Chapter 182

Few Hours later. Outside the tunnel.

Mora's mind came to life before the rest of her body. Her throat was scorched, still thick, and coated with the debris of whatever poison had been shot into her by the suicidal ferals who attacked her with a little poison bomb in the exit tunnel. She was no longer in the exit containment structure where some of the villagers who dwelled near the exit watched anyone coming out of the tunnel. Her nose told her that much. Instead of the stinky herbal stench of the place, she smelled old wood and brick, with a hint of raw feral blood as well, coming from somewhere overhead.

And nearby, the odor of recent death. The cloying odor of the spilled, coagulating demon's blood – a lot of it – hung like a thick shroud.

Mora didn't have to try to move her limbs to know that she was restrained. The weight of heavy manacles and chains hung from her wrists and ankles, her body drawn spread-eagle between two large wooden beams.