Chp.3: A desert not so deserted

That night, as they had decided, they camped in the hollow that Haku had pointed out to Zamor. The tents that the beastmen were using were very thick, allowing them to better retain heat; otherwise, no one would have been able to sleep peacefully because of the intense cold of the freezing desert night. After eating, almost everyone immediately went to sleep: with all the effort they put in every day, it was impossible for them to stay awake. Only a few of them remained on guard duty.

Obviously Zamor wasn't afraid of someone attacking the camp: after all, what enemies could there be in the middle of a desert, so far from any type of civilization? Not even the most desperate and inept bandit would come here. Therefore, it didn't make sense to keep a lot of guards, which was good because then everyone could have a good rest. However, Zamor had still preferred to have at least twenty soldiers awake to constantly check the sky and avoid being caught in a sandstorm or some other natural disaster. Therefore, some of the soldiers were forced to sacrifice some of their sleep to keep an eye on the situation. And among them obviously there was a high prevalence of mages, since they could use spells to see better at night.

"Sarah! Sarah, it's your turn!"

Sarah rolled over in her sleeping bag, her eyes barely opening and yawning loudly. When she could focus on the rest of the tent she saw Carlos kneeling in front of her. "Ugh... already?"

"Yes, I've just finished" Carlos answered, who after making sure she was awake went straight to bed. "Don't make that face, at least you were able to sleep most of the night. I had to interrupt my sleep in the middle"

Sarah knew that her friend was right: she was only on watch two hours before dawn, so she could sleep continuously for most of the night. Carlos, on the other hand, was on watch in the middle of the night, so he was forced to break his sleep in half, which was definitely more tiring. "Okay, I'll get up" she murmured as she stretched and lifted her body from the sleeping bag. "You can rest and..."

Before she could finish the sentence, Carlos's snoring warned her that his friend had already sunk into the world of dreams and was no longer listening to her. Sarah grunted in annoyance, but said nothing nonetheless and walked out of the tent, being very careful not to wake Efren, Lisah, and Martha. As soon as she was outside a gust of freezing air made her shiver, and she instinctively covered herself up again with the warm clothes she wore during the day. Then she whispered a quick spell and the mana enveloped her eyes, and the world around her went from being completely dark to a blue and gray color that allowed her to distinguish the shapes.

She walked to the edge of the camp, looked for a reasonably comfortable rock, and sat down there. She would spend the next two hours like that: motionless, doing nothing but staring up at the starry sky. At least, she could have seen a beautiful sunrise.

She sighed. The wizard hunter found herself involuntarily reflecting how much her life had changed and in how little time. A little over a year ago, she was just an adventurer who did nothing but accept quests with her friends and her master to earn money. And now, there she was, in the midst of one of the most hostile places in the world, with a group of beastmen fleeing their old homeland to build a new one, and in the company of the most dangerous creatures in existence, but which had turned out to be far kinder, more loyal, and braver than she had ever even imagined.

She smiled involuntarily as she looked up at the sky. She wondered what her master would say if he saw her now, indeed, if he saw all of them now. Probably, he reflected, he wouldn't have cared much: he was only interested in hunting, that was his vocation. But Sarah knew that her master was still a kind person, despite very eccentric, and therefore would at least approve of their actions. She certainly didn't regret her choices: if she could have gone back, she would have done it all over again exactly as before. Even though life had now become much harder, she felt decidedly happier than before, or at least she no longer seemed to have, in Carlos' joking words, 'a broom up her ass'.

"Do you want company?"

Sarah just turned her head at hearing that voice and found the huge head of Serengal next to her. She hadn't even heard her coming; it was amazing how such a large and heavy creature could move so silently. "You don't sleep?"

"We dragons take turns on watch too. We don't like to be taken by surprise. And then we don't need to sleep as much as you do" Serengal replied lying down next to the rock where she was sitting. "So? Am I a welcome presence, or would you prefer to stay here alone?"

Sarah giggled. She knew the dragon already knew her answer and was just playing dumb. "Yes, you can stay. At least you are more interesting than the stars. They are not good conversationalist"

"Maybe it's your arguments that are boring. Try talking to them about the shape of the clouds, maybe they'll be more interested" Serengal answered her, blatantly teasing her.

"As if there was at least one cloud in all this fucking desert" Sarah grumbled. She hadn't seen a single cloud in the sky since they'd ventured into that expanse of sand. It was incredible; until a few days ago she hated passing clouds, as they obscured the sun and made the air cold, but now she would have celebrated if she had seen one of them cover the hot rays for at least a few minutes.

Serengal shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't be a desert otherwise. No clouds, no rain. No rain, lots of sand and dryness"

"I know, but that doesn't mean I like it" Sarah replied, then shivered slightly.

Serengal noticed that movement. "Cold?"

Sarah nodded, blushing slightly. "I didn't expect the nights in the desert to be so cold... I should have taken a blanket before leaving the tent"

Serengal looked at the human, pitying her a little. She found really strange how fragile newcomers were if they didn't use their mana. She was about to offer her the chance to lean against her belly and use her body heat to warm up, but then she suddenly leapt to her feet. "What was that!?"

