Asgard Awakening 2

by Blaise Corvin

  He turned back and was about to start speaking again when the woman said, “I will go with you. We likely would have died if you had not come along anyway. However, this group here is not all my people. Our enemies have become friends in the name of survival. You are merely suggesting more of the same. But I do not speak for everyone here, and I do not think this decision is entirely mine to make, even for my people. So I will go with you, human, but I only speak for myself.”

  “The name is Trav.”

  “Trav.” She nodded, then turned. “If you wish to follow me and go with these harpies to leave this accursed place, then follow. If you choose to go your own way, so be it.” With that she stepped forward without looking back, walking past Trav and beginning to look along the ground and the dead bodies, scavenging for equipment.

  “I like her,” said Bravoosa.

  “Me too,” said Hravalin.

  Trav shook his head and left the cave. He cast a low-level shield on himself just in case one of the dark elves decided to try for a magical sucker punch and joined the harpy leaders. The dusty, stale smell of the Veil-overlap had been tainted with the odors of blood and offal. “Bravoosa, how many extra horses do we have left?”

  Hravalin held out a hand to stop the Captain from answering and asked, “Why?”

  “Do you see any lizard mounts? These Dokkalfar don’t have any mounts. They were probably chased away by Veil-Wraiths.”

  “You are likely right,” said Hravalin. “And we need them?”

  “Yes,” said Trav.

  Hravalin pursed her lips. “Bravoosa? Horses?”

  “I believe we have just enough rideable horses left to give these...people a mount, if they all come with us. It looks like some won’t.” Bravoosa pointed and Trav turned.

  Sure enough, a group of about six were heading away without looking back. The rest of the Dokkalfar came out of the mine as a group—injured and tired but still proud. “What are your terms?” said the female he’d spoken to before.

  Trav noticed she still had her sword in her hand. He realized that these Dokkalfar hadn’t truly made up their minds yet, and the way he answered would likely be important. Now that the dark elves had left the cave and he could see them better, he realized that the female Kin who seemed to be their leader was really, strikingly beautiful. Her eyes were fierce, direct, and glittered with undeniable intellect.

  “What is your name?” asked Trav.

  The Dokkalfar frowned, and before she could speak, Trav reminded her, “I gave you my name already, and saved your life. We are going to leave in a few minutes, with or without you. I have some horses I can spare, but again, I am not playing games. Numbers won’t help our survival without cooperation and it doesn’t cost you anything to be polite.”

  She narrowed her eyes but nodded respectfully and said, “I am called Ida.”

  “Ida, I am in charge of this group, as well as Hravalin here, and Captain Bravoosa is under us. For the sake of our escape, you will be on the same level as Bravoosa, and in charge of these Dokkalfar.”

  “So I will answer to you?” she asked, eyebrow arched.

  “Yes, or you can take your beautiful ass the other direction and follow the group that just left.”

  She wasn’t even fazed by what he said. “And what happens after we return to Asgard?”

  “I suppose we will have to deal with that after we survive,” said Trav.

  Narnaste had been moving towards them, behind the Dokkalfar. Trav wondered where she’d gone after the fight, and figured she might have gone off to check the surroundings. It was really amazing how quietly she could move now in her wolf form, and she surprised the hell out of the dark-skinned Kin when she rumbled, “Is she really that beautiful, master?”

  Trav laughed as the dark elves gasped and some actually lost their balance, falling down. He gave Ida another good look, noting that if anything, her armor was partially hiding her fit, but feminine body. “Yes, I’m sure, Narn.”

  “Really?”

  “Trust me.”

  Ida still kept her feet and held her sword, but her hand shook a bit as she stared up at the enormous Narnaste. “Mister Trav, you killed all those unnatural—”

  “Veil-Wraiths.”

  “—Veil-Wraiths, and you have allies like this—”

  “Narnaste.”

  “Narnaste. And you are still about to flee?”

  “Absolutely,” Trav confirmed, voice grim. “More are coming, and bigger. And there are other dangers out there. This place was a bad place to be before, but it’s getting worse by the second.”

