Author's response:
to guest from June 10, 2024: I suspect this chapter will answer your question, esteemed reader.
to Thunder Dragon (Ch 3): As I said before, I don't do challenges. Too many stories already in need of finishing. As to your other commend, believe me, there will come a chapter when you definitively know which Mythic Path our leading man walked before finding himself on Zanan.
to everyone else: That's the name we gave the continent, by the way. "Gainos" is derived from the Greek word "gyno", meaning "female", so we decided to call the nameless continent "Zanan", the Persian word for "women" (according to online translators, anyway).
"Rowin!" Laila cried. She swooped down after him but halted at the cliff's edge. She couldn't interfere. The laws of Heaven forbade an angel from intervening in the Queen's Blade tournament, and the journey to the battleground was part of that tournament.
Still, as she fixed her hat, Laila decided to act and plead forgiveness later.
"After all," she said as she prepared to dive again, "I'm only helping Rowin. If he helps Leina afterward, that's his choice."
Claudette followed her lead, seating herself on the cliff and preparing to quickly scale her way down. However, both angel and thundercloud were thwarted by eight simple words.
"Claudette, I challenge you to the Queen's Blade."
Claudette whirled, her eyes blazing and her face wrinkled with scorn.
"Why?!" Laila shouted, stamping her foot in the air. "Doh… Fine! Ye fighters who seek to enter the Queen's Blade-"
"I refuse," said Claudette, turning back to the edge. A moment later, she'd vaulted down and grabbed the edge with her fingers, narrowly avoiding Echidna's horizontal slash. Lightning crackled around Claudette's white knuckles and blasted forth; Echidna tucked and backwards-rolled away, before finishing on her feet. Her gorgon-themed shield was on her left forearm. Her wavy, split-blade sword, its unequal blades patterned like a flicking tongue from the snake's head that served as the rain-guard, pointed its twin tips at the ground.
"You dare…" Claudette seethed, drawing Thunderclap once again.
Laila's head swiveled between the two warrior women. She cleared her throat. "Ye fighters who seek to-"
"No need," Echidna said, stowing her sword back on her hip. "I accept your refusal."
Those white knuckles of Claudette's somehow went from white to moon-white, gripped around Thunderclap's hilt.
"Just a friendly reminder not to turn your back when someone picks a fight," said Echidna. "You gave me a job, so I'll complete it, just like you paid me to."
"And how do I know you mean that?" Claudette said, her voice a dangerous murmur. "How do I know you plan to bring her back?"
"It's not that complicated," said Echidna with a smile. "I haven't refunded your money."
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Water squirted around his knees as Rowin trudged ashore, ready to collapse on the first sand bank he'd seen for miles and miles of white water and rocky cliffs. However, he couldn't rest just yet, as he was in the middle of dragging Leina's unconscious body out behind him. She'd already taken a beating from Claudette; the wild ride down the river had pushed her past her limit.
Lowering her to the sand and dropping to his knees, Rowin put a finger to her neck and leaned close to her ear.
"Good," he sighed. "Still breathing, still pumping."
Now he collapsed. Hot sand had never felt so good.
'It's times like this I'm glad I don't have a body,' said the sword at his hip, the brass-handled one.
"Didn't hear you complaining when Echidna was handling your handle."
'Come on, 'Commander', you know me better than that.'
Rowin nodded. "I suppose I do."
The abductor made his move.
It was a move well-timed. While Rowin was talking about Echidna's very suggestive palming of his literal talking sword, the black-handled devil swooped down and wrapped his tail around Leina's unconscious body. Fortunately for Rowin, the clink of Leina's armor couldn't be covered as easily as the hiss of displaced sand.
"Hey!" Rowin bolted up, his back groaning in all kinds of knots. The cat-headed thing was already in flight, literally, gliding up the sand bank and over the top, Leina's weakened self in its clutches.
Rowin reached for his knife but thought better of it. The thing was basically a cat's head on a stick. Rolling to his knees, he scrambled up the sand bank, surmounting it in time to see the black devil flying into the desert, towards a shimmering, ziggurat-shaped mirage.
'I'd wager on being drawn soon,' said the sword.
"That's a sucker's bet, Finnean," Rowin replied as he goose-sprinted through the desert, kicking up puffs of sand to the sides of himself. As he got closer and closer, he started to slow, realizing that this was not a mirage or magical construct. This ziggurat was most definitely real, and maybe ran deeper under the sand than Rowin initially thought.
A valley in the sand lay before it, its contents hidden from distant prying eyes. It was a massive stone facade, holding back the tons and tons of sand sitting on top of it. Four enormous statues, like simplified expressions of grinning cats, seemed to stand guard on either side of a small entrance in the center. They'd seen better days, the stone weathered and the paint that once colored them blue, orange, red, and green (from left to right) now spotted and faded, save for the sharp white of their massive, block-shaped teeth.
