12 Miles Below

The gate doorway was massive, towering above an Odin. Maybe ten times their size, all stacked up like vertical black potatoes.

I contemplated how I was going to get through such a tiny hole in the wall and not bump or scrape all my gear to the sides. “If Father could see me now, proud knight retainer, warlock apprentice, Feather slayer - now crawling my way through a tiny gate on all fours.”

“I’ll share the recording with him.” Cathida said, her avatar leaning on the doorway side, arms crossed. “I believe he would be more upset that you’re going to go through the clearly trapped and cursed gateway instead of the more obvious path, such as jumping over the entire thing.”

“Manners, Cathida! We’re not savages.” I gave her a scoff, then turned back to the doorway, and looked up.

Above, I could see the Odin all lined up and looking down at me with beaks up in the air, each having one eye pointed down at me. It was a little unnerving since they looked like tiny gothic commando chickens to me no matter how I tried to think differently.

I did have some experience with the beady merciless chickens back home. The rosters would absolutely chase and camp anyone who showed a hint of fear. So somewhere in that bird evolution tree, there was a deadly predator buried deep down and the Odin clearly tapped into it.

Also they also had a bunch of weapons of various kinds and tactical gear. Might have added to my suspicions.

Cathida had a point about the wall being cursed on another note. There were effigies and strange kinds of woven baskets all hung from string that lined the wallsides. Very tiny, each the size of a marble with one feather sticking out. I hadn't noticed them on approach, thinking they were just cracks or dirt exploded onto the wallside at some point and never cleaned off.

As far as both Cathida, Journey and I could figure - we had no godsdamned clue what those were used for. It was literal twigs and feather-down. Hundreds of them, clearly handmade. Or beak-made.

Anyone else might scoff at the thought of that, but I was a walking magical space warlock in power armor. And Deathless existed among humans. So who knows what the Odin might have uncovered on their side.

One particular beak I recognized popped over the edge of the wall above, the little beady eye looking for a half second around until it saw where I was standing. That would be my translator, Rashant.

“Are you able to cross through the gate, human?” He asked. “We are a little worried it might be too small.”

“No, I think I can fit in. I’m just curious what the baskets lining the gateside are.”

Reshant gave a little crow, and likely talked to some of the other soldiers keeping an eye down on us. “They are wards for the… Row’ckrow’akat.” He took some time to figure out how to say that word before just saying it as is.

“No translation available.” Cathida said. “Journey’s going with a direct one to one on that.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling too given the name.” I said, shrugging, then turned up to Rashant. “I think you know what I’m going to ask next.”

Rashant gave another crow. As if debating how to answer, or even if he should answer. “A god, but not a god. Half a god, half other. The infestation is the god’s body. It is said that this god had his head and heart cut off, stolen and secreted into the world of the dead by a thief. And the body is searching for his head and heart all this time. If the thief attempts to pass through this gate with the body parts, the wards are said to repel the thief backwards and hopefully draw the infestation away from here.”

“I have a lot more questions.” I said.

Rashant gave a few wingslaps in the air, and hopped three times to get a better view down at me, brushing past a few other Odin. “The soldiers are very superstitious. We’ve been living in the deadlands for a long time now you see, and have a lot of free time. Things happen.”

I somewhat understood how all that ended up happening. Surface scavengers had so many good luck rituals that every house had its own unique traditions just to feel special compared to the other houses.

That said, things were going to get interesting for Bob.

What were the effects of an entire outpost, with Bob-based mythos already deeply rooted in place, learning that Bob was intelligent and could communicate? “Cathida, I think I might have accidentally started a cult for Bob.”

“Oh you certainly did worse than that.” She said.

I narrowed my eyebrows in suspicion. “What do you mean by that?”

“Congratulations deary, you can put being the herald for a god as well as being a cult master among your list of titles. Lead your lost lambs well because right now, I don’t trust them not to try killing you first.”

Ah. Of course this wasn’t going to stop at just Bob. I was now entangled within all this. “They’re…. uhh, well behaved enough.” I said, looking for any signs of blood or ritual sacrifice across the walls and finding it all tame little trinkets at the very least. The Odin above the walls were all still eerily looking down on me and I had no idea what was actually going through their heads.

“Still recommend just scaling the wall instead of going through their clearly well planned out cursed death-funnel.” Cathida said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just because the enemy says they’re done trying to kill you, doesn’t mean they’ll actually stop trying to kill you. That’s what makes them, you know, enemies.”

Journey’s sensors could already map out what was on the other side of the wall just from what data it got through the gateway hole, and my soul sight showed me the rest. There’d be two more walls behind this one. A large trench with wooden spikes in a pit and a very thin bridge, with quite a lot of human rifles mounted on turrets above the second wall and an equal amount of Odin higher up, next to the turrets.

They weren’t as high caliber as the rotary cannon that had opened fire on me, but I suspect that cannon had been designed in case a bigger machine was making its way over. These were designed to chew through Bob’s legions. So they clearly subscribed to the trust but verify method when it came to their little string basket wards.

