Chapter 11

Squick Wxarning: There is a little bit of watersports/piss play in this chapter but as it’s not a main theme, so I left it out of the tags.

-Blu

Kal first noticed the clamor of voices as he abruptly returned from the astral plane. The voices in the group of people ranged from worried and concerned to belligerent and demanding.

“Just give him a shake and see if he wakes up,” said one man. Kal recognized him as one of those paying to sleep in his Elven-made shelter. He was also the same man Kal nearly threw out because he didn’t understand what Kal meant by, “not for sale,” regarding both Kashka and the tent.

“He told me to guard him until he wakes, not wake him up so he can address your complaints. My Master never guaranteed he would continue making his tent available for your use,” came Kashka’s snarling answer.

“How long do you think it will be?” said someone else. “We would like to get some sleep before we start moving again.”

“Nothing is preventing you from returning to your own litters and getting a night’s rest there.” the cat-girl snapped.

“Ria,” Kal groaned. Kashka’s ear flicked backward. She appeared to be the only one who heard him, though the blurry and unfocused view through his heavy eyelids made it hard to tell. “Ria, Tent. Kashka, get Laika. Need sleep,” he murmured.

“Don’t you fall asleep on me, Kal!” shouted Ria even as the shimmering light floated from her bag and turned into the canvas square of his tent resting in his lap. “What happened back home?!”

“‘vrybuddy’sokay,” he mumbled before his head drooped. The stamina rune on his vambrace flickered for a moment before slowly fading. A light snore accompanied Kal’s next breath.

Ignoring the comments coming from the gathered crowd, Ria looked over at Kashka then pointed at the canvas square. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?!”

Far behind the camel train, a man and woman sat huddled together for warmth under a heavy blanket beneath the cloudless Sulerin sky. Their backs rested against the camel carrying all of their earthly possessions. A stone’s throw away, the corpse of a second camel lay on its side.

“I told you, Fadu, you should have gotten a better camel,” the woman snapped at her husband. “Now we have no money to start our new life once we get to the other side.”

Fadu kept silent as he and his wife tried to wait out the cold desert night. Aside from addressing the woman’s disrespect, there was little he could say in his defense. He purchased the now-deceased camel shortly before they left Fazal, but instead of going to one of the reputable herdsmen, a friend of a friend was selling a camel he no longer needed at a fantastically low price. Sadly, Fadu didn’t deal with the beasts often and missed the indications of an aged, worn-out animal. That was until they arrived at Fazal’s eastern gate for inspection and compared it to all the normal, healthy camels.

Though the poor thing struggled at times and consistently lost ground to the other caravanners, the beast managed to keep up enough to stay within the line of camels and people. It required setting out a little earlier than the rest each morning not to fall behind the main group by nightfall, but another camel was too expensive, so they made do. If they made it to the other side of the Great Desert, Fadu planned on setting the old thing free to live out its final days wandering the savannah. That idea died just before sunset as the animal collapsed on the sands then expired soon after. A passing merchant saw their predicament and offered to sell them one of his spare animals. The cost of the new beast wiped out the money he and his wife reserved for starting their lives away from Fazal’s crowded streets.

As they finished their purchase and transferred everything over to the new camel, the caravan left them behind. Fadu wasn’t worried as the caravan’s trail was easy to follow unless a sandstorm scrubbed it away between tonight and tomorrow when they caught up. However, the sun set as they struggled to get all of their belongings moved and secured. Unwilling to chance drawing a sandworms’ attention by setting up a tent, they were stuck fending off the cold desert air with a lone blanket until morning. Traveling at night with the caravan was fine as they were protected by the sandworms’ agreement with the caravan leaders. But traveling alone at night when they were forced to go slow or tumble over a dune’s crest was little more than offering the giant worms an easy meal. Though it would be awkward without a proper saddle, they could ride the camel back to the caravan tomorrow morning. The beasts weren’t fast, but even a loaded-down camel’s brisk walk could outrun a sandworm.

“Silence, Solla, you’ll bring the worms upon us,” said the man while drawing his wife closer.

