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Melanth sighed to himself, trying to shut out the noise of the girl's screaming. He wasn't having much success.

"You know, if you want I could-"

"No."

"But she's not even-"

"No. Shut up."

The Watcher in the Dark, or whatever self-aggrandising title the Silver had appointed herself was really starting to irritate him. The female lounged on top of the bluff into which the cave was dug like some oversized jungle snake, occasionally making approving noises as she stretched and resettled her wings in the warm sun, apparently unperturbed by his overt hostility. By contrast he sat away from her in the shade, his temper frayed and tailtip dipped into the slow-side bank of the stream as a lure for the greedy fish that rested there. So far today he had succeeded in waking the young human he'd rescued from the camp and quickly come to regret it. Disinclined to be cooperative after her experiences with the Ashkar, she certainly wasn't in the mood to be placated and especially not by a dragon. The cave, which he has thought himself so clever in finding he was now beginning to curse, since the acoustics of the cavern enhanced the noise of her caterwauling and had left him with a ripe headache.

Then there were the rest of the humans to consider. No doubt by now news would have spread that they harboured a dragon in their midst, and a hunt would be afoot; all the more pressing now that the Ashkar had been dispersed. At least that brought some solace for the time being, even if the ambush had left him wanting for his pay. Cael might have a chance to catch a soldier's edge before he was thrown back into the ranks. Melanth doubted that the hateful dogmen would remain scattered for long; they were too wily and vicious to be cowed by anything but total defeat, but at least now the human forces in the region could play for time. The Ashkar couldn't win a long battle- they relied on the element of surprise to make up what they lacked in numbers and equipment.

Then there was this infuriating Silver. He watched with a jaundiced eye as she nosed a small stone out from under a pile of tunnelling refuse and sent the whole lot trickling down the bluff face like sand through a glass. He didn't like it when people knew more than him, and certainly not when he got caught in someone else's machinations. Any curiosity at her offer of a contract had been destroyed by her presentation. Such arrogance! If he didn't suspect that she had enough connections to make his life a living hell for the next century he'd run his claws across her snout for her impudence.

Turning, he roared fully into the cavern mouth, silencing the screaming girl for all of three seconds before the litany of curses and threats began anew.

"You should kill her, you know." The silver said, now preening in a semi-distracted manner. He caught himself just before some rather unpleasant and no doubt challenge-inducing remarks could pass his teeth.

"Why do you care?" He said, letting acid anger bite in his tone. He couldn't escape the feeling that she found all of this secretly amusing and it infuriated him.

"Because she's a burden. Humans always are. They get underfoot and in the way, and if they're not trying to kill you they're destroying your plans with their stubborn ignorance." She said, slithering down to stand behind him. "Just flame the cave and be done with it. She won't be able to scream without any air."

"I didn't go get my hide perforated to just dispose of the spoils the moment I have them in my grasp." He said irritably.

"Oh, I see. You're that kind of dragon." She said in mock surprise. He had to fight the urge to whip her with his tail.

"You mean castles and virgins and big piles of gold? No." At least not excessively, he added privately. "You, on the other claw are a pain in my vent. If you want my talons to do your dirty work then I want details before a commitment. If you can't provide them then all you're doing is wasting my time."

"And there's nothing I can offer you to whet your appetite?"

"Gold is useless if you don't survive to enjoy it, though if you've any nearby I'll be happy to relieve you of it."

"Very well then, I see you are immovable." She said, sighing with far more drama than was entirely necessary. "Allow me to explain..."

What she told him was mostly ancient history, and he'd heard it a thousand times before. Back before the Realm came to the fore there had been many medium-sized powers, some more influential than others, and one of these had been the city-state of Nordgard. Time and negligence had taken their toll, and it had eventually fallen to the Ashkar that roamed the northern reaches of Eredas; a dark day, as it lent to the Dogmen their only real stronghold in this part of the world. Ever since they had stirred up trouble for the nations of the continent, raiding, pillaging, occasionally even launching full invasions of the neighbouring lands when some leader survived long enough to unite them to the task.

