Chapter 19:
Living Legends
Shortly afterwards a very queasy Nameless showed Miranda the shield and told them what Volka had said in his mind. The Aegis operative was speechless, but her reaction was nothing compared to Kala’s.
The Amazon’s spear clattering to the smooth stone of the floor as a single tear made its way down her cheek.
“Do not jest, Nameless. Not about this.” She whispered into the darkness of the underground vault.
Nameless shook his head slowly, his wide eyes on the stunned blonde.
“I would never, and that was before Escrya told us that story in the Saenga village. I would never joke about this. I-It’s what she said… she said that she was a Valkyrie.”
He held up the shield so that they could get a better look at it. It was ornate, yet crafted with function in mind. Kala gasped out a sob as she looked upon it, the first Amazon to do so in a thousand years.
Volka was silent in his thoughts again. Almost immediately after she told him what she was, she declared that she needed to rest. As she had said, her recent exertions had gravely weakened her.
Kala fell to her knees, silently weeping.
“Kid, you need to stop making the impossible possible. It’s fucking with my world-view.” Miranda muttered.
The gruff woman’s eyes were dewy as well.
Nameless considered the older woman while Ophelia handed Kala one of her many hankies.
Miranda Holt had dedicated her life to the Aegis, an organization named after the very shield in his hands. So it was understandable for her to be moved by the discovery.
“Why did you join the Aegis?”
His sudden question caught her off guard, and she tilted her head in thought as she pondered it. She considered him for a long moment; the other girls were more than a little curious as well.
“The uniform.” She said at last, then turned to place an arm over Kala’s shoulders; “You okay there babe?”
Kala’s sobbing subsided as she managed to compose herself, though she made Ophelia wince and Nina snort out a laugh when she noisily blew her nose on the dainty handkerchief.
“I am fine, my love. I am better than fine! Never would I have dreamt of such an occurrence. A Valkyrie! You say she rests?”
She got to her feet and turned to Nameless, the eagerness in her voice somewhat unsettling to the smaller man.
“Y-yeah.” Nameless stuttered.
“Then let us leave this place! Let us bring her into the light where she belongs!”
With that she turned and shouldered her way through the blasted opening and over the wreckage of the Seeker.
“Well, you heard the lady, move it people.” Miranda ordered, waving her arm after her.
Kala handed her spear to Miranda and climbed up the rope first. She then pulled them up one at a time, sweating from the exertion but in her eagerness she didn’t care. Only Nina and Milly remained at the bottom when the Amazon was finished.
“This is gunna suck.” Nina groaned.
“I’m sorry.” Milly blushed, she couldn’t climb very well with her hooves and even Kala would struggle with her weight.
“No big, see you at the top.”
Nina leaned in and kissed the front of Milly’s crotch through her jean shorts while squeezing her ass with both hands, causing the Minotaur to giggle and blush.
The climb wasn’t a problem for the powerful monster but it was awkward to do it while carrying her hammer with her off hand.
Eventually she pulled herself over the ledge at the top, took the rope from Kala and pulled Milly up.
They found Martin and Bask down a side passage they had uncovered with their digging earlier that led to a chamber that the archeologist was excited about.
“Hmph, thought you lot died.” The Trog sniffed.
“Goodness, is everyone alright?”
Martin’s distracted concern stood in contrast to Bask’s indifference.
“We’re fine. Thanks for all your help.” Miranda snapped and Martin squirmed a bit, but Bask just sniffed again; “Whatever, I’m over it. Bloodletter, get your people out and keep them out.”
“And why would I do that?” Her voice was hostile.
“Because the fucking Aegis is telling you to! I am invoking the charter. This site is now under Aegis jurisdiction.”
Bask’s eyes widened as she considered the severity of Miranda’s tone.
“Quarantined?”
“I’ll explain outside, secure your prisoners. Now.”
The lizard woman’s curiosity outweighed her irritation and so they wasted no time and they soon emerged into the light of the afternoon sun.
Nameless’s eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the brightness outside, tears welling to combat the stinging sensation of the light.
The reaction of the Troglodytes as they brought Volka into the dazzling light was much more composed than Kala’s. In fact, once Miranda told them exactly what was beneath them they were far more concerned with keeping their prisoners away from the arsenal below the sands.
Bask sprang into action, barking orders that sent Troglodyte’s sprinting in every direction to carry out her commands.
“All inmates are to be locked in their cages until further notice! If any prisoner objects, make an example for the others! I want triple head counts to account for them all! Sila! I want guards posted on this shaft day and night, four bodies per shift!”
“But what about the excavation?” Martin wrung his hands in consternation.
