Pü swallowed. His heart rate was slowly starting to pick up. Never. Never would he get used to this sensation. His brother had however assured him that his first time would be kicky, and that the sensations felt would mark him for life. On the one hand, he had not been entirely wrong. The small hands covered with blood of a Zoraï exiled as soon as he was eleven years old, kneeling alone in front of the still warm corpse of his first victim: these images were haunting him for long weeks, day and night, to lose his mind. But this last ordeal also announced the end of his painful exile. Soon, he would be back in his country, in his stump, and could hug his mother again. This cheerful thought comforted him and helped him regain his means. The convoy was now emerging on the horizon. It was soon within observation range. In its center a sturdy, heavily laden cart was pulled by two [[mektoub]]s, placid pachyderms with nimble feet and over two meters in height, brown fur with gray stripes, but most recognizable by their long, powerful trunks and earless heads. It was driven by a Tryker. The people of Atys the smallest in height, the Trykers looked like children, peaceful, freedom-loving and good-natured. Curious, they made excellent explorers and inventors. Unfortunately, the Trykers had been enslaved by the Matis on several occasions in their history. The last episode was forty years earlier, and had left a clear mark on the subconscious of the Lakes people. Even today, it was not uncommon to come across Trykers far to the east of their floating cities, busy with thankless and poorly paid works. Sitting on a crate protruding from the tarp of the cart, a cleric of the Church of Light, whom the Matis called Herena, appeared to had been dozing. The Matis also worshipped Jena, but unlike the Zorais, considered the Kamis to be demons and the Karavan to be the guardian the Commandments of Jena. The [[Church of Light]], composed of Matis and placed under the aegis of the Karavan, was today all-powerful in the Kingdom of Matia. The amber crown and the cleric's ceremonial outfit, consisting of a set of large, colorful feather capes, and decorated with braids of ambered jewels, were indeed typical of Matia nobility. Higher up on the load, a Matis armed with a machine gun stood watching the horizon. He was not helmeted and wore the ordinary garb of regular army soldiers: a soft, tough cactus-skin suit topped with pieces of white wooden armor. Another appeared to be sitting in the back of the vehicle. The Matis were a naturally slender people, with emaciated features and pearly skin. Aesthetes, refined and ambitious by culture, they kept reminding other peoples of their superiority, even unconsciously. Surrounding the cart, five knights served as escort. They were proudly mounted on [[capryni]]s, slender quadrupedes with thick, light skin striped in some places with blue, that wore a single antler and presented a long snout adorned with a singular goatee. '''All the soldiers were equipped with armor of strong white wood''' engraved with purple patterns, bulging at the torso and tightened at the waist. The pauldrons of the armor, as rounded as they were wide, gave the soldiers an imperious look. But the most astonishing thing was their helmet, made up of an ivory mask with an azure blue jewel on the forehead, and a solid and imposing headdress, itself adorned with white amber, and whose ends made of chitin fell down to the level of the ears, thus giving them the appearance of horns. One of the soldiers stood out from the others because of the fine decorations and engravings that studded his armor and helmet. The Matis was undoubtedly a senior officer of the royal army, sent with the Herena to represent the king to the Karavan.