Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 45i

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..."