~~The Cunning and the Blind~~

The following takes place in the midday of chapter 1.

Hundreds of miles, and hours of tireless flight away, was the desert of Voldor. It had near as many acres of land as Twilight Falls, Avalar and Warfang combined...but at first glance, it would appear to be as lifeless as firewood.

If so, then why did Queen Carmeleon send one of her generals, aboard a heavy-armored, steam-engined, 40-meter-long ship?

From overhead, the ship as shaped like a gigantic water droplet, the pointed end being its nose. It as armed with two, double-barreled, five-inch-shelled guns, covering the front and rear, as a ship vs. ship option. It only has a bridge(control room) and crows nest as the primary above-deck buildings.

On the bridge, General Jahn Urtiti, a chubby, but muscular troll with no hair, and ears that were holed like swiss cheese, overlooked his crew on deck from his rotating chair. Aside form having ears with pieces missing and the baldness gene, his eyes were red, unatural for any troll. His nails grew disgustingly long and silver, as did his eyebrows. His teeth weren't so natural either, triangle-pointed all over his jaw.

At this particular time, they are as close to the continent as they can get without their vessel getting beached in the shallow water. The 'pair of eyes' in the crows nest is looking through mounted set of binoculars. What he saw was depressing: for miles from the beach was nothing but dunes of sand the size of surfing waves, and towering rocks.

"By the gods, you'll find more life in a hospital morgue," he said.

Meanwhile, on deck, both helmsmen keep the vessel steering strait, with the beach in clear sight to their port(left) side.

"Where wasting our time up and down these beaches," complained the navigator at his table "Two days we've been sailing around Voldor and we haven't found a damn thing.

The general snarled, in a hissy voice "Three of our finest airships went missing here in the past week. What do you think happened to them? You think they set their airships on fire and dropped dead on their own accord? Stupid helmsmen!"

The left-hand helmsman sighed "Aye aye," he complied aloud, before whispering, "your titi."

The second helmsman leaned over to speak with his companion "Say, isn't this place secretly crawling with Red Scorpion mercenaries?"

He laughed at his companions stupidity "That's a children's scary story. The only thing that's even remotely dangerous here are...Sand Dragons."

"...Sand Dragons?"

"Yeah. They're like normal dragons we fight from Warfang, but they are much more slenderer. They're mammals, not reptiles. They even have fine hair growing on their backs. I've tasted their meat when I was a small boy. It was delicious."

"Yeah I haven't seen meat like that on the shelves. Why'd they take it off the market?"

"Because, eventually, every time the slayers would come to hunt...they'd just...vanish. No corpse, no evidence of murder, not even a ship or zeppelin wreck."

Meanwhile, in the crows nest, the ships 'eyes' see what looked like a dragoness on a rock. "What the-! A sand dragon?" When he zoomed in so her head filled his vision, she eyed him and then let out a roar, which he could barely hear form his position. Then she made a 'you're dead' motion with her finger and throat and disappeared behind the rock she sat.

The spotter picked up his radio mouthpiece, and his voice was projected throughout the bridge "General, I spotted a potential hostile in distance , slightly to port! A Sand Dragon!"

"Impossible. Those lizards went extinct years ago. I was there!"

The spotter plead, "Could you at least put the crew on Yellow Alert?"

Urtiti faced the navigator/radio man "Order a code yellow. Be ready for trouble."

The radio man then turned on the intercom and began to speak "Prepare for-" his headset went dead with a pop and nothing but static could be heard "Oh fuck!"

"What happened?!" Urtiti demanded to know.

"I think we may a saboteur on board, general. The only way the intercom wont work is if somebody severs it."

"Send out a hostile-engagement message to HQ in Valdin. And tell them we're-"

"YOU BLOOD-THIRSTY LIL TIT!" a female, slightly cockney voice screamed from the bridge speakers "Come here to slaughter our allies 'ave you?"

Urtiti picked up his mouthpiece "Who are you, woman?! How dare you interfere with Valdin Kingdom operations!" he growled.

"...Your voice...I KNOW YOU...Prepare to be Sand Dragon food, Urtiti!"

The general was about to speak again, 'til he saw a gigantic vessel on the water heading for them at 30 miles an hour, incredibly fast for a ship. It was the largest they had ever seen. Over 100 meters long, and had four, double-barreled, 90 milometer guns on the for and aft halves. It had rocket pods pointed to the sky for any so-called aircraft of the Valdin Kingdom. The exhaust chimney had ten stories of railing, flooded with marksmen. The bridge of the ship was suspended to the hight of the chimney and doubled as observation.

