to open them and let in some air. She stretched and yawned as she walked down the room, and when she pushed the doors open she realised that the sky was turning light with the early dawn. The fresh morning air was a soothing relief after the heavy clean smell of the Infirmary, which had been pressing down on her and increasing her many anxieties. As she stood in the open doorway, she realised that the outside was not the normal still quiet of early morning. There was a strange clamour stirring the air, and she looked up at the fortress to see that its windows, even those at the distant height of the keep, were brilliant with light.

She stepped out onto the cloister surrounding the gardens, and as she listened she decided that what she could hear was more of a blurring of many different noises. There were voices, the pounding of madriel paws on grass, and the occasional clank of metal on metal. Was the fortress under attack? The thought struck a sudden panic into her.

"What's happening?" said a voice behind her.

"Maddock!" she gasped, stepping back into the ward, almost tripping over the doorframe as she did so.

Maddock's eyes were half open and sleep filled. He was still tucked into the white sheeted bed, thick bandages wrapped around his head.

She hurried to the bed and leant over to look inquisitively into each of his eyes.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" Maddock tried to sit up, but fell back with a wince of pain, his hand going to the heavy bandages. "Oh, yes, the doctor said that you must drink this when you were waking up."

Dak turned and looked around for the cup of strangebrown liquid the doctor had left on the table beside his bed. She picked it up, lifted it to Maddock's mouth, and he drank, though some of it was spilt down his chin because of her shaking hand.

"Sorry!" she said, as she grabbed a cloth and tried to dab at his mouth, catching his nose instead. "Sorry!"

"Dak, calm down will you!" said Maddock, pulling the cloth from her shaking fingers and wiping his chin.

"Sorry, it is just that you look so bad, and the doctor said I was to look after you. Oh, what has happened to you, Maddock?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that. How did I get here?"

"Master Sprak, I think, from what I have been hearing. It is said that he pulled you out from Hakansa's pen and brought you in here."

Maddock lay back into his pillow and rubbed his eyes.

"Was it poisoned?"

"What?"

"The meat that was in Hakansa's pen. Was it poisoned or not?"

"So rumour is saying."

"And Hakansa is alive?"

"He is fine, but Maddock, why were you even in his pen in the first place?"

"Because I'm an idiot," said Maddock.

"An idiot? Why do you believe yourself to be an idiot?"

"Because I was doing something for that shitting Order brat friend of yours."

"Tahlia? That is not a nice thing to be calling her."

"No it is not!" said an indignant voice at the far end of the room.

Dak looked quickly up to see Tahlia stropping down the room, her dress filthy and ripped, more so than even Dak had ever seen it, and her hair was beyond dishevelled. Her feet were black with dirt.

"Did you hear what the impertinent boy called me, brother?"

"Yes," said Grifford, who had entered the room behind her through the door to the cloister.

Tahlia spun around to him.

"Well! What do you propose to do about it?"

"Nothing," said Grifford walking by her. "You may well deserve it."

Tahlia spun back around, her eyes blazing.

"What are you doing here?" said Dak, jumping to her feet. "You cannot be in here with your outside boots on. Doctor Fos will be angry."

"I have not got any boots on," said Tahlia, looking down at her filthy feet.

Her brother looked down at the clumps of mud his own boots had left on the floor.

"Someone will clean it up," he said before resting his hands on the end of Maddock's bed. "We need to talk to you, Field-hand."

"Yes," said Tahlia, going to the bed. "And I do not want any of your impertinence... Oh!"

Tahlia stopped, her eyes wide, fixed on the thick bandages wrapped about Maddock's head.

"I did what you wanted, my lady, and this is where it got me."

"Well I only asked you to watch Hakansa. I did not ask you to jump into his pen."

"Well I did, and I saved his life. I wouldn't mind some thanks."

"You cannot demand anything of me..."

"Both of you be quiet!" snapped Grifford, and Tahlia, to Dak's relief, stopped talking.

