Kingdom of the Gods: Godkiller (Sequel to Mythical Madness)

Chapter 13

13: The Cave Trade

HERNE'S POV

"He's failed. Asag's dead. We need to move, and fast. Azi Dahaka has set up a network of secret underground caves near here. If we can get there, we'll try to hold them off there," I said to Watcher.

We were riding on my massive horse near the beach. I wheeled around, and we galloped away at a brisk pace. My hounds rushed before us, dashing away and leading us towards where Azi Dahaka had built up his underground fortress. We had set up a base in the caves when we had first come here, and the Bokkenrijders had been gathering monsters from all over the world as slaves to work inside it.

Why? Because we were forging an army of robotic clones of Watcher. Our grand plan wouldn't work with just a plain army of monsters. Ouranos and his people tried that. So now, we had a plan. The Greek mythological creatures known as automatons are monsters, but usually, they tend to serve a master, like golems. Automatons also weren't modeled off of specific things, but the clones of Watcher were. They would have all the weapons, armor, strength, and intelligence of the real Watcher.

But in order to build them, we needed resources. They could be fueled with magic, but the steel, the iron, the copper and bronze, the metal components: all of those had to be mined. We also needed lava and fire to smelt and shape the parts, as well as water to cool them down. So we made the mines.

And now that Asag was dead...we would have to use them.

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KEVIN'S POV

"Alright, where did Herne go? Last time," I said, boring my spear deeper into the stone of the shoulder of one of the last surviving rock demons.

"He's gone. I'll tell you, because he'll kill you if you even manage to find him. He's at a place called the Slave Caves. The entrance to the Caves is directly to the north, about 3 miles or so. You'll see an old mine shaft entrance in the side of a hill. About a mile in, you'll hit the Caves," the demon grumbled in a gravelly, deep voice.

"Thank you," I said, killing the demon with a swift stab to the chest.

"What did he say?" Piper asked me when I walked back to the group.

I told her and the rest of the team what had happened. Jack was too worn out to open another Abyss Passage, so we opted to hike. We jogged some of the way, and we reached the cave entrance in about 45 minutes or so. The entrance was old, and cobwebs hung from the old wooden boards that surrounded it. I could see a line of tracks going deep into the cave.

"Alright, let's go," Max said, stepping in first.

Alice held a ball of yellowish ghost energy in her hand that lit up the cave. We walked for about five or six minutes before Max tripped over something. He nearly fell, but Jack was there to catch him, picking him up and dusting him off.

"What was that?" Max asked, and Alice shined the light upon the horrifying scene on the floor.

It was a corpse. The body was like a man with green and black fur all over his body. The man had a hyena's head, and a mane ran down his spine. Spots littered his shoulders, and his clawed hands were open. He was a European mythical faerie creature known as a gnoll, and fromt he looks of the lack of skin at his side, he had died of starvation.

"Guess we're getting near. Maybe he was one of the slaves inside the Caves. He must have died on the march here. Come on, let's move," Jack said, stepping around the poor gnoll and moving on.

We followed, leaving the body behind. Piper gave a shudder and huddled a little closer to Jack. We walked for a good ten minutes more before I heard faint yelling, and a rythmic clanging. I could smell sweat and I knew that we were getting close.

"Alright, we're going to have to sneak in very quietly. I'll set up a fog, and we'll see if there's some place to set up camp. If not, we'll make camp outside of the camp and formulate a plan," Jack said.

Jack threw up his hands, and a black shadow surrounded us. This time, our bodies almost seemed to turn black and fade. Jack was almost making us somewhat invisible, since there really wasn't much fog underground. Jack moved forwards, and we followed. I could see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and we finally reached the entrance. It wasn't guarded, thank God.

We entered, and inside was the biggest sight of our lives. We were inside a huge cave, and more entrances the size of small buildings led out to other ones. Metal catwalks crisscrossed the ceiling, leading to other caves and creating paths for hundreds of slaves that were marching slowly along, covered in soot and ash and carrying huge vats of molten metal and pickaxes. Bokkenrijders were patrolling, on foots and on their huge goats.

On ground level, slaves were hacking away at the cave walls and floor with pickaxes, trying to mine for...something. Metal. Several ramps came up from the floor, stretching across the walls where the bigger monsters trundled along, dragging carts of metal slabs while being whipped by Bokkenrijders who were trundling alongside them on their massive goats.

The cavern was overlooked on all sides by a bigger ledge, that we were actually standing on. Several other huge ramps led down from this ledge to the cave floor. The ledge wasn't guarded whatsoever, and it was a perfect place to set up our camp. We rushed across quickly so as not be seen by the Bokkenrijders on the floor. We all circled around to formulate a plan as well.

"Anyone have any ideas?" Jack asked.

"We can't take it by force on our own. We need the slaves. We need to start a rebellion, from the inside," Max said.

"But...how? If we go in there, they're going to notice us as the demigods and kill us!" Piper cried.

"No...they won't. Alice. If you go in there, they'll just see you as another ordinary ghost slave. You can be our insider. You can go inside and communicate with the slaves and not get caught. Spread the word and we'll coem to help out when the rebellion actually does start," Jack said.

"Can you do that, Alice?" I asked her.

"It's risky...but we have to try. I'll do it. We have two groups of the slaves that can help us most though: the Boroma, and the trolls. The Boroma are huge African dog-human creatures, and they're smart as well as strong. The trolls are pretty stupid, but once we goad them a little, they'll do work. I'll go," Alice said.

And with that, our adventure in the Slave Caves began.