Despite her nagging moments ago, Solla grudgingly accepted the arm around her. Though born and raised on the edge of the Great Desert, they were both unprepared for the biting cold of the Sulerin night’s air. In Fazal, the stone streets and mud-brick buildings released the day’s heat once the sun disappeared behind the western mountains, leaving a small window of chilliness just before sunrise. But out on the dunes, the heat radiated away almost as quickly as the sun vanished below the horizon.

Still muttering in annoyance, Fadu’s wife snuggled up under his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. The man leaned over and kissed her on top of her head. It smelled like she put a new scented oil in her hair today, and he found the aroma quite pleasing. His hand slid down her shoulder and cupped his wife’s breast through her shirt. He thought for a moment she might push it away when she brought her own hand up to cover his but received a pleasant surprise when she pressed his fingers into her. After a few moments of kneading, she tugged her loose travel robe down her shoulder. Fadu’s hand snaked inside, and she hummed happily as his fingers brushed across her nipple.

Solla didn’t have particularly sensitive breasts, but her unusual reaction was quickly forgotten as Fadu’s prick began straining against his undergarments. Gripping his cock through his robes, he gave it a few good squeezes while continuing to worry his wife’s nipple with his fingers. He froze at the sound of a wet noise coming from down by her hips beneath the blanket.

“What are you doing, woman?” he snarled, annoyance creeping into his voice that she might be pleasuring herself when his hard cock was right there.

Instead of answering, she brought two fingers up from beneath the blanket and pressed them to his lips. The wetness was unmistakable, and while he normally didn’t care for the scent of her sex, or that of any woman he had been with, her aroma sent shockwaves straight to his cock. Letting her fingers into his mouth, he dutifully cleaned them of her fluids. His wife withdrew her fingers and drew him down into a kiss. Her tongue darted into his mouth and she moaned with excitement from tasting herself as her fingers slipped beneath her clothes and again found the heated wetness of her sex.

Fadu and Solla kissed like newlyweds, only coming apart so she could feed him fingers soaked in her juices. Each time she stared at where her fingers disappeared into his mouth, her breath becoming more ragged. He also stared at her, studying her face in the moonlight as he took in this curious revelation about his wife.

His mind briefly touched on a few memories where she became very excited and kissed him fiercely after he licked her between the legs, but those memories were old. She disliked the taste of cum intensely, and blowjobs were little more than him fucking her mouth as she grudgingly tolerated it, believing it to be part of her wifely duties. Combined with his dislike of the scent and taste of pussy, oral sex was a large sore spot between them. Perhaps this had always been something she liked but never explored.

His lips found hers again as he pushed his travel robes to the side, freeing his cock from his undergarments. When she raised her fingers to his mouth, Fadu grabbed her wrist and pulled it beneath the blanket to his rigid prick. He groaned as she smeared her fluids over the head and shaft before going back to her pussy for more. Once he was thoroughly coated, Solla pulled back and looked up at him. A passion burned in her eyes that he hadn’t seen since their first few months of marriage.

She slid beneath the blanket, and Fadu gasped a moment later as her tongue went to work, cleaning her wetness from the head of his cock. He inhaled sharply as Solla’s lips engulfed him and began sliding down his shaft. It wasn’t his first time in her mouth, but the sensation was so intense it might as well have been. His cock bumped the back of her throat, making her gag slightly. Instead of pulling away as he expected, she held herself there while her fingers switched from pumping into her sex to playing with her clit. Nothing in their marriage bed so far prepared him for his wife twitching and jerking in orgasm as she forced the head of his prick into her throat. It usually took him a long time to get off the nights they made love, and he was sure that was the only reason he didn’t unload straight into her belly right then and there.

Solla finally pulled off him and hovered over his cock, trying to catch her breath after taking him in her throat. Fadu didn’t let her rest, grabbing her under her arms and pulling her up so she straddled his cock. Tugging her undergarments to the side, he lined up his dick with her opening. He had a brief moment to be astonished at how wet she was before Solla pulled his hand away from his cock and sat down, grunting in discomfort as the head of his prick bumped against her womb.

