by Keith Ahrens
STOLEN LIVES
©2020 KEITH AHRENS
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Contents
ALSO IN SERIES
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Glossary of Terms, Phrases, and Miscellaneous Datum
Notes
ALSO IN SERIES
Groups where you can find Keith
LitRPG
ALSO IN SERIES
STOLEN LIVES
DRAWING THE LINE
Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.
—Winston Churchill
Prelude
(Underhill) Several Months in the Past
A single figure struggles to his feet, coughing up a mouthful of blood and dirt. He moves slowly, sweat and blood dripping from his face. Dull rays of sunlight filter through the suffocating dust, glinting off the keen-edged steel in his hand. Looming over him, barely visible in the nebulous atmosphere, stands a creature born to inspire dread. The broken ends of two spears jut from its flank as sluggish, deep crimson blood flows from its wounds. A heavy snort comes from its bovine snout, causing the gold ring pierced through its septum to rattle. The pale afternoon sun silhouettes the beast’s eight-foot humanoid frame and casts a shadow many times its size over the miniature form at its feet.
“You've fought well, for a human, but it is time for me to end this and move on to the next fight.” With a grunt, it hefts its giant hammer up onto its right shoulder, attempting to hide the effort it takes as it tries to make the move look casual. The chipped iron of the hammerhead is dulled by crimson stains and small shards of bone stuck to it. The skillful action is ruined by the hollow thud of the hammer glancing off one of its horns, coupled with the grunt of effort escaping its mouth. Blood drips slowly off the maul onto the beast’s shoulder.
Unsteady on his feet, the human staggers a step or two, still trying to catch his breath. His right hand wraps around his left ribs, and he grimaces while panting. A short, sharp cough has him doubled over again. The beast watches, impassive, as the human struggles to draw a full breath. Only his hoof pawing at the ground belies his impatience.
A slight groan accompanies a much smaller cough, followed by a wad of spit and blood hitting the dirt. The man glances up at the much taller figure, almost as an afterthought, and raises his left hand to extend his index finger in the universal gesture of 'wait a minute.'
The beast snorts again, this time in mild amusement. Its horns dip in a small nod. “Catch your breath, little human. Savor it, for it will be your last in this lifetime.”
A few moments pass, and his breathing gets a little less ragged. Then, continuing to make no effort to speak, the human simply turns his hand around and switches fingers, this time in a much different universal sign. With a smirk, he lets himself fall backward onto the hard-packed dirt, sending up more dust into the air. The minotaur expels a large puff of air, his eyes flashing as he grabs the worn wooden grip of his weapon in both hands and starts forward.
Before he can even raise the hefty maul off his shoulder, two other humans rise from the blinding dust, just behind the massive beast. With exhausted shouts of effort, the two men leap high into the air, arms outstretched above them. Each one grabs a thick horn with both hands and then lets their momentum swing them forward. The combined weight of the two humans, along with their heavy armor, swiftly drags the creature forward and down.
As the bull-man drops his hammer and tries to put his hands out to break his fall, its eyes widen in surprise.
In a flash, the man on the ground lifts the tip of a broken spear shaft and digs the butt end into the hard ground. The minotaur and the two men scream in unison, yet for very different reasons. The speed and force at which they drag him down doesn't give the beast any chance to catch himself, much less stop what’s coming as the men hang on to his falling body for dear life.
The two humans hit the ground and slide forward, dragging the horned head with them. The jagged end of the broken spear punches through the thick lower jaw and straight up into the brain of the great beast. The rest of its tremendous bulk crashes to the ground, snapping what’s left of the spear into several pieces and crushing the smaller human underneath.
Several moments pass as the minotaur's legs continue twitching and kicking the ground, causing more dust to fly up and fill the air. Finally, it ceases, and a long silence covers the area.
“Dammit… I think I broke my ass when we hit the ground,” the man named Des says with a slight Southern drawl.
The two men begin laughing and coughing on the dust until the coughing overtakes the laughter.
“When you two jackasses are finished, maybe you can get these seven hundred pounds of hamburger off of me,” comes a strained voice from underneath the general area of the minotaur's head.
This sets off a fresh fit of chortling and hacking.
“I'd love to help, Sarge, but I seem to be pinned under a horn at the moment,” replies the man with the Southern accent. “How about you, Kenny? Ken?”
