Mewla

By Ashley Abbiss

Naya, Slink, Stumpy and Hoo have all told their ‎stories, and now it’s Mewla’s turn. She would always ‎have to have the last word, of course!‎
The team is just leaving Mennon and its newly ‎restructured Warden Centre, and the Urzites are feeling ‎good. They did good work in Mennon. They finally got ‎revenge for Naya, so the Frightful Four can hold their ‎heads up at last. They also made new friends, righted ‎some wrongs, and made a lot of lives better. They can be ‎proud of themselves. Also, they’re almost to the hills and ‎Syana, in particular, has been looking forward to that for ‎weeks. It seems that life is finally settling down and they ‎can enjoy the rest of their journey in peace.‎
But, when Mewla is kidnapped, they realise there’s ‎more trouble to come. A criminal gang is out to capture ‎as many Urzites as they can and sell them. Humans and ‎Urzites are going to have to work together to overcome ‎this latest threat and keep the Urzites safe and, since ‎Mewla is the only one who can identify the kidnappers, ‎it’s going to be up to her to play a leading role. ‎
Can she put aside her brat cat ways and help save ‎herself and her friends from a fate worse than death? ‎Help, she might even have to stop being a spoiled kitten ‎and grow up a bit!‎

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Abbiss
• Release date: Feb 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370937905

Ashley Abbiss

Hello there. I’m Ashley Abbiss. ‎I live and write in beautiful New Zealand, where I live with one large dog, who looks nothing ‎like Friend from my Daughters of Destiny books. She is, however, almost as intelligent and definitely as ‎opinionated, and if she can’t quite speak in the way Friend does to Niari, that doesn’t really ‎hold her back much!‎I write fantasy, mostly of the epic variety. Let me say right up front that if you’re looking for a quick read, you’re in the wrong place. But if you like a substantial, ‎satisfying story that you can really get your teeth into, stick with me. I may have something ‎you’ll enjoy. There’s no graphic sex in my books. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to look ‎elsewhere. There is violence, and there is swearing, though mostly of the ‘s/he swore’ variety, ‎nothing overly graphic or offensive. I also write about strong, independent female characters, ‎so if your taste runs to something more macho, or something more frilly and helpless, this may ‎not be the place for you. ‎I’ve always loved wandering in different worlds, be they fantasy or science fiction, although ‎lately I tend to prefer fantasy. The only proviso is that they have to be believable worlds, ‎worlds that feel real, that have depth and scope – and they must, absolutely must be fun to ‎visit. I read for escape and entertainment, and I don’t really want to escape from this world ‎into one even grimmer. Trouble, tension, and danger I can deal with, what sort of story would ‎there be without them? Where would Pern be without Thread, Frodo without Sauron, Harry ‎Potter without Voldemort? But there has to be hope, and there has to be a light touch. Happy ‎ever after does have a lot going for it, even if initially it’s only a very small light at the end of ‎a long, dark tunnel. My personal favourites include Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, Anne ‎McCaffrey’s Pern series, and the fantasies of David Eddings, and lately, they’ve been joined ‎by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and a few others. Of those, David Eddings was probably my ‎greatest inspiration.‎I began to wonder if I could create my own world, one just as believable and multi-layered as ‎theirs. Could I create a world with its own history, geography, social structure, deities, and all ‎the rest? One that hung together? That a reader could believe in? It became a challenge, one I ‎really wanted to see if I could meet. So I dusted off my writing skills, learned a few more, ‎cranked up the imagination, and got busy. I’d always been good at creative writing, but ‎though I’d made a few attempts to write after I left school, none of them came to anything. ‎That was until I started writing fantasy. Suddenly, I knew I’d come home. ‎I quickly discovered that I’m not the sort of writer who can plan a book (or a world!) before I ‎start. I just can’t do it. But I can create characters, and suddenly the characters took on a ‎reality of their own and took over the stories, often to the extent that they actually surprised ‎me. And the stories worked. Their world worked. Sometimes I had to go back and fix the ‎odd contradiction, but mostly it worked and was very natural and organic. Even though my ‎first attempts were pitiful, I knew I’d found where I belong. I persevered, I learned, I wrote. ‎I discovered that the characters are key for me. Once I get them right, they tell their own ‎story. I was away. There were dark days during which my stories became my refuge, my ‎characters my friends. And I kept writing. There were happy times when I didn’t need a ‎refuge, but my characters were still my friends, and they drew me inexorably back. I kept ‎writing. ‎And now, I hope my characters may become your friends too, my worlds ones where you also ‎like to walk; perhaps even your refuge from dark days. Come join me in a world where magic ‎is real and the gods are near, where beasts talk and men and women achieve things they never ‎dreamed they could. But most of all, come and have fun! ‎Happy reading.‎Ash.‎

