The morbid procession of bodies flowed into the facility under the blinding floodlights, wolfkin guards patrolling between columns, long, heavy armbows in clear evidence, ready to shoot anyone who thought of making a run for it. Jett kept her head bowed, shuffling along as part of the line of downtrodden citykin that snaked its way into the Belforra facility.

She felt sick even pretending to be a part of this. These relocations had been going on for years—who knew how many thousand innocent lives had been ground into nothingness in this place. Citykin were being herded like animals. The tales of the Savage Fire came trickling back to the forefront of her mind—stories of bloodletting on an industrial scale, of great wars, and even greater genocides. The perverseness of this place filled her with a barely containable fury. She itched to rip her knife loose and cut the throat of the nearest guard.

The others stayed close in line behind her, not wanting to get separated before they truly knew what they were dealing with beyond those gaping doors. Around them, the other bedraggled kin showed no sign of defiance, no fight. They clutched at meagre bags of belongings that the guards hadn't bothered divesting them of, some discernible family groups trying to huddle closer together.

For their part, the enforcer guards didn't seem to show any malicious intent towards their charges, just like the guard on the train. They just strolled back and forth, making sure the lines kept moving and watching for any attempts at escape. Beyond that, they seemed happy to keep their distance.

That worked in her favour now. She had no way of knowing if these guards had been stationed here for weeks or if some of them might have been part of the wild chases through the streets of Wildhearth, but their paws-off attitude greatly lowered any chance of her being recognised as she walked on, a picture of obedience.

Bulbous orange-red lights embedded in the ceiling illuminated them as they filed into the gaping jaws of the eastern entrance. The kiln-fired ceramic of the ceiling sloped gently downward in a long, broad corridor, funnelling the lines towards a dozen turnstiles at the base of the ramp, each one attended by a wolfkin guard. This area spanned easily fifty meters across, the first stage in their processing.

Behind those turnstiles, she caught sight of a dozen figures clad in odd, tightly fitted clothes that covered them from throat to ankle, gleaming as though varnished and visible from beneath long white coats. Some monitored bulky screens within the arrival foyer while others waited alongside the turnstiles brandishing sleek, black syringes. As the citykin passed them, they were jabbed; a vial of blood was extracted and carted away to one of the monitoring stations. To her horror, she realised they weren't all wolfkin. Felkin, quillkin—even vulkin and foxkin were among the attendants, moving with a cold efficiency as their own people were put into the grinder of the wolfkin machine.

With an effort, Jett kept her head down, disbelieving fury prickling her fur, her hackles rising despite her best efforts. Hopefully, it would just look like expected nerves to the guards. As they passed through the turnstile, a rough paw grabbed her shoulder, and a wolfkin guard held her in place while a dead-eyed quillkin jabbed a syringe into the side of her neck. She let out a tight yelp of surprise but forced herself not to pull away. Seconds passed. The attendant withdrew the syringe, containing a small amount of her blood, depositing it into a cart behind him where dozens of others stood on a rack.

Rubbing her neck, she trudged through, her mind racing as to what those samples were needed for. Behind her, the others no doubt received the same treatment, but she didn't look back. No one here showed any hint of defiance—they needed to do the same to blend in, for now. Her nose twitched as she kept her place in line, trying to scent and get her bearings, searching for something she couldn't find. Ordinarily, she would have been able to smell the wolfkin guards, the other kin, her companions, and a myriad of other sensations, but any musk that had once lingered in this place had been erased by the stinging antiseptic tang of chemical cleaner.

Once they cleared the turnstiles, the flow of citykin was directed through a series of narrower passages that plunged deeper below the surface of Belforra, different lines taking different routes. She assumed there must have been a number of holding areas, given the volume of people that were being funnelled through this place.

The five interlopers stayed close as they followed their own shuffling line into the subterranean world. Guards directed them with terse, clipped commands down into a warren-like arrangement of interlocking passages.

Jett took in every detail, watching and waiting for any opportunity to slip away, but she knew they needed to know more about this place before they made a move. She noticed as they went deeper that parts of the facility looked newer than others—dull-walled tunnels mashed together with the fresh-laid kilnwork.

There had been something here before—some structure that Hera's wolfkin had repurposed for their brutal needs. Her keen eyes spotted the rusting remnants of pipes still clinging to the ceilings of these old passages. Perhaps this had been some kind of chemical plant before the incident that had turned Belforra into a ghost-ridden graveyard.

"Eyes there," Rapid whispered, nudging her from behind and giving an innocuous dip of the snout to a hallway on their left. "Big locks."

Jett flickered her gaze down the hall and saw what he meant. Maybe fifty yards away, a heavy metal door blocked the way, plated with black armour and emblazoned with a strange insignia of interlocking diagonal lines.

"Mark it," she whispered. "We'll need to get through there."

A moment later, she caught a glimpse of one of the scientists passing through it, using what had to be a scent key to gain access. The slab of metal heaved aside with a squeal of mechanisms she could hear even from this distance.

For the few seconds that the door remained open, she heard something else.

It sounded like the echo of screams.

Then they moved on. She squared her jaw and tried to fight the rising tide of panic within her. They'd come here with no real plan, with no way to know the layout of this base. She knew they had to improvise; knew there had to be some place the citykin were held before their...processing. But waiting like a good little lab rat still made her tail curl with anxiety.

