Tara: 2. Cuttails
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2017 by Kris Me

Fantasy Sex Story: Chapter 1 - Trae is a hunter. He hunts cuttails. Even though he stands at 160cm tall and they could outweigh him by twice his 55kg's, being a cuttail hunter, even for a crossbreed like him, was no mean feat. A full-grown cuttail can look the average Pix in the eyes. Trae may have been a cast-off child due to his heritage, but even by his people's standards, he was something a little more.

Caution: This Fantasy Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Coercion   Consensual   Magic   NonConsensual   Rape   Heterosexual   High Fantasy   Interracial   Masturbation   Oral Sex   Petting   Slow  

Trae Quinton pulled the arrow back until the barb was just short of the rest.

Without consciously thinking about it, he tipped his recursive bow back slightly and aimed just to the right of true to allow for the slight crosswind that would affect its 40m of flight. He waited a moment as the cuttail glanced to her left and exposed her neck.

He released the arrow and then quickly drew the next from his quiver. He was sighting down the second arrow before the cuttail had reacted to being shot by the first. He held off for a moment as his eyes caught a movement to the left where the cuttail had been looking.

Trae, sucked in a breath as a second larger animal came to investigate why its mate had not come to join it. The large male sniffed at the still female. It lifted its head and roared. Trae released the arrow and grabbed his third.

His second shot had not been as good as his first. The male thrashed his head and battered at the 25cm protrusion sticking out of his breast just below his neck. Trae sucked in a fresh breath and released the third arrow as he breathed out. Its thin, flat, metal head slithered between two ribs and sliced deep into the lung of the large male.

The male hastened his own death. As he spun his head to hook the second arrow with his long canines, he pushed the first arrow in deeper, and it found an artery. The cuttail grunted and paced several times as it tried to breathe before finally dropped over onto his side.

Trae held the bow ready, but he did not draw as he watched the cuttails. He examined the female, but he didn’t believe she was feeding young. Silently he hooked his bow back over his neck and shoulder and slithered down the tree.

Retrieving his bow, he notched a new arrow and quietly made his way across the rocky ridges towards his prey. He remained alert as cuttails commonly hunted in small family groups. He worked his way around several stubby bushes and over to the ledge that held the two bodies. When he was 10m from them, he stopped with his back to the cliff and observed them.

Neither moved and they had the glassy eyes and relaxed poses of the recently deceased. No other cuttails had come to investigate the roar of the male. He hooked the bow back over his head and shoulder and slid the arrow back into the quiver. He pulled the long-bladed hunting knife from his scabbard and looked around again.

He saw no other movement in the vicinity, so he approached his kills. He pulled the female’s head back and sliced her throat. Blood welled, but her heart wasn’t pumping, so it fell more from gravity than any other reason. He did the same to the male and was pleased that he too was dead.

Two kills was a good day.


Trae now had the jobs of skinning and butchering to do.

Cuttail could be a rather tough and tangy meat. However, the organs and the haunches were worth retrieving since they were a young couple. If slow roasted the hunches were good eating and considered a delicacy in many circles. The meat also pickled well.

If the organs and flesh were smoked until dry, then ground with grains and dried fruits, they made fine travel food that tended to keep for many months. While not Trae’s favourite source of meat, he still had many uses for it.

Trae was pleased to find that the large cavern the two cuttails had been sunning themselves in front of, would be easy to defend and it was quite spacious inside. The opening sat back far enough that he’d not previously noticed it from the road, as he’d never seen cuttails on this ledge in all the years that he had lived here.

However, he would need his lankys to shift them into the cave. They were large, solidly muscled predators and these two were prime specimens. He whistled. He watched Sage emerge from the trees and start to make her way to him dragging Della with her.

He looked over the shelf and decided he’d dump the guts over it, as he had a fall of 30m on that side. His fires should keep the other predators that came to feast, from looking for more in his cave. He bent down, ran his knife down the female’s underbelly and parted the skin. Hooking the membrane, he opened her up.

