Bloodsworn

Chapter 2.29 Imperial Secrets

29.

Erak dropped into the depths without another word, his one free hand on the rungs as he jumped several at a time as he descended. Pomp flew off his shoulder and down further while Sammus followed after Erak with only slight prodding from Rutledge. His grousing was loud enough about dark dungeons and access ladders brought a smile to Erak’s face. The man did love to complain.

Luckily this ladder didn’t lead too deep, no more than twenty feet, and Erak was glad to see the wide halls and tall ceilings with more of the faint fae lights that floated around weightlessly. Pomp flew back and forth in the air, limbs and tail moving to propel himself as he looked around.

It was like a thousand other hallways he had been in. Simple polished stone and painted arrows leading to unspecified things. It was reminiscent to the other hidden Imperial facilities he had found and Sammus said the same as he crouched down next to him.

“It shouldn’t surprise me how many of these facilities are around, but I keep being surprised. It’s one thing to know about them and it’s another to actually be in them,” Sammus mused as the trio walked down the halls. There were over a dozen doors, most open and looked unused. Stacked furniture with dust on it, cabinets filled with paperwork dated years ago, all signs of abandonment. Until they got to the end of the corridor and the big metal door that blocked off the rest of the facility from what lay within.

“I believe you have the key,” Sammus said and waved his hand at Erak’s hammer. It took four blows aimed at each joint to mangle them enough to shove the door down and enter the room. It was a wide atrium with three doors leading into other areas. One of the three doors was a twisted, jagged remnant of metal, rust red stains across it.

“You first,” Sammus waved for Erak to head toward the torn open door and Erak didn’t hesitate as he marched in and poked his head through the door. There was little in the room now but bloated corpses in Imperial uniforms, the last salvage team. Iron bars separated the room into little cells, but the doors to each cell had been thrown wide open.

There was a brown-red mixture smeared against the white walls and the stench of it made Erak swallow back bile as he went to the bodies and quickly checked them. Each of them had been killed by a weapon, smooth clean cuts and insertions, not the terrible wounds of the draconic abominations under the capital.

“Erak says that these soldiers were killed by weapons. Not monstrous beasts,” Pomp informed Sammus who shook his head slowly. There was nothing else of value in the room and they were forced to expand their search to the other two rooms. Forced to rely on his door opener for both, neither held anything living.

The middle room was a science experiment gone mad. Invasive equipment and testing machinery sat side by side with gleaming saws, sharp blades, and long needles. Nothing in this room had been touched, all of it laying out in neat orderly rows just waiting for their owners to stroll back in and start again.

The final room was a classroom. Or at least it had been made to look like a university hall. Drawing boards and printed out 3-D sculptures of humans had been carefully put together, with thick notations that Erak couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“Go get Rutledge, there’s nothing of immediate threat here,” Erak told Pomp. The dragon flew away instantly while Sammus had sheathed his sword and was perusing the papers quietly. A drawn out look of horror was slowly emerging and Erak had a feeling that he was discovering another travesty committed by his family.

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“Erak, these were elves. The pulmonary systems are elvish at least. Six chambers in the heart, not two. Nerves are correct as well. I can’t really understand beyond the basics here, though. The technical jargon is too advanced,” Sammus whispered.

“I don’t know why he’s surprised they’d experiment on elves. They desecrated dragon corpses, why would elves be a line too far?” He kept his musing to himself as he looked over at the skeleton closest to the door. Training had not included advanced biology, but he did know elvish anatomy. This thing he was staring at wasn’t elvish, at least not anymore.

The bones were too thick, nearly as dense as a dwarves'. The skull shape was wrong as well, it looked like a child’s skull and not that of an adult but the entire skull looked like it had metals woven into it. Like dragon bone. Erak stepped back and shook his head at the arrogance of it all.

“A chimera of all the different races under the purview of the empire. What did Lord Glacies sell Victoria into?” Their wait wasn’t long before Rutledge’s cane striking the ground sounded through the halls, the old woman burst into the room and looked around. Unlike Erak and Sammus, she had a wide smile at the reams and reams of papers here.

“Boys, you have done well. All this research fully secured. Where are those guards? Victoria said they were dependable men,” Rutledge groused. She was just impatient as a minute later the three guards and Julius had arrived to begin helping her sort through the sheets of paper. Rutledge was humming with joy while Julius looked sick.

Erak couldn’t blame the man for that.

“Lord Bloodsworn, Lieutenant Nevia has requested your presence topside. There’s been movement in the forest,” one of the guardsmen said before he bent to the task of stacking towers of paper in an orderly fashion. They were binding it all in twine and placing them into canvas bags while Rutledge walked around the models and had Julius take notes of her observations.

Her Sage level had already increased by one.

Nevia stood by the ladder and looked serious as Erak and Sammus emerged.

“The moment you left Constance started to see movement. It's growing more bold though and I’m thinking we only have a few minutes before we get pushed,” Nevia gave him the situation report and Erak was once again jogging toward the edge of the camp and to look over the thick forest.

“She was right, I can see them right on the edge of the tree line,” Sammus said. He didn’t raise his hand to point, but tilted his head in the rough direction of where there was plenty of movement. Dozens of shadowy figures were running back and forth right outside of caster range. Normal casters anyway.

“Tell Constance’s sharpshooters to get ready. Sammus, use that voice amplification you have and order them to surrender or that we will fire. Let’s spring this trap before it is fully set,” Erak signed to them. Pomp rushed off to warn the sharpshooters while Essence flowed into Sammus as he activated his ability.

“Hello the forest dwellers! We operate under Imperial authority and order you to leave the forest with your hands up and unarmed!” Sammus’s voice rang out and there was a sudden cessation of movement as everything came to a halt. Tension rose as both sides stared at each other before a wooden bolt sailed from the forest directly at Sammus. It was nothing more than a brown streak in the air and Erak strode in front of it. Splinters burst from his breastplate as the bolt shattered. A pair of crimson bolts fired overhead and into the forest, a half hundred warcries rose out of the forest as it began to boil with life.

Erak hefted the hammer and stood firm as the horde came forth with bloody vengeance in their eyes.