It was for that reason that Melanth was here, and all the others; mercenaries, adventurers and free companies made big money keeping their numbers in check, denying them that critical mass of bodies and leadership needed to pose a serious threat to the region. Nordgard was all but untouchable; every army sent to retake it had fallen before its walls, but the Ashkar loved quarrel too dearly to stay cooped up in their impenetrable fortress if war was in the offering. Attacking their skirmishing parties kept them in short supply of food and, as had happened here, would eventually lead to a larger force being assembled to take on the free companies in a more direct engagement. So it had been for centuries.

Occasionally, things went wrong. Sometimes the free companies underestimated their opponents, which would only hearten the Ashkar and spur them to greater strengths. Occasionally an unusually brilliant Ashkar general would bring his forces against an unexpected quarter and leave the attempts to draw them out beating a hasty retreat back towards less wild lands. Trouble always followed such incidents; you could track the progress of the Ashkar invasion by the swarms of crows that gathered over every town they visited. The dogmen were always looking for an advantage, always looking to secure the resources they needed to expand further still...

"...And that is why I need your help." The Silver said, stamping her foreleg when his attention wandered. "It has come to the attention of my clan that these Ashkar have been sifting through the ancient ruined fortresses in the region."

"Broken swords and mail so rusted it is fused to the stone are below my concern."

"Don't pretend to be so naive." She said, and he snorted in amusement. "You know that when they were built, those fortresses housed relics of great power-"

"Myths which were picked clean millennia ago, if they weren't obliterated in the Sundering." He said, flicking an earfin dismissively. He'd explored his share of those same fortresses during his younger years and found nothing but moss, rot, and faded glory of an empire long forgotten and swallowed by the Endless Boughs. "Besides, no one knows what exactly it is that they did, if they even existed. Weapons of some sort, or so the scholars have it."

"Not exactly." She said. "The relics in question allowed for instantaneous communication between distant forces, so that if one ever came under attack aid could be sent immediately. They were never more than a week's march from help. Can you imagine such a device in the Ashkar's keep?"

He pondered this for a moment.

"It's a great curiosity," He said cautiously, digesting this revelation. "As to how exactly you know that, and that the Ashkar have one... if indeed they do." He said this last more in hope, forgetting even to insinuate the validity of her claims. The implications of an Ashkar army, organised and disciplined rather than the disorganised mass of rabble that still posed so grave a threat to the civilised lands was nothing short of terrifying.

"That's easy." She said, mantling her wings uncomfortably, suddenly embarrassed. "They stole it from me."

*

Cael grunted as he pulled aside the tent flap, shuffling in on feet that felt at least three sizes too big for boots that at other times were mostly empty space. The Dwarf had them searching the scene of the battle now for three days, looking for any clues as to what exactly had happened. The Rupert was putting pressure to get results on the hairy little stump, and that was filtering down through the ranks in the form of backbreaking labour; combing every square inch of ground between the camp and the battle-site, half of which had been burned to a crisp in the ensuing forest fires. A dragon! Of all creatures... and all accursed luck. Every member of the squad had been grilled by a board of officers and then again by an inquiry of Magisters from one of the magical colleges. So far at least they seemed to be satisfied that no one else was culpable.

He slung down his pack and sat sullenly on the edge of his mat. Reinforcements had arrived since, and the camp was rapidly running out of room. Where once they had been given individual tents they now had to share and the stink of sweat, dirt and increasingly semen became more palpable by the day. Cael at least counted himself lucky; he was bunked with Yriel, who was female at least, even if a completely different species. After the incident with the dragon no one else had wanted to be near him very much.