  Ida slowly sheathed her sword and studied Trav for a solid five seconds. “I will follow you.”

  One of the Dokkalfar who was not wounded, a petite female, protested, “My Lady, we can’t—”

  “Peace, Xanthia. I can hear it.”

  “The winds of fate?” The other woman’s eyes widened.

  “Yes. I wasn’t sure before, but now I am. Prepare to leave.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  Trav thought the exchange was interesting, but didn’t have time to explore Dokkalfar politics or abilities. Everyone should have left already. As he tapped his foot impatiently, all the Kin grabbed what they could of value from the bodies. The Dokkalfar didn’t make a fuss as their dead comrades were looted, but Trav wasn’t surprised. Kin could be practical when survival was at stake.

  After everyone was mounted, he ordered, “Let’s ride! Yaakova, stay in your original form, please. Don’t take to the air. I’m afraid you’ll be too exposed and vulnerable up there by yourself.”

  “I understand, New One.”

  They sped in the direction of the Veil-overlap portal. The surrounding area was fairly flat, but the group was coming up on a canyon where there was a natural split in their path. Yaakova said, “New One, the plain leads to the ruins. It’s right around that hill in the distance. The canyon is the fastest route to the portal.”

  Trav nodded as he thundered forward on his horse, and had almost made up his mind when he suddenly saw text scroll across his vision.

 

  “Oh, so you are alive somewhere in there after all,” Trav mumbled. There was no way any of his companions would hear him over the sound of the galloping horses, but he knew the Oracle would get the message.

 

  “Why didn’t you say anything until now?”

 

  “Good enough for me,” mumbled Trav, and moved his horse toward the plains and the hills, toward the ruins that Yaakova had seen. All around them, he noticed portals opening in the distance, where new shadows were forcing their way into the Veil-overlap.

  The Veil-Wraiths were coming.

  Chapter 26

  Before they’d gotten to the ruins, it seemed like someone had flipped a switch and the closest Veil-Wraiths had begun to chase Trav’s group. The harpies and Dokkalfar had shot their bows from horseback, wasting arrows until Trav had ordered Ysintrill to ride near the rear of the formation and help suppress the Veil-Wraiths. After that, other archers had just begun giving Ysintrill their extra arrows and saved what they had left.

  Ysintrill was such a good archer, even from horseback, it was kind of spooky.

  The Veil-Wraiths had gotten bigger, and more humanoid. Soldier-Wraiths, thought Trav. Soldier-Wraiths weren’t very fast, but they were strong and relentless. Without horses, his group might have already been overwhelmed.

  Clouds began to form, and the sky grew darker. Trav heard a rumble in the distance as he rounded a bend and saw the ruins. “It’s a fortress!” he said. “How the hell didn’t we see this before?”

  “We went the opposite direction,” answered Yaakova. “And then we
began avoiding places with activity so we could avoid fighting.”

  “Places like this would have been a lot more likely to have interesting things to find. I wonder if there are any more buildings like this,” he wondered out loud. “But it doesn’t matter at this point. Let’s head for the ruins!” He desperately hoped his group could get a break. He’d gotten to know the Pinions over time, and a deep, heavy sadness had taken root in his heart when he thought about all the harpies he’d led into the Veil-overlap just to watch them die. The odds of everyone surviving a Veil-Wraith invasion were not very good, but he was going to do his best.

  The horses were exhausted now, and all their riders were bone-weary as well. Trav felt like they were practically flying forward, but in reality, their pace was probably a fraction of what it could have been.

  Suddenly, Yaakova gasped, looking up at the sky, and Trav just sighed and nodded. Hravalin and the other valkyries looked up too, and Ysintrill said, “There are people up there. Are they flying?”

  “Yes. It’s even worse than I thought,” said Trav. “One of them is Kin, even more powerful than Najila was, at least I think so. The other...I’m not sure, but I think it’s a cultist, or cultivator. Someone from Jang-mi’s veil.”

  Yaakova’s voice was low as she said, “So much power. It’s terrifying, but I can’t look away.”

