Stolen Lives: A LitRPG/GameLit Novel (The Underhill Chronicles Book 1)

by Keith Ahrens

  He makes a beeline for the first body he sees, but he keeps moving his head, scanning for threats. His ears swivel to detect the smallest sound, and he sniffs the air as he runs. In the brief, thirty yards or so he's gone, the wind dies down, and the fog shifts back over him and the camp.

  I can barely see as his outline begin to slow, the fog overtaking him. His movements now seem sluggish and deliberate. He falls to his knees next to a prone body, and I think he's gonna drop, but then he rallies. With a grunt that echoes across the clearing, he forces himself back to his feet, holding the body cradled in his arms. He turns and begins to make his way back to us.

  The other Gnoll crouches, ready to run forward to help.

  I quickly move over to Nian and grab his shoulder. “No, wait, it’s a trap. We’ll get caught too.”

  The Gnoll is tense next to me, muscles almost quivering with the need to dash forward and run to his packmates. He glares at me and is clearly torn as to what to do.

  I turn back to watch Thirax's progress. His movements have slowed even more. Each step seems to cost him the closer he gets to us. I have to stop myself from also running out there to help him. Everything about this screams 'TRAP' to me. It’s making me sick to my stomach to just stand and watch Thirax's efforts.

  He comes closer to the edge of the fog, and I can see that it's Des he's trying to save. He stumbles and almost drops him, but once more, he regains his footing and his grip at the last second. A final step saps the last of his strength, and his legs give way. With a last, monumental effort, he falls backward, taking the smaller man with him, still cradled in his arms. He lands flat on his back so he doesn't crush Des beneath his own dead weight. The mist is too thick for me to even guess at the color of their tattoos.

  This is too much for Nian. He pulls away from me with a roar and sprints to his fallen friend. Truth be told, it’s too much for me as well. I follow just a few steps behind him. Thirax went down near the edge of the fog, so maybe we can get to him and drag both he and Des out. Hopefully, getting back to cover before whoever set this trap notices what we are doing.

  We make it about halfway across the clearing when a sudden movement pops up in my peripheral vision. I turn my head and raise the mace; at the same time, a brilliant flash of lightning arcs from the top of a wagon. It hits Nian and blows him off his feet.

  My eyes are dazzled by the flash, and I smell burning ozone and hair. I dive into a roll and come up on my feet closer to the wagon. The mace is useless at this distance, and I already dropped the empty pistol back in the woods.

  “Aye there, squire!” I hear the distinctive sound of a pistol being cocked. “I'll give ye a choice now, mate. A little jolt of Ben Franklin's finest or a small ball of lead?” Jesse's distinct accent is now muddled with laughter.

  I get a good look at him standing atop the wagon and bathed in moonlight. In his right hand, he holds a copper rod tipped in a clear crystal, in his left, his black-powder revolver.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Jesse? How could you kill everyone? After all, we've been through together?” I ask, disgusted with him.

  He laughs in my face and points the copper rod at my chest. I tense to move, to dodge to the side, anything… and before I know it, I am riding a wave of electricity with no chance to go from thought to action. There goes any hope of dodging a lightning bolt! Every muscle locks up and painfully contracts until I feel bones on the verge of snapping from the strain. My brain seems to short circuit as I fall to the ground. This time, I'm grateful when everything goes black.

  They say that if a person is woken up every day in a painful manner for long enough, they will eventually get used to it and not be bothered by it. It's a load of shit! I've woken up countless mornings for endless days now, suffering from various sprains, strains, broken legs, cracked ribs, a fractured nose… you get the idea… and I've never once thought, 'Eh, it’s not so bad this time.’ Each time hurts in its own unique way, and this awakening is no different.

  I come back to consciousness with both of my arms wrenched behind my back and shackled together tight enough to cut off circulation to my hands. My tongue doesn't seem to work so well, so I groan in protest and try to pull my hands free.

  “Tarnation and bloody hell! You're awake! I reckon that makes ye tougher than the Gnoll. Now, hold still before I blast ye again!” Jesse threatens as he tries to wrestle my numbed hands together. I realize my right hand isn't locked yet, and I redouble my efforts to break away.