When the entire vessel emerged from waves of heat, Jahn could make out the insignia on its flag and sides: a three-tailed, ten-legged red scorpion in a blue background. It was the Valdin Kingdom trolls' twin race: a potentially-barbarian race of red and pink trolls who are masters of the sea...Scorpion Pirates.

General Urtiti grasped the arms of his chair and gasped, "Scorps! Carliah Van Vulture-...They're still alive?!" He turned to the helmsmen "Bring us around! Put our rudder to them. Tell the engine room, full ahead!" he ordered.

"Aye, general. The Helmsmen spun their wheels full starboard. The intercom wasn't working and it would take too long for them them to go bellow deck and tell them, 'full ahead' in person. By the time their rudder was to Carliah's massive ship, it was already in range and began to fire at them. It hit the water to the left of them, making a big enough wave to almost sink the general's vessel...a dingy with guns compared to Carliah's.

They then took a direct hit on the aft-section canon, making the entire ship shake violently for a moment, and sending the canon all over the deck, railing and into the water in pieces

"Ah shit!" cursed the first helmsmen in fear, grasping the wheel "This 'Carliah' is a mean bitch."

Urtiti spoke down to them "She's just trying to disarm us. If she wanted to sink us, we'd be dead right now." the general took a deep breath of anger, stress and fear all in one, before saying "...I know this woman. Didn't know she was...alive."

"Damn right I'm alive, you little tit!" she insulted over the radio harshly. She then offered, her tome starting calm and getting angrier, "...Tell you what, general, you shut down your engines, come quietly. I 'ave some gigantic, four legged beings who'd LOVE TO MEET YOU!"

Urtiti giggled "The Sand Dragon's are extinct, Carliah."

"...You and the green tyrant 'aven't a clue." Two seconds after her last word, Carliah hung up and an ear-splitting static filled the bridge. Urtiti however was so shocked and fearfully-frozen at what she said, he didn't hear it.

But his helmsmen did and cut the radio's power.

Meanwhile, on the observation deck/bridge of Carliah's Titanic-sized, rock-hard ship, Carliah, a magenta-skinned Red Scorpion troll, shed tears of anger as she stands just behind her helmsman. She was only 18. She was even more eager than her crew to exterminate Jahn Urtiti. She was a female body-building troll with muscles simular to a male. She had fully-bradded ginger hair, reaching her waist, with rings of gold. Her face was still feminine. She wore nothing but an an open, light armor jacket made from bronze chainmail and pounded plates. When she wasn't in a situation such as this, she would undo the front straps to cool down, revealing her underwear and white-nippled breasts. But this was situation that made her close and strap it up. Her weapon of choice was a two-handed one of a granite head. It was an axe on one side of the head and a smooth hammer on the other. Its handle was the thigh bone of a fallen Earth Dragon.

Carliah pointed to Urtiti's gunboat and then clenched a fist yelling, "Enough warning shots. Aim for 'is propellers bellow the waterline if you can! Immobilize it, then I'll deal with him in person."

"Vith pleasure mistress. Hiheheheheheheha," her captain cackled with an unhealthy, snaky voice.

Carliah's captain then return to his seat, spun it to face the control panel to his left and ordered a 'weapons free.'

The gunner, in his cramped, open cockpit on the giant canon aimed for the white water at the Valdin Kingdom vessel's rear. He grasped the firing levers of the left and right barrels, shouted "Down with the little green tyrant!" and pulled them both back. The concision from the firing made the barrels spring back and the gunner's head to ache "Ah!"

half a second later, it struck the vessels left propellor below the water and tore out that particular chunk of hull. Conscripts standing at the back screamed as they were thrown a dozen feet into the air and into the water.

The blast also made the rudder snap violently to the left, nearly braking the helmsmens' arms "Arrrg!" They used their good armed for the wheel, but when they turned it, there was no pressure and a horrible clicking noise could be heard

"General, we've lost rudder control. We're in deep shit." On the instrument panel, he saw that the starboard-engines vital sign light was flashing red and blue colors of death "And we've lost our right engine."

Urtiti's vessel was now yawing to left! Carliah's gunners now had the clearest shot they had at him. Their port side facing them.

"Give Urtiti a torpedo!"

