Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ellery
With Ianto and Luna beside me, I crept down the tunnel and past the torches spaced far apart throughout the cave. The slightly warmer air felt good against my icy skin, but I didn’t smell fires ahead, and smoke didn’t clog the tunnel.
The mineral scent of the rocks hung heavily in the air; it mingled with the acrid stench of terror, feces, and urine. Even if the earl’s son hadn’t told us where the children were, those odors would tell me someone was suffering in this place.
I didn’t smell Ryker in the mix. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I couldn’t stop. The further into the cave I slunk, the more my nose wrinkled at the assault it was taking.
Lightning danced between my fingertips as I prepared to unleash it on anyone who stood in my way. I’d kill as many fighters as it took to save the children and Ryker.
As I crept further through the shadows, my inexplicable draw to him increased and my heart raced faster. Is he really ahead of us? Or is it death that awaits?
The torches illuminated a bend in the tunnel that cut off my view of whatever lay ahead. When I glanced back, more of our fighters had entered the cave. They stole past the gargoyles as they followed us.
Scarlet and Mr. Fletcher were a few feet behind, separated by a row of other amsirah. When I crept around the bend, I rested my hand against the boulder blocking my view and leaned to the side to peer around it.
The flames of more torches, spaced every five feet, danced over the rock walls, giving them an orange glow. A row of soldiers stood with their backs against the walls and their hands on the swords at their sides.
They’d spaced themselves out so that one or two guards stood between the dozens of closed doors made entirely of bars. The doors were arched and so small I’d have to duck to enter the cells beyond them.
When they built this dungeon, they didn’t design it to house children. Those small doors, and perhaps the space beyond too, were meant to be as uncomfortable as possible for prisoners. My heart ached for the innocents trapped behind those bars and the misery they must be enduring.
Housing them here was one of the ways the duke hoped to break them.
Keeping the children caged like this, away from their loved ones, and denying them any sense of hope would shatter their spirits.
It might take him a while, as the spirits of children were incredibly resilient, but without love and sunlight, their resistance would wither and die.
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Beyond the cells was a larger cluster of guards at the end of the tunnel. In total, there were at least fifty of them, and while I had my lightning, the fighters at the far back troubled me most.
If there was a way to escape down there, they could flee before we stopped them. Once they raised the alarm, our advantage was over, but it could be over by now anyway.
We couldn’t stay hidden forever, but I’d hoped to do so until we got the children far from here. Those guards couldn’t get away, but I didn’t know how to stop them.
If we went back for the gargoyles, they still couldn’t fly through here, but they were faster than us and might make it to the end of the tunnel before the soldiers escaped.
However, their clicking claws would alert the enemy to their approach.
They could flee before the gargoyles had a chance to reach them.
My lightning could stop them from escaping. It was faster than anything else and just as lethal as the gargoyles, but if I focused on the ones at the end, the combatants closest to us would have a chance to attack before we flooded the cave with our fighters.
We could take them out, but I didn’t want anyone on our side getting hurt or killed.
This is a war, Ellery. Amsirah are going to die, and some of them will be yours. You can’t let that stop you from making a move.
Taking a deep breath, I resigned myself to the fact that a lot of blood would stain my hands and soul after this night.
I gestured for Ianto and Luna to follow me back a few feet. We clustered together with those who could get closest to us.
“I’ll take out the guards at the end of the dungeon before they can run. You’ll have to focus on the others,” I told them.
“What if there’s more down there that we can’t see?” Luna whispered.
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” I said.
She nodded her agreement, as did all the others. Returning to the boulder, I waited for the others to settle around me and draw their weapons.
Fifty cells lined the hall, twenty-five on each side of the passage. Children probably filled all of them, but I saw no sign of the kids.
The possibility this could be a trap and those cells were all empty flitted across my mind again, but we’d come this far and couldn’t turn back now. There was no way the duke could have anticipated our plan… I hoped.
I drew on the lightning inside me, letting it build into a powerful, pulsating thing within me. It was desperate to unleash its vengeance on the enemy at the end of the cave.
When it was nearly too powerful to keep hidden, I rose a little and released my lightning on those gathered at the far end of the tunnel. It erupted from my fingers in separate bolts that sizzled down the tunnel, electrified the air, and pierced the unsuspecting guards.