Welcome back to Kiravi's travels through the deserts of Anghoret (and hopefully beyond)! We appreciate the feedback so far and all of the votes! A bit more explanation before we jump back in: with the world of this story at the very beginning of civilization and much of its denizens still at the hunter-gatherer level, Lussoria is also still filled with the Pleistocene Megafauna that was largely wiped out in the real world as humanity spread across the globe and hunted them to extinction. What does that mean? Mammoths/Mastodons, Sabre-tooth cats, giant ground sloths, etc. will all be making an appearance sooner or later. Without further ado, here's the second chapter!
The rain had gone, and the fire sputtered to death in the night, but dawn had broken over the wastelands to the east, spilling warm pink light into our small camp. Serina seemed to have regained some of her virginal bashfulness during the night: she stopped short of asking me to avert my eyes, but she did awkwardly shuffle beneath the blankets as she pulled her cotton shift back on. On the other hand, I dressed in her full view, and she flushed even though she pretended that she wasn't watching. Her dress was still wet, and I blatantly stared at the way it clung to her curvaceous bottom and outlined her breasts. When she pulled on the bandit's captured breastplate, I sighed with no small amount of disappointment.
I'd expected to be exhausted, sore, and bruised but, aside from a few cramped muscles from the stone floor, I felt as if I'd spent a week resting at the Anghu baths. A result of Serina's sexual bursts of magic, I was sure, but I had neither the breadth of knowledge nor the inclination to find out at that moment. As if to solidify the futility of asking, Serina gave me a bashful, blushing smile.
Soon after we hefted our packs and broke camp, I was already mumbling a colorful variety of curses under my breath. The broken land around the black spire looked entirely different from within and in the daylight, and piles of rubble and dislodged vegetation blocked the most obvious routes up and out of our camp. At least, I thought to myself; we were out of the blistering sun.
After doubling back for what felt like the tenth time and pausing to take a cold sip of water, Serina finally mentioned the subject I'd been avoiding all morning. "My lord, Kiravi...what we did last night," her cheeks were the color of the sandstone behind her, and I groaned inwardly.
"Two young people swept up in the emotions of a perilous day," I responded quickly, practiced at blunting and deflecting such lines of questioning. To be honest, dear readers, I was usually gone by the time such partners woke up.
"But, but we both...I don't know what I'm supposed to feel, Kiravi."
"The most important thing is to get you to the temple, darling. You and your father must know what the gods' designs for you are," I placed a hand on her wide hip. "Your father and the priests don't need to know what happened here."
Judge me if you'd like, dear readers. I will even freely admit that I felt another surge of doubt and self-loathing at that moment, if only because this girl and her powers were so damn intriguing. But, if I continued my journey and discovered anything worth returning to my family, Serina would surely only slow me down. So, I did my best to ignore the beginning of a whimper that I heard from her pouting lips and gently kissed her forehead.
"Kiravi," she said, and I braced myself for a plaintive response, but she surprised me, "Up there. Something is watching us." She pointed up at one of the gaps in the rock above us with her thin arm.
A face peered down at us, some curious animal alerted by our echoing voices and the scrabbling of our feet on the rock. Its skull was thick and squat, and large yellow-brown eyes with vertical pupils studied us intently. Its ears were small and rounded, twitching back and forth between erect and forward, and tucked close to its scalp. Its short, coarse fur was a slightly darker dun than its eyes, and very faint spots started at the base of the short neck and ran down the top of its body.
More critical and concerning were the out-sized canine teeth that stuck down over its lower jaw by half a hands length and the partially retracted claws jutting out from its broad and calloused paws.
"It's a Nimravid," I mumbled back to Serina, though I wasn't too worried: it was only slightly larger than the stray dogs that filled the streets of Anghu but far better fed. "If it were hungry enough to attack us, it would've done it already."
"I've never seen one," she whispered again, her glowing eyes not leaving the Nimravid's curious ones, "how do you know what it is?"
"They have one caged at the Academy in Anghu. Strange, though: they usually live further north and east, in the foothills of the Kazmar mountains."
"I don't like the way it looks at us," Serina said, inching towards and behind me.
Before I could say anything else to reassure her, the Nimravid stretched with languid grace and padded away and out of sight. "As I said, it wasn't hungry. Just curious, I'm sure. Come on, darling, we've got to keep moving."
We drove on through the narrow channels choked with deadwood and broken rock, my bearings slightly improving as the morning dragged on. I could feel us moving downhill, past the looming spire that we kept a respectful distance from. No one in Anghoret wanted to linger near the Blackrock. To Serina's discomfort, the Nimravid appeared at least a half dozen more times, always peering down at us but never so much as licking its fangs, much less tending to pounce.
