On entering the forge, he settled into his normal work routine, keeping his furnaces well fuelled and waiting for an opportunity to be alone by the fuel piles. When the first chance came, he went quickly to the concealed corner under his chosen escape shaft and pulled out the food supply and knife, stuffing them into a bag he had brought for the purpose. He then "flew" to a ledge that was about fourteen feet above the cave floor, gripped it with one hand, and shoved the bag into a small hole above. Here it joined two other bags of equipment he had already smuggled into the forge, well concealed from anyone who might pass beneath them. Dropping back to the floor, he returned to the fuel piles and loaded his cart as usual, before wheeling it around to the furnaces.

All was now ready. Telli had decided to make his final move towards the end of the shift. At this time it would be evening, but a summer's evening, with enough light outside to make any way out of the caves easily visible from within. If he managed to identify a way out, there would not be long to wait for the cover of night. Although he knew that the Khrelling had good night eyes, Telli still felt that he would be far more exposed in daylight. However, he did not know whether he would attempt to leave the caves immediately, even if there was a likely looking exit. The alternative was to hide within the caves until any hue and cry caused by his disappearance had died down. He had great hopes for the 'piss-hole decoy', as Brakis had come to call the part of his plan which should lead the Khrelling to assume him dead, all being well.

Working through the afternoon with his shovel and handcart, Telli ran through the list of things he would need over the next few days. He knew that if he thought of anything important not already stashed in the hole beneath the shaft, the escape could always be put off for another day, or even longer. Food--he had enough to last a few days, if he rationed himself with care. Light--a khrelling tinder-box and lamp would provide this, both being far superior to anything he had known in Elneside. In the small iron tinder-box, friction between two stones of a kind Telli had never seen before lit a powder mixed with some kind of fish oil, producing the instant flame he had first seen when Seth had lit the fire on his first evening in the camp. The lamp, also made of iron, burned the same oil, and Telli had included a small bottle of it in one of his bags in case he had to pass some time in the caves. Tools--arrow-heads he had made from flint, along with a bow-string of goat's gut, intended for a time after his escape from the immediate region of the Khrelling caves, when he could make a bow and arrow-shafts in order to ensure a continuous food supply--and, of course, his knife. He could not really take much more as he must remain lightly burdened for flying, not only during the exit from the forge and the caves, but perhaps later, should he be pursued.

Finding himself alone by the fuel piles about two hours before the end of the shift, Telli decided to take the plunge. As calmly as possible, he went first to the piss-hole, leaving his jacket beside it. Then to the corner of the forge under the shaft, where he made a quick flight to retrieve his bags. He stuffed the two smallest into the largest, and put this on his back, using two shoulder straps he had attached for the purpose. Looking up and concentrating hard, he took off without hesitation, aiming for a cleft in the wall, about twenty feet up and offering a handgrip. After a few seconds' break to regain his concentration, he floated up another twenty feet, finding another grip, this time inside the shaft. He was now invisible to anyone in the forge unless they stood directly below and looked up, so could rest a little longer before the third leg of his flight. This took him up to the opening he had seen cutting across the shaft. Pulling himself into it, he rolled onto his back, panting and sweating from his efforts, and lay for half a minute, recovering and listening.

The clamour of the forge continued as usual, rising and falling as the smiths beat their weapons and tools into shape without regular rhythm. Telli waited for a lull in the noise, which might indicate that he had been seen in his flight, but none came, and he relaxed a little. The dim light from below showed that the horizontal passage he was in led off both sides of the shaft through square entrances and, like the shaft, was clearly an artificial addition to the natural caves. He wondered briefly whether the work had been done by Khrelling or by man. Decisions had to be made quickly. Seeing no light above him, Telli pulled tinderbox and lamp from his pack and, as soon as he could see his way, set off along the passage he was in.

It was narrow, and the ceiling so low that a full-grown man would have needed to stoop at times to pass. Telli moved cautiously, stopping frequently to listen and shuttering his lamp at the same time so that he would be able to identify any other source of light. He heard nothing but the receding sounds of the forge, reassuring because he was sure they would cease once his disappearance was noticed. About fifty yards into the tunnel he saw a faint glow ahead and, proceeding carefully for the same distance again, came to another vertical shaft. A wooden ladder had been placed across this one and the passage continued on the other side. The light came from below. Telli placed his shuttered lamp on the floor and lay down beside it to peer over the edge. The shaft opened into a well-lit chamber, or passage, about twenty feet beneath him, and he could see its floor clearly, perhaps another ten feet down. Possible flying distance he thought immediately. Turning to look up, he saw that there was no sign of an opening from the caves above him, as with the other shaft he had just left.

