Matthew’s question was answered that very afternoon when he was summoned, along with Shaun, Diana and Thomas, to one of the committee rooms in the administration block by Captain Wain. It wasn’t necessary for him to explain the reason for the summons to the four Claimjumpers. The moment Thomas saw the three Winterwells standing there, he knew what the decision had been. That it was he who’d be staying with his old friends and Jerry and Lirenna who’d be joining new teams.

     He saw the same realisation on the faces of the others, but before any of them had a chance to say anything another door opened and three more people came in. Shaun’s eyes widened in surprise and delight when he saw that one of them was the beautiful, dark skinned girl they’d seen the day before. A member of the newly arrived Lorgill’s team who’d been recounting their adventures to a crowd in the garden. She was still wearing the same tiger skin, held up by a single strap over one shoulder, and the two soldiers glanced at each other in surprise. Was she going to be a new member of their team?

     The other two were both humanoids, although it took a moment for them to realise the fact. One of them was a trog, just over four feet tall but broad shouldered and immensely strong. He stared at them suspiciously, his eyes glaring out from between his tight fitting slennhide helmet and the swaddling layers of cloth that obscured the rest of his face, and he planted the handle of his war hammer firmly beside his widely spaced feet as if suspecting that he might soon have to use it. Thick clusters of multicoloured trophy cords hung from the lower edge of his helmet, curling and coiling around his shoulders like a nest of restless snakes, standing out vividly against the dull greys and browns of the rest of his clothing. The emblem sewn onto the breast of his overcoat declared him to be a member of the Cairnkiln clan.

     The other was taller, although still short by human standards. He was also swaddled head to foot in multiple layers of clothing in the trog fashion, but unlike every other trog they’d ever seen he was also wearing tough leather gauntlets, hiding the great bullet fingernails with which the powerfully built humanoids could burrow their way through some of the softer rock types with their bare hands. He was armed with some kind of scimitar, similar in style to those commonly used by trogs but longer than any they'd ever seen before. It was almost the length of a human broadsword. It was currently strapped across his broad back, along with a shortsword in a battered leather scabbard.

     He looked like a small but quite muscular human who’d tried to make himself look as much like a trog as possible, and their first guess was that he was an orphan, taken in by the trogs after the death of his parents and raised as one of their own. During the Third Shadowwar the trogs had taken in thousands of refugees from the Overgreen Forest, driven out of their homes by the coming of the Shadowarmies, and when the war came to an end many of them had chosen to remain, choosing to spend the rest of their lives in their huge underground tunnel cities. The Claimjumpers guessed that he was maybe one of them. Maybe only a child when he'd left the surface and therefore impressionable to trog lifestyle and culture but finally emerging once more to take his place under the open sky. They were, though, quite wrong.

     “Ah, here you are,” said Captain Wain as the newcomers came forward to stand next to the Claimjumpers. “I’d like you to meet your new teammates. From this moment on the seven of you comprise Centaur Team. Wolf pack Sixteen.”

     The Claimjumpers and the new arrivals looked each other up and down as introductions were made. The trog’s name was Jherek Gundersmith and his human looking companion was Arroc Truvale. They were old comrades, having fought in many campaigns and embarked on many adventures together since their childhood in the cities under the Skyrake Mountains of southern Amafryka, and when Jherek stated that this had been two hundred years ago the Claimjumpers stared at each other in surprise. Arroc wasn't human, then. He couldn't be, to be that old.

     A half trog, Thomas thought. Yes, of course. The result of a union between a trog and a human woman. For a moment he found himself imagining a human woman having sex with a trog, remembering the sight of Angus and Douglas unclothed in the underworld, their whole bodies sagging with loose skin. He shuddered, but then he remembered that all that loose, flapping skin covered hard muscle, that the trogs were amazingly tough and powerful. Maybe a woman could find that attractive, he thought. I'll have to ask Lenny some time.

     The Captain paused as he considered whether to add to the introduction, but decided not to. They’d learn about each other when they got a chance to get chatting, and there were some things best not spoken aloud by an outsider, things that the person concerned would himself tell those whom he wanted to know.

     “And this is Naomi Felanna, all the way from Agorro in the deep south,” continued the Captain, smiling pleasantly at her. “I’ll leave her to tell you all about herself and how she came to be among us. I just want to say one thing, however.” He turned to speak to the girl. “These people are to be your teammates. Your travelling companions and, in all probability, your comrades in arms. They’ll need to know all about you. Do you understand?”

     “How do I know I can trust them?” she demanded, glaring at them suspiciously.

     “You don’t,” replied the Captain, “but you’re going to have to trust them anyway, just as they are going to have to trust you. If you don’t trust each other, you won’t last three minutes out there.”

     Naomi looked even more unhappy, but nodded and glared at the others one at a time as if measuring them up.

     “Well, I’ll leave you to get acquainted,” said the Captain, moving towards the door. “You’ll be given the details of your first mission when you’re ready to leave, in two weeks time. Until then, you’ll continue your training as you have been and you’ll be moved to new quarters, close to each other. From now on you eat together, work together, play together. By the time you leave, I want you to be fully comfortable in each other’s presence and able to work together as a team, each able to anticipate the thoughts and actions of the others. I’d like you to be friends as well, but that’s just something that has to be allowed to happen in its own good time, as I’m sure it will.” He paused, looking the seven of them over before nodding to himself in satisfaction. “Carry on,” he said, and then he left.

     The seven brand new teammates looked at each other in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, until Diana stepped forward and offered her hand. “Hi,” she said, smiling in a friendly manner. “I’m Diana Winterwell. I’m a cleric of Caroli, the Lady of Healing. I’m pleased to meet you.”

     The trogs hesitated for a moment, and then Jherek responded by bowing low before her. Diana flushed with embarrassment. She’d forgotten that trogs didn’t shake hands.

     “Enchanted, lady,” he said, his voice thick with an accent totally unlike that of Angus and Douglas. The trogs didn’t have anything like the same kind of cultural diversity as humans, but there was enough variety among them to tell with reasonable accuracy what part of the world they came from. These were southern trogs, Thomas realised. Living under the towering volcanic peaks of the Red Mountains, of which the Skyrakes were a comparatively small northward thrusting spur, and they lived in close proximity to the great shae nations with whom, almost uniquely among their kind, they had powerful tied of friendship and trading links.

     “Before we go any further,” the trog continued, a sharp look in his eye as he peered up at the cleric, “I ought ter warn ye that we both be outcasts from our own people. Ah don't know how ye feel about that.”

     “Outcasts?” asked Naomi. Aha, thought Thomas. So they’re strangers to each other as well as to us.

     “Aye,” replied Jherek. “Myself because I was falsely accused of cowardice, and Arrok because his mother was falsely accused of adultery.” He put heavy emphasis on the word ‘falsely’ both times and glared warily from one person to another, as if trying to warn them of something without actually saying it out loud. Thomas noted, also, that the emphasis was heavier on his second usage of the word than the first, and it directed their attentions onto the tall trog.

     “Why would you be an outcast because of something your mother was accused of?” Diana asked the half trog.

     “Because they say I bear the mark of her sins,” replied Arrok warily, watching to see how the others would react. “They say that I bear the mark of her human lover.”

     “Ah,” said Shaun carefully. He glanced around at the others as if at a loss of what to say.

     So his father was the human parent, thought Thomas, while nodding as if accepting the truth of his words. More images flashed into his head and he closed his eyes in an attempt to shut them out. Were trog women physically similar to trog men? Did they also have all that loose skin? What kind of human... None of my business, he told himself severely. What other people get up to is no business of mine.