Worms

As the Lord said, chameleon lizards were indeed excellent mounts. The desert was literally their home, in which they showed themselves to the fullest.

Probably no other animal could run so fast along the dunes, masterfully bypassing the numerous quicksands and sharp stones, the tops of which were hidden in the sand and sometimes strove to cut the traveler's leg.

Sitting on these desert inhabitants were two ancient elves, who, although they could quite easily fly using their relics, preferred the walking route, since any use of their relics led to the depletion of the latter, after which these artifacts needed quite a lot of time to recover.

That is why it was necessary to spend the power of these elven treasures extremely carefully and only in case of a real need, which was not observed at the moment.

"How long do we have to go, brother?"

- Five or six hours.

— I see…

— Is something bothering you, Leiko? You don't usually ask about what you already know. If you want to discuss something, speak directly and on the topic.

"Vladyka is very angry with us, isn't he?" – in the voice of the girl through sadness, mixed with excitement.

- It's all because of that snake, damn it ...

- What should we do, brother? What if the overlord kicks us out? And what if not only us, but all our people?

Hearing the rising excitement in his sister's voice, Sen softened his tone.

"This will not happen, the Ruler of Life treats all the inhabitants of the empire very carefully, but does not tolerate even the slightest enmity between them. We ourselves are to blame for daring to show our hatred in his presence. He taught us a good lesson, we behaved inappropriately, we became too proud, and the master cooled our hot heads. I think if we do the job well and ask for forgiveness, he will have mercy on us.

- Truth? the elf said, obviously with great relief, "It's good if everything goes like this," a smile shone on her face.

Suddenly, the girl abruptly stopped the lizard she was riding and turned around.

"Looks like we have guests," she said calmly, and she was right.

At this time, a forty-meter carnivorous worm was approaching the two elves at all the speed possible for him. And getting close enough, he broke the sandy slope and jumped on his prey, opening his huge mouth wide in order to swallow them all in one fell swoop.

Quietly standing Leiko waved her hand and at the same moment a fireball appeared in front of her, about a meter in diameter, which immediately rushed towards the huge worm and, having flown into its mouth, tore most of its carcass, scattering the remains for several miles.

The barrier that Sen had set up rained down a veritable hail of blood and thousands of pieces of the dead worm.

The strongest predator of the desert, catching fear and horror, was defeated in the blink of an eye.

"Weakling," Leiko said indifferently.

"Yes, but they can interfere with our plans, as far as we know, these worms like to transmit multiple signals to their fellows about the prey they have found. Therefore, we can assume that several dozens of such creatures are already moving towards us.

- And what will we do?

- They have a very developed sensitivity to soil vibrations, I think this can be used.

Sen crouched down and placed both palms on the sand.

—[Earth element. Impulse.] - The ground shook, and numerous waves, generated by impulsive recoil, emerged from the thickness of the sands.

Hundreds of worms howled in pain in various places of the vast desert, and rushed away from the epicenter of this terrible sound, not noticing anything and no one in their path.

"I think we can forget about those carnivorous creatures for a few days now.

* * *

On a small stone "island" in the desert, two dozen men gathered for a council.

"The caravan is a hundred kilometers away from us, tomorrow evening they will reach point "A". Therefore, group 1 should be in position in the rear by this time, and group 2 should be ready to use earthbending and create quicksand at this time. After that, group 1 attacks the caravan with a hail of arrows. Merchant sand lizards have extremely thick and durable skins that cannot be pierced by arrows. But they will pierce the carcasses of people and birds of screamers with a bang. Is everything clear to everyone?

- Yes sir! - famously shouted the fighters, inspired by the profit going straight into their hands.

- Great, now everyone rest, you have five hours.

But, before the men had time to disperse, they were covered, I don't understand where the sandstorm came from.

- What it is? The sky was clear a minute ago.

— I don't know, some kind of anomaly, we need to check the screamers. If something happens to them, we're done for.

"...

There was no answer, the deputy who had just spoken to him disappeared somewhere in a sandstorm.

- Hey where are you? Where did you go?

—…

— Is there anyone here, EEEEE!!!

Oddly enough, no matter how much the commander shouted, none of the two dozen subordinates who were with him answered.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind his back, a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Nyenno onnoen," was the last thing he heard in his life.