Now for the dirty part, he pushed his hands in and started scooping out her guts. He was surprised when a part of it wiggled. He opened her womb and retrieved a sack. He split the membrane as the cub wiggled. He was surprised that she had only carried one cub, as a normal litter was three to four.

He wiped the cub’s face as it sucked in a breath. It then sneezed mucus from its nose, before it cried pitifully. He looked at the blind cub that was about 26cm long and speckled black on grey like its mother. He needed both hands to hold it as it squirmed. He wondered what in the Void, was he was going to do with her.

He should just smash her head against the cliff, but for some reason, he just couldn’t do it. He knew he was daft, as he had nothing to feed it. It would be helpless for weeks and need to be fed milk of some description for months. He’d never heard of anyone raising a cuttail cub. They were wild animals and predators.

Trae pinched and then stripped the placental cord. He walked back into the cave and noticed a small hollow the female had dug out to secure her cubs. He removed a dirty shirt from his pack and placed it and the cub in the hollow. He then went back outside to finish gutting and butchering of the parents.

Sage and Della finally worked their way up to him. Sage was used to the smell of his kills, but Della was a bit flighty. Being heavy in foal made her even more skittish than usual. Finding one of his rags from a pack, he wiped his hands on it. He released Della from the tie-ring on Sage’s saddle and led her into the cave.

He dropped the light packs from Della and left her tied to a boulder. Grabbing ropes and a tarp from his pack, he went back out to the kills. He hooked the ropes to the back saddle rings and to the corners of the tarp and spread it out. He removed the heavier pack from Sage and told her to stay.

He stripped back the pelt of the female and then started slicing off the meat and retrieving the organs, that he planned to keep. He dropped them onto the tarp, so they stayed clean. As practised as he was, he still took a good hour to butcher and skin the two cuttails. Once happy with what he had collected, he pushed the carcases over the cliff.

He retrieved one of his water bags, rinsed off his arms and his knife and then diluted the blood left on the rocky shelf. He broke off a branch from one of the scrubby bushes nearby and used it to sweep the clotted bloody mess off the shelf as best as he could before he rinsed the skins.

Trae led Sage into the cavern. He was able to pull the tarp closer to the back wall on one side. He was glad it was such a large cavern as he could put Sage and Della off to the other side and away from where he wanted to build a fire and a smoke rack. He didn’t plan to stay any longer than one night, as he was heading home.

His home was still several hours ride away as he had a pregnant lanky in tow. He had hoped to get Della home before she foaled. However, the cuttails had moved into this area in the two days between his trip to town and his return. He had meant to pick Della up several weeks before, but he had been delayed by the Roe River being in flood and over the causeway.

The river was located 20km from town and blocked the start of the road that led to the mountain pass and onto the township of Clawton. The locals didn’t farm on his side of the river. He had only just crossed over the river when he spied the cuttail up on the ledge.

He lived 70km north of Catton and to the west of the pass through the range to Clawton. He knew the farmers on the other side of the river wouldn’t be happy having cuttails this close to them. It was rare for them to venture this close to the river. It acted a lot like the dividing line between civilisation and the mountains.

Since he hunted cuttails and other predators, it made sense for him to live in the mountains. He patrolled the pass over Mt Ear during the early spring and late autumn months before the snows cut the pass during winter.

They didn’t get a lot of snow, as the Sister Islands were in a tropical zone. However, the pass climbed as high as 4km above sea level. For at least two months of the year, it did get cut off in the bowl-shaped valley they used to pass by the highest peaks of Mt Ear.

Trae believed the valley was the belly of an extinct volcano. It has a large lake off to the eastern side and the highest peaks were to the west. The water had eaten down the sides of the valley in several places. On the south side, it had created a ledge wide enough that they could pass into the valley.

