“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Came the scream, loud but flat like an old ship’s horn only the sound lasted for about a minute. From the sand ‘It’ started emerging… it was coming out at a very rapid pace of about 10 meters a second, but to the guards; whose hearts were pumping like crazy, whose veins were now filled with adrenaline instead of blood, whose brains were thumping like speakers in an EDM concert; every centimeter of giant pale cylindrical monster was emerging at a snail’s crawl. As if taunting them to attack it if they dared. It was like a 100m long and 20 m wide worm, pale white in color, shaped in layers like it was made out of twenty 20 m wide and 5 m long dough balls stuck to each other along their ends. It mouths was just a wide circle lined with what looked like red lips and layer after layer of sharp pointed teeth lined on the inside of its mouth but no one could count how many since it got dark inside its mouth after the first 16 rows.

When the monster was done emerging, 60 m of its body was out of the ground. It was like mid-sized multi storied building leaning towards them and casting a giant shadow, in front of it any man would seem insignificant. Kush looked up from his place on the ground at the bottom of the wall and was surprised. Few of the guards started to run back into rooms right behind the gates 15 m high broken and battered city walls.

For a moment he thought he might have to take up arms but just as he was about to curl his palm around Tanka…

“MEN! DON’T HOLD BACK!! IF WE GO DOWN, EVERYBODY BEHIND OUR BACKS, OUR MOTHER, FATHER, BROTHERS, SISTERS, WIFE, SONS, DAUGHTERS, FRIENDS… ALL OF THEM WILL BE DEAD. SO REMEMBER, GIVE IT YOUR ALL!!!!!” Screamed the captain ‘Ram’. He said so but he was smiling from ear to ear like a big bad wolf having seeing little red riding hood.

“I was planning on having a party with family with the food I got today!!! THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY I AM GOING TO DIE EVEN IF I DIE” screamed another fearless soldier with a smile of its face.

“Don’t forget to invite the one who got that food for you!!!” screamed Dami, having turned into a completely different person. Him and all the soldiers around him had a blood thirst expression on their face, as if they were the ones hunting not the other way around.

Kush gave a smirk thinking “Atleast the whole units not a cowa…”

Just then he heard sound of something heavy like tree trunk being dragged on the ground. He turned his head and saw the people who had gone inside were now bring out with them what looked like siege weapons. Kush’s smirk turned into a wide smile when he saw the people bring out what looked mana propelled catapults and cannons.

“Cmon bastards, the toys are out, less skewer the bastard up” screamed one of the guard who was dragging the siege weapons across the sandy ground.

There was 10 seige weapons, 4 catapults, 5 cannons and 1 trebuchet. Each larger than the other, each cannon and catapult were manned by 5 people and the trebuchet by 4 people. The guards fanned out in a radius of 1500 m.

The monster started making its way across the 1 km between the two parties at a very rapid speed. Its open mouth staying above the level of ground, but it was displacing sand and moving at an alarming speed. Just as it reached 500 m from the troops, Ram the guard captain raised his red broad-sword commanded “Cmon guys, like we have practiced a zillion time” and then swung his sword down. The sword let out what looked like a red colored gash in air and travelled at a tremendous speed as well and went on to collide with the incoming monster sending its open maw facing downwards as the monster screamed in anger.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

A bit more guttural than the one before. The hit from the captain seemed to have had no impact on the monster at all as there was no scratch on the surface of the monster’s skin, but it seemed to stalled the monster and like a bike hitting a wall, the rear end of the monster rose up just a bit above the ground bringing it huge body out of the sand enough for the first cannon to find its target.

“BOOM”

Came the sound as the cannon made its flat way across its sandy path as it cut through air 3 meters above the ground, leaving a straight trail in the ground about a foot deep and…

“BANG”

Came the sound as the part of the monster’s body above the sand was hit by the cannon ball, sending it flying, causing the monster to spin in the desert sand about the front part of its body and roll too.