Scuffling boots in the hard-packed ground and grunti
ng comes from the other side of the dead beast. With a tired grunt and a rough shove, the head and horns tilt briefly, and the third man rolls out from under the corpse. He slowly gets to his feet and begins knocking dirt out of his armor. “Here. I'm here. Half-crushed by a dead minotaur, bruised and filthy, but still here.” He reaches up and adjusts the metal plates of his shoulder armor but gives up when he realizes they are hopelessly warped and misshapen. “Just a minute, I'll try to dig you guys out.”
As he finishes speaking, the dusty air suddenly flashes with a suffocating green light all around them.
“Oh, shit! Did we just get picked again!? Quick, get us out!” shouts the Sergeant as he struggles to free himself.
A tired and resigned sigh comes from Ken. He glances at the inside of his left wrist, the way someone would check a watch. “Well, shit. Sorry, fellas, no time for digging. Why don't you guys catch a quick rest; I got this round.”
“What? No! Ken, get me out of here. You can't fight them alone!”
“Don't worry, Des. You can get the next one.” Ken unhooks a crescent-bladed ax from his shoulder harness and swings it back and forth to loosen up his arm.
Mere yards away, four thick, almost obese, towering forms march forward through the polluted air. The lead figure grunts something in a loud, porcine way, making the other three laugh and snort. As the dust clears, the leader adopts a serious expression and points at Ken with grim authority. Without hesitation, two of the other large humanoid figures begin to charge forward with their weapons raised, squealing battle cries.
Ken waits a beat and then moves with near-inhuman quickness. Springing forward in a graceful leap, he lands sure-footed right into the path of his attackers. A fast dodge to the left and forward takes him inside the effective swing of the studded club. It misses braining him by mere inches.
Swinging his ax as hard as he can, he lets out his own fierce war cry. The razor-sharp blade finds its target with a meaty thud against the tibia, just below the ogre’s right knee. Thick, brownish-red blood sprays as the leg splits apart from the body. Bits of bone and sinew scatter onto the blood-clotted dust behind it.
Ken continues to move with the momentum and drops to one knee, sliding across the hard dirt. He buries the head of the ax into the ground, arresting his movement like an anchor and allowing him to spin a bit more than ninety degrees. Hopping back up to both feet, he lands in a balanced fighting stance, ready to take on the next attacker.
The second combatant is already jaunting toward him, swinging his heavy, studded cudgel. Ken swings to intercept the club, and the ax bites deep. Despite the force of the blow, it doesn't manage to cleave the weapon as it did to the leg but instead stays lodged in the hardwood. His opponent grunts in a very piggish and surprised way and struggles for control of the trapped weapons.
More out of brute strength than any finesse, it manages to twist the ax from Ken's hands and toss both locked weapons away. Moving much faster than is fair for a creature of its size, the ogre latches its clawed, green-hued paws onto the human's shoulders. Before Ken can react, the creature spins him around and pulls him into a bear hug after lifting him off the ground. Ribs crack as all the air explodes from his lungs.
Relying on the steel of his helmet, Ken rocks his head back as hard as he can, smashing into the creature's enormous snout and tusks. A large tooth snaps with a noisy crack, followed by a second, wetter fracture as the cartilage in its truncated nose shatters. Viscous blood splatters his helmet, along with a flap of scaled, green skin. The creature's grip slackens, and Ken lands on his feet, his hand already reaching for the sword sheathed at his side.
Unseen by Ken, the wounded, one-legged ogre on the ground behind him recovers faster than anticipated. It snatches at the human's ankle, knocking him off-balance. With his sword only half-drawn, Ken pitches headlong, trying to catch his balance, his arms spinning in a windmill-like fashion as he tumbles across the ground. In the mayhem and the blinding dust, he never sees the club coming for him.
At the same moment, the Sergeant manages to pull himself just far enough out from under the minotaur's lifeless body to see his friend catch a brass-studded club to the forehead. A sickeningly loud snap echoes through the small clearing. Helpless, Sarge can only watch as Ken is blasted from his feet. The force of the hit throws his broken body into a boneless, graceless backflip. He hits the ground like a ragdoll, rolls once, then remains quiet and unmoving.