Telli had to make another decision. If he was to return to the forge, as he had planned to if the escape shaft proved to be a dead end, he must do so shortly, the risk of discovery growing as time passed. Heart beating fast as he concentrated his mind, knowing what he did now was crucial, literally a matter of life and death, he decided against returning. Although he had not found a direct exit from the caves, he now felt that he had a sufficient number of routes available to mean that he had a good chance of doing so. If he failed to get out that night, he was also fairly confident in the chances of finding hiding places within the great cave complex, as he searched for a way out.

The ladder across the shaft looked strong enough, but Telli had no need to risk it and flew the few feet to the other side, then continued his way along the tunnel for several minutes until he reached another junction. This was a larger passage entering the one he was in from the right. After listening carefully, and hearing nothing but the now distant sounds of the forge, he held up his lamp to examine the two choices of route now open to him. Ahead, his passage had clearly joined a natural tunnel, becoming much higher, with rough walls and a distinct downward slope. To his right, he could see steps going upwards just a few yards into the new passage. Having no real sense of direction in the caves, he decided that up might mean out and, turning to his right, started to climb the stairway.

After going up about thirty steps, Telli heard a loud noise above him, the clang of metal on metal, followed by the clicks and screeches of Khrelling calling to one another. Freezing in his steps and instantly shuttering the lamp, he listened for a few seconds. Hearing footsteps approaching from above, he turned and stumbled down the steps as quickly as possible in the dark and then, feeling the wall on his right until it ended, turned into the natural cavern, uncovering his light as he did so. He hurried down the sloping floor, searching the walls left and right for a place of concealment, and found what he was looking for about thirty yards into the cave. In the opening to a recess on his right was a thick stalagmite, behind which he crouched, shuttering his lamp. He muttered a prayer of thanks to the Goddess of Luck that he was in a natural cavern rather than a straight-walled passage, such as the one he had followed so far.

Telli soon heard the sound of Khrelling voices above that of his own heartbeat, then saw their torchlight as they reached the bottom of the stairway and rounded the corner, coming his way. They passed his stalagmite and, as the torchlight faded, he dared to peep around it, seeing that there were three of them, one carrying a torch and the others large bundles slung over their backs. When they had gone, Telli stayed in his hiding place for nearly five minutes until his nerves calmed, and he could start to think about his next move.

Creatures of the dark have senses adapted to their world, relying on hearing, smell, touch, and on eyes that see well in a dim light, like the pink orbs of the Khrelling. Man, if deprived of sight, will also adapt in the mind, concentrating on the remaining senses. Telli now realised to what extent he had been doing this. On his way up the stairs, before hearing the Khrelling, he had sensed the air becoming fresher, a feeling now familiar, which he associated with leaving the caves after every shift of work. In spite of his recent scare, he decided to retrace his steps and try this route again.

This time he reached the top of the stairway and an opening into a natural cavern. The air was definitely fresher, but there was a musty tang to it at the same time which he could not identify. Shuttering his lamp, he saw a dim light to his right, and felt an immediate rush of excitement. It was not the flickering orange of torchlight, but the steady bluish-white light of the evening outside. Creeping cautiously towards it, he soon reached an iron gate, which blocked his path completely. Beyond was a very large cave and, about forty yards from where he stood, an opening from it to the outside world.

After listening carefully for a moment, he raised his lamp and saw before him the source of the strange smell, now much stronger. Clinging to the ceiling of the cave were hundreds of bats, the giants he had seen before, flying over the camp at dusk. Just beyond the gate, he could see the corpses of several of the animals looking like large rats, the more so because their wings had been removed. Telli remembered Stell telling him that the Khrelling made their clothes almost entirely from the strong, waterproof skin of the bats' wings, and realised that the three creatures who had interrupted him on the stairs had probably been collecting this material.

The iron gate had a lock on one side, only the second time Telli had seen such a thing in his life, the other being on the gate which shut the smiths into the forge. Elnesiders had no reason to lock their doors, but Telli knew that he needed a key to pass such a barrier, having watched the Khrelling guards when he was amongst the last to enter the workplace. While he examined the gate and its lock, wondering if there was any way to break through without a key, unexpected help arrived.

Alerted by a distant noise behind him, Telli ran back the way he had come, having no place to hide by the gate. Seeing the flicker of torchlight coming up the stairway he had just climbed, he continued beyond it, allowing himself enough lamplight to search for a hiding place as he had done previously on the lower level. This time he was less fortunate, finding only a shallow recess in the wall just a few yards beyond the point where the steps from below reached the cavern. He stood in this, back to the wall, and shuttered his lamp, every muscle in his body taut as he readied himself to flee should he be discovered.

