Sir Kralaford felt his fist tighten on his sword's grip in impotent frustration. Hakansa growled to reflect his displeasure, and lowered his head to sniff at the fetid waters of the bog land, his horns flattening and snapping the course stalks of the piper's grass. He gave a final snort of derision at the brown scummed water, deigning it to be undrinkable, despite his thirst.

With an abrupt word, Sir Kralaford urged him up to a rise in the damp land, though even there the ground underfoot was spongy and uncertain, and the height presented him with no improvement to his view. The kidnappers' trail had been clear as they had pursued them across the plains, and they had made good time, quickly passing the high grassy dome of the Sanctuary far to the south. As they had once more begun to climb into the hills, the trail had become clearer still as they began to cross the countless small streams that tumbled down from the highlands, their muddy banks prime for holding the hoof prints of the hydrayet they were following. But their pursuit slowed when they rode down to a basin in the land, where the ground was sodden and the water collected in viscous pools. Even the tall piper's grass, dry and so easily snapped, gave his scouts little indication of their quarry's path through the mire as it was already cut through and flattened by the bog lands' existing slow inhabitants.

Sir Kralaford could see one of them from his position on the mound's low rise. The grass-turtle looked all the world like a rounded island of grass, and could easily be taken as such if you did not discern the two ball like fronds that swayed in the breeze at the island's more bulbous end, or notice the slow bending and snapping of the piper's grass in front of it. It was a slow ponderous creature that feasted on the flesh of the fast unobservant ones.

Sir Kralaford cursed the creature and all its kin for the countless trails they had made across the place, any one of which the fugitives could have followed. He'd had the urge to simply plunge straight across the damp lowland and push on towards Solridge, but the boggy basin was vast, shaped by the cradle of four valleys, so he had been able to do nothing but wait while his scouts explored its outer reaches.

"Sir!" shouted Sir Hogan, who had ridden his steed up a larger rise to the north, where bedraggled bushes grew close to the water's surface. Sir Kralaford could see nothing beyond the crude hill, so he urged Hakansa through the mire's stagnant waters and up its slope to where the other knight waited.

In the stretch of lowland beyond the hill the tall grasses trembled and shook as a rider charged along one of the grass-turtle runs, sending up spreading sheets of muddy water. It was his senior scout, who had been exploring the low valley to the north, and when she saw him waiting on the rise she forced her steed between the brittle grasses and up towards him.

She delivered her news as she climbed the final few metres.

"I have them, Sir." She turned and pointed back the way she had ridden. "They have followed a streambed up into the hills."

"Are you sure?"

"Their trail was clear, and one of their mounts left droppings They could not have passed that way more than a half hour before I found them."

"A half hour?" said Sir Hogan. "Is that all?"

"It is my guess that they have been floundering around among the turtle runs, trying to find their path out."

"The first good fortune of the day," said Sir Kralaford as he turned to find Sir Beddingvale, who had been stationed to the east, but at the sight of the returned scout was now urging his steed back through the shallow waters. "If we ride swiftly, we will have them within the hour. My son will soon be safe."

He held up his arm to gain Sir Bedingvale's attention, and then pointed north.

"Sir!" said Sir Hogan. "You cannot ride much further. If you do not turn back within the hour..."

"I will not return without my son."

"But your contest!"

"Is of no consequence if I do not find him. No one within the Order would wish to be led by a man who cannot even protect his own son. I have no choice in this matter, as whoever has taken Kralmir knows only too well."

Sir Kralaford cast a last glance over his shoulder across the tumble of hills they had climbed, then he urged Hakansa down the mound's slope and back into the standing water and grass-turtle runs, to continue his pursuit.

* * * * *

Grifford moved quickly. He dropped his sword, took two strides to the platform's edge, and leapt out into the void. His brother fell towards him, red faced and screaming, and Grifford's one clear memory of the seconds that followed was the warmth of Kralmir's cheek, and the dampness of his tears on his neck, as he enfolded him in one arm and pulled him tight against his body. The rest was just distorted images, as together they fell. The stanchions holding the staircase seemed to blur past him, then pain smashed his ribs as he collided with one. His free hand struck out, and a corner of metal gouged his flesh, then mashed a bruise into the crook of his arm as he bent his elbow to stop his fall. The strength of his arm was the only thing holding him for a few seconds, before he kicked out with his legs and they found another cross stanchion to hold him.

The girder where he had set his feet was wet and slimy from the water that boiled only a scant few metres below. He was sure his feet would slip from under him, but then he shifted his bruised left arm, and his fingers gripped and held him more firmly. He hung there, his breathing rapid and his heart hammering at this chest.

