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_ Legends had echoed down through the millennia of the Ch'kiliil's ancient foes from down south, the ones they knew as the Scalebacks._

_ Although the Scalebacks had once nearly managed to destroy most of the animal kingdom, they had been passed on as legend for a great period of time. That is, until they started taking regular citizens as slaves, to work for them in their mines and elsewhere._

_ The reptilian races were twisted in their domination, capturing all, including the children and mothers. When they captured both children and mothers, they would split them apart, preventing anyone from having hope and therefore, thoughts of liberty._

_ A broken prisoner is an effective slave, was their creed as they destroyed the southernmost villages and stole their people. It was a cruel way of life, but one that worked for these merciless dominators._

_ What they didn't know and could not possibly guess, was the fact that their system had a flaw and escape was possible. Difficult, sure, but possible._

_ And "difficult" would not stop one young wolf named Kiri. He had been born into a life such as this and knew no other. But all it would take, would be a tiny nudge in the direction of freedom to convince him that a life beyond the walls was worth fighting for._

_ And that's all it did take._

The young wolf drove his pickaxe into the tough stone walls of the mine, stone flecks and shards flying everywhere. The pick hit with a steady rhythm, time and time again, every futile strike an attempt to unearth ore for his reptilian masters.

It was a despicable life, that one as relatively young as Kiri would be forced to dig through all this stone for hours and hours every day. As he had done for years and years.

The sharp crack of a whip emanated from nearby, followed by a cry of pain, but Kiri did not look up. For if he looked up, he would likely earn the whip as well.

His friend Tyra, a young ocelot, didn't look up either, but his brow creased and he quickly glanced over at Kiri. Speech was forbidden in the mine, just as clothing was forbidden for the slaves.

Another whip cracked through the air, followed by another scream. Kiri hated it, but he stayed quiet, his eyes focused on his work.

The dull orange glow from the torches flickered and danced across the surface of the stone, creating intricate patterns. Ordinarily, the torchlight wouldn't have distracted Kiri, but this time they picked up in their pace, flickering and dancing with haste.

Someone had opened the door to the mine.

A sharp whistle blew through the mine, signaling for the slaves to halt their work immediately. Kiri's grateful muscles screamed as he set down his pickaxe. The good news was that they finally got a break, the bad news was that it would be five times as difficult for them to get started again later.

Kiri and Tyra looked in the direction of the tunnel entrance to see the Master Keeper Sylvyen standing there, his dull grey scales poorly reflecting the orange light from the torches.

His cold yellow eyes scoured over the slaves, keenly dissecting them and putting them back together.

The master's eyes locked with Kiri's for a brief second and he smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of one with no soul.

"Attention everyone," he hissed. "A massive storm is inbound from the east. You can all consider yourselves lucky today. The mines are being closed until such time as the storm passes. Everyone go back to your huts."

With that, the Master Keeper started back down the tunnel, throwing a glance at Kiri on his way out. Kiri didn't know why the master had stared at him, but he was now really nervous. It was never a good thing to attract the attention of the masters.

"You have freedom of speech," a large bearded dragon, one of their slave drivers, hissed. "All of you, put away your equipment and return to your huts."

The slaves slowly picked up their tools and walked hesitantly towards the racks where they were stored overnight. Was this really happening? The slaves never got days off, not for five and a half years, when a massive storm had flooded the mine, drowning eighteen slaves and five drivers. They must not want a repeat of that time.

"Hurry up," one of the lizards said, as though purposefully confirming the slaves' suspicions. "This storm will likely flood the mine. We don't want to lose anybody."

Tyra and Kiri both mounted their picks on the rack and hurried out with the mass of people. Both the Scalebacks and the Ch'kiliil were fleeing the mine, water in huge, fat drops plummeting from the heavens already forming puddles on the brown grass.

The Scalebacks were fleeing up the hill towards the slave driver's manor, while the mammalian Ch'kiliil ran for the slave huts. The slave huts may not have had much in terms of luxury, but they put a roof over the heads of the slaves, for which the slaves were grateful for.