She sat down in the chair beside Maddock's bed, trying to make herself small in case Tahlia's brother should take exception to her presence.

"Who did it?" said Grifford, leaning forward. "Who tried to kill Hakansa?"

"Was it Tasker?" demanded Tahlia.

"Tasker?" said Maddock, the strip of brow showing under the thick bandage furrowing. "I don't know."

"Oh you must know!" said Tahlia. "You were there!"

Dak watched silently as Maddock sighed. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair. Could they not see that her friend was injured?

"Look," said Maddock boldly. "It was dark. I only barely saw them as it was, and they had a hat on, and a scarf over their face."

"You did not recognise him?"

"That's what I said!"

Tahlia threw herself onto the bed next to Maddock's.

"That is it then. We have no proof of Tasker's guilt."

Grifford looked down at his sister, her arms outstretched and her head back, gazing at the ceiling.

"Tell us what happened," he demanded of Maddock.

Maddock sighed again. Dak looked around, then picked up a cup of water from the table and pushed it into his hand. Maddock took a long drink, then he spoke about the previous night, of how he had met Tahlia at the arenas, then what had come after, up to the point  when Hakansa's horn had struck his head, sending him into unconsciousness.

All the while, Dak sat listening, anguish for her friend steeling over her heart with each word he spoke.

"I mean it could have been Tasker," he conceded when he had finished. "It was definitely not a full grown man, but why would Tasker do it?"

"My sister has the notion that Sir Galder is behind it."

"Yes, and I do not care what Zemrossa says. Who else would want Hakansa poisoned? And that is another thing! Tasker is always hanging around the lady's quarters on the pretext of seeing his mother. Maybe he had a hand in our brother being taken as well!"

Dak's hand shot to her mouth.

"Your brother has been taken! What do you mean?"

"Our brother has been kidnapped by the same people who wanted Hakansa poisoned. I bet that when they failed, they kidnapped Kralmir in order to lure our father away from the fortress to make sure he misses the contest today."

Dak frowned.

"I am not sure that the logic of your reasoning can be correct, Tahlia..."

"Of course it is correct! Our father is a knight of Klinberg. Everyone knows that he is bound to do anything to protect his sons, whatever the cost."

"I do not know that," said Grifford, looking strangely childish and petulantly to Dak's eye.

Tahlia shook her head, glaring at her brother.

"That is because you are an idiot, Grifford."

"Tahlia, I have had enough..."

Grifford was interrupted by the swift sound of feet in the corridor outside, and suddenly the door was pushed roughly open. A soldier stood there, and the glow-lights above the hospital beds cast their bright light on his burgundy uniform.

"There you are!"

Grifford jumped off the bed and stood with his arms held out defensively at his side as the soldier hurried down the centre aisle between the beds. He ignored Grifford and went instead straight to Maddock's bedside.

"Karek!" cried Maddock, trying to sit up.

"Lie still, brother," said Karek. "I only just heard. What, by Terra, have you been doing?"

"Well..." said Maddock, looking over his shoulder at Tahlia.

Karek followed his gaze, his eyes so much like his younger brother's.

Dak looked at Tahlia, and saw her eyes narrow.

"Wait, I know you! You were the soldier last night. The one who took me to my father's tent."

"And you are the young girl who likes to upset merchant's stalls, the daughter of Sir Kralaford, the Lady Tahlia Layne. And her brother, Grifford." Karek turned to Grifford and gave a half nod of his head.

Dak saw Grifford frowned, but Karek had gone back to looking at his brother.

"By the spawn of khlith, boy! You look a right mess."

"I feel a right mess."

"This is your brother!" said Tahlia. "You never told me he was one of Sir Galder's soldiers."

"It does not matter," said Grifford, raising his hand to stop any further comment from his sister, before turning back to Karek.

"Tell us what is going on outside," he demanded. "Is there any news of our brother?"

Karek turned to him, and raised an amused eyebrow.

"None, squire. The soldiers of Klinberg are pulling the place apart looking for him, and for you two as well as it happens."

"For us!"

"Oh yes. We have been instructed by Sir Galder himself that if you are found, you are to be taken directly to him. He is concerned for your safety."

Grifford edged in front of his sister.

"Oh don't worry about me, Squire Grifford. I'm more bothered about my own brother. Speaking of which, could someone please tell me why he is lying in an Infirmary bed with his head split open from crown to ear? Did you have anything to do with this?"

Karek looked at Tahlia.

"Certainly not!" she said. "Well, not directly..."

Karek looked back at Maddock, his eyebrow raised. Maddock put his hand to his bandaged head, and winced.

Dak tensed in her chair, wondering if she should go and look for a doctor, but then Maddock spoke, his hand falling back into his lap.

"I suppose you've heard about Hakansa?"

"What? That someone tried to kill him, and my brave but rather stupid brother jumped into his pen and pulled the poisoned meat straight from his teeth? The fortress is rife with the rumours, and by the look of you they seem to be true."

"Well, I didn't take the meat right from his teeth, only from under his nose, but the rest is true."

"All well and good, but what I really want to know is what you were doing in Hakansa's pen in the first place."

"Well," said Maddock, looking at Tahlia.

"I really do not think it is any of this man's business," she said.

"My brother is my business," snapped Karek. His facade of good humour that Dak was familiar with, vanished. He turned back to Maddock. "Now tell me."

"She asked me to look out for Hakansa last night," said Maddock.

"Oh, yes, and why would you do that, my lady?"

"I do not have to tell you anything," said Tahlia loftily, and stuck her nose in the air.

"She thinks that it was Tasker who tried to poison Hakansa," said Maddock.

"Why would you think it was Tasker?"

Tahlia glared at Maddock, folded her arms and pressed her lips together in a tight line.

"Sister, behave," growled Grifford.

"But he is Commander Galder's man!"

"I am no one's man but my own," said Karek coldly. "Now I want you to grow up, girl. Someone has attempted to poison your father's steed, and your brother has been kidnapped. Now it seems that my own brother has been tangled up in this whole mess, and I would like you to explain why."

Tahlia jumped from the bed. Dak tried to crouch lower in her chair.

"You cannot talk to me like..!"

"Tahlia!" Grifford snapped from his position at the end of the bed.

Tahlia glared at him.

"Oh, fine," she huffed, after her brother had faced down her glower for a few seconds. "Tasker went back to that merchant's tent your brother told me about."

"What merchant's tent?" asked Karek.

He transferred his gaze from Tahlia to his brother.

"Do you remember that day when you came back from the north?" Maddock said.

"Of course."

"Well, you remember we were at the Encampment and we saw a Farm-boy sneaking into that betting tent, and you and Yohef followed him in."

"Merchant Dres' place? Yes, of course."

"Well, she thinks it was Tasker..."

"Wait!" said Tahlia. "What did you say!"

"What bit?"

"Whose place was it?

"Merchant Dres," said Karek. "Why?"

"That is who it was in the tent! I knew I had heard his voice before. Mother brought some jewellery from him on the day the merchants came up to the fortress to sell their wares in the hall of petitioners. She brought them to match her new dress. So it was the same tent that I was taken to! I knew it was!"

"My lady," said Karek, holding up his hands to try to calm Tahlia, who was pacing up and down, her hands to her head, fingers entwined in the mess of her hair. "You're going too fast for a simple soldier to understand. What are you talking about?"

Tahlia stopped pacing. She pulled a redundant hairclip that the disturbance of her hair had dislodged, looked at it for a few seconds, then dropped it on the bed.

"Right, listen..."

And again Dak sat and listened to a tale that made her heart feel like it had been doused in a forge's temping trough. Her friend had been attacked by a demon and threatened with death!

"And that Vlambra person," Tahlia finished. "I know where I have heard his voice before as well. On that same day at the fortress. He was in the central-courtyard talking with Jerrus. It was Merchant Dres' Trade-proctor!"