But before monster could move a lot another

“BOOM”

Sounded out and a canon ball blew it higher and forced it to keep spinning, the monster mouth was in the sand, so its guttural scream couldn’t be heard. Kush was observing the whole thing and saw that the captain was already incapacitated and so were the two teams who fired the cannons due to fatigue. “Their game will have to be really solid to it take out, if they intend to take out the worm monster in that many shots”

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

“BOOM”

Then came the other three cannons. The thing about these shots were even though they lifted the monster a bit higher, making it almost vertical, they did it from almost the same spot, it was they were tenderizing the meat at the contact for a skewer. All the monster could do at this time was eat dirt and sand and scream into the ground. Just as the monster was going to fall the other way and arrow the size of a large man came screeching through air as it struck right at the same spot the three cannon balls had hit. To its rear was attached an anchor similar to one used on a ship and “SSSSHHHwwwwwwwwoooooooopp” it passed right through the monster on one side and stopped when it hit the monster’s hide on the other side, preventing it from passing right through. The anchor had three hoops on it, which seemed to be twice as large as the arrows.

“so they were trying to tenderize the meat with those 3 cannon balls huh” thought Kush to himself, impressed by the ingenuity of the plan and of course the skill of the people executing it. But just putting a man sized hole in a monster this big would not stop it.

Just as he was thinking so another three arrows came gushing through and passed through the hoops and anchored themselves deep into the ground and anchors which were larger than arrows got stuck in the hoops. Now the monster was stuck to the ground unable to move from its location. Its orientation such that the mouth was atleast 15 m below the ground level and its body vertical above the sand and anchored to the ground on all four directions.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Screamed the monster writhing from pain to having pierced through and put in such a painful position that every time it moved the main anchor pulled at the wound making it larger and making the monster bleed gree muttonous goo from it. But it’s scream was drowned out by the sand.

Ram then commanded again “Cmon guys lets nail this thing as well”

The four guys on the trebuchet were working, first guy unlocked the mechanism to anchor the trebuchet into the ground and started powering it up with mana to keep it anchored. You could see the strain in his face which was going red. The second guy lifted the projectile, which looked like a 7 m diameter sphere with rough surface like something was etched into it. He pulled out a bottle to spray some oil on its surface and then lit it. The rock projectile now looked like a sphere of fire. The third guy then started injecting mana in the release mechanism. The fourth guy then got on the turntable and started turning the trebuchet to account for the distance, moisture and wind speed. He then used something equivalent to a crosshair to identify the direction to shoot.

“MMMMMMMMMM bastard, just shoot, you wont miss a target that big” screamed the guy who was powering up the anchor

“Hehehe, brutes like you wont understand the value to finesse” smirked the shooter Satya, his eyes trained on the monster and his captain Ram standing right in front of him taking support of sword to keep himself up. He was the second in command after Ram, but he knew, that he wouldn’t be able to shoulder the responsibility should Ram ever fall.

Just as he was about to launch, he saw something the weird, the soil below the worm was generating waves, it was like, something was ripples in still water. Ram too had noticed this and was on alert, but before anyone could react, the worm monster raised a part of its head above the sand and shot a jet of sand towards trebuchet. The jet of sand mingled with the sand in the soil and created a wave of sand which was initially small but started getting bigger as it was reaching the trebuchet. By the time it reached the trebuchet, it was a huge tsunami of sand about 110 m high and 6 km wide.

The guards on the trebuchet just watched as they saw the giant wall in front of them ready to engulf them. The only point that made their hearts peaceful was, with the monster anchored the villagers will have enough time to evacuate.

Kush once again went for his axe, but stopped again with a smirk “Hmph! I like this captain…”

Just as Satya and the trebuchet group were about to meet death, Ram who was in front of them raised his sword high in the air once again, it started glowing a brighter shade of red than before. Satya too understood his captain’s intention and screamed at his teammates, “you rascals get ready, we may not get another chance. Keep the trebuchet anchored at all costs.” The team mates were puzzled but complied none the less. The anchor guy started putting in more mana in anticipation of a big crash.

‘SHEEN’ (trying to describe sound like samurai Jack took out his katana from his scabbard in front of Aku)

Ram swung his sword down screaming ‘Bleeding Rose’ and just then, a vertical slash height of 300 m and 50 m wide started from the tip of his sword and went for 50 m before dissipating, but what it had done was clear any sand from in front of the trebuchet.

Satya did not waste a single second as he reconfirmed the locked in position on the monster and launched the projectile towards the monster which sped through air producing shockwave after shockwave cause of its speed despite the massive friction on the surface of the sphere.

