Harbend felt pride soaring through him. He'd managed to get everything sorted in the end, and now he led well over three hundred wagons toward the mountains. Hiring scouts almost handled itself. Four hunters were headed for their winter cabins and didn't mind taking a long detour in exchange for some money. Luckily coins minted in Verd were universally well accepted. He even managed to split the escort into two separate units with Captain Laiden in overall command without hurting anyone's feelings too much.

Arthur's new associates were another matter though. They had paid the required fee to join the caravan, with the exception of Gring, the Khraga, who worked as a translator for Arthur. They even bought one wagon and two horses to go with it, but it was painfully clear that they knew nothing of driving it, and in the end Harbend forced them to hire a driver and buy another pair of horses. A male couple from Khanati, and one of them had to be a Transport Khar. There was no other explanation for them being here. Master and slave if Harbend was right. Well, Arthur's idiocy had paid off in a way. Three battle mages from Rhuin opted to join the escort after Harbend promised to pay the Transport mage from Ira who brought them here.

Then there was the Khraga. She should have been the least of the problems. Harbend knew an entire tribe of them lived in Ri Kordari, and from what he had heard they were held in very high esteem. But he should have known he could always trust Arthur to find a harder way to solve an already difficult problem. Of course he managed to attract a Khraga from Gaz. Gods! That man wasn't picky to say the least. Why invite a hairy giant who made most of the men uneasy when you could invite a hairy giant who was sworn to the ancient enemy of those who weren't already unsettled?

As if that wasn't bad enough, Arthur now spent most of his time with the female Khraga. So much time in fact some mercenaries from Ri Khi had hinted at a conspiracy when they believed Harbend couldn't hear them. He'd been forced to hammer them out of that misconception as harshly as possible before things got ugly. They didn't complain after that.

Yes, he definitely had a reason to feel proud of himself.

They were on the road again, if the narrow trail deserved the status of road, that is. Three full days from the Roadhouse with a caravan so vast half a morning passed between the vanguard reaching a milestone and the rearguard leaving it behind.

Trees still grew tall here, something that would change as they meandered their way upwards during the days to come, but at the moment they were still surrounded by a forest somehow looking wilder than those they had passed through in Erkateren. The trees here were not planted, not as straight and ordered in long lines as those he'd seen earlier. This was not a supply for timber men and carpenters.

Harbend slowly started to accept that he was heading into unchartered territory. The last caravan had trudged its way from Braka to Verd over a hundred years earlier, and a lot could have happened since. He knew that from the moment they parted with their scouts he could no longer trust any knowledge he thought he had. Not until they reached Braka itself, which meant spending over a season in the unknown. They were testing the borders of that unknown now. Not even the mercenaries from Ri Khi knew their way around here, and the hunters hired as scouts only used this trail sparsely.

He dared his horse into a slow gallop. If he could catch up with the vanguard he would get the latest news of their progress, even if that news was only reports of yet more trees. As it was it didn't turn out that way.

He found Captain Laiden overseeing the hacking and sawing of a great log fallen across the trail.

"Windfall, Captain?" Harbend asked the stern commander.

"No, just old age, M'lord. We'll be through soon."

"Good to hear. Anything else?"

"Not really, M'lord. My man, Terwin," Trindai pointed at a heavyset man handling one end of a huge saw. "thinks someone's watching us. I don't know. Want me to tell you when I'm more certain, M'lord?"

"Do so. I have absolute confidence in your judgment when it comes to matters military."

Trindai gave Harbend a speculative look, and Harbend wondered what had earned him the thoughtfulness of the captain.

"Will do, M'lord," Trindai finally answered as if having made his mind up about something during the silence.

Harbend rode back along the line of wagons and grabbed something to eat. He'd become a lot less concerned about eating among people since leaving Verd, but then you could hardly expect a private room while on horseback. He watched as soldiers departed to replace the vanguard and noted Arthur and the Khraga joining the troops riding away. So did Chaijrild.

The girl flaunted an interest in Arthur that Harbend realized grew out of spite, but there wasn't much in his powers to do about it, and he no longer harbored any interest in trying.