  His grip eases for a second, just long enough for him to punch me in the back of the head. My chin hits the ground, and either his knuckles broke on my skull, or that sound was just my teeth slamming together. I see stars again but manage to roll hard enough to the side to knock him off my back.

  The right shackle falls free, and I make a move. Swinging the loose shackle with everything I have, the heavy iron lock on the end of the chain arcs through the air and smashes into Jesse's jaw. In the blink of an eye, I see his lower jaw deform, teeth and blood ejecting from his shattered mouth. His body twists through the air and lands face down.

  I try to jump to my feet, but I find most of my muscles don't want to work the way I need them to. My legs are stiff and twitching as if residual electricity is still running through them. Damn, I hate getting electrocuted.

  I stumble over and plant a rib-shattering kick right into Jesse's side. He flops onto his back, and I drop down, one knee on his chest, and begin hammering punches across his face. The shackle makes the first punch awkward, so I loop the chain around my fist.

  I keep pounding until my arms grow heavy with fatigue, my knuckles splitting even under the buffer of the heavy leather and steel of my gauntlets. I sit back on my heels, breathing heavy, my rage and anger spent for the moment. I look over and see the fog beginning to shift a bit with the wind.

  “My turn.”

  “Wha—?” is all I manage as I look down and see Jesse smiling at me. The bones under his blood-covered face shift back to their original shape as I stare in shock.

  He throws a solid punch right into the center of my chest, launching me backward, head over heels, and tumbling. Lucky for me, the breastplate absorbs a lot of the blow. Still hurts like hell.

  I stagger to my feet when a deep breath sends a jagged wave of pain through my chest. Crap, I think he cracked my sternum. That’s a new one for me. I cough, sending more pain rippling through my upper body, and I taste some blood in my mouth. Shit, that’s not good. I pull my mace and get a strong, two-handed grip.

  “You may be worth a lot more alive, but I'm willing to lose some money on account of how broken you're gonna be,” Jesse says as he advances, a brutal smile on his bloody face.

  He comes in low and fast. I throw out a snap kick, intending to stop his charge, but all it does is knock me off balance when he crashes into me. We hit the ground with my knee wedged and crushed between us, both of us wrestling over the mace stuck between our bodies.

  He's strong, really damn strong. Like, angel dust and crack strong. So, I let him have my weapon. When he pulls again, I push and let go of my grip. He rocks backward, almost falling over, but regains his balance. The mace goes up and back for a finishing blow that is sure to split my skull like a melon.

  In the brief second he takes to catch his balance, I wrap the manacle around my left fist. I punch him in the throat with a solid straight jab. The metal bolt of the shackle tears across his crushed trachea and opens the external and internal carotid arteries.

  Jesse tries to scream in rage and pain, but blood floods his airway, and only a loud gurgling sound emerges. Streams of blood pump high in an arc across the clearing with each rapid beat of his heart. He drops the mace and clamps both hands over his ravaged throat. I kick him off me and roll away.

  Aching all over, I get to my feet and grab my mace. Cautiously, I walk over but stop just out of arm's reach. I stare at him dispassionately as his face takes on the dusky blue color of suffocation. His airway continues to fill w
ith blood, and I watch him drowning right in front of me. The blood pumps slower and more feebly from his torn artery, and yet, I still do nothing.

  A distant voice in my head starts reminding me what to do. Secure the airway and stop the bleed. Treat for shock, replace the blood loss with some IV fluids. I ignore that voice. Clinically, I know he has less than a minute unless I do something, but I just stare as his frantic movements slow down and then stop. His hands go slack and fall to his sides, blood dripping from his fingers. His heels slow their frenzied drumming in the dirt.

  I turn away and walk over to Nian. He's still breathing, but he has a large patch of burned fur showing through a tear in his leather armor. The pulse in his throat is strong and steady, so he's probably not in immediate danger. I plop down on the ground next to him, thoroughly exhausted. I try to keep my breaths shallow because of the cracked ribs. I do my best not to think too hard about what just happened. But it doesn’t work. I just killed Jesse… twice.

