Ancient Hunter
Chapter 27

I blinked for a moment thinking I’d gone blind my surroundings were too dark. There wasn’t any light. I wasn’t about to panic about it. For some reason I felt calm. Cautiously I reached for my pack feeling its weight on my back. With questing fingers I felt one of the side pockets in my pack for my flashlight and pulled it out. I felt along its shaft and pressed the little button. It illuminated my location proving beyond doubt I’d not gone blind. I was in a cave no larger than the dais I stood on. I had been expecting something like Saros with its perpetual twilight. There was a distinct absence of light in this cave. I couldn’t see much outside the beam of the flashlight. The walls and roof were a rough stone I couldn’t identify. Although I suspect that if Miranda were here she’d tell me. Which reminded me that as soon I could I’d tell her about the town. She deserved the truth no matter how much it hurt. I swept the beam of my light about hoping that I wasn’t trapped. Turning around I found the exit and instantly wished I hadn’t. There was a rounded doorway and piled against almost to waist height were bones of all shapes and sizes. Half a skeleton intersected with the dais looking as if the dais had cut it? The top half was missing I strongly suspected that it was where I’d come from. I was no expert but I guessed that whoever these people were they were trying to get to the dais.

At first I thought these were Valkyrie remains but there was something odd about the bone structures. I reached down to pick up one of the bones. It crumbled to dust as soon as my fingers touched it. It was clear to me these weren’t Valkyrie the remains older than the tragedy above, I edged around what could, but with amount of remains pilled in the doorway I was forced to step on a few. Wincing in imagined pain every time I did. Too many had died here to determine who or what they were. The bones too mixed to get any sense out of. I could imagine the panic as they tried to get to the dais. A few more bones crumbled under my heel as I made my way though to the room beyond. I hadn’t wanted to do that I had no choice if I wanted to carry on. I really didn’t want to but I had to know, had to find a reason for this senseless slaughter. Through the door it was wider the length going beyond the farthest reaches of my flashlight. The floor was as cluttered with remains as the door was. It appeared the door had been a choke point with the amount of bones against it on this side. I swept my flashlight around trying to assess the extent of the tragedy here. My beam of light picked up on a skeleton seated upright against one wall. Almost as if it was sitting out the chaos. I could picture an individual seated there watching the death unfold knowing there was nothing it could do.

The remains were of a male I guessed by looking at the pelvis. This was only speculation I was going on I was no expert. It had a hole in its skull could have been the cause of death. The skull was angular and I was certain I’d seen the bone structure somewhere else. But that eluded me I would have to try and guess that later I had a duty to the dead. One of the skeleton’s hands half covered a long thin object with holes in it a sort of flute. As I swept the beam of my light around the skeleton I noticed something fanning out from behind it back. I ran the beam of light along the wall following a tracery of bones. My blood colder than it ever could be. I looked again at the skeleton as if I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The toes and hands were more pointed than a Human or Valkyrie. But with those bones behind I drew the conclusion I was looking at the remains of a Janari with its wings outstretched. What the Keepers were before they had taken my DNA. It was why the facial bones had looked so familiar. These were for a lesser extent echoed in the faces of most of the Keepers who had been created with my DNA. Oddly Mouse’s holo had looked like a copy of me before she had become flesh and bone. Mouse had told me that the computer had formed her. That was to make her easier to deal with me before the damn thing trapped me in that harness. I compared this skeleton with the Keepers I knew. There were a lot more differences than similarities I think that was down to them using my DNA.

Abandoning my examination of the skeleton I continued along the passage. It was one long continuous room as rough as the dais room. The jumble of bones carried on down the passage and from my guess they were all headed to the dais room but never made it. The skeleton against the wall was the only intact skeleton I’d found the rest were a jumble of bones. I had no way of telling, which was which. It seemed to me that the killers. I had no better word for what had gone on here. Were they searching for survivors? The scene was too horrible to contemplate unbidden a tear trickled down my cheek. This was a massacre of epic proportions. I wept for the dead for there was no one to mourn them. I guess I could ask the remaining Keepers but thought of Scout’s trauma rested heavily on my mind. I couldn’t do that to them. Leaving the area I continued down the passage. Ahead the light from my flashlight illuminated a barrier. It was as makeshift as the one I’d placed against the door of the place I was staying in. It seemed to consist of square metal boxes with rounded edges. Each box about a metre square and were of a dull grey colour. Here and there I could see a flake of colour from whatever they had been painted in.

I slowed my walk seeing the middle had been breached as if hit by an explosive although I couldn’t see marks of that. Whatever had hit the boxes had thrown most of them out in a fan radiating out from the breach. I also noted the remains on this side of the barrier almost as if they were holding it in place. A box blocked my way and I had to move it out of my way. It was surprisingly heavy. I pushed it to one side and halted underneath the box was the crushed remains of a Janari. Something purple glinted in my light a crystal like the ones I’d found on the surface. I reached down to pick it up. As my fingers brushed the surface of the crystal I felt a tingle. It merged into a numbness, which travelled up my arm. I felt hot and cold at the same time. I sat down my arm hanging useless as my legs buckled underneath me. So Petros was telling the truth in that. I gathered my thoughts and tried to stand my legs refused to move. I was going to die here surrounded by these bones any connection between the bones here and the Landottir would never be solved. A picture built as I considered my fate. They weren’t looking for survivors they whoever they were, were retrieving crystals. They had missed the one I’d touched. I could feel the numbness spread into my shoulder. Soon it would reach my heart and it would stop.

Suddenly the numbness and the tingling faded. I looked at my hand it was blotched with red and black dots. Feeling returned to my hand and fingers. I flexed my hand in relief I was back to normal. The nanobots in my blood had somehow countered the neurotoxins. I was alive I felt the tiredness in my legs ebb away. Slowly I stood feeling better than I had done for a while. I glanced down at the crystal on the floor surrounded by remains. The toxin whatever it was, was contact based a lesson I’d learned the hard way. I hadn’t anything to analyse it so I placed the box back over it and continued down the passage. What chilled me the most was that the Rhosani war was thirty thousand years ago and the neurotoxin was still lethal. The attack of the Landottir had to have been perpetrated by a third party someone or something unseen. Shaken by my encounter I carried on down the passage there were fewer remains the other side of the barrier.

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