Book preview

MEWLA

The SuperReceptive Book 5

by

Ashley Abbiss

© 2018 Ashley Abbiss

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Photo Credits:

Cover design and editing – Ashley Abbiss

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Shameless Begging

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CHAPTER ONE

I climbed down from Naya’s lap and stretched myself up the back of the seat so I could see out the back window of the carriage, where the town of Mennon was beginning to dwindle into the distance as we drove away from it. It felt good to be out of there and back on the road again, back to the way things ought to be. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed my time in Mennon.

True, we had righted some wrongs and made some Urzites’ lives better, and that could only be a good thing. But, there was absolutely no need that I could see for everyone to make such a fuss of Hoo. I mean, just because she taught a few Urzites to read and happened to notice a fire on her way home from hunting, they all made a horrible fuss over her and treated her like some kind of conquering heroine. And, as for that smarmy Henla...

What do you mean, I was jealous? Of course I wasn’t jealous! What possible reason did I have to be jealous? I’m simply pointing out that there was really nothing that special about the chicken. She was only doing her job, after all, just like the rest of us, so why make such a fuss about it? I mean, it’s not like the rest of us weren’t there helping, is it? So, how come she and Hervin were the only ones who ended up on the Mennon Warden Centre seal? Hmm?

And yes, all right, I admit that Henla was quite good-looking in a grey, stripy kind of way, but what’s that got to do with anything? I mean, if I had an ambition to be grey and stripy, then maybe I’d be jealous. But I don’t, so I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. What was so wrong about being glad that we were back to the mission we were supposed to be on? It was what we were sent out there to do, after all. It was about time we were getting on with it.

I wasn’t the only one, after all. Syana was quite dizzy about getting up into the hills that we were approaching. I didn’t know what the big attraction was there, but apparently, she’d always been captivated by the hills. They’re quite high; not high enough that they get a lot of snow or anything, but definitely high enough that they can be seen from Breith, and Syana said she’d always looked at them and wished that she could go there one day. Well, it looked as though ‘one day’ was going to be in about three days’ time, so that should make one of us happy.

I caught Slink looking up at me from where he was running next to Syana. I stuck my nose in the air and pretended I hadn’t noticed him, but not before I caught a kind of speculative look in his eyes that made me rather nervous. I was a bit worried, to be honest. You see, while we were in Mennon, I lost my temper with the former Coordinator of the Warden Centre. I was going to have a piece of him right there. It would have served him right, too. With some of the things he was saying about Urzites, he was absolutely begging and praying for me to scratch his eyes out. But Naya tried to stop me, and I’m afraid I got a bit over-excited and scratched her when she wouldn’t let me down.

That meant the others would be out to get me. They hadn’t made a move so far, but now that we were away from Mennon and all the excitement was over, I was pretty sure they’d be after me sometime soon. No one hurts our person and gets away with it, you see, not even one of us. That’s the Urzite code, and also the code of the Frightful Four.

What do you mean, I’m not telling this right? Who are the Frightful Four? Who am I? You’re joking, right? Oh, all right, then, if you insist.

My name is Mewla, and I’m a cat. I’m not just a cat, though, I’m a cat Urzite, which means that I’m just as intelligent as you are – or possibly more so, come to think of it. I was born in the maternity ward at Warden Headquarters in Breith. Kittens’ eyes open at about three weeks of age, and I think it was probably about a week after that that I first ventured out of the cubicle where I was born. My brothers and sisters and I had been exploring the cubicle for several days by then, but I decided to expand my horizons a bit.

The very first thing I ran into - literally - was a fox kit named Slink. They say cats are curious, but believe me, foxes can give us a run for our money. This one was just about to poke his nose around the door of our cubicle when I came barrelling out of it. He jerked back in surprise, I ran right into him, and we both fell over in a tangle of legs and tails. We were busy disentangling ourselves when we heard laughter, and when we looked up, there was an owl chick giggling so hard she was in danger of falling off the door she was sitting on.

