"I think we should try it," Hyix said, putting her mug down on the thick wooden table, "it's not like the thing is going anywhere, right?"

"It's extremely dangerous, Suzerinne," Eshrem reminded her holder, her voice sounding a little odd since she rarely relied upon it to speak, and had only known the intent of her holder's decision because Hyix was intensely telepathic, "so if you go, you will not go without me."

"That suits me fine," Hyix replied, smiling and tussling her servant's dark hair. "Sister?"

The other winged female in the large, warm room slowly nodded, examining the stew she ate as though it provided some kind of inspiration. "Of course. And you'd never get very far without me anyway." Lhoi gave a broad, toothy grin.

When Ituru came back from the restroom and saw the looks on the sisters' faces, he knew something was going on. "You're going to try and do something insane and stupid and dangerous, aren't you? Something that'll require my services, correct?"

They didn't even have to say anything to the Sehatan, he knew better than to argue with them. Not that they'd be able to stop him from attending any serious crazy events: he was far bolder than they were, even at his size. Probably the fact that he could regenerate himself after an injury - and do the same to others if they became hurt - had something to do with it.

The foursome had plenty of land, well three and the Budak who didn't count. Lots and lots of land, in fact, scattered all over the world. Zekira was a big place after all, and most of it, while mapped from above in the satelites, was never seen or touched by people. That suited this group just fine, as it meant they could maintain their businesses in the sedate cities, and then jet off to wherever they felt like, to see if they could tame the wilderness.

Not for farming, not for settling. But to show that they could. And oh how they could.

Their Holdings were widely scattered, and large - only one or two Holds could be said to even be within a Zone, most of them were so far outlying that they had to convince the local Area councils that they were in the Zone, just so they could put it on a map. Otherwise it would have been a long list of "unincorporated" holdings, and no one wanted that. That didn't look nearly as good on a map.

They had maps too. Ituru's investments included a race course, which wasn't so much a 'course' than a series of cabins and checkpoints stretched around a rocky, mountain lake resort. Some of the cabins were fit for overnight stays, others merely to be occupied during a Steed race. But some, were hidden away and held treasures.

Since the two Sehatan were hardly expected to be in their offices during the spring season break, and Lhoi's dragons weren't due to hatch for weeks, it was off to the Corit Course for them. They could take low-atmosphere charters from one Hold to another, for Ituru's scary Slust Hold was straight along the mountain range from Corit, in a much drier climate and holding even more exotic prey. This all took but a day to arrange, they had access to their equipment which was lovingly cared for by their servants. Eshrem was Hyix's personal bodyguard, when the Suzerinne decided to head out and play politician. Not that anyone would be crazy enough to challenge the tall, imposing winged woman, but it was never a good idea to be slack about it.

Lhoi's interest in the dragons fighting off the alien invaders was not just slight - she and her sister both had been designed and created for the purpose. Lhoi was more accustomed to the duties, and Hyix was young enough that her true Dragon Tunings hadn't really shown up. They all knew she had them, it was mildly ironic to the pair of sisters that the one of them who more strongly bore the appearance of a Sky Dragon had almost no true Tunings for training or dealing with them, and became a Dragon Breeder, while her sister who did have those tunings didn't really have the taste for it all. Hyix would rather move around in political circles, and thrill herself with these wild hunts and chases.

Their parents had plenty of money, and pleasant holds, which they also shared. The large estate in Zuoth was shared by their parents and the sisters, would be divided among them on their parents deaths, and also held several offices and business interests for both the winged sisters.

It had been during a wilderness outing that the pair of women - both significantly younger at the time - along with their more sedate but experienced Budak Eshrem, had encountered their first 'monster' and their foursome was completed. The monster was a massive, club-tailed creature something similar to the Stone Dragons. With the two flight-capable women in the air, and their force-field-shaping slave below, they managed to pen in the creature which was by far bigger than most Dragons it might be related to. They'd been injured, though, Hyix didn't have the stiff skin armor that her sister Lhoi did. She did however have a strong ability with telepathy which erupted just then, broadcasting her anguish at having one of her wings shattered by a blow from the creature's tail.

Because Ituru had already blossomed in his own right with his senses and healing abilities creating a great opportunity for him in the Sehatan field, he'd been near at a Steed race. He among them all loved the creatures, especially the flying ones, and was often on hand at races to help heal up the riders who may have fallen or been thrown. His keen psionics picked up the anguish immediately, and rushed off to help them. He found Eshrem standing bravely with her shield slowly fading, over the two sisters who had mantled their wings and were attempting to quickly get the wing bones splinted.

