“What the—” Trav began, but the handful of robed deviants who were still chanting redoubled their efforts, louder and faster. Trav could barely hear himself think anymore. All the cultists who were not screaming dark, guttural words suddenly dropped, arms and limbs moving jerkily.
The runes on the walls and floor around the veil gate began to glow red. Trav’s eyes widened, moving from the dying man on the glowing altar to Yaakova. The Kin woman seemed as confused as he was. With one last glance around, Trav cursed as he developed a really good theory for what might be happening.
“Kill all of the ones that are still chanting,” he yelled. “Actually, just kill all of them!”
“Are you sure?” Yaakova had been more than willing to kill cultists before, but she didn’t seem to know what to do now that they were helpless.
“Yes! It’s probably still too late, but who knows?” With that, Trav sprinted forward, conscious of the fact that the entire tunnel system would collapse soon. He hoped it would be enough to stop what the crazy warlock had started.
Trav deliberately did not look at the veil gate as he passed. The eldritch energies were growing and made his skin crawl. Instead, he darted into the emberstone tunnel, hoping that he could obtain some sort of benefit out of this messed-up situation. At the end of the tunnel, he found a table made of some material so dark it seemed to suck in all the light. On it sat an emberstone box about the size of a briefcase.
Oh, I can see you! You’ve come! Please, there is not much time! I can feel my connection to the gate changing!
“What?” Trav blinked dumbly at first but quickly understood what the voice had been talking about. The box, and actually the entire emberstone tunnel, had been connected to the mass of rune equations outside that stabilized and imprisoned the veil gate. He suddenly remembered that humans couldn’t walk into a place full of emberstone like this without passing out and dying.
He briefly wondered who had built these tunnels, the gate, and the intricate rune networks, but shook his head. The voice had been right—there was no time. He grabbed the stone box, heavy enough that he would have had trouble with it before he’d attained superhuman strength, and ran back the way he’d come.
Trav stopped at the mouth of the tunnel, looking around. Magic was thick in the air, and writhing as several different, powerful rune workings ran their course. Yaakova grunted as she methodically slaughtered the remaining humans, and glanced up to look strangely at Trav. He was reminded again that he was standing in a tunnel lined floor to ceiling with emberstone.
Then his world shook.
Something cold washed over his body, but also hot, igniting him on the inside. The feeling was awful, like a million tiny fingers with cracked nails all scratching at his soul. Yaakova whimpered softly, crouching down and putting her arms over her head.
Trav turned numbly. The barriers around the veil gate had been weakened so much they were barely there anymore...and a giant eye in the gate was staring back at him. The huge, awful pupil constricted, and the effect doubled. Intense fear, greater than any before in his life threatened to freeze his entire body, but his old stubbornness welled up.
Nobody intimidated Trav Sterling, dammit. At least, he would never admit it.
He grabbed the remaining fire flower stone out of his pocket, activated it, and threw it as hard as he could at the giant eye peering through the gate.
The effect was immediate and profound. A terrible shriek shook the air, making the entire tunnel complex shake. The veil gate had turned opaque again, even as the screaming continued, and Trav moved. He put his spear under an armpit and darted forward, grabbing the dazed harpy by the elbow, and practically dragged her behind him while running away.
“Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this,” he panted. “Oh God, I hate Asgard.” Then he remembered he was a god now, at least technically, and chuckled.
What a hell of a way to die this would be.
Chapter 22
The tunnels creaked around him as he ran, cracks splintering up the walls and the ceiling overhead groaning as the rune working took effect. Trav’s magic had begun a chain reaction, coaxing the rock to break itself, creating ever-expanding channels of weakened, powdered stone—like a tree’s roots.
Under one arm, Yaakova stirred but was still groggy. Trav briefly considered dropping her, leaving her behind to die. Even if she stayed loyal, which was a big if, the harpy was still bestial, wild, and dangerous. On the other hand, she was an asset.
“Just constant shades of grey,” he growled in annoyance. Fear threatened to take over his emotional state, but he pushed it away. The tunnels really did seem to be much longer now that he was trying to escape, though.
At the mouth of the cave, before the door to the “mine,” the witchcraft barrier still stood. It had seemed to exist before to alert the now-dead warlock of any intruders, but there was no way to tell it hadn’t been changed since then. Trav didn’t have time to study the fetishes, or for anything else. He gathered his remaining magic in one hand and with a surge of concentration, imagined a sigil in his mind’s eye, projecting his power outward.
He’d had enough juice to break the barrier...barely. If the warlock had still been alive, this brute force method would have set up the equivalent of a flashing neon sign screaming, “I’m here!”
Trav ran forward, juggling the harpy, his spear, and the mysterious box, and kicked at the wooden door with all his strength. One board shattered, and the impact of his muscled body broke the rest that he collided with.
Behind him, the entire cliff was beginning to tremble, so Trav didn’t stop. He got up and ran again, trying to regain momentum. “What is—” began Yaakova.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then let’s go,” snarled Trav, throwing the Kin woman forward to land on her feet as best he could.