Her name was Hoo, and it turned out that that was actually her first flight, just as it was my first venture forth. She’d managed to land on the door, but she wasn’t quite so successful when she tried to fly down from there. She got the wobbles halfway through and ended up crashing into Slink and then landing on her beak. I think Slink was a bit angry at being flown into, but when he saw how clumsy Hoo was, and especially when she apologised and said she hoped she hadn’t hurt him, he forgave her.

Hoo was hilarious back then, just a little, fluffy ball of feathers with two eyes and a beak stuck in it and a pair of feet sticking out the bottom. She was always banging into things and falling over, but she never seemed to mind. She’d just sit down and laugh about it and then get up and try again. That was one thing about Hoo, she never gave up. She just kept trying. Slink and I admired that in her.

Slink was already pretty coordinated, much more so than me. My legs were so short that it was all I could do to keep my tummy from dragging on the ground, and I was still learning how to get them all moving in harmony for more than about a minute at a time. I wasn’t quite as clumsy as Hoo, but I probably ran her a fairly close second.

That first encounter was the beginning of the Three Terrors. The three of us became fast friends from that moment. We used to spend all our time hanging out together and thinking up mischief to get into. We stuck up for each other, too. The other youngsters soon learned that if you picked on one of the Three Terrors, you’d better look out for them all. No one hurt one of us and got away with it.

It was the human staff in the animal house who named us the Three Terrors because we were always up to something. Actually, I seem to remember that we got the name after we found a way into the meat store one night. Oh, my! We were so sick. We absolutely gorged ourselves, even Hoo. Usually, she prefers to hunt her food fresh, but she gave a good accounting of herself that night. We got in horrible trouble and that was when people started referring to us as the Three Terrors.

Things went on like that for quite some time, and then Stumpy came to the animal house. He was a bit of an oddity, Stumpy. He wasn’t born in the animal house as we were. He was born on a farm, and he didn’t even know he was an Urzite. Can you believe that? Apparently, no one else in his family is an Urzite, and he thought he was an ordinary donkey until one day a recruitment pair spotted him and realised what he was.

Of course, then, he had to leave the farm and move to Headquarters, and that was where we met him. Well, it was Slink who made friends with him first. He’s a bit of a softy, old Slink. Stumpy was miserably unhappy. He was used to the farm, not to living in the animal house, and he missed it like crazy. Everything was very different, and he had trouble adjusting. Slink helped him. He introduced him to the play area where he could run and graze, just like on the farm, and he used to keep him company out there quite often.

He also introduced him to some of our other friends, notably Syana and Thimni. Syana is a golden retriever, and she used to run and play with Stumpy and Slink. Thimni is a goat, so she eats the same sort of food as Stumpy. There are plants out there in the woods and bordering the play area that have been specially planted for foraging animals. Thimni showed him where the tastiest ones were, and they used to browse together.

Eventually, we invited Stumpy to join the gang, and that’s when we became the Frightful Four since the Three Terrors didn’t really fit any longer. I wasn’t too sure about inviting someone else to join, I have to admit. We’d been a gang since we were babies, and it just didn’t feel right. But, Slink and Hoo insisted, and I was outvoted. I wasn’t thrilled at first, but I’ve got used to Stumpy being around now. He’s quite a nice fellow, really, and having a donkey as part of the gang has a few benefits, too, like being able to ride when my legs get tired. Stumpy’s very good about things like that. We did have fun together, the four of us.

But, we were growing up and soon it was going to be time for us each to Choose a human to partner with. It was a real problem. We knew we would have to Choose eventually, but the thought of the gang being broken up when we all Chose a different human was very upsetting. There was no help for it, however. That’s just the way it works. We may not like it, but we all knew we’d end up doing it. It was really quite distressing. If only there was some way that we could all stay together.

I’m proud to say that I was the one who came up with the solution. There was a person gravely ill, and I was assigned to be her nurse. Her name was Naya and she was a very important person because she was the SuperReceptive that we’d all heard so much about. She’d been discovered but then she’d disappeared, and everyone had been searching for her for months. However, when they did find her there was an accident. She ran out into the road and was run down by a horse. They thought she was going to die for a while.

Anyway, as I said, I was assigned to be her nurse. It was my job to watch her and let the people in the house know if she woke or anything else changed. While I was doing that I began to fall in love with the woman. She looked so helpless and sad, and she smelled rather nice. She was very pleasant to cuddle up next to. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but I decided right there and then that this was the woman I was going to Choose to be my human.