For the hundredth time in a week he asked himself what he was doing. A young lad, born to farmers, apprenticed to a farmer, destined to be a farmer, take a farmer's wife and pass down a farmer's skills to any children he might have, and now suddenly in the middle of a war. His only comforts a sword he didn't know how to use, a stolen chain shirt so oversized for his frame that it hung below his knees and his one pleasure in life occasionally catching a glimpse of the Metamorph's tits as she dressed. Three pence a day, plus food (if that vicious grey slime could even be called such) and loot hardly seemed worth it. Gnawing tedium for the rest of a lifetime had its merits over furious and terminal short-lived excitement.

He looked over the sleeping form of Yriel. She at least didn't seem too concerned. Indeed, it was hard to register any emotion in her aside from insatiable curiosity and that specific brand of optimism that makes one feel rather guilty about having urges to stove the culprit's head in with the nearest rock. The feline shape-shifter followed every order put to her, no matter how irritating or pointless and gave every sign of enjoying herself in the doing. It was easy to imagine why Metamorphs weren't too popular; and indeed, she wouldn't have been if they all hadn't been united in singular hatred of the Dwarf. The little Sergeant entirely lived up (or rather, down) to his people's reputation for stubbornness and a short temper, and as Cael had already learned painfully was quite without a sense of humour. Normal drill instructors might tan your hide, but that little bastard would punch your balls.

Reflexively, he patted his shirt to check that the tooth-and-scale amulet was still concealed in the pocked he'd haphazardly sewn the day before. Damn Yriel has swiped the thing from him more than once, and he didn't like the idea of it just lying around for anyone to find, no matter how well concealed. He didn't dare put it on. That merc, Melanth if that was even his real name, had worn it and he'd turned out to be a monster, and then the damn Metamorph had said it was magic. His skin just about crawled to carry it so close, but something stayed his hand from just tossing it into a convenient stream or latrine.

What if he came back for it and it wasn't there? Cael didn't like to think. Besides, it might be worth some money.

"Questioned again?" Yriel said sleepily, rolling over. The feline anthro's blanket slipped to reveal her smallish breasts with their pert nipples poking pinkly through her sandy fur. He quickly averted his eyes.

"Yeah, mages this time." He said, sitting down heavily. Yriel gave a laugh that sounded more like a purr.

"Ah well, they'll be gone soon. Come tell Auntie Claws what the bad men-folk did say."

He gave an angered recounting of their probing questions, feeling his pants grow steadily tighter as the feline shifted to a more comfortable position, not at all concerned of her nakedness. He'd heard plenty of rumours regarding Metamorphicates and their lax morals; the shape-shifters rarely conforming to the taboos of their adopted societies, though before her he'd never actually met one. Rumour had it they were everywhere, disguised, though he doubted that. The feline had a child-like quality of playful innocence that was too distinct to easily miss. She snorted as he finished his rhetoric. "Heh, well if it's any comfort they hauled everyone else in to give evidence too, for what good it'll do them. Except me." She sounded smug. "On the plus side we've been put on leave pending further notice. Until the investigation is over we're not to leave camp."

"How did you get out of it?" He asked suspiciously. He was getting used to the Metamorph's sly ways.

"Easy." She said, and then was on him in a flash before he could as much as blink. Sputtering alarm he made to push her off, recoiling in surprise to find not the furred feline straddling his lap but a smooth-skinned, beautiful and entirely naked woman. He gawked up at her laughing figure as she pushed him down, sitting back with an entirely too self-satisfied air.

"Those old men in their towers all the time, must get lonely for them..." She purred; her voice the only thing unchanged. "I just made myself friendly to them and they didn't ask me to come back. Vows of chastity you see." She explained, green eyes twinkling in amusement.

"I... um... see." Cael said, not sure if he should try to push her off, or if he even wanted to.

"Is that a dagger in your pocket?"

"Umm..."

She laughed, rolling off, transforming back to her natural form as she did. He averted his eyes, overcome with the strangeness of watching a busty young woman change into a slim, furred feline; though his pants, which had a mind of their own, remained standing.

"Humans are so prudish." She chided, twitching her whiskers. "You really need to loosen up. All of you. Too many serious soldiers here, you'd think this was what they did all their lives! Live as though they'll never die and die as though they've never lived."