Kralmir had stopped his crying, and Grifford dared not look down at the bundle he still held tight to his chest for fear that something dire had happened when he had caught him. But his brother's breath had only been knocked from him, and after a few seconds he started to wail anew.

"Grifford!" came his sister's call from above.

"Idiot girl!" Grifford hissed between his rapid breaths.

He looked about and saw that the stair the girders enclosed led down as well as up, and they disappeared into the brown foaming waters below. He could feel a steady vibration through his fingers, the stairs, and their supporting gantry, and he assumed Vlambra was fleeing upwards.

"Vlambra's getting away!" his sister called down to him.

'Let him go!' he thought. 'I have my brother now.'

Though in truth, their position was precarious. The arm gripping his brother still ached from his fight with Sabstan, and the one from which he hung throbbed from the collision that had stopped his fall. He could have climbed onto the stairs through the triangle of space formed by the stanchion from which he hung and the sloping diagonal where he stood, but he was too close to the corner of it, and could not turn and squeeze his body through, with the burden of Kralmir still held to him. If he could just move himself back and widen the gap...

He slid his hand along the stanchion above, taking his weight on his feet, but they slipped suddenly on the wet surface beneath them. He lost his grip and slid downwards, one knee striking the stairway's metal upright. Instinct made him turn and hold Kralmir away from harm, and the force of the movement unbalanced him further, tipping him outwards towards the drop. His feet slipped from the stanchion, and he flailed with his free hand, managing to hook his fingers back over the beam above him. His fingers were all that held him, and when he pushed his foot against the gantry's side, all he found for purchase was wet rivets.

"Fortak be damned!" he hissed, and the wet edge of the stanchion scrapped at his fingers as he lost his final grip, and his weight pulled him down.

Something gripped his wrist.

He looked up to see the Engineer girl holding onto his arm with both her hands, her eyes wide and dumb with fear.

"Pull me up!" he shouted at her, and she pulled.

He was surprised at the girl's strength as she dragged him painfully up and over the damp metal of the cross beam. When he was sure his weight was fully over it, he tried to shake her grip off, but it was too strong.

"Let go!" he snapped, and when she did he rolled himself over the stanchion, mindful that Kralmir was not squashed, and he fell heavily onto the stair, its metal treads digging fresh bands of pain across his back.

"Are you fine?" asked Dak, her eyes still wide and worried.

"That is a damn fool question!" Grifford snapped again as he pulled himself to his feet.

"I only meant..."

Grifford held his hand up to silence her.

"Where is my damn fool sister?"

"She is up..." began Dak, but Grifford did not wait to listen.

He ran back up the stairs to the platform above, his brother still wailing in his arms.

"What, by the plains, did you think you were doing!" he growled, but his sister was not there.

"Grifford!" she called from above, and he looked up to see her on the stairs, one turn from where her brother had been dropped. "Come on. Before he gets away!"

"Leave him! We have our brother."

"But he can answer our questions!" cried Tahlia, and she ran off up the stairs.

"Tahlia!" shouted Grifford, but it did not stop her.

Dak had followed him up from the stairs below, and she was standing on the platform, looking upwards.

"You!" he said. He stepped towards her and pushed his crying brother into her arms. "Look after him."

Then he looked around the platform, swiftly bent to pick up his sword from where he had dropped it, and followed his sister up the stair, every muscle and bone in his body protesting.

He found her at the stair's head, where it joined a wide walkway running along the top of three thick pipes. She was crouched and alert, an arrow on her bow's string as she looked about her at the chaos of pipes.

"Stop, sister! This is madness."

"Do you not want to know who is behind all this? Vlambra knows!"

"Merchant Dres is behind all this, and he can tell us his reasons."

"But..."

Grifford grabbed his sister's arm, pulling her roughly towards him.

"We have to get Kralmir away from here! You have already almost caused his death once already. We have to get a message to father if he is to return in time to face Sir Galder."

Tahlia was not listening.

"Look!" she said, pointing to where a splash of blood glistened darkly on the walkway ahead. "I've wounded Vlambra well. He will not get far."

"So leave him."

"I would prefer to have him where I can see him, so he can cause no further mischief."

She shook his arm off and ran, leaping over the patch of blood, following the walkway upwards.

Grifford watched her go. Half his mind told him to go back down to his brother and leave his sister to her foolishness. What harm could come to her? She had her bow, and Vlambra was injured and unarmed.

And desperate.

If something were to happen to Tahlia, what was he supposed to tell his father? That she chased after a man four times her size and he had stood and watched her go?

"The Predation damn the girl!" he growled, and chased after her.

He climbed a ladder from the walkway, seeing the bloody handprints smeared on its rungs, and he found Tahlia waiting for him at the top. She gave him a mischievous grin, and he scowled back.

Then she stood, and they went on after Vlambra in silence, following his bloody trail.