Just going to make sure I can write better than an AI. I'm going to see if I can write out a 6,000 word sword and sorcery story which is mildly superior to what an AI bot can generate.
**A Pulp Fantasy Adventure in the World of Xoth!**
**Chapter One: Sands of the Outcast**
Dor Stryker was three days out from the city and already her
hill-cat was not responding to the lotus blossom. The Western Desert's furnace-like heat sucked
the potency from the herb, promising the imminent return of her hill-cat's
savage nature. Soon, the Grand Inquisitor's death mark would be the least of
her worries. A hill-cat, freed from the lotus's hypnotic grip, was a whirlwind
of claws and fangs that could bring down four seasoned warriors. Yet, with the
Inquisitor's hounds on her trail, she'd had no choice but to seize the nearest
mount and bolt from the palace before dawn painted the Zorab mountains. Now,
the beast twitched beneath her sweat-slicked thighs, a low growl rumbling in
its throat, its amber eyes burning with feral discontent.
Her fall from grace had been as swift and brutal as her rise
to Chief Executioner. The whimpering of those sent to her for dispatch had
never bothered Dor. Xoth was a world that offered no tears for the damned. But
when they dragged a Sword-Sister before her, one of the elite warrior women who
had shaped her as a child, Dor refused. The Inquisitor's favor be damned; she
would not betray her sacred oath.
So she fled. Through the Ash Gate. Under a merciless sun hammered onto an ocean-blue sky. and into the great gold expanse of the Western Reaches. All this atop a beast subdued only by the fleeting magic of the lotus flower. The irony was a bitter draught on her weary heart.
Dor looked over her shoulder again. Still only her tracks leading back the way she
had come were visible against an empty sky. The madness of thirst gnawed at her
throat, and the vast silence scattered her thoughts like lizards fleeing the
sun. She glanced at her tattered leathers, stained crimson from her bloody
escape, and the notched sword half-buried in its battered saddle-holster. Notched
in many places. It bore mute testament to the violence of her escape.
Then, a glint on the horizon—sunlight on steel. The brutal
bloodhounds of Dipur looking to close the gap and bring Dor to heel! Dor's jaw
clenched, her cramped hands rehardened their grip on the battle-cat’s fur.
“Not today.”
She struck her booted toes into the war-cat's flanks,
coaxing a reluctant, loping stride from the beast. Her black hair whipped
across her face as she guided the growling cat down the face of the dune.
“I will not be taken!”
Dor looked left and right, the lofty tops of the dunes now
hid her from anyone’s distant gaze. Dor could not be sure those on her trail
were Dipurian regulars. The desert held other dangers. The Khazraj nomads,
opportunistic wolves whose territory Dor now crossed, tolerated no trespassers.
Yes, the Khazraj loathed the Inquisitor, but they wouldn't hesitate to trade a
fugitive for the right amount of his gold. None in the wild desert could truly
be considered a friend, and not an enemy. Only the Church of the Sword Sisters
offered true sanctuary to her. Not just sanctuary, but a chance to reclaim her
name and resist the Inquisitor's lust and fury.
The dunes whispered secrets older than empires and Dor
listened, sniffed, for in the waste every breath, sound, scent held a hint of
salvation or doom. Suddenly, a yelp cracked the air. She resigned herself to
the fact she would not outrun those on her trail. She forced the hill-cat into
the shadow of a jagged outcrop. The beast growled sickly, foam flecking its
muzzle. She scanned the horizon with bright green eyes, red-rimmed from
exhaustion. No point reaching for her waterskin; it was as dry as the desert
wind.
Then she saw them. A shimmer—a mirage—resolving into tall,
masked figures wrapped in cloth the color of moonlit stone. The Khazraj! A
cohort of robed marauders. Their raids were the stuff of nightmares, writing in
blood and sand the boundaries of their domain.
A lusty chorus split the air as the marauders, riding atop their
fierce sand-wolves, spotted Dor. She slid from the cat's back, landing in the
scorching sand, her mind a maelstrom of desperation and grim hope. She pulled
out her battered blade. She would have to find a way to sway this forced meeting
in her favor or die trying.
She tied back her black hair, revealing the long scar from
ear to neck. This, her "gladiator's" nose, and a chin too strong for
delicate beauty, were all that marred her panther-like grace and smoldering
intensity.
