Chapter 37 We are Discovered

I worked my way back through the tunnel. I felt a bit bad leaving Maize there to search the underground herself, but it wasn't as if I could do anything useful. So when I mentioned perhaps leaving for the day to look for Filmore Maize seemed fine with it. After all, I would be back. She couldn't make it back through the tunnel system without me.

I entered the last section of the cave and swam out. Something grabbed my arm causing me to shriek and strike out with a punch. I hit him before I realized who it was that grabbed me. Adam let go and pointed up. A sinking feeling in my gut I followed him.

"What are you doing?" He asked as I surfaced.

"Looking for Filmore," Not really lie. I had been on my way to look for Filmore after all.

"Where's that girl your always with?" He looked around as if he expected to see her bobbing around.

"The cave is underwater. She can't go down there. I left her on the shore until I was done."

"Find anything?" He asked.

"No, nothing." I sighed.

"I see," he turned a circle again looking around.

"I thought you were sick. You weren't there this morning."

"No, I got into some trouble for leaving the two of you yesterday. I had to stay behind to be lectured. Though if they knew you were exploring caves on your own you'd be the one getting the lecture."

"Most likely," I agreed. "But I wasn't planning on telling them I was by myself unless I found Filmore."

"He's gone. It's pointless to keep looking."

"Perhaps, but to his wife it's important."

"I guess," Adam looked around again. "Hey, do you think you want to check out that other cave with me again? The one with the crabs? We didn't get a good look around because of the crabs. Maybe we missed something."

"Um," I hesitated. I knew Filmore wasn't there. Adam thought I was hesitating over something else entirely.

"It's underwater, so your friend can't come anyway. We might as well head over there now and then pick her up on the way back," Adam turned and smiled at me.

Shit. How did I get rid of Adam so I could go back for Maize?

"Lunch, I haven't eaten yet," I lied. I'd just eaten before I'd left Maize but perhaps the excuse was enough.

"You don't have your bag," Adam commented. "You left it with your friend?"

"That's right so I should go get her."

"No, she will slow down the search of the cave. You can share my lunch," Adam tapped the bag he had slung over his shoulder.

Fine, I'd have lunch with him, search the cave, then use Maize as an excuse to split up from him later. If he still followed me I could discover that Maize was missing and send Adam back to inform the pinch-faced woman. In the meantime, I'd be in the caves getting Maize out. I didn't think we'd be able to spend the night now. Adam would know something was off and might go looking in the cave himself. The last thing I wanted was for Adam to discover the cave with the boats.

We spent some time eating Adam's lunch. Then I followed him to the crab cave. He gestured for me to go first. I had my knife in my hand just in case a Goblin Crab surprised me.

From under the water, there wasn't any sign of crabs and there weren't any when I surfaced either. Odd, since just a short time ago this place was infested. I felt Adam come up behind me.

Before I knew it he'd knocked my knife out of my hand.

"Hey," I protested turning to go after the knife, but Adam grabbed my wrist. Keeping me surfaced.

Then I felt something against my ribs. Something sharp and pointy.

"You won't be needing it," Adam said.

"Adam?" It was more a question than anything. What was going on?

"Head towards the beach," I turned my head and looked at him. He was smiling. Why the hell was he smiling?

"Go on," he pressed the knife against me harder. Any more and he'd break the skin.

I swam towards the beach. It was awkward with Adam holding my wrist and the knife pressed to my side the entire time. I got as close as I could to the beach without using my hands. A wave broke over me and tried to pull me back into the water. Adam let go of my hand but kept the knife pressed up against me. I pulled myself out of the water and onto the beach. Adam followed along able to use his split fins to push himself rather than use his arms.

"What's going on?" I turned to him. His gaze drifted over to a clump of seaweed near the edge of the beach.

"I thought the Goblin Crabs would eat him. That's why I brought him here. Instead, it's scared them away. You'd have found him eventually. After all, this is your cave. Better sooner rather than later."

What was he talking about? I looked at the clump of seaweed again. Then I was able to make out distinct shapes. A human body covered in seaweed.

"Gods Above," I whispered. I drug myself closer to Filmore. He was dead. And he had the broken end of a fishing spear sticking out of his side.

"What happened?" A part of my brain had shut down. While another part of my brain was screaming at me. I felt cold and numb while at the same time as if I was sitting on the edge of a cliff.

"I killed him of course. This way there can only be two of us. They can't force you to be with him if it's only us."

"What?" I turned and stared at Adam. Adam had killed Filmore. Why?

"They plan on breeding us you know. You're the only female. So that means the two of us for one of you. I don't share. So I killed him." He seemed so matter of fact about it all. He even shrugged a bit at the end.