"Aye, mistress." The captain laughed like a mad hatter as he punched in a code on his command pannel. Once he did, a lever emerged from its cooped up position. He grasped it "Sleep dreams with fishies,...Urtiti," and pulled it back. A torpedo exploded from its bay and began bubbling it way to Urtiti's ship.

Three seconds later, in the boiler room of Urtiti's vessel, a coal-shoveler was blown off his feet as it struck. The entire boiler room was flooded, purging the fires, in a matter of seconds.

Urtiti and his hundred crew were now dead in the water.

"Now let's ram the lil tit," she said with a smile.

The helmsman laughed insanely as he full throttled.

With the flooding below deck, the ships entire crew of a hundred stampeded up on deck and hopped over the railing, hoping they could swim for the beach.

The general, and two heavily-armored, cloaked, gas-masked elites-AKA: Banshee Terror Soldiers- watched the conscripts cower into the water "Cowards! All of you!"

"It's gonna hit!" one of his elites shouted, seeing Carliah's ship coming strait for them "Hang on to something!"

Before the general could grab ahold of anything, Carliah's ship had already truck and was pushing them towards the beach, whilst slowly tipping them on their side.

Carliah's ship had a shallow-bottomed hull, but Urtiti's had a deep, triangular one. She could easily navigate shallow water and even un-beach her ship...She bet he couldn't.

Once Urtiti's ships hull struck the beach, it tipped on it side, throwing the general and all of his men off the deck...and a fifty-foot-fall in shallow water. Dozens of conscripts, armorless, perished on impact with the shallow water, their skeletons shattering.

Urtiti witnessed his men dying around him all from falling. The only ones that survived impact were those with armor: him and his Terror Soldiers, as well as those who landed on corpse piles.

Urtiti thought he was done for when two conscripts landed on his own body, plunging his head under water. Hope for his life was restores when one of his elites removed the corpses and got him on his feet.

Sworn to protect the queen and her generals, the Banshee elite held the generals shoulders and checked his pupils "General, you alright?"

He could barely her his elite, because of his ringing ears "Yeah, I'm fine!" he pushed his elite away.

The Banshee Terror Soldier pointed his staff to the beach "I saw some caves on our way in. They look easier the defend."

"Brilliant. Let's go!"

As the general, his elites, and fifty conscripts ran for the beach, the conscripts were stupid enough to waste their ammo, firing their clumsy machine guns at Carliah's snipers, peering over her ship's railing.

The general and his elites took a few hit on the back of their armor, but all it did was nearly knock them off their feet. But the conscripts suffered dearly, their insides and brains mincing.

Carliah didn't care about killing the conscripts, her personal target was Jahn Urtiti.

"Fuck, blow 'em apart with our canons," she ordered.

Her captain crossed his arms "Alright one: my name isn't 'fuck'. Two: we can't waste our large shells on foot soldiers."

She turned to "Fine! Let's call my lil brother and our four-legged friends...shall we?" she smiled.

"Hoooh. I love the way you think, mistress." The captain flicked a switch on his board and a horrible ringing screamed from her ship's megaphones.

Once they reached the dry beach, the screaming reached them, and Urtiti and all his men covered their ears.

"Aaarg shit! Turn that fucking thing off!" Urtiti shouted. He thought, 'What will these Scorps gain from this ringing noise? To deafen us? Make our heads explode perhaps?'

He was dead wrong, and realized that when he saw a smudge on the horizon in the sky, blurred by the heat wave. He and his men stood dumbstruck as they slowly approached. He was about to realize that he was once these beings worst nightmare. "S-S-S-Sand Dragons!" He ran for the rocky caves ahead of all his men "Doomed! Doomed! We're all dead!"

Spotting the green trolls making a run for it, the Sand Dragons, each carrying three Red Scorpion worriers, pointed their snouts down to gain speed.

They ere the same size of an average dragon of Warfang, however they had fewer scales on the backs, which was complimented with silky hair, color depending on the individual dragon. They're horns were a gigantic version of a longhorn cow's, thinner for females. On the females, rather than a hiding place, their vaginal mounds, with silky pubes, were clearly seen if they lifted their tails. They gave live birth and had six human-sized breasts between their hind legs to feed their young. Their only element was fire, but of different style. Rather than just dry flames of a Fire Dragon of Warfang, they sprayed a natural napalm too, do more damage and at longer distances than dry fire breath. The Red Scorpions had strapped make-shift armor to them as well as saddles on their backs and necks.