"Umm..."

"Would you like to live a little?"

"I... umm... I need some air."

He made his escape as quickly as was polite, bursting into the open air like a startled pheasant. Damn! He looked down, adjusting his shirt to hide his rock hard erection. Damn Yriel! She'd even left a damp spot. Now he was in dire need of a dip in a cold stream and couldn't leave camp. Today just got better and better!

*

Yriel watched with no small regret as Cael blundered his way out into the open air.

"So repressed." She muttered, shaking her head. Humans never could just learn to enjoy themselves.

Still, she'd gotten what she wanted.

She uncurled the amulet in her claws, memorising the swirls and shapes carved into the dragon's tooth pendant. Getting it out of his pocket had been easy; it was a poor Metamorph who lacked the agility to pick a pocket. Literally. Her kind weren't welcome in most human lands; more often than not it was thievery or starvation.

Mages had spent many years and much effort studying the nature of shapeshifting. It was an imperfect science; unreliable, requiring the harnessing of magical energies in sufficient amounts to alter the state of matter but controllable enough not to destroy the mind of the wielder. Metamorphicates alone counted it within their scope of ability, and even then it was a natural faculty unhindered by artificial channelling. Or so she had thought.

That dragon, whoever he was, knew the secret. Such a secret was worth no small amount of money- she'd heard that the colleges of magic offered a king's ransom to anyone who could crack the missing link into safe and reliable transformation. The amulet figured into it somewhere, though how she didn't know. But she would, in time.

She rolled over, secreting the amulet in her uniform. Teasing the human had been fun! Though, she admitted, it usually was. For a species that were so prudish they really didn't have much control over their responses, and it was oh so easy to get them aroused. She spread her legs, shivering at the coldness of the air on her damp sex. It never failed to arouse her either, to see how much they wanted to give in, but were just that little bit too stubborn to ask...

She ran her fingers around her lightly furred sex, enjoying the tingling sensation that the tender touch spread throughout her hips, the tips of her claws making circles on her swollen labia. Her other hand came up to play with her sensitive breasts, a firm squeeze on her erect nipple sending an electric shock of pleasure running down her stomach and earthing itself on her clitoris.

Unlike humans, Metamorphs didn't frown on sex. In their homelands the taboos that were held by the other races simply didn't exist, and frequently caused outrage amongst foreign visitors. Aids for sexual relief were as common as food to assuage hunger or lavatories to take care of other needs; in the Metamorph mind the urge to get off was not so different. Occasionally outsiders who lived long enough amongst the Metamorphs would become inured to the sight of a young female happily gyrating on a communal sybian or males openly jerking off onto the ground, but more often than not they turned a blind eye to it and tried to pretend that their own obvious arousal didn't exist. She'd learned the hard way that outside of her home such public displays were forbidden.

She hissed as she slipped a finger into her sex, feeling the warm, damp ribbed surface and shivering at the pleasure it brought. Her other hand groped down her stomach, resting over her pubis and stretching her fingers to either side of her clitoris, not ready to give in entirely. Half the pleasure was in the anticipation. She extracted the finger, now coated in her aroused juices and slicked it over her sensitive nub, biting her tongue to keep from crying out, pushing back her hood and labia major to lubricate the area before she began to masturbate in earnest. A sharp claw tip played with her urethra as the others pressed into her clit, her hips alive with pleasure and the warm flush of arousal pulsing just beneath her skin. The hear that slowly built in her loins aroused her further, making her draw ragged breaths as she felt herself draw nearer and nearer to the inevitable conclusion, spreading through her belly and into her sex, filtering down until her clit was just too sensitive to touch. She shifted her hand, plunging her fingers back inside herself and thrusting wetly, feeling her internal muscles clench and unclench ever more rapidly until at last she was there. She yowled out her climax, hips arching and hands flying out of her spasming sex, pulling apart her nether-lips to release the spurts of hot fluid that came with each delicious convulsion.

