Ashok hesitated at the next intersection. Skagi was not a subtle warrior, by any means, but he wasn’t stupid either. Sooner or later he would start to suspect that Ashok knew exactly where they were going.
Then, the answer came. It was carried on the wind.
“Do you smell that?” Ashok said.
Skagi sniffed the air. “Blood,” he said.
“Someone’s been fighting here recently,” Ashok said. “Maybe the captives are striking back?”
Skagi grinned and drew his falchion. “Maybe they’d like some aid?” he said.
“We should expect guards,” Ashok said, and Skagi nodded eagerly.
They moved ahead, and the smell of blood and rotting meat grew more intense as they passed the food preparation rooms. Ashok stopped at an intersection and risked a quick glance around the corner.
The door to the slaughter chamber was barred, as it never had been when they kept animals in there. Ashok’s heart pounded. There was hope after all that the captives were still alive.
Two guards stood at the door. They carried a mace and an axe, and there were bloodstains on their armor. Ashok knew he wouldn’t get away with simply knocking those guards out. He’d made his choice, and he had to live with it.
“Quick and silent,” he whispered to Skagi.
Skagi nodded, and together they charged around the corner.
The guards saw them and were so shocked they froze with their weapons against their chests. Ashok whipped his chain around the neck of the one with the mace. He pulled it tight, choking off the guard’s breath and severing the throat vein in one motion. The shadar-kai gargled on his own blood and slid down the wall.
Skagi hit the other guard in the flank with his blade, but the weapon passed through empty air. The guard teleported a few feet away and reappeared at the mouth of the passage where Skagi and Ashok had entered. She ran down the tunnel, her insubstantial form wavering in and out of the torchlight.
“I’ll get her,” Skagi said. “You get the captives out.”
“Wait!” Ashok cried, but Skagi took off before Ashok could stop him.
Ashok went to the door and yanked up the bar sealing it shut. He listened for a breath and then opened it.
Inside the slaughter chamber, the stench was overpowering. Had his mask not blunted the smell, Ashok would have retched. Blood, waste, and an underlying air of decay filled the room.
From the doorway there was a short stair leading down into a roughly circular chamber. A second door on the opposite side of the room led to more guard areas as well as an underground river. Along the left-hand wall were dozens of thick-barred iron cages of various sizes, some stacked on top of each other. Within the smaller ones, coneys, foxes, and spindle-legged deer crouched, watching Ashok with large eyes. Ravens and crows let out deep-throated caws from the higher cages, and feathers fell in a black rain.
To Ashok’s right, two iron bars were suspended lengthwise by chains from the ceiling. From those dangled blood-stained leather straps cinched tight enough to hold an animal’s front and hindquarters. Beneath the bars someone had placed a long trough to catch the blood and organs as they were removed.
Two of the leather straps were not in use. They dangled free and were half-shredded as if from the claws of a struggling animal. The others were cinched tight around the wrists of a naked shadar-kai man.
There were no guards in the room. Ashok secured the door behind him and went cautiously down the stairs. He approached the captive but could already see the man was dead, and thanked the gods for that small mercy.
Ashok raised his hand to press the mask more fully against his face. The man’s body dangled limply from the straps, his bare feet brushing the inside of the trough. His toes had been removed and lay in a pile of blood and urine at the bottom. His genitals had been cut off as well.
The man’s flesh had been split from his navel to his breastbone. The shredded halves had been peeled back, exposing his insides to the air. Ashok did not spend time examining the crawling movement he could see from the open cavity.
The captive’s face was shockingly peaceful, his head bent forward, his chin against his chest, his eyes closed. His shaved head bore several open wounds where it looked as if his captors had carved out the tattoos from his flesh. There was the rough imprint of a sword just above his left ear.
“Tempus take your servant. Give him rest.” Ashok murmured the prayer without considering what he said. “He’s suffered enough.”
He heard a sound then from one of the cages. Ashok spun, his dagger ready in his hand, but there was no movement and no other sound, only the animals watching him from behind the bars.
He moved along the row of cages, releasing the catches to let the animals run free in the room. Ashok wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it-the sounds the animals made could alert someone outside the room. But something in their eyes compelled him, or maybe it was just the sight of the dead shadar-kai. There was a flurry of wings and clumsy shuffling as the beasts, too long confined, tried to learn to walk again.
At the end of the row, in the largest cage, Ashok found the remaining Ikemmu captives.
He released the latch-the cage wasn’t even locked-and stepped inside. The low top forced him to stoop, but he could still stand on his feet. Ashok clutched his dagger reflexively against his chest.
There were five of them left, counting the man outside. The naked corpse of a woman near the cage door had been mutilated in much the same way as the man had been. Her fingernails were split and broken, or worn down to the bloody quick where she’d fought the straps.
At the back of the cage, the bodies of a man and woman had been propped up in a half-sitting position, their arms and necks tied with chains looped around the cage bars. They sat with legs splayed and wore sweat-stained tunics but no breeches.
Ashok crouched to examine them. There were no visible signs of mutilation, until he saw the dried bloodstains between their legs.
Overcome at last, he staggered away on his knees until his back hit the cage wall. The force knocked the breath from his lungs. Ashok put his head between his knees and breathed through his mouth. The smell clung to his clothes, his hair. He would never be rid of this vileness.
When he’d gotten his breathing under control, Ashok thought he heard another sound. He looked up and stifled a cry.
The man had his eyes open and was looking at Ashok.
Ashok couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d assumed they were all dead. How could any of them be alive in such a charnel house? They were so still that even the man, staring at him, looked like a corpse with a faint light in its eyes.
Another woman lay a few feet away on her side, her back to Ashok. He couldn’t tell if she breathed. She’d wrapped her arms around the cage bars and pulled herself as close to the wall as possible.
Swallowing, Ashok went over to the man and began working the chains at his neck. The man’s eyes tracked what Ashok was doing, but otherwise he remained completely motionless, with no expression on his face.
Ashok got the chain loose enough to slip over the man’s head. Without the tension to support it, the man’s head lolled forward. Ashok caught it, and gently pushed the man back to rest against the bars. Then he went to work on his hands.
When Ashok had finished, he went to free the woman. As he worked the chain at her neck, he listened for a heartbeat, for breath. He heard nothing. She was gone.
Ashok laid his dagger aside and supported her weight as the chains fell free. He laid her body down on one side like the other woman. He wanted to give her some semblance of dignity. As he did that he spoke to the man.
“Can you walk?” he asked. “We don’t have much time.”
Ashok reached back for his dagger, but it wasn’t where he’d left it. He looked up and saw the man holding the weapon in both hands. He was so weak he could barely raise the blade above chest level to brandish it. His hands trembled, but his expression remained detached. He might as well have been holding an apple for all he knew what to do with the weapon.