RJ_Robinson
The lhounds, or lion-hounds, were never intended to be anything more extraordinary than very large, very formidable working animals. The scientists who crossed the great Etabrian hounds with plains lions had merely hoped to produce a more effective protector for the herds.
What they produced instead was something much larger, much fiercer, and very much more intelligent than anybody had foreseen. And, it turned out, possessed of other, rather unsettling abilities that the scientists had certainly not intended.
When the decision was taken that these inconveniently powerful creatures should be destroyed, the lhounds did not oblige. They escaped into the mountain vastnesses and for many years remained there, feared, half-legendary, and very wisely left alone.
But Etabria's uneasy peace is beginning to fracture. Lhounds are being stolen - and dark rumours are spreading of creatures bred or broken into weapons. And far from the centre of power, Queen Eruda begins to fear that the greatest danger to the Kingdoms may not come from beyond their borders, but from within.
For Lenard Denarion of the Imperial Lhound Regiment, and Xand, his immensely powerful and quite insufferably self-satisfied lhound, the journey begins as an urgent mission across hostile country.
It will become something far greater. For if Etabria is to survive what is coming, human and lhound will have to stand together. Not as master and beast, but as minds joined in loyalty, courage, and terrible necessity.
Lenard