On the northern side, there had been a huge landslide at some time, and it was easier going down beside the river that drained that way. However, the snow did get deep enough in the valley, and the terrain was rough. Landslips were common, so it wasn’t safe to travel around the rim in winter.

Catton was located about 2.5km above sea level, 130km inland and north-west from the sea. It didn’t snow there but it did get cold enough that you knew it was winter. Most of the time, it was hot, humid and raining. Locals reckoned it rained 300 of the 360 days of a year, but Trae didn’t think it was that bad.

On the north-west side of the Catton Range, it was a lot dryer. Most of the north-western side of Cuttail Island was scrubby bush and desert until you got to within about 25km of the coast again. It was a strangely shaped island, reminded Trae of a long-necked snail. It was about 1200 km from nose to tail (east to west) and about 1000km from shell to the foot (north to south).

Catton was located about where the neck and foot came out of the shell with the head to the east. The capital city of Cuttail Island, Hilton City, was on the top of the head in what he thought of as the ear. It was to his north-east and was nearly 700km away by road from Catton. Trae had never ventured to the capital.

He had ridden as far north as Clawton and east to Merton. He’d been to the seaside towns in the south, Pixville and to the west of south-west to Darina. He’d even gone over the range from his valley once, just for a look. He had also crossed the passage to Wing City on Eagle Island because it was closer than Hilton City and a good place to sell his merchandise.

Clawton was the furthermost he had travelled, as it was close to 300km by road from Catton, thanks to the range and the forests. It was close to four days of travel just to get there, even on a good lanky. Wagon trains took as long as a week (6 days) to eight days even in good weather.

He knew he could get to Clawton faster if he owned a traveller, but they weren’t much use without a good road and for his line of work, the lankys were still the best option. For a hunter, the lankys made less noise too.

He wondered if the road would ever be good enough for a traveller to use.


A little bit about Trae and the Pix people.

Trae believed he was mostly of the Pix race. He had suspected for a while that he had a bit of some other race mixed in but that was common these days. As a generality, male Pix people averaged about 120cm in height.

In the home solar system, Keltria, where the people of Tara had come from, they were at least 10cm shorter. Tara had a lighter gravity and the average height of the people had increased over the thousands of years that they had lived here. Trae was considered very tall at 160cm. This was one reason why he knew he was of mixed heritage.

The inhabitants of the Sister Islands had arrived on Tara close to 5,000 years before. The two settlement ships that had landed in the Sister Islands, one on Cuttail Island and the other on Boa Island, were mostly filled with people from the Burgis, Prol, Pix and Faerie races.

The other three dominant races, the Genteli, Grandteli and Shifters had only very small numbers on these ships. More people of these races had moved to the Islands since they had landed ships on other continents and island groups, but they weren’t dominant.

Trae didn’t know exactly how many ships headed for Tara but he knew that his ancestors hadn’t been on the only ships to land on the planet. Tara had many small continents and groups of islands that allowed the different races to spread out and do their own thing and most of them had populations. Since the races were fleeing a doomed system, he guessed that quite a few did make it here.

As for Trae, while he had the backward pointed ears of the Pix, they were not as long as he had seen on Pix who were still more pure of race. His teal coloured eyes were also unusual in that they were not purple. While the skin on his arse was pale pink, his exposed skin tended to tan a light creamy brown.

The Pix also tended to be very slim, but he was built a little studier. He still had a tiny arse, but his shoulders were wider and he muscled up when working. Even his thighs were thicker. He did have the big feet and the long fingers that were common to the Pix race.

He was very strong for his height and weight, more like a Burgis. He suspected he did have Burgis in him, as his body shape was more like theirs. They were also inclined to be of similar height to him. Burgis people were on average, darker of skin than he was and darker of hair. They also had much smaller ears and wider noses.

Trae’s other oddity was the thin, pale blue-green streaks in his otherwise white-blonde hair. He kept it one length and plaited down his back, as it wanted to curl when he let it loose. It was longer than was the norm, as it went down past his scapulae, mostly because he couldn’t be bothered getting it cut.