Warnings flickered on the edge of Fadu’s thoughts as Solla began lifting and dropping herself onto his prick. They were being too loud, but he couldn’t remember why it was important. He and his wife were coated in a sheen of sweat, but as she sat on his cock and made circular motions with her hips, he forgot getting sweaty was dangerous on cold nights like this, especially since their heavy blanket had fallen to the ground. His wife leaned over and kissed him, shoving her tongue between his lips. A part of Fadu’s mind reeled in disgust that she would dare put her lips to his after having his cock in her mouth, but the thought was quickly pushed back to join the unheeded warnings. Instead, he grabbed her hips and helped her raise and lower herself on his prick as their tongues dueled.

When Solla pulled back, he caught a flicker of worry on her face. The tiny recognition of their behavior’s wrongness was swept away in an ecstatic moan as she took him to the hilt again. Fadu gritted his teeth as he climbed toward what felt like a massive orgasm, but before he found his release, his wife threw her arms around him and shook from her own climax. Before her sex finished squeezing him, she began moving up and down again, speeding toward her next orgasm.

“Foolish humans,” said a female voice from behind his wife. “So little control over your desire to mate.”

Fadu leaned over as Solla’s head whipped around to see who spoke while her hips and his hands never missed a beat. A stunningly beautiful woman lay on the sand. With her legs spread wide, she crooked a finger in their direction while licking her lips.

Solla stared at the juncture of the woman’s legs with curiosity as a string of images ran through her head. They ranged from mashing her sex against this strange woman’s crotch to straddling her face as the female’s tongue pleasured her. All were thoughts she never had about another woman before. Before she had a chance to ponder the source of these unbidden images, Fadu’s hands on her hips lifted her off his cock and tossed her to the side. Coming to rest a short distance away, Solla turned to see her husband scramble to his feet and dart over to the other woman. Instead of being upset, she felt a sense of rightness as her man fell to his knees and speared the strange woman’s pussy with his cock, as though the enchanting woman lying there deserved him more than she did. After only a few thrusts, he buried himself inside the other woman’s sex and grunted the same way he always did when he came.

Crawling over to the strange female’s head, Solla lowered her pussy to the woman’s waiting mouth. The incense-like scent on Fadu she found so arousing earlier came off the strange woman in waves. She barely noticed her husband’s whimper of pain as he started fucking the woman again with his oversensitive cock. The pain appeared to fade quickly since he was back to slamming into the woman with abandon moments later. Solla was too busy enjoying the feel of the woman’s tongue slipping deeply enough inside her to trace circles around the entrance of her womb. The tongue then began to swell and fill her. Once she felt nicely stretched, it started pistoning into her like a cock, fucking her from below. The pleasure coming from her sex chased any questions of how or why from Solla’s mind. Reaching out, she pulled her husband to her by his shirt and mashed her lips to his. Solla screamed into his mouth, and Fadu groaned into hers as they both shuddered through their climaxes, him pumping the mysterious woman full of his cum as she soaked the female’s face with her juices.

The sand around them erupted.

The worm carried them high into the air, jutting straight up from the desert as the sand around the humans drained into the giant worm’s gullet, taking them with it. Husband and wife screamed as they grasped frantically for a handhold on the smooth muscular walls of the desert predator’s mouth, until the ring of teeth at the bottom turned their fearful screams into shrieks of agony before silencing their cries.

The strange woman looked on from above, her tongue shrinking back to normal human size as the muscular appendage connecting her upper back to the largest lobe of the sandworm’s mouth held her aloft. A slight smile appeared as the sandworm’s teeth tore the human’s bodies into smaller pieces before passing the meal into her rock-filled stomach where they would be ground down further. Two humans were quite the catch, her eyes turned to the camel lying dead in the sand, but she wasn’t done eating yet.

Sent flying by the sandworm’s attack, the couple’s new camel bolted from the gigantic predator. Clinks and clatters from the items attached to its harness echoed faintly off the dunes as it ran. The animal could smell the other camels ahead and instinctively knew it was safe with them.

