CHAPTER ONE

" .... And 'tis said that in the voids beyond the heavens there exist worlds beyonds worlds beyond the reckoning of mortal minds. Some there are like our own good Galatra, where the balance is daily contested and yet the scales never have wholly o'erbalanced. Such is not the case elsewhere."
    "Worlds there are of Law, where cities of eternal crystal sing in harmony with the vibrations of the spheres. Worlds there are that have fallen wholly to Chaos, where seas of formless protoplasm writhe and churn in frenzied abandon. And yet these are not the most terrible of all. Still other Worlds there are, where floating heart-shapes and rainbows drift past deformed beasts of unnatural pastel hues, where dwell the great-eyed people who dress in the tight costumes of the goddess known in the Book Of No Returning as Minky Momu."
	( Quote from Liber Transplanum, being the still unexplained Last Visions of the great prophet Alazgar the Clinically Insane.)

	"Stuff Law. Stuff Chaos. When do we eat around here ?"
	( Quote from Beauvette Mareethra the Steelhooved, shortly before her dismissal from palace ceremonial duties. )


Beauvette shifted the haft of the axe in her powerful grip, as she eyed the rough Stonewood log in front of her. Muscles bunched in her arms and shoulders as she swung the twenty-kilo battleaxe of burnished bronze, slicing deep into what she could wish was more than firewood.
	"One - for Duke Elbreez"
		THUNK.
	"Two - who packed off his  best troops - "
		THUNK.
	"Three - out here into the backwoods while - "
		THUNK.
	"Four - him and those fashion-plates called Guards -"
		THUNK.
	"Five - sit back there in the warm !"
		THUNKK !
With a final savage swing, she cleaved the knot-grained log like a melon, the halves flying apart to the far corners of the woodshed. Her nostrils dilated, she stood there in a cloud of snorted steam mingling with the cold grey mist blowing in from the wet forests outside.
	Suddenly there was a polite clapping from the barracks doorway behind. Wheeling round with an angry red glint in her eyes, she suddenly stopped. And put down the battleaxe.
	"Oh. It's you."
It was a strange pair of figures that faced each other in that dripping shed, where only the rain disturbed the dawn of another day of exile. The smaller figure was human in size, but even in a grey hooded robe he moved with a feline sureness and grace. The hood fell back, and Gralius Greywashed twitched the long ears that marked him as of Newblood stock. His sharp fangs were bright as they were bared in his usual sardonic smile. 
	"Yes, it's me - more's the pity, since almost anywhere's better than here. Still, you seem to be keeping in shape at any rate."
	Beauvette snorted, and tossed the polished axe in a spinning arc that precisely shaved a splinter off the rough-hewn roof before her other hand caught it. "Nothin' else to do, is there ? There's one inn for the whole barracks, and there's only one sort o' customer that likes it. The fleas." Absent-mindedly she scratched between her horns with the savage armour-piercing spike on the axe back.
	From Beauvette's booted hooves to her metal-tipped horns was more than two metres and three hundred kilos of solid Minotaur. On the shoulder of her leather jerkin was the faded patch where battle honours had been, won just two years ago in the last of the King's battles. Things had gone downhill since then......
	Gralius seemed to read her thoughts; his smile faded to a keen and thoughtful look of his own. Dew-beaded whiskers twitched as he helped her gather up the scattered logs for her troop's breakfast fires.
	"You know, I think we might be able to find a better use for that axe of yours than cutting firewood." He cast her a thoughtful look "My High Priest has got himself a little problem ."

	"OI ! Vazeeq ! Get up, you lazy pile of rugmaker's refuse !"
Back in the dimly lit log hut that served out here as an excuse for  barracks, Beauvette's hoof made sharp contact with a snoring furball curled up by the cold stove "If breakfast's not on the way by the I've finished grooming, your scarlet rump and my dainty hoof are going to get better acquainted !"
	A thin, frightened-looking baboon uncoiled and streaked off towards the kitchen. Beauvette's gaze followed him with at least one percent more affection than a stranger might have guessed. Vazeeq was not much of an advertisement for Newbloods, maybe. But in the field he was about the best scavenger on two legs, and not far off the best cook she'd ever served with.
	Even at the height of the war, Beauvette's reckoning put it at no more than three major battles a month that she had fought in. But though Vazeeq had been in none of them, she had to grudgingly admit his worth - after all, there were not three but thirty breakfasts to organise in EVERY month.

