Trav began hearing strange noises about halfway back to the surface. All he could make out was muted, disjointed, distant, but his stomach dropped out. Something was definitely wrong. Had the Dacith finally gotten tired of just threatening? Had they actually attacked the slaves en masse? Trav began running, moving at a reckless speed through the tunnels.
The sounds he was hearing grew louder, and he somehow moved with more speed. When he started approaching the mine’s entrance, he turned off his darksight ability from habit. Finally, he burst out of the mine’s entrance and gaped in shock. What greeted his eyes was a scene he could have never imagined.
The Kin were under attack...from humans. He could only catch glimpses of the fighting, but what he saw was surreal. Men and women in Eastern-looking clothing fought toe to toe with some of the Kin, moving with inhuman speed and strength. Trav could only imagine that these were the Cultists the Kin grumbled about from time to time. Humans can fight the Kin!? Wait, where did these guys even come from?
An explosion in the distance brought Trav back to his immediate situation, and he finally registered all the noise around him. His eyes lowered, and he beheld pure chaos. Slaves and Kin ran everywhere, panicked. The crude ghetto that the slaves lived in was spread out around Trav, all the roads leading to the mines. The crude shacks were not much to look at, just cheap wood with hammocks strung inside, but some had been destroyed, and others were on fire. The thin, dry wood was going up like tinder.
Kin guards, easily recognizable in grey vests, directed screaming slaves away from the mines. One, a huge, leather-skinned, frog-featured ogre bellowed and casually back-handed a slave forward. The slave, an old woman, hit a wall and fell limp to the ground. The guard didn’t even notice that he’d killed her; the beast had already turned away.
Trav felt the deeply buried rage flare. He started forward, about to do something stupid, when he was tackled to the ground by something. In a panic, he pushed away, his hands touching something soft, and quickly realized he’d been knocked down by another slave, a woman wearing the same type of mottled rags he was. She was pretty, sobbing, and young—-probably a teen. Her blonde hair was wild, chopped short like many of the slave women kept it. She was tall for an Asgard woman, maybe 5’6”. The woman’s chocolate-brown eyes met Trav’s from behind a veil of tears.
The way the woman’s clothes felt reminded Trav of his first day on Asgard. When Trav had first been captured, the Kin had stripped him and destroyed his old clothes.
Between the memories, the scattered fires filling the late-afternoon sky with smoke, and the explosions nearby rocking the ground, Trav didn’t recover as fast as he normally would. He didn’t even register he was still holding the girl up by her breasts until she was pulled off him by another figure. He blearily looked up and blinked, realizing that a Kin woman was holding the slave girl by the wrist.
The Kin woman’s mouth moved with no sound for a moment, then the din of the surrounding violence came rushing back. “—to get out of here!” screamed the inhuman woman. She grabbed Trav’s shoulder and pulled the unfamiliar slave. “We don’t have any time to—”
A giant pillow made of hot blankets knocked Trav through the air, and his head spun like he was underwater. He hit the ground rolling and heard a voice at the back of his mind, something he had not experienced in a long time. The words came faintly but resonated with power.
GET UP, FOOL! BE STRONG! USE YOUR PAIN!
The voice made something inside Trav snarl, and he sprang to his feet. His ears rang, and he had to hold his head for a moment, but then he stumbled forward. It took a moment to realize he’d been thrown a fair distance back into the mine shaft he’d just come out of. He was lucky he hadn’t split his head open. Stones and sediment were beginning to fall; the waning light from outside dimmed as the rubble fell faster.
Trav had seen enough cave-ins to know what was about to happen. He made a split-second realization based on previous experience—he wouldn’t be able to escape the mine; there was only one hope of survival.
Frustrating flashes of fading daylight outside barely added to the light from the glyphs on the walls. Trav’s eyes hadn’t adjusted yet. The two women were just shapes in the dark, so Trav grabbed one wrist each and pulled them with him, down, deeper into the mine.
