David George Richards

Anne Jenkins is a PE teacher with a girl’s hockey team in her charge. How she ends up in a forest on the planet of Ellerkan pursued by Knights in armour with nets and swords she cannot imagine. Knocked out, the next time she wakes up she finds herself in a castle dungeon with the Crown Prince of Halafalon and only half of her girls. Prince Carl was as arrogant as he was charming. But he had a particular habit, a habit that would come close to killing him. Prince Harold had planned a pleasant afternoon on a picnic, now he was despatched by his father, the King, to search for his missing elder brother. It would be another futile venture, ending with Carl being discovered in some tavern, or in the arms of some wench. Lord William L'Roth should have been King. He knew it, and everyone else knew it. Now, when the artifact was complete, he would make it so. Sir Henry L'Crief shared Lord L'Roth's cause, and at one time he would have feared the consequences of his treason against the King. But with his wife at his side and the artifact to call upon, he now feared nothing, not even L'Roth himself. Sir Henry's wife was not his real wife, but she was an unusual lover. Concubine, mistress, some even called her his pet. It was an apt description. She was large, malevolent and ever hungry. She was called Gil-Yan, and she was a dragon. Five years before, Rolf L'Epine had been on a hunt with the Crown Prince. What he saw that day so horrified him that it changed his life forever. Since then, his life had been peaceful. Now that was set to change. Ancient technology, a war that spanned the galaxy and the consequences of a barbaric tradition returned to haunt them all, and even threatened to eat them...

Although it can be read on its own, The Lost Girls is the first part of an overall story called In the Shadow of Mountains, and deals with the events in the early part of the lives of the girls when they first arrive on Ellerkan. The story takes us through their time with Rolf and Soo-Kai when they get caught up in an attempt to steal the Crown from the King, and on to where they meet Gustavo and Mai-Zen. The story is a mixture of science fiction and fantasy based on characters and events first introduced in The Friendly Ambassador, and further explored in The Tale of the Comet, so there is unearthed ancient technology to deal with and a dragon that has a very real reason for her existence, bad temper and great appetite! Several of the lost girls of the story go on to become the band of brigands known as the Sixpack in the second part of the story, The Return of the Sixpack.