	"High Lord ? This is she that I told you of."
	The words echoed in the white stone dome of the Temple of Primane, an hour's walk down the valley. There was a moment of stillness, and then the white figure turned round.
	Beauvette had never mixed much with the servants of the Seven Powers. They had by all accounts brought the world into existence without her help, and as far as she could see it looked as if it was going to be around awhile longer without volunteering her services. She had seen the statues, heard the priests, bought the T-shirts, but never yet been inside one of the Preserver's own temples. *
	Suddenly the High Lord unmasked. And suddenly Beauvette was impressed. White robes no longer wholly concealed the heavy frame of what surely had been a human warrior of considerable prowess, some centuries before.
	"Yes, that's what happens if you wish to be a really well-hard fighter for too long." Cold marble lips framed a smile. "Somebody might just hear you. If the Gods decide you're being REALLY useful, they might take you on a permanent posting - in some less perishable form."
	The living stone hand waved Beauvette and Gralius towards a bench. "Come and sit down, you two, and watch this "- he gestured towards a silver mirror set into the altar " I think we've got a problem, and I think you might be the ones to fix it.."
	He passed his hands over the mirror, and a picture appeared. A blinding white storm, like a blizzard lit from within by endless lightning. Beauvette's ears went up.
	"That's going to happen ? Looks bad, all right."
	The High Priest stared at the shifting image in disgust for a second. Reaching behind the altar, he grabbed a thick sacred tome and leafed through it, muttering an arcane chant as he did so.
	To the Newblood's keen hearing, it sounded something like "Skip distance ... thaumic resonances.... section thirty-five B, vertical hold adjust... ah ! Here it is." With a sacred shout of "Deus Fixus Machinus !" and a blow of the sacred manual on the side of the altar, the image grew clear.
	"Such magic." Marvelled Beauvette, and looked through into another place and another time. 

Darkness. Not even the starlit shade of a new moon in the forest, but a full and cloying indoor blackness, with only specks of light to show where windows stood closed to the night. Then a curtain was twitched aside, and mooonlight spilled in to puddle on the carpeted floor of an expensively furnished chamber.
	"Over .... here... " The voice was strange, like and yet unlike the nonhuman accent that Beauvette's own biology forced on her.
	"Quiet - she's asleep."
	Two cloaked figures edged around the revealing pool of light, one of them carefully cradling a well-wrapped bundle. As the light grew, one of them was revealed as a human - a young male of about seventeen summers, his shock of blonde hair bristling and unkempt.
	"You don't have to do this," Beauvette could hear his words, and was amazed to recognise a Court accent "surely there's other ways we can put things right..."
	The other figure, still hooded, gave a hiss of amusement. 
"Mosst of the furless onessss, won't be ssurviving the plaguesss... I am ssshaman, I know these thingssss..." the soft voice was persuasive "we no do thissss, the rightful heir never rulesss, and thisss one no saved anyway. Save lives, put thingssss back in proper order, yesssss  ... ?"
	They approached the cradle that stood in the corner, rich with luxurious hangings whose purchase price would have been far better spent on paying for a guard or three. As they halted, the blonde human unwrapped the bundle he had been so lovingly carrying and looked down at it. From her viewpoint Beauvette could not see what it was, but she could see the expression on his face.
	For nearly a minute the scene remained, while the still-cloaked figure hissed and shifted in impanience. Then the bundle was gently placed in the cradle, and at last the viewing angle caught up with the action.
	There were now two occupants there, sleeping blissfully, and of roughly the same age. But that was all they had in common. What was presumably the original resident was human - the other was not. And though there were twenty-six species of Newbloods, this was not one of them.
	Beauvette and Gralius jerked as if someone had pulled the seat from under them. "An Entrope !"