Still perfectly safe to me. If the Odin opened fire with those turrets, it would make a yellow sparkling lightshow over my armor. And they also weren’t manning their turrets, just sitting nearby with a close eye on me.

"I can see through what they got, nothing dangerous. I'll put a show of trust for now. They're clearly far more skittish about me than I am of them."

A few hundred beaks all poked over the edge above, an equal amount of eyes looking down at me with alien emotions. The big general of the Odin called me a dragon earlier, though I don't know how accurate that is.

If a giant lizard straight from myth showed up at the clan gates, immune to the freeze, impervious to railguns and airship cannons, two dozen times larger than the tallest man, loomed over the hangar gates and could swat the entire defe- okay, nevermind, I see it now.

“I'm a dragon huh.” I muttered as I got on all fours and crawled through the entrance, slowly made my way and stood back up on the other side. “Kind of like the ring of it.”

In the soul sight, I could clearly see the mass migration of birds all hopping from one side of the wall to the other, in order to see me crawl my way out of the hole with delicate precision so that I don't bend or break anything that had my name on it.

“I fear what might be going on in that squirebrain of yours right now.” Cathida said, digitally walking through the wallside as if it wasn’t there. “I sense ego. Am I on the gold?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Me? No way.” I said. “All I’m thinking is that it would be nice to have a better name than just Keith Winterscar. Maybe something more regal, like ‘Paradarixian’ or ‘Archimondrius.’ Something with a little more bite. A title too. Like Archimondrius the ancient human. Or Archimondrius the great god-speaker. Thoughts?”

“You spent too much time reading bad fiction.” She said. There was a noticeable pause however.

“But…?”

“...But I can’t deny the names do have a good ring to it.” She eventually said with a deep resigned sigh, head turned away from me.

I smiled at her deeply. “Imperial bait is too easy.”

She grumbled a bit, but had no argument back. I took a quick hop over the trench, not bothering to walk over the bridge since my weight would crush the thing down. The Odin were all watching me from above, flying from wall to wall to follow my progress. The number of birds had grown from a hundred to several. I had a feeling it might be the entire outpost here now watching me pass through their little gates.

They were all clearly talking to each other. At the same time. The noise was absolutely deafening.

“I do think you need to pick up their standard language.” Cathida said. “Old norse isn’t what they all speak. I think they’re quite the same to the Imperials in that way. Only our priests and artists could speak Latin even though all our scriptures and decorations were written in Latin.”

“You know, for a completely alien species, they are pretty similar to us.” I said, making my way through the second wall’s gateway. “They got a political system going, government and ranks in a military, a caste system and recognizable jobs. Scouts, translator, generals, soldiers, and so forth. I’d bet they have farmers, scholars, research and engineering too. I’d imagine everything we have, they also have. Except Deathless and warlocks. That’s going to be fun to explain to them how humans have learned to use magic. Definitely not going to help with the inevitable cult issues.”

“Dear, please don’t scare the poor birds more than they already are.” Cathida said.

“Is that mercy I hear from Cathida the crusader of all people?”

“No, I’m worried they'll think you’re a demon who’s resurrected a human corpse to pilot around and that they need to perform an exorcism. Using power cells. Or that you're the thief they've been worried about crossing their gates and leading a bioweapon after you.” She said. “And so my conclusion is that unnerving the already spooked birds might end up with a few more explosions than we want to handle. Journey’s quite worried about their capabilities for the record, not just me.”

I gave them a look. There were a lot of them all flying around and screaming at one another. There was some air of professionalism with a lot of Odin right next to their turrets or manned station, but it did feel like complete anarchy if I wasn’t squinting to see the order behind it all.

No power cells anywhere in my vision, neither natural nor supernatural.

And talking about sheer anarchy, the defense in this section had been just the word ‘FIRE’ written in bold red letters on the planning document. Flamethrowers and oil traps all prepared and ready to use, the ground filled with magnesium scraps and other goodies, bombs and incendiary ordinance buried further under. This would be more of an incinerator than anything.

But what dragon would be afraid of fire? The fractal of heat could easily generate far higher temperatures than anything here. So, once more, I was functionally immune to their deathtraps.

I crawled through the last opened gateway, careful not to bash my head against anything fragile like rebar reinforced concrete or twenty-four inch steel alloy. This wall looked expensive and I could easily put a helmet-sized bump into it if I moved too quickly.

...

Is this how Feathers felt walking around with their indestructible bodies and ludicrously overpowered ratshit strength? No wonder they had such an ego.

Finally, I dragged myself out the tiny entrance into the outpost proper. This is the point where I started realizing the Odin weren’t human.

The core of the outpost here was recognizable as human, if I squinted real hard. Almost like giant skeletal remains that were reanimated for use. Rope, along with wooden and metal struts with panels spread around the tower, reinforcing sections of the main structure that had rusted away. So there was a sense of familiarity, like what I was seeing wasn’t quite completely alien. The walls were metal, and the tower that had the rotary cannon was clearly human origin given the size and scale of it.