"But he's married," it seemed like the only logical thing I could think at that moment. Breeding? They wanted us to breed?

"Do you honestly think something like that would stop them? The entire point of changing us was to develop superhumans to use in the war. They need us to breed, for you to birth the next generation of underwater soldiers for them."

"War," I echoed. What war? As far as I knew we weren't at war.

"They are taking the long view. War with the Onyx Kingdom is inevitable. We want the obsidian fields, and they want the coastal land bordering the fields. In order to have a fighting chance against them, they need soldiers on par with the Zyanthropes. But Zyanthropes are loyal to their own countries and wouldn't bother getting involved. So our dear Amber Kingdom decided to create their own. It didn't matter how many had to die, as long as they got their soldiers in the end.

"We are the first. I was told by my caretakers that it's only a matter of time anyway. Sooner or later you'll have to give me children. You can either have it done here in relative privacy or you can have it done being watched by all those people while you are trapped in a tank. Either way, this is going to happen."

"This was a sickness, a plague. Who told you this nonsense?" I pushed myself away from him, but the knife came out and I froze.

"It's not nonsense. Those shots we were given? The ones to protect us from getting sick on The Island? It was that."

"No, that doesn't make sense. Children on the mainland got sick too. Other people not just the ones who'd been to The Island."

"True, but they were given shots as well. Something a bit different from what we were given. That's why none of them survived. What we were given was slightly different. Liquefied monster core for us on The Island. They learned early on to target the people with little to no magic. Less magic to conflict with the monster core growing inside a human body."

"People with magic survived."

"They didn't have very much magic to begin with, god touched, or both."

"No, I can't believe that. No government would kill off so many of its people."

"I don't think they intended for so many to die. They thought that if they targeted the magicless and the children the monster cores would have a better chance. My handler said they miscalculated the casualty rate."

"Miscalculated the casualty rate," I echoed. "There is no way they could have killed so many miscalculation or not. The gods would have noticed."

"You think so? Where were they when everyone was dropping dead? The gods could have stopped this entire thing, but they didn't. Why?" Adam looked at me and gave me a malicious grin.

"They didn't know," I said rather flatly.

"That's impossible and you know it," he sneered.

Well, he had a point. Why hadn't the gods intervened? It made some sense that they wouldn't know what was happening on The Island because of the barrier, but they should have known about what was happening on the mainland.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"They don't care," Adam shook his head as if chiding me for being particularly stupid.

"Of course they do," I argued.

"No, if they cared they could have easily have shown up and healed those kids and everyone else that was afflicted. They didn't. They ignored us."

I didn't know what to say. Adam was right. If the gods had wanted to interfere they could have and fewer people would have died. So why didn't they interfere? There had to be a reason. When so many started dropping dead Edomael, the Abyss Keeper himself would have noticed. So why wasn't anything done?

"You see?" Adam smiled moving nearer to me with the knife. My head swirled. I felt rather sick and a bit lightheaded.

"No," I said in denial. It was a weak denial and Adam laughed at it.

"It doesn't matter anyway, because of this I can finally live up to my potential. I always knew I was better than my brothers, better than most of the nobles. Just because I was born out of order I had to deal with all sorts of injustices.

"Cutting me off like that and saying I had to find a suitable occupation..." Adam's face grew red with fury. He slashed the knife around wildly. He'd been rather calm talking about murdering Filmore, but suddenly he showed the depth of his anger.

"There is money and land. A lot of it, but because my brother was born first it goes to him? What sort of injustice is that? I've always been better than the lot of them. That's why he had to meet with a slight accident." Adam wasn't looking at me anymore but was gazing thoughtfully at Filmore's body. "Still I had another brother who stepped in. If this hadn't happened," he waved one of his finned legs, "he would have met with an accident as well.

"As it is, I've finally understood that my purpose isn't the head of a merchant house. My purpose is to become the spearhead of the kingdom," Adam thrust the knife to the side violently to emphasize his point. "Soldiering life never really appealed to me, but this is rather different. It's not as if I'll be the one actually doing the fighting. No, my job is to use you to father an elite squad."

"No two people can have that many children," I tried inching closer to the water. Perhaps in the water, I could escape. My head was starting to clear up from the shock of it all and getting away from Adam was paramount.

"Didn't you know? No, I guess you wouldn't," Adam grinned at me all his teeth showing. "They've been dosing you this entire time. Using periodic healing and lacing your food with drugs to increase your fertility. On top of that, they think that the gestation period will be shorter. Every seven months instead of nine you know? If you have a set of twins for every pregnancy you should be able to supply the kingdom with a litter of soldiers before you've used yourself up.

