Asgard Awakening 2

by Blaise Corvin

  “A Lord-Wraith,” he whispered. Shit had definitely just hit the fan.

  As the rest of the Veil-Wraiths still shrank back, Trav’s group had a brief respite and he tried to get his breathing under control. Behind him, Ysintrill softly asked, “Chief, what do we do? You seem to know what is going on better than we do, but it doesn’t take much to know this is bad.”

  Trav nodded. He turned when there was a familiar flutter of wings. “Moira!” said Hravalin.

  The owl woman moved directly to Trav and her huge eyes met his own. In Kingdom she said, “I am supposed to give you a message. Ashley is here, and he’s telling Trav to get inside already!”

  Trav stared at her with his natural eye and his hidden emberstone eye. “Ash?”

  “Yes, Ash! You must know each other. He is my...lover.”

  Ashley is alive? Well, I knew, or suspected, that already. But he’s here? Could this really be my cousin? He has an owl chick? Trav couldn’t lose himself in his thoughts, and he steeled himself to survive the moment. “That sounds all well and good, but my scout couldn’t find a way into the wall. What the fuck does Ash suggest we do?”

  “He says you should follow that big monster right through the gate.”

  After Trav translated, Hravalin shrieked, “Is she serious?”

  Trav held up a hand. He could feel something tugging, something related to his mantle. “Let’s see what happens. If that thing opens a way, we’ll trust that Ash might know what he’s doing.” The Ash that Trav had known back on Earth had been a kid with a massive chip on his shoulder from being born with so much talent. It’d been a long time, though. Trav had changed, maybe Ash had too.

  And he could feel something now, a strange energy coming from within the ruins that also felt...familiar.

  Sure enough, the huge Veil-Wraith crashed through the superheated area of the wall, and began screeching as soon as it had. Trav grimly mounted up and motioned everyone else to do so as well.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Yaakova.

  “No, but we’re going anyway.” All around them, the Veil-Wraiths were starting to move in again, cautiously, like a predator had just left. Trav’s group only had a few moments to act or they’d be fighting for their lives again.

  “Once we get close to the wall, we won’t have any escape,” said Bravoosa. She had dark rings under her eyes, and the Captain looked like she was about to fall over.

  “I know,” said Trav. “Let’s go!” He spurred his exhausted horse and thundered forward, not turning to see if the others followed. Before he got to the wall, he could feel the heat of the broken material that had been plugging a gap. The molten area had been added by someone, but was still like magma. Trav grimly pushed forward, spurring his horse when he wanted to turn.

  Trav drew Hex with a curse. In a few more seconds, he was going to need to do something, anything to cool down the wall, but before he had to act, the ground began to glitter. In two breaths, the temperature of the molten wall died down to something uncomfortable instead of scorching as a layer of energy spilled out from the wall and covered the ground, smothering the flames and molten stone.

  Stopping would mean death, so Trav plunged forward, leading his Kin over the strange, glittering bridge, through the hole in the wall, past fires on the inside, and the corpse of the Lord-Wraith.

  Then he saw Ash. His cousin was truly alive, and he’d just done something to save Trav’s life. The energy that Trav was riding across had actually come from him.

  Ash was wearing rustic-looking clothing, not too different from what he used to wear back on Earth. He was older now, and harder, more intense. His gaze was confident and his eyes flashed with challenge as he gave Trav a lazy smile. Ash had obviously been fighting. He was scuffed, bruised, and singed, but still stood comfortably, almost casually while surrounded by the chaos around them.

  Trav definitely was not the only person in his family to change. He couldn’t imagine what all Ash had been through over the years to be the person standing before him now.

  “To the fort, Trav,” ordered Ash. His voice rang with the authority of someone used to command. “I’ll catch up.”

  Trav gave a small nod and moved to the large building at the rear of the ruins. He could see cultivators in the distance and reasoned that the building was where Ash planned to make a stand, which was a good call.

  Seeing his cousin again after all this time was one of the most surreal experiences that Trav had experienced since leaving the mines. If he survived to talk to Ash, he wondered what they would even say.

