"Are you sure there's a candidate in these woods, you overgrown winged lizard?" the Azon Searcher roared above the wind that the starry blue dragon's wings created.

Of course I am. Phantom replied.

"Great." Kurt snapped. "Because I can't see a blasted thing through all these leaves!"

Phantom laughed, and made his way down to land in a small clearing. Kurt grumbled to himself, but dismounted once his blue was securely on the ground. He'll be about 100 meters down that trail. Phantom said, settling his head on his paws to wait.

"You're not coming?" Kurt said, somehow surprised by this development.

Like I'd fit? the dragon replied snidely, and Kurt stomped off.

The ground beneath his feet was hard with heavy red clay, but a few meters ahead a stream joined it - any idiot would be able to tell that. The grass on the trail was trampled and flattened, and the greenery around the edges was battered and broken. What army had passed through here? The ground began to yield more, and alongside the stream, he saw the first of the hoof prints. Not the metal U's from shod horses, but splayed hooves like goats or unicorns. Perfectly normal except that the prints were a foot in diameter.

"Phantom..." Kurt called, a bit hesitant.

He's there. Better hurry. the starry beast replied.

With a grumble the Azon Searcher moved on down the trail. Faint sounds of combat - liquid thuds and muffled groans - were all but hidden under the joyful burbling of the stream. Kurt did not need to ask to know that the man he sought was a combatant and picked up his pace.

The clearing where the fighting was seemed to be right up ahead - but a course as the crow flew would throw him down a narrow ravine. Cursing, Kurt ran down the trail until the miniature valley was slight enough to leap over. Darting through the trees, Kurt made his way to the clearing, skipping the path entirely. There in the open space in a growing pool of warm crimson were the butchered carcasses of six men dressed in heavy leather armor. No sound came from them, and only the heavy breathing of their slayer sounded there.

Black as sin and spattered with dark blood that was clearly not his, the beast sat - or rather knelt, one coal black knee on the grass beside his dinner-plate hoof. The creature was nearly fifteen feet tall, and his long silver tipped horns measured a span of four or five feet easily. The biped's notched ear twitched, causing two silver rings to knock together. The bull turned his head and glared with eyes red as hate at Kurt. In one thick fingered hand was the six-foot handle of the monster's axe - a huge silver double-bladed thing with two feet of razor sharp edge on each side. It, like the beast's hairy limbs, was oozing with shed blood.

"I suppose," the minotaur said slowly as he rose from his half-crouch, "you'll be challenging me next, pathetic human?"

Don't piss him off. Phantom said. You won't like him when he's angry.

The bull-man shook Phantom's voice from his head. "I like no one." He snorted, shouldering the massive axe.

Remind you of someone? Phantom laughed.

"Pain in the..." Kurt muttered under his breath.

"What did you call me?" The bull roared, and took a menacing step towards the Azon Searcher that shook the ground below him.

"Nothing." Kurt replied nonchalantly, not even flinching. "Phantom implied that you are like a dragon we know."

"I don't need dragons." The monster said, his deep voice gravelly and harsh.

"Your loss." Kurt said, and began to retrace his steps.

Kurt. Phantom admonished.

"Stop." The minotaur ordered. "What do you mean by that?"

Kurt looked back over his shoulder. "I came to offer you the chance to bond with a dragon, but since you don't need dragons..." he trailed off.

"I would like to see these dragons." The bull said. "My job here is finished."

Kurt shrugged. "Follow me."

The bull snorted and dropped the axe from his shoulder. "Move." He ordered.

Kurt took one look behind him and got clear. With two swings of that axe and a mighty crash, a new path was created through the trees and a hazardous but heavy bridge over the ravine. "Now go." The minotaur said, and Kurt led off.

Phantom rose from his resting position as his rider came into view.

"You knew about this, didn't you?" Kurt demanded curtly. Phantom did not respond.

The monster stopped in his tracks at the edge of the clearing, and surveyed Phantom with a wicked gleam in his eye. "I think I should like a dragon." He said.

* * *

The monster's arrival at Azon aboard the blue who seemed barely large enough to carry him drew a few eyes, but the folk at the Sanrix weren't easily startled. Who could be with Bolton and his Peridot Queen on hand? The bloody beast quite calmly took directions to bathe while someone attempted to find clothing for him, which was a feat in itself. He didn't take too kindly to the requirement that his weapon be stowed away somewhere for the duration, and his bellows could be heard quite far into the Sanrix's interior.

