Many. And stirring.
So I either killed the Irkallan who approached from the queen’s tunnel or I chanced my luck with those who were only just stirring.
No need for you to do either, the wind said.
I guessed that was true, although it didn’t mean there would be no effort on my part. Communing with the wind might not be stealing much of my strength right now, but it would soon enough.
I hesitated, and then said, Take the breath of those within the smaller room and make it safe.
The air moved away from me, leaving barely enough freshness to breathe. The stink of the place hit, so thick and heavy it was felt like a blanket was smothering my senses. I gagged, and heard the approaching Irkallan briefly pause.
I held my nose closed to stop some of the stench reaching down into my throat, and slowly—carefully—backed away. The footsteps resumed, faster than before.
I ducked into the small archway and pressed my back against the wall. The footsteps reached the walkway and paused again, and the clicking of mandibles bit through the air, the sound one of agitation. I didn’t move. I didn’t even dare wrap my fingers around my knife lest the slight glow give me away.
After another few seconds, the Irkallan moved away. I peered cautiously around the corner; it wasn’t just one, but three. One of them was huge and an odd almost blue color, while the other two were smaller and the usual lavender. Was the larger one a general of some kind? Or maybe even the queen’s consort? Did the Irkallan have such things, given they appeared to be a matriarchal society?
I pulled back and glanced around the room. When the air had said many, it hadn’t been kidding. The room was only as wide as the archway itself, but it was long. The entire length of the left wall and part of the end wall of the room were lined with sleeping pods that had been cut into the stone. There were five levels of them and, like the archways themselves, each one was perfectly lined up with its neighbors. My gaze ran the length of the room as I did the calculation—seventy-five Irkallan, just in this room alone. Holy hell….
I studied the doorway at the far end of the room. Where does that lead?
Into another sleeping quarters.
Are there Irkallan within?
Yes.
Will going that way enable me to get to the larger tunnel?
No.
Of course not. I mean, why would things be that easy? I peered around the archway again; the three Irkallan had disappeared. I checked the locations of the walkway guards and then quickly slipped into the wider archway.
Almost immediately I felt the stirrings of life. Not within the darkness, but in the earth itself. While the ground under my feet remained lifeless, I could hear the distant heartbeat of it, a siren call that almost seemed to be begging me to come closer, to hurry.
But the latter would be foolish in a place like this.
Slowly, carefully, I moved deeper into the wide tunnel. The walls here were as smooth and as black as any of the others I’d seen, but as I crept farther in, I realized that instead of glimmer stone, the veins in this tunnel were slivers of brown earth. I gently brushed my fingers across one—and was just about blown backward by the power and force of the voices that immediately answered. It was very evident the earth, while it had no real beef with the Irkallan themselves, didn’t like the deadness they were spreading beyond these blackened, lifeless mountains.
But that deadness wasn’t really surprising given the situation. Normal earth witches were trained almost from birth to shape earth and use the power within it without damaging the soil. The only time real damage had ever occurred was during the war, when the witches had drawn so much power from the ground that they’d killed an entire district. It was doubtful the witchlings born here in the Irkallan stronghold had any such training. From the little Saska had said, the women were kept in a constant state of pregnancy, and their offspring were taken away—or killed—at birth. That meant the stained children raised by the Irkallan would have had to find their own way around their developing powers, in much the same way as I had. Subsequently, their control would, at best, be patchy, and they were more likely to drain the earth even as they commanded it.
I continued down the tunnel cautiously, my fingers itching to brush the widening seams of live earth. But I resisted—I had no idea where the children currently were; if they were awake—as the Adlin young had been—then I risked one of them sensing my presence via the earth.
This tunnel ends in fifty feet, the air said. It opens up into the first chamber.
Something in the way that was said had the hair along the back of my neck rising. And what might that chamber be used for?
It is the chamber the breeders reside in. The wind paused. The women are also there.
I didn’t want to see that. Didn’t want to witness the atrocities I’d barely glimpsed in Saska’s thoughts. Is the queen also there?
No. She resides in the next chamber. There is a hall that links the two—the children are kept in the rooms that feed off this hall.
Leaving me with no choice but to go through the first chamber and all its breeders. Are there guards?
Twenty, at least, in the first chamber. Double that in the queen’s.
Meaning my chance of getting through unseen was right up there with my chances of survival.
If I were lifted along the roofline, would they see me?
Yes. They will feel the air movement. It is still and heavy in the chamber.
Which didn’t mean I couldn’t do it—just that I probably needed something to distract the guards from actually noticing my presence.
Can you steal the breath from them?
Yes, but the departure of so much air will be felt by both those who guard the hall and the queen’s chambers. You will get to neither the children nor the queen if that happens.
I silently swore but continued to creep closer. Once I was near the end of the wide tunnel, I squatted on my heels and studied the area. Though it was as dark as anywhere else in this place, my eyes were well used to it by now. The chamber was large and rectangular. There was another wide archway directly opposite this one, and between the two there were a dozen smaller doorways. The wind told me the various chambers catered to the needs of the breeders—they were cleansing areas, food preparation and medical areas, fertilization rooms, and even nurseries—and that the latter had human babies in it, their little bodies fed with the milk being pumped from the breasts of the women.
I briefly closed my eyes, ignored the horror in my heart, and silently ordered the air to steal the breath from their lungs. Whether it would set off alarms or not, I had no idea. I guess I’d find out soon enough.
As tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, I turned my attention to the breeders. The entire central portion of the chamber was filled with them. There had to be hundreds of them here. They were all sitting in either well-padded lounging or birthing chairs, and each of them was looked after by at least one attendant. I could only see one of the witches. She lay flat on a bed to the right of this tunnel, in amongst a group of heavily pregnant Irkallan. The first thing I noticed was the fact there were no bracelets on her wrists. The second was that—although she was gaunt enough to appear little more than a skeleton—her belly was so extended she looked ready to burst. She wasn’t moving—she was barely even breathing—and there were a multitude of tubes in her arms as well as pumps attached to her breasts. I wondered if the stuff being fed into her veins was keeping her alive or merely keeping her sedated. Either way, it was no way to live.
And no way I could save her.