  “Well now, Caleb, how many more times you think you'll get that lucky? Hell, I didn't know ye had it in you.” Jesse's amused voice assaults my ears like nails on a chalkboard.

  I cringe and freeze for a second, wondering if I just imagined it. Then I get back up to my feet, and I turn to face him, my mace held low. “Jeez, man, what does it take to put you down for good?”

  “Hah, more than you got, boy!” he answers through a bloody grin. His pistol is out and pointed at my head. We are only about twenty feet apart, but that bullet will travel a lot faster than I can. Check and mate.

  “STAND DOWN!” the Sarge bellows in his most commanding voice. We both freeze in place and look at the dark figure limping into the clearing.

  Haynes is leaning on a tree branch he's using as a cane. As he steps more fully into the moonlight, I can see a trail of blood running from his right temple.

  “Jesse, I said stand down!" Haynes barks once more. "Soldier, that was not a request!”

  Jesse smiles and replies, “Now, Sarge, I think I'm done taking orders from you.”

  “Jesse, what the fuck is going on here? What happened to you? And why do you have a gun on Caleb here?”

  “Well, Sergeant Haynes, this would be a lot easier if you were sleeping over there with the rest. But since you're up, let’s talk facts for a minute,” Jesse says in a casual tone, his normal accent leaving his voice. “The simple fact is, you guys are screwed. There's no way you're gonna make it through that gate. It’s been fortified and reinforced; hell, they know exactly where you are and where you're going! You're all going to be captured or killed. That’s just a fact. Having said that, this whole group is worth a pretty big bounty, and I'm willing to cut you in if you play ball.”

  “What did you have in mind?” asks Haynes in a quiet voice as he hobbles into the clearing.

  “Like I said, this group is as good as caught and thrown back in their cells. I kinda got my hands full here and could use a partner. Now, I found about twenty sets of shackles in the wagons under the drivers' benches; they did carry slaves after all. All we got to do is chain these guys up, load them in the wagons, and drive right back to where we started. I collect the bounty, and you and I ride off into the sunset, free men. You'll be under my protection from here on out.”

  “The alternative being, you kill me and Caleb, and take the rest anyway? Or we kill you and then die or be captured tomorrow at the gate? That it? Did I get it all?” Haynes asks, careful to not let all his contempt bleed into his voice.

  “Well, as you'll probably find out, I'm not all that easy to kill. Ask your buddy over there.” He tips the barrel of the gun at me, but otherwise, it doesn't waver.

  “Well, Jesse, we've been friends and comrades in arms for what, two and a half, maybe three years now, right? And I figure I owe you a bit of loyalty, but this just doesn't sit right with me for a few reasons.”

  “Sarge—” I try to cut in, but Sarge talks over me.

  “Not now, Son, grown-ups are talking.” He doesn't look at me but keeps his stare fixed on the gunman. I shut my mouth and wait to see where this is going.

  “Well, Sarge," Jesse says, casually, never letting the gun in his hand drop, "let’s see if we can work through these 'reasons' and come out on top together.”

  “Look, Jesse, or whoever the hell you are, let’s just cut the bullshit. I'm almost willing to overlook the loss of your 'good ol' boy' drawl, and the promise of money and freedom does sound pretty good, but I don't think that I, or the real Jesse, would fuck over all these people after we've made it this far.”

  “Shit. What gave me away, Sarge, besides that tiring drawl?”

  “Two things. First, I got here in time to see Caleb beat you to death and see you get back up like nothing happened. And second? Jesse ain't left-handed.”

  “Well, sometimes I forget the mirror image thing. Like, there was one time…” His body shifts a little, and then all hell breaks loose.

  Everything seems to happen at once. I hit the deck, trying to avoid Jesse's shot, not seeing his pistol swing toward Haynes. The Sarge drops his walking stick and skins the .45 out of its holster faster than an eye blink. Thunder erupts in the quiet night as both pistols fire at almost the same time.

  Jesse pitches backward, and Haynes drops to one knee but keeps firing. Eight more shots ring out, and six or seven more bullets slam into Jesse's supine body. Sarge's gun clicks and locks open, empty. He ejects the empty magazine and slams home another.