* * *

Most buildings weren't built to accommodate creatures twice, if not three times the height of an average man, yet somehow, the minotaur managed to move around within the Sanrix. At mealtimes, he sat on the floor with his back to the wall, and a table that was at comfortable sitting height for a normal person just barely cleared his knees. This monstrosity of a candidate all but had a table to himself. His first night at Azon, only one of the many candidates was bold enough to invite herself to join his table. She was about 5'5", and had short very black hair that was light at the roots. Very light. Her eyes were not exactly dark, and her skin was tanned.

"You look a bit out of place." The minotaur commented, and fierce eyes turned on him.

"What do you mean by that?" The woman snapped, hand unconsciously reaching for a weapon she was not carrying.

"You look almost pleasant compared to some of the others." The bull said cryptically.

"Whatever." She snapped back, and began to investigate the pitchers of beverages that those unlucky souls who had drawn serving duty this night had brought to the table. "What are you drinking?" she asked after a moment of not speaking. A pair of younglings delivered a serving bowl to the bull-man's right hand, setting it on the table with a liquid slosh, thus answering her question. The Taur smirked as best as his bovine face allowed. The woman returned the half smile, and poured her glass full.

Dinner was served, and the two ate in silence, until the woman saw the amount of enjoyment the bull was having devouring a rather large portion of roasted beef. Her face remained expressionless until she laughed, a loud, maniacal laugh, as though she enjoyed the minotaur enjoying the meat. "Whoa there, Cowboy. You're a cannibal?" she inquired.

The bull-man looked at the haunch of beef before him.

"It's a cow, woman, not a minotaur. Would you call a man who ate a monkey a cannibal? No. I didn't think so." The monster stuffed another huge bite in his maw and chewed on it.

She hadn't expected such a rational answer from a beast, and knew she had likely misjudged him. "I'm Regina." The woman said. "What's your name?"

"I don't have one." The minotaur said around his mouthful.

"Oh come on." Regina said, gesturing to him with her eating knife. "Surely your friends call you something?"

"I don't have any friends."

"You do now." Regina said, draining her glass and setting it on the table with a thud. "And you'd better think up something for me to call you, or I'll name you, and you won't like it one bit."

The bull snorted.

"Fluffy. Muffin. Baby." Regina began listing off cutesy names. "Smokey. Sooty. Bessie."

He glared. "Mehrk." He said through clenched teeth. "And nothing else."

"Merc? Like Mercenary?" Regina asked, dumping more vegetables onto her plate.

Mehrk huffed through his nose, fluttering the edges of a napkin on the table. "Yes." He said. "That is what I am, after all."

Regina's eyes seemed to shine with interest. "Do tell..." Her voice held a sadistic tone, and Mehrk regarded her carefully.

"To tell you would entail hearing my story in its entirety. And I will demand your story in return." The minotaur said, entirely serious.

"Deal." Regina said, holding out her hand. Mehrk took it in his, which seemed very much to be a hoof at the same time it was a hand. Two thick powerful armored fingers, and a short, equally powerful armored thumb. He shook her hand, and then released it. Thus began Mehrk and Regina's acquaintance.

Mehrk's story: A minotaur, if you have never encountered one, is a human and bull hybrid. In mythological history, Minos II, the great king of Crete, was given a white bull to sacrifice to the gods. Upon seeing the perfect specimen, Minos greedily resolved to keep it for himself, and sacrificed a different bull. Time passed, and Minos was called away from Crete, likely by war. In punishment for having not sacrificed the white bull as he ought, his queen, Pasiphae was stricken with an irrational desire to copulate with the white bull. She instructed Daedalus, who would later craft wings so that he and his son Icarus could escape from a high tower, to create for her a cow-suit so that she might satisfy her desire for ... the bovine embrace. Further punishment came in the form of her pregnancy with a child by the white bull - a half man half bull creature which would be called the Minotaur. Minos Taurus. He was kept in a labyrinth designed by Daedalus, and was fed seven male and seven female youths from Athens every year. It is said that Theseus, with the help of Minos's daughter Ariadne slew the Minotaur and escaped the Labyrinth, thus ending this terror. However, if this is true, then where have Minotaurs come from? Clearly I exist, and clearly I am both man and bull. I do not conjecture about my origins, as I am the only Taur I have ever seen. The earliest I can remember, I was a 'pet' to a young human girl, a watchdog, more or less. She died suddenly by no fault of mine, and very soon I was sold to a large ranch. My days there were far from pleasant, my youth spent in hard labor - haying, herding, hunting, hauling... anything that could be done with hoof-hands, I did. I even slaughtered animals there, sometimes with my bare hands. When I refused to work, I was beaten into submission with whips, and when that failed to work, they drugged me and put a brass ring through my nose like the other bulls - and welded it closed, so that I could not remove it. From then on, they literally led me by the nose, as a sharp pull or twist on that ring would bring me to my knees in pain. I can recall their red shirts to this day, and I loathe the color. When I reached between seven and eight feet in height, some sick bastard thought to breed me with the docile cows. I was immature then, and had no interest in breeding at all. None. At first I faked it, but when the cows did not conceive, a man watched to make sure I 'did the job'. Even then, they did not conceive and somehow it was my fault. It angered me, and one day I snapped and killed them all in a rage. Nothing stirred on the ranch when my sanity returned. I left there, and a few days travel from the ranch I lost consciousness from exhaustion and starvation - a growing taur doesn't exist so well on the feed of bulls, and no feed is even worse. I awoke in chains, and soon learned I was the new main attraction for a gladiator arena, where prisoners would fight me to the death. Needless to say, I never lost. Before the first 'challenge' came, the ends of my horns were tipped in silver to make them deadlier weapons. These are the only relics from my captivity, as their removal would entail permanent damage to my horns. I 'bought' my freedom when I freed a young woman from a betrothal by killing the man who wanted her. Unhappy women will go to extremes to banish the source of their unhappiness. By the time I gained my freedom, I reached nearly 10 feet in height, and I had learned to fight - dirty. I had slaughtered countless dozens - I was a trained killer, and I knew there was a market for that... if I could find it. I did voluntarily perform hard labor until I had money enough to acquire weaponry, and have the nose ring removed. Never again would I be owned by another. Never. I have worked as a mercenary for ten years now and fought in three wars, and survived.