With his healing hands - even at a distance, which he had become known to do - the sisters were able to fight more strongly and gained the upper hand quickly against the monster. It was at that time too, when Ituru's final power surfaced, an ability to harm animal flesh - something that probably saved them all.

Eshrem had been created some eight years before Lhoi, while the winged sisters' father was still a politician. Force-fielders would always be popular among that set, of course, but this one had an intense loyalty and showed it in her quiet way by helping them train their own powers. Her dampening field could make it difficult for enemies to pinpoint their location, but it also meant that it could provide an excellent handicap to overcome.

So they came to the Corit Course, and got their bearings. One cabin was reserved only for them, thick walls and a warm firepit, and a room filled with maps where they could plot their next moves.

They prepared their weapons and selected armors, there was always at least one Budak attending this cabin, and making sure that no one got in without his permission. And then, off to Slust. Their transportation choices involved companies which didn't ask too many questions. Why lug around all this strange equipment if you're just going hunting? Well, everyone knew hunting dangerous things could be made easier by armors, they just did it with a little more flair than most.

The Slust hunt park was dry, but since it was on the edge of the mountain range crossing Kiran, it had rarely been in danger of burning or too much overgrowth. There were creeks and ponds, but no large running water sources. They all tended to follow the south-westerly course of the edge of the mountains anyway, sheer cliffs along hundreds of miles framed the desert to the west. It was along that cliff side that the group traveled, with one pack steed good for the area, and little else.

They camped in the hills one night, and then under the desert stars the next. Every minute saw them scanning the golden scrub desert for prey - not just normal things like rabbits or antelope, for those were in abundance. But they had to look out for snakes, precursors to the Desert Dragons of course, as well as much stranger creatures such as the Burrowing Gorger which laid in wait for anything to pass its tree-like whiskers, and then gobbled things down into its dark maw almost like quicksand.

On the third day, it was cooler and there was clearly a storm over the mountains nearby, which led to some spats of rain on the dry scrub dirt. They heard rumbling in the distance and assumed it was thunder, though none of them had seen any lightning - and Eshram confirmed it a moment later that there had been no such strike. Her sense for weather was keen, as Ituru's was for mental energy. But they all felt a strange compulsion to run, suddenly, along the cliff side.

"Where are we going?" Lhoi said, breathlessly sprinting. She and her sister could have lifted off but over the years they'd learned not to get too far away from their protective Budak.

"I don't know," Ituru gasped, smaller and less able to keep up with their long-legged pace.

Suddenly Eshrem pulled up and sent a telepathic command, //wait, I feel a presence nearby!//

The girls stopped first, and Ituru a moment later holding his chest and pushing back his hooded cloak to get more air.

"Are you sure of it?" Hyix asked, and Eshrem nodded once, pointing toward an area they couldn't quite see, just past an outcropping. But what she noticed a moment later and pointed out as well, was that the outcropping was fresh: there were stones still falling down and dropping from what looked like a cave-in in the side of the cliff wall.

"Well that would explain it," Ituru said, and pressed forward even though he was out of breath. "There must be someone buried in this, help me get it off!"

Lhoi's telekinesis helped lift some of the bigger stones, while her sister winced at the strength of the command to come to this person's aid. Typically, Hyix would stand only so much of the intense telepathic communication around her, and then require Eshrem to dampen it for her. But right now, Eshrem was a bit preoccupied attempting to locate this person below the rubble.

"I can feel him, his leg is being pinned," Lhoi said, and they knew exactly where to go from then. Her sense ability had triggered, normally she'd have to know a person or be quite close by them to see through their eyes. She had been standing right on top of him!

Finally, they brought out a dark-green skinned man of a small stature, he was bruised heavily and clearly his leg was broken. As Ituru worked his powers fixing bone and scrapes, and the intensity of the command to arrive abated, Hyix noted that he had many old scars on him - looked like he'd been out here a while.

"Sleep now, sir," Ituru said after he knew the wounds were healed, "you need rest, and so do I."

Barely awake, the man nodded and whispered a thanks, before passing out again.

***

He was oddly silent, as the night wore on. Where was he from? Here and there. What had he been doing here on the cliffs of Slust? Nothing much.

"What is your name at least?" Ituru said, "clearly we saved your life, you owe us that much."

"Better my name than my pride, yes," he said, staring at the camp fire. "My name is Lemorth, and ... I suppose I should tell you. I'm not Statused, I've never been." That drew a gasp from Hyix, and a long nod from Lhoi. "My parents bore me near Bilo, in the hills overlooking the city, and taught me to steal for my living. So I guess I've never known anything else."

"But Bilo is more than two thousand miles from here!" Ituru said, "how came you all the way out here?"