If the others felt the same, they didn't show it. Karno moved in front of her, his shoulders suitably slumped, while Rapid trudged along behind her. Gallant followed him, with Bronco bringing up the rear. The big vulkin stood out in the crowd, but he did his best to keep his head lowered and walked with his knees slightly bent, plastering a glassy-eyed stare across his face to avoid any suspicion.

They were herded away from those locked doors, and Jett mentally tallied off the twists and turns they made. The route was deliberately confusing, and they doubled back at least twice. The wolfkin were taking no chances with attempted escapes—even this small step made it unlikely anyone making a run for it would ever actually find their way back to the entrance.

Fortunately, she had no intention of getting back there. Not yet, at least.

She marked off different milestones, noting a handful of equipment stores and what looked like lab rooms scattered across their route. Some parts of the facility formed tight, tangled passages while others sprawled more openly, giving her a clear look at the scientists at their work. Even a passing glance was enough to see them working through the vials of blood collected from the prisoners at the entrance. They hunched, goggle-eyed over powerful scopes, blood-smeared slides placed under the lenses to lay bare the secrets of the host's physiology. These rooms were similarly sealed with scent keys, even if the actual doors were far less formidable.

They would need one of those keys—that much was clear.

Filing that as one of many problems to be wrestled with, she returned her attention to their surroundings as the grim procession of broken, beaten citykin turned down one of the older tunnels. Jett narrowed her eyes as she examined the walls. Dark, abandoned workspaces spilled off from this main passage, and the light fixtures sparked and flickered at random intervals. On the walls, she could see faded markings burnt into the brickwork. Faded words.

PLANT 1033 – SUB-SITE OCHLAR, LEVEL 5.

They were five floors below the surface?

From the scuffed and faded appearance of the markings, there could be no doubt that the wolfkin had repurposed and updated an existing facility in Belforra. What kind of facility Jett could only guess at.

They continued down a broad passage, and another grinding squeal of door mechanisms echoed towards them. Leaning out from the line to look ahead, Jett spotted a much bigger set of double doors—great brutish slabs that split apart as the column approached.

"Your living quarters are just ahead," the enforcer guard at the head of the column shouted, his gruff voice cutting through the shuffle of feet and subdued mumble of conversation. "Proceed inside. You will remain here until you are called for testing. Once you have been tested and cleared, we will proceed with your relocation. Until then, we ask for your cooperation and thank you for your patience while we deal with this situation."

"Peace and Fire," Karno hissed under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear. "That's really how they're selling this."

She flicked her paw at him as unobtrusively as she could, praying for him to be quiet. She was no less horrified, but right now, they were in no position to pick a fight. The skeleton of a plan was already forming in her mind, but she needed to see more. Needed to know more.

There was a brief pause following the wolfkin's announcement, but soon the column was moving away, shuffling through the double doors under the gentle persuasion of the guards. A commotion up ahead halted them again, and craning her neck, Jett saw a young male otterkin, his fur thick with tattoos, trying to exit the line.

"You can't keep us here!" the otterkin yelled as the closest guard moved to stop him.

"Friend," the wolfkin said, her voice alarmingly calm and level. "I understand this is a difficult situation for everyone, but you need to get back in line with the others."

"To the Fire with that! You can't just keep dragging people down here. Don't know what this is, but I'm going to—"

He didn't get any further. The leniency the guards had shown only went so far, and with the quickness of a striking snake, the enforcer snapped her body forward and punched the otterkin in the stomach. He doubled over, spluttering for breath, and she shoved him gently back into the line.

"This is for your own safety!" the lead guard bellowed from the doorway. "Anyone who cannot grasp that will be dealt with by more unpleasant means. Now inside, all of you!"

There were no more spirited attempts at escape.

Heads down, the citykin filed in through the gaping metal jaws. Jett's nose twitched, and for the first time in their journey, she smelled something beyond the antiseptic chemical wash of the facility. A damp mustiness mixed with a swirling whorl of musks wafted down the tunnel towards her. Karno glanced back at her; shrugged.

We've come this far.

It wasn't long before the ragtag band reached the doorway. Swallowing down her apprehension, Jett steeled herself and stepped across the threshold.

Her eyes widened in shock at what awaited them.

The security door opened out onto a cavernous chamber cut from the very bedrock of the city and sprawling out before them in a roughly hemispherical chamber easily hundreds of yards across. It was some kind of converted mine, the rock walls festooned with blocky buildings that jutted out on angular metal supports. Workshops, mine offices and prefabricated shelters spilled through the cavern as though a giant had emptied its toy box. Within those structures, lights flickered, and she heard the buzz of voices from below. A horrible, sickly heat made her fur prickle with unease, and the stink of chemicals and metal stung her nostrils.

Jett felt the crisp tiling of the wolfkin tunnels give way to rough earth underpaw, and paths snaked away into the chamber. They split off into dozens of ridges lined with dubious paw rails, some rising, some falling, and all now filling with lines of newly arrived citykin as they trudged their way towards the makeshift dwellings. Everywhere she looked, there were more. There were hundreds of her fellow kin crammed into this pit like livestock to the slaughter. It was like a subterranean city of the damned.

"Bring unto me the Great Peace that soothes the hearts of all beasts," Gallant murmured softly. "For I have seen the Savage Fire, and it has burned my soul."

The prayer did nothing to calm Jett's nerves.

A moment later, the doors boomed shut behind them.