‘BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM’

Almost drowning out the screams of the worm monster

The patterns on the rock which made it look rough allowed air to circulate through them and gave it a rotary motion causing it to spin about a horizontal axis and

‘BOOM’

It collided with the worm, but it was still not able to pierce through. Kush thought maybe they failed but, to his surprise the rock kept spinning and spinning and like drill bit pierced through the thick hide of the monster and slammed into the other side of the worm’s body from the inside.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

The worm kept screaming from extreme pain, which was drowned out by the sand, as the projectile kept on pulling at the hide on the other side, like a trampoline sheet being pulled when a person lands on it, but only more extreme. The distortion was now getting comical, though the it just made the pain to the worm more palpable until final smell of charred flesh could be heard from the other side of the worm and the worm stopped screaming. The projectile came out of the burnt flesh of the monster and

“Splash”

Came the sound of well-cooked flesh and meat dropping on the ground, as the monster meat and blood rained on the sand. Ram dropped on his back, and laughed “WE LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY”

He then remembered about Kush and looked in his direction and saw him sitting on a pile of sand with his back to the broken and battered city wall.

Ram had expected the humongous sand tsunami the worm had thrown their way to damage the walls, but this was disastrous. Almost 30 % of the wall had developed cracks. It was not-longer safe if any monster attacks with its body. All his joy had been killed. The monster in its death throes had launched all it had towards them to destroy the entire city, this had drowned out any elation they had due to the victory. Just then he noticed, Kush’s pensive expression and that he was holding his axe in his hands. All the guards were fatigued and lying on their back from injecting mana into their respective weapons. Only a few were still standing, who did not have the job requiring exhaustion of mana. They too saw him rising slowly from his sitting position on his feet, wearing his wooden slippers. They were confused by his reaction.

The first one to realize was the captain again. As barely lifted up his head and looked in a certain direction, a direction coinciding with where Kush was looking at and screamed “Everybody evacuate the area and run into the city walls. Activate the emergency alarms and ready the siege weapons on the city walls.”

The other guards looked confused, but then they saw Kush jump in the air. Moments later, they once again saw a mountain 120 m long, 20 m longer than the previous one, rise from the sand right behind one of the crews with a cannon, tossing them in air like flicking a cockroach off a curtain. By the time the monster settled out, it had 70 m of its body out of the sand and it screamed

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

With its wide open mouth hanging above the cannon crew. They looked like they were looking right into the depth of hell, as the caustic saliva the size of a large human dropped around them, barely missing them luckily.

The couple of them who could stand on their feet still took out their Karmic powers in a vain attempt of defense. But before the monster could lower its giant maw on the guards something significantly tiny compared to its giant 25 m wide maw, entered it and…

“BOOM”

Came the sound as the Tanka slammed its blade into the maw of the giant, forcing its spine to bend backwards, till it got bent in a weird shape. The guards who were about to be eaten didn’t realize what had happened, all they did was run away ASAP. Heading towards the city, those who were fully expended were carried by their friends.

Ram was relieved on seeing his men enter the gates of the city, but he remained outside. None of the guards were aware the where the random visitor had run off to, but the captain knew. Even if his jump’s speed was invisible to naked eye, something struck Ram when he suddenly remembered the axe in the wielder’s hand and reminded of an article he had read about recently about the ‘Hero of Bhasmachal’. Even though the visitor was in a cloak, the outline was almost the right height and that axe... the ominous monolithic disproportionately large axe could not be mistaken.

He broke away from his reverie because of a gargled scream of the monster who had just attacked them. The hide of the monster seemed to stretch worse than the when it was attacked by the revolving trebuchet projectile, it seemed something was stretching it from the inside. Once it was stretched beyond a certain limit ‘Plop’ came the sound as blood and gore was splashed all across the sand in the desert and out came a figure wrapped in a cloak, wielding a giant axe in hand. The monster screamed like a banshee’s screech almost making one feel sorry for it

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

It fell to the ground, breathing in heavily. It tried to go back into the sand, retreating into the burrow it had created before sneaking onto the guards of the city. Kush turned around and saw it scurrying back, he quickly stabbed Tanka into the exit wound he had created to come out of the worm and pulled on it. The pain caused the worm to stop and scream on Kush in its vain attempt to scare him. Kush pulled on Tanka’s handle and dragged the worm out of the hole, tearing the hide and making it bigger. The worm helpless, simply let itself be killed easily. When everything was over Kush was covered in the caustic blood and saliva of the worm. The copious amounts of the saliva and blood was eating through the surface of his skin, hair on his limbs and muscles. He had probably chosen the worst way to kill the worm.