The nomads fanned out, eight in total, their leather-skinned
mounts snorting, mad for the scent of Dor's exhausted cat. One rider halted and
raised a fist. The rest stopped. The leader, cloaked in white linen and golden
felt, dismounted and handed the reins to an attendant. A silver scimitar
glinted in their golden sash.
"Few seek the Khazraj in their lands, stranger,"
the leader's voice rasped, seasoned by sand and sour wine. "Only the mad,
or the desperate. Which are you?"
Dor's mouth twisted, too dry to smile. "Then I must be
very fortunate...or very dangerous."
"We have no love for city dogs. But neither do we
suffer the insolence of a Sword Sister, a marked one at that!" the
leader's voice boomed. "What brings you to the wastes, woman—as
executioner or exile?"
“Rumor flies fast on the winds of Al-Tawir.” Dor raised her
chin. "A thief of kings told me the desert alone decides who belongs. I've
lost everything but my way. I seek my kinswomen who speak the riddle of steel.
Perhaps… you." The wide eyes of the raider, surprise clearly written on
their face, visible even beneath their desert coverings, brought Dor up short,
a threat foolishly forgotten in the moment breaking into awareness. The blow
from the hill-cat struck like thunder against her back.
The brutal strike thrust her into the burning sand
sprawling, her sword rent from her grasp by the ferocity of the blow.
Desperately fighting to reclaim her breath, Dor could feel the hot gore pour
from her back, her leather cuirass cut to ribbons by the enraged cat’s claws.
Completely loosed from the controlling narcotic used to make riding beasts of
the wild cats, it fell on Dor, the nearest source of its frustration and rage.
A lusty cry came up from the cruel desert warriors, taking
glee in the raucous turn of events. Dor could hear their oaths; wagers placed
on the outcome of the lop-sided contest developing as she lay stunned in the
dust. She fumbled for her boot knife, her blood falling from her back in big
drops. If she didn’t find her feet in an instant she was sure to go down
beneath the red-flecked fangs of the savage mountain predator. Blade in hand
Dor desperately sprung upwards, but to no avail. Like liquid lightning the cat
hurled itself onto Dor. Its razor-toothed maw crunching heavily on Dor’s
shoulder plate. Dor could smell its rancid breath as it hungrily chewed for her
neck.
Unable to rip through the armor plate, the dark-furred
hill-cat reared back its head, red mouth wide, black lips curled, intent on
crushing Dor’s head in its merciless jaws. Dor twisted, striking her knife
backhanded into the cat’s throat.
It squealed in anger; it roared in pain. The cat’s powerful
hindquarters raked Dor’s exposed midriff and her thighs. Dor groaned in agony
at the wounds but strove to drive her knife further into the cat’s blood-soaked
neck. It gave a raspy roar and stiffened against Dor’s bruised body. Falling,
it pinned Dor beneath its now lifeless bulk.
The nomads were struck dumb for a moment. Curses went up
from those who wagered the wrong side. Which was most of them. It seemed only
the leader, the one in rich linen and gold, backed Dor’s position and now
clucked with undisguised glee as they held out their hand for payment on the
quickly resolved wager.
“A rotten dog of a trick!” spat one of the Khazraj. A lean,
heavily tattooed desert wolf in a green turban and red vest. “You cheated me!”
he yelled at Dor, with no shred of evidence. But such details are easily lost
on the rabid fury of a desert dweller who believes they have been swindled. The
reaver dismounted his sand-wolf and rushed towards Dor, still caught helpless
beneath the dead bulk of the hill-cat. Ripping a curved blade from his leather
breeches, the enraged nomad lunged to cut out Dor’s throat, but before the
deadly blade could descend and finish Dor here in the sands a shaft sprouted
from his neck. The arrow bobbed up and down as the nomad’s jaw chewed
reflexively, gasping for air amid the choking blood pouring from the fatal
wound. He fell, after one more step, lifeless on top of the hill-cats corpse,
adding his weight to that already pinning Dor.
“For the silent blessings of Al-Tawir, am I to be ground
like meal between the millstones?” Dor waved her arms ludicrously as she tried
to wiggle out from the dead pile of man and beast as the sounds of battle
swelled around her.