As they rushed along the ground towards the huts, Kiri heard a sound that made him stop. A sound like this in the mine would not have even attracted the young wolf's attention, what with it being so commonplace, but out here, in the rain, he noticed and stood still, ears swiveling.

There it was again, a low groan. From those bushes over there.

"Kiri!" Tyra called, having stopped his sprint to the huts to wait for one of his only friends. "What is it? Come on, let's get inside!"

"Tyra, get over here!" Kiri responded walking towards the bushes. "I think someone could be in trouble!"

He didn't look, but he got the sensation that the ocelot rolled his eyes. He heard his friend's footsteps slapping through the puddles and soon, he was at Kiri's side.

Together, the two of them went over to the bushes and looked around. No one was here, not even an indication that anyone had ever even been here.

"Come on Kir," Tyra said as he straightened up. "There's no one here." "I know I heard something," Kiri protested. "Someone is-"

He was cut off by another groan from the bush. Looking over on the other side, he realized that the person may not be over there, but under.

He hopped over and bent down to look under the bush to have his suspicions confirmed. There was someone under there. It was too dark to see just what it was, but it was there nonetheless. "Tyra! I've found it!"

"Where was it?" Tyra questioned, walking over as a massive lightning bolt cracked the sky.

"Under the bush," Kiri explained, working carefully to drag the unconscious body out from under the bush. "Let's take it back to our cabin."

The two of them worked a little bit more at dragging the comatose figure out into the open, where they gently picked it up and carried it towards their cabin. It was too dark for them to see anything about the figure, but its fur felt strange to the touch.

It took them a little while longer, but they finally made it to their cabin, which they shared with three other slaves about their age. They opened the door and rushed into the relatively dry interior of the hut.

"There you two are," a cheerful female voice cut through the air. "We were wondering if you'd been carried off by the storm."

"Well that makes one of us," a male voice, sounding very similar to the female voice, sliced through the darkness. "I was just wondering what was holding them up."

"We found someone out in the storm," Kiri said. "I don't even have an idea of what species it is. Ari, can you get a light?"

"Can I get a light? Of course I can!" the female voice said sarcastically. A bit later, a tiny clicking sound caused a few sparks to fly into the air and land where the wielder of the flint pieces wished for them to land, which in this case was on a small pile of dried grass.

With a poof, the grass caught alight and was quickly used to light a candle, which in turn was used to light a lamp. Every month, the slaves would be given a new supply of lamp oil, to help replenish that which they had burned away. However, the new supply was never very much, so most of the slaves lived in the dark.

In the lamp's dim light, a group of three figures were illuminated. Two otters, nearly identical in appearance, though one of them was female and holding the lamp, leaned against the wall opposite the main door. At the far end of the room, a female puma lounged by the wall, her eyes glinting eerily in the lamp light.

"What is it?" the female otter, Ari, asked, moving closer to the canid creature that Kiri and Tyra had rescued from the rain. "It looks a lot like you, Kiri."

"I have no idea," Kiri admitted. The young wolf had supposedly been born outside the mines, but he remembered nothing of his old life.

"I don't know what it is," the other otter, Ari's twin brother Kytra, stated as he walked over. "Is it even from the slave pens? I think I'd remember seeing something like this, eh Ari?"

"Hmm?" Ari asked. She was bent over the wolf-like creature looking for wounds. None were obvious, but the young otter wanted to be sure.

"I said that...nevermind. You ever see anything like this Wraith?"

The female puma who'd been silent until now, opened her mouth and said, "No. I've never seen anything like this before."

They all stared in wonder at the creature for a tiny bit, before it shifted and opened its eyes. They were a bright blue, darting about the cabin in a panicked haste.

Finally, it looked about at the occupants of the cabin for the first time.

"Why am I...?" he asked, before collapsing back to the ground with a groan.

"Thirsty?" Ari suggested, going to the corner of the hut where their bucket of well water was sitting. She dipped in a tin cup and brought it over to the creature, who opened his eyes again and stared at her in confusion and fear. She proffered the cup to him, which he took after a brief moment of hesitation.