The torchlight became stronger, along with the hissing sounds of Khrelling speech. Telli held his breath, then let it out slowly as his senses told him that his enemies had turned to their right, and were headed towards the bat cave. His luck had held for the moment and he looked out to see the Khrelling, this time only two of them, nearing the iron gate. They stopped a few feet before reaching it and one of them, holding their only torch and clearly visible in its light, reached up to the wall on his right and took something down from a small ledge. The pair had already opened the gate and passed through it before the watching fugitive realised the significance of the scene he had just witnessed. His luck was truly holding out. He now knew the hiding place of the key.

Telli decided to stay where he was until the Khrelling left the cavern, assuming they would go back down the stairway to the lower levels. After what seemed an age to him, they emerged from the bat cave carrying bundles, which he now knew contained bat wings. The torch carrier closed the gate behind him, locked it, and to Telli's great joy, concealed the key on its ledge. It occurred to him that, even if he had been missed by now in the forge, there was certainly no sign in the behaviour of these two creatures to indicate that alarm had spread here to the higher levels of the caves. But no sooner had this thought entered his head than a shiver ran down his spine as sounds he had never heard before in the cave system came to his ears.

Sounding like a horn call, the first noise started low in pitch, then rose higher and higher until it ended in a prolonged wail, like a wolf howling in the night. As the echoes died out, similar calls, some sounding further away and some nearer, answered it. The two Khrelling, who had just reached the top of the stairway, stopped in their tracks, and Telli could hear the hisses and clicks of their voices, raised above the wailing from below. Then the torchlight faded quickly as the pair hurried down the steps.

Telli unshuttered his lamp and made for the iron gate once sure that he was alone. Certain that the horn calls were alarms caused by his disappearance, the young hunter now experienced the intense feeling of being the hunted for the first time in his life. Trembling slightly, and sweating profusely, he reached the gate and jumped up to the ledge before it, grasping the key. After struggling a moment with the unfamiliar mechanism of the lock, he had opened the gate and slipped into the bat-cavern, where he stood for a few seconds, thoughts racing as he decided what he should do next. Locking the gate behind him, he realised that he could not leave by this route without leaving a clue for the Khrelling. The ledge on which the key was kept was too far away, and he could not replace it.

The alarm calls behind him had ceased as Telli made his way across the cavern towards its mouth. Bats rustled their wings above him, restless as the evening turned to night and the time to fly in search of food approached. The floor of the cave was soft beneath his feet, coated with a thick layer of the animals' dung, and the walls were irregular, offering many hiding places. He reached the cave-mouth, a large slit about ten feet high by forty wide, and peered out cautiously.

Night was fast approaching, but Telli could see well enough to understand why this exit did not need to be well guarded. The lip of the cave mouth projected several feet further than its roof. Telli crept to the edge and looked down a sheer drop of more than a hundred feet to the valley floor below. He was not surprised to find himself above the camp as he had assumed the bats to be those he had seen flying over it. He could see the men of the night shift assembling in the square, and directly beneath him was the point where the boundary wall left the cliff on the north side of the main cave entrance. Telli estimated that if he fell to his death from this point, there was a good chance of landing to the left of the wall, and so dying a free man! Above him, the cliff overhung the cave mouth. He knew he must use his flying if he was to leave the caves from this exit.

The first of the bats flew overhead, soon followed by others, until there was a constant stream of them heading east over the camp. Not all of them took this direction, some turning right or left as they came out of the cave-mouth. Impressive and daunting though these creatures were when seen in flight from just a few feet away, Telli had no time to feel the fear that even smaller bats seem to inspire in man. They seemed to have no interest in his presence and, as the flow of flying rodents increased, the quick thinking fugitive realised how they could be of use to him. Anyone looking up from below and seeing a shadow fly across the cliff face in the fading light would surely assume it to be one of the bats. He crawled to the left as far as he could go, concentrated hard, and took off for a ledge about twenty-five feet away, deliberately not waiting to think about the drop below. Pulling himself onto the ledge, he found it to be a good choice, being wide enough to lie on in such a way as to be invisible from the mouth of the bat cave and from below. He felt safer now than at any moment since the alarms had sounded, and relaxed a little, taking time to assess his situation.

Telli did not know much about the Khrelling, how their minds worked and how they would react to his disappearance. He felt it safe to assume the worst. For example, he couldn't count on the piss-hole decoy working, or even having the effect of confusing the creatures and delaying any pursuit. The obvious thing to do first if a slave disappeared within the caves would be to alert the guards at all possible exits, and to send others to watch unguarded openings, such as the bat-cave. Khrelling arriving at the iron gate would find it locked, and might leave guards there thinking no-one could have passed. But he must assume that they would look for the key and, when finding it missing, suspect that their quarry had passed that way. Then that they would find traces of him, perhaps footprints in the bat dung.