  He turns and looks at me with that 'thousand-yard stare' that some people get after they've seen or done too many things that they just can't make right in their own heads. I guess gunning down an old friend would qualify as 'traumatic.'

  “It’s a trick. He's not dead yet. I fell for that twice. Let’s get those shackles on him and maybe get some answers when he sits up again,” I say in my most calming voice from my position in the dirt. I can't help but notice Haynes still has not holstered that big .45 of his. “And whatever you do, stay out of that fog!”

  He blinks once at me, then nods his head slightly. “Go ahead, I'll cover you.”

  I trot over to the wagon, moving as fast as I can, all things considered. I pull open the driver's bench and find coils of shackles and chains in a messy pile. I pull out three sets, thinking I'll cuff his hands, then his legs, then chain all of them together, pulling it tight in a giant metal hogtie kind of thing.

  I flinch as two more shots ring out.

  “Caleb, hurry up, he keeps trying to move!” Haynes shouts.

  I head back over to him with a broken limp-run gait. Haynes stays about ten feet back with the pistol trained on Jesse. I stop next to the body and attempt to flip him over with my foot so he's face down, but he resists. His eyes open, and I catch a flash of that blasted copper rod in his hand.

  Without conscious thought, I swing all three sets of shackles and chains down on his head. Skin flays from the bone as the skull cracks.

  “Damn it! Just stay down!” I shout. The next few moments are kind of a blur to me. I dimly remember swinging my improvised flailing weapon over and over and over again. I can't seem to stop myself, and to be honest, I don't think I really tried too hard. I keep hitting even after I see gray and pink brain matter scatter across the clearing. I continue pummeling whatever Jesse is even once most of the cranium is pulped and ground to a powder. The heavy chains bash what’s left of his skull off his broken neck. I finally take a fast step back in surprise.

  A sickly green light emits from the decapitated head and neck. It grows and travels across the body with a sizzling sound. When the light fades, what’s left cannot be described as human.

  The headless corpse is now naked and a deathly pale gray color. The skin stretched tightly over thick, ropy muscle, is segmented and bloated, almost like a maggot’s. At a glance, the physiology is all wrong for a human. Too many bones in odd places, and unusually placed muscles that don't seem to connect to each other or any bones. The air around the corpse has gone stale immediately
and fills with a rotten meat odor.

  “What the fuck is that?” Haynes asks in a hushed voice.

  23

  The rest of the night passes in a slow crawl. I take one of the few healing stones we have left and use it on both Haynes' ankle and where the bullet hit his leg. Lucky for him, the round passed right through the meat of his thigh and missed all the major blood vessels on its way out.

  Turning my attention to my broken ribs, I decide to try out my new magic again. After few hours of rest, I find I have a little more energy than usual. But this energy feels a bit different, but somehow normal all the same. It’s like I’ve had it all along, but never noticed it until now. Turns out, broken ribs are an easy fix with my new power. It proved tougher to take the shackles off my wrist without a key. But, just like that, the new energy is gone, leaving behind a small empty place in the back of my mind.

  “So, what happened to you?” I ask Haynes after I recover from my energy expenditure.

  “Well, you idiots went running through the camp like a herd of elephants, and then left. I heard the crashes from the forest and went to go check it out. Must have snapped my ankle on some damn rabbit burrow and hit my head on the way down. I only woke up a few minutes ago and heard you guys fighting. The rest you pretty much know.”

  I nod affirmatively. “The question is, what do we do now?”

  “I have no idea. Des and Thorn are the only two that know anything about magic, and they’re trapped in that fog. Go see if you can wake up Nian; he's from this world. Maybe he has some idea.”

  Already moving on to Nian, I stay quiet as I take some time to heal his burns first. Fresh out of my magical energy (my new blue tattoo is already black from healing my ribs), I have to use a stone. Electrical burns are tricky; they can look really minor on the outside, but underneath, in the muscles and organs, things can cook like a pot roast. About half an hour later, I'm finished and so is the stone. Only one left now.