Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 43i

Pride-commander Kralaford urged Hakansa onwards at a quicker pace than he knew was wise. The fighting beasts of the Pride were not bred for prolonged swiftness, and as he reached the crest of the valley where the river Siceria lay, he could hear Hakansa's breath labouring. Sir Hogan and Sir Beddingvale, along with the remaining messengers, reached the crest behind him, and their own steeds were similarly rasping in parched displeasure.

 The morning's journey had taken them north and east, and as they had passed through the ranch lands, the sun had risen. It turned the eastern sky a burning orange as they skirting the tragasaur herds, whose members stood clumped together, unmoving and night somnolent.

A half hour later they had reached the ghost of the Sanctuary road, snaking up into hills, where the ground was scarred by bands of rock. The hills grew steeper, the rock becoming more prominent, rising in heavy slabs, shaped by the Siceria over centuries into the echoing cataracts of the deeps. The rising sun made rainbows in the clouds of spray thrown up by the unseen falls, and glinted off the wide river in the valley below. Sir Kralaford tracked the Siceria's course southwards, noting the numerous farms lying on its east and west banks, enclosed by their crescent shaped kernik orchards, their waters still high after the rains.

The deeps bridge lay somewhere ahead, beyond the rising hills, and he was sure it was the path his son's kidnappers would have taken, but a feeling of uncertainty gnawed at him. If it was the obvious route of escape, would it be the one they would take? What if they had turned back north in the night and joined the Force road where it crossed the Rhebus? He chided himself for not following their trail more cautiously, even though he knew that he had not had the time for such care.

He could see the distant figures of riders in the valley below; knights of Dolphus Chapter carrying out their search of the farms. The sight of them reassured him that his decision had been correct. All the crossing places remaining on the Siceria, the Rhebus, and the Faulker, were occupied by farms or ranches, and they would all be searched and their inhabitants questioned. No one could have passed them without being seen or heard.

Hakansa's breathing had slowed, and with a word of command, Sir Kralaford urged him on, up into the hills, and the bridge over the deeps.

His son's kidnappers would soon be found, and they would be punished.

* * * * *

As Tahlia and Grifford followed her down the sloping passageway, Dak was beset by new doubts. Not at what she was doing, those doubts had never left her, and still beat at her with every step. The realisation was falling on her though, that the access tunnels were vast, and she was not absolutely certain they would all slope directly down to the waste reservoir. What if they sloped out to the shield bastions, and then back like a zig-zag shot game, or ended in a deep sump chamber where the outflow was accessed from a different corridor? They could be lost for days trying to find the right path down. She was too scared of Grifford's reaction to voice her concerns, and she could feel her heart thumping faster and faster with every step they took downwards, until they came to a junction where she was forced to make her first decision.

The junction was a simple one. The corridor ahead continued to curve away in the right direction, but it also sloped upwards. There was an archway on their left, and the corridor beyond sloped down so steeply the floor was stepped. That would take them both down and inwards, so it was the obvious one to take. The logic of that answer calmed her inside, and she felt her heartbeat slow a little, and her stomach untie itself from the knot it had bound itself into. She went down the stairs, and the others followed in silence.