Chapter 16
Prairie Fire
The next morning they came downstairs. Eren swung by the notice board first, drifting toward the thicker knots of people, trying to learn where the captive was being held.
Men at the board were still chewing over that revolutionary job, but it was all yesterday's talk—press for specifics and nobody could point to a real place. They tried two more corners and loitered outside a tavern door awhile. Nothing new.
Before they knew it, the morning was gone.
Back at the inn they ate something and rested their feet. By afternoon they had two bowls of hot water and a corner table in the tavern.
Only a few people were scattered about—some gnawing hardtack, some still waking up.
At the next table, two men with short bows on their backs were talking under their breath. "...Heard they're holding him northeast of town. Out past the dry gully, keep going—there's an abandoned factory."
"Who said?"
"Word just went out this afternoon. Supposed to be straight from whoever posted the notice. Anyone going is supposed to meet there and pull him out."
"You buying it?"
"Believe it or not, the story's fresh. Town's already got people pairing up to head out tonight."
Eren heard them out and said nothing.
Nova leaned in, voice low. "How do they know?"
"Maybe someone's planting it."
Whoever posted the job probably did not want the location in writing. Their people could feed the rumor and steer who showed, and when.
When the water was gone they circled back to the notice board.
More people than in the morning—not much talk, but what there was all pointed the same way: northeast, abandoned factory.
Eren came back through a side lane and said quietly, "Sounds like the word's real."
Not proof—but better than one table's drunk talk. Then he headed back to the inn.
They were back with a little daylight left. Eren checked his pack again and put everything back where it belonged. Nova lay at the window watching the street awhile, then turned. "When do we go?"
"When the sun goes down."
Before evening, a crowd had gathered at the town gate—clusters of threes and fours, muttering, voices rising and falling, probably arguing when to move and which way to take. Someone shouted to leave early so nobody beat them to it. A man squatted against the wall smoking, not hiding it—anyone could see a pack of would-be rescuers headed northeast.
Outsiders, every one of them. Anyone with real experience would not make this kind of noise.
Eren and Nova did not join them.
The sun dropped behind the ridge. They shouldered their packs, slipped out behind the inn, and took the northeast path out of town—not the main road.
Past the edge, sheds and fields fell away fast. Only gravel slopes and rock faces weathered nearly to collapse.
Dark came quickly. When the last light drained off, only moonlight was left.
They kept their steps light.
Farther on the ground dropped away. Dry gullies opened on both sides of the track, their walls still scored where water had run. Ahead, lengths of rust-red rail poked from the gravel; beside them lay two or three roofless old sedans, sheet metal eaten through, dull under the moon.
Footprints in the dust—many sets, shallow and deep, all headed the same way. Eren crouched, scanned them, stood.
"Probably the town crowd."
Nova nodded and said nothing. After a stretch he slowed half a step, head cocked as if listening.
Eren glanced at him.
"More than one route," Nova said very quietly. "People are moving in from other directions too."
Eren did not ask how he knew.
Anyone who could hide their trail and stay off the main road was not just here for the excitement.
They kept on. After another stretch the land changed. The gully narrowed, walls climbing on both sides, gravel giving way to packed gray earth. Up ahead, low black building shapes showed through the dark.
Eren caught Nova's sleeve. They did not walk straight in—followed the gully wall around to the flank and dropped behind a collapsed section of low wall.
It was an abandoned factory.
Three squat buildings in a rough half ring, roofs caved in over most of it. Weeds choked the yard. Rusted pipes lay crooked on the ground; a mine cart lay overturned and half buried, one wheel pointing at the sky.
Wind sucked through the broken walls and wailed back out.
People were already in the yard—only a few minutes ahead of them, by the look of it.
In the moonlight five or six figures moved between the low buildings—pushing doors, circling the overturned cart and the pipes, crouching at the walls to feel at the ground.
Word said revolutionary prisoners were held here. Nothing looked like it. No fence, no chains, no guards, no revolutionaries—no one at all.
"Empty." A stocky man backed out of one old building, short axe in hand. "Nothing inside."
"Same here." Another head poked from the next doorway. "Just junk."
A middle-aged woman in leather armor stood in the middle of the yard, wooden staff planted on the ground. "The message said they were here. Where are they?"
"Wrong place?"
"Word was northeast, abandoned factory—this is the only patch like it."
The stocky man spat. "No sign anyone was ever held here. Either the tip was lies, or they moved him already."
"So what'd we come out in the middle of the night for?" One man kept his voice down—angry and afraid at once.
The woman in leather swept her gaze around the black gully walls. Her voice tightened. "Nothing around this hole for miles. If the tip was fake, what does whoever planted it want? Lure us out here…"
On the far side of the yard Eren caught more movement. Deeper shadow under the gully wall across the way; faint sounds by the scrap heap behind the low buildings.
The ones in the open were inexperienced townsfolk in it for the coin. Anyone with real skill was watching from cover, same as him. He did not see the scar-faced man or the one with the crossbow on his back—they were probably hunkered somewhere else in the dark.
Eren did not enter the yard. He leaned against the low wall, eyes on the yard and the slopes around it. Open ground—not good for hiding prisoners; the buildings were too broken to block much. If someone meant to close a net here, it would have to come from outside.
He was already working out a retreat. He was sure it was a trap.
But trap them for what?
Nova tugged his sleeve.
Eren looked down.
"Someone's coming." Nova's voice was barely there.
Eren's hand went to the faceted war hammer at his belt. "How many?"
"Maybe a dozen. Footsteps all over the place." Nova's eyes fixed on the ridge northwest of the yard.
Eren did not look up—only tipped his chin back along the gully wall. Nova understood and slid along the base; Eren followed into a higher shallow trench on the outer slope. Hard to spot from above; room to pull back if they were surrounded.
Then Eren set his pack on his knees, moved last night's thin clay pots and smoke pots within reach, and coiled the throwing lines at his waist.
Nova closed his eyes, opened them, lips moving as if he were counting.
Before long someone in the yard noticed too. The stocky man jerked upright.
"There—there's someone over there!"
Every head swung that way.
Movement in the dark too—shifting, backing off.
On the ridge, a line of figures was moving toward them—a dozen or so, spaced out. In the moonlight you could pick out spears, crossbows, blades, and someone lugging a shape too bulky to make out.
Head to toe in kit.
The yard went dead quiet.
"They're here!" a voice scraped out. "The ones who set the trap!"
The stocky man's hand shook. The woman in leather gripped her staff and half crouched, ready to run. Figures in the dark pressed closer to cover.
Eren kept one hand on Nova's shoulder, the other tight on the war hammer, eyes locked on the ridge.
The column did not stop. They were coming down the slope—not fast, but straight for the factory.