It was also really far away. Rowin was staring down at least another hour of walking in his worn-down state. Hence, he turned back to the river and took a long, deep drink and a couple minutes of rest. Whatever waited for him there, he couldn't well keep clear of it with dehydrated jelly legs.
Soon enough, he was back up the sand bank, trekking towards the ruins and their cat-headed grins.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"You've lost their trail?" Echidna asked her pet. The snake's response was to slither up her leg and return to its resting place as her underwear. She stroked his scaly head, then brushed the leftover sand off of her leg. "Oh well."
She looked up at the angel floating above. She was staring angrily back.
"Is Leina still in your book, angel?" Echidna asked.
"No thanks to you!" the angel huffed. "You better find her fast, if you know what's good for you!"
Echidna smiled and walked back to the rock face, and the rope dangling down. "You must be a younger angel, if you think I don't know: you can't harm me."
The angel winced at that. "Don't think I don't know that you know! I have… other ways of making you sorry! Believe it!"
Echidna looked over her shoulder and sucked on the tip of her finger. "You promise?"
The angel fumed and flew off. She wouldn't go far. Echidna knew the angel wanted Leina and her bodyguard found.
Moreover, the angel knew Echidna wanted them.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
'What was all of this?' Finnean pondered. 'I've heard of hill dwarves and mountain dwarves, but desert dwarves?'
"Nah, can't be dwarves," Rowin replied. "I'm no expert, but if dwarves built that, we'd see a rune or three."
The two trudged in silence after that, not wanting to waste the precious water of Rowin's body by jawing too much. However, the two women who spotted him, from one dune peak over, were not so reserved.
"Excuse me!" the black-haired one called, waving her arm at Rowin. Her white robe and red dress billowed with her long hair as she trotted down one pile of sand and up Rowin's, showing a lot of stamina for one who'd probably been in this desert for a while.
Looking her over as she approached, Rowin smiled and obliged her. It was a bit odd for someone to be wearing socks and sandals on what must've been several days of hiking, but he wouldn't judge her for it. Her hair reached her waist when it settled, tied at the end with a red ribbon. He didn't miss the handle of a sword protruding from behind her back. His eyes traced its angle and found the chape of its scabbard, slightly curved like Finnean.
He inspected her sword as a way to stop himself from staring. Something must've been in the water, or the food, or somewhere on this continent called Zanan, because this marked the third time Rowin encountered a wandering woman with gorgeous features. She was pretty as a pearl, with fair skin and big, violet eyes framed by her bangs, which were delicately draped over her red headband. Her loose robes couldn't hide the heft of her chest or the curve of her athletic thighs.
"Lady Tomoe, wait!" called her friend, her pale skin miraculously unburnt despite the...
…
'Do I hear five?' Finnean chuckled, though only between them.
Rowin stifled his retort as the other woman reached him. Lady Tomoe's companion let it all hang out, to quote a friend. The purple cloth suspenders of her "tunic" were the only clothing on her torso, leaving her bosom one hard slip or rogue hand away from indecency. Descending from under a red sash, the bottom of said "tunic", if it could even be called that, went deeper between her legs than on them. So, everything from mid-thigh to her anklets was uncovered. Those anklets also connected to sandals; the two probably came from the same land.
Unlike Lady Tomoe, this woman had some armor but no visible weapons. Her left shoulder had an armor plate at the top of a fishnet sleeve. Her swan-like neck (and suspender top) was guarded by a gorget. The headband she wore, unlike Lady Tomoe's, had a pair of tiny horns peeking out amidst her lavender hair, a long lock of which hung down the right side of her face. It seemed yet another thing that framed not just her breasts, but her pretty blue eyes.
"UUUuuugh, I'm so thirsty," groaned the pale woman. She doubled over and looked at Rowin exhaustedly, hands on her knees and pressing her breasts together. "Please tell me this is the capital."
"Pretty sure it's not, since I wasn't headed this way before," Rowin replied, keeping his eyes on hers. "Rowin's the name, by the way."
"Shizuka." The pale woman straightened out and groaned. "That means we're lost again!"
"Then we must press on," said Lady Tomoe, bowing to Rowin. "I apologize for bothering you, sir. We are strangers in this land and don't know it yet."
"Well, that makes three of us," Rowin admitted, before jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "You didn't pass the river?"
Shizuka practically jumped on him with how close she and her breasts got to his face. "River? Where?!"
Lady Tomoe blushed and bowed again. "I apologize for my friend. It's been a long and tumultuous journey, and we've run out of water."