Lemorth turned silent again, but only for a moment. "I cannot really tell you that, it's not fair to anyone. I was... well, I was traveling to try and find a new home, you might have heard of it," he addressed Eshrem who didn't quite know what he meant, more because she hadn't heard him, than because of ignorance. "There are many locations where people like me can hide."

"Renegade towns," Lhoi said, "Yes, I know of them - Dragon Masters are often Budak, or Bayaran, before they're raised. I've heard of places that take in whoever can find them."

"How exotic," Hyix said, her red and green eyes glimmering. "And you were on your way... But surely there must be something more for you elsewhere?"

"I have no status, as I said," Lemorth replied. "But I've been told that if I were ever discovered - by officials, not like this - I would become Tuantana, perhaps."

"If the settlement was left undisturbed long enough, that's true," Lhoi said. "But I disagree with my sister, I think you know best what you'd like to do. However, you do have some very intriguing powers..."

He leaned back, and nodded with a slight grin. "That was my parents doing. They'd both been heavily bred and escaped their Peridian, before he could sell them off to some woman they both hated."

"But that had to be years and years ago," Hyix said, "no offence, but you don't look like a teenager or even my age."

"It's true," Lhoi said, "if you've been out here all your life, and they have passed the time limits for their Renegade status to lapse, you're free whether you want to be or not."

Still, Lemorth looked away.

//He is hiding something,// Eshrem bespoke to her Lady, //and I think he is trying to make Lhoi do something against her will. If he discovers your weakness, he might try to exploit it.//

//Thank you, Eshrem,// Hyix replied with a glance toward her Budak, "Lemorth, if you found this place you were looking for, how would you make a living? You don't seem the type to just till the land or make mud huts for the rest of your life." She paused, "And I see you have a sword at your side, have you been trained to use it?"

"I'm a thief, Suzerinne," he replied holding the sword, sheathed, up in the fire light. It was obviously far above his station in terms of quality - there were small, shining gemstones on the hilt and the sheath itself was a beautiful piece of leather.

"So it didn't belong to you, but do you know how to use it?" Hyix reiterated, and that seemed to surprise Lemorth.

"I... well I haven't had cause to break it out in a duel, if that's what you mean. But I'm good with other blades as well, this one is no different in my hand than others."

While there were many unasked and unanswered questions in the air, something else brought attention to itself before anything else could happen. A howling call, quite loud, echoed past them along the cliff wall.

Everyone's eyes lit up, though a moment later Lemorth realized that the others were not looking for a place to hide from whatever it was - they were looking for whatever it was!

He hissed from the shadow of their tent, "what are you doing?! It'll see you!"

"Of course it will but we'll see it first!" Came Ituru's oddly cheerful voice. Lemorth crouched by the tent, even their Steed was just standing there, though he could tell by the direction of its long ears that it didn't much care for this. The foursome however had gone into action as though they were waiting for this kind of thing.

Eshrem was in the middle of them, the two women with their wings folded back and the smaller man created a kind of triangle around her at about a ten span distance. They moved as a unit, and he realized that the tactic was quite sound. They would see whatever it was coming, and be able to defend each other.

Unless it came from above, which it did, and Lemorth found himself suddenly screeching, "above you!" as it lept from the top of the rubbly cliff. Lemorth's instincts to protect himself blotted him out of any vision, at least at a glance, but by now the group was aware of the attack and all aimed themselves accordingly.

Gleefully they went into battle. The creature was what Lemorth knew to be a Cliff Creeper, a deceptively pleasant name for such a monsterous animal. At least a full height at the shoulder, with six sturdy limbs as big around as tree trunks, each ending in hard, flat claw-like plates which gripped the loose ground and allowed it to move almost silently at very improbable angles. Its head was also flat and had queer teeth that jutted out - if it had more flesh around those teeth one might even mistake it for a bill of an herbivore. But these weren't used for merely sheering grass from the ground, they could cut side to side, slicing down opponents and prey into small pieces which its insanely twisted tentacle like tongue then grabbed up into its maw.

The women were adept at dodging, but not remarkably fast on the move. It was a good thing then, that their Budak had that protective shield ability, but she had to keep moving it around - he could see it shimmering slightly in the firelight, a pale violet shade against the dark ground - to get all three of her companions and herself. But they had good weapons, not like the slender if sharp blade that Lemorth had. Hyix wore a wide sword, her shield was still sitting on the ground nearby, as she hadn't had the chance to grab it. It looked as though she'd be needing it, so against all possible reason, Lemorth rushed over to it and began to drag it over to the fray.

It was heavy, it was even possible this shield weighed as much as he did! He was still mainly invisible but made it over to the foursome and grunted to Hyix, lifting it as much as he could until she saw him and grasped at it.