And then, a truly wonderful idea occurred to me. This was the SuperReceptive. We didn’t know very much about her yet, but there had been SuperReceptives in the past, I knew. They’d had a range of abilities, but at least one that I knew of had been able to hear four different animals. If this woman could do that, maybe the Frightful Four could all Choose her. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Of course, there was only one known SuperReceptive who was able to do that, and I think all the animals he spoke to were dogs. It wasn’t very likely that this one would be able to hear all of us, especially since we were all different species. It was a nice dream, though. And I was definitely going to Choose her myself.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s a dangerous thing to do, to bond with someone before you know they’re actually going to be a Warden, but you try not falling in love with someone and see how you do. This wasn’t something I could necessarily help. Besides, humans always seemed to think I was adorable. I’d got away with quite a bit in my short life because humans liked me. I had full confidence in my ability to charm her into accepting me.

But then, Naya recovered from her injuries and refused point-blank to even consider becoming a Warden. I was still confident that I could talk her around eventually, but my job as a nurse was done and I had to return to Headquarters. That almost broke my heart, I have to admit. I was desolated. I tried to go back to my life, but I’d well and truly bonded with Naya. My heart had been left behind with her. Somehow, the games and mischief that I used to love so much were flat and stale. Life just wasn’t the same.

My friends did their best to cheer me up and help me move on, but I was inconsolable. I was sad and listless, and my appetite began to suffer. I don’t think I’d ever been as unhappy as I was then. Then, we heard that Naya was coming to visit Headquarters. I was certain she was coming to be my person. I was quite giddy with joy. And what was more, when she got there we discovered that she could talk to every Urzite, regardless of species. My great idea wasn’t such a pipe dream after all. The Frightful Four could all Choose her. This was working out just perfectly.

Then came the bombshell. She hadn’t come to let me Choose her at all. She wasn’t going to let anyone Choose her. She was going to go away and not be a Warden at all. I was completely devastated. Not only was I not going to be able to Choose Naya, but I’d made a fool of myself in front of all the other Urzites, too, telling them that I was going to Choose the SuperReceptive.

It was completely ghastly. I became so deeply depressed that I didn’t even want to live any more. I didn’t want to play or see my friends. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything. I curled up in my bed and withdrew into my misery. They moved me to the hospital and force-fed me just to keep me alive, but nothing they could do would pull me out of my depression. I was going to die, and I couldn’t even find the energy to care.

That was when the miracle happened. Naya heard about how sick I was, and she agreed to become a Warden to save my life. Can you believe that? It’s not something I like to think about, to be honest, but when I do, I still have trouble believing it. Naya gave up her future and agreed to become my Warden so I wouldn’t die. I mean, that’s huge, isn’t it? Now you know why I don’t like to think of it too often. What a burden of gratitude and responsibility that lays on me! I owe this woman my very life and take it from me, that’s not a debt that’s all that easy to live with.

But, it did mean that I got my Warden. And, since she is the greatest SuperReceptive there’s ever been and is able to hear any Urzite, regardless of species, it also meant that my dream of the entire Frightful Four being able to Choose her was perfectly viable. The gang would be able to stay together. Things really were looking up. The others sometimes get on my back because they think I monopolise Naya too much and think of her as mine. But, when you get right down to it, she is mine. She agreed to be my Warden. I’m the one who invited the others to share her with me. They seem to forget that most of the time.

Anyway, I had a word with the rest of the Frightful Four and they all thought it was a wonderful idea for us all to Choose Naya. So, that’s what we did. Of course, the humans got all shocked and horrified about it. But then, they get all shocked and horrified about anything that isn’t their idea, so that was no real surprise. But, it went a bit further this time. There was some question about whether we would all be allowed to Choose Naya. Like it was their decision to make! That little complication is something else the others tend to blame me for, but I ask you, am I responsible for the craziness of humans?

