thrown almost two hundred years ago when the Federation had
expanded northward and simply consumed the Highlands in a
single bite. There had been no Leah kings since, and the family
had survived as gentlemen farmers and craftsmen over the years.
The current head of the family, Kyle Leah, was a landholder
living south of the city who bred beef cattle. Morgan, his oldest
son. Par and Coil’s closest friend, bred mostly mischief.
“You don’t think Morgan will be around, do you?” Coil
asked, grinning at the possibility.
Par grinned back. The hunting lodge was really a family pos-
session, but Morgan was the one who used it the most. The last
time the Ohmsford brothers had come into the Highlands they
had stayed for a week at the lodge as Morgan’s guests. They had
camped, hunted and fished, but mostly they had spent their time
recounting tales of Morgan’s ongoing efforts to cause distress to
the members of the Federation govemment-in-residence at Lean.
Morgan Leah had the quickest mind and the fastest pair of hands
in the Southland, and he harbored an abiding dislike for the army
that occupied his land. Unlike Shady Vale, Leah was a major
city and required watching. The Federation, after abolishing the
monarchy, had installed the provisional governor and cabinet
and stationed a garrison of soldiers to insure order. Morgan
regarded that as a personal challenge. He took every opportunity
that presented itself, and a few that didn’t, to make life miserable
for the officials that now lodged comfortably and without regard
for proper right of ownership in his ancestral home. It was never
a contest. Morgan was a positive genius at disruption and much
too sharp to allow the Federation officials to suspect he was the
mom in their collective sides that they could not even find, let
alone remove. On the last go-around, Morgan had trapped the
governor and vice-governor in a private bathing court with a
herd of carefully muddied pigs and jammed all the locks on the
doors. It was a very small court and a whole lot of pigs. It took
two hours to free them all, and Morgan insisted solemnly that
by then it was hard to tell who was who.
The brothers regained their feet, hoisted their packs in place,
and set off once more. The afternoon slipped away as the sun
followed its path westward, but the air stayed quiet and the heat
grew even more oppressive. The land at this elevation at mid-
summer was so dry that the grass crackled where they walked,
the once-green blades dried to a brownish gray crust. Dust curled
up in small puffs beneath their boots, and their mouths grew
dry.
It was nearing sunset by the time they caught sight of the
hunting lodge, a stone and timber building set back in a group-
ing of pines on a rise that overlooked the country west. Hot and
sweating, they dumped their gear by the front door and went
directly to the bathing springs nestled in the trees a hundred
yards back. When they reached the springs, a cluster of clear
blue pools that filled from beneath and emptied out into a slug-
gish little stream, they began stripping off their clothes imme-
diately, heedless of anything but their by now overwhelming
need to sink down into the inviting water.
Which was why they didn’t see the mud creature until it was
almost on top of them.
It rose up from the bushes next to them, vaguely manlike,
encrusted in mud and roaring with a ferocity that shattered the
stillness like glass. Coil gave a howl, sprang backward, lost his
balance and tumbled headfirst into the springs. Par jerked away,
tripped and rolled, and the creature was on top of him.
“Ahhhh! A tasty Valeman!” the creature rasped in a voice
that was suddenly very familiar.
“Shades, Morgan!” Par twisted and turned and shoved the
other away. “You scared me to death, confound it!”
Coil pulled himself out of the springs, still wearing boots and
pants halfway off, and said calmly, “I thought it was only the
Federation you intended to drive out of Leah, not your friends.”
He heaved himself up and brushed the water from his eyes.