Sand Raiders

By TS Porter

Maika is the right hand and occasional lover of the notorious sand raider known only as the Dust Rider. When they raid a caravan he expects the usual bounty of food and gunpowder. He does not expect Dani, the beautiful, stubborn gardener delivering fruit trees to a prince's pleasure garden, but he's happy to take both plants and man back to the sand raider's 'castle' carved into the red rock canyons.

Though Dani seems far from happy at being a prisoner, and definitely does not want to draw the Dust Rider's wrath by getting too close to her lover, he enjoys the challenging gardens he's given to tend and is not indifferent when Maika comes to visit. Maika dares to hope Dani can see past the dust and demons and give Maika and the sand raiders a chance to be home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TS Porter
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463334461

Book preview

Sand

RAIDERS

TS PORTER

Maika is the right hand and occasional lover of the notorious sand raider known only as the Dust Rider. When they raid a caravan he expects the usual bounty of food and gunpowder. He does not expect Dani, the soft, beautiful, stubborn gardener delivering plants to a prince's pleasure garden, but he's happy to take both plants and man back to the sand raider's home.

Though Dani is far from happy at being a prisoner, and definitely does not want to draw the Dust Rider's wrath by getting too close to her lover, he enjoys the challenging gardens he's given to tend and does not seem indifferent when Maika comes to visit. Maika dares to hope Dani can see past the dust and demons and give Maika and the sand raiders a chance to be home.

Sand Raiders

By TS Porter

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Laura Garland

Cover designed by Natasha Snow

This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

Second Edition August 2019

First edition published by Less Than Three Press, LLC

Copyright © 2019 by TS Porter

Printed in the United States of America

For Hannah Ashley - aka MJ

<3

Sand

RAIDERS

No chosen assassin of the Order of Dokriga had failed in a thousand years.

Three kingdoms pooled their resources to offer the price. Payment was brought and agreed upon, and fire-blackened knucklebones that had once been the hand of a king were cast on the table to see if the fates smiled upon the effort. They rolled to a stop in an indisputable 'yes'. The contract to kill the sand raider known only as the Dust Rider was accepted, and money passed hands. It was fated now. The Dust Rider would fall to an assassin of the order.

The Order was gathered, from the youngest apprentices to the most venerable teachers; from promising children inducted into their ranks to those who could trace their bloodlines unbroken through the Order of Dokriga beyond the devastation and their thousand years of success; from farmhands and laundresses to clerks and clerics and all ranks in between. They were alike only in the teachings they all studied, the violent purpose they all knew they might someday be chosen to perform. They dressed in heavy hooded cloaks the color of dust and sand, unknown even to each other. They circled in silence in the sand wastes. The bones were spun three times more, until they came to rest at one unknowable figure's feet.

The fates had chosen their assassin.

The Order of Dokriga drifted away in silence, back to their homes and families, the normal lives they lived, leaving only the chosen. The cloaked figure sank slowly down to kneel in the sand.

The chosen assassins of Dokriga never failed, but no target was killed by will of the fates alone.

There was a great deal of planning to do.

*~*~*

Maika led the ground raid through the caravan, slogging across the sand and breathing carefully through the fabric across his nose and mouth. He kept a gun in his right hand and a sharp sword in his left, and he killed anyone who resisted. The sand was sticky with the spray of blood, the air full of dust and the broken screams of the dying.

Dust demons tore open packs, strewing goods everywhere to be picked through at leisure. They shrieked and devoured anything unprotected—sucking up every last vestige of moisture and leaving behind dust. The demons were forever changing, coalescing into giant, twisting, many-limbed shapes of dust and wind, breaking apart into many smaller demons that would almost look human if they were opaque.

This had been a big caravan, fat and slow with the sand sledges, ripe for the picking. Their hired guards had been nothing before the sand raiders and the dust demons that now ringed them so none could escape. Maika shouted orders, spreading fighters through the caravan to gather up the plunder.

A sharp whistle caught his attention, and Maika looked up to the Dust Rider. Lavrenti lounged on a towering dust demon's broad shoulder, keeping watch over everything from a safe distance, all tall leather boots and long rifle beside the huge demon's ever-twisting face. Lavrenti pointed two fingers to the south, thumb down, indicating a problem. Maika nodded his understanding and broke into a careful jog across the loose sand.

The problem was a small man, arms spread as he chanted a ward against the dust demons. He protected one small sledge and its contents, but the beast that had pulled it had gotten too close to the demons. It was nothing but desiccated bones and dust now. Lavrenti could easily command the dust demons to crush the small man as well, but not without destroying whatever was in the sledge. He might last hours before his power failed, and they did not have hours to wait.

A magical ward was no protection against another human, though. Maika stepped through into the still air that surrounded the man and his sledge, and the man's steady incantation faltered into an adorable squeak. The ward held—he had some presence of mind even as he trembled and stared up at Maika. Maika knew the picture he made: pistol in one hand and blood-drenched sword in the other, covered in dusty fabric so only his deep brown eyes showed. He could have shot the little man and let the dust demons strip him to bones and dust.

Not the plants. The man lifted his frightened eyes to meet Maika's. Not my plants; don't let the demons kill my saplings... It took a special kind of person to first beg for something other than their life, and Maika hesitated. He didn't raise his gun as he stepped closer.

Please, I'm harmless. I'm bringing a gift to the palace of the Pivael. Fruit trees for the prince's pleasure garden. Don't hurt my trees.

Oh, he certainly was a gift. He was soft and delicate, round in the best sort of way with gleaming golden brown skin touched with a faint dusting of freckles across his nose. His eyes were narrow and beautiful, bright shining bronze with a touch of gray-green hazel. His lips were a soft pink bow. Pretty