Anyway, it was all sorted out eventually. The man they call King decided that we could keep Naya. Not that we were likely to give her up just because a bunch of humans told us we had to, but they do like to think they run these things, don’t they? And it was probably best to let them think the decision was theirs – as long as they made the right one, that is. Naya became the first human ever to be Chosen by more than one Urzite. I must say, it’s all worked out very well. The gang is still together, and Naya is a wonderful human to have. Plus, we have the SuperReceptive, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Hoo says we’ll go down in history. And why shouldn’t we, after all? We’ve done something that’s never been done before. So, we got to keep her, and we were duly registered and given our collars. Those are very important to an Urzite. They’re our badge of honour. Anyone seeing an animal with a jewelled collar knows that it’s an Assigned Urzite, a fully-fledged adult who has Chosen a person, and due the respect that comes with that status.

It also became apparent quite quickly that all of us Choosing Naya was going to create some problems, too. Madame Uritta, the head teacher of the Headquarters school, is known to take a dislike to one or two students in each intake, and she makes their lives miserable while they’re at school. Almost as soon as we arrived in the schoolroom to be registered after our Choosing, it became obvious that Naya was to be her victim this time around. She was horrible to her right from the very start.

I’d have scratched the woman’s eyes out right there, but Slink convinced us all that trying to do anything about it at that time would only make life more difficult for Naya since she had several weeks of school to survive. If it had been for any other reason, I wouldn’t have listened. But, like I said before, I owe Naya everything, right down to my very existence. Making things difficult for her was the last thing I wanted to do, so I reluctantly agreed.

It was very, very hard, though, watching Naya suffer at that woman’s hands and not being able to do anything about it. I’m a hot-blooded creature. Waiting for revenge is not one of my favourite occupations. I prefer to just react and get it out of my system. But, I could see Slink’s point. However, if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that it wasn’t for forever and that sooner or later we’d find an opportunity to get back at Madame Uritta and avenge our person, I’m not sure I could have stood it.

We did, too; avenge Naya, I mean. Towards the end of our time at school, when we knew we’d soon be leaving and Madame wouldn’t have a further opportunity to take it out on Naya, we punished her good. We found out that she had a garden she was very proud of, so we sneaked into her place one night and made a mess of it. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed, not that I cared about that particularly. But, it should get across to her that we weren’t pleased with her treatment of our person, and we weren’t going to stand for any more.

Finally, we’d done our duty by our person. Finally, we’d avenged Madame’s treatment of Naya and we could hold our heads up among our fellow Urzites again. That’s the Urzite code, you see; no one hurts our person and gets away with it. Although there were very good reasons for not taking action sooner, not all our friends were privy to those, and so many Urzites had been wondering why we didn’t do something about the situation.

If one Urzite won’t let its person be hurt and not avenge them, how much more should the four of us look after Naya? It was good to finally have that sorted. It almost got us in horrible trouble, actually, but I’m sure the others have already told you all about that, so there’s no need for me to go into it here.

We escaped punishment, and Madame was finally censured for her treatment of Naya, so it all worked out in the end. I don’t imagine that Madame Uritta can be persuaded not to pick on anyone at all, but hopefully, because we brought the abuse to the attention of the authorities by our actions, the next person won’t suffer as badly. It would be nice to think we’d achieved that much, anyway.

Then, it was the end of our time at school and there were final exams to face. And after that, we would graduate and be assigned to our first real job, or to further training, depending on where the Warden Corps decided we could do the most good. That was going to be a problem, actually. We didn’t get to choose our work, but we did get to state a preference, which was supposed to be taken into account when the final decision was made. But, with four of us, five counting Naya, that wasn’t likely to be much use.

Slink and I wanted to do some real espionage work. We’d really enjoyed Stealth and Penetration, and we wanted to put our skills to the test in the real world. I don’t think Hoo really cared what we did. She could use her Surveillance skills almost anywhere, so it didn’t really matter to her where we wound up. Stumpy, however, wanted to stay at Headquarters. He’d ended up as the teacher of his General Purpose class in Stealth and Penetration, and he’d really enjoyed it. He wanted to carry on teaching. I’m not sure what Naya wanted to do, but it was certain that, whatever we ended up being assigned, someone was going to miss out. About all we could do was hope no one was too disappointed and be glad we’d all be together.

So, it was with mixed feelings and not a little trepidation that we all approached our last day of school. The prizes had all been awarded. I won three. Well, technically the last one was awarded to all of us, but I can still claim it can’t I? The leaving party was over. Now, there was just one thing left, the final assembly where we would be told what our future assignments were. I was excited and scared all at once, I remember, as we all filed in and sat down with our friends. It was kind of sad in a way, too, because we knew that some of these people and Urzites we would probably never see again.

