Chapter 19
Prairie Fire
The cursing faded. Footsteps thinned out.
Wind poured through the broken factory roof and drew a thin rustle from the debris on the ground. Most of the job-runners had vanished onto the road; only a few slow ones still lingered in the distance.
Nova had come out around the low wall with the crowd.
He did not dare cut straight across the yard—kept to the wall base, eyes hunting for Eren first. Seeing Eren still standing there, he quickened two steps and closed in, voice kept low: "Should we go too?"
"Wait." Eren said.
Nova nodded, but could not help glancing toward the column. "They said just now… someone was taken?"
"A researcher." Eren said. "That's what they're here for."
Nova's throat moved. "So we… follow?"
Whether this researcher was the man Old Qin had mentioned—only by following would they find out.
But in the yard the white-haired revolutionary had not tried to kill him. Even if they were caught, the worst was probably being pinned down and questioned—not likely killed on the spot.
He already had a rough answer on whether the gamble was worth it.
Eren gave two small nods.
"Follow. But not close. Better to lose them than get seen."
While the last few stragglers in the yard were still within reach, the two edged a few steps along the crowd's line of withdrawal, then bent around the far lip of the gully and climbed along the slope wall. From a distance they still looked like part of the frightened retreat.
The clink of metal from the column on the slope had already drawn off a little. Eren took Nova along a higher line on the slope, keeping a not-too-close distance.
The crowd that had been cursing in the yard ten-odd minutes before poured out of the dry gully mouth like water into sand, seeping off in every direction—only a few slow ones still far off.
When voices were still loud, two pairs of feet in the mix meant little. Now silence had settled in; wind carried every scrape on the gravel slope a long way.
Eren caught Nova and sheltered behind a half-broken stone wall, waiting until the last group had vanished completely from the dry gully below before moving again.
The column ahead had not slowed once.
"That man stopped again." Nova murmured at Eren's ear.
"What?"
"The white hair—the one who talked to you." Nova tipped his head to one side. "He walks a few steps, then pauses half a beat while the others keep going. Only he doesn't move."
The veteran was checking for a tail as he walked.
Eren pressed Nova deeper behind the wall and laid down the rules in a low voice: "We pull back farther. You only listen and point. Follow me. No sound. No running."
Nova nodded once.
"If we really can't keep up, we turn back. Don't let them spot us."
The column halted on a high slope in the lee of the wind.
Eren and Nova lay behind a low rise on the slope, a little over a hundred paces off, watching through the shadow of the rock face. The stop was well chosen—high ground, shelter from wind, sight lines over smoke or fire on the distant slopes.
The white-haired veteran stood in the middle of the group, voice kept low—too far to catch words, only the talk with the others, splitting people into two bands. One band, fewer and light kit, scattered quickly in different directions. The other stayed put; someone began sorting through carried gear.
"They split up." Nova whispered.
The few who had broken away ran fast, each a different direction—as if toward agreed points: some down the gullies, some along the slope wall to the flank.
After a while a small dull red glow rose from a pass in the distance and died quickly. Someone on the high slope saw it and turned back to signal the white-haired veteran.
A signal fire.
Eren was starting to see it.
They were linking up—scouts and fire building a network.
The band that stayed waited on word—maybe a temporary command post.
Crude, but it worked. There was no radio anymore, after all.
Nova lay beside him, eyes tracking the figures until they vanished behind the slope wall. "What are they doing?"
"Maybe looking for news on the researcher." Eren said.
While they waited, the white-haired veteran did something that caught Eren's attention.
He walked to the crest edge, faced the way they had come, and stood for maybe a minute.
He was not looking far off. His gaze sat lower—like something closer downslope. Then he shifted slightly, letting moonlight strike his face from the side, his shadow falling the other way.
Eren's heartbeat kicked half a beat faster.
The move was not casual. At that spot, at that angle, anyone lying on the slope within a hundred paces would have their outline picked out by moonlight glancing off the rock face—even for an instant.
He was using the glare to find someone.
Eren buried his face deeper in his arms and held his whole body still in the shadow behind the rise. Nova felt his tension and shrank down too.
After ten-odd seconds the veteran turned back to the group.
He was not sure he had been seen. But one thing he was almost sure of: the veteran knew someone was tailing them.
He just had not called it out.
The column started moving again.
The white-haired veteran led the six or seven still with him along the ridge toward the north-northwest—formation tighter, pace faster.
Eren and Nova had a harder tail. Fewer people meant noise carried easier. Luckily the column stayed focused; they checked for watchers less often now—maybe on purpose.
After roughly a quarter of an hour the ground changed. The slope narrowed; two paths forked ahead—one following the gully floor, relatively flat, moonlight clear on it. The other punched through a crack in the slope wall—steep, gravel-choked, flanked by layered weathered rock, much darker.
The veteran's group took the open path.
Eren took the narrow one.
The main path was easy but exposed—two figures had nowhere to hide in the moonlight. The narrow path was hard but walled in and dark. The price was sight—you could not see what was ahead from this route.
"This way we might lose them. Can you still hear them?" He pulled Nova to the front.
Nova half-closed his eyes and listened a few seconds. "Ahead to the left. They're pulling away, but I can still hear them."
They went into the narrow track one behind the other. Gravel bit underfoot; every step needed a chosen foothold. Nova led, now and then tipping his head to check direction, gesturing left or right with his hand.
Partway through the narrow track Nova stopped suddenly.
His face changed—brows knitting, like he had caught a wrong smell.
"What is it?"
"There's a strange sound. Far off." His finger pointed vaguely ahead to the right. "One beat at a time. Beep, beep, beep…"
The word beep tightened the back of his neck. It was not a sound this world ought to make—more like an electronic device.
In the first years after the Impact you still saw such things here and there. Later they broke or lost power; working ones nearly vanished. Hearing it in open country now was deeply wrong.
Eren looked that way. Nothing but black—he could not see a thing.
Not time to stop. Eren fixed the direction in his mind and pulled Nova on along the narrow track.