  Feeling suddenly awkward in a way he hadn’t for a very long time, Trav led his people to the only defensible structure he’d seen in the entire Veil-overlap.

  Chapter 27

  “Trav, I saw Tala-Tala,” said Narnaste. She kept looking back at the wall.

  “Who?”

  “My Kin friend in Kyvendi, from before I met you.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember.” Trav’s thoughts were disjointed, and he mentally slapped himself, trying to focus. He glanced around and realized that the large, ruined structure he was standing in had probably been some sort of government building or a throne room in the past. He saw a lot of cultivators, all wearing different styles of clothing, and he got the feeling they were not all from the same group. They weren’t wearing uniforms per se, but definitely dressed differently. A handful of unfamiliar Kin were mixed in as well, mostly Dokkalfar, but he didn’t see any harpies other than the Pinions.

  A human woman, a cultivator, approached their group. “I am Mei,” she said. “Who is in charge? I saw you come in past Ash.” The woman had soft brown eyes, almost hazel, and extremely black hair that shined in the meager light. Unlike most of the other cultivators in the room, she was not staring at Trav’s group with suspicion. She moved elegantly, and was far more curvy than most of the other cultivator women Trav had seen so far. He absently wondered if she was one of Ash’s women too. Back on Earth it wouldn’t have even occurred to him, but now he wouldn’t be surprised at all.

  Trav ran a hand through his filthy hair and said, “Ash is my cousin.”

  Mei blinked. “Ashley Sheng? You are family? Truly?”

  “Sheng?” He realized Ash must have changed his name and decided his cousin must have had a good reason. “Ashley Sheng. Yes, but I don’t think we have time to talk about it. The Veil-Wraiths are coming. Can you tell me whether there is a plan?” Trav knew better than to try taking over in this situation. If anything, his force was far smaller than the other, surrounding fighters. This was a time when it would be wise to be humble.

  Behind Mei, a rabbit-eared Kin woman carried Ash into the building, and Trav was concerned for a second before his cousin pulled her in for a French kiss. Trav snorted and thought, Yup, I’m not surprised.

  Another cultivator woman walked up to join Mei, saying, “I speak the language of Asgard. Is an interpreter needed?”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Trav. “But maybe you can hang around just in case.”

  “As you wish.” She bowed.

  Mei said, “We have received reports of flying enemies who are carrying more of their kind, the Soldier-Wraiths. They should be here any moment.”

  “You know the names? ‘Veil-Wraith?’ How?”

  “Ash told us.”

  “Figures.” Trav was beginning to grow convinced that his cousin might have inherited a Restless mantle as well. “So there will be an attack on the roof?”

  “Definitely.”

  Trav nodded and asked the other cultivator woman to translate for his people while he pondered. While the cultivator woman translated, the rabbit-eared Kin who’d just been with Ash came over and pulled Narnaste to the side. They didn’t talk long, but hugged fiercely. Narnaste came back with a firm look and misty eyes.

  As the translator was finishing up, Trav’s eyes roamed the room and saw evidence of a past battle in this place, probably another group in the ancient past who’d desperately defended a
gainst Veil-Wraiths. The thought was grim, because they’d obviously lost. As soon as the translation ended, Trav said, “I want all of our archers up on the roof, as well as anyone specializing in magic. Ranged attacks. Ida and Ysintrill, go up there with them.”

  The Pinions saluted, and some of the Dokkalfar did too before running to the steps upward.

  “Why aren’t we going with them?” asked Hravalin.

  “Just because there are flying Veil-Wraiths doesn’t mean they will all go to the roof,” said Trav. “They are carrying Soldier-Wraiths, and this place will probably be crawling with them.” His point was made when there was a flapping sound outside, and shadows began to form at the door. “Guard the entrances!” Trav shouted. “We need people up front who can hold them back, and I want anyone here with ranged attacks to get some height, maybe on the stairwells! Spears, form ranks behind shields!” He translated what he’d said into Kingdom, and the cultivators present blinked, shocked, but didn’t take long before bursting into motion.