"Where am I?" he asked quickly once the cup was empty. "How did I get here? Who are you? Why aren't any of you wearing anything?"

"Woah, woah, woah," Tyra protested. "One at a time please. I didn't catch a thing you just said."

"Sorry," the creature apologized. "Where am I?"

"The slave compound of Man'ahjit," Kiri said, gesturing about him. "Run by the Scalebacks, who work us from sun up to sun down."

"Who are you?" he asked, staring up at them in fear and confusion. "Why am I here? Did I hit my head or something?"

"Hah!" Kytra laughed. "You expect us to know how you got here? Hey what are you anyways? You look like Kiri, only smaller and with a different fur colour."

"Kytra!" Ari snapped. "You don't have to be rude."

"Ignore them," Kiri said, referring to the twin's discussion in the background. "What do you remember? Maybe we can help."

"I don't have any memories of how I got here," the creature admitted. "Am I going crazy or something?"

"Or something," Tyra agreed. "I don't know how you can't remember getting here, but I, for one, would just like to know just what you are. I'm an ocelot, Kiri over there is a wolf, Wraith is a puma and the otter twins over there are...well, otters."

"I'm a fox," he said, staring critically at them. "And though I've never met any of your kinds before, I'd hope that you at least know what a fox is."

"That's a little harsh," Kytra argued. "You must remember, we've been raised as slaves our entire lives, so we're not the most educated."

"Apologies," the fox said, ears falling back. "I didn't mean to offend. Can we start over?"

"Of course," Ari agreed. "A fresh start could do a lot of good."

She shot a glare at her twin while she said this and he just gave her a wide-eyed innocent look. He was good at those.

"I'm Svara," the fox said, sitting up finally. "I'm a fox from the eastern coasts. I don't remember how I got here, but am grateful to whomever pulled me out of that storm."

"That would be me and Tyra," Kiri stated, stepping forwards. "My name's Kiri."

"Thank you Kiri," Svara said, meeting the wolf's eyes. "I would be dead if weren't for-"

"Hey everyone," Wraith interrupted, in an attempt to gather everyone's attention. "We have no idea how long this storm is going to last and our lamp oil is going to run dry. I think we should all get some sleep and continue this discussion in the morning."

A massive crack of lightning punctuated her statement and everyone jumped. The storm was indeed a big one.

"You're right Wraith," Kiri said, looking at the faces of everyone in the hut. "Let's all get some sleep."

"Do you have an extra bed that I can use?" Svara asked from the floor.

They all stared at him before Kytra cut the air with a loud, cheerful laugh. The otter had a sense of humour and charisma that no one else in the cabin could match.

"If we had an extra bed, you could of course sleep on it. That is, if the rest of us had beds too."

"What are you saying?" Svara asked, confusion crossing his features. "You don't even have beds? Why not?"

"Slaves, remember?" Kiri pointed out, making the fox wince. "We aren't given many luxuries. And we have a problem."

"What's that, Kiri?" Ari asked, staring at the wolf in confusion.

"The Masters bring supplies at the end of every week. Today was the end of the week. We have no fresh supplies and I know none of them are going to be willing to get their feet wet to deliver food to a bunch of slaves."

"And we are not allowed to even get close to the Master's Manor," Kytra said, fear crossing his face. "So we can't ask for a food delivery without probably being executed."

"Hey," Wraith said as she blew out the lamp. "We've still got some food. We might be able to last a day or two on it."

"But no longer," Ari's voice warned through the darkness that permeated the cabin. "So at best, we've only got a few days. Let's hope that the storm doesn't last any longer than that."

Sadly, the storm did last longer than that. It lasted much longer and half a week after this conversation, the members of that slave cabin were starving. They were quite familiar with the sensation of hunger, or being weak from a lack of food, but this was a step beyond what any of them had experienced before.

"We've got to go to the Masters," Tyra said, looking at Kiri in the dim light present within the cabin. "We're going to die if we don't."

