“Understood. Your fellow Ish-Nul would be hard-pressed to defend themselves without you. And I need you to watch over Enra for me. With you there, I know I’ll have nothing to worry about.”
Timo-Ran placed his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “Enra will be safe, and if we’re attacked, I’ll kill many enemies.”
“I have no doubt.” I put my hand on his shoulder in return. “I do have one question, though. Who does this powerplant provide electricity for?”
“It provides power for a nearby city. They pay the king of the city of Thaz’red for the privilege. The powerplant and slaving make him wealthy.”
“In other words, there’s no reason to be careful with his stuff.”
“No reason,” Timo-Ran agreed.
We bade him farewell, and he left, stalking his way back into the woods.
Yaltu, Beatrix, Reaver, Skrew, and I snuck down a nearby hill covered in brush and wildflowers. The rocky landscape turned out to be a quarry that was at least a mile wide and nearly as long. The bottom was shiny black material I guessed was coal. It would explain the soot in the air and the light coating of it for miles around.
We paused as I searched for any sign of guards, with Yaltu to my immediate right and Skrew to my left. Reaver and Beatrix guarded our rear.
“Is shiny,” Skrew whispered.
“That’s coal,” I said. “It’s burned for power.”
I signaled to Reaver that she should look for threats. She withdrew Clarent from her belt and squinted at the scene before turning back to me and indicating that the coast was clear.
I didn’t like heading out over open land at dusk. It felt exposed and dangerous, but as there weren’t any guards patrolling the quarry, it was safer than the alternative. I gave everyone the signal to head out. We did so as a single unit, slow and steady.
When we reached the halfway point, I stopped everyone again and took a moment to look, listen, and sniff the air. I didn’t want to risk being ambushed in the middle of a combustible field of fuel.
As I was ready to signal everyone to continue moving, I spotted something near my left foot. A shape had been carved into the coal, barely visible in the starlight, but its shape and meaning were unmistakable. It was a two-pronged trident, the Ish-Nul symbol for hope.
We resumed our trek toward the powerplant, and I slowly became aware a subtle vibration on my arm hairs. Skrew’s left eye kept in time with it. Then, I started to hear the thrumming noise. Skrew’s hearing range must have been broader than that of his human companions.
We crested the far side of the quarry and hid behind piles of coal and small wagons. Beatrix guarded Yaltu and Skrew while Reaver and I climbed on top of the coal pile to survey the powerplant and formulate an attack plan. We needed to enter, find the priestess, and return her safely to her people. Sounded easy enough.
The facility was surrounded by a tall fence of metal hooks, barbs, and bars, similar to what I’d seen back at the arena. Its design brought back cold memories of creatures killing each other for the pleasure of a paying audience.
Within the fence were about a dozen buildings. The largest was three stories tall with two smokestacks towering out of one end. On the other end, a metal tube arced out from and back into the building while a conveyor belt ran 50 yards toward the quarry.
“That’s our way in,” I whispered to Reaver.
“The conveyor belt?”
I nodded. “You see the guardtowers at each corner of the perimeter fence? There’s guards in the closest one, so I figure the rest are occupied as well.”
“That’ll make things tougher.”
“I agree. We don’t want to go barging in and draw fire from them.”
My original thought was that I would get in, find the priestess, and destroy stuff on my way out. If I could find explosives, I’d set them to detonate after we’d made our escape. If not, I planned on blowing up whatever looked important, especially if it looked like it might take a long time to rebuild.
A mechanical tapping sound made me peek higher over the mound, but I couldn’t find the source. When Skrew became curious and leaned forward a little too far, some of the coal on the far side of the mound began to slide and tumble to the bottom. I nearly jumped out of my skin when a small pair of flashlight-like red eyes began targeting the biggest chunks and followed them to the bottom. Reaver and I immediately ducked low.
We sat completely still until the ticking started again and eventually faded into the background thrumming of the plant. It appeared they had some kind of robot guard dog. Breaching the powerplant was going to be as difficult as breaching a medium-security research base back on Mars. I poked my head over the mound again and squinted into the night, trying to see what other security the slavers had in place. The breeze that had been blowing the soot and smoke away from us had changed direction, and the already dim conditions became even worse.
I thought about looking through Spirit-Watcher, but in a place like this, there would be far more data than I could make sense of, so I left it tucked under my shirt. Whatever else was waiting for us would have to be dealt with as it was discovered. If all else failed, I’d cut the threat in half with Ebon.
A pair of spotlights blazed into the sky for a few seconds, and their source began moving right until it disappeared behind a building. I wasn’t sure what had produced the light, but whatever it was, it was mobile. The half-second it was behind the building also gave me the clue I was looking for. The windows were barred.
The priestess.
I spotted a guard and slowly lowered my head so that my eyes barely
