Chapter 33: Grave Revelation

The sense of charged air filled the rooms they slipped through, left from the groups of khentauree that thundered past. Hugging the walls became paramount; finding a hiding place quick would not happen if they snuck down the center of the spaces.

The pale white paint lacked the time-worn peeling Lapis expected. Framed landscapes remained in position, and they happened upon a transparent keg atop a stand that still held water—water that looked fresh.

They hid in more closets, but also a number of offices. They encountered more stairs of only three or four treads, but so many of them, that they traversed at least another floor down. How big had this bunker been? Did the rooms fill the entire interior of the cliff? It made sense to place a fort on a hard-to-reach outcropping that had an exceptional view of the surrounding countryside, but to have it go so far beneath ground?

Why couldn’t people build more above it? Put their secrets on a top shelf or something? Forget about them until she came looking, during a bright Mid Year afternoon?

Yet another group drove them through a door and into a larger room. The air felt more expansive, but so filled with the citrus scent, Lapis wanted to gag. She heard Rin swallow hard, and she slipped an arm around him and hugged.

“The echoes are misleading,” Chiddle whispered. “The further we go down, the less reliable the scans. Stay alert to any noise or light.”

“It is why the khentauree have not found their target,” Tuft muttered. “The interference messes with them as well. They tumble, blind, which is good for us.” He tossed a bubble into the air.

“Shit.”

Layne clicked on her light, and Lapis gasped.

Heaps of cloth, bone, flesh, sat on top of and beneath tables positioned to the sides of neat aisles. The light shined off metal buckles, buttons, zippers, swords and knives still clutched in skeletal hands. The further to the right the Minq scanned, the less faded the clothing, the fresher the bodies—but not one looked that-day recent.

“Look,” Gera whispered, aghast, and pointed across the way.

Portraits of actors in their roles filled the far wall, gold name plaques attached at the bottom. Each sat within a thin metal frame positioned above a shelf containing a skull ringed with dry flowers and fresh pine boughs. Her tummy twisted, thinking of the ways heads could have ended up on the shelves.

Tuft buzzed, as unhappy as she felt. “Why keep bodies here? They attract insects and vermin.” He stamped, and a scurry of shadows whisked away from the fresher side, disappearing into the general darkness.

“They’re following something on the list?” Layne muttered drily.

“I see no khentauree, so this is only a room for dead humans,” Chiddle said. He moved past them, hopped a mound, and headed for the right wall.

Shivering, gorge rising, Lapis followed, her neck prickling, her arms itching, sweat beading on her forehead and racing down her hot cheeks. She hated this, though she had plenty of experience viewing piles of bodies in the Pit. Was this any different than shanks sending deceased rivals down into the slop? She tried not to look down, but could not ignore the vacant skulls with hats holding scraggly hair to bone lying on the tables. By the clothing, they were either guttershanks or syndicate scouts; she did not see anything to indicate anyone of stature ended their lives there except for the collapsed, headless skeletons beneath the shelves, but she bet they fell in their dressing rooms during the initial Dentherion raid, not during an ill-fated infiltration afterwards.

A shine next to glitter caught her attention. “Layne, can you look at that portrait?” she asked, pointing. She obliged; on each side of a skeleton in a shimmery red dress and stole were collapsed remains wearing a military-style black helmet and fatigues, melted weapon in hand.

“I think we just discovered what happened to the Dentherions who made it down here,” the Minq said. “Gera, I know it’s not wise, but I think we need to sling our weapons. Everybody I see has one in hand.”

The other syndicate shank draped it over her shoulder without protest.

“They killed the mercs but not the community center guards,” Lapis said, forcing her thoughts out. “The khentauree we captured said the ones injured got in the way. It’s obvious they have some sort of command to attack anyone armed.”

“Might be a holdover from the initial Dentherion assault,” Layne said. “I can see someone putting ‘protect the theater’ on the list of khentauree tasks. The attack on Jiy was a surprise, but hostilities over border regions had already cemented concern in the populace about a full-blown war. Why not tell the khentauree to defend the theater, its workers and royal guests, just in case?”

“The mine owners did the same,” Chiddle said. “Ghost erased the commands. He refused to have khentauree go to silence so a human owner could live. He saved many khentauree that day. We hid—the owners did not.” He jumped the three stairs leading to a body-free platform and turned on his light, illuminating a chalk board still filled with writing. Beneath the darker lines were circular smudges from erasers, which sat as lumpy clumps in the tray.

“It’s strange to think about the throne having access to more advanced machines, since we’ve always heard that Jilvayna fell to the Dentherions because they brought spears to a tech battle.” Gera climbed the stairs and leaned closer to study the words. “That’s Taangin?”

“Yes. It is a plan of evacuation for Torc Gyord—this base, I think.” The rest of them halted next to the podium, studying the slate as the khentauree focused on crumbling sheets of paper tacked to the wall next to it. Some had large gaps at the top where they had torn through, and someone re-pinned them. No flakes littered the floor below.

Rin scanned the wall, then looked at her, his somber gaze pricking something deep. She should have told him to stay put, but her fear had overridden her sense. She slipped her arm around his waist, uncertain whether to comfort him or herself. He hugged her shoulders, his grip tense.

They had been in the Cloisters and Shivers and suffered through khentauree attack, witnessed the oddities created by strictly following orders, saw the remains of humans left where they fell, but something about this place felt more sinister.

Chiddle hmphed. “They left the khentauree behind, believing the illiterate conquered peoples would never be able to turn the machines away from slaughtering them during the retreat. Their line of escape went through Torc Idall and Torc Dallme before they were supposed to board naval transport at Port Silme in Abastion.”

“So two empires, four hundred and fifty years apart, harmed the khentauree here,” Lapis said softly.

“Yes,” Tuft agreed. “Dentheria is not so different from Taangis. Power over the subjugated drives them to great atrocities, but in the end, they die as their victims did, unmourned.”

That was a Sanna-like sentiment, and Lapis covered her breast and pressed in, hoping to stop the unbidden tears. So much pain and suffering, and for what? An aristocrat to brag they now held a crown?

Rin squeezed her, and she relaxed her hold on him.

Tuft trotted to the desk facing the platform and peered at the scattered pages. “The top sheet contains instructions for the tethasige, who must wait for the codes from the tethnaavik, alter targets for the khentauree and shut down Arox290 before departing.”

“A tethasige was the lead tech advisor to the base commanders,” Chiddle said. “The tethnaavik was the regional military command center’s technology department. All code for military khentauree had to be sent to the tethnaavik for approval because individual techs tended to mod for current situations and ask for permission later. This is proof we are not dealing with a civilian Arox model, but a military one.”

“And that means?” Layne asked warily.

“It means the safeguards we expect in commercial models won’t be active—and assumption the tech likely made, explaining her failure. Arox290 and the khentauree will be ready to deal with us as an unanticipated military threat.”