Bang bang, bang bang bang.
Philly knocked on the tin door in a specific rhythm. After the signal was received, a small peephole slid open.
A little boy peered out, his face lighting up with recognition.
"Philly-jie!"
"Allen, is everyone else okay?"
"Everyone's fine… but Teacher Dorothy is sick. Lanen, help me move the cabinet!"
As Allen spoke, he dragged aside the heavy obstacle blocking the door, opening it just wide enough for Philly to slip in.
But the moment he saw the strangers behind her, his body tensed with alarm.
"It's alright, they're good people," Philly reassured him.
Allen glanced at the healthy, dangerous-looking Caelan and Curze. He did not relax. But when his eyes fell on Ben, on the boy's two long tentacles, he eased slightly.
"Allen, hurry, take me to Teacher Dorothy!" Philly urged.
"Teacher Dorothy won't let anyone see her. She locked herself inside."
Allen shoved the barricade back into place, told the boy named Lanen to stay and watch, and then led them deeper through the pipes.
The duct was large, branching in many directions. It opened up into a wide hollow space, where ramshackle tin shacks had been built. A bonfire flickered in the center.
A dozen children huddled around the flames for warmth. They were all very young, about Ben's age.
Some looked normal, their limbs intact.
Others bore visible mutations. A dirty tail swished behind one. Another's legs ended in hooves. Still another had a rodent's sharp muzzle and beady eyes.
Caelan asked quietly, "What do you see?"
Curze replied, "Children. A heavy burden. To keep them alive takes more food than they'll ever have. That woman, Dorothy, she is both strong and great."
Allen gave them a puzzled look, but Philly was used to this. Caelan always spoke like this with Curze, calling it "education."
"Teacher Dorothy can read," Philly explained. "The Bloodclaws pay her to teach their children letters, and in return she gets food. She could've lived among them, safe, well-fed, but she chose to adopt us instead. Can you save her?"
Her eyes pleaded.
"Where is she? I'll try," Caelan said.
Curze was right about one thing: whatever else Dorothy was, she was a great woman.
Philly's defiant spirit came partly from her mother, but also from Dorothy. Perhaps the "mother" she spoke of was Dorothy herself. It wouldn't have been strange, no one in the underhive survived by telling only the truth.
And judging from the number of children here, Dorothy wasn't unique in doing this. She had taken in many, but when they grew older, she had to let them go, she couldn't feed them all.
Dorothy's shack stood at the center of the clearing. Even before reaching it, they heard the rasp of her coughing.
"Teacher Dorothy, it's me," Philly called urgently, knocking on the tin door. "Please, open up!"
"Philly…" came a woman's weak voice. "Don't come in. It's contagious. You shouldn't have come. I'm sorry… soon I'll have to ask you to take care of them for me."
Before she could finish, Caelan kicked the door off its hinges with one strike.
"Curze, with me. The rest of you, stay out."
Philly froze in place, wringing her hands. All her hopes were on Caelan now.
The shack was small. A rusting bedframe leaned against the wall. A woman lay curled on it, wracked with bloody coughs.
Disease had wasted her body to skin and bone. Her hair was brittle and yellow from neglect. Yet beneath it, her delicate features showed she had once been beautiful, too beautiful for the underhive.
Curze halted.
"What do you see?" Caelan asked.
"You can't save her," Curze said. "When she dies, the Bloodclaws will find this place. To survive, the healthy children will kill their twisted companions to earn the gang's favor. They'll join the Bloodclaws… become their new killers. Hope will vanish."
"You think I can't save her?" Caelan asked.
"I believe in you," Curze shook his head. "Even if she dies, we won't let the Bloodclaws destroy this place. That future won't happen, because we are here."
Caelan smiled faintly. "Curze, I'm proud of you. You've grown."
Curze's face stayed cold, but the twitch of his lips betrayed him.
Children were like that; encouragement worked better than scolding. Though too much praise would spoil them. One needed both the whip and the hand.
Dorothy, half-delirious from fever, did not understand their words. She only begged, over and over:
"Please… help them."
Caelan sat at her bedside. He didn't know her sickness. He didn't know how to treat disease.
But he had the Warp.
If Malcador could wield psychic power to restore a Primarch from death, then surely Caelan could heal a mortal.
Blue strands of warp-light gathered between his fingers, weaving into thin threads that sank into Dorothy's mouth and nose, threading through her body.
His eyes flared blue. His sight shifted. No longer did he see a woman, but a body of luminous psychic strands.
In her lungs were three overlapping green scars, glowing like tumors.
Caelan directed his threads against them. Warp-light spread over the lesions, eating inward.
The scars shrank from the size of a head, to a fist, to an egg.
Caelan clenched his fist. The egg burst.
Dorothy coughed twice. This time, no blood came.
She opened her eyes. Her pupils were gone, her gaze pale, but filled with awe as she looked at the man by her bed.
"You… you're a sorcerer?"
Caelan nodded. "I'm curious. What place do sorcerers hold in this hive? Tell me."
"You know of the hive? Then you came from outside?" Dorothy's voice trembled with surprise. "I've never seen another sorcerer. I only heard the Bloodclaws have one… a powerful one. They capture others like you and send them up-hive, but I don't know where."
"How many are the Bloodclaws?" Caelan asked.
"Their core is twelve assault squads, a hundred each. Counting their hangers-on, at least tens of thousands."
"Could you kill them all?" Caelan asked Curze.
"Not now," Curze admitted. "But someday."
He didn't know why, but he knew he would grow stronger. He just needed time.
"I won't wait that long," Caelan said. "This time, I'll help you. But only this once. If you want to rule this hive, you must do it yourself."
Curze nodded solemnly.
Their casual words left Dorothy stunned. She believed this sorcerer could overthrow the Bloodclaws. But ruling the hive? That was beyond anything she could comprehend.
And if he could say such things so freely… would they kill her to silence her? If she died, who would care for the children?
Caelan turned to her. "You will take us to the Bloodclaws. After that, these children will be under his protection."
Dorothy looked at Curze. Slowly, painfully, she nodded.
She didn't believe the boy could protect them. But she believed in Caelan.