"Stop that," he waved the knife at me and lunged pressing it tightly against my side. "I don't want to cut you up, but I figure it won't kill you." He pressed the tip hard enough that I felt the second the skin broke. There was a feeling like an itch, then it felt warm against my slightly chilled skin.

"This will happen. It doesn't matter to me how," to make his point he drew the knife up my arm making a shallow cut.

I jerked away and made some sort of noise somewhere between a scream and a hiccup. For some reason, this cut on the arm hurt a lot more than the puncture on my side. I couldn't just let him sit there and slice me up. The pain drove away what leftover fog had been making me sit there frozen.

I knocked his arm with the knife away. He seemed surprised at this but quickly brought the knife back towards me. I grabbed at his wrist with both my hands and slammed his hand into the sand. His other hand came up and he began punching me. The side of my head, my shoulder, my back. All while I kept slamming his hand with the knife into the sand.

His grip loosened and I pried it out of his grip. I came up with it swinging it wide at him. His hand followed mine with a swift strike he knocked the knife out of my grip. It went flying into the water a few feet away. I lunged after it but was punched in the throat. Then again in the face. I saw stars.

There had never been a worse pain in my life. I couldn't see, I was choking on blood. What had happened? My face was on fire. I think I may have passed out for a second. When I came back to my senses. I was on my back in the sand.

"Fucking uppity bitch. I'm doing you a fucking favor." There was a blow to my chest that forced blood out of my mouth in a wheeze.

Hands were scrambling up and down my tail, fingers digging into the skin.

I brought my hand up but received another blow to the neck. I choked and coughed up more blood. I tried to roll to my side so all the blood wasn't choking me. I gagged and threw up a bit.

"Disgusting bitch," Adam got off me and actually helped flip me over. On my stomach, the blood drained from my nose instead of down the back of my throat.

Hands were running all along the back of my tail.

"How the fuck," Adam was muttering. He reached up and tried to grab at my hair, but since I'd cut it so short he couldn't get a good grip.

"Where is it?" He yelled at me slamming my head into the sand since he couldn't pull my head back. I was lucky that I had my head turned so that my battered nose didn't take more of a beating.

"Where is it!" He screamed at me again then punched my shoulder.

His other hand was running up and down my butt. Twice he passed over the membrane that covered my parts, but only with luck did he fail to notice that the skin was different there. If he had pressed with his fingers instead of swiping down the length of my tail with his palm he would have noticed that the skin gave way.

I reached out with my hand and tried to drag myself away. Instead, I was grabbed from behind and slammed into the sand. Just as I landed his fingers dug into the membrane.

I reached behind me and tried to block his access. Instead, my hand hit something fleshy. My hand grasped it and I yanked, hard.

Adam fell back with a screech.

At that moment the earth began to shake. I felt the ground ripple under me and I let go of Adam. The ground literally moved. I was thrown up onto the crest of a wave of sand, and I was brought back down landing on my side. There was another wave in the sand and I was tossed up again.

This time I hit the water. The earthquake had caused the water in the cave to churn and massive reactionary waves were beating against the beach and the walls of the cave. The waves were so strong I was pulled along in a sudden current. I had to do something or be smashed against the side of the cave.

I reached out and my hand grabbed a stick. No, it was Filmore and the spear sticking out of his side. The spear came loose from his body and he was carried away from me on the crest of another wave.

"BITCH!" I was grabbed from behind. Both arms wrapping around me and I was suddenly being slammed into the sand under the waves. I turned and the butt of the spear followed my movements. I felt it jam into something solid and suddenly the arms let go. I didn't know where I'd hit him but he'd let go and that was the important part.

The earth shook again and I felt the water surge. On instinct, I drove the end of the spear into the ground. I was hoping to just slow my movements so that I wasn't smashed up against the wall, but instead, the spear got wedged in between some rocks and I was able to cling to it.

Gradually, the earth stopped trembling and the water stopped surging. I was having a hard time breathing with all the sand stirred up in the water, but I wasn't about to let go of that spear. I had a hell of a time getting it unstuck from the rocks. Adam had to be close by and this spear was the only weapon I had.

I surfaced and took a clean breath of air. Blood was still streaming down my face but it had significantly slowed. Was my nose broken? I was too afraid to touch the spot to find out. I couldn't help it and sneezed the debris out of my gills. The pain of this nearly caused me to blackout again as the sneeze also tried finding an exit out my nose.

I gripped onto the spear as I tried to find my equilibrium. Adam was here. It was still very dangerous. Was what he'd said true? True or not, Adam certainly believed it.

It was a horrible realization, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibilities either.

The Amber Kingdom was known to be prejudice against Zyanthropes. So if there was a wat why would the Zyanthrope population sign on with our side? No, rather they would be more likely to sign on with the Onyx Kingdom instead. Even if they did have a sordid reputation for slavery and forced labor. The Onyx Kingdom treated Zyanthropes as equals and the Amber Kingdom didn't. Having an army supplemented by the natural physical strength of the Zyanthropes could turn the tide of any war.