 * According to the official statues on the outside, he last appeared incarnate as a calm-faced human with an open book in one hand; in the other, the measuring-cord for the eternal task of regulating the world's smooth voyage through Time. Beauvette was shocked to see other statues inside the temple showing a haggard and harassed-looking mechanic doing his best to repair a cracked globe with cosmic string and bailing-wire.  	

	A tiny three-fingered hand was being unconsciously sucked for comfort, as if the new arrival had sensed its unfamiliar surroundings. Even at two or three months, the skull was beginning to narrow towards a snout, and the skin was soft with a golden downy fur. On top of the ridged skull, bumps showed where one day the curved horns would appear.
	"Vell... are we finally ready, yesssss ?" The second figure cast back its hood at last, and there stood another one. Definitely an Entrope - one of the ultimate mongrel breeds of Chaos, blessed with an unnatural vitality by their dark gods, and here in the inner sanctum of what was definitely a noble's palace nursery !
	Beauvette's blood seethed; her fleeting grip on reality was just enough to stop her trying to dive through the image before her. Entropes were hated by everyone - but especially by the Newbloods. There were historical reasons for this, but none that got discussed within the (very long) range of a Newblood breed's ears. 
	( There is a universal Law concerning "There is nobody who so hates the idea of ( x ) than a reformed ( x )er."  If tourism to Beauvette's world ever became common, the insurance companies would have small print denying any responsibility for people who can't tell Newbloods apart from their unreformed ancestors  * )
	"Ssso.... ve beginsss..." and a pale glow began to spread between the Entrope Shaman's gnarled horns. The light split and changed hues - not with the regular harmony of a rainbow, but with the polychrome pollution of oil spilled on water.
	Like a carnivorous plant blossoming silently in the steaming jungles of Akra, the swirling light reached down to the sleepers below. And the transformation began.
	What had been a human child began to sprout soft, silky baby-fur - and its almost round head deformed into a fanged muzzle, sharp white teeth sprouting in suddenly reddening gums. And the Entrope child was transformed as well - in exactly the opposite direction.
	"Ssso. And completed, it is..." there was a note of proud satisfaction in that voice, as the bundle that had so recently been human was wrapped up and passed to the human male "You be glad, thiss little one safe from the plagues, one of uss now she isss. And not worry, did not change all of yourss... she sit on throne someday, carry our shape in blood - maybe marry emperor, all the little princes and princesses come out lovely surprises to everybody !" There was a muted, chuckling laugh.
	The human tore his gaze away from the occupant of the cradle. As if for the first time, he looked around the room.
	"We'd better get out of here soon," he whispered urgently "say - how do you know there's going to be a plague here ?"
	The Entrope nodded sagely. "Trusst me. I am knowing these thingsssss ..."
	Just before the vision ended, Beauvette's keen hearing almost made out a faint clinking, as of well-wrapped glass flasks hidden under a robe.

	Gralius was the first to find words. 
"So - somebody's put a changeling into the dynastic works. We find out where the real child's got to, swap them again and work out how to transform them back, right ?"
	The High Priest winced. "That's not the problem. Primane gave me some indications that it's much worse than that. For the first time in history, it looks like an Entrope was telling the truth. That... that Thing in the cradle IS the rightful heir ! It's a horrible idea, but that's the way it is." The marble face would have turned pale if it could. 
	"We've got an Entrope who's supporting the natural order of things, which is what we're meant to be doing. I've got a bearing on where that scene was; it's in the Southern Dukedom about three years ago."
	Beauvette winced. "Three years ? It's taken an immortal three years to get round to finding out something that impotant ?"
	Gralius and the High Priest looked at her more or less in a stony silence. The feline gave an embarrassed cough, and pointed with his tail at one of the carved friezes on the wall, where a put-upon Preserver And Repairer God contemplated the size of his in-tray of cosmic repairs outstanding.
	"He's been sort of busy putting the laws of Magic back together after the wars - people started to get carried away with launching strategic sorcery with MegaThaum yield curses... a little palace politics or whatever wasn't really on the top of his list..."
	There was a gravelly cough from the High Priest. 
	"It's bad enough when the ravening Chaos Hordes start invading our physical territory. But now they've started encroaching on our area of responsibilities as well - THIS, we've got to put a stop to ! Find out whose throne has an entrope as the rightful heir we've got to support - and find out WHY."