  Trav grunted. “Let’s just be thankful they’re just staring at each other and having a dick measuring contest. If they start fighting, everything is going to be even more fucked up than it already is. Either way, hopefully we can find some sort of shelter at the ruin before we make a break for the final run to the portal.”

  “Commander,” said Bravoosa. “I think I can see something odd with the ruins. There might be people on the walls too.”

  Trav narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. In the distance, it looked like the area where there might have been an opening in the wall around the ruins was...glowing? “Yaakova, do you see that?” he asked.

  “Yes. The way is blocked.”

  “Slow down!” shouted Trav. The group kept moving forward, but at a trot. Trav thought furiously, reviewing the selection of rune spells he could cast on the fly and still had power for.

  Suddenly something large plummeted from the sky. Trav summoned Hex with a curse and pointed his blade, but the shape wasn’t dark, like a Veil-Wraith. Rather, it was light. “Hold!” he shouted.

  The falling object appeared to be a Kin woman. If she wasn’t Kin, she was at least a humanoid with feral features, an owl in this case. She had large eyes, expansive wings, and she stood proudly, shoulders thrown back. Trav absently noted how busty she was, and felt a little silly when he considered what had grabbed his attention. Sometimes the things he noticed in times of extreme stress seemed random...or not so random. He’d just learned that he’d notice a nice set of boobs even if the world was ending.

  All the group slowed to a stop as Hravalin demanded, “Who are you?” The owl woman’s appearance was completely unexpected, but she didn’t seem to be a threat at all. There was no sense of malice. Despite the danger they were all in, Trav’s curiosity was piqued as well.

  The owl woman spoke in an unfamiliar language. Ysintrill said, “That sounds like Kingdom, the language the cultivators speak.”

  Ysintrill nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  Trav frowned and felt something click in his head as it felt like a whole slice of Odin’s memories just melted and merged with his mind. Just like that, he knew he could speak Kingdom fluently. He said, “I can understand you now. Go ahead.”

  The owl woman gave him an odd look, but said, “My name is Moira. I see there are Dokkalfar with you, but you are not…” She paused as she saw Trav. “This is a mixed group, but not cultivators at all. Who are you?”

  “Look, lady, we really don’t have time for a chat right now.” Behind them, the Veil-Wraiths that had been chasing all this time began to catch up. “We need to move,” growled Trav to the Kin behind him.

  Hravalin nodded. “I agree, but what did the owl woman say?”

  Trav quickly translated, and Hravalin said, “Moira, are the figures I see at the ruins ahead hostile?”

  “No, I don’t think they would be,” said Moira, and Trav resigned himself to the role of interpreter for this conversation.

  “They are with you?” asked Hravalin.

  “That is correct.”

  Hravalin gave the owl woman a tired smile. “It would be great if we could talk about joining them if they were not hostile, but we need to get moving again right now. Perhaps once we are there, you can tell us how to get past the wall.”

  Trav finished translating what Hravalin had said, and as if it were a signal, the Pinions and the Dokkalfar under Ida got their horses in motion and began moving to the distant, glowing gates again. Behind them, the owl woman took the sky.

  “That was weird,” said Trav. He coughed, and glanced back nervously, checking the position of the Veil-Wraiths. Then he looked up at the figures in the sky. He hadn’t gone into detail with the others about the sheer amount of power that they were giving off. The Kin could probably feel it if they wanted to and focused, but a lot was going on. Yaakova obviously knew, though. She actually looked faint.

  “I am almost out of arrows, Chief,” Ysintrill shouted over the thundering horse hooves.

  “Of course. When it rains, it pours.”

  “What, Master?” asked Narnaste.

  “Nothing. Narn, if it comes to fighting, try not to transform unless you absolutely have to. Same goes for you too, Yaakova and Ysintrill. If you transform now with so much going on, it might attract more attention.” He meaningfully nodded to the two figures throwing off waves of power in the sky.

  Yaakova nodded, and Ysintrill said, “I understand, Chief.”