  Kin or cultivator, everyone present was a warrior and understood that their survival depended on working together.

  The cultivators turned out to be incredibly effective against the Veil-Wraiths, which Trav was thankful for. While the ruins were old, what was left was solid. The Soldier-Wraiths were forced to attack through choke points, so Trav organized with some of the cultivator leaders to rotate fighters in and out of the front line, allowing defenders to rest.

  Trav took his turn too. He shuffled and stamped, skewering humanoid shadows on his spear, using his massive strength to kick the things back into each other. At one point, he actually stabbed a Veil-Wraith with Hex, and was shocked at the reaction it caused. The attacker shrank back, shrieking as it almost seemed to collapse in on itself. As soon as it happened, some of the other Soldier-Wraiths cautiously opened some distance, and Trav grinned.

  He ran through the press of bodies, popping out somewhere else at the front line and stabbed another Veil-Wraith with Hex. This creature reacted the same way, and Trav knew he’d discovered he had an extremely effective weapon versus Veil-Wraiths, though he wasn’t sure why.

  Hex and Shatter in hand, he moved past the door, actually helping the defenders turn the tide. In this battle, Hex was far more effective than his magic would have been since he had so little magic power to draw on anymore.

  Everyone’s morale had gone up, and the defenders were beginning to turn the tide when the ceiling at the rear of the room collapsed and a massive leg invaded the space.

  “What the fuck?” Trav yelled over the bedlam. Panicked Kin and cultivators rushed away from falling stone, but some had already been crushed. The Lord-Wraith he’d seen earlier had been big, but nowhere near the size of whatever owned the inky-black leg pulling out of the room. “It can’t be,” he whispered.

  Frightened defenders moved to the doors, and luckily for them, the Soldier-Wraiths seemed just as freaked out. The smaller Veil-Wraiths had begun moving away at top speed as soon as the massive thing had appeared outside. Defenders from the room ran down the stairs, abandoning where they’d been fighting.

  Among the group of people rushing from the roof was Ash. Trav’s cousin ran into the throne room with a woman slung over his shoulder. He was covered in blood, but none of it seemed to be his.

  Ash shouted in Kingdom, “We need to clear out! It’s time to go, right now!”

  A sudden flurry of questions rose from the cultivators until a huge fist knocked a hole in the wall the size of a car. Pieces of stone pelted the ground and a big chunk brained a young man in cultivator robes. The hand itself slammed another young man to the ground. Then the hand grabbed a Dokkalfar, jerking her out of the throne room, followed by a fading wail of fear. Her screams were cut off outside the building.

  There was no more hesitation as people tried to escape the throne room. Trav’s people were some of the first out. He’d trusted Ash to run into a burning wall, so he’d begun moving as soon as he’d heard his cousin’s command. His group had almost already been out before he’d seen the hand crash through the wall. Outside, he got his first good look at the thing that had been dismantling the throne room and his blood ran cold. “A Destroyer,” he whispered. Odin’s memories were very firm on the fact these things were bad, bad news.

  As Trav watched, the thing casually crunched on the cultivator it held in one hand, and bent down to pick up two wounded Soldier-Wraiths. There was no way anyone in his group would be able to hurt this thing. In fact, if he was not mistaken, he and Ash were probably the strongest in the entire group of motley survivors.

  Then as the Destroyer ignored most of the fighters on the ground and just amused itself by sampling the people it’d grabbed, Trav saw an opening. He empowered Shatter with all the energy the spear could take, coaxing a bit more than a single charge from the emberstone powering the enchantments he’d laid on it.

  “Gust,” he said, pointing Hex at the ground, and he sprang up, letting the wind assist his jump. Destroyer-Wraiths were incredibly dangerous, and very hard to damage. Trav was hoping that his surprise attack with Shatter would be enough to at least cripple the Destroyer. He was reasonably sure that a blow as powerful as the one he was leveling at the Destroyer’s chest would have even put down Najila, or at least hurt her.

  He punched his spear forward, putting everything he had into the strike...and nothing happened. Trav’s eyes widened in horror, and he used the last of his gust to help push him back, away from the Destroyer.

