"Kehel! Lovely you could make it," Terry said quickly from the mouth of the passage that led to Kehel's rooms. He was panting as hiding what was under him, flustered.
"What on earth happened?" Kehel asked as Mel and Leej came closer. Ty was in bed. Kehel had seen to it. "How many did you find?"
Terry struck out his hands and the boys pulled him out of the hole. "More than we can handle," he said sadly. He turned and looked back into the passage, then a small child, about seven, propped his hands out to be hauled from the hole. Terry leaned down and pulled the child out as about a dozen others crowded around the opening.
"STALLION!" came a voice from the other room. Terry sighed. The boys nodded. They began taking out the children as Terry hastened to Ty.
"How many?" she demanded, without so much as a preliminary hello.
Terry sighed, then said, "too many."
"How many? Any hurt?" Ty made to get up, rolled her eyes at her injuries, then jumped to the ceiling, her braids crackling with electricity.
"Dammit, Stallion, how many?" she shouted.
"About two thousand."
Ty's face turned to ice. Her blood was boiling. She leapt to the ground, and ignoring her injuries, walked to him. Her gaze burned a hole in his skull. "Are they hurt?"
Terry couldn't do anything else. He looked away. "None of them are virgins, Ty. The biggest is twelve. The youngest is three. They say their parents were brought overseas, and when they arrived the kids were taken from them."
He looked desperately into her eyes, shivering at what was in them. "Ty, what are we going to DO?"
Ty didn't move. Then she said, with a complete finality that racked his bones and drained his marrow, "we're calling in the backup. This calls for slaughter."
"Of children?" he asked, terrified.
"No," she said murderously. "Of their parents."
Kehel and Mel walked into the room, Kehel with a child per hip and one on his back, while Mel cradled a sleeping infant. "Tehea, what are we going to do with all these children?" Mel asked.
Ty paled. Them she walked back into her bed, shut her eyes, and spit some blood into a dish at her side. There was a leak in her lungs. She needed a healer, and they all knew it. Her included. It hurt when she breathed, but was small enough not to be fatal right away.
"I'm calling in a favor. We're going out of Corus. Boys, pack your bags."
The boys ran outside to do as they were told, yet Leej dug in the breaks at the last moment and called out to Ty.
"And the kids?" he yelled back. Ty froze. As did the other boys. Then she spun around.
"My room, meeting, five minutes, everyone old enough to listen and understand," she called, turning back into her room and shutting the door.