  “We only have a couple minutes until we hit the walls ahead, but I don’t see any openings. Bravoosa, we need to slow down,” Trav said.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Actually, let’s find a place to make a stand and dismount. The Veil-Wraiths are closing in, and I don’t see a way into the ruins. We will send a scout on a horse to figure out how to get in.”

  Hravalin frowned. “Why don’t we just see if there is a way to go around? Shouldn’t we keep moving? Why are we trying to get in the ruins? We don’t even know if those who are already inside would help us.”

  Ida had been riding ahead with Trav’s group, and hadn’t spoken much until now. Now the dark elf said, “I agree with Hravalin. Why don’t we just go around?”

  Trav stared at the molten area where a hole or a gate might have been in the wall ahead, and considered what to say. “I have gotten information that makes me believe it is our best chance of survival.”

  “Truly?” The Dokkalfar woman looked skeptical, and Trav didn’t blame her.

  There wasn’t time to argue, and Trav knew the danger of leading through ultimatum. If he just pushed all the Kin to follow blindly after they had questions, he’d lose respect and likely lose soldiers. “Fuck,” he mumbled, then as his horse slowed to a stop, he turned, drew on Odin’s memory, and announced, “As the new Allfather, rightful ruler of the Aesir and Vanir, I give you my word that I have truthfully received information to go this direction, and I trust it.”

  Yaakova blinked and whispered, “Such power.”

  Ysintrill said, “Chief, you’re magically glowing. I thought you didn’t want to attract attention.”

  “Not much I can do about it right now, hopefully it will die down soon,” muttered Trav. “Was that enough for you, Ida?”

  The Dokkalfar woman was visibly shaken and didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, that is fine,” she said.

  Trav dismounted his horse and hoped Ida was able to cope with a possible religious issue now that she knew what he was. If they all survived, maybe he could talk with her later.

  “Get the horses behind us! Protect them! These things will come after anything living, or dead for that matter! The Soldier-Wra
iths are coming!”

  As Bravoosa repeated his orders and rushed around to check on all the Pinions, Hravalin softly said, “Master, perhaps you can tell me more about these Veil-Wraiths later.”

  “If we live through this, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  ***

  The next few minutes were a nightmare as the clouds roiled overhead, gales of power washed over the landscape from the powerful figures in the sky having a staring contest, tremors in the ground from the doomed world, and waves of Veil-Wraiths mindlessly rushing forward, hungry mouths gaping open.

  Trav stabbed, slashed, and kicked the unnatural things back. Everywhere he looked he could see new portals opening up, and more Veil-Wraiths appearing. It was only a matter of time until his group was overrun, but so far they’d been barely surviving.

  Yaakova was like a whirlwind of slashing razor feathers, leaping over the other Kin and delivering savage attacks from the Veil-Wraiths’ blind spots. She’d used some magic earlier, but almost immediately stopped when it became obvious the Veil-Wraiths actually could eat any magic power that didn’t immediately kill or damage them.

  From that moment on, all the Kin had relied on mundane weapons. If not for the savagery of the harpies and the inhuman endurance of the Dokkalfar, it was possible they would all have already been eaten. Instead, miraculously, Trav hadn’t lost anyone yet.

  “Are you sure we need to stay here, Master?” Narnaste lunged forward, skewering a Veil-Wraith with her rapier. Despite the fact that the things didn’t bleed naturally, her weapon had still been effective, probably from the range it afforded. “Or should I transform?”

  Trav was thinking about how to reply when a huge portal opened nearby, and something straight from nightmare climbed out. It was like a T-rex had a baby with an octopus and a yeti. Its body was covered in leathery skin and bony barbs. As soon as the awful thing appeared, Trav’s group wasn’t the only ones that faltered—the Veil-Wraiths they’d been fighting shrank back too.

  Then the awful thing shrieked, and Trav covered his ears with his palms. The sound was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, and his eyes swam with tears. When he looked up again, fearing the worst, the huge Veil-Wraith was thankfully not approaching. Instead, it seemed to be heading straight for the glowing section of wall around the ruined fort.