The only people he had seen with hair similar to his were called Shifters. He’d never felt inclined to shift form or gender, so he wasn’t aware if he had this ability or not. While many Genteli had red, dark pink or white-blonde hair, they didn’t tend to have the distinct streaks like him.

Burgis, Genteli and Shifters averaged more around 160 - 175cm on this planet and Grandteli had been reputed to be as tall as 250cm, but he had never met one. He’d read that they lived on the continent called Orin, to the west, but not having left the Sister Islands, he didn’t know how true this was.

Not that it bothered him at all.


Trae couldn’t tell you who his parents were and he didn’t really care.

As long as he could remember, he’d had to look after himself. He knew he had been at the Children’s Home in Pixville until he was about twelve, but it had burnt down. He hadn’t liked the place, so after that, he had wandered wherever his feet took him.

Being tall for his age and with Pix looks, he had passed himself off as older and took work where he could find it. He had worked with fishermen, farmers, trappers, loggers and hunters. He picked up new skills with ease and he worked hard. By the time he turned eighteen, he had settled in the Catton Mountains and in his valley.

He had found the valley on the west side of the pass to Clawton and had staked a claim. The area wasn’t owned by anyone, so he claimed squatter’s rights. He built himself a cabin and fenced off a twenty-acre farming area and eighty acres for the lankys he caught, raised and sold for extra income.

His last trip to Catton was to claim ownership since he had been on the land for five years and had improved it. Plus he had to collect his pregnant lanky whom he had serviced by a larger stallion than his. He wanted to breed taller lankys, so he was hoping for a colt.

He had fallen into being a cuttail hunter more by accident than design. For some reason, only known to the cuttails, they had been harassing travellers along the pass before he had moved into the area. Rewards had been posted in Catton, and he learnt that their skins and even their meat were worth a lot of coin to him.

Since he used the lower end of the pass to access his property, he had decided to thin the cuttails numbers in his neck of the woods. Not many Pix hunted them as a rule, as a full-grown cuttail could look a Pix in the eyes if he stood nose to nose with one. They also hunted as a pride.

When the Pix got brave enough, they formed large hunting parties to go after them. Trae had learnt that he did better by himself. He learnt the cuttails habits, and how to kill them without getting himself killed in the process. The number of deaths in the pass to Clawton had dropped from ten or twelve a year, to lucky if there was one or two since he had taken over patrolling it.

He even got hired to guard shipments if he happened to be in either town when a party of merchants wished to use the pass. He’d had a busy season doing several runs back and forth, so that was why he had left Della at Billie Smithers farm during her pregnancy.

There was talk of getting the pass fixed up so that the flatbed travellers could use it, but so far, that hadn’t happened. The government in Hilton didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about people who lived more than 400km from them, unless supplies of special items dwindled, and the rich wanted them.

A lot of the farmers in the Catton area grew shukra, rice, tropical fruits and vegetables. They raised lankys, camlas and snufflers, which liked the more forested and hilly landscapes. It was a prosperous area and Trae liked living where he did.

The mountains he lived in, also had wild lankys, camlas and a cousin that had short straight antlers on the males that the locals called antelos. They stood as high as 2m to the top of their heads. Trae liked hunting them as they were good eating and fed him for weeks. Cuttails also liked hunting them and anything else that ran away from them, which was why people got into trouble.

By Pix standards, Trae was still what we would call under-aged, as he was only twenty-three. The Pix didn’t show physical age or loss of mobility until very late in life. Legally, he was considered under-age until he turned twenty-five. For him, that was still fourteen months away.

However, when he had gone to claim his land under squatters’ rules, and since he had no parents, Magistrate Tomin Shale had to issue him with Adult Status first. He couldn’t claim the land unless he was an adult. The minor fact that Trae had saved Tomin’s family the year before, when a trio of cuttails had been stalking them may have swayed the magistrate.

