Chương 208: Chapter 66: The Warm Breath of the Earth

The next day, with the dawn painting the sky pearl gray, she departed. It was not a long journey like the previous ones to the capital or to Ashkharum. Only a week's travel to the west, following the Sun Route. Kaelburg, the capital, and even the Dawn Fortress, were all in the heart of the crown's territories, the land directly ruled by the King, the backbone of the kingdom. The journey was monotonous, the landscape a succession of wooded hills that gradually became steeper.

Fjora, at her side, kept watch in silence, her presence a serene constant amidst Selena's inner whirlwind. When they finally arrived, the view that unfolded before them justified the place's name. The Dawn Fortress was nestled in a strategic pass between two twin mountains, imposing and covered with plants appearing to be part of the adjacent forest, which cut through the Sun Route like stone fangs, the main commercial artery that ran from east to west.

The morning sun, just upon aligning with the pass, bathed the fortification in a golden and blinding light, making it look like a divine construction emerged from the rock. The route, wide and well-maintained, wound its way up to the main gate. The merchants called it, with pragmatism and a touch of poetry, "the Sunendri Light", for it was the first and last point where the sunbathed the caravan in the entire mountain pass.

The fortress itself was a mass of light-colored stone, with low and thick towers, designed not for elegance, but for defense and, apparently, to harbor secrets. Selena, upon seeing it, felt that the last sigh of freedom she had savored with Meilan vanished, absorbed by the cold shadow of the walls. The hammer, and the anvil upon which it would strike, awaited her. Contrary to what her instinct told her upon seeing the imposing stone fortress, Selena was informed that the Hammerer Project was not within its walls.

The Dawn Fortress was merely a point of reference, a military beacon concealing the true location. From there, the path became secret, impassable for wagons or any vehicle that left an obvious trail. Four soldiers mounted on titanopods of silent and sure stride awaited her. Without ceremony, they helped her mount one of the animals, and the small party ventured into the deep forest that stretched beyond the fortress. There was no fixed trail.

The soldiers guided the beasts with an unsettling assurance among immense trees and dense undergrowth, as if following marks invisible except to the initiated. The Titardes rose like pillars of a natural temple forgotten by time. The forest was ancient, primeval. The air, even in the second week of autumn, maintained a warm and dense humidity, laden with the scent of damp earth, moss, and sweet decomposition.

The trunks, of a circumference that would require ten people to embrace, were covered in an armor of multicolored fungi and lichens that glowed with faint emerald and silver hues in the filtered light. This place, Selena knew, would hardly be detailed on any map of the kingdom. It was a secret kept by geography and the indifference of time. As they advanced, she noticed something else: to the north, one of the mountains flanking the valley did not have the jagged silhouette of its sisters.

Its summit was more rounded, from its slopes and crevices rose a faint vapor that blended with the forest mist. It was a dormant volcano or perhaps not so dormant. The Dawn Fortress was not nestled among ordinary mountains; it was guarding the entrance to a valley dominated by a sleeping geological giant and a minor mountain range to the south. The humid heat, then, took on a new meaning: it was the warm breath of the earth itself.

After at least two hours of riding through the thicket, they arrived at the first sign of human activity. A firm stone wall, low but solid, surrounded a clearing in the forest. It was a perimetral barrier, deterrent and discreet. On its battlements, armed guards patrolled. Selena recognized composite bows, but what caught her attention were other weapons mounted on rotating platforms: heavy crossbows, of the same advanced design she had only seen on the walls of the capital.

State-of-the-art military technology, here, in the middle of nowhere. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. After the soldiers escorting her identified themselves, the heavy wooden gates reinforced with iron opened. The camp revealed was spartan and functional. There were few buildings on the surface: low, square structures of well-cut stone, with gabled roofs covered in slabs.

The signs were minimalist, almost brutal in their pragmatism: "Pits", "Refinery", "Wagons", "Bureaucracy". The latter was the largest building. Besides it, barracks aligned with military precision, further beyond, a small, unadorned mess hall. An open space, marked with posts and ropes, served as a training area. Upon dismounting from the titanopod, the four soldiers who had escorted her formed up in front of her with perfect synchronicity.

They struck their chests with their right fist twice, a dull, dry sound, and then, in unison, with voices that thundered in the silent clearing, declared: —Good morning, Colonel Solendra! The greeting, thunderous and laden with absolute discipline, was the hammer blow that officially initiated her new role. The sound was still echoing when a man approached with a purposeful stride. He wore epaulets with two silver stars and a uniform of a dark red, deep as red wine, a more sober variation of Selena's blood red.

His face was angular, marked by the elements and responsibility, his eyes, of light brown, evaluated her with a professional curiosity free of condescension. —My colonel —he said, bowing his head slightly— I am Lieutenant Colonel Aurele. I have been informed, by personal letter from His Majesty, that I must bring you up to speed on the Project. As you will have seen, our battalion is specialized. And though small on the surface… He made a significant pause, letting her look back at the camp once more.

—It is at least double the size of the underground. He guided her through the complex on the surface, pointing out the buildings whose names Selena had already read. Everything was pure efficiency, without a shred of aesthetic waste. But the true revelation came when Aurele led her to one of the openings in the ground, a wide ramp that descended gently into the bowels of the earth. Upon going down, the change was immediate.

The air became warmer, but not suffocating; a humid heat hovering around thirty degrees, the residual breath of the neighboring volcano channeled and controlled. A faint vapor seeped between the joints of the stone, creating ghostly halos in the light of the oil lamps embedded in the walls. To her surprise, the ventilation was excellent; currents of cool air, probably channeled through natural chimneys, kept the atmosphere breathable and dried the humidity. It was impressive work of underground engineering.

Down there, the camp multiplied. There were more dormitories, excavated in niches of drier rock. Alchemy rooms are isolated with airtight doors, their walls equipped with containment for dangerous chemicals. Larger mess halls, with long stone tables. And then, the breeding chambers. Aurele took her first to a cavernous chamber where the eggs were bred. They were huge, the size of a large melon, of a whitish color with orange streaks, carefully arranged in nests of plant fiber heated by vapor conduits.

Then, the larva rooms. Here, Selena held back a gasp. The creatures were caterpillars, yes, but on a monstrous scale. Worms as thick as a man's thigh, between forty and fifty centimeters long, crawled slowly over beds of a special plant pulp, chewing with mandibles that produced a constant crushing sound. Their skin was an earthy brown, segmented, they moved with a hypnotic and repulsive slowness. They were, in essence, giant, alien versions of the caterpillars she vaguely remembered from Earth.

—We cannot show you the pupae —said Aurele, pointing toward side chambers sealed with metal hatches— They are buried in a special substrate, and any disturbance can be fatal. It is the most delicate phase. But the centerpiece, the reason for everything, awaited her in the last chamber, the largest and best ventilated. There, beneath the light of large glass lamps housing colonies of luminescent fungi, were the adult hammerers. Selena was left breathless. The insects were colossal.

They remarkably resembled the bombardier beetles of her world, with their rounded and robust elytra, but on an inconceivable scale. Their exoskeleton was an intense velvety black, traversed by geometric patterns of a bright, almost toxic orange that seemed to warn of mortal danger. Their legs, thick as young tree trunks and ending in sharp claws, clung to poles of treated wood. They measured anywhere from one meter fifty to two meters twenty in length, true living tanks of chitin and muscle.

A low, deep hum, like that of a giant electrical transformer, emanated from them the sound of their supercharged metabolism.