  “Puny life-thing,” the monster gurgled. It spit blood and worse as it laughed, and took a bite out of one of the Wraiths it held.

  Trav stared up at the thing and did an inventory of his available tools. He had less than a bar of magic power left, Shatter was ineffective, and there was no way Hex was going to be useful as a weapon against the huge Destroyer. From what he’d seen, Cultivators and Hex seemed effective against Veil-Wraiths, but he wasn’t sure how helpful it was to know these facts—the Destroyer was as different from a Soldier-Wraith as a Dacith was from a Rakshasa. He darted back as the creature advanced. It snatched up one of the Pinions and a cultivator.

  Behind Trav, Ash ran forward past Trav, but stopped and hopped back, then hopped again on one foot. That’s right, Ash is a cultivator, realized Trav. Ash held two small swords in his hands and met Trav’s eyes, looking up at the Destroyer and back. Trav understood. He let his spear drop and grabbed Ash like he had when they were younger, though things had changed. Now Trav was far stronger than any human on Earth. He flung Ash forward, pointed Hex and whispered, “Gust!” He put as much power into the rune spell as he could.

  The moment Ash was in the air he did something too and gained even more speed, rocketing forward. Trav’s long-lost cousin hit the Destroyer in the shoulder with a flash of light, and actually managed to damage the thing! His blades were stuck in the Destroyer’s flesh, and as Ashe flipped around to put his feet on the Destroyer’s back, the monster’s hand spasmed and it dropped the harpy and cultivator it’d grabbed.

  The Destroyer screamed, more in anger than pain, and reached back toward Ash. Trav saw an opening again and knew he had to do something. He picked up his spear, supercharged it, and skewered the thing’s wrist with all of his strength. The Destroyer’s unnatural body would likely shrug off any bullet from Earth, but couldn’t resist Trav’s spear—not this time.

  With a sound like steam escaping an engine, the Destroyer seemed to actually notice Trav for the first time and tried to grab him.

  Trav used some of the last of his magic power to give himself a physical boost, enough to pull his spear free and dodge. The Destroyer’s hand passed where Trav had just been, and it growled in frustration.

  In Trav’s hand, his spear shook. Luckily, Shatter had survived the abuse he’d put it through, but it might need repairs later.

  On the Veil-Wraith’s shoulder, Ash got his weapons free and jumped off. But as soon as Trav’s cousin hit the ground, the Destroyer made a ghastly expressio
n, taking glee as it bent forward to show how its bloodless wound was mending. This thing is too much for us to handle, thought Trav. His heart sunk, and he hated the fact that his realization and despair was likely exactly what the Destroyer had wanted.

  The enormous Veil-Wraith rumbled, “Now, I’m going to—” but abruptly stopped as its head jerked to the side. Trav knew why. At that moment, a huge wave of power rolled over the landscape, and it took a moment for Trav to realize it’d come from the two figures who’d been having a staring contest or shit-talking session in the sky. For all Trav knew, it could have been both, but now it’d come to blows.

  The Destroyer’s awful voice was easier to tolerate now since it was distracted. “Puny life-things. Find you later,” it growled. Then the huge thing crouched down, and jumped straight into the air. Enormous wings that Trav hadn’t even noticed before unfurled and carried it up into the sky, directly toward the source of power washing over the dead world. Trav looked past it and confirmed that the powerful Kin and cultivator in the sky were definitely fighting now.

  If they aren’t paying attention, they’re going to have a hell of a surprise, Trav thought. Then he shook his head and thought, Nah, they’re not going to like this even if they see that thing coming.

  Trav looked around, panting, and couldn’t believe it. They’d survived. There weren’t even any more Soldier-Wraiths around. As soon as the Destroyer had shown up, they’d fled, and it seemed they weren’t in any hurry to come back as long as it was still up in the sky.

  His spear dipped until the tip rested on the broken stone of the ruins. Everyone in the ruins had just escaped death by a hair.

  Did you see that coming? he thought at the Oracle, but didn’t get a response.