“This site is shut down by authority of the Aegis.” Miranda spoke first to the now-despairing archaeologist before turning to the imposing Trog; “You and your fighters are to guard this dig until such time as an ordinance disposal team can get here.”
“But! My work!” He whined.
“You can carry on your work, just not here. Unless you want to join those men in their cages?” Miranda barked.
She was in no mood to argue.
“It will be as you say Aegis.” Bask hissed.
She didn’t like having her authority usurped but she knew what was at stake. If the weapons below found their way onto the black market the consequences would be dire.
“Bask!” In desperation Martin turned to the Trog.
“Silence! The Aegis has given me an order.” She snapped at the surprised man before turning back to Miranda; “How long before your people can get here?”
“They’ll make it a priority believe me, a few months at most. Do you have enough supplies to last that long?”
“If we don’t then the prisoners will just have to start dying.” Bask shrugged.
Nameless shuddered at her callous attitude, but given what he knew about the men being herded into their cages he couldn’t muster much sympathy, he hadn’t forgotten how men like them had treated Ophelia in the woods.
“Right, in the meantime we need to gather supplies for the return trip.”
She and Bask broke away from the others, deep in conversation regarding what provisions the lizards could spare.
As they walked away, Kala couldn’t take her eyes off of Volka’s glinting shield.
She had soaked a rag from a canteen and handed it to Nameless who was cleaning the grime and dust of centuries off of it. Once he was finished as best as he could she helped him to strap it to his left arm, shifting the witch-charmed bracer to his right.
“What a sight you make, Valkyrja !”
She once more had tears standing in her eyes as the shield gleamed in the desert sun.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes I am. You sweet man! You have found something that my people have mourned the loss of for centuries. I-I am honestly unsure how I feel right now. I have so many questions!”
Ophelia placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It’s alright dearheart, feel whatever you need to feel. This is nothing any of us were expecting!”
Kala nodded, and then her eyebrows leapt into her hair.
“Wait, how are you even able to lift it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It is said that only the Valkyrie could wield their shields.”
Nameless looked down at the face of the shield and sighed.
Kala wasn’t the only one with questions.
The weary group reunited with Jan and Jez and spent the rest of the day huddled under the shade of Martin’s tents. They had been awake for nearly a full day now and needed some much needed rest.
The camp, already militaristic, was even scarier now. A few prisoners had complained about being put back in their cages and just as Bask had ordered were made examples of.
But with the men locked up and the various entrances to the dig now under heavy guard the camp eventually settled down as the sun faded and fires were lit.
When the sudden flurry of activity from the lizard women had finally ceased, Nameless had a sudden thought that was important enough to brave the ire of the Trog leader and distract from his weariness and the weight of the shield on his arm.
He left the shade of the tent and found Bask watching the setting sun at the top of the quarry along with several of her sisters.
“Um Bask?”
“What?” Her tone was cold as she looked down at the little man.
Somehow, even with the callous warriors all staring at him, Nameless found his voice.
“I w-was just wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Haven’t we done enough?”
Before he could lose his nerve he quickly explained about the mysterious Troglodyte that had saved him as a child, but her look had turned to one of amusement.
“We don’t all know each other softskin.”
“No o-of course not! But I just thought that maybe…” He trailed off, realizing that he wasn’t sure what he had thought.
She considered him for a moment, and then shared a glance with one of her sisters. Privately she admitted to herself that it was pretty ballsy of him to just walk up by himself and start talking to them at random.
Trogs respected strength, and not just physical strength, so she decided it cost her nothing to offer him some insight.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, except for maybe one thing. Iron stud in her ear?”
Nameless nodded in earnest before she continued.
“The mark of a life-debt. It seems your father did her a great service somehow and she swore herself to him until she could repay him.”
“So, he tamed her?”
She snorted while the other Trog’s hissed in amusement.
“Ha! No, if that were the case then she wouldn’t have needed to mark herself in his service. Whoever she was, she held her stone still.”
Nameless nodded, it was more information than he had before.
“Thank you.”
He turned to go back down into the quarry, the Trogs’ eyes following him for a moment. Bask speculated as to what the hell made the little runt so special to earn the hearts of so many women, but then she glanced down at the shield on his arm and had to admit that finding a lost Valkyrie was pretty damn special.
His girls and Miranda had been looking for him, and met him at the top of the quarry but before they went back down there was a great rumbling from the sands beneath their feet.
“Ah not again!” Nina groused.
Jubby burst out of the sand in the center of the group, scattering the travelers and the Trogs with her bulk. She kept her front section pointed skywards as her segmented jaws parted and her nude tongue slipped out, arms outstretched as she slapped her hands to her cheeks and shot out a spurt of water from her lips.
“I found water for you! I told you I would!” She exclaimed.