"Once again, that makes three of us, since I just went for a swim down that river." He stared at those ruins again, meeting the eyes of the cat statues which lined the outside. "Now my friend's been kidnapped by a head on a stick and I've got to go in there to find her. So, if you'll excuse me."
Tomoe bowed to him and turned to leave, but stopped when she realized Shizuka was following the wrong person.
"Before we go, could I get a drink of whatever's in that waterskin?" Shizuka asked, pointing at Rowin's pack (the primary reason the swim wore him out).
"After I rescue my friend," Rowin replied. "Water's for washing, after all."
"Uuugh, I can't go any further!" Shizuka whined, dropping to her knees and clasping her hands. "Please let it rain, just a little."
Rowin thought for a moment. "Tell you what: help me get my friend out of there, and I'll carry you to that river."
Next thing he knew, he was holding Shizuka bridal-style with her hands wrapped around his neck. She stared at his face inquisitively, while Rowin copped a feel of the short blade stashed behind her waist.
"Hmmm… You promise?" Shizuka asked.
"Shizuka, please!" Lady Tomoe pulled her out of Rowin's arms, blushing. "You're delirious with thirst!"
'You sneaky dog,' Finnean chuckled, 'press-ganging them into our party like that.'
"Maybe, but I'll take that deal," Shizuka chuckled. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides…"
She slid over to Tomoe and whispered something in her ear. The other woman hesitated, then nodded. "We'll follow you, Sir Rowin."
"No 'sir', please," he said, "just Rowin, Lady Tomoe."
"Then please, call me Tomoe," she replied.
"Yeah." Shizuka grinned. "Only I get to call her 'Lady'."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Now, my devoted servant, attend me."
The sun-kissed princess laid down on her back, her ornamental chest piece and cobra headdress discarded, leaving only her striped thong. Her slave, the blonde that Setra had picked up by the river, dug her hypnotized fingers into a sublime, soft thigh. The flickering light from the candles dotting the ritual sphere made the oil on Menace's body and her altar glisten pristinely.
"Oh, yes…" Menace sighed. "Harder, servant. Leave no part untouched."
"Yes, Mistress," said her slave. Her hands moved up Menace's leg to her sides, then her naked breasts.
"Oh, yes!" Menace moaned as her slave thoroughly kneaded her. "Just like that! You're so firm and strong!"
"Thank you, Mistress."
The slave's abductor, Setra, floated around the table. "I have to say, my lady, this one's making my tail hard. What I would give to do all that to her…"
"There will be others, Setra," Menace said, then moaned as her slave dug into her neck, as if she was trying to strangle her mistress.
"There are others, my lady," Setra said. His head, shaped in the iconography of Amara's grinning cat guardians, swiveled to the waterfall before them, the stone walls behind it obscured by the image it projected. "Oh-ho! Two outta three ain't bad at all..."
"Hmmm…" Menace turned around and leaned her head back, watching the waterfall upside-down. "More servants? Oohh…" She felt her slave return to her breasts.
Setra studied the trio within the image. "So, that guy I left came looking for his girlfriend? Might be trouble if that confidence is warranted…"
He regarded the priestess next. "My guess is this one's the sweet and tidy type." He chuckled lecherously. "But she can't fool me. Underneath all that cloth is a body just waiting to cut loose!"
Then, he regarded the assassin. "On the other hand, this girl is the playful type who likes to show off. Just look at all that al-a-ba-ster skin! Hahaha, I'd like to ala-blast her! Yeah!"
"So, what do you think?" Menace asked.
"It'd be a shame to waste the one in red, but I'd take the lively one."
"No, I mean, do you think they would make good servants?"
"Oh-ho-ho, right! I knew that."
Menace rolled over to her stomach, and immediately felt her slave begin work on her buttocks. "Mmmm… Perhaps a small test is in order…"
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Oh, just get it over with already!" Shizuka said, cutting in front of Rowin and reaching for her blade. "I'm so thirsty!"
"Get what over with?" he asked.
"You know…" She waved her hand around. "Trying to rob us."
Rowin frowned. "Why would I do that?"
Tomoe kept her own council as Shizuka continued.
"Come on! A lone man, armed, out in the middle of nowhere who wants to help us out?" Shizuka shook her head. "This must be the ninth time someone's tried that on us. If it's all the same, 'Rowin', if that is your real name, I'd like to get to the part where we defeat you and take what we need."
She eyeballed his pack again. "Like that waterskin."
Rowin stared at her for a moment, his gaze flitting to the short, oddly-shaped dagger she was drawing. He reached back and took out Shizuka's prize. "You want this?"
Shizuka swallowed hungrily. "More than I ought to, so hurry up and attack us."
A wind kicked up and blew Shizuka's tunic aside. She didn't seem to care that Rowin got a full view of her black thong. Rowin instead focused on her lavender lips.