It was also a well-known fact in Catton that Trae averaged a dozen pelts or more a year, and had been keeping the pass safe for five years that he had lived near it. The locals were more than happy to have Trae stay right where he was. He was an odd lad, but he didn’t bother anyone and performed a function not many wanted to do.

Even the local Constabulary were more than happy to let him patrol the pass. He even held a Ranger’s badge, in the event he had to stop predators of the two-legged variety. He’d had to do this more than once over the years when escorting merchants.

The Chief of the Rangers, Nathan Hollows had issued him with the badge three years before so he could stop them legally. The Chief didn’t care that he was only twenty at the time. He had also considered Trae more Burgis than Pix. He considered Trae one of his best Rangers.

This was another reason why Magistrate Higgins agreed he was eligible for status as an adult. The Burgis people matured at eighteen, earlier than Pix people did and they didn’t live as long. Since Trae was mixed-race, then giving him the status a few years earlier was reasonable.

The land Trae had claimed, he called Erin Valley. It wasn’t easily accessible, so no one was opposed to him having it when he had posted his petition to claim it. Few people knew how young he really was. About 50,000 people lived in and around Catton, and those that used the land believed that they had access to better land than Trae had claimed.

They might have thought a little differently if they knew what Trae did. Trae had gotten the magistrate to include the extra acres, so he owned the whole valley from peak to peak and sole mining and water rights on all his land.

Tomin hadn’t thought much about the mining rights as no mining was carried out in the area. It was all conducted further to the south-west or in the Merton Ranges to the east. Adding the rest of the land was also reasonable since no else wanted to live where he did, and he operated a ranch as well as farmed.

Trae did mine, but he didn’t sell his gems or metals in Catton. Once a year, during winter, he made the four-hour trip from Catton to Pixville on the carrier (a type of bus) and then took a ferry to Wing City, to sell what he mined. A 30km wide channel separated the two islands at that point, and it was only a short trip on the ferry.

Wing City housed over 450,000 people, and Trae had found a Jeweller that he liked to deal with. Old Jim had even allowed Trae to spend some time with him learning how to the cut gems and smelt his metals. They had struck up an easy friendship the first time Trae had visited Jim’s store four years before.

Trae had also found several good bookstores in Wing City, and he had learnt a lot from the books he purchased. He remembered learning to read and do numbers at the Home, but they were his only good memories.

Trae found that reading and learning were things he enjoyed doing. He also took advantage of being in Wing City to obtain whatever items he needed for his home to make it more functional. He had a passion for science and learning how things worked.

While Trae liked his solitude, he also liked the occasional interactions with people when he travelled. For the last three years, he had spent four weeks of winter in Wing City. He didn’t worry too much about his camlas, lankys or cluckers as they pretty much looked after themselves.

He had made some special feeders that dispensed grain every day for the cluckers. They had a small opening that accessed a tree limb that they could use to get in and out of their pen. Most of them went off the lay in winter and went clucky, so they happily sat on their nests, and he’d find a heap of chicks on his return.

He had set up a pipe from the stream that he had diverted to be near the house. The pipeline fed a small raised pond in the enclosure. The pond then drained into a trough on the other side of the clucker’s fenced area for the camlas, which he used for milk. The lankys could also access the stream, as it ran all year round through their paddock.

For the camlas and lankys, he had built several covered hay-feeders, as the winters did tend to be drier in his valley. They just pulled the hay from the large-holed mesh. He had set them up the second year he was there and monitored how they worked. So far, they had worked out well. He also had a barn they could access to get out of the cold or rain.

He wasn’t as worried about intruders as he had gone to great expense to purchase several ward items. The ward items would let through friends but not foes. Old Jim, who had made the ward items, was a Novice Earth Mage and that was how they had met. Jim only wore a ring with an emerald and a Quaz crystal, but he had been around for 160 years and knew a thing or two.

