Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) (24 page)

The Ogre charges, his axe held in the same high position he used to launch the wave attack. I move to the side, as the Ogre's axe hammers into the sand where I was standing.

I drive a short heavy chop at the Ogre's head, but he drags his axe's haft into position to catch mine haft to haft. With a rippling of his muscles, starting at his feet, he hurls me backward. My feet slide through the sand for five or six yards, leaving furrows behind.

No two ways about it, I am outmatched in both strength and mass. The Ogre is not an enemy I can batter my way past with brute force. Combined with his water magic, his brute physical power and marital skills make him the most dangerous enemy I have faced since returning to the Battleground of the Damned.

The forge heats the steel. The steel remembers the forge. The heat of molten iron burns the foe and lights the dark.

The head of my axe begins to glow and waves of heat cause a heat shimmer in the air. Unlike when I burned up Perzey's swords, this heat is controlled and is doing no damage to my axe.

I move next to the Ogre and chop at his head. As expected, he blocks it, and the glowing edge of my axe leave a nick in his.

“Goblin-fucking Smiths!” Hate and venom fill the Ogre's voice.

Back and forth, we chop at one another and block the other's attacks. The Ogre's attacks are weaker than before. He is worried about my kicks and is trying to not leave me any openings. As fast as I move, my movement is not beyond the Ogre's ability to perceive, and he blocks or dodges everything I throw at him.

When I move to attack from his rear flank, the Ogre leaps forward. Spinning his axe over his head again, he keeps distance between. Thin white mist billows down and outward from his axe. As it thickens, it begins rapidly filling the center of the arena.

I do not close with the Ogre again. Until I ascertain what the purpose of the mist is, I do not want to get too close to him. The mist continues to spread, covering more and more of the arena and obscuring my view of the Ogre. An odd haze of mana carrying a hint of psi fills the mist. Like his other attacks, there is no real spell pattern in the mist. If he is a caster, he is definitely an aberrant caster. Just what is this mist's purpose?

As I stand watching, the Ogre continues to swing his axe and the mist spreads farther with each revolution, until most of the central area of the arena is filled with it. Is it just a camouflage?

I move toward the Ogre, and he jumps to the side, disappearing in a particularly thick billow of the mist. The mist begins to swirl in the same clockwise direction that the Ogre was swinging his axe, and a loud moaning sound fills the arena.

I was too cautious. I should have just attacked. Even though I can neither see nor hear the Ogre, I can still tell exactly where he is. He moved backward after jumping into the billow of mist. He must think I cannot see or hear him. I will use that misconception against him.

Moving to where the Ogre initially jumped, I swing my axe in a huge slashing arc. After not hitting anything, I stop and turn slowly in a circle as though trying to ascertain the Ogre's position, while holding my axe ready over my head.

A nasty smile on his face, the Ogre moves around to my back, but does not close the distance between us. After raising his axe, while holding it out behind himself, he executes a huge swing, parallel to the ground, in the empty air between us. Six icicle-like shards of ice, each one over an inch thick at its base, hurtle through the air at my back.

With my ki condensed in my back as a layer of force, I do not even try to dodge. Blood spatters in all directions, turning the cyclonic white mist pink, as the ice shards penetrate about a quarter of an inch into my body.

“Aaargh!” I drop to my knees, pretending to be far more seriously injured than I am. The actual damage is minor, and I can easily ignore this little bit of pain.

The Ogre takes two steps toward me, before stopping. He seems to be displeased, his face scrunched up in a frown.

Using my body control, I increase the small amount of blood flowing from my wounds. The swirling mists scour it from my body, increasing the volume of the pink tint.

Using my axe like a crutch, I pretend to force myself back to my feet, and turn around. Cocking my head to the side, I act like I am trying to search for the Ogre by sound. Walking in his general direction but not directly toward him, I keep making short probing slashes.

The Ogre moves away from my line of advancement but does not attack. His face and stance give off a definite air of his being perturbed. He begins to swing that axe around his head again, and a single icicle begins to rapidly form. It quickly becomes as long as I am tall.

After another dozen steps, I pause and pretend to try looking and listening for the Ogre. One of the holes dug in the sand by out battle is right in front of me, and as the Ogre launches the icicle spear, I stumble in the hole. The sound of its passage is audible over the howling of the cyclonic mist, and I turn in the Ogre's direction.