Rumbling filled his ears from behind, and the ground under his homemade boots trembled so badly that he almost fell a couple times. Trav gritted his teeth and kept moving forward.
Chapter 3
Trav kept hustling long after being outside the area of the immediate cave-in. He’d seen stones from collapses come bouncing down a tunnel before, acting like cannonballs. There was no such thing as safety on Asgard, but there would also be no use in testing fate.
Finally, he began slowing and allowed himself to start machine-gun sneezing, reacting from running through all the dust in the tunnel. Where she was half standing, the young human girl groaned, but the Kin woman had recovered, yanking her wrist out of Trav’s hand and growling at him. The woman’s eyes shined in the dim light, and her posture made Trav think she was deciding whether to attack or not. Eventually, either pragmatism or curiosity won because she turned to look back the way they’d come. She laid her ears back and sniffed loudly.
Trav got a chance to study her as he held his side and panted. The Kin woman looked young, but Trav knew it didn’t mean anything. The Kin couldn’t be judged by human standards.
The woman had canine features, but unlike some of her kind, she could probably pass for a girl in really good cosplay and makeup back on Earth. Her lithe, athletic body sported obvious muscle, but she had modest curves in all the right places. Trav had no idea what average Kin height was; it seemed to be completely random—this female was nearly as tall as he was, though. She reminded him of a college tennis player...well, maybe one that had been mixed with a really pissed-off wolf.
She had fairly normal, human-looking hands except for cuffs of fur at both wrists and dark, thickened nails. The lighting in the tunnel was dim and somewhat red to begin with, but the fur looked like a dark maroon color. A ruff of fur ran down the outside of each arm, and her ankles had cuffs of fur just like her wrists. She wore sandals laced up both calves; a white, airy tank top; and a thin, embroidered brown vest over it. Her feminine, embroidered shorts had been cut to allow her tail to poke through in the back.
The female turned back, and her eyes found his. Trav’s stubborn nature combined with the adrenaline still coursing through his body made him bolder, more like his old self. He stood at his full height, matching her open stare with one of his own. Her eyes were slightly mismatched in color. Trav wasn’t sure if she had been born that way, or if it was a result of whatever had put three parallel scars across her face, one running over her eye socket.
She had high cheekbones and gentle lines of fur on the outside of her face. The fact that one of her canine ears was damaged—maybe bitten off in the past—added to the scars across her face, combined to give her a fierce look. Her raised lip showing sharp canines helped with that too.
Suddenly all of her fire seemed to extinguish, and she lowered herself to sit against the wall. The Kin looked up at the ceiling and muttered, “We are dead, slave. That was the only entrance to this portion of the mines. Even I know that. I do not have the power to burst through all that stone.
“You can stop looking at me with lustful eyes. I don’t care to take your life. Nothing matters now.”
Trav frowned and cocked his head. Around Kin, he was usually extremely careful not to appear too strong or self-confident. But now, mirroring the energy that the Kin woman was giving off, he dropped all pretense of being bowed or broken. “What are you talking about?”
The Kin woman didn’t look up. “I was trying to move the stupid slaves. Most of the Kin were fleeing from those damn Cultists.” She snarled the last word. “My friend Tala-tala ran off, so I was alone trying to move the dimwitted humans away from the mines. Now it’s too late, and we ar
e all trapped in here.”
“Why is it too late?”
“The red stone is a secret. Still, somehow the Cultists must have found out about it. The Skijorn council realized a long time ago that something like this might happen, and they prepared for it. In case of an attack on the city or on the mines, they would deny our enemies a single speck of red stone. These mines are all rigged to explode.”
Trav’s heart dropped. He dimly wondered why she seemed to be talking to him with more respect than the Kin usually gave humans, but the impact of her words shook him to the core. “How long do we have?” he asked.
“Probably only about twenty minutes.”
“And the explosives?”
“They are tied into the glyphs on the walls somehow,” the Kin said, gesturing. “Every tunnel will collapse. We are going to die. If this had been your fault, I would have killed you already, but the Fates do as they will.”