While the general and his elite protectors fled into the cave, the conscripts stood ready to face these thought-to-be-extinct foes...two species of them to be exact.

"Mow the lizards down!" The conscripts began to fire madly at the flock of Sand Dragons.

The Sand Dragoness leading the squadron banked, all her kind following. Bullets hissed and snapped passed them and some hit and sparked on their armor.

She turned her head to the red troll on her back, and spoke as if her tongue was between her teeth, though it wasn't, and seemingly spat with every 'p', "Samuel, the green things ssspit metal at us. Orders?"

He patted her head "Get us out of range." He turned to all the Sand Dragons of both genders and the red trolls on their backs, also of both genders "Prepare to smite some Valdin Filth!"

"Arrrg!" all the red trolls began to cock their crude rifles. "Down with little green tyrant!" they harmonized sinisterly.

Samuel 'Silver Eyed' Van Vulture had the exact same color of skin and hair of his sister, but his was shorter and messy. He was 16. His body type was average, a stick compared to her. He had no eyeballs, so his sockets were occupied by little orbs of pure silver. His ears were larger than the average troll, but all troll's ears were bat-like anyway. Unlike his sister, he relied on finesse rather than might, using a two samurai swords and wearing hard leather armor, woven like a basket with large strips of leather.

He and the Sand Dragoness he rode dived down for the green conscripts.

At the sight of Samuel and the Sand Dragons, the Valdin conscripts climbed ontop of the rocks, hoping to get a better shot, but foolishly placing themselves in a convenient target zone for the Sand Dragons and red trolls.

When they were in range, they fired madly at them. But the Sand Dragons forned up into files of 6 and, with a feminine-scream of a roar, doused them in their sticky, natural napalm.

The trolls screamed in agony and felt as if they were just thrown into a furnace. For the last three seconds, all they saw was ash, red hot sand, and a ten-foot tall firestorm.

The Sand Dragons and their red troll riders hover before the firestorm and the victims within, Samuel and his dragoness companion in the lead.

The dragoness laughed with a rasp, "Hihihhehehaha. The green killersss aren't so durable now!" She turned her eyes to face Samuel "You see dat, Sssamuel?"

Samuel hung his head and rubbed the spheres of silver in his eye sockets "Banni...I never seen anything...since I was 10 years old."

"Ssso sssorry, master Sssamuel."

The sad moment was cut off by the deep roar of a male Sand Dragon.

Samuel's dragoness companion turned to it and saw Carliah aboard him "Sssamuel, it's your sister."

Carliah and her Sand Dragon hovered before Samuel and his "Aren't you going after Urtiti?"

Samuel froze in anger "General Jahn Urtiti?!"

Carliah nodded

Samuel eyes went so wide, one of his silver spheres fell out, but he was quick to catch it and replace it with a wet pop. "That guys black heart cost me my eyes and our father! Where'd he go?"

"Into these caves bellow us. They're a maze, lil brother. I'm gonna need your bat hearing and dog nose."

And so the dragons he and his sister rode landed before the entrance to the pitch-black tunnels.

Samuel was the one who had to carry their light source, because Carliah needed both hands for her axe/hammer.

It was as if they were in a gigantic, but abandoned ants nest. If Carliah didn't have her brother, and his amazing nose and ears, with her, she'd simply lose her way and perish. She wouldn't be able to venture in here without getting lost, much less hunt for a Valdin Kingdom general.

Samuel made "Sssv" noises with every breath. This noise bounced off the every inch of all around him. In his mind, formed a mental of everything. Thus he could know where everything was from his taller sister to a mouse.

For tracking this general and his elites, Samuel's nose could absorb the odor they had left behind from minutes ago: the algae stench of Valdin's swamps and foggy cities.

With his highly-trained ears, Samuel put his hand in his large sisters path. "Wait!" he whispered "...Jahn Urtiti approaches. I'll slash 'em, you pound them."

"Righto," she whispered back.

Outside the light of the torch Samuel carried, one of Urtiti's Banshee Terror Soldiers was creeping towards them. Samuel could hear him coming, but assumed it was just a rat. But when he started running, he sent a thump through the floor and his leg armor clanked, giving him away.

The elite drew his double-ended blade staff "Slice 'n' dice!" and tried to sweep Samuel's legs. But he leapt into the air spread his swords afar and spun around like a propellor. His swords whacked his armor and shredded his cloak like a weed-whacker, before hitting the weak armor at his neck and beheading him.