Rage and irritation twisting its face into an vicious mask, the Ogre moves to close in from my left side. His massive axe sweeps toward the middle of my chest, in a chop that will bisect me if it lands. When I hammer my axe into the flat of his in an upward strike and duck under the blade, the Ogre lets out a bellow of pure rage.

The Ogre's armor plates include a massive code piece, and uncoiling from my crouch, I drive a side kick into it. My ki explodes into his body from the point of impact, wreaking havoc on his internal organs.

Pop! Pop!

“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

The sound of the Ogre's balls rupturing is audible, and his scream is loud enough to be painful.

As my foot touches the ground again, my axe cleaves into the back of the Ogre's knees. The incredibly hard and keen blade cleaves through his armor like tissue paper, severing the joint. With the flat of the blade, as he topples toward me, I smash him in the face, flipping him into the air. Before his body hits the ground, my downward slash carves through the armor, flesh, and bone of his arm, removing the hand still holding onto his axe.

As the cyclonic motion of the mist wanes, the water in the air settles to the ground, tinges the black sand with a faint pinkish highlight. The eyes of the spectators slowly turn from the images displayed on the spell formation based viewing system, to the center of the arena, where I am standing over the Ogre.

“You were aware of what I what I was doing the entire time. You're a Trinary, aren't you?” Despite his obvious pain, the calm resignation on the Ogre's face carries an air of nobility.

I nod. “I had the feeling you thought something was off, with the way you kept your distance.”

“You are not a very good actor, but when you didn't come after me, I ignored my instincts. You're nothing but a goblin-shit human.”

“Go fuck yourself.” My axe splits the Ogre's skull open, splattering his brain matter all over the sand.

It takes a few moments for the crowds to process events and react.

“Brand! Brand! Brand! Brand! BRAND! BRAND! BRAND! BRAND!” Starting with just few voices, the chant quickly spreads to more than half the spectators.

With on hand, I raise my blood-dripping axe high over my head, and the chant breaks down into wild roaring.

The sanguine light of the setting sun makes the white stone of the dead city appear to be covered in blood. That may not be such an inappropriate facade. Before its destruction, the history of First Landing was one of continuous bloody conflict with the inhabitants of the Labyrinth of Yggr. Its inhabitants had come from outside the Labyrinth, following the direction of their priests. The prophecies of The Nameless Gods had promised them untold riches and an endless supply of slaves in the land beyond the rift.

Even though they took control over the Nexus tower and built their city-state, they never found their riches and endless supply of slaves. After a bit less than five millennium of endless warfare, one of the Seven Great Citadels of the DokkAlfar arrived in the skies above their city, and in the space of a day and night, the city of First Landing became a city of the dead and the living dead.

Thinking that the city was nothing but a dead ruin, the six person scouting party from the Bohemian Cats did nothing to conceal their tracks. Their trail could be followed by anyone with a little scouting lore from the the breach in the curtain wall nearest to the bay, as it wended its way through the seemingly deserted and decaying buildings. The signs of their passage were intermittent, hard stone does not give much away, but there was no sign of them having entered any of the buildings.

Even though they were paying attention to their surrounding, none of the Bohemian Cats noticed the gaze of the unseen watcher who was tracking their movements. They did notice anything other than the strong sense of oppression hanging over First Landing.

The sanguine light faded, as the sun dropped beneath the horizon. Even though it had not started to rain, the air felt pregnant with the coming of a storm. Heavy cloud cover moving in from the south hid the light of the rising moon. The wind picked up and was soon whistling through First Landing. Soon, the unliving would start to stalk the streets.

Some of the warehouses fronting the docks had windows, more accurately the holes that were once windows, that appeared to have been living quarters. From the empty holes in one of those warehouses the flickering, orange light of a fire was visible. The Bohemian Cats had set out a clear beacon for anyone or anything that might be looking for them.

Simon was one of the Bohemian Cats' scouts, who called himself a ranger. His skills were best suited to a wilderness environment, but his personality was better suited to an urban environment. Even though the concept of classes did not exist in
Taereun: Battleground of the Damned
, the players still kept using it. It was easier to mash people into their pigeonholes, if you put a convenient label on them. Like most of the players, he had constantly limited himself based on his class. Because of his nature and attitude, he had been having a hard time adjusting to actually living and acting in a manner best suited to exploit the skills he acquired when he was given possession of his new body.

Simon was a barely visible shadow in the empty doorway of the warehouse. His position never changed, and he never noticed the stalker closing on the building from outside his line of sight, until the the stalker jumped through an empty window frame. A choke hold cut off his attempted shout and his oxygen, and his struggles were pointless against his attacker's inhuman strength.