Kush then started a slow trod towards the previous location he was sitting at, his burnt thigh muscles meant he was limping was he walked. “Shit” he cursed in his heart cause of his foolishness. Now he needed to waste more time healing himself when he was rushing to Tara. The damage was serious so he had to use Tanka like a walking stick. He used the sand on various locations of his body trying to rub out the remains of the worm goo.

As he was approaching the town, he saw the top of the walls being crowded by people. Suddenly he heard cheers from people all over the town. This left him stunned, “Where were all these people in all this commotion?” he thought to himself. The guard captain came running to him and said

“Thank you for saving our town from the hands of the monster. We would have been in a pickle had it not been for you”

Kush just waved off and asked “Do you get attacked by these monsters frequently?”

They continued their walk to the wall as they discussed. Meanwhile people started coming out of the gates as they were approaching.

“Every day for the past one and half years” he said as he tried to support Kush in his trod.

Kush denied his assistance indicating he still might be covered in the worm’s fluids and asked “Why are you so laxed right now? Don’t you think they will attack again?”

“The Sand Gods don’t…”

“Gods???” asked Kush puzzled

“Ah… locals of Barmer refer to these mana beasts as Gods. They were not worshipped, but were treated as one cause of their potential threat to the town”

“Mana beasts??” Kush looked back at the corpses of the two, his mouth watering thinking of the possibilities

Snapping back to Ram he asked “So why did you guys suddenly lose tension?”

“Sand Gods are really sensitive to temperatures. They stay deep under the sand until the temperatures are conducive during the evening and at dawn.”

Kush then realized it was already dark “So what about the recent activities? Why have they been attacking you recently?”

“Sigh…” he said lamentably “even we have little understanding of the reason… this region is called the five river region or the ‘Panj-Ab’. Though it is calling it five rivers was a bit much, what we have here are four small oases and one humongous oasis. The four small oases are called Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Beas and the largest one is called Sutlej. Due to the prosperity of the region before humans and human like people settled here, it was one of the rare greenish regions in the arid desert. The solid ground in the region and the vegetation made logistics difficult, preventing urbanization… I assume you have seen the Chudan Vallam of the Marwaris”

Kush nodded. His keenness to the local history of this remote location made Ram a bit happy

“The Marwaris’ boats ensured that economy of this region remained stagnant so they took care of the requirement of the locals by taking care of governing costs of the towns like security, administration. Most people left but some people stayed back, things were moving smoothly until the Tyrese family came in a few decades back and started beaning down the allowances to us in name of remote support…”

Kush saw Ram close his fists in helpless anger until his white as snow fists became red, Ram realized he had lost his composure so he opened his fists.

“I digress… sorry. The mana beasts used to live in the green region, slowly people moved in and hunted the mana beast on the smaller oases and gained its control. Over a period of time, the balance of power was maintained and it was an unwritten rule that mana beasts stay in the larger oasis and humans/ humanoids occupy the four smaller oases. With support from the Marwaris, things were going steadily. Then year and 8 months ago people who were working near the larger oasis, Sutlej, started rushing back to the village, they were famished and dried up, like they had not had proper food for the past many months. Everybody returned back except for one. We tried understanding what happened, but it seems for some reason the oasis suddenly dried up, the emperor’s representative tried supporting the crew, but to no avail. Like I said around the oasis, the hard sand made logistics a nightmare. Resources like water cannot be transported long distance without spending humongous money. The project was called off and people were asked to manage the way home, a well-intentioned project by emperor Pruthu became a PR nightmare. The project could not be commissioned and the… people’s hopes were thwarted…” Ram said with a dejected expression

“What project was this?” Kush asked

“It was developmental project for uplifting life style for most of the town folk, we were being given free accommodation in form of… what were they called…?” he tried to recall what the developers called it

Kush then replied unprompted “Allotments” and had a concerned expression on his face.