She stumbled, but regained her balance, and took one glance back before running too. A few villagers outside goggled. One man ran at them with a pitchfork, but Yaakova almost casually destroyed the weapon with her feathers.
Trav hadn’t been thinking about the feathers when he’d picked her up. It was good she hadn’t turned them into blades while she’d been tucked under his arm. That would not have been pleasant.
Another villager, a teen, threw a rock. The stone hit Yaakova in the leg, and she cried out in astonishment. The villagers started to close in, faces full of fear and something else, maybe madness. Trav narrowed his eyes and hefted his spear, wondering if he’d need to kill even more people before the day was done. One villager began to move forward, the scrawny man wielding a cleaver, but then he fell down.
Everyone fell down.
Behind them, the entire cliff crumbled, billowing dust, the destruction sounding like the world was ending. Yaakova screamed in astonishment, fell back, and then Trav’s jaw dropped as she transformed into a giant raven, winging into the sky. He blinked a couple times, but shook his head, getting up and running again.
The ground rumbled, and the area above the tunnels continued to crumble, sinking into the ground. The village’s humble buildings and the solid walls fell, crashing down as the earth shook.
Trav fell and got up again before the earth completely stopped shaking. By this point, any of the villagers that might have still been thinking about attacking had decided to flee instead. Since Trav had no way of really knowing who had been in cahoots with the warlock and who might just be scared or defending their home, this suited him fine. He didn’t have a problem killing people who had sacrificed children to dark powers, but he’d rather not wonder who had been who in the future.
A few minutes passed. Trav stood still, bracing himself with his spear and asking himself again if the village had had any children at all. As he wondered again what he’d stumbled in to, and if all of Asgard was like this, he felt a burst of ruinous energy from the settling ground and the ruined cliff. “Uh oh.”
The evil veil gate should have been destroyed
, or at least filled in, but what if an unwelcome visitor had come through from the other side already? The earth began to move, mounding upward as something began to push its way out. “Uh oh,” Trav repeated.
A huge, misshapen hand cleared the rubble, followed by an arm. Then what looked like a flayed giant pulled itself from the broken ground. As it bled, Trav realized it was actually a combination of multiple human bodies, pressed and bound together in an evil mockery of life.
“A giant flesh golem.” Trav had never seen one before, but Odin’s memory supplied the details. Whatever had been on the other side of the gate couldn’t come through itself, or hadn’t had time. It had somehow used its own power or sent an agent through to create a monster in this world using the bodies of the dead cultists.
Trav hoped they’d all been dead first, anyway.
The golem was constantly bleeding and would cease functioning in only a few hours, but that would probably be long enough to cause a lot of mayhem. As the monster’s awful head turned and focused on Trav, he developed a pretty good idea of its purpose. The monster began lumbering toward him, and all of the human villagers who’d been hiding nearby fled, screaming.
So much for religion, eh? Trav was tired, wounded, and out of magic. He had no choice but to stand his ground, holding his spear in one hand and the emberstone box in the other. Whether emberstone would damage something that was already dead, he didn’t know, but it wouldn’t hurt to find out.
Suddenly, a stone hit the side of the golem’s raw, bloody head with a sharp impact. Up in a tree, Yaakova wound up and threw again; her new projectile missed, and she cursed. The golem turned, heading toward the Kin in the tree. When it had gotten closer, Yaakova turned into a raven and flew off, easily avoiding the crushing hand that shot forward to decimate the tree.
When the golem turned, heading for Trav again, Yaakova landed on a tree to the other side of the creature, one that used to be part of Wall Home’s wall. She wound up and threw another rock. When the unholy creature’s steps faltered, pausing, Trav realized that the Kin was buying him some time. Not that it would do any good, he thought, exhausted.
Yaakova attacked one more time before the golem completely ignored her, centering its attention entirely on Trav instead.
OUR DREAD LORD ORDERS YOUR DEATH
The flesh golem thundered its proclamation. From a distance, the misshapen creation might have looked almost like a naked, dirty, fleshy toddler—with short legs, a big head, and long arms. But the closer it got, the more its horrifying, patchwork appearance became apparent.
Now Trav could verify that it truly had been fashioned from the bodies of the demon worshippers. One of the cultists he’d killed was part of the thing’s chest, now just a dead, bloody face that moved and drooled. Torn bodies had been fused together, some with the dark robes they’d worn hanging out of the crevices in the patchwork body, grotesquely dripping bodily fluids as the monster walked.
Shit. Running away really wasn’t an option. Despite its slow footsteps, the thing moved as fast as a horse. It was almost on him, and Trav hefted his weapons, hoping the emberstone would be enough.
What are you—began the trapped voice from the box. If Trav hadn’t already been through so much in such a short time, the voice might have startled him.
“Be quiet,” he muttered. The flesh golem crunched right through the remains of a building. Time was almost up. Trav reversed his spear and cocked back his throwing arm, waiting for the best time to attack. The gesture wasn’t much, but it made him feel better.
He was not going to fall without a fight.
The fact that he’d chucked his fire flower into the gate made him chuckle. “Definitely worth it,” he said. Nobody, not the Kin of Asgard nor any other bullying assholes were ever going to cow him again. He was free now, dammit.