A while later Captain Laiden returned with his men and reported that the log was cleared away and made into firewood. With little else to do Harbend joined the captain in hope of passing time a bit faster.

"There's something out there, but I don't know, and I don't like not knowing, M'lord," Captain Laiden said almost as soon as he saw Harbend coming.

"And your suggestion?" Harbend looked at the captain.

"I'll sweep both sides of the caravan. With your permission, of course, M'lord," he added almost as an afterthought.

The scouting missions resulted in nothing but unpleasant rumors among the mercenaries from Ri Khi, and Harbend marked his dissatisfaction with the new problem in a way that had Captain Laiden growling before he ordered his men to be ready. Harbend was about to counter that order when a glimmer of threat shone from Trindai's eyes, and Harbend quickly rescinded his decision and rode on.

***

Trindai de Laiden, Imperial Colonel in the forces of Keen, rode along the track. He was disguised as a lowly mercenary escort captain but he'd experienced worse missions.

Harbend de Garak's interfering with how to organize the escort a few days earlier had played right into his hands and now Trindai was in command of two full squadrons of crack troops. Berdaler and Terwin were able enough to command each of them independently, thank all gods for small favors. With the addition of a company's strength of half-assed thugs acting out a sorry excuse for a military unit he'd need to spend most of his time helping Captain Weinak keeping her men in line. That required manipulating her so he didn't seem to be usurping her direct command.

Bastards own luck, he thought, I throw away a good third of my pay to escape a darkness cursed office command with a fancy title attached to it. Now I have a whore son's load of paperwork dropped in my lap out in the wilderness instead.

He sighed and spat. One captain and two lieutenants, neither of whom would ever have been entrusted an officers responsibility in Keen, to command a full company headed for dispersed duty. That would need reorganizing.

He'd been ordered here to command half that number. However, with a major and two captains for each of his squadrons, not to mention the lieutenant and two noncommissioned officers handling every half squadron, he had ten times the command capacity available. A necessity for a mission where they had to cover grounds normally assigned to a regiment.

Trindai led his horse along the track musing over his bad luck. A full company of heavy cavalry and almost no remounts. Out here in the cold mountains he'd hoped for more than the half cooked brain who'd come up with the idiocy of parading out into the middle of nowhere with short lances and arbalests without as much as a thought to the realities of warfare. Well, it couldn't be helped.

At least Captain Weinak seemed competent enough. She'd done better in Keen, assigned a proper command instead of the band of thugs in uniforms she'd brought. He'd help her by arranging training missions as soon as they were on the plains. Berdaler and Terwin would have to explain the real reason for those sessions to the men, but they'd complain anyway. Darkness! He'd have complained if forced to excessively tire the horses on stupid exercises every day when even a half trained recruit could see that resting made more sense.

He spat again and mounted.

The trees grew denser around them here, and with his mind off longterm planning Trindai could afford to share the discomfort his men had given voice to earlier. Something was out there prowling the caravan. He commanded some of the best scouts this side of Kastari and relied fully in their ability to give him correct information. Darkness would fall soon, and they were still far from ready to make camp. It didn't matter any longer. They'd have to make do on the trail. Driving the wagons after nightfall was too dangerous.

He disliked forests. Too many places to hide in. As if to prove him right, a shadow of something moved between the trunks. He tried to get a better look and then he identified the lurkers.

"Dragon pack!"

Trindai dropped from his horse and rolled on the ground. Soldiers followed his example, and with a coordination taking years of training and hard won experience they met the attack. Trindai backed away and began counting the creatures. Twenty, at least. Dragonlings, not as intelligent as their brethren raiding the coasts, but just as fierce.

He heard, rather than saw, a wall of flames spreading out in a semicircle. So, the gaudy foreigner from Khanati was a Fire Khar. Hissing screams marked whenever a dragonling was consumed by the roaring fire, and Trindai afforded himself a grim smile. They would only need to cover one flank. The men were already dispatching dragonlings with the efficiency he expected from them, and he concentrated on what was happening further along the caravan. He saw Harbend throwing his horse into a gallop, choosing the left side of the road where there were only charred remains of their attackers.

A movement to his right caught Trindai's eyes. Arthur! The outworlder idiot was riding into the fray.