“You should be happy. Tonight, I am not here to kill you.”

Simon stiffened at the sound of the voice in his ear, but stopped trying to break free. He had recognized the voice. It was someone he never wanted to run into under the noonday sun, let alone in a darkened warehouse in a dead city, Talon the Half-Dvergar. Simon had seen Talon in action a few times but had never spoken with him.

A hand clamped tightly over Simon's mouth, and the the pressure on his neck relaxed.

“I won't kill you, if you don't act like an imbecile. When I release you, we are both going upstairs nice and calm. No one will get hurt if you do not provoke me. Understand?”

Simon nodded his head. He did not try to shout or escape, when Talon released him, and turned to look at the Half-Dvergar. The fear in Simon's eyes, as they widened at the sight of his attacker, brought a faint smile to Talon's lips.

Talon gestured towards the wall, where the stairs were. “You go first.”

Simon ascended the stairs, followed by Talon like a ghost. The sounds of people moving and drawing weapons was audible, after Simon's upper body has passed the level of the floor.

“Simon, what's wrong?” The voice belonged to Sandor, one of the Bohemian Cat's heavy plate wearing fighters.

Simon tried to make a break for it but fell, when Talon tripped him.

“What the hell?”

“Yoh!”

“Gala, come here!”

Talon grabbed Simon by the collar of his leather jacket and continued into the loft. The outer wall of the warehouse was at his back, when he turned to face the Bohemian Cats. For a few moments, no one said a word as they stared at one another. Simon was squatting next to Talon, unable to break free from the strength of the Half-Dvergar's grip.

The loft was brightly lit by a large campfire, burning in a ring of rubble on the floor. There were no walls to divide it into separate rooms, and it ran the entire length and width of the ancient warehouse. Anything not made from stone had long since crumbled into ruin. Standing more than thirty feet from the fire, Simon could feel its warmth. Even with the open gaps where windows once were, the temperature was fifteen degrees higher than outside.

Loosely scattered around the fire, the other five people that made up the scouting party were sitting silently. The difference in their demeanors since the beginning of the Great Fuck Over was obvious. They all seemed more tightly wound, ready to explode at any moment.

The leader of this party was Sandor. Standing six-foot-ten, he had a build that would make the few remaining professional body builders on Earth jealous. His grey enameled plate armour was forged to match the outlines of flexed muscles, and the axe and shield he was carrying would be too heavy most humans to use.

“Put that fucking fire out, unless you want to draw every undead in the city here. There are enough powerful spirit type undead to kill everyone in this place a dozen times over.”

Sandor sneered at Talon. “Don't you dare attempt to order us around, you damned asshole! You're nothing but a loser, who cannot function in a group with others.”

Talon smiled nastily at Sandor. “You can all go to hell for all I care. Since you're so eager to get there, why don't I send you all myself. Right now.”

“No! Don't!” Selestra's scream echoed in the empty loft. Her eyes were wide, not hiding the fear in her heart.

“Selestra knows I can destroy all of you as easily as breathing. You should listen to her. If I decide to kill you, you're dead. If I leave you, you will be food for the living dead. If you want to live, put out that fucking fire and follow me!”

“We're not taking your orders, and we're not following you.” Sandor's face twisted in rage.

“You moron's are fucking up my hunt. Until you came in here like a fucking parade, the undead were laying low. I was able to scout around, without them interfering, but now the undead are coming. A lot of undead are coming.” Talon's voice was a harsh angry growl, that cuts through both Selestra's tirade and the whining and complaints that some of the others were starting to give voice to.

“That will be enough of your attempts at scare tactics. If this city is so dangerous, why are you here alone.” Gabriel was the other heavy plate fighter in the Bohemian Cats, and he was generally the voice of reason among the Bohemian Cats. Standing six-foot-two, he was much less heavily built than Sandor, but he was still not small. His red and gold enameled plate armour was not as thick and heavy as Connell's, and his sword and shield were meant for more normal humans to use.

Despite The Lord of Jet's grandstanding, the pair of Sandor and Gabriel were the ones who performed as the real tanks, when the Bohemian Cats were fighting. On Earth, their families were inextricably intertwined through business dealings and marriages, and they were the best of friends.

Talon's grin was more of a snarl than a grin. “I'm always alone. I've been out front of you since the battle for Cobyrne, but most of you shits were too fucking caught up in your games of who is putting the sausage in whose asshole to ever notice what was really happening.”