Mehrk looked expectantly at Regina then, but her curiosity was far from satisfied.

"And how did you get to Azon?" she prompted.

"Kurt and Phantom picked me up right after I finished my last job. It is good to be paid in advance." Mehrk said with a snort. "Underpaid in advance."

Regina laughed.

Regina's Story: I was the seventh child of a moderately well off rancher, but the first daughter. My mother had been struck by lightning in her 8th month, and died as a result. The doctor cut me out of her womb - healthy and very much alive. That left my father and six boys ranging from 12 down to 2 to raise me. Needless to say feminine charms were not mine and were never meant to be mine. I was a rough and tumble farm girl from day one. I did, however, have completely silver hair from the very beginning - I wore bandannas or hats and kept it cut short enough to hide beneath until I could dye it dark like my siblings' hair. I learned to ride horses at age seven - not small girlie saddle horses, but brawny working horses. By the age of 12, I rode the meanest stallion in the stables - a big black stud that would buck off everyone except father and my oldest brother, but they preferred more even-tempered beasts and left ol' Bandit to me. My brothers and I would chase down the cattle, employing lassos and whips as necessary... I was the best, naturally, with a sharp eye and a woman's skill with details. A keen mind helped too, and when my father died just before I turned 16, he left the ranch to me. My oldest three brothers had ranches of their own, and the younger three knew I would run it better than they ever could - and if they tried to fight me, they'd lose. My whip had gained sharp barbed beads - I could start an entire herd with one good snap - and a three-tailed whip hung from a loop on Bandit's saddle, should I need it. My lasso hung on the other side - I could bring down a stray calf in half the time of my brothers... Time passed, and my stables had gained a number of jet black mares of good stock, and I began breeding the fast and sure-footed stallions of my brothers, as well as my powerful black Bandit with those strong but mellow females. The results were pleasing from the first, and as my herds of black horses grew, so did Bekirol's interest. He and his men moved in on my ranch some six months ago, and all of my cattle were taken away to feed the beasts at his dark hold, and he took the black stallions for his own uses, ordering more to be bred - even if in meant massive inbreeding. I did not stand by idly while all this took place - no, I fought back viciously, but I was overwhelmed by a half dozen of his darkriders, and was knocked unconscious... I awoke in the dark Rayllomian night, and was fetched to Azon by Sargon and his gigantic bronze-black Bolton. As much as I hated Bekirol for removing me from my ranch and taking what was rightfully mine, I knew I could not fight back without reinforcements - and after I saw that dragon I knew that I would need a beast like that at my side were I to have a chance at revenge...

Mehrk snorted. "So you hate Bekirol." It was a definite statement, not a question.

"Oh no." Regina said with a semi-feral grin. "Quite the opposite. The man has power. Lots of power. And I'm going to take some if not all of it away from him when I get the chance. And I'm going to get Bandit back..." The last was said with more finality than any other words of revenge that Mehrk had ever heard.

A grin of equal barbarity grew across his inhuman face. "My friend," he said "I have every confidence in your success..."

Regina laughed.

* * *