Cassie quickly took advantage of the Cigar man's absence, demorphing and morphing into her Osprey form at warp-speed. There was really nothing that she could do about the collection of tack that would end up lying on the ground in the place she had just left, without exposing herself to unnecessary danger by staying to put it away. Cassie was in the air and flying to meet her friends.

The others were waiting for her, of course.

(Good to see that you got out of there okay, Cass,) Jake said.

(It's good to be out of there right now,) Cassie said emphatically. (I don't know what would have happened if that guy had seen another horse that looked just like me when he got back to the stall, but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't have been anything good.)

(All right, now that we're all done with that little fiasco, let's get on over to the Dry Lands, shall we?) Marco suggested.

Meanwhile, Gunnar was just coming out of the forest. He'd been walking for some time now, not wanting to risk alerting Slade by trying to fly to his destination. He knew that Teknomen were sensitive enough to detect each other when they were transformed, and Gunnar didn't want to find out what Darkon would do to him if Slade managed to get away because of something he did.

Gunnar saw a patch of red through the trees. As he made his way toward it, Gunnar saw the patch become a bright red barn. Or, at least Gunnar guessed that the barn had once been bright red. The paint looked pretty weathered in a lot of places, even peeling in a few spots. Gunnar decided to check in with Darkon before he did anything else.

(Is this the place you saw, Darkon, sir?)

(Yes,) Darkon's reply was both prompt and brief. Which Gunnar was thankful for, since he really didn't like the feeling he got while Darkon was looking through his eyes.

His destination confirmed, Gunnar walked into the barn. What he saw inside was not at all what Gunnar had expected. There were animals, but not cows or horses like he had been expecting. What animals there were, were kept in cages. And those were mostly a bunch of small woodland creatures.

Raccoons and squirrels and the like. There were even a few birds in the mix, but no humans. Or Teknomen, though Gunnar thought he'd spotted a wolf or two in the very back of the barn. Looking around the main floor for anything unusual, all that Gunnar came up with were some bags of feed and a lot of medical charts. Apparently, this place was some sort of wild animal hospital.

But, other than the people who were obviously taking care of the animals her, Gunnar could find no trace of anyone else staying here.

(There's nothing in this place but a bunch of sick animals,) Gunnar reported.

Darkon sighed in both disgust and annoyance, though the latter was more predominant in his voice when he finally answered. (Very well then. I suppose Slade has simply moved on by now. None of our kind would stay very long in such a place. Return to base, I will call on you again if I have need of you.)

Darkon's telepathic voice cut out abruptly, and Gunnar breathed a small sigh of relief. He had not been looking forward to facing Darkon if the Radam warlord had been angry at this development. Darkon was a dangerous enough creature when he was pleased. When he was angry though, Darkon could redefine the term "force of nature".

Looking around at the animal hospital one last time, Gunnar set off into the woods again.