*  Or those who, having discovered this embarassing little fact, are silly enough to insist on trying to discuss it with them.

	The next day dawned cold and windy, but well before the sun reached over the wooded ridges, the courtyard rang to the sound of hooves and cheerful shouts as Beauvette happily handed over her command.
	"All right !" Deep-set minotaur eyes sparkled as the minotaur shovelled her locker contents into saddlebags "At least we know which way to go. And the fastest way is straight down the main military road through the capital !" She waved a travel permit signed by her commander "Ain't it great to have friends in high places. On "Detached Duty For Duration Of Mission" - this could take us months.... or years..." A slow smile spread across her blunt face.
	"Ahem.... just because it wasn't top of an immortal's list of priorities, doesn't mean WE can spend another three years loafing on the job." Gralius unfolded the map. "Yes, but we do have to go through the capital - and I suppose by that time, we can be excused a day or so rest and resupplying."
	"Oh, Definitely....."  Beauvette's tufted tail swished excitedly; a peculiar gleam came to her eyes "and of course I have my own duties, such as seeing how well those posers Duke Elbreez calls a Palace Guard are doing in My rightful job." She experimentally crackled her massive knuckles.
	Sitting on the window-seat in one of the rare patches of sunlight, Gralius shook his head despairingly. But then he smiled sadly.
	"You know, really they are on our side - and I can't condone one defender of the Law wanting to beat the stuffing out of another. Still..."
	"Please...?" A third of a tonne of armoured minotaur fluttered her eyelashes at him in a vain attempt to look winsome. 
	"I'll tell you what. I can think of this as a training exercise - and you can take on the one with the silliest haircut."

	"Yes. Definitely. The open road again, and something to look forward to at the end of it !" It was an hour later, and Beauvette stood tall in the saddle of Pomegranate, one of the massive North Marches battle steeds that had been bred for such a rider. The stallion's great fringed hooves rang on the hard-packed gravel road that led out of the hills towards the glittering lights of the capital, still a week's journey away.
	Gralius looked up at her from the back of a lesser steed that could walk under hers and hardly have to duck. His own meagre bundle fitted into one saddlebag; half of that was the priestly toolkit befitting his rank. While the immortals worked on the major problems, it was left for their servants to uphold the natural order as best they could. He only hoped there weren't TOO many things in need of sorcerous repair on the roadside.....   
	"OI ! Vazeeq ! Get a move on !" Beauvette's stentoran bellow spilt the air "Or am I going to bust you down to Trooper again and promote one of those pack mules - they'd be a damn sight smarter, they didn't volunteer for this."
	The luckless Baboon crammed a half-eaten apple into the saddlebag, and urged the lead mule forward into a brisk trot of about six kilometers an hour. Looking at him, Gralius frowned.
	"Do you HAVE to take all that equipment ? It's only a week to the capital, and we can resupply there."
	Beauvette dismissed her hapless batman with a toss of her horns. "I don't plan on coming back to pick up my kit - what that fleabag's trying to look after is everything I own. Five years campaigning, and it only loads three mules. HA !" With that, she flicked the axe out of its sheath nimble as an assassin's dagger, and balanced it skilfully on one finger "Besides, if we're going into the capital I want to look my best." An almost dreamy look spread across her broad face "I think I'll wear the Tastian Steel plate, the one I took in battle..."
	Gralius sometimes wished his vocation allowed him to have a nice little holiday away from all this. It was true enough that since the final defeat of the hordes of Chaos three years ago *, the land had been at peace. In fact, for the first time in his lifetime there was no imminent threat lurking over the borders anywhere. With a world at peace, things should have started to get better all round as Order returned and the air was loud with the beating of swords into ploughshares.
	Unfortunately, this was spectacularly failing to happen. In the Capital which they were so eagerly approaching, Duke Elbreez had taken over after the direct line had mysteriously ended in the "confused" situation after the last battle - and had set about his "reconstructions" with the sort of zeal that most folk believed was copyright by the priesthood. Reconstructions of "institutions of critical importance" like the Palace Guard had taken top priority.
	 Beauvette had commanded a massively experienced troop of the toughest and most determined Newblood stock - only three humans had made it into their ranks, and those had already been major heroes in their own right. But when the dust had finally settled, they had assembled on the unfamiliar open ground of a parade field, and been told to look smart and professional.
	Gralius's ears were drawn to the clank of armour in the saddlebags that Vazeeq was guarding with his life. Beauvette was planning to wear the heavy suit of enchanted steel that she had stripped from a Champion of Chaos, filed the black spiky bits off, and taken to one of Primane's Temples to have magically purified. This, she was going to wear in front of the gorgeously beribboned and coiffured humans of the new Palace Guard ? 
	Unconsciously, his paws checked his repair kit. However this turned out, it looked like he was going to need it.   