One thing about the Tarans was that certain people could wield magic. If they wore special items, they enhanced their natural abilities and extended their lives, depending on the strength of the item or items they could claim, and improved their health. [See Data file]

Old Jim had taken a liking to Trae’s gold, silver, copper, agates, amethysts and quartz crystals, and to him for some reason. Trae had been enjoying spending four weeks of winter with Old Jim and was looking forward to going again this year.

He had to get home first and get prepared for his trip.


Trae found a stream near the cavern and refilled his water bags.

He was delighted when he found a small stand of wild shukra as he’d hoped to plant some this year. Some of the stalks were over 3m tall, and he happily made a carrier from two long sections and some shorter ones for the cross bearer. He collected a large bundle of cane that he strapped to the hauler.

He planned to make his temporary drying rack out of the stalks. He also collected firewood as he returned dragging the hauler. The heat and smoke from the fire would leach the shukra into the strips he planned to dry. The meat would taste sweeter and be preserved for much longer.

He chuckled as he made his way back to the cave knowing old Jim would love the jerky, as he was partial to it when Trae had given it to him in the past. Sweetmeat, as he called it, also made great travel rations. Since winter had already come upon them, he’d check the berry bushes on his way home so he could make his travel bars.

As Trae approached the cave, he heard a whinny of pain come from within. He’s been gone a little longer than he expected and was now worried other members of the pride had come back from hunting in his absence. He dropped the hauler and retrieved his bow.

Notching an arrow, he stealthily made his way to the side of the cave entrance and looked in. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkened interior, he could pick out Della. She was lying down, and Sage was standing near her off to his left, but he observed no other movement like a large cuttail. He heard Della grunt and then whinnied softly.

He entered the cave and made his way to the lankys. “Scat,” he said softly. Placing his bow near his bags, he went back over to Della and examined the wiggly mess on the cave floor. The foal had kicked out of the amniotic sac and was trying to stand beside his mother. She had cleaned him of the sac, but he was still wet.

Della had just passed the placenta, so he guessed she had dropped the foal not long after he had left the cave. He examined the foal and was delighted that he seemed strong and healthy since he was already trying to stand.

Trae went to go get his carrier when he heard a soft meow. “Scat,” he said again. He had totally forgotten about the cub. He went over to it, to find it was crawling around looking for its mother. He picked it up and it cried pitifully at him. He grinned.

He walked it over to Della and rolled it in the fluid trapped in the sac, so it smelt the same as the foal. Della stood so he rubbed the cub against her too. The foal gained his feet again, wobbled towards Della and started nosing around for a teat. Della stood still and let her foal attach itself.

While she was busy getting to know the foal, Trae grabbed her other teat. He massaged it gently to get the colostrum flowing and stuck it in the cub’s mouth. The teat was a little large, but Kitty, as he had decided to name the cub, was hungry and she managed to latch on and suck. Trae milked more down, and Kitty sucked for all she was worth.

It wasn’t very comfortable for Trae holding her to the teat, but he held her, while she got her fill. Trae knew the importance of her getting the first flow of colostrum even if it was lanky milk and not cuttail milk, so he patiently held her. He could feel her little belly fill, and she let go after five minutes.

Happy, Trae rubbed her with one of his shirts and dried her off a bit more, so her thick fur was fluffy. He also had to hold her bum away from himself when she voided her bowels. He’d forgotten that her mother would have licked her belly to encourage her to defecate.

He placed her in the shirt in the hollow so she could sleep off her feed and be out of his way. He then went and cleaning up the mess from the foal’s birthing. He was pleased to see that the mother and her foal were bonding.

At long last, he could get his fire built.

The source of this story is Storiesonline

To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account (Why register?)

Get No-Registration Temporary Access*

* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.

Close
 

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...

Storiesonline is for adult entertainment only. By accessing this site you declare that you are of legal age and that you agree with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.