And he was a god too...sorta. Let them all choke on that!
As the flesh golem stumble-ran forward the last few paces, raising one hand to squash Trav like a bug, he resigned himself to his fate. There was a chance he’d live through this, but it wasn’t great. Trav stretched back, preparing to throw his spear, but suddenly he heard a familiar growl. A massive blur of snarling red fur jumped over some nearby rubble, snarling with primal, savage fury.
The eight-legged she-wolf clamped her jaws on the back of the flesh golem’s neck and flung the unnatural creature like a rag doll. It crashed down, blowing dirt everywhere and impaling itself on broken trees. All the exposed human faces on its body cried out at once in pain. When it tried to get up again, Narnaste lunged forward, pounding it back into the ground with her front paws and dancing away before she could be grabbed.
Trav only spared a second to be surprised before roaring, running as fast as he could. Narnaste had flipped the abomination over and savaged its back, her eyes full of fire. The two warring giants stamped around, destroying puny human structures they bumped...and Trav was running right towards them.
He knew Narnaste would not be able to kill the flesh golem—she could only run out its limited life faster, but it wouldn’t be enough. There were several ways to create such a thing, and Trav figured that the magic powering it was probably alien. If he had access to all of Odin’s memories, maybe he would know a better way to deal with it, but right now, he thought his best bet would be a sealing glyph.
The golem’s flailing fist almost crushed Trav, but he managed to dodge at the last second. “Hold it down!” he yelled. He hoped Narnaste’s deeper growl meant she had heard him. With a few more running steps, he found the monster’s head, reared back, and stabbed it as hard as he could with his spear.
A normal weapon wouldn’t have had much effect, but Trav’s spear was dwarven-made, a tool of power. The golem screamed, and the faces on its bulk joined its voice. This close, the many voices of the dead bodies bound in its body made Trav’s vision blur. When one face opened its eyes, Trav kicked it as hard as he could. He jumped on top of the thing as it moved, trying to crush him where he had been standing.
After slamming the emberstone box down on the thing and verifying it had no effect, Trav summoned his shiv and began drawing a binding glyph. Lines of red light etched, smoking into the monster’s disturbing flesh. This glyph was not very complex, or wouldn’t normally be. It was a lot harder to draw on the back of a bucking flesh golem that was trying to reach back and crush him.
Trav didn’t have any power left, but the binding glyph didn’t require it. The basic rune working merely enforced the rules of the universe on a patch of space or an object, letting the world itself challenge any sort of magic or unnatural effect. In this case, the entire flesh golem had no way to resist and was bound.
The monster began to come apart as Trav leaped back. He didn’t stop when his boot touched solid ground, but kept going. When the magically created creature exploded in a shower of bloody gore a few seconds later, he was grateful for his wariness.
Narnaste hadn’t been so lucky. The huge wolf got hit by a shower of blood and offal, gagging as she shook her enormous head to get it out of her eyes.
Trav sat down. He’d need to retrieve the spear soon, but for now, he wasn’t going to move for a while. The remaining human villagers were gone and probably wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Besides, he had the Kin on his side...at least he hoped so. He was too tired to be worried about that anymore, though.
Yaakova winged down in her raven form and transformed back into a harpy. Her eyes danced, and she smiled without restraint. “I have always wanted to fly, to really fly.” With a gentle touch—one Trav would have never expected her capable of—she laid a clawed hand on his shoulder and gave him a meaningful look. “Flying has always been my dream, and now it has come true. Thank you. I will follow you. This was truly the best choice I have ever made.” She gave the remains of the flesh golem a glance and shook her head, smiling wider.
Then Trav heard footsteps and turned. Narnaste had also transformed back into a woman at some point. She walked stiffly toward them, he
r entire body covered in blood. One hand had a white-knuckled grip on her seax sheathed at her belt. “Master, who is this?” she growled.
Chapter 23
Trav woke up feeling like he’d been run over by a truck. The morning light seeped through his eyelids, irritating him until he gave up on sleeping any further. The previous day had been intense in a way that he had never experienced before. Even escaping the slave mines hadn’t come close.
I wonder if I can survive many more days like that, he wondered and rubbed his jaw.
The evening of the previous day, after they’d made decent distance from the creepy little village from hell, his little group had camped by a stream. The water had been liberally used for washing. Narnaste, in particular, had been filthy. Trav had been able to cobble together barely enough power to convert water into cleaning and purification solution before he’d finally passed out.
After walking some distance and relieving himself against a tree, Trav reviewed his available magic. Like he’d predicted, he had five available bars of magic power. Two more were tied up in permanent enhancements for a total of seven. He briefly checked his full list of available permanent rune equations he had access to now and shook his head—some of the most powerful required over one hundred bars, and even special or unknown requirements.
It was tempting to immediately use his newly replenished magic power to give himself another permanent upgrade rune equation on his body, but he calmed himself. Out in the middle of the forest, away from any civilization, and with a couple Kin women sleeping nearby, he probably wasn’t in any immediate danger other than maybe from the Kin themselves.
Asgard Awakening Page 17