Finally, I could see the channel we'd been following open up into a wide gap and felt cool air blowing towards us, laden with the stink of the river. The ledges above us receded and arched towards the opening, ending where two massive boulders framed our path to open ground. I sighed happily, picked up the pace, and was eager to be free of the stony labyrinth and closer to my second of many more destinations.
But, dear readers, our constant companion appeared between the boulders ahead. I could see it better then the rippling muscles underneath the short and coarse fur, concentrated around the neck and shoulders to help it bite through gristle and crush bone. I glared and set my jaw, still confused as to why it was stalking us so doggedly. It didn't matter. I pulled energy through the conduit in my guy and gathered it around my left hand anyways, gripping my staff tightly in my right.
"I wouldn't do that," a feminine voice called from the ledges above and behind us. I heard the faint groan of protesting wood and sinew and knew that I had an arrow trained on my head.
"Keep an eye on that beast," I muttered to Serina and turned slowly to face our new threat. A fit, wiry woman stood above us, framed against the bright blue sky with the sun at her back, pointing a drawn bow at me. I let the gathered energy dissipate from my hand and raised my limb slowly, and she eased the bowstring slightly.
She had a nomadic look, one of the many pastoralists that still herded their livestock between the towns and cities of the Empire, turning away from shelter and farming to cling to the old ways. Her torso and limbs were all clad in cured hide and sun-bleached leather, mixed here and there with cotton fabric bartered from some town or hamlet. Extremely long hair, strangely the color of sandstone, draped over her shoulders in two long and thick braids woven tight to her scalp. Her eyes took Serina and me in, and I suddenly realized she was at least part Bhakhuri; her eyes were slightly too large for her other features, and the irises were the same rich reddish-brown as her hair
"Have we done something to upset you, huntress?" I called up to her.
She took a handful of steps down towards us, still covering us with her bow. "Depends. Were you in the Juniper Valley yesterday?" The Huntress was glaring at Serina; specifically, the leather breastplate I'd made her wear. This woman knew the answer to her own question already and was probably out to avenge her fellow bandits.
So that left another fight. I knew I'd have to be fast if I was going to get a spell off, and then there was the Nimravid to contend with, "Yes, we were. Come to revenge yourself on us for your dead comrades?" I taunted her, goading to try and give myself an opening to strike.
She snarled and spat on the rocks before lowering her bow, "They were my quarry. You solved the problem for me." She hopped down into the last stretch of the cracked rock ledge just above us, and, without the bright sky silhouetting her, I got a better look at her figure. Maybe half a hand taller than Serina, the Huntress was much more muscular than my pure-blooded human charge. Her hips and rear were slightly smaller than Serina's, but her breasts seemed to jut out larger and perkier, even bound as they were underneath her hide coverings. While most Anghoreti had rich bronze skin or more golden-brown like mine, hers was a shade or two lighter than even the lightest skinned Anghoreti human and tinged the same red as her eyes and hair. Her cheekbones were lower than ours, her cheeks plumper, eyes larger and rounder as I'd noticed when she ambushed us on the rocks. I supposed that she had nice and plump lips usually, but at that moment, she had them pressed together tightly as she scowled at us.
"Niknik, come," she patted her muscular thigh, and the Nimravid — named Niknik, apparently — trotted past is and to her side. I cocked an eyebrow, intrigued but not entirely surprised. A Bhakhuri nomad like her? It wasn't uncommon for them to worship the Kwarzi of the land, to draw power from them as I did from the Eldritch. A power that, amongst other things, let them bond with wild animals.
First a virgin oracle, and now an annoyed Huntress wielding primitive country magic: what a trip, I thought. "You thought we were more bandits? Running from whatever killed the rest?" I sprinkled a mildly humorous tone into the question, trying to disarm this woman further.
"Something like that."
I smirked at her and just glanced down at Serina, at her tiny and feminine body that would serve her poorly as a trailside bandit. "Us? Really?" I waited for the Huntress to finally ease her focused, savage features. When she did, I gave her my very best roguish smile, "I'm Kiravi, and this is Serina."
She still glared at the two of us with sandy eyes for a long moment before her features softened a fraction more, and she responded, "Leotie. I'm Leotie, and this is Niknik." She hopped from her last, low perch, and I couldn't help dear readers, but cock an eyebrow at the feral spring in her stance. "You've both made this season much...easier, for me." She stammered, like it was difficult to communicate anything resembling thanks or that she hadn't spoken to anyone for some time. Perhaps both, I thought. Her accent made her words clipped and harsh sounding.
"What did they do?" Serina whispered, finally finding her voice, "The bandits, I mean."
