Tearha: Titan War

Chapter Twelve: Death Toll

Clink. Clank. Clunk. Clink. Clank. Clunk.

The work bell continued to toll.

From underneath their cloaks, Adelle put her hand onto the handlebar of a large wooden pushcart as Talia grabbed Luce roughly by the wrist. Inside, Adelle felt an annoying anger rise.

"Hey!" Luce protested at first.

"Just push this cart," Talia forced Luce beside Adelle. "Pretend you're working and keep yourself low."

Talia walked towards Josh who waited in front of them at another cart. Together, the two Guides began pushing their cart, the wheels creaking under as they moved across the rugged terrain. Adelle and Luce followed their lead.

The carts themselves were mostly empty and light enough that they gave little trouble. Save for some shale rocks and their bags hidden underneath a cloth tarp, nothing else weighed them down. They were just props picked up along the way to sell the act of them being workers at the mine.

Slowly, they began descending the high perched ground they started from, circling down the ramp carved into the quarry. As they did, they neared their first crystal cluster with four bodies embedded within the vertical walls. A miner was working on the cluster, chiselling away at the crystals that grew out of them. Each of the minerals were translucent, reflecting light and glittering blue and yellow sheens like blood diamonds.

As they pushed past, Adelle got her first close-up look at the cluster victims. Two male and two female. One of the female was a hume. But even for a half elf, she was obviously a child. Small knifed ears twitched at a passing fly as drool rolled down the side of her lips. Blue eyes infected with seither that must have once been green, glazed over looking forward into nothing. Two scars at the temples of her head showed where she was lobotomised.

The handle of her cart shook slightly and Adelle looked to Luce's hands which gripped them knuckles white and shaking. It was a different Luce than the one that had lived across the helm. Far gone was the shadow of the leader of the Titan Ranger, commanding and confident. The Luce of the Titan War was scared, shaken by atrocities not seen anywhere else on the planet.

Adelle? She was angry. Nothing ever raged in her as much as right then. How could anyone do this? Even to humans? Even when she killed, it had always been clean and quick. Causing suffering was for lesser creatures, though at that moment, she wondered if she had the chance to kill Lachesis, would she do it slowly and painfully. It was a question she was sure she would ask for the rest of her life.

She moved her hand slightly towards Luce, just enough so that their skins touched. Her cheeks flushed. Showing compassion was not exactly part of Adelle's repertoire. But as Luce's shaking slowed to a stop, so did Adelle's reservations. At least someone was calmer now, even if it was not herself.

They shifted onto a smoother, weathered path once they reached the bottommost level. There, the miners wore full-faced gas mask as the stench of decay seeped through almost everything. A miasma of death that hung as thick as atmosphere. Adelle let out an uncontrolled choking cough that seemingly echoed, and she looked around on high alert to see if anyone saw or suspected her.

But no one looked. Not even the guards who wore the standard cloaks and masks of the army turned their heads. Everyone simply looked down at their feet as they walked or at their work as they mined, either ashamed or afraid of what they were doing and where they were.

It was then that Adelle even noticed that the tolling bells that signalled the start of the work had stopped. She just lost track of it over the silence and the sound of her own beating heart.

"Hey!"

Adelle instinctively reached behind her back for her weapons but found her belt emptied and remembered that everything had been thrown into the cart.