Chapter 16

The next two years were very busy at both Mount Dog and Redtail Hills.

Thanks to her vambrace and Darcy, Dame Brindle and her advisors had been privileged to observe the meeting at Mount Dog. It had caused some heated discussions but she and her people, like Huntress’s, also came to the conclusion it was time to modernise.

It didn’t hurt that Darcy also came back and upgraded some of her people. Having Mages to help make it a lot easier for both communities. The Redtail people elected to follow Huntress and created a Ministership. They also received the Mads and communications between the two communities became an everyday event.

The Mages built a good, wide road between the two towns. People shifted towns and new loves were found. It got so that neither town was one colour nor the other and even the people liked that they had integrated. For them, it was the first step.

It was agreed that their laws would be the same. Neither town could change a law without the consent of the other. Since everyone owned a copy, they all deemed this fair. The sale of the crystals was also shared. All monies raised were spent on whatever a town needed the most.

At first, the people at Mount Dog had been reticent about sharing the crystals but the simple fact was that only Darcy could enter the transporter cavern. If he wanted to share then that was how it would be, after all, he was the reason they even had them. Since Sage became Brindle’s Treasurer, she and Martin decided to share the duties of the sales.

Both towns also shared the taxes for community projects. They didn’t charge a lot but things did have to be paid for. This was because they shared how the area under the shield was divided and there was no real boundary between the two Dens.

Martin checked the laws for the Island because they wished to claim more land outside the shield so people could spread out. He was surprised to find that for some reason, the land to the south roughly two hundred klicks from Canine on the west coast, to fifty klicks south of Bark Bay on the east coast, had not been claimed by the Crown so they could claim land with impunity.

The map he was sent simply had a line drawn across it and crown land indicated in the top half. So Martin got cheeky and sent a notification to the Lands Office in Batton, the Capital of the Island, to inform them the townships of Mount Dog and Redtail Hills had each claimed a two hundred square klicks around each town, as per the maps supplied.

Just to be even cheekier he had indicated the areas currently claimed by each of the other townships, and he added the same extra area to each town’s jurisdictions and marked the whole unclaimed section as being owned by Queen Huntress of the Dog-Shifter Race. He even got her and the other members of the ministry to sign it and he stamped it with Huntress’s wax and seal.

They were duly notified that the claim had been registered and they were even sent a certificate that had the other Queen’s stamp on it. The notary, a Mage Justin Markus also thanked them for letting them know that Queen Huntress had released more land to the other cities and that he would also notify them as a matter of courtesy.

They all had a good laugh about the fact that Queen Huntress now officially owned half the Island. A lot of the land they claimed for their towns was also excellent for raising their herds and mining. The boys decided that if she owned this half, then they might as well fix some roads too as they were all atrocious.

Darcy created a room many outsiders at first thought was a church. Huntress’s Throne got shifted to it and all town meetings were held there. Down each side were three Ministers rooms and one room at the back was a conference room. Huntress could access the room from her new apartment, which was built above. He then made a similar setup for Brindle and she and her people were pleased.

The community rooms in both towns stayed the community rooms except for the new counters in front of the kitchens and meals had to be purchased. They were both permanently staffed. They were also used for general events like plays, music nights, parties and just to sit in and catch up with friends over a meal.

For Darcy, he stayed in his house and the land under his shield stayed his. He also let Boner, Speeder, Spike, Romp and their families stay. Since the boys all shared kids to different mates within the group, this made them all happy. The dormitory was big enough, just. As the kids got older, they got their own rooms.

In the third year, Martin had them buy an old hotel in Boney Hills and new roads were linked to the main roads. This also meant other people could visit their towns. People from the two towns started to make regular visits to Boney Hills and even went to Fur Hills and as far as Tail Valley.

The Dog-Shifters had received lessons on how to deal with merchants, safe sex, etiquette in a city, banking systems, and how to stay safe. This was also taught in the new schools.

The city folks soon worked out the new people were from the Mountain and learnt they, in fact, had two thriving townships. It had become common knowledge that the Dog-Shifters were the ones supplying the crystals again.

News of the new towns, the fact people didn’t go missing once the new people started appearing and that they were bringing more money into town made the locals accept them fairly fast. After a while, most locals didn’t even blink if they saw a huge dog walking down the street.

Martin and Darcy had also helped. They had decided that they should sell the Mads. The even had a couple of willing slaves that happily made them for them. The fact the Mads gave the locals instant communication with each other, could access their bank accounts and even worked like the odd banking passbooks, made them a must-have.

The clock, calendar, organiser and note-taking features were all loved, as were the collections of books, maps and amusingly the book of Law. The people in the other three cities that purchased them decided that they were their Laws since the maps said that Huntress was Queen of their half of the Island.

This did cause a bit of an issue with local Shields and councils. They actually had to organise a meeting with Huntress, Brindle and their Ministers to hash out a few alterations. They ended up adding an amendment that only applied to cities outside their towns but all the cities had to agree to the amends as being the same.