The worm-like creature was oblivious to the stunned Troglodytes surrounding them or the chaos that her abrupt arrival had caused.
There was a sloshing sound coming from her mouth and her hair was slicked back by more than just her own saliva. It was readily apparent that her entire mouth was full of precious water.
Of the lizard girls, Bask was the first to recover, though her demeanor had shifted to near-reverence.
“By the scales of the Great Mother, a Tarkona !” She addressed Jubby with respect in her voice; “Greetings sand-sister, I never thought to see a Sandworm in this life, my grandmother told me many stories of your kind!”
“That’s nice, look guys I found water!”
She splashed her precious payload at Nameless and company, barely acknowledging Bask at all.
Almost immediately Nameless spotted the many jagged bits of metal and the awful burns along her carapaced side.
“Jubby, what happened to you?”
“What happened is I found water, just like I said, now… show me the grey lady’s penis!”
She pronounced the last bit as if it were an order from on high, one hand gesturing imperiously at Miranda and with her chin held high, and then she giggled and blushed.
Nina and Erica both laughed and the Katje added her voice to Jubby’s.
“Yeah Miranda, whip it out!”
The Aegis operative glared at her.
It took a little convincing but eventually a very disappointed Jubby came to understand that Miranda did not in fact, have a penis.
After the hubbub had died down and introductions were made, Bask had her sisters store the valuable water from Jubby’s mouth. Then the Trogs moved their cook fires up to share a meal with the legendary Tarkona .
To them Jubby was even more impressive than Volka. And after a good long sulk at Miranda’s genital situation, Jubby had quickly set her sights on the only male not spoken for or caged in the dig-site below.
She and Martin chatted excitedly, her pink tongue resting on her elbows at the bottom of her mouth while he sat just on the edge of her armoured outer jaw.
As an archeologist he found her insight into the desert floor fascinating, and as a lonely monster girl she found his crotch just as fascinating.
Even Nameless recognized the signs in her: her pink skin was flushed and she was biting her bottom lip while Martin spoke.
Which is why he wasn’t surprised in the least when she suddenly flew out of her mouth and seized him and dragged him inside, her segmented jaws closing behind her.
Bask and the other Trogs all paused for a couple of seconds, then shrugged and went back to eating, though the leader’s gaze lingered on the Sandworm for several seconds.
“So we’re not leaving tonight?” Jan asked.
She sat with Jezebel dozing in her lap. The frog had recovered much from her ordeal but still tired easily.
Miranda shook her head.
“No, I spoke with Bask and with Jubby. The Trogs are going to give us the provisions we need and the big girl is going to carry us across the desert in the morning.”
“That’s… awfully generous of them.” Erica’s voice was skeptical.
“It really isn’t.” Miranda shook her head; “Bask and her people are stuck here until the Aegis arrive so it is in their best interest to gear us up and get us out of here as quickly as possible. And Jubby owes us big time for the whole leaving us for dead in the desert thing.”
“I suppose.” The Katje glanced over at Jubby’s mouth again.
__________
“Er, Jubby? Not that I don’t appreciate a closer look at your anatomy, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
Martin was lying flat on his back on the bottom of her fleshy mouth, his glasses askew while the muscled tongue that was Jubby hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt, her wet body draped over him.
“Second man in a week I get my mouth on, no way he’s getting away.” She muttered to herself, intent on disrobing him.
“Er, the thing is Jubby, I already have someone, so-”
“WHAT!? You’re bonded too!?” She wailed.
Her fingers halted in their work as she pulled herself off of him and clasped both hands to the sides of her head in anguish.
He squirmed underneath her, his eyes looking away from her face.
“Well, not exactly , it’s more of a- well it’s a bit of a crush, you see.”
“A crush.” Her words came out flat.
He nodded.
“I’ve been wandering the sands for two and a half centuries looking for a mate, and you want me to back off… because of a crush?”
“Er, well… if you don’t mind?”
“Who?” She demanded; “Who is this bitch that you won’t fuck me over?”
“Well now, no need for name-calling.”
She glared at him, pinned to the floor as he was he could do nothing but answer her question.
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, that’s easy to fix.”
__________
Bask and the others lingered by the fires, still working at their meals, the Trog’s thoughts were dark. The Aegis showing up was a pain in the ass and now they had to stop digging, which left the prisoners at loose ends, never a good thing. That, and Martin had been gobbled up by the Tarkona and she had to fight down a surge of jealousy. Though she wasn’t entirely sure who she was jealous of…
Most of the others around the fires had forgotten about the scatter-brained archaeologist entirely by that point but they remembered right quick when the Sandworm suddenly reared up and opened her mouth to engulf the startled Troglodyte leader.
The people around the fire once more looked at each other, then resumed eating.