We sat nervously as teams were assigned to this or that job; some to Headquarters, some to search and rescue or recruitment, others to further training before being sent into Zeranda as spies. The list of unassigned pairs grew shorter and shorter, and still our names hadn’t come up. I, for one, was beginning to wonder if they’d forgotten about us. I mean, we were the SuperReceptive’s team; surely, she should have been first to be assigned. But no; the list dwindled down and down until at last only three teams remained; Syana and her person, Garina; Thimni and Annana; and us.

At least we couldn’t have long to wait now. And then, our names were finally called, and we all looked at one another in wonder. Oh, wow! We were going on a special mission. A mission that would take us, among other places, to Naya’s hometown. I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one who wondered if my ears were playing tricks on me.

CHAPTER TWO

When Naya recovered from the accident I told you about, she had an interview with the Director of the Warden Corps, and she told him her story. In the country town where she had grown up, very little was known about Wardens, and they didn’t even know that Urzites existed. Can you believe that? Because of that, and because they didn’t know anything about what Wardens were or what they did, people made up wild stories about them and everyone was more or less afraid of them.

So much so that, when one came looking for Naya, all that mistrust and suspicion transferred to her and no one wanted to know her any more. Then, the Warden, one Hartan Igellson – I bet you’ve heard of him! – found out that Naya was a SuperReceptive rather than just the ordinary Receptive he’d thought she was. But Naya didn’t want to be a Warden, so she refused to go with him to Breith to attend a Choosing.

Hartan Igellson, however, was determined to bring her in. It would be a real feather in his cap if he was the one to bring in a SuperReceptive, and he wasn’t about to take ‘no’ for an answer. So, he set about destroying her life. He fixed it so she couldn’t run her business any longer, he had her thrown out of her home, he even made sure her best friend was accepted into the army.

I admit that I have trouble understanding all this human stuff. They always seem to make things so complicated. Slink explained it to me, though. What it meant was that she had no way to get food, nowhere to sleep, and no one to help her. Hartan Igellson had made life just about as difficult as he could for her. Naya had beaten him, though. She’d run away before he could force her to go with him. I’ve always loved that part of the story.

But, the point of all this is that, when Naya told her story, the Warden Corps suddenly realised that they had a problem on their hands. They needed to do something to change the perception that country people had of the Warden Corps and introduce people to Urzites and the work we do to protect the country from being invaded by Zeranda. That was our mission; to go out there into the countryside and tell people about what we do and let them see that we’re not the frightening monsters some of them think we are.

We were going to be ambassadors for the Warden Corps. Wow. This was a really important job. I was impressed. Syana, Garina, Annana and Thimni were coming with us. And so, we soon discovered, were Princess Arka, Princess Gurza, and Princess Orilin, which meant that Hervin, Princess Orilin’s owl Urzite, would also be part of the group. And we were to cover the part of the country that Naya came from, which meant that during our travels we would visit her hometown.

I don’t think Naya was all that thrilled about going back there, actually, but we Urzites were all excited. Any chance to learn more about Naya was exciting for us, and the idea of seeing the actual town and maybe even the house where she grew up was nothing short of thrilling. In the end, none of us had got the job we wanted, except possibly for Hoo, who could practice Surveillance anywhere. But, I’m pretty sure that none of us was disappointed by the job we’d been given. This was an important mission, with the chance to see something of the country and even to see where Naya came from. We really couldn’t have asked for anything better.

That was where we were now. Not at Naya’s hometown; we’d visited there several days ago and seen where she used to live and met some of her old friends, but in that general area. We were just leaving the town of Mennon, where we’d had a stop of some days while we sorted out a problem at the local Warden Centre. We’d found a perfectly horrifying situation where the Wardens were terrified to admit what they were, the Urzites were treated like pets or servants, and the Centre Coordinator was embezzling the Urzites’ wages.

And the thing is that we might not even have known about it at all. We weren’t intending to go to Mennon originally. We’d assumed that, since it had its own Warden Centre, there would be no need for us to give our presentation there since everyone would already know all about Wardens and Urzites. But then, we Urzites had discovered that Hartan Igellson and his rat, Urvil, lived in Mennon.

Well, you could hardly expect us to be this close to the man who’d ruined Naya’s life and not do something about it, could you? The Urzite code is that we avenge any injury to our person. Humans seem to think that biting someone at the time is acceptable, but they have problems with whether it’s equally acceptable to take revenge for something that happened a long time ago. Urzites don’t worry about things like that. We don’t care how long ago something happened. If it hasn’t yet been avenged, then it’s unfinished business.