That’s about where all the human influences ended. Every other structure grew over the human sections like tiny mushrooms. The tower itself had dozens of circular wooden platforms expanding outwards from the sturdy metal frames.

Like some kind of feral tiny human tribe trapped in a jungle mixed with scavenger-like tech. Except there was no way to get up to any of these places, no stairs anywhere. Most were too high up for me to even tap them with my hands. Like all the Odin collectively agreed not to make anything under a certain height.

Except for a few wider tented sections pitched on the dirt floor. Through the soul fractal, I could see a giant hole had been dug up under those tents. And after a little more focus, I realized what those were: A communal toilet. And tracks leading from there outwards to what looked like crop fields nestled around the hills beyond the outpost.

The general ‘buildings’ past the construction height line all followed the same standard look: A mostly circular platform with no walls built of rough-shaved wood, interlocking vines, leaves and mud mixed with mid-tech items like crates and ropes, with the whole building covered by a canvas tent rooftop. And then everything was mixed with higher tech items like portable computer screens, lights and the typical sprawl of unorganized wiring left exposed on the floor.

The center part of the buildings were all a giant tangle of perches without any sense of reason behind it. As if someone threw a bunch of sticks on the ground and however they landed was permanent. I could technically see through the entire structure, but with the Odin jumping around in there, along with computers, lights, and all the rest of the greenery, hardly anything from the other side could be seen. And whatever flooring there was clearly existed only for the more delicate wires that couldn’t support Odin weight. And no other use, since not a single feathery blob could be spotted walking or sitting on the floors.

I doubt these buildings would support my weight. And even if I could walk into them, the maze of haphazard perches and pillars that rooted all those perches together would all be too dense for me to squeeze through.

Not to mention most of them were smaller than my room, and those were the bigger spots. There were hundreds of smaller platforms that were clearly made for single-bird use, stacked over one another like an infestation growing off the backside of the wall and cliffsides. All tiny enough I could quite literally step on them and crush everything with my boot. By accident. There were black feathery lumps all over the structure, like ants crawling around. Or hopping around since I rarely saw the Odin actually walk.

Apparently, to the Odin, it was perfectly comprehensible and they could navigate through that maze of sticks as if the way was highlighted by relic armor. I saw them speeding through as if it were second nature, easily passing from one section of the building to the other, before jumping off from the edge to fly off somewhere else.

There was only one word that would describe the Odin architecture and speed of action: Chaos.

Cathida seemed equally as stunned. “I’ve worked with techs before.” She slowly started. “Battlefield techs even. External lights, sounds, and all that junk require a lot of wires all put down fast. Ends up looking like a drugged up spider’s paradise retreat before it’s covered with floor tiles to hide it all. These birds somehow make those techs look like organized artists.”

“I’m more surprised how well they’re navigating through it.” I said, also watching the horror show. The Odin used power cable lines the same way people would use stairs or ladders. Just a nice addition to the navigation within these stick and wire ratnests. At least they were all well insulated in rubber tubing, so the Odin weren't dumb, just crazy.

Rashant landed on a perch nearby. Which was a dangled power cable stretching from one building to the other, just slightly sagging downwards from the distance. “If you’ll follow behind me, we have an enclave for ground-walkers. Food and water are being prepared for you, although… we are not sure if what we have will be completely edible to you. Septimus is reported to be arriving within two hours.”

I calculated how much power I had left in my armor. I could survive that long with low power mode active, but who knows how far the actual refill location might be that the Odin use?

So I decided caution was the better choice. Given the sheer amount of power lines draped all over the outpost, I was certain this place used a power cell rotation of some kind. One single cell could keep all the lights running, which meant they likely had at the very least two other power cells somewhere in this maze. The expected cell to swap in, and the backup in case a shipment to refuel was late.

I turned my helmet to study him, which made him flinch a bit on his perch. He was too far up for me to reach out and grab, though even that didn’t make him feel safe clearly. Odin were twitchy. “Two hours is too much time. Tell Hersir to swap one of your backup power cells with one of my empty ones. You still have a power cell to work with and refill, and I get to continue operation for some more time.”

Asking them to just hand over a power cell for good was arguably too much for their civilization. However, this should be far more doable.

If they refused even that, then I’d know there’s some plotting going on and they’re trying to wait out my power reserves. If impenetrable scales made killing a dragon impossible, then the other way to deal with a dragon is through the stomach.

Reshant gave a few crows, “Hersir is a rank, not his name.” Then the Odin stopped talking midway, and gave me a look over, as if noticing just how armed to the gills I was. And how much of my gear the Odin hadn't seen used in action yet. The knightbreaker on the small of my back, the strap that held Cathida's mite seeker, sword hilts sticking out from my belt, and a whole bunch of pockets all across different belts that could hold just about anything. Like explosives. And most of them did hold exactly that.

“Nevermind, not important." The bird said. "I will summon Yill to speak to you directly. I am… somewhat certain that could be done? Please don’t burn down the outpost while I'm gone.”