Finding Amber (Book 5) Jacobs Broken Mercenaries

chapter 11

Estevan

I’ve lost her to the worst kind of fate. I should have stopped and taken her into a cave or even have hidden her. Now there’s a risk she’ll be injured or worse. I wish I knew how to make them voluntarily shift.
Chenoo’s have a dark history. They were once regular men who resorted to cannibalism when food was scarce. It is said to be the cause of a frozen heart. It’s not a known fact how or why they can shift into giants, only that they do. It’s obvious this one is starving. I see leaves, branches, and mud making up parts of its arm and foot. He’s resorted to eating himself and camouflaging the missing pieces. 
I let them take me. They believe I’m human or aren’t particular about their meat. Though these things are easy to take down a number of them; once shifted, could prove difficult. It’s worth the risk to get to Amber before…. I can’t finish the thought. If anything happened to her, it would be my last loss. 
They’re bringing us closer to the black void; our exit. Making good time in their giant forms. I watch the pair ahead of me carry Amber’s sleeping body gently. Probably not wanting to bruise their meat. Once they shift back to size. I’ll take them out and head for the exit. 
What’s this? 
They’re taking us into a makeshift hut. It’s the size of a stadium. Bloody hell, if Amber would just wake up, we could take them together.  She’s too new to realize the strength she wields, but only because she’s never had to use it. 
They shift, entering the hut, and I’m faced with hundreds of what I presume are chenoo’s. Maybe a thousand.  I should have taken my chances on the road. The two behind me push me toward a straw door where forty or so pits make up the area. In those pits are people! 
How did they manage this? Some of the people have been here a while. They look filthy and malnourished. He pushes me to an end one and throws me twenty feet down a slippery slope. I know I can get out of this with light feet and speed. It’s getting past the army of chenoo’s just outside this room that the challenge. 
They let Amber roll down, dropping her like a sac. I catch her limp body in my arms, silently promising to torch the place with them inside.
Howls of anguish and cries of hunger sound around me. My stomach growls, and I happen to remember eyeing an all you can drink buffet in the corner. It must be where they drain the bodies on a hook over a trough. They think we're human. The presumption will work in our favor. 
“No! Please, no!”
A man’s desperate plea carries over every other sound in the noisy room. I can hear his finger nails scrape across rocks and the grunts of his useless fight against them. chenoo. So that’s what they do. This is a farm for humans. It’s disgusting. 
They’re more than likely taking the sickliest ones first, which means I’ve got time. The faste,  the better. Every hour I wait to drink is lost strengt,  and I’m not getting out without a fight.
When it quiets, I leap out and peek my head over the hole next to me. The man moves to the corner, wrapping his arms around his body, protecting himself.
“Relax, I’m one of you.” The lie makes me cringe. When he looks up, I ask:
“How often do they come in here in a day?” he jumps up.
“How did you get out? Help me!” he scrambles up the steep dirt wall, falling down into the puddle of mud.  I fight back an eye roll. Humans are so simple.
“Answer my question.” I tell him, but he’s panicked, and rational thought evades him.
“There’s no time to talk! We have to leave.” He groans out. This time,  I do roll my eyes, placing my finger against my lips to silence him.
“Beyond that door are a thousand giants… how fat do you think we’d make it?” I see the moment his panic subsides and rational thought makes its presence known. He deflates, dropping down to sit. Once the thought of escape leaves his mind, he answers me.
“They come in 5 times from sunset to sunrise. Three times to water our hole. Once to throw bread and another time to empty our buckets.” I wonder if he knows what his fate is. The man surprises me with his next statement. 
“They’re going to eat us, you know.”
The door moves, and I drop back down in the hole. A few seconds later, bread drops down in front of me. When I hear the door once more, I toss the loaf in the hole next to me. He thanks me repeatedly.  One more time. I’ve got a small period to make my escape. When they come in after sunset, it should be just hours until they sleep. Just as I begin to map out a plan, Amber wakes.