They looked to the cell door and saw a hair-line crack running down the centre of it. Boyce touched the crack then pointed to it after he nudged Lloyd with his elbow. Lloyd followed to where Boyce pointed and nodded his head. "We'll be free ... " Lloyd began. "providing we have a couple more blasts like that one, but let's get our backsides to that wall and keep close to the floor!" "As Munsen said!" Boyce grinned as he pointed out the obvious. "If we had our electrophore-lasers, we'd be out of here a long time ago!" Lloyd lost the last few words that Boyce said. Outside their cell was another blast. This one was louder, and this time they heard the door start to give-way. Lloyd crawled towards the wall and stood up, edging close to the window to look out. From his vantage he could see scores of Urre's archers shooting at their enemy, just below the palace battlements. Screams, explosions and sounds of stampeding people and animals continued through the afternoon and evening, and finally, very late into the night, the panic seemed to subside then totally fade away. The only sounds left were that of burning buildings and cracking rock, and the sounds of the Palatkan multitudes crying and moaning. The battle was over and the men wished to hear news of Munsen and whether his uprising was a success. They were up on their feet and both peered out of their cell window. They watched the city burning and the people's attempts to bring their small holocaust under control. It didn't happen right away, but following a quarter hour watching the scene, both had realised that there was no sound except for the physical movement of the citizens. No one cheered. There was no one making speeches or announcement. There was no one about shouting direction for the people to mount their rescue of the city, from fire. The fires were the priority, and the bandaging of the seriously hurt in the fighting. The sky was illuminated by the blaze of the fires. When the night gave way to the sun's morning rays, there was hardly notice that a new and majestic day had begun. For many hours, Lloyd and Boyce kicked at the hair-line crack in the cell door but couldn't smash it in two. They couldn't get free and in the quickly approaching daylight they knew that there was no hope. Soon after the sun rose in the distant end of the Serpent Strip, and the two men were morosely seated on the dusty cell floor, the door fell open and there before them stood three Palatkans. The two young women each had a horse by its' reigns, in one hand, and a large travel pack slung around their arms. The same young man, who had brought for them the previous morning, stood before them now with a golden goblet of wine in each hand. He handed a goblet to each man and they held them for a moment, silently waiting for something to be said. At the edge of a burned out clay building, a crow was picking at a piece of garment showing under a pile of large rocks.