"Thanks!" She called, and he was right, she fought very well with it in her other hand. She favored one wing, probably the way he favored one side of his head - he'd been cut by one of these little devils when it was still young and he was stupid enough to try and tame it. But now... here he was in the middle of exactly where he didn't want to be, and Lemorth's courage was rapidly waning. Fortunately, the beast's energy also was being whittled away by blows from Ituru's sturdy wooden staff (there had to be metal in it, it made a stronger sound than typical wood might), and distracted by Lhoi's colorful and blinding displays of light and noise. Lemorth for some reason decided that now would be a good time to demonstrate his own use of a blade, flicking at the Creeper's limbs until it had been hamstrung on half its legs. Bolstered by this, Lemorth's unconscious use of yet another psionic power took hold - he was elated, they were all elated.

Finally the beast fell, and they all stood around it gasping and trembling. It was a good kind of feeling, Lemorth realized, to be standing among such remarkable and brave people. "Thanks for getting my shield," Hyix said, "I would have been done for without it."

"And the warning," Ituru said, "we'd all have been done without that. We are in your debt now."

"Hardly," Lemorth said, shaking his head. "You'd have smashed through that thing - you might be bloodied but you ... I've never seen such fighting! I'd never be able to to that, it was amazing."

"Don't underestimate yourself," Lhoi said, quietly. "I think there's more to you than even you know, thief in the desert."

Apparently the four began to communicate outside of his ears, because a moment later Lhoi looked down at him with a strange smile. "Would you like to join us? We wouldn't turn you in, we have plenty of places to hide, as well, but we could use another pair of eyes and an adept blade hand."

"Wait you... you're - are you offering me what?" Lemorth said, "but I'm just a thief, a loner."

"Hah," Ituru grunted, "you did very well with us, I think we all felt your powers kicking in. Hyix especially."

The more beige colored sister blushed and rolled her eyes, "I can't help it." She glanced an apology toward Eshrem, "I am remarkably attuned to such things. It was very useful though. Without that, we might have been worn down more quickly."

Ituru tended their wounds, Lhoi making sure that their steed was all right, and hadn't run off in the scuffle, and then they returned to the beast.

"Is it any good to eat?" Eshrem asked, and Lemorth cheerfully explained that yes, for a predator it had surprisingly sweet meat. It's teeth and hooves could be used for a variety of things. By the end of the night, and they'd slept through half the day, Lemorth was ready to come back to the Slust staging area and begin a strange new life with his odd wild friends.

***

Two months passed with relative calm at least in terms of hunting wild animals and exploring places. For Lemorth, it was hardly sedate - he was brought to a Peridian for genetic testing, and one of Lhoi and Hyix's family friends came along to sense out what his powers did. It was while they were doing this, that Lhoi realized the potential of this new addition to their group. He was no-one. He had no history, with his ability to be mostly unseen he even escaped notice when he perpetrated his thievery! He hardly ever stole things that were worth a big amount of money, in favor of things that he could easily liquidate and buy more mundane things like clothing or food.

With his shelter, clothing and food situation rectified, he was going to become very bored very quickly. Except that he was Dragon Tuned. Admittedly it was a lower level ability, but truth be told it was more than Lhoi had herself. And she was a Dragon Breeder.

It was a short step from Renegade to Dragon Master, she would think. But would he go for it?

She plotted regarding their new arrival and had him presented to the new hatchlings on her own dragon site's sands. The Stone dragons she had up in Corit all seemed to like him, though he was a bit surprised by the whole thing and didn't feel ready to make that leap.

He did however help her greatly when getting the right Masters up for these little growling dragonets. He could sense when someone was afraid, or too shifty - he knew from shifty - and thus they were spared an embarrassing moment. They would have sold one of the dragons to a young man who wanted only to hunt it in his own park... And that was so contrary to the whole point of making dragons in the first place!

One night not long after the next batch of eggs were being warmed in their incubators and the group was planning on a jaunt into the woods to see about these snake-like tree dwellers (whether they were as long as the local legends had it, whether they really could swallow a person whole...) something odd happened. Odder than usual, that is.

Lhoi was a dreamwalker, they all knew that. She didn't use the power much, as it didn't really provide her with anything she couldn't already get while waking. Plus she liked to concentrate more on visual and physical abilities, this one was almost entirely mental and she didn't care for it. But she wandered through the group's unconscious minds, for some reason gathering them before their next day's journey.

It felt quite strange though, because what she thought was just an imaginary journey into the dreaming woods ... wound up being real.

She'd moved their entire group, campsite and all, to another world. Because they woke there, and weren't really sure what to do next.

  Fabrica de Herois