"Turn back! You can't do anything." Too late. Arthur was already behind the dragonlings waving his right hand. A sound like nothing Trindai had ever heard before cut the scene to a halt. Soldiers and dragonlings, several of them already locked in combat, froze like statues, and then the awful noise repeated itself again, and again, and again. Trindai forced himself into action and moving closer to the outworlder he watched the ghastly display of blood and gore as the dragonlings' bodies burst open before they fell.

"You ...! Die! Die damn you!"

That was an untrained madman screaming, not the arrogant but gentle outworlder he'd come to know.

Trindai stared and now he could see how whenever Arthur pointed his hand at a dragonling the roar of death called into the air and the creature exploded in a wet shower of red and white. It was over in moments, over for everyone but Arthur who remained screaming in madness while he continued kicking at the remains of a dragonling.

The men pulled back, removed themselves from the deadly apparition turned up among them. Trindai saw their faces. There had been grim determination there before. Now they only showed naked fear. He saw Harbend approach Arthur. Someone had to. They couldn't have the men living in fear of one of their employers.

"Arthur, stop! Arthur!"

There was no visible response.

"Arthur, listen up!" Harbend yelled again. Nothing. He chanced coming closer, and in a final act of desperation he slapped the outworlder. "Wake up!"

Harbend and Arthur exchanged another few shouted words in the outworlder language and in the end Arthur stopped kicking at the broken carcass and sanity slowly returned to his eyes.

Searching for the Khraga enabling him to understand the foreign words Trindai watched as Harbend breathed in relief and embraced Arthur, knowing before the outworlder what was about to happen. Harbend barely managed to close his arms around Arthur before the older man broke down in sobs. They stood there for a short eternity. There should be another reaction soon. Harbend stepped aside and turned away when Arthur finally emptied his stomach on the ground.

Harbend must have seen combat before, but for the outworlder it was a first kill. The proficiency he'd shown in Verd when attacked by the inquisition soldier had been training without experience after all. Maybe next time Arthur would be in control of himself, and there would be a next time, maybe more than one. Trindai wasn't about to start fooling himself into believing all of them would emerge unscathed from the journey. He could only hope not too many of them died. That had always been the reason caravans paid off well -- for those who survived. That had been the reason for ships to dare the dangerous waters closer to Braka. Danger raised the price of wares sold.

***

Sitting around a campfire. But for the madness earlier Arthur could almost have believed himself exchanging exaggerations with the tourists he guided over thirty years earlier. Almost, but no tourist had been a two meter tall monster.

He smirked at the memories. So young then, guiding the rich and the famous, long before he became one himself. Some of them he remembered with vehemence, and the last few days had convinced him Gring ghara Khat, or that was as close as he came to pronounce her name, certainly didn't play the part of a monster the way some of the tourists had. He liked her company, liked her ways and how she taught him to relax when she wove the strands of magic around him allowing him to talk with the others. It wasn't the way he once thought of a woman but the way a man might grow fond of an acquaintance becoming a friend. There was of course something inhuman about her, but anything else would have been impossible for someone who was obviously born a predator.

He sat with a small box in his lap and a manual in his left hand, trying to read it in the flickering light from the flames. Soon he'd put the manual away and start cleaning his gun. The people who once equipped him with the weapon were adamant about that. Never, ever use the gun without cleaning it afterward. Not unless you were absolutely positive you had fingers to spare.

Sure requires more work than the mace Harbend bought me, but that one hasn't seen any work.

Once more he shuddered at the memories of what had passed nor even an hour earlier, and in an attempt to dispel those thought he bent over his manual. Reading the last passage to make sure he understood what he was supposed to do he picked the weapon up. It was warm in his hands, smooth and shiny except for the handle formed to give him a better grip. The handle also held the biochip grown from his own cells.

A mixed blessing. He couldn't lend the weapon to anyone else. It wouldn't function in the hands of another. There was still violence and theft of course, but mostly in the form of fistfights and outright piracy; two extremes surviving any change to human society, and the occasional small scale war. Humanity defined herself by wars, but at least the Federation never got involved with its disgusting capacity to destroy any opposition. Wars these days were confined to the petty states declining to be part of the Terran Federation.