The desert in front of the animal burst upward and the camel bleated in terror as a second sandworm sprung its trap. Like the humans, it tried to gain purchase on the smooth sides of the worm’s mouth, but with similar success.

The camel paused for a moment in its struggle. Other than its legs, the animal was too large to pass further. One leg had fallen through the toothed ring at the bottom of the worm’s mouth and bore multiple cuts, but the predator had yet to bite down. The camel bleated and began struggling again as its view of the sky shrunk. Around it, the sandworm’s muscular mouth pressed in, the corded muscles beneath the slick leathery surface rolling and bunching as they contracted on the doomed animal. The animal shrieked in pain a final time before a staccato of snapping bones signaled the end of its life.

The first worm emerged from the sand and came to a stop nearby. Its mouth opened, and the woman-shaped lure glided out, joined a few seconds later by a similar appendage belonging to the sandworm devouring the camel.

She leaned back and spread her legs, “I have yours here,” she said, dipping a finger into her sex and holding it up to glisten in the starlight. “Tomorrow, we will get you a male from the parlay and can both start on the next generation.”

The smaller sandworm’s lure inhaled the intoxicating scent of the human seed the other one had collected. “You could just do it now,” she said, pointing toward the buried rear portion of her body, as her maw crushed the camel’s skull with a loud crunching noise.

“I’ve waited too long to have a brood,” the larger answered. “I won’t chance you running away once you have the human’s seed. We’ll get you a man tomorrow, then we can find a place to share our prizes at the same time.”

“Understood,” said the second woman-tongue before retreating to its pocket inside the desert predator’s mouth. When the bigger worm had done the same, both dove into the Sulerin sands, following the trail left by the caravan.

A tiny bird made of paper fluttered into Turam’s outstretched hand before unfolding into a palm-sized note.

His predecessors eventually realized no matter how many guards they employed or what precautions they took, fatalities were inevitable. Previous Caravan Leaders developed ways to benefit from these unavoidable losses, and Turam carried on the tradition.

Earlier this afternoon, he received a note informing him a camel went down, and a man and woman fell behind the caravan as they unloaded and repacked their things from the dead animal to a new one. Per orders, one of the rear guards slipped a small, enchanted stone disc in their belongings as he checked up on them. As long as the stone remained whole, a similarly marked stone in the guard’s possession glowed faintly. The discs were sturdy enough to resist breaking accidentally but didn’t last long in a sandworm’s grinding stomach.

Turam frowned at the words on the note laying in his hand: ‘It’s dark.’

Handing the paper to his second in command, he said, “Send down the line to expect worms in the next few days.” Such news was always kept quiet if possible. There was no sense in panicking the Lottery participants any sooner than necessary. But that was a worry for tomorrow. At the moment, he needed to see what happened to the young mage who had become so popular with the wealthy travelers.

Kal slowly opened his eyes to the familiar color of his room’s canvas ceiling. The ceiling’s color informed him it was daytime outside, and by the tone, it didn’t look to be early morning. His mouth opened in a long yawn, but he resisted the desire to close his eyes and fall back asleep.

The arm across his chest and leg resting on his thigh warned him he wasn’t alone.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Ria.

The mage looked down to see Ria’s larger form draped across him, “Not that I’m complaining, it’s been a long time since I woke up with you in my arms, but where are the other two?”

“With the caravan,” the sprite replied. “I told them to go on ahead after they broke camp this morning. Laika didn’t have a choice, of course, but Kashka took some convincing that it would make your life a lot simpler if you didn’t have to carry her while catching up.” Her face turned serious, “I’m a little worried. For nearly an hour this morning, the intruder alarm went off with no sign of anything outside.”

“Wait ... catch up? Why am I still here and not in the litter if it’s the middle of the day?”

“It looks as though I can set Ikuno’s tent up because of the permissions you gave me, but only you can break it down. Turam wasn’t about to stop the caravan just for you, so we got left behind.”

“Dammit,” he said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed as Ria floated upward.

