fragile | clexa

chapter fifty five

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Lexa switched to her leader persona within seconds. Clarke was escorted upstairs to their chambers by a whole group of guards ( "I'm sick of guards not doing their job. I'm taking one head for every single scratch I find on her."), and Lexa rushed to meet Indra, Anya and the scouts while horses and warriors were being prepared.

"Heda, you cannot mean to ride into war as impulsively as that," Indra said forcefully.

"I am not riding into war impulsively. I have an army. What do they have? Whips? Every minute counts. We might save lives today. Do you not care about this at all?"

"I do, Heda. I have a daughter on my own. I am disgusted by this slavery industry, but my job is it to protect you firstly. You don't know how strong they really are. What if these old buildings are only the disguise, the surface?"

"We will be careful, but we will be so now. Over night, preparations enough are made. As soon as dawn settles, we're leaving."

"Well, what's the plan?" Anya asked, leaning on the war table. "I don't want to say anything against storming that dump, but if they feel threatened and they have a whole group of innocent, weak people in there, it's only counting two and two together to take hostages."

"The scouts have described it as a few shabby, instable halls in the middle of the forest. A team will go inside and check the situation, the rest stays outside and attacks at signal. A handful of psychopaths is nothing against my soldiers."

That was the end of the discussion. The journey was mapped out, the warriors informed, rations packed, healers brought up, groups and sections formed, tasks distributed, horses and warriors alike put into armor.

It was very early the next morning when Lexa got upstairs to a sleeping Clarke. She sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed the girl's cheek. "I'll be back before you know it. Don't get hurt in the meanwhile. Then, she leaned down and kissed away a furrow on Clarke's forehead. "See you soon. Stay safe."

Only hours later, Lexa was deep into a colorful forest that grew thicker and denser the closer they got to Podakru. Her soldiers had already split up into groups, the map they had from the scouts showing that they weren't far.

If Lexa hadn't known, she wouldn't have recognized the place they found as anything dangerous. The worn-out shacks surrounding a concrete place could have passed as old farms. The concrete was dirty and the roofs of the few buildings were broken in. Trees and other plants alike had grown over the hard edges of the man-made place. Surrounded by the glowing colors of the trees that season, the place stood out grey and depressing.

It was obvious from the outside that the place was derelict. The huts were searched quickly; empty.

Empty, yet with something dark upon them. All of them were barely lit despite the holes in the ceiling. They had no windows, only gaps in the walls. It smelled of rot, of decay, of death itself, so heavily that the air was impossible to breathe. The few rays of sunlight that fell into the buildings revealed their filth. Mud, ashes, dirt.

"Empty, Heda," were all the other search groups' replies to Lexa.

"Light torches. Search again, not for people but a clue. This has to be it, it looks just how she described it."

The warriors nodded and bowed. Lexa's skin shone as red as the trees around her in the fire, her warpaint smeared a little by the heat of the torch in her hands.

The groups positioned by their respective shed again. Two each door, the rest inside.

Lexa kept careful to breathe through her mouth when she stepped inside again. The flames lit only a small amount of space. Shadows danced at the walls. The light caught onto something- and all air left Lexa's and her warriors' bodies.