Sarah didn't understand. Looking in the direction the dragon was pointing, she didn't think there was anything. "I can't see anything. What did you see?"

"Something moving. It was very fast. It was more or less there" Serengal answered pointing to a nearby dune.

"How did you see until… oh right, dragon's sight" Sarah murmured, remembering how powerful dragons' senses were. "Did you figure out what it was?"

"No, but I want to find out" the dragon replied preparing to run. "Come with me?"

"What? We shouldn't leave camp! We're on lookout, remember?" Sarah said. "We have duties, and we must... oh, what am I talking about, I already know you won't listen to me"

"Very good. Let's go then!" Serengal exclaimed, then she grabbed the woman with her tail and ran in the direction where she had seen something strange. Sarah didn't even try to resist and let herself be carried away by the dragon without complaining.

It was a swift journey: Serengal's swift legs carried them swiftly to their destination. When they arrived at the dune she had previously indicated, they both smelled a strong stench. "Urgh… I may not have the nose of a dragon, but I can recognize a decomposing corpse" Sarah murmured.

"Yes, but it's different from normal corpses. This smell is more muffled. It's probably due to the carcass being in the sun and being hit by the sand for a few days. Four... no, maybe five" Serengal said.

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Can you even figure out how long a body has been dead and how it's been preserved?"

"Smell is the first signal to analyze to establish whether a carcass is still edible or not" Serengal replied giving an answer that from his point of view was quite obvious, but which only risked making Sarah want to vomit, then she add: "Shut up, now! It's close, and from what I'm hearing we're not the only ones coming looking for it"

Sarah fell silent. In fact she was hearing something too. It was a strange noise, similar to a rhythmic and continuous ticking. For some reason it gave her the creeps. Very carefully, she and Serengal leaned over the dune.

And finally they saw it. An animal carcass, now mostly stripped of its flesh and with only a few bones and some half-mummified flesh attached, surrounded by several dozen centipedes. Sarah let out a cry of disgust: the centipedes weren't small like the ones she was used to seeing, and which already disgusted her, but they were at least a foot long and had two jaws similar to claws with which they tore the flesh from the carcass; their antennae moved like tentacles in the air, as if trying to locate other food to grab. And there weren't just centipedes: among them Sarah could also see some scorpions, several cockroaches and a spider that was at least as big as her head. "It seems that this desert isn't as deserted as we thought" she whispered.

Serengal looked at her worried. "You're quite pale. Are you okay?"

Sarah blushed. "I don't like… those things" she replied. She was a hunter, she spent hours or whole days in nature, so she certainly wasn't afraid of contact with insects... but if one of those disgusting creatures that were visibly too big to be normal insects jumped on her, she would still have a heart attack. She promised herself to always check that the tent was tightly closed: the mere thought that one of those things could get inside and climb on her while she was sleeping made her blood run cold.

Serengal wasn't as impressed as her. "They're small, I don't think they're dangerous. But be careful, they could be poisonous" she said, then her expression turned suspicious again. "Wait... look over there"

Sarah looked away (with great effort) from the bug-covered carcass and looked at a spot nearby. To her surprise, she noticed that the sand was obviously moving, as if there was something beneath it. "Was that what you saw before?"

Serengal nodded. "Can you hit it from here?"

"I can do better" Sarah replied, and she held up her hand while softly chanting a spell. Suddenly the sand stirred and then modeled into a pillar that shot upward, throwing away whatever was hidden beneath it. The insects, frightened by that, ran away and quickly disappeared in the sand, but the creature that had been flung into the air landed after a few moments and quickly got back on its feet, revealing itself to be one of the most gruesome beings that not only Sarah, but also Serengal had ever seen in her life.

It was a scorpion, but it was monstrous. It was at least three meters long and moved on eight long legs. In front of the head it had two other legs like huge sharp paddles, which it waved as if it wanted to strike something, and under them were also two claws which, although small, seemed quite strong. From its back emerged several tentacle-like filaments that waved in the air like whips, and also the tail instead of the classic sting was provided only with a slightly longer tentacle than the others.

Serengal wasted no time: taking advantage of the fact that the scorpion was disoriented, she jumped on it and grabbed it with her jaws, splitting its back in two. Even though the scorpion was very large, it was still more than three times smaller than the dragon, and it had no hope of winning against her; the animal tried to strike Serengal with its tentacles, but the dragon, not wanting to find out whether they were poisonous or not, quickly moved away after inflicting the first blow. She didn't need to do anything else: the scorpion, unable to survive with half of its body ripped open and its back broken, soon collapsed to the ground and the movement of its tentacles stopped.

"Mph. That's interesting" Serengal murmured. She hadn't expected to find such a large animal in the desert. But before she could question Sarah called het: "Um… Serengal? Am I wrong or are those… fins?"

Serengal looked at Sarah, who had meanwhile approached the carcass that the bugs were previously picking, and then at what she was pointing at. In fact some of those bones seemed to form fins... and not only that... also the head, the ribs, the vertebral column... everything looked exactly like... "A fish!? What the fuck!?"