Disclaimer: I don't own this, Tamora Pierce does. I'm sure people are smart enough to realize this and thats why I'm not gonna say a disclaimer again.

Last Chapter:

Kel smiled. This would be great for torture material later on. "Its ok, my Sargent Domitan, its the least i could do for a lowly soldier as yourself." He looked up and grinned. Straight away his smile melted off his face. "Whats that?" He said and pointed up, into the sky...

Oh yeah, to make everything clear. '...' is thoughts

"..." is speaking

Chapter 2: Familiar Faces

Flying towards them were 5 things. Kel felt her stomach drop. She had a feeling what theses 'things' were. The leader of the Stormwings squinted his eyes to see the figures better. His queen beside him laughed. "They are members of the court. Useful perhaps?" King Ronlak nodded to the others. He had been ordered to make trouble. He intended to do more than that.

Dom brought his hand down and faced Kel. "What are they?" he asked, puling them both behind the fountain. "Stormwings." Dom reached for his sword, Kel for her glaive. Both were disappointed. She cursed herself for being so stupid, the only weapon she had was her shukesan and a small dagger hidden on her leg. Both would be useless. Dom looked behind them and gaped. There was a wide path and bushes that reached up to the waist. In other words, no safe place to hide until the stormwings passed. He had completely forgotten about Neal and Yuki. Kel sunk lower, "Do you think they've seen us?" Dom, looked above the fountain, but couldn't see anything. The only thing he could hear were the noises from the ball in the great hall.

Then something hit him hard on his back. The stormwings were behind them!

Kel scrambled out of the way as a stormwing dived for her. He hit the ground with a sickening bang of metal against concrete. She got up, ran a few steps towards the hall and yelled "Stormwings! Outside!" As hard as she could, before the Queen grabbed her. Neal and Yuki appeared out of the bushes and ran towards them. Neal had his sword in his hand. He ran into one of the stormwings and attacked him, trying to hit a vulnerable spot. The stormwing fought back, and managed to put a gash in Neal's arm before falling still on the ground.

Of all of them, Dom struggled the most. King Ronlak could keep him still enough to grab him. The queen looked up from where she was still fighting with Kel, "The tortallans are coming. Hurry." With that, she suddenly grabbed hold of Kel's growing hair and yanked her head back. She took hold of kel's shoulder in one talon and one of her legs in he other. Then she began to fly. Neal and Yuki had already lost their fights. Seeing Kel, Dom lost his concentration. Ronlak grabbed hold of him too and started to fly.

It took a long time to reach Scanra. All of them had cloaks on, but that didn't keep them against the cold, especially Kel and Yuki. In the morning after they were taken, the group of stormwings stopped at the border. They sneered at the tortallans, made racist jokes about Yuki's country, and hurt them as much as they could. Once across the border, Dom, Kel, Yuki and Neal were bound. The Queen made sure that she made Kel bleed every time she grabbed her to fly again. She never showed it, because that would give satisfaction to the stormwings, but Kel was in agony.

On the third day after they were captured, the tortallans were let down near a village. The could see the beginnings of a large city in the horizon. Neal stared at it. He was sure that this was the capital. He'd read about it in books, and it was not a kind place at all. Just as he started to look around at the others to see if they had noticed it (and they should have as that was probably where they would end up), something hard hit him on the back of the head. He was knocked unconscious. So were the others, a second later.

He woke up in a cell. Cold, Grey, with a few bits of straw on the ground. There was a window, but it was 2 and a half metres up the wall. There was a bowl of water and a chunk of stale bread in front of the door. There was almost no light except from the window. The air smelt old, like people had died here, and they probably had. Neal sat up and looked for the others. It wasn't hard as the cell was only 5 metres squared. Kel and Yuki were slumped against each other while Dom was lying at Yuki's feet. She opened her eyes and looked at Neal. There was no emotion on her face, he knew there wouldn't be, so he let it be. She crawled over to him and lay her head on his shoulder. She whispered, so only he could hear her. "What has happened to us, Neal?" He didn't answer, he just thought back to the ball and how happy he had been. It seemed like a dream, even though it was only 3 days ago. He sighed.

Dom woke up an hour later. Kel woke up an hour after that. She looked and felt the worst of the 4 of them. She had multiple cuts from where the stormwing's talons had cut into her flesh. She looked drained of energy, and sick. "Where are we?" She asked. Neal stood up. "Well as you can see, Kel, we seem to be in somewhat a dungeon... your not going anywhere in that sort of condition!" he reached out and carefully pushed her down as she tried to stand. He put his hands on the cut on her shoulder and started to heal her. It wasn't enough to heal it completely, just to give it a shove. When he finished she curled up tight to herself. It was freezing cold. Yuki made to move to Neal to share his body heat. Dom took one look at Kel, and at her goose bumped skin and sat down next to her and put his cloak over her own cloak. She wasn't wearing her heavy duty one, the one she used traveling, but a much lighter on meant for a cold night inside. She began thinking. 'Will anyone know where to go? Will anyone ever come for us.' She remembered what she had done when her friends were in danger. 'They will come.' With that she set her face into a grim smile and leaned closer to Dom. She was too exhausted and in pain to think about her feelings for him, or how close they were. All she could think of was the closer that she go, the warmer, and safer she would be.

Dom looked up. It was nearly dawn. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, like something was about to happen. After all, they had been there hours, why hadn't anyone come yet? He would have the answer soon enough for soon after, footsteps sounded outside the door...

Well. Another chapter. Next will be back in Tortall. Can someone please tell me what the capital of Scanra is, or if it has actually been mentioned at all. It is imperative that i know and as i don't have access to the books at the moment...