Ram not noticing this continued “Right… ‘Allotments’. Must be quite popular, this project. I was told it has been implemented all over the Bhoomi”

Kush nodded and Ram continued “So yeah, it seems the Sutlej dried up overnight and these monsters have been attacking us ever since. We come under the Tyrese family jurisdiction, so we tried approaching them for some help with the monster situation and they have not responded yet. Life is hell nowadays in the town. I believe all four towns are facing the same difficulty”

Kush then asked “I still don’t get the scarcity of food and water”

“As per the law you see, an oasis can’t be placed within the confines of the city wall nor can you built a channel to allow water into the city directly. Our oasis Jhelum is right behind on the other side of the city and hence any cultivation and water sourcing has to be done while we defend ourselves from the monsters. We have a separate defense team. Providing for a whole town like this is practically impossible”

By now they had reached the gates. A lot of people hailed Kush as the hero for saving them and the guards along with him were given Hero’s welcome. By the time he crossed the gates, Kush saw a strapping but old man approach him. The crowd parted to allow him to approach Kush, the first thing he did when he approached Kush was bent at his waist and said “Thank you!! Thank you for saving our lives, had it not been for you, we cannot imagine what our condition would have been”

Kush, embarrassed by the grand gesture of the elderly person, grabbed him by his shoulders and raised him up. The old man saw Kush and with a beaming smile said, “It’s been a long time since I have met a chap this strong. If am not wrong, you must be Kush, I am Suresh the mayor of this town”

Kush was once again taken aback by the question and took the hoodie of his cloak off to acknowledge the old man’s conjecture. He could guess what gave him away. They went along the way and Kush saw the people in the city, their sunken cheek, cracked lips, dead eyes, wheezing breath etc. These people were famished and thirsty, they had not had a decent meal in months. Kush knew this was not something he could deal with, he was not being callous, but he had been taught that everybody has something they need to take care of themselves.

Along the way he met a few chronicalizers about to write on situation in the town, but it seemed their enthusiasm was low cause of the scale of the town. They wouldn’t get paid much for the news. But when they realized Kush had walked in the town, their hopes had perked up as they started writing their hearts out.

For the moment, Kush accompanied Suresh to his house. It was a modest house in comparison to extravagant houses he had seen, but it was bigger than his own. Kush asked the about the condition of people in the town, trying to understand the situation. It seems, all their issues stemmed from the drying up of the larger oasis which started right after the completion of the emperor provided allotment.

Things going well when suddenly someone rapped on the door hard and burst in despite the guards trying to contain her. Suresh the mayor said “Not this again!” he mild annoyance and a lot of shame.

The uninvited guest had shaggy hair, tattered dirty and disheveled clothes, she was smelly from not having bathed in long time. She fell at the mayor’s feet and started begging him “Sire, please save my Angad. Please save my Angad!! He was just a teen who went to the site for his mother, he didn’t understand the implication of working like an adult. Please save my son. I will give everything I own, I will even give you everything I was given as his salary you can have my share of the rationed food. Please just get my son back to me”

She bawled at the mayor’s feet and then passed out. Suresh quickly got up and shouted “Get the medic. She needs to be sent to the hospital” lifting her up in his arms. He rushed her to the medic.

Kush did not follow him as the mayor had requested him to stay. His wife made arrangements for his food a bit and some rest.

In his conversation with the mayor’s wife he asked about the woman. It turns out she was the mother of the man who was left behind in the construction site year and half ago. She’s been coming to the mayor ever since asking him to search for her son. The mayor did acquiesce, but the region near the oasis was dangerous. They almost lost a couple of search parties sent there for the task. But the woman was inconsolable and rushed out by herself. The guards at the gate had to tie her down just to stop her from her recklessness.

Next day Kush had decided to step out towards Udaipur, his destination and went to a merchant shop to hire another Roaring camel for the journey forward. The merchant immediately recognized him and asked him to choose any destination for free as his way of thanking him for saving the town. Kush was going to ask him for the next city he needed to visit, but just then the face of the woman from yesterday flashed before his eyes and he said “I want one which heads to the Sutlej Oasis”