“You wake up next to a naked woman and the first thing you think of is running away? I thought I knew you better than—Eeep!” the sprite squealed as Kal grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her down to the bed again. Nudging her legs open, he lay atop her and placed his morning wood at her entrance. The mage kissed Ria soundly to stop her giggling as he pushed inside of her.

“You know damn well,” he said while moving down to nibble on her neck, “that if we had nothing else to worry about, I would be happy to stay with you like this the rest of the day.” After taking a few long strokes inside the glowing woman, he reluctantly pulled out and climbed off the bed.

“That wasn’t going to happen,” said the sprite as she rubbed her sex for a moment before floating off the bed again. Shedding motes of light, she shrank back to her normal size. “Something is still inside me that you were going to get rid of more than a week ago.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for that. But when I told you I’d pitch Bozun out in the desert, I didn’t know the last leg of the trip is where we are most likely to encounter a sandworm. If I can use his corpse to save another life, then I think the wait is worth it,” he said while putting his clothes on. “If we don’t run into any, I promise we will come back out on the dunes and dump it. Kashka said the poison lasts for about a half an hour before breaking down in the air, so we need to be a good distance away from anything living.”

“She made it sound like Bozun would explode into a cloud of gas that would kill things for days after he popped.”

“That’s probably not far from what she believed at the time, but we learned a lot when working on the antidote the first weeks out here. Something you mostly missed because you were pissed off at me.”

“And here I thought you spent all your time fucking those two.”

“I won’t say there wasn’t a lot of that too, but Kashka wanted to have an antidote ready in case something went wrong while dumping Bozun’s body.” Kal frowned, “He must have had a stranglehold on the minds of his ‘Blades’. Her knowledge of poisons is frightening if I’m honest. She not only understands how to make them but also how they react within the body to achieve different effects. That came in handy when we started researching antidotes. Between her experience with toxins and my potion-making, it didn’t take long for us to figure out the composition of Bozun’s poison and come up with an antidote.

“You have a counter for poisons and the like on your back. You used it to save her after you fought.”

“That was a bit of luck. The gas acts in two ways. The first step is a contact sleeping potion that knocks the victim out to make sure enough of the slower-acting poison to gets into their system, shutting down their heart and lungs. The last component is a capsule containing the final agent in the toxin. When the capsule bursts and mixes with the other ingredients, the reaction turns it into a gas that pops the tooth or whatever container it’s in.

“We still don’t know how much time it takes to knock the victim out. But we have to assume it isn’t long. Had I not heard her tooth pop or seen the gas, I could have fallen asleep before activating my rune.”

“That seems unlikely,” said the sprite. “You use your runes like other people breathe.”

“You’re probably right,” said Kal as he threw his cloak over his shoulders and fastened it. Laying the piece of leather with the flight rune against his back, he tucked it into his belt and covered it with his shirt, “But I’m going to throw a body into a sandworm’s mouth before it explodes in a toxic cloud. I’ll take the extra insurance of Kashka nearby with an antidote. Let’s get going.”

After making his way to the tent’s exit, the mage unsealed the door and threw the flap open. He stopped and stared at the scene outside. The sand around the tent fell away sharply in a wide ring around the Elven shelter. Something huge and worm-shaped had circled the tent repeatedly, leaving the deep depressions. He was certain if he dropped his farmhouse into the gouges left by the sandworms, the roof would still be a pace below the surrounding desert.

“That explains why the alarms were going off,” said Ria. “It looks like you will get to use Bozun’s corpse after all.”

Kal nodded. “We have another problem, though,” he said, activating the flight rune and floating above the tent. “The worms are lone hunters, so I only planned on dealing with one,” said the mage, pointing at two trails of sunken sand leading in the direction of the caravan.

The tent folded itself up as he and Ria hovered nearby. Ria stored the elven shelter and gave Kal a quick kiss on the nose before returning to her bag. A few seconds later, the mage took off over the dunes, chasing after the caravan.

A short distance away, he stopped where the sandworm’s trail disappeared as they dove deeper.