* This is the 117th time that the Hordes Of Chaos have been finally and irrevocably defeated in recorded history. Anyone would think that they aren't following the same Rules as the historians.

	"Not bad." Beauvette surveyed the clearing on the woods, some two hundred paces from the road. "Good enough to camp for the night. Right. OI ! Vazeeq ! Go find us enough water for the horses, then you can start on the firewood collecting." Leisurely, she stretched and yawned, while her warhorse cropped the grass by her own hooves. "We've got important things to do - Gralius has to say his prayers or whatever priest stuff he does, and I've got my own duties."
	As Vazeeq scurried off with waterskins, Beauvette grinned at his departing back. And, taking her almost regulation issue bronze cuirass off, began to groom herself with the "Kit, Sanitation, Newbloods For Use Of, Size Large" that she pulled from the saddlebag.
	Gralius looked appalled. "You're sending him off to do all the work while you sit there and tidy your fur ?"
	A deep-set eye flashed in amusement. "Can't be helped. I'm an Officer, and there's rules about keeping up appearances. "
	"In the middle of a forest, when it's going to be dark in an hour?"
	"Right. I could order Vazeeq to do the foraging AND cooking AND groom me when he's done - but the clumsy ape keeps pulling my fur. So I do it myself - otherwise it gets too painful."
	"For you ?" The feline eyed the scars that cris-crossed beneath the fur like old entrenchments overgrown by forest; a berzerk minotaur was totally immune to pain, and would literally fight on until carved to pieces.
	Beauvette laughed. "Not painful for me - for HIM." 


	A week later, the massive hooves of Pomegranate had carried his rider to the gates of Dystope-on-the Delta, heart of the Empire, and boasting a culture a hundred years in advance of the backwoods.
	"Except for the plumbing, which is a hundred years behind..." Gralius muttered ".... and preferably downwind." 
	"HA ! My old stomping-grounds." Beauvette's ears were upraised as the unmistakeable scent of six hundred thousand people with more spent on perfume than sanitation assailed her nose. "Take a deep breath, you'll get used to it - so many right-thinking people can't be wrong."
	"Excuse.." came Vazeeq's timid voice from behind "how can you tell the Right-thinking people ?"
	Beauvette didn't even turn her head, as she spotted a squad of town Guards glittering in the distance. "You don't have to tell them. Believe me, they'll tell YOU....."