The Onyx Kingdom had it's share of strong magicians too. After the last war, and being soundly trashed by the lone Lady Margot, they had instituted a rather brutal policy of taking magically gifted children away from their parents to be brought up in a boarding school of magic. It was common knowledge even in the Amber Kingdom that those children were treated horribly. Though it must be said the ones who manage to survive the school ended up having decently appointments in the military and government.

Was what Adam said the Amber Kingdom's countermeasure? Where we all just pawns to be played in a farseeing game of war?

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Panicked I turned spear in hand.

Filmore.

Filmore's body had resurfaced and was being knocked into the wall of the cave by the cresting waves.

Where was Adam?

I swept my gaze slowly along the top of the water wanting to catch sight of some underwater movement. He'd come from under me. That would be the best move to make, but with so much debris stirred up in the water, he couldn't stay under long without having to resurface to flush his gills. So where was he?

Movement in a corner of the cave. It was the area of the cave with the sharp stalactites that hung from the top of the cave and stalagmites that jetted a few feet out of the water. The cave dripped there and over time had created the formations.

The waves crested and withdrew. As they pulled back I saw the movement again. Just skimming the surface of the water was Adam. He was sort of curled sideways mostly on his stomach. His arms were moving along something, he was trying to lift himself up. Was he stuck?

I didn't want to get too close, but there was something about the movements that made me swim closer. I held the spear at ready, just in case.

It seemed that nature had decided to act on my behalf. I wouldn't need my spear. The cave had done that for me. Adam was pierced near the front of his hip on a small particularly needle-looking stalagmite.

His face had gone white with pain and he was grunting hard trying to push himself off. He must have noticed my approach and he turned his head to look at me. He stared at the spear in my hand and just laughed. He looked resigned, waiting.

What was he waiting for? After what seemed like a long time but may have actually been less than a minute Adam shook his head and renewed his efforts of trying to get off the spike.

He wasn't going to get off it by himself. Shit. I glanced at the spear in my hand and decided that I shouldn't give it up entirely. So I chucked it towards an area of beach where I could get to it if I needed it.

Hands free, I swam up beside Adam. I could see why he was having issues. There wasn't much to brace yourself against if you needed to pry your body off a spike. His own weight and his efforts seemed to actually make the spike go in deeper with every wave crest.

Oddly, there was very little blood. You would think that with a would like that there would be more blood. I took a closer look. I couldn't really tell just how deep it was, not without knowing how large the spike had been beforehand. So maybe it wasn't that deep and that's why there wasn't a lot of blood.

"Are you going to help me or just keep staring?" Adam grunted at me in between his gasps of pain.

"I should leave you like this," I mumbled mostly to myself as I tried to find some way to brace my body so that I could lift him up.

Near his shoulder was another set of the stalagmites. I didn't want to pierce myself and end up in the same predicament as him, but If I wedged my tail in between the two and braced my body against the spike Adam was stuck on, I could probably push him up from underneath.

I got my body wedged in place and placed my hands on one of his shoulders and one on his stomach. Then I waited for the water to crest. The water took some of the weight off, but if I didn't time it right the weight would fall again. It crested and I pushed up. Adam assisted as much as he could by pushing from above.

The water was suddenly filled, I gagged. It tasted like metal. Blood, a lot of blood. Adam had come off the spike in a spurt of blood. He was trying to swim but was flailing about trying to orient himself.

I got my tail unstuck then swam to grab him under the arms. I drug him up onto the beach on his back and tried to asses the damage. Blood, Dark blood, flowed out of him.

I couldn't check the wound with that much blood and I wasn't a healer. I had to bind it. The only fabric I had was my shirt. I pulled it off and held it against the hole. I leaned into it trying to get the bleeding to slow.

"Shit," I hissed. I couldn't get him out of the cave bleeding like this, but I couldn't leave him to get help either. I had to stop the blood. How did you stop blood when it was coming out this thick and this fast? My shirt, already wet from water, wasn't doing much. There had been seaweed washed up on the beach earlier. Would seaweed help?

I glanced up at Adam's face. I was going to ask him what I should do. His eyes were staring at nothing. In my panic of trying to get the blood to stop, I'd failed to notice he'd stopped breathing. His blood still flowed, so I'd assumed he was still alive. Was his heart beating?

With my bloody hand, I reached to his chest. My palm left smeared handprints across his chest as I tried to feel for his heartbeat. Nothing. I checked the pulse point at his neck. Nothing. He wouldn't be a threat to anyone anymore.