"You want this?" he said, jiggling the waterskin.
"Yes!" said those lips.
Rowin grinned as he trudged past her. "Then keep your end of the bargain and I'll keep mine."
He didn't wait for them to follow, nor did he hear their footsteps. Soon, the two women joined him regardless, just as he knew they would.
"Do you truly mean to say you're not a bandit?" Tomoe asked.
"Ask the one I scared off the other day."
"Remarkable," Tomoe said. "Truly remarkable."
'It's not that remarkable,' Finnean remarked.
"Where do you hail from, if you'll pardon my bluntness?"
"That depends," Rowin said, leaning towards Tomoe as he walked. "Can you keep a secret?"
"On my honor as a warrior priestess," she replied.
"Well, then…" He leaned closer, and smiled mischievously. "Ask my parents."
Tomoe opened her mouth before the full realization struck her. "That is disgusting."
"That's nature, Lady Tomoe," Shizuka remarked. Then, she seemed to melt, her mouth open and her tongue hanging out.
"I need… waaaterrr," Shizuka groaned, back to her despair. She draped herself on Rowin's shoulder, her open cleavage engulfing his upper arm. "Ask one of your hidden bandit friends to carry me, would you?"
"The fact you think anyone can hide in this desolate sand," Rowin said, "makes me wonder what kind of fighter you are."
"What kind of fighter do you think I am?" Shizuka asked, rubbing her breasts against his arm. "Is this a secret technique? Can you tell?"
"I hope we find your friend quickly," Tomoe said, worriedly eyeing Shizuka.
"Why?" Rowin asked, still smiling. "You want a ride, too?"
Tomoe blushed. "That's not-" She looked past Rowin at the sky. Her eyes widened. "Those don't look like rain clouds!"
Rowin had to agree. The color of the black, smoke-like overcast was not like any thunderstorm he'd seen, at least any natural one. The feeling doubled when they spiraled overhead and started choking out the sunlight.
"Be careful," Tomoe warned them. "I sense a dark presence here."
"Run for it!" Rowin commanded. He did so, Tomoe did so, but Shizuka was blown back as the freak sandstorm descended upon them. In her weakened state, Shizuka was pulled away and swallowed up by a rapidly expanding vortex-hole in the sand. It then seemed to hungrily come for Rowin and Tomoe, growing even faster.
"Shizuka!" Tomoe cried.
"In there!" Rowin shouted, pointing at the door between the cat statues. "It's no good if we get eaten, too!"
Tomoe silently agreed and pressed on, digging her sandals into the sand and regretting her choice of wind-catching, sand-catching clothing. She never thought she'd find herself pining for the ridiculously immodest swimsuits of the continent, the ones that Shizuka had convinced her to try on when they first arrived. Nevertheless, she uttered a prayer which seemed to push back against the winds, and soon she'd joined Rowin inside the stone structure.
Panting, Tomoe untied her sash, bent over, and opened the top of her kimono. A deluge of sand poured forth, piling onto the stone blocks.
"Erm… Miss Tomoe?"
Tomoe froze. Her face redder than it had ever been, she raised her gaze to find Rowin staring down at her, looking as awkward and flustered as she was.
"AAH!" She spun around and shielded herself. "I'm so sorry!"
"You're sorry?! I'M sorry!"
"No!" Tomoe insisted. "I should've remembered I was no longer traveling with a woman!"
"Well I should've looked away when you forgot!" Rowin self-consciously countered. "You know what? Never mind! I accept your apology!"
"And I accept yours!"
There was an awkward silence between them, before both hesitantly turned. They saw the other looking over their shoulder, before both looked at the ground. It was a comedy of errors, with a magic mirror thrown in.
They pivoted on their heels and looked at each other, staring, before Tomoe broke the tension.
"We should press on." She pointed to the door at the other end of the strangely well-lit chamber they'd found themselves in, before she stopped. "Who's there?!"
Rowin squinted. There was a sinister-looking symbol above the door, like a red eyeball in the middle of a torch in the middle of a beetle, and the light it cast made the dark door even darker. However, after another try, he made out the silhouette of a woman. She stood in a black, claw-like mist, her sword held loose and her arms hanging lax.
"Is that Leina, the Wandering Warrior?" Tomoe whispered.
"Hey, that wasn't hard at all!" Rowin spread his arms and walked-
-was yanked back by Tomoe.
"Her aura is the same as the sandstorm," Tomoe said warily. She drew her sword. "This place is infested with evil."
Leina stepped into the chamber, the red light illuminating the blanched, empty tone that had infected her eyes. Her voice echoed with sorcery.
"Kneel before the power of Amara if you wish to live."