Arthur dismantled the gun in silence. A silence he knew he would have to break. They were waiting for an explanation, and he had a question as well, but for now he was happy with the calm lasting since they set camp after the ambush. It took longer to clean the gun than he'd expected. He knew it could be done in a couple of minutes, but he hadn't handled one for decades.

Then he was finished and there was no longer an excuse for him to stay mute. He looked through the flames in search for a face he knew would be there, patiently waiting. One of the women from Ri Khi, a medic of sorts.

"How is she?"

"She will recover. She will be fine."

"You're certain?"

"I am a magehealer. I may not be as skilled as some, but she was not badly hurt. It looked worse than it was. Bruises mostly and a bad cut to her scalp. Bleeds a lot."

He gave the woman a stern look.

"And a broken arm," she admitted. "It will heal. Two days, no more, and you shall fail to see there has ever been any damage."

He shuddered. Chaijrild's arm hadn't been broken. It had been crushed between the teeth of a lizard before the female escort captain killed it. Two days was amazing though, almost... He suddenly laughed. Not almost. It was magic. Magic instead of science, or, if his suspicions were correct, mere science to those invested with the powers and magic to all the rest. In a way very much the same as home. Arthur shrugged the amusing thought away.

"If the soldiers hadn't reacted so fast we wouldn't be sitting here now," he said, remembering how close it had been, and the mirth left him.

Arthur looked at the magehealer again. She was the only one from Ri Khi who accepted his presence, or rather accepted Gring's presence, but as the Khraga seldom went far from his side it was effectively the same. All the others shunned him, some out of fear and a few seemingly out of a hatred he couldn't understand. He tried to ask Gring, but she avoided the question and he let the matter fall. She'd tell him at a time of her own choosing.

The sound of footsteps startled him and he looked left, over the towering shape of Gring beside him, and saw Harbend smiling as he walked closer. Captain Laiden followed in his steps and Arthur knew this time he would answer questions rather than ask them.

The men sat down on a log he'd dragged out of the forest earlier to make some extra seats in anticipation of the interrogation he suspected would follow later.

Trindai looked at the reassembled gun in Arthur's hand. That was a question clear as any.

"It's called a gun, or a pistol," Arthur started. "It's a weapon," he continued.

Trindai smirked and Arthur felt like an idiot. As if Trindai needed to be told that something causing the deaths of half a dozen attackers was a weapon. Arthur swore silently. Should he attempt to increase his reputation by explaining for the professional soldier that a mace was something you tried to bludgeon people with?

"I apologize," Arthur said.

The captain grinned, and after a while the grin turned into a smile.

"Let me try again." Arthur held up the gun to let the flames throw light on it. "This weapon is in a way similar to the crossbow you favor here. The main difference is that instead of quarrels this one uses something called stub needle micro grenades, and until they are launched they are very small." Arthur paused to see if they were following him.

"Go on, M'lord," Trindai said.

"On Earth we have something called high explosives. I don't know if you have anything like it here, but it's used both for propelling the projectile as well as expanding it when it enters a target."

"We don't, but the raiders do," the captain answered and scratched an unshaven cheek.

"They do?"

"Yes, we've experimented with compressed air to replace our current stone throwers, but we can't make the gases expand fast enough to make a working cannon."

Arthur had to reevaluate his view on the people in Keen. He glanced at Trindai. The captain had a peculiar way of lapsing into different modes of speech. The almost subservient way he used with Harbend was all but gone now. "How so?" Arthur asked.

"First thing first, M'lord," Trindai said. "The raiders use some system involving combustion, a little like throwing a bottle of strong brandy in the fire, but much more efficient. We believe it's done with magic."

Gunpowder? Arthur thought for himself. "Maybe, maybe not," he answered the unvoiced question.

"Anyway, we haven't found a way to create an explosion that'll throw an object far enough and fast enough without resorting to constructions too large and with too low a rate of fire to be of any practical use," Trindai said, in turn answering Arthur's second question. "Now you show up with a weapon that can be carried around by one man with a penetration power greater than our crossbows and a relaunch rate we can only dream about."