As a result of the Dog-shifters acceptance, more humans started turning up as new mates and in their towns. The Dogs had all been told that they had to be honest about what they were and that if they did mate with a local, they had to know that they could become Shifters as a result. This disquieted the odd person but then, quite a few Shifters lived in the region anyway.

The Shifters were quietly intrigued that male born Dog-Shifters could shift form and gender, so for them it wasn’t such an issue. It didn’t hurt that a lot of them were quite tall and handsome in their human form. If anything, the male Dogs had to become a little careful, as they had become sought after.

They did learn that if a human born Shifter had the child, she had babies and if the male shifted to female and got pregnant, he had pups just like female Dog-Shifters.

A couple of other things that made the new Dog-Shifters happy was the fact that their litters were closer to equal numbers in genders, with males now accounting for about fifty-five percent of the births and not seventy. The pups and kids that had a Dog-Shifter as a parent also started shifting form around two to three years of age.

A lot of males that mated with Human-Shifters were surprised that their mates were just as happy for them to have a litter or two, as they had shorter pregnancies and multiple births. The Dog-Shifters did find that if they mated with other races, which had a modest amount of magical abilities, then they did adopt the Shifter gene, while the mundanes did not.

Not all Dog-Shifters (of either gender) were careful with whom they mated or more particularly exchanged saliva with and the gene did escape. Darcy wasn’t really surprised as humans were humans even if they could shift form. It surprised him more that, it had taken as long as it did. It didn’t shock him that it was contact with prostitutes, sailors and cheating spouses that spread it.

He did wonder just how far it went. A lot of the ships that used Boney Hills travelled between the other islands and even ships that visited other continents and islands. One good thing was that, as far as he was concerned, nearly all of the Shifters had acquired at least two other forms from local wildlife.

The Shifters that were created from the escaped gene would also be Human-Shifters, he hoped.

For Darcy, the first five years were fairly quiet with just a few surprises.

He was kept busy but not so busy that he couldn’t follow his own pursuits and spend time with his kids. He did get both of his girls pregnant again by the second year. They had both given him two girls the first time and one of each the second. Dakarai was his son to Speeder and Lilly was his daughter to Milly.

It was noted by many that Darcy’s kids were a little different. Without exception, they all changed form by the time they were one. Also, they woke in whatever form they fell asleep in. His kids had to want to change.

The one other child in the house that was different was Speeder’s daughter to Spike, Barb. Some wondered if she was, in fact, Darcy’s, but both said no, she took after her father and was his colour when in dog form. They put down her abilities to the fact that she gestated with Dakarai. The two were inseparable.

They couldn’t, however, explain why Milly’s other pups to Speeder and Spike didn’t develop like Lilly did. Lilly also took to sleeping with Dakarai and Barb rather than her brothers and sister. It didn’t matter what bed you put her in, you always found her with Dakarai.

Darcy and Speeder’s kids also spent more time in human form than any other form. Although, they played in any of the forms they could take. The three forms that had freaked out the others were when they little buggers flew like faeries or turned into what Darcy called dragons or became mermaids when anywhere near water.

They were, however, pretty well-behaved kids and as they grew, the other kids in the house were always included in their fun. That wasn’t to say they didn’t get into mischief but for the most part, they were good. They were also smart and devoured information.

They did consider the shielded area their backyard and Darcy had even put several spells on it so that was as far as they could get. No one outside the immediate residences of Darcy’s house could enter that area. They had close to fifty acres to play in with a pool, a creek and a forest, so the kids didn’t feel the least bit deprived.

The dads spent as much time outside as the kids did.

It wasn’t until the middle of the sixth year that Darcy got unwelcome visitors.

He was surprised it took them this long but they did turn up. Admittedly, it was close to eight hundred klicks by road to Batton but even with an Auto that could do 50km/hour that still took no more than two and a half days to travel with stops and a bed each night. Although, he knew that the other Queens side of the road between Canine and Boney Hills wasn’t exceptional.

He and the boys had fixed the ring of roads between Boney Hills, Fur Hills and Tail Valley for fun but they hadn’t gone past the borders of what they called Huntress’s half. The locals had appreciated it, especially since their new more affordable transporters, made by them and the Dogs, loved the new roads.

Their corner of the island was mostly ignored by the rest unless a ship was involved. Darcy was amused when he learnt the visitors had in fact, used a ship to get them to Boney Hills because the roads to the north were atrocious.

They had been shocked to find the roads in Boney Hills were in exceptional condition. The roads were paved, had gutters and good drainage, as did all five towns and the six small villages that the boys had played in over the years.

The four dignitaries that turned up were sent by Queen Frederica Elders and Sierra Sight was the High Guild Mage for Dog Island. Lord Archibald Oak was a three gemmed Energy Mage. His wife, Lady Ethyl Oak was a two gemmed Nature Novice.

Mage Raven Black also had three gems and she was a Psychic mage. She was the representative for Sierra. Mage Decan Draven was a three-gemmed Lore Mage. Mike, their driver, was a Burgis and he loved the new roads if not the people he had driven here.