Yriel panted in her afterglow, legs shivering with the power of the orgasm she'd just felt. Damn that was intense! She looked over the mess she'd made, the watery fluid coating her hips, hands and Cael's bed. Ah well, after stealing the amulet from him, cumming all over his bed was hardly a crime at all.

She set about cleaning up the mess, sucking clean her fingers and then bending to lick her vulva with feline flexibility; familiar with the salty, ever so slightly sweet tang of her own juices. The heads scent of pheromones filled the enclosed tent, but there wasn't much she could do about that. She grinned to herself, imagining his reaction. Perhaps it was just as well that she didn't intend to stick around and see it.

*

"What!?"

"It was stolen."

"It was stolen from my hoard. Are you deaf?"

Melanth could hardly believe what he was hearing. To think that everything that had happened here, the deaths, abductions, mobilisation of entire armies, was the result of this female's incompetence was a pill he could not easily swallow. "It was stolen from your hoard." He repeated mockingly. "You knew what this thing could do, and you allowed it to be stolen, by Ashkar no less. A race with all the stealth and subtlety of the morning fucking sun!"

"I hadn't much choice in the matter." She said defensively, drawing her tail in on herself. "I was... incapacitated at the time."

It gets better, he thought. He tried to focus, suppressing his anger at this idiotic female into a white-hot ball and burying it under the mountain of guile on which his reputation was built. As leary as he was of her motives, the fact remained that something would need to be done. If he could make a profit out of it in the mean time all the better.

"Right." He muttered. "You were incapacitated... How did they manage it? If I'm to go after this thing I don't want to get caught in the same trap."

"You'd have a hard job." She said, dryly.

"Howso?"

"Because it's not something that males typically suffer from."

It took a moment for the penny to drop. Damn, he though. I've been away from my own kind for too long if I'm forgetting that. He still occasionally caught the scent of distant females in heat and it would drive him wild for days afterwards; a raking, clawing desperate need to find them and mate. He knew it affected them the same way too, urging them to fly far and wide in search of ever more scarce males with which to propagate the species. It was at these times that humans usually encountered dragons, when their lust overcame natural caution and common sense.

"I see." He said, shuffling uncomfortably.

"Quite. They must have been aware of my presence in the area for some time, but only snuck in whilst I was... distracted. How they knew what to look for I do not know; only a few other items were missing, all of them relics dating from the same time period. I suspect they had help."

"Help who knew what to look for... I never credited the Ashkar to have any scholars of history amongst their number." He said, and sighed as he settled finally on a decision. "Where are they to be found?"

The Watcher visibly relaxed, her wings sagging from her sides where she had kept the clenched throughout the conversation. When she spoke it was with great relief.

"That is the catch; I know not where."

He quickly revised his decision.

"I had a companion of mine tracking the Ashkar for my sake, until you and your humans launched your assault. The keeper was an Ashkar shaman, no doubt gone to ground by now. Finding him again will be your task, though I shall provide what assistance I can." She said accusingly, and then softened. "You understand the implications of what this means?"

"Better than most perhaps. I've seen enough of Ashkar to know what they will do if they strike out in force. The fee will be one hundred and fifty a day, m'lady. Plus expenses in the by."

"Extortion! I could hire a regiment of troops for such a fee. One hundred and fifteen."

"One forty-five. That regiment would be human and unreliable at best."

"One thirty."

"Done. I have to say that working with a dragon will be... different. There is one other thing I would ask though, as a part of my expenses."

"Oh, and what is it?" She said, cautious. He pointed towards the cave entrance with his muzzle, from which the sounds of Sara's loud and less than savoury protests still reverberated.

"Look after that dolt, and see she comes to no harm."

"Agreed, though I do not know why you try to keep her alive. She will only hinder you, and me."

"Believe me." He said, stretching his wings for flight. The sun was high now, and he could see thermals beginning to billow strongly over the vast forest. If the weather held it would be a fine day for flying, a fine day indeed. "I know not either."