"So of course you're interested," Arthur finished Trindai's line of thought.

"Yes. I'd like to know the reach of that weapon."

A loud crack was followed by a hiss, and bouncing embers announced the fire was falling in on itself. Arthur added some branches to it after making sure he had caught nothing in his lap. Then he turned back to the captain. "Ah, let me think, less than a lamp, maybe sixty paces. This weapon is constructed for personal protection. It's not military issue."

Trindai's face showed clear disappointment. "That's less, a lot less, than a crossbow."

"It is," Arthur agreed. "We have portable weapons that could easily reach from one end of Verd to the other with pinpoint accuracy. I even believe there are some that could reach between two of your telegraphs, eh, far writers" That piece of information apparently stunned the captain. You don't need to know of guided missiles reaching all over this planet should the damn military ever place their deadly toys here.

"And it's portable?"

"Not exactly, but in a way. One man operates it and moves with it, but it's too heavy for a human to carry around, so we have to use a mechanical contraption to move both soldier and weapon." Arthur saw the magehealer frown disapprovingly. That was natural, he guessed. She healed people and here he was talking about equipment killing them.

Trindai brightened. "I've seen those moving armors of yours. Ten years ago, after you came here."

After we came here. Also a way of describing it. The captain must have been present during the invasion attempt. "That's not something we're very proud about," Arthur said.

"Why not? We're very happy you chose Keen. Of course the relations may be strained from time to time, but the exclusion of any other land is a great honor to us."

"What?"

"But of course. Please don't mistake our ways for anger. Protectionism and a certain amount of greed, yes I have to admit that, but we're grateful you haven't started to fly your sky ships from elsewhere."

A moment of shock followed by revelation. The captain didn't know about the Terran Federation's insane attack! Maybe most living here didn't, but how?

"Oh, I see. You're thinking of that unfortunate episode. It was a mistake trying to take your installation by force, and your weapons made us pay dearly," Trindai continued, apparently mistaking the reason for Arthur's silence.

Arthur didn't know what to say, and only returned Trindai's stare. They sat in silence around the flickering light of the fire until Arthur decided it was his time asking questions.

"The things that attacked us today, what were they?"

"Dragonlings," Gring answered. "They are quite common where I come from."

"They're very rare here," Trindai said. "I don't know about these mountains, but we don't see many of them west of Erkateren anyway, and I'd be surprised if there are that many there."

Harbend nodded his head in agreement with the captain. "He is probably right. From what I have heard they are hunted more or less to extinction. A different matter on the other side of the mountains though." Harbend looked at Gring.

"Very different," she agreed. "Hunting dragonlings is forbidden there. Defending yourself is allowed of course, but no hunting."

"Why?" Arthur asked.

"I don't know," Gring admitted. "You die if you try, so people just accept it's forbidden."

"Who kills the hunters?"

"To begin with there has been no hunters of dragonlings for a very long time. Well, not on the eastern side of the pass anyway. To answer your question, we don't know. Legend has it a hunter just dies. Accident, sickness, killed by animals, anything. Never takes long though."

Arthur wasn't getting anywhere and he tried a different approach. "Why is it forbidden to hunt them?" he asked. "And why only on the other side of the mountains."

"I can answer the second question," Trindai offered. "We've been given the land where we live, but we're not allowed to bring our own rules across the mountains," he continued.

Arthur digested the information for a few moments. "So, and my first question?" he asked.

"I thought the answer would be obvious," Gring said, and Arthur could see how all around him gave him looks of utter surprise.

"I'm afraid I'm the foreigner here," he explained.

"Dragonlings are the young of dragons. I thought everyone knew that."

Excitement stirred in Arthur. "Dragons? You have dragons here?"

"There hasn't been a sighting of a dragon in hundreds of years, but of course we do. Don't you?"

"No, we don't. No dragons where I come from."

"You are the strangest of people," Gring said. "You say you don't have dragons where you come from, and yet you seem familiar with the concept. No wonder we call you halfmen and oath breakers when you so obviously lie to yourself," she concluded.

Arthur could only listen in amazement as Gring was joined by a choir of murmured agreement.