	
	"This is hardly the sort of place I'd have chosen for a rest day..." Gralius had to shout above the din, as he ducked the flying pewter tankard that hurtled past his ears. 
	He dearly wished Beauvette had better taste in inns; the Fallen Unicorn displayed what he thought was an unnecessarily graphic inn sign. Though probably biologically accurate - by all accounts, unicorns had an innate version of the Love Goddess's "Accomodate" spell which enabled otherwise improbable encounters with virgins to take place. Looking up at the sign, he had winced.
	"Hope the spell never wears off too soon," he muttered to himself.
	With a thump, Beauvette landed a tray of the local ale, "Berzerker's Boncebasher", on the ironwood table. "Come on, lots to get through ! I didn't come all this way to spend the night in some damn regulation hut, not when the Fallen Unicorn's still open !" She had made it this far without a fight, except for one strictly punitive encounter with a city-bred canine the evening before. It was not that her breed actually HAD to fight - no more than a bird had to fly, or a seal had to swim.
	Gralius worshipped a god who had been known to bend Time with his bare hands to complete his tasks; Primane The Preserver generally frowned on his priests taking time off to enjoy themselves. But as this was an unavoidable part of a sacred mission, he supposed one night of roistering would be excused. ( "Roistering" being much like partying, but needs the right costumes, the right sort of mediaeval ale to swill, and the right sort of unlit streets to swagger noisily down afterwards.......)
	The Inn was the sort of place that people associated with sawdust on the floor, he reflected - then looked at the clientelle, and changed his mind. Probably it once had, until somebody stole it before the end of the first evening. Averying his eyes, he fished out a copy of the Guide he had bought the evening before - being a small-town priest, he had little experience of City life.
	Kanziger's Guide, the authoritative text to the capital's entertainments, lists The Fallen Unicorn only in the "special" supplement, hoping to deter casual visitors - and even on those pages it is uniquely awarded three crossed daggers and the broken bottle symbol. Tastefully emphasised in red, of course.
	"Cheer up !" Beauvette waved past Gralius's lowered ears towards the table at the end, where a dozen members of the local Barbarian's Guild were livening up an arm-wrestling contest with caltrops on the table "We're back in Civilisation, like you wanted - ain't it grand ?"


Three hundred yards away, Vazeeq was hurrying through the crowded street, with the occasional backwards glance in the direction of the inn. It was not wholly true that the Fallen Unicorn was a dangerous place; some parts of it were as secure as any temple sanctum. The stables and warehouses were guarded by the most formidable Newbloods available for hire; with the inn attracting the sort of clientelle it did, long years of repair bills had taught the owners not to let their clients' goods or mounts get stolen. Clients were so unreasonable at times.....
	He stopped outside one of the merchant Guild houses. Everything here was organised into Guilds, or so he had been told - all the merchants had their own. Scratching his head, he wondered why they had to stay at an inn - Beauvette was sure to have a guild of her own somewhere - everyone referred to minotaurs as "Hack 'n' slash merchants".
	" 'Scuse me... could you tell me where the Temple of Dhoreen is ?" Vazeeq was acutely conscious of his bare feet and Outlands accent, as he asked a human Town Guard.
	The human looked down, his piled high coiffure nodding precariously, and gave a surprising smile. "Sure I could. See that street over there with the black flags hung across it ? Straight down there, two narrow alleys on your left, and just keep going. That's the short cut."
	As the baboon mumbled grateful thanks and scurried off, the second guard stared after him.
	"That's not the way. That's the way into The Crawling, the roughest spot in the whole city. They'll have his hide for a hearthrug !"
	His friend grinned. "Yeah. And he won't get to worship at the temple of the Love Goddess after all. Ain't that a shame - I'll think of him when I'm there after duty tonight."


	Vazeeq was as skilled a navigator as any of his kind were, who had survived a childhood on the North Marches. Threading his way through the artificial maze of the city was quite another thing, however, and he was soon hopelessly lost. Which was no bad thing from some points of view, since he missed The Crawling by a fair margin, and ended up in a section mainly peopled by the twenty-six species of Newblood people. Which was just as well.
	Baboons are social creatures, within certain limits. Back home in his tribe, a male was either the Alpha Male, or he was nobody. At least in the Army, Vazeeq reflected, you only started off as nobody - and even then, you could have the same rights as any other citizens of the Empire.
	"The Goddess Dhoreen's love embraced even that which Chaos spoiled, and her love cleansed it..." he laboriously read the inscription written above the Temple doors, half an hour later "And it still does today and forever ."
	He was sure Beauvette could take care of herself for an evening. And right now, inside there were folk who didn't care if he was an Alpha Male or not.........


	The Fallen Unicorn has an (up-market) section where the floor is often visible through the debris, and fallen bodies are removed fairly promptly - this is the Lounge Bar. There is also the Public Bar, which is really quite rough, but Kanziger's Guide only briefly mentions it. Actually, its author is on record as saying "I'll go in there and write a report if it's the last thing I do". His successor has wisely learned to stay well clear, and is still publishing revised editions. 

