Chapter 21
Prairie Fire
Lila got the column sorted. They headed for the mine tunnel.
Eren walked in the middle—one man ahead, one behind. The man at his back kept a crossbow on him, bolt angled at his spine.
Nova stayed close at his side.
"That sound still there?" Lila said.
Nova blinked before he realized she meant him. "Yeah." He pointed forward and right.
Lila nodded and swung the column that way.
Alan's people were tucked in the lee of the rocks to the right of the tunnel mouth.
A low whistle came out of the night sky—the contact call. Alan heard it and leaned half out.
Lila's column halted.
Alan laid it out in a few clipped lines. They had followed the marks to the entrance, gone maybe twenty paces in, and hit a trap. He had yanked the man behind him back in time. Then a dull blast—rubble and rotten timber came down and choked the mouth to a gap barely half a man's height. Light wounds only; nobody dead. A cut had opened on Alan's left