The world narrowed to a point, all of Trav’s senses terminating to a tiny dot, and he thought, I’m going to die? All of this for nothing?
Die. Die. Die. The words rattled around in his head. He’d never figure out how he ended up on Asgard. Nobody would remember Beth. He’d never see his family again.
The voice came again, barely a whisper, but both what it said and the heat it spoke with perfectly matched the sudden fire that filled Trav.
No! breezed the voice.
“No!” growled Trav.
The Kin woman seemed to lose even more energy, staring at the entrance of the mine, but Trav began to pace. He ignored the ongoing vibrations, the rumbles, tuning out the world completely. His thoughts raced as he ran through everything he knew about his potential abilities; he considered dozens of plans before rejecting each one.
As Trav stewed, he caught sight of a shard of rock against one wall, one of the handful of weapons he’d left scattered through the mines. He knew that this bit of rock was sharp and had emberstone on the side against the wall. He bent down to adjust a boot, and discreetly pocketed the makeshift weapon. There wasn’t much emberstone on it, just enough for most humans to feel sick if they got too close, but Kin or human would feel pain touching it. If it were used to cut with, it would probably even kill a Kin.
Leaving the stones in tunnels had been the best he could do up until now. Slaves were regularly checked for weapons and keeping emberstone on him would raise too many questions since the stuff was lethal to most humans. It would have hurt the other slaves if he’d taken the ore with him into the slave camp, so that had not been an option. He hadn’t been entirely unprepared for everything going sideways at some point, though.
Having the weapon in his pocket made Trav feel even more rage at fate. Why was he even here, trapped on this hell world? It was too soon to die. Giving up now would be letting the monsters win. Worse, it would be admitting Kraachias was right, and Trav would rather gnaw his own arm off than give his wife’s murderer anything. The old hate welled up, and this time he didn’t stop it. Trav let the venom and darkness keep growing within him, pushing away every doubt. He refused to die a slave!
From her place against the wall, the Kin woman suddenly jerked around, her eyes glowing as they focused on him. A half-formed plan had come to Trav, and there was no time to waste. The human girl was awake now, warily watching the two of them. Trav grabbed her wrist, and she gave a little squeak before complying. She stared at the Kin woman, every inch of her posture screaming her fear.
“What is your name?” Trav growled at her.
“Asta...Lord,” the girl stammered, speaking Waode, the native language of Asgard, and not particularly well. With those two words, Trav could immediately tell she’d probably been a slave all of her life. For a second, pity threatened to push his anger back a bit, but he stomped on it. Asta would die too if he didn’t do something—they all would.
The time for hiding his power had come to an end. He didn’t have a choice anymore. It was also time to stop playing the meek slave. He needed the Kin woman now, and she needed to get on board, or Trav was going to get some very immediate real-world experience to determine whether the makeshift weapon in his pocket was effective or not.
“You, Kin, what is your name?” said Trav. He let the hate, the anger burn inside and glared at the canine woman, mentally daring her to attack.
She narrowed her eyes and studied him for a full three seconds before answering. “Narnaste,” she finally said. “But you are a slave; you will call me Mistress.”
“Yeah, fuck that,” said Trav. “We are all about to die anyway. You are going to listen to me carefully, and do what you’re told. You are going to follow me because sitting here holding up the wall while you wait for your death is a waste of your power. Alternatively, you can attack me right now, and I will kill you so fast it will make your wolfy head spin. It would be a shame to scar up the pretty hide any more, but I might be able to use your body dead or alive.”
The Kin woman’s eyes widened, and her eyebrows climbed into her hairline. Then her nostrils flared, and she regarded him through slits before slowly smiling, her teeth on display. “What is your name, slave?” she asked, her voice not much above a growl.
“Trav.”
Narnaste touched her top teeth with her tongue before pronouncing, “Liar.”