The second one went strait for Carliah "Take this, big bitch!" He ran towards her in attempt to run her through. Carliah got her hammer/axe, leapt a few feet into the air and struck him across his helmet, knocking him off his feet "Oof!" knocking his helmet off in the process.

The now-helmet-less elite tried to crawl away, panic in his breathing, before Carliah made his head explode with her hammer/axe, spurting blood everywhere within two feet.

Before the 'Silver Eyed' and 'The Cunning' Van Vulture siblings could catch their breath, the remaining elite of Urtiti came out of the darkness, roaring through his mask. He knocked Carliah off her feet and onto her back. He stood upon her and angrily slashed at her with his staff, but she blocked him with her granite hammer-axe...Just barely as she wasn't so quick to react as her brother, and he's blind.

Samuel leapt up and latched onto the elites back. He took one of his katanas in both hands and plunged in down his collar bone

"Gggaaaarg!" the elite gargled.

Samuel helped up his sister and the two caught their breath...but not for long.

They turned they're eyes into the tunnel when they heard a growl, "Carliah!"

Urtiti began to fire his his two machine pistols at them, making the tunnel light up and roar with echoing gunshots, and making Carliah snatch up her 'lil' brother and for cover behind some thick stalagmites.

Urtiti was so mad, laughing, firing his pistols, he didn't expect them to go empty with a snap "Oh crap." He threw them down and ran for his life

"After 'im, lil brother! Use that nose o' yours to find him."

Samuel began to follow the rotten odor trail of Urtiti, and did so for around five minutes, before the torch he carried lit a dead end with Urtiti waiting with two maces in his hands

"Carliah 'The Cunnine', Samuel 'Silver-Eyed'. We all thought you were just a scary story...I should've killed you two when you were defenseless 10 and 12 year-olds...But noo. Enola made your father my tier-one target. That old man was practically dead before he was a target anyway."

Samuel drew his two samurai swords and hissed like a tiger "He was a great king to us Scorpions!"

Carliah readied her axe "You shut it 'bout our father, or you die slowly and 'orribly."

Without warning, Urtiti charged for Samuel. But Samuel jumped and front-flipped over him, and swung his katana around to hit Urtiti right at the bottom of his spinal cord.

"Yiiiaaaaaarg!" he screamed as he legs shut down and he collapsed.

Carliah then took him by now-dead legs and Samuel began to guide her out "The Sand Chieftess will love to feast upon you, Urtiti. You're hers to kill, not ours."

Meanwhile, the other Red trolls, wearing nothing but dried cow-hide and loincloths, as well as the Sand Dragons, were waiting for Carliah and Samuel.

The moment they emerged from the darkness, Urtiti over Carliah's shoulder, the Sand Dragons roared toward the sky and the red trolls hissed and screamed.

While Carliah dragged him through the crowd, a Red trolless spat in Urtiti's face "Where's your green queen now, eh?!"

Carliah threw him into a gap in the crowd, landing him on his back.

A Sand Dragoness then raised her 100-kilogram tail "Fffffilsthy green killer!" and slammed it on his belly, inducing a bloody vomit from him.

Carliah raised a hand to her people and the Sand Dragons, quelling their hollering, before she raised her axe/hammer high "He wont need these anymore." With a mighty overhead swing, she chopped his legs clean off at the knees, gaining a scream of sheer agony from him.

A Sand Dragon and a Sand Dragoness took a legs each and shred the meat with the others. But the Red trolls would not eat the meat. They're hunger today is satisfied by seeing his ship sink and his crew burn.

"Let us watch Chieftess Siika feast upon this tyrant-lover!" proclaimed Carliah.

"Hiyeah!" all the other Red trolls sheered, before boarding their Sand Dragon companions.

Samuel, the Red Scorpions, and Carliah each boarded their Sand Dragon companions. With a few mighty flaps of their powerful wings, they took off into the heat-waved air of Voldor.

Urtiti, thought of this as an escape and, panic in his breath, started crawling away with his arms, leaving a trail of clotting blood behind him. Next he knew, he heard the flapping of a Sand Dragon's wings, and then felt like a clawed hand had snatched him up, squeezing the air form his lungs. Seconds later, he nearly died of fright, being over a thousand meters from sea level.

"You, Jahn, ride claw!" Carliah said form her companion's saddle "No literally-bloody general rides with me."

Carliah, her people, and her brother will take their barely-living battle-trophy back to their isolated, fortress and home.

I need some constructive criticism! Next chapter will be up in a week max.