	"Beauvette ! It that you ? " A roar of a voice shook the beer in the glasses of the Public bar of the Inn. Hand on axe, Beauvette spun round - and her eyes lit up.
	"Machsan ! You, here ?" There was a crash like two colliding boulders as a minotaur leaped into an armoured embrace with a giant white bear, dressed in what looked like three suits' worth of armour hammered flat and riveted together in a vain attempt to cover his huge frame.
	"Machsan - meet Gralius, he's a god-botherer, but not a bad sort - we're heading off down South on a mission. Wanna come along ?"
	The bear released her, and had the rare experience of seeing eye-to eye with someone. "Mission ? You mean weeks and months of roughing it, kipping in barns if we're lucky, not a town in a month, fighting off bandits and Chaos spillings before we even get wherever we're going ?"
	"Yeah."
	"What, running off into the unknown with no idea if we'll get back with our hides and souls intact ?"
	"Yeah."
	"You're on."
Just then there was a general stirring in the crowd, as heads turned to look towards the door. 
	"Oh, Yes. Oh, Definitely." Beauvette's nostrils flared as she saw what had caused it. "Palace Guards - out of uniform, and all, but there's no mistaking them.... Gralius, Please ?"
	
	The jail cell that they threw Beauvette and her companions into that night had seen better days - and most of its occupants had seen better nights themselves.
	"Ooooof..." She shook her head slowly, as Gralius bent over her anxiously "That was dirty - blasting me with an Mk. 19 OverStun Spell. How was I to know the Guard take evening classes in Sorcery these days ? Still, Machsan sorted 'im out."
	"Much good it did him." Gralius moved over to examine the inert form of the great Northern Icebear, still lying where the handcart had unceremoniously dumped him by the door "You'll be all right in a few minutes - but I don't know about him. You have to do a bear a Lot of damage before he falls over...."
	Beauvette's ears swivelled at a sound from the corner. This was an old dungeon, and had been damaged and remodelled several times across history, until its floor plan made no simple sense.
	"Pssst - over here." As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw a human hand waving from a narrow barred grating near the ceiling. Evidently the floor level of the next cell was well out of alignment with her own compact residence.
	"Get him over here - we can do a Heal on him, if he's not too bad.." The voice was that of a human female, strangely accented.
	Beauvette reached up towards the grating to pull herself up - and discovered her horns jammed against the vaulted roof.
	"Gralius - use some of that famous Feline agility, take a look-see." 
	Cautiously the priest clambered onto her broad back, and peered through the handspan-wide gap with his keen nocturnal eyes.  	"Greetings, whoever you are - Beauvette, there's four of them in there, two Newbloods and a couple of humans - at least, I think they're humans. The heads are sort of big, and they've got eyes that make mine look like pinpricks. Come on, We'll have to get at least Machsan's arm up to where they can touch him."
		 
	In the cell next door, the four occupants could only look on as Beauvette's mighty frame bent under the strain of carrying one of the biggest full sentients on the planet up to the corner of the room.
	"Quick now - even she won't be able to hold him there for long.." The words came from a humanoid with a cropped bob of blonde hair on her wide-eyed head. Her black-haired companion crushed past her, readying the spell as the blood-matted fur of the white bear came within reach.
	"Done...." and she gasped with the effort as a brief purple glow poured out through her fingertips, dissipating into wounds that would have killed a dozen humans "Ow, but he is BIG...."
	A gasp of agonised breath came from the grating as the bear started to regain consciousness. Suddenly the feline was back at the grating.
	"Gralius, didn't she call you ? I'm Kazuko." The blonde human squatted at one side of the grating to let him see past. "That's my cousin Mangana, who's got the sorcery round here - the vixen's Suzuko, and that hunk of tusks and hide's Horst Graben, Mangana's mate. Good to see someone at last - we've been on our own all week."
	"What did you do ?" Gralius asked cautiously.
	Kazuko snorted. "We didn't 'Do' anything. You don't have to, round here - Where've you been for the last year ? We just happened to be passing when we saw some nobleman talking with these folk in black robes - he screamed for the guard as soon as he knew we'd seen him" 
	"There's nothing so suspicious about that." Gralius protested.
	"Maybe not. But if we don't get out of here tonight, they're still going to execute us for it."