With quick resolve, Sarge compresses his white-hot rage into an ice-cold ball of controlled anger. Years of soldiering and leading men in battle have taught him how to control and channel his pain. With a roar, he kicks the minotaur's head off his legs, freeing the other man trapped with him. The Sergeant springs to his feet and draws two long fighting blades from his belt. He falls into a loose fighting stance, his dark brown eyes flashing with concentrated hatred as Des joins him, broadsword in hand.
“Ogre… you just fucked up real bad.”
1
It’s a busy night, and the dispatcher is going hoarse from calling units. Only halfway into our evening shift, my partner and I have already had a full night. Our dinner sits ignored on the dashboard of the ambulance, cooling and congealing as it slowly turns inedible. The dispatcher informs us we are responding to a twenty-year-old male who is off his psychiatric meds and known to be violent. Oh, yeah, and he hates cops. Lucky for us, our dark blues look a lot like cop uniforms. And of course, when you’re hallucinating and you’ve got your hate on, anyone in a uniform resembles an officer.
The rain is heavy, and the clouds obscure the full moon as we pull up to a dilapidated ranch-style home in a rundown neighborhood. It’s the type of ‘hood where the bars on the windows and doors aren’t just for show. The house is dark, and the streetlights had been shot out a long time ago. My partner stops the truck in front of the address, and I get out, Maglite in hand. I hear a sound, mostly drowned out by the rain, but dismiss it because I can't pinpoint it over the steady din of the downpour and the wind. I slam the door shut after I step out into the driving rain, pointing my powerful flashlight at the house.
Focusing my listening to ignore the rain, I turn off my portable radio to cut down on some of the background noise. Then, I hear it again, still muffled, but an insistent and repetitive, “No, no, no, no, no.”
I shine my flashlight at some thick bushes off to my right and squint into the rain. Now I see him, a large figure slowly standing up to his full height. His hair is greasy and matted down from the rain, and his left hand covers his mouth. He’s shirtless, wearing only boxer shorts that have seen better days. His right hand is behind his back, and his eyes stare past me, glazed over, as he continues to mutter, “No, no, no, no,” over and over.
Taking a wildly intuitive guess, I’m pretty sure that we've found our patient. I wince to myself as he takes a slow, barefoot step forward into a deep, freezing puddle. The temperature outside has been hovering just above freezing this late into October. I make a mental note to check his fingers and toes for frostbite as I continue to size up the scene.
Just then, the front door of the house opens, and a silhouetted figure calls out, “Y’all be careful now, he got them demons in his head again! He gonna fight y’all!” The door slams shut, punctuating the cautionary figure's last words.
I look back at the disheveled man. Chagrined, I notice his eyes have finally focused in my direction. His shoulders square up, and he stands taller as he begins to breathe a little faster. This is what we in the field call an aggressive posture.
Violence usually isn’t far behind this, so I attempt to calm the situation. “Hey, guy," I call out as I wave my free hand in a placating gesture, "what’s your name? I’m Caleb, but everyone calls me Cal. I’m just here to help. Can we talk?” I use my calmest, most soothing tone.
He continues to stare, cold and menacing, still muttering in a monotone voice. Not good. He takes another step toward me.
“Come on, mister, nobody wants to fight tonight; just tak
e a deep breath and talk to me.”
He shows no response other than mumbling unintelligibly as he shuffles forward. This is not going well. I shift my feet to bring my center of balance a little lower and wider. My right hand clutches the Maglite protectively out in front of me, raised to shoulder height.
“All right, guy, why don’t you just have a seat right there on the ground? And show me your hands, please… I’m not gonna fight you, but you need to stop coming at me…” I click my radio back on. I make a mental note to thank dispatch for not mentioning the patient was six-foot-three, two-sixty pounds, and mostly naked.
Finally, he shows some sign of acknowledgment that I'm in front of him. He stops moving and slowly smiles, making deliberate eye contact with me. His right hand emerges from behind his back in a steady and slow manner to reveal a thick, pointed blade. The water drips from the stained edge as it flashes in the strobe lights of our ambulance.
“You ain't gonna take me again, Pig!”
Take him again? I've never even met this guy before. And 'pig,' seriously? Clearly, he’s trapped in his mind in a world of his own.
The police are still about five minutes out, and he is about ten feet away, so the math doesn't look good for me. Keep in mind, our department bans us from carrying weapons. Luckily for me, a Maglite is not considered a weapon, just a standard-issue flashlight.