Trav’s anger rose, but he was able to think clearly. Some Kin could use magic; he’d even seen it. His half-assed plan would really be easier if Narnaste cooperated. He made a face and said, “Fine. My full name is Travis British Sterling, but I prefer people call me Trav. My name is in a language called English, which you have no possible way of knowing, and includes a really stupid joke that my father thought was funny.” It had been three years since Trav had spoken English. The last time he had talked about it had been with Beth, and it felt weird to even hear the word out loud again.
The Kin woman studied him a moment longer, cocking her head before announcing, “I am Narnaste Batastesdatter, first-born daughter of the Voidshield family, a branch of the Voidlines. Those who know me call me Narn. If my kind could see me speaking to you like this, I would be mocked, maybe disowned. But as you said, we are going to die anyway. Plus, I am curious. I don’t smell any deceit from you, just anger and power. Something else, too.”
Trav didn’t care what she smelled. He was just glad she was on board. “Good. I am glad we understand each other, Narn. If you want to live, follow my lead.”
The pretty, young human girl jumped when Trav called her name. “Asta, we’re moving. You follow me too, do you understand?”
“Ye-yes, Lord!” she stammered.
“Okay good. How much time we do have left, Narn?”
“Probably only about ten minutes, slav—Trav.”
“That means we really need to move. Don’t bunch up. The light is dim down here, so leave space between us, but keep up. Narn, you bring up the rear. Let’s go.”
Trav turned and began moving as fast as he could down the tunnel. The time for caution had ended. He could only think of one way they might escape the mines now, and it probably wouldn’t even work, but he’d be damned if he was just going to sit on his ass and let himself die.
There were still too many things to do. He refused to go down without a fight before he could even start the real battle, no, the war. The inhuman fuckers were going to pay for everything they’d done; they just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 4
Trav moved quickly but didn’t need to consciously think about where to step. The trembles running through the ground from time to time meant he had to catch himself occasionally, but even that didn’t take much active attention—he’d been down these tunnels often enough. Now the anger he had been running on wasn’t at the forefront of his thoughts anymore. As he traveled, a piece of the wall just collapsed from all the stress the vibrations through the stone was putting on the tunnels. Trav barely even noticed, just hopping over the loose rock and new dust.
Now that he was alone with his thoughts, he realized h
ow lucky he had been not to have been seriously injured from the explosion outside or the collapse of the tunnel earlier. It could have been Trav’s imagination that the rumbling from the battle outside intensified as he led his two unlikely companions deeper into the tunnel.
In Asta’s case, this was not the first time a human woman had been this deep in the mines, but over the last few years, every one of them had died. Women didn’t work in the mines unless they had a death wish, and without fail, the emberstone and working conditions had always given them what they’d wanted.
Narnaste’s presence wasn’t unusual either; Kin guards could be male or female and were equally as brutal. Trav had never seen any guard that looked like Narn before, though. The guards were usually huge, angry, and stupid. However, by her introduction, Trav had gathered that Narnaste was minor nobility or something.
Now that was interesting, he absently thought. The Kin bigwigs he’d met until now had been the most savage and merciless of the bunch. Narn was, at the very least, more even-keeled than other Kin he’d met, but it could just be a survival instinct due to the tunnel collapsing. In fact, maybe she knew Kraachias, Beth’s murderer. Maybe she had even committed atrocities of her own.
Trav suppressed that line of thinking with a silent snarl. Now was the time for action, not stewing—his life depended on it. He continued leading his little group through the claustrophobic tunnels. When they passed the point when little winking points of emberstone glowed on the wall, he heard Narnaste growl. This was the part of the tunnels that the guards usually didn’t venture past, so it wasn’t surprising that the Kin woman was uncomfortable.
It was good to remember that Narnaste was not human. Trav felt dirty for admitting it to himself, but he really was attracted to her. Beth hadn’t even been gone for a year, and his dick was already trying to think for him…about an inhuman monster, no less.
Asgard Awakening Page 3
