The High Mage watched them continue on, until they finally dipped into a basin and disappeared from sight.

The K’ell Hunters all halted, then spread out cautiously and slowly closed to where the hounds had vanished.

A fatal error.

Blurs of darkness, launching up from the basin. The K’ell Hunters, suddenly surrounded, swung their massive swords. Yet, fast as they were, in the span of a single heartbeat two of the three were down, throats and bellies torn open. The third one had leapt high, sailing twenty paces to land in a thumping run.

The hounds did not pursue, gathering to sniff at the K’Chain Che’Malle corpses whilst the half-humans arrived with hoots and barks, a few males clambering onto the dead creatures and jumping up and down, arms waving.

L’oric thought he now understood why the K’Chain Che’Malle had never established colonies on this continent.

He watched the hounds and the half-humans mill about the kill site for a while longer, then the High Mage began a cautious retreat, back to the lake. He was nearing the edge of the slope down to the reeds when his last parting glance over one shoulder revealed the seven beasts all facing in his direction, heads raised.

Then two began a slow lope towards him. A moment later the remaining five fanned out and followed.

Oh...

Sudden calm descended upon him. He knew he was as good as already dead. There would be no time to open the warren to return to his own world – nor would he, in any case, since to do so would give the hounds a path to follow – and I’ll not have their arrival in the oasis a crime staining my soul. Better to die here and now. Duly punished for my obsessive curiosity.

The hounds showed nothing of the speed they had unveiled against the K’ell Hunters, as if they sensed L’oric’s comparative weakness.

He heard water rushing behind him and spun round.

A dragon filled his vision, low over the water – so fast as to lift a thrashing wave in its wake – and the talons spread wide, the huge clawed hands reaching down.

He threw his arms over his face and head as the enormous scaled fingers closed like a cage around him, then snatched him skyward.

A brief, disjointed glimpse of the hounds scattering from the dragon’s shadow – the distant sound of half-human yelps and shrieks – then naught before his eyes but the glistening white belly of the dragon, seen between two curled talons.

He was carried far, out onto a sea, then towards an island where stood a squat tower, its flat roof broad and solid enough for the dragon, wings spreading to thunder against the air, to settle.

The claws opened, tumbling L’oric onto the gouged and scraped stones. He rolled up against the platform’s low wall, then slowly sat up.