"But if we do, we'll likely still die," Wraith pointed out. "Either way, we're stuck with the same result. Death!"

"Could you possibly steal food?" Svara asked. The fox had been starving for just as long as the others, but he hadn't complained. Likely, he'd had enough to eat before coming and getting stuck in a slave compound. Either that, or he was just too afraid to complain about being hungry to a room full of carnivores.

"Doubt it," Kytra said. "We've never found where they get the food from and in any case, they likely have it all locked away.

"So, what are we going to do? Just die? This storm seems unlikely to stop at any time. It could last another week even."

"Have you ever thought of running away?" Svara asked, shifting position against the wall. "If you know where the guards are stationed, or when they patrol, you should just be able to break free."

"Break...free?" Kiri asked, frowning. "You mean, live a normal life? We can do that? No one has ever tried to escape before, at least none that I've heard of."

"Listen, Kiri," Svara said. "I've been here long enough to see some things and realize even more. From what I can see, the Scalebacks seem to rely more upon breaking the will than keeping one physically constrained."

"That is true," Wraith agreed. "I've never seen any overt signs of trappings or fences or anything like that."

"Exactly!" Svara excitedly concurred. "They aren't ready for an escape attempt. And if we don't leave, I'm betting that we will all pass away before too long. And Kiri," he looked at the wolf, "You're a carnivore. Tyra's a carnivore. Wraith's a carnivore. The twins are carnivores. And from what I've seen, your sole food source is bread. You all need meat."

"It's been years," Kiri admitted, apparently thinking it all over. The wolf may have been young, but everyone else in the cabin regarded him as the leader figure.

"Alright," he said after a while. "Vote of hands. Who thinks we should escape our oppression? This storm provides a better chance than ever."

A moment's hesitation occurred after Kiri's announcement, before Kytra raised his paw. It stood alone for a moment, before it was joined by his sister's, then Wraith's, Tyra's and Svara's. Finally, Kiri raised his own paw.

"The vote is unanimous," he said, a wide smile piercing his muzzle. "We're breaking out. And I think it should be tonight, while the storm still rages."

All the heads about the cabin nodded and dispersed, getting ready for their escape. This was going to be tough.

Remarkably enough, the escape was flawless. No guards, no slavers, no nothing to stop them. It was smooth sailing.

That is, smooth sailing up until the point where a group of reptilians with a covered wagon, obviously full of food, arrived at the manor. The slaves, starving though they were, were forced to ignore the temptation. The armoured guards riding the wagon were enough of a deterrent.

However, one of these very guards, strangely vigilant for this hour, caught sight of one of the otter twins, as the slaves made their breakaway.

"Sir!" he shouted, elbowing the other guard riding with him. "Slaves! They're escaping!"

The other guard jerked awake and blearily swung his head about to glare at the escapees, while a third head, this one wearing an elaborately decorated helm, stuck out the tent flap at the back.

"Hey!" he shouted, hopping out of the wagon with the vigilant guard, while the sleepy one pulled on the reins to stop the Kazamns.

The former slaves didn't even deign to respond, taking off immediately into the soaked forest. The sound of heavily armoured feet accompanied them as they ran, indicating beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were being followed.

They cut through the forest, but no matter how fast they went, those feet were right behind them. Finally, however, they lost them in a particularly thick section of the woods.

"Hey, where'd they go?" the angry voice of the captain demanded.

"I don't know, sir," the voice of another of the guards stated, closer than the captain's voice. "They were right around here and then they just disappeared!"

"Find them!" the captain snapped angrily. "They couldn't have gotten far! They'll be somewhere, probably still within earshot. Slaves, if you can hear this, you surrender yourselves now and we'll let you live."

"Don't listen to him," Svara whispered, clinging to a tree branch with the rest of them. "That existence you had back at the slave compound was not what anyone would call a life."

"Don't worry," Kiri gasped. He was hanging underneath a branch adjacent to the fox, with Wraith crouched on top. "We weren't planning on going back anytime soon. They would beat us heavily if we returned."