We may never be this close to Hartan Igellson and his rat again. It was quite impossible that we should leave it. It was both a matter of justice and a matter of pride. If we didn’t do this we’d never be able to hold our heads up among our fellow Urzites again. We didn’t bother to tell Naya about it because we know she doesn’t like it when we take revenge on her behalf. I have no idea why, but that’s the way she feels about it. So, we decided not to tell her until after the thing was done.

We were travelling fairly close to Mennon, doing a sort of half-circle around it as we visited the surrounding towns and villages, so we dispatched Hoo and Hervin to check the place out and find out where Hartan Igellson lived. Since they can fly a straight line from one point to another, they could make the journey in much less time than a land-based animal, so they were the perfect choice to be our spies.

Well, to cut a long story short, they contacted some of the Mennon Urzites and found out that things in Mennon weren’t anything like what we’d assumed they were. More importantly, they also found out that the Mennon Wardens were very upset about what we were doing – possibly upset enough to try to physically stop us.

And that’s what happened. The Centre Coordinator and two of his friends, including Hartan Igellson, attempted to ambush our convoy on the road. Fortunately, Hoo spotted them and we and the soldiers who were guarding the column managed to stop them before they could put their plan into action. It also gave us yet another reason to hate Hartan Igellson, and we made the most of it.

He didn’t look half so pretty when the soldiers finally rescued him from the pack of enraged Urzites that was attacking him. It wasn’t just the Frightful Four, either. All Urzites feel a special connection to and affection for Naya, since she’s the only human who can hear all of us, so Thimni, Syana and Hervin joined in, too.

To be honest, we’d have preferred that they didn’t. Naya was our person, after all, and taking revenge for her should have been our privilege. But, there was no way the others were going to stand back and not join in, so we just had to make the best of it. And, even though we didn’t get to do it all ourselves, it was still a very good day, that one. I think Naya was a bit horrified, but we were happy. Finally, we’d exacted revenge for our person. We’d redressed a wrong that I know had hurt her very much. We were all feeling very good.

After that, we went to Mennon after all, where Princess Arka, as a member of the Board of the Warden Corps, took over the running of the Centre, since their Coordinator was under arrest. We went to a place where the Wardens were terrified to tell people who they were and kept themselves and their Urzites secret from the rest of the community, and where Urzites were treated like servants and were being cheated out of their wages, and we’d changed things.

Now, we were leaving behind a group of Wardens who were integrated into their community, proud to be who they were and accepted and even honoured by the town, and a group of Urzites who could all read and who had their full rights and their proper wages for the first time. And when all the legal stuff was finally sorted they would own their own farm, because that’s what the former Coordinator had bought with the money he stole from them. That would now belong to the Urzites, of course, since it was their money that bought it.

It had been a good few days’ work, and we could all be proud of what had been accomplished there. But, I still didn’t see why they had to make such a fuss of Hoo and Hervin. After all, the rest of us were there, too, you know, and it’s not like we didn’t help. We spent hours and hours going through dusty old ledgers trying to find out what had happened to the Urzites’ money, we gave the Urzites our help and support and encouraged them to embrace their newfound freedom.

We performed several times in the town square to teach the people of the town about Wardens and Urzites and introduce them to their very own group. We’d even left Princess Orilin and Hervin behind as the interim Coordinators until such time as the Warden Corps could appoint a permanent replacement for the Centre. I mean, it’s not like they were the only ones who did anything, is it?

Anyway, that was all over and done with, and we were now on our way out to one of the surrounding villages where we would pick up more or less where we left off with our programme of introducing people to Wardens and Urzites and telling them about us and what we do. I was quite looking forward to getting back to our proper work. We had a performance that we’d perfected over the last weeks which seemed to work very well to convince people that we weren’t the demons they sometimes thought we were.

First, Princess Arka would stand up and tell everyone about the history of the Warden Corps. She would explain what Urzites were, where we originally came from, and how we had our own treaty with the King. Then, she would explain how Wardens were Chosen, and about the work we did. After that, she would introduce Kryun and Brev.

They were two men that we had encountered earlier on in our journey. Well, when I say ‘encountered’, they’d actually tried to kill Stumpy and Thimni. They