Thinking in this way, always fearing the worst, renewed Telli's sense of urgency. He looked out of his hiding place, searching the cliff-face for likely places within his flying range. Finding several, he decided to go up, away from the eyes of the Khrelling guards he knew to be on the camp wall. Three careful stages and he had reached the top of the cliff, where he rested for a few minutes, exhausted by the concentration required for his flying. Then, standing up on the gently sloping shoulder of the mountain which he had observed many times from below, Telli started to feel truly free for the first time since his escape from the forge.

It was now night, the last reflected light from the sun having disappeared. Telli would have to move as best he could by the light of the stars, and by that of the half moon hanging above the mountains to the north. He planned to skirt the valley of the slaves on the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains, using the cover of their trees. He would head north, then east, before looking for a way over the mountains to the lands he had left Elneside to find, the Kingdom he now knew still existed from the accounts of his fellow slaves. This might take him some days, but for the moment he wished to put as much space between himself and the Khrelling caves as he could.

Progress was slow in the dark, but Telli moved northwards as best he could for about four hours, walking, climbing, and with the occasional short flight. Then, tired from the considerable efforts of the evening, he found himself a shallow recess about fifteen feet up in a rock face offering concealment, and after eating a little, lay down to sleep.

The night was warm enough, but Telli only slept fitfully. He had been asleep when first captured by the Khrelling, and the memory was still vivid. When the first signs of dawn appeared behind the mountains to the east, he took stock of his surroundings, and was pleased to see that the trees around him seemed to be part of a continuous forest, which should provide him with cover until he left the valley. From the cave, he spotted a tree considerably higher than those around it just a short distance away. Flying down, he made his way to its base, then flew up to the lowest branches, and climbed the rest of its height, until he found himself well above the canopy of the forest. From this vantage point, he could see that he was still on the western side of the valley, but would soon be able to turn eastward while still keeping to the relative safety of the wooded mountain slopes. He must resist the temptation to head directly towards the eastern peaks by cutting across the more exposed valley floor. Looking back the way he had come, the wall of the camp was visible, being perhaps only an hour's walk away by the most direct route.

Telli climbed down and went on his way, making much better progress as the full light of day arrived. He moved silently through the forest, like the good hunter he was, stopping frequently to listen, and looking carefully at the trees and plants he passed for possible sources of food to supplement the supply he had with him. He used his flying only occasionally when necessary, as it was tiring. Knowing that the Khrelling had a good sense of smell, he felt more secure in the knowledge that small flights would leave gaps in his trail likely to confuse the best of trackers if the creatures were following him.

After about two hours, Telli stopped to rest, and after eating sparingly to ration his food, climbed another tall tree to get his bearings. He saw that he had already more than doubled his distance from the camp. His way ahead was now due east, as he had just reached the northern end of the valley. Finding a comfortable seat high in the tree, he decided to rest there and wait for the sun, which would soon rise above the mountains. He would move during the middle of the day now, rather than the night, as an accidental encounter with the Khrelling was least likely at this time. The creatures did not move outside the protection of their caves in bright sunlight by choice, and the cover of night had only been of use to him when he was exposed on the cliff, within sight of the guards on the camp wall.

Telli relaxed in his tree, well concealed from ground level, but with a view out over the valley to the eastern peaks he must climb to escape completely from the danger of recapture by the Khrelling. As he waited for the warmth of the sun, he thought back over his adventures of the last twelve hours or so, wishing he could know what had happened in the caves and the camp after his disappearance had been discovered. Had the piss-hole decoy worked? It occurred to him that if this was the case, another alarm might be raised when the absence of the key to the bat cave was noticed, if it had not already been. The collectors of bat wings might be at work soon, as the animals would have returned to the cave and settled in for their day's sleep. Would the disappearance of the key then be connected to his own? Or would his two unwitting helpers of the night before be blamed for having mislaid it? Telli could not help smiling at the thought of the confusion he must have caused.

Less comfortable was the thought of the effect his flight might have on Brakis, and on his new-found friends in the camp, Seth and Stell in particular, as he had been working with them. He hoped his planning had been good enough to protect them all from any blame and retribution. He had become attached to several people in the camp, and deeply regretted that the secrecy necessary for his escape made it impossible to say his goodbyes to anyone other than Brakis. The others, including the sweet Nina, might now be thinking him dead, gone forever down the forge's piss-hole.

The first warming rays of the sun reached Telli's perch. Feeling fairly safe from pursuit for the moment, he took his intended bow-string from his pack, looping it round his waist, then round a thick branch, before leaning his back against the tree trunk, comfortable in the knowledge that he could not fall. Closing his eyes and enjoying the sun's warmth on his face, he drifted off into a much-needed sleep.