"Yeah," Ari agreed, crouched beside her brother higher up the tree. "We'd be kept alive, but likely wish we'd have died. I don't need that."

"Captain," one of the lizards called out. "Do you hear that? Voices. I'm going to go investigate. Could be our missing slaves."

The heavy footsteps of the reptilian guard came closer and closer until they were right beneath the former slaves. A wolf would have been able to tell that the slaves were in the tree due to their smell and the mild noises they were making, but the reptilian seemed clueless.

He wandered right below them and kept going, further into the thick trees of the jungle. The slaves likely would have breathed a sigh of relief if it had not been for the branch that Kiri and Wraith were clinging to.

With a loud crack, the branch gave way, depositing the young wolf to the ground a ways below. Wraith, with her cat reflexes and better position, was able to leap free of the falling branch, but Kiri was not meant to climb trees.

With a loud thump, both branch and wolf impacted the ground, leaving their impressions in the mud below.

"Found them!" the guard called out, turning back around in their direction. He was a good ways off, but would likely still be able to cover that distance rather rapidly.

"Go, go, go!" Tyra cried, leaping from the branch he'd been holding on to and landing next to the dazed wolf. "Kytra, help me with Kiri. Ari, get Svara out of here. Wraith, see if you can do something about that guard."

But the ocelot was talking to an empty tree. Ari and Svara were already gone into the jungle and if one looked closely, they would be able to see Wraith darting through the treetops in the direction of the guard.

Kytra bent down beside Kiri and helped Tyra pick him up, slung between them like a fire victim.

"Tyra," Kiri said dazedly, blinking away stars. "What are you doing? Get out of here! They're going to catch you too."

"No matter," Kytra grunted. "You'd do the same for us. Now be quiet and try to help us here. You're dead weight right now."

At that moment, Wraith flew out of the tree she'd been hiding in and tackled the Scaleback, knocking him to the ground. She scratched and clawed at the guard, before he brutally kicked her off.

"You'll pay for that, furbag," he growled as he held his left eye. Through the fingers of his hand, a small trickle of red blood came out. Wraith got him good.

"Come on!" she shouted, running over to help the two others with Kiri. She picked up his legs, which had been dragging on the ground and carried them, drastically increasing their speed.

They limped and staggered along, making good time. Not great, but good enough that they had managed to lose the guards.

They ran this way for a while, the sounds of pursuit steadily gaining, before they burst from the cover of the jungle and nearly ran off into a ravine, a roaring torrent of water at the bottom.

"Guys!" Ari called, dropping to the ground beside them. She'd obviously been in the tree again. Looking up, Tyra noticed Svara up there as well, slowly climbing down.

"We got to this river, but haven't found a way across yet," Ari explained, glancing over at Kiri. "It looks like this is a dead end."

"That's right, pups, a dead end."

From the trees behind them, the three lizards emerged. The captain had a large smile on his leering face, while the guard on the left still had his claws over his eye.

"I'm going to skin you and take your pelt for my wall," the injured Scaleback growled at Wraith, who noticeably shivered, even through the rain, which was more visible out of the jungle. "Unless you'd rather-"

"Jump!" Kiri cried, breaking free of his friends' grips and plummeting down the ravine, towards the roaring river below.

"Kiri!" Tyra shouted, watching his best friend disappearing down the cliff.

"He's right!" Kytra shouted, running towards the edge of the cliff. "Cannonball!"

He leapt off and plummeted down the cliff-face, very much like the wolf before him. He disappeared a ways down, indistinguishable from the water in the inky darkness.

"Stop them!" the captain yelled, running at them as Ari leapt over the edge as well. "We can't let them get away!"

"Good luck with that!" Wraith laughed, leaping off, leaving behind the ocelot and fox.

"Let's go!" Svara shouted, running up and pushing a surprised Tyra off the cliff as well as leaping off himself. As his feet cleared the edge, he felt a reptilian's fingertips just brush the end of his tail.

They were home free.