"And get our dogs killed too?" someone else asked.
"No!" Ayla said, shooting to her feet. "I don't want Holly to die. I assume the rest of you love your dogs just as much, but they are brave and fast. The Moles have guns. Us? We havedogs! So we need to use them to stop the guns!"
"How?" I asked.
"We can teach them to disarm," she said. "It's easy, and without guns, the Moles die fast. We also need venom. The tailed need to poison the arrows for the tailless, because mine killed fast last night."
Zasen waved that away. "We can't. The tailed will need their venom if they come back tonight, and they aren't on a schedule anymore, Ayla. It takes time to refill our venom sacs."
She grumbled something under her breath and sat back down, but that asshole wouldn't let go of his foolish idea. "So we go there!" he said. "We need to kill them before any more of us die."
"And then what?" I asked.
Which made him look at me blankly. "Then there won't be any more Moles!"
"Kill all of them!" someone else yelled. "Then we can keep our harvest.Allof it!"
"You can't get in!" Ayla snapped.
"Then get us in," a woman demanded. "You got out, so you must know how!"
"She also saved that other one," the first man pointed out. "The big guy carried my partner away!"
Ah, yes. I remembered hearing about that. Well, fuck. This was going to get ugly before we found a solution, but maybe it needed to?
"Those two," Zasen said, "are our informants. They are not the enemy!"
"They sure as fuck look like it," the man snarled. "When they're hauling women away, you can't tell me that makes them our ally!"
"It does!" Ayla said. "They warn us of the plans being made inside there. They tell us what we need to know, and they do their best to make sure your loved ones survive! In the compound, they are now desperate enough to kill the tailless and eat them too! There's a good chance they took some of their own dead and will eat them, because they arestarving!"
"Let 'em!" a woman called out.
But Kanik shoved to his feet. "We tried that, butyoukept feeding them. Oh, it was fine when Dragons were the ones dying, but now that things have changed, it's suddenly a big deal? You carenow?" And he pointed to the scar along his abdomen, just below his ribs. "I took a fucking grenade because they were hunting us. Where were the Reapers then? But the moment you need help, we came. We didn't ask what was in it for us. We came to help!"
"Kanik..." I tried, aware a few were looking down in shame.
"No!" he snapped, making his way forward. "They look atmypartner and see an enemy, so let me tell you about Ayla. She escaped by attacking a man. A man she was being forced to marry! She used the only weapon she could find - afork- and was thrown out because of it. Now, she and her friends - all three of them - are the only chance we have to stop thisforever. Not for now, and not to send them on to attack someone else, but to finally put an end to this, and yet you want to ruin it all? Because you'refinallyfeeling how much this sucks, you'll throw away a plan that is actually working?"
"And how many will die before they stop?" the man demanded.
"I don't know," Kanik said calmly - too calmly. "I can tell you I should've been one. If it wasn't for the Phoenix, I wouldn't be standing here. That woman burned down her old life, rebuilt herself, and burns brightly now.Sheis why I'm alive, and if she says we can't get in, then it's not because she's scared of trying."
So I asked, "Why can't we get in, Ayla?"
"Because the door is locked with a massive bolt that is controlled by electricity. It takes a code to unlock it, and only the top-ranking Moles know it. That code is likely required to let people out too, and without it, an intruder alarm sounds. One that will call every man down there - and that's a lot more people than you realize."
"Tell them about the lights," I reminded her.
She chuckled once, the sound dry. "Yeah. It's dark inside there. When the lights are on, it's as bright as a night with a half-moon in the sky. When they're off?" She shook her head. "The only light comes from far down halls. When I was there, I could barely make out my own hand. I also couldn't force my eyes open in this much light. I have a feeling I'll be nearly blind down there now."
"Probably," Zasen said, gesturing for her to sit again. "But Ayla has helped us more than any of you can guess. And yes, she's killed Moles. More of them than even me. Trust me, she wants them dead for what they did to her, and the story isn't pretty. Down there, women are the victims. Some of the men too. Ayla has a friend who is trying to start a rebellion from the inside. The men we spared? They bring Ayla letters from that friend, and deliver ones Ayla has written. They're also trying hard to get that code, and we were so fucking close."
"But someone stabbed Sylis," Ayla said, looking right at the angry man. "He would've been given that code today if he could've survived, but Moles don't have medicine! A gut wound is certain death, and a painful one!"
"So," I said, "our informant is being taken back to Lorsa where he'll be treated. Then, without a time constraint, he will be able to tell us everything we need to know about how their hunters operate. And yes, that's what they're called. They speak English - in a way few of you have heard before."
"It does not sound like you'd expect," Lansin said, confirming that. "The language shift was worse than we realized."