Gabriel did his best to hide his anger, but he was not sure how successful he was. “So you're here to scout this city for the Confederation's assault?”

“No, I'm here to kill the head undead in charge, but now, the whole place is like a hornets nest that's been hit with a stick.”

Sandor laughed mockingly. “You kill the leader of this place alone? What a joke. But I guess considering the city is dead and empty, you could go back and claim anything you want.”

Talon's smile turned nasty, as he pointed at the stairway. “There are plenty of undead here. If you don't believe me, then you can be the first one to look down those stairs.”

Gabriel smiled faintly and walked to the head of the stairs. As he looked down, his face paled, and his body shivered slightly. The look he turned on Talon was filled with suspicion, but there was also something else that might have been fear.

“Too late to put out the fire, so you better get ready to fight. There are thousands of undead, both corporeal and incorporeal in this city. There is also some kind of lich or something similar that seems to be in charge of them all, so we could be facing a horde. If we stay here, we'll die. Like the last couple of Nexus cities, I didn't see a single undead in the sewers, so you might survive if we get into them.”

Six pairs of eyes stared at Talon, filled with a mix of distrust and outright fear. For the first time, since entering the ruined city, it was really sinking in that this is not even close to being a smart move.

“The nearest sewer entry I know of is several blocks from here. We're going to have to move fast and kill fast.”

Sandor's face twisted into an ugly anger-filled mask. “SHUT UP! This is my party not yours! I am the one who makes the decisions, and I am the one who give the orders. If you want to stay with us, you'll take your orders from me, like everyone else.”

The first of the undead came up from the stairwell. It was some kind of an amorphous blob of dark energy, and Talon launched a spinning kick at it. His foot was sheathed in a field of black energy, shot through with veins of maleficent purple. It punched through the blob, but the undead was not destroyed. Even though it lacked a mouth, the undead blob screamed, both physically and psychically, and threw a bolt of electricity at Talon. He twisted and spun, avoiding most of the damage. He launched a flurry of energy sheathed punches, and after six hits, the undead dissipated with a fading shriek. Behind it, several more incorporeal forms were already on their way up the stairs.

“Stop gawking like tourists and get ready to fight!” Talon's voice had a sharp pitch that seemed to command and instill obedience.

Before they realized that they are responding to Talon's vocal projection, the Bohemian Cats formed up in a semicircle facing the stairs. They were in a bad location, and it would only get worse. Even though they were blocking the stairway, there was nothing to stop incorporeal undead from flying up and coming through an empty window. Incorporeal undead would even be able to pass through the floor of the loft.

Three more undead came up the stairs, another of the amorphous blobs and two ghosts or spirits. Talon immediately attacked the blob, and it created an icy cloud around him. The temperature was so low that hoarfrost instantly formed on his body and the stone underneath his feet. If his body did not have its superhuman resilience, he would have probably been afflicted with instant frostbite. Even so, he almost immediately started to shiver from the extreme cold. After only a few more strikes, the undead was destroyed like the last. With its destruction, the temperature started to rise again.

While Talon was fighting the blob, Sandor and Gabriel engaged the other two, and destroyed them as well, but more were already coming out of the stairway

“If we stay here, we die. Get your shit and your guild together and follow me, if you want to live.”

Sandor stared at Talon for a moment, his eyes filled with simmering anger. Then, he looked at his guild members to either side of him. They were all looking to him, with fear and uncertainty on their faces. A complex series of emotions played across his face, before he straightened his posture and puffed out his chest.

Sandor gave Talon another nasty look. “Fine, you're the tank. You take point. Gabriel and I will back you up.”

“You casters stay in the center. Selestra and Simon, you guard the rear Everyone, follow Talon.” Sandor glared at Talon, when he finished ordering Sandor's guild members.

Yoh, the Bohemian Cats' main healer, and his real-life sister Galadria, an Earth affinity caster, moved up behind Sandor and Gabriel. Selestra and Simon glanced at each other and took up the rear.

Talon's lips twisted into fierce death's head grin, and he charge down the stairs. His fists wrapped in black energy, he tore into the spirits, wraiths and ghosts that were swarming up towards him. Even though they did not have corporeal bodies, they did not come close to the speed of the Half-Dvergar. Without corporeal bodies, it was impossible for them to block his strikes, but every time his arm or leg passed through their bodies, they drained small amounts of his life energy.