“Wait, hold on,” he said to himself. “Ria, let me have one of the improved decoy sticks, please.” Turning around, he flew back to the mound of sand where his tent had been.

The sticks he purchased in Fazal were intended to give a person the chance to escape if chased by the sandworms. Sticking one in the ground and activating it sent out rhythmic pulses the giant predators found irresistible. They only worked if there was something like an island of rock or some other safe place nearby to run to. Out here on the open sands, a person would run out of sticks long before reaching safety.

Never leaving well enough alone, Kal modified a few of the sticks. Since his flight rune meant they were of little use to him personally, he hoped to turn them into something more powerful that could draw sandworms from a considerable distance, not just mask the sound of a person’s feet as they fled. Carefully splitting the wood open, he found a semi-precious stone that resembled turquoise but slightly greener inside with the spell etched into it. The gem-like material absorbed enough energy to power the spell for a few minutes, but Kal wanted something with more range and punch. Using geomancy, he cleaned up the rune and adjusted the limiter to accept more power. By itself, the pretty blue-green stone could power the spell’s modified version for a fraction of a second if it was lucky. Carving out a small space in the wood next to the stone, he added a shard of mana crystal and sealed the stick again. He only finished a couple before getting distracted helping Kashka make antidotes. He also didn’t want to waste a bunch of time on something that he couldn’t properly test without putting the caravan in danger.

The first pulse sounded like a giant stomped its foot and collapsed the sides of the bowl created by the worms circling his tent. The pressure wave made his ears ring and left Kal feeling like someone punched him in the chest. As he tried to get his breath back, the crests of a few dunes around him crumbled, leaving smooth hills of sand behind. Flying upward to escape the second pulse while being thankful that he wasn’t closer for the first, Kal watched as the ring of jumping sand particles spread out in all directions.

“I bet they heard that,” he chuckled before jetting off after the caravan once again.

Flying over the desert, Kal noticed evenly spaced depressions in the sand along the caravan’s trail. He determined from their size and similarity, they were likely the worms coming up to check they were still on the right track. He hooted in triumph when he saw four of the long teardrop-shaped indentations near one another, with two of them pointing back the way he came. The sets of four marks continued for a bit longer before vanishing completely, denoting where the sandworms turned around.

From what he had seen, the giant worms moved a little faster than the caravan itself. Getting them to backtrack might buy the caravan a few more days, but with midday and nighttime rest stops, he could only guess.

The line of camels and people had been on the move since before the sun rose, but it wasn’t long after leaving the sandworm’s marks behind he spotted the tail end of the caravan on the horizon. Dropping low to the ground, he oriented himself upright and began skating across the sands. He learned early in the journey that he wasted his money on the sand walker boots as his current pair did the same thing already, but better. The Boots of the Traveler used their magic to give him solid footholds in the shifting sands but had a curious side effect on slopes. If he walked down a dune normally, the sand solidified below his feet, the same as walking around normally or on upslopes. But, if he tried to purposefully slide down a dune, the boots treated the slope like ice, and he slipped down with little to no friction. The effect lasted until he tried to take a step, and the sand started acting like sand again, sending him rolling head over heels to the bottom of the dune. Kashka, Laika, and a few guards got a good chuckle when he learned that particular limitation the hard way.

Combined with his flight rune, he’d had quite a bit of fun the past few weeks skating across the desert from dune to dune, flinging himself off the crests and doing all kinds of flips and spins before landing. It wasn’t nearly as fun as flying, but it was close, and he wasn’t comfortable with people knowing about his flight rune. Yet.

As he came skating up on the caravan’s rearguard, a few of them drew swords or leveled spears at him, unsure what threat he posed. The guards closer to the wealthy section were familiar with the sight of him streaking along the surface of the sand, but not those this far back.

Unwilling to bother explaining himself to them, Kal angled off to the side until he was a fair distance away before pushing the flight rune to make him go faster. He grinned at the thought of the Boots of the Traveler’s maker seeing him abuse what was most certainly meant to help the wearer stay upright when slipping down a hill.