The avenues of the Encampment were becoming busy. The merchants were opening their stalls, rolling back their tent flaps, and setting out their tables, but after the morning's turmoil there was an air of uncertain suspense about the place. Karek could feel it as he led his brothers along its avenues.

"How can you be sure?" asked Larrad.

"I can't," replied Karek. "But you've got to agree, it makes sense."

"But the fortress is massive. It will take an age to search."

"So it's lucky we know someone who can tell us where the boy is being hidden."

When they reached it, Merchant Dres' tent was closed. Xerekus was still hunkered menacingly outside. One of its heads had its eyes closed, apparently in sleep, but the other was glaring balefully at the soldier standing on the other side of the avenue, who looked discomfited, and was trying not to meet his gaze.

"What news, Ulli?" said Karek cheerfully as he approached the soldier.

"Nothing, sir," said Ulli, looking relieved at Karek's return.

"No one's left the tent, and the boys round the back say the same."

"Good," said Karek, and turned to the tent's flap in time to see it pushed aside as the unremarkable figure of Svell SanMartin stepped into view.

Xerekus opened his other set of eyes and watched the Trade Proctor cross the avenue to where Karek waited.

"Could you tell me the meaning of this, Unit-leader?" he asked, with forced politeness.

"The meaning of what exactly, Seior SanMartin?" replied Karek, smiling.

"You have your men surrounding my employer's property. He would like to know why."

"That matter will only be discussed with Merchant Dres, Seior SanMartin."

"You can't enter."

Svell SanMartin put his hand casually on the hilt of his sword.

"I think we'll have to insist, Seior."

The unassuming Trade Proctor turned his mild gaze from Karek to his two brothers, and then to squad-man Ulli, who was looking uncomfortable and wholly unthreatening.

"You have neither the authority nor the men to support your insistence. Go away."

Karek smiled again.

"You don't understand, Seior SanMartin. It isn't me who wishes to talk with the good Merchant."

There was some stirring of commotion at the far end of the avenue, where the scant crowds of people who'd ventured into the Encampment were hastily moving themselves aside. A snorting and a low growling could be heard, and then the junction was filled with a troop of ten mounted knights, attired in armour of mesh, with swords at their sides and rail-shields in their hands. Some wore the grey of Bannoc Chapter, others the white of Jacob, or the yellow and red of Dolphus. Behind them came units of soldiers, wearing the arms of all six of the Order's Chapters.

Svell SanMartin's expression did not change, even when more soldiers rounded the corner at the avenue's other end. He calmly watched them approach. The only sign of emotion he gave was the irritated glance he shot at Xerekus as the creature drew its swords and unfolded itself to stand in the centre of the avenue.

The knights spread themselves into a half circle, with Merchant Dres' doorkeeper at their centre. They drew their own curved swords, and their steeds lowered their horned heads to growl and snarl at the creature before them.

"Stand down, Xerekus," said Seior Svell SanMartin calmly, before he turned to watch the other band of soldiers close on him. They numbered at least one section, though their separate units again wore the colours of all of Klinberg's Chapters.

At their head, and looking tatty in his old uniform, was High Lance-master Tzarren.

"Good morning, Trade Proctor," he said. "I hope this morning finds you well."

* * * * *

As she clung to the ladder, Tahlia stared into the eyes of the man who had appeared below them. She expected, at any moment, to hear an exclamation or some kind of challenge, but the man remained silent, his expression turning from malevolence to one of puzzlement. Tahlia held her breath. The man was staring upwards through the glare of lights, and where the three of them hung on the ladder, they would be shadowed by the pipes on each side. The only thing he would be able to see was strange shadows, and the tower's side was a mass of such odd elongated shapes.

They would be safe as long as none of them moved, and it seemed Grifford had the same notion because he was still hanging frozen below her, among a mass of odd shaped debris. It was probably because he was too clueless to know what to do about the man's sudden appearance below, but the reasons for his inactivity did not matter as long as he remained still. She rolled her eyes down to look at Dak, and saw that her friend still had her head tucked between her hands, though she did not know how long she would remain still in her terror. She assumed Dak had not seen the man below, and she worried she would soon break from her torpor and make a sound or movement that would alert him to their presence.

The chamber was filled with the sound of the sloshing water below, but also, all about them, came the sporadic screeching calls of the nasty flying creatures. Tahlia imagined them perched in the darkness, watching from the shadows.

She looked back to the man, and saw him still staring up towards them. As she watched, he took a few steps backwards towards the parapet's edge to give himself a clearer view. Surely soon they would be seen; three shadows that did not belong. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She could not make any use of her bow until her hands were free from the ladder, and the ladder's end was still a long way below them.

She did still had her mother's knife, though.

Grifford must have been having similar thoughts, because she saw his hand drop slowly to the hilt of his sword.

'Don't do anything stupid, brother.'

Too late.

Grifford was still hanging amongst the wreckage of what had once been the flying creatures' nest, and his action must have caused his sword's scabbard to move. Something was dislodged, and went tumbling downwards to land with a hollow click on the parapet below, where it bounced once and then twice, before rolling and coming to rest at the man's feet.

He bent down and picked it up, giving a grunt of disgust as he did so, but his brief exclamation was lost as the high pitched screeching started again, this time seeming to come from all around the chamber. The man looked up, the screeching closed on him, and suddenly he was shrouded in a cloud of flittering winged bodies. He gave a cry, more of revulsion than fear, and flapped his arms at the attacking creatures. He made two misplaced steps towards the parapet's edge. Tahlia held her breath, but just when it seemed as though he would take one more fateful step, he stopped flapping his arms about and threw the thing in his hand away from him, and it bounced across the parapet.

"Have it then, you dung-birds!" he growled, and the screeching mass left him and descended on the thing that had fallen. Their limbs made a sharp scratching on the metal surface before, as one, they took flight into the darkness.

"Foul creatures!" muttered the man as he stalked back across the wide parapet towards the tower, where he disappeared from sight.

Clinging to the ladder, Tahlia let out a relieved breath, but then she looked up, and peered out into the darkness. She could hear the high squeals of the wet winged creatures, who had not returned to their hidden perches among the pipes, but were gathered together in a ball of flight. She could hear the collective high thrum of their wings as the flock circled about them, the noise growing faint as they disappeared behind the tower, before growing loud once more at they swooped back around. It seemed that each time they passed, the noise was growing closer.

"Down! Quickly, down!" hissed Tahlia, and Grifford immediately began to climb.

Dak lifted her head and looked about in fear, but then she began to follow him down. Tahlia moved after, climbing fast and listening for the noise of the flock's next passage. As she drew level with the foul wet sticks of the nest that her brother had disturbed, they flew so close to her that she felt the wind from their small wings flutter at her face. She tried to climb faster, but Dak was moving too slowly below her. It seemed as though she had only passed a few rungs when she heard the distant wing beats grow in volume from their last circuit of the tower. This time they did not pass by, but descended on her in a screeching fury, battering about her face and tangling themselves in her hair again. She felt their tiny claws scratching at the skin of her face, so she closed her eyes and mouth tight against their assault as she felt for the ladder's rungs below.

She heard Dak give a startled yelp as the foul creatures transferred their sharp attention to her, and Tahlia prayed that her friend would keep moving.

She finished the last few meters of the climb with her eyes still tight closed, and only knew she had reached the bottom of the ladder when someone grabbed her and pulled her away. Her eyes snapped open, and she raised her arms to fight, but found herself staring into her brother's eyes. He grabbed one of the screeching creatures from her hair and threw it away, then pulled her across the parapet to where a bundle of pipes struck across its surface. He half pushed her over the top of them before vaulting over them himself.

She lay in the shadow of the pipes as her breathing slowed, and she could hear the fast breath of both Dak and her brother close by. She lay on her back and she could see the dark shapes still flittering above her as they flapped and swarmed about their broken nest.

"Well I say something startled them," came a sudden voice from close by.

Tahlia rolled on to her side and peered through a gap between two of the pipes whose shadow sheltered them, and saw two men appear around the curve of the tower.

One of them was the same man they had seen before, but the other was taller and bulky, his thick arms covered by crudely drawn tattoos.

It was Vlambra.

"Scabs are useless at nest building," he said. "The damn things are always rotting and falling apart. What were you doing out here anyway?"

Tahlia watched as Vlambra took a hand-light from his belt and clicked it open, sending a wavering beam of light upwards. He played the light up and down the ladder, casting huge shadows of the still circling creatures against the surrounding pipes.

"We was told to keep an eye out," said the other man.

"For what! I told Dres there is nothing down here. I am not knowing why he sent you on a job that I would best be doing on my own."

"Merchant Dres..."

"Is not trusting me, let's be honest. Don't open your mouth again, because I know that what will come out of it will be a lie." The beam of the hand-light came to rest on the broken nest. "See! The brainless shits have built a right turd of a nest and got themselves in a tizzy when it's fallen apart on them. Now come on, let's get ourselves away inside."

Tahlia watched Vlambra click off his hand-light, and then the two men disappeared back around the tower.

Tahlia pulled herself to her knees.

"Well, we have found him."

"That was Vlambra?" asked Grifford.

"Yes."

"And he is not on his own."

"No. Does it make a difference?"

"Of course it makes a difference, sister! If you did not notice, that man had a sword at his waist, and I have nothing but a blunt training sword at mine, made by her!"

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Dak, who was still lying on the metal floor of the parapet. Her face was pale, either with exertion or with the renewed stink of the chamber, which had grown putrid and fertile now they were close to the sliding slick surface of the waste reservoir.

"It is sometimes possible to solve a problem without raising a sword, brother. Let me go and have a look inside and assess things a little better, then we can decide what we are to do."

Grifford raised his head and peered over the cluster of pipes.

"All right," he said "But I will go,"

"No," said Tahlia. "I am better at this sort of thing than you."

She stood up swiftly and made to leap over the pipes, but Grifford grabbed her arm to stop her.

"We are not playing a game, sister! This is not the same as absenting yourself from your lessons and hiding from Mistress Oleander."

"Of course it is, little brother."

"These people are not like the soldiers of Klinberg, who doubtless turn a blind eye to your misdemeanours. They want you dead. If you are seen they will not hesitate to arrange it."

"I will not be seen."

"I cannot allow it. I am tired of you not listening to me."

"You..!" began Tahlia, but then she saw the determined look on her brother's face and her protest died on her lips. She would just have to persuade him a different way.

"What about Dak?" she said.

Grifford glanced over at her friend, still lying unmoving on the platform.

"Leave her here. She will only be a hindrance."

Dak suddenly sat up.

"I do not want to be staying here on my own."

"We shall all go," said Tahlia. "I will go first, and you follow behind with Dak. You can protect her. Is that not what knights are supposed to do?"

Grifford opened his mouth to protest, but did not seem to have an answer. He rolled his eyes instead, then he glared at Dak.

Tahlia smiled.

"It is settled then," she said as she shook off his unresisting grip and jumped over the pipes. "Let us go and get our brother back."