Trapped. They were all trapped. They did not know but she did.
As she sat at the raised dais at the front of the hall she looked over her people. They were all assembled from the great elders to the newly born. She knew in her heart that they would never escape the beings that threatened them and what would happen to her people if they were captured, and her heart filled to the brim with sorrow.
She saw the youngest of their clan who had come into this world only two days earlier and thought of all the memories that would never be made. All he would ever know was the cold darkness of the fortress. The child would never even get to feel the warm kiss of the sun against his skin, or feel the softness of the grass under his feet as he ran through the summer fields, or even get to know what it was like to lay in the old creek and have the cool water soothe his skin when the heat of the day was too much.
"My friends." She said as she stood. She raised her glass and the rest of those gathered stood and raised their glasses, even the children. "We have all known that this day would come. Those that threaten to take our homes and our very lives." She saw the people gaze across the crowd at one another scanning for those that they loved as if to make sure that they had not already been taken.
"However," She continued "the spirit of our great clan is still present, our warriors still strong, and we will not be defeated. We will drive these invaders from our lands and we will step free from our fortress as one and be greater than ever before. To the clan!" She shouted.
"To the clan!" The hall thundered in response. They all drank as one. For a moment they all stayed still reveling in the thought of times long since past. Then they began to fall starting with the youngest and oldest until everyone had succumbed.
She just stood watching her people fall as she knew they would do in battle if she did not do something. She put her cup down and moved to the family tables where the youngest children had been in the arms of their mothers. Fortunately the poison had been slow enough in acting that the women had time to safely set down their children before they fell. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a dropper. Gently picking up each baby she gently gave them a kiss before dosing them.
She left the youngest for last. After taking him out of his mother's arms she just looked at him for awhile. His still unseeing eyes were filled with confusion as to who was holding him but after a moment he was contented with these new, warm arms. "You were the future little one. Forgive me for taking it from you." She had tears streaming down her face as she kissed him and then squeezed the last of the liquid into his mouth.
For a moment the baby just stared at her and then the hall was silent of anything except for her own breathing. She gently replaced the little body and then set about the task she had set for herself.
She pulled each of the families up onto their table and she moved those that were sitting with her on the dais to their tables. She poured oil over then and lit them on fire. She moved to sit on her throne as the hall filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. She sat there and cried as she prayed that the souls of her people would find their way to the Great Halls of their forefathers.
When the hall was so full of smoke she could hardly see she moved to her family's table that sat at the base of the dais. She poured oil over herself and took a vial out from her pocket. It was the very last of the poison she had used to kill her people. Holding a torch in one hand and drinking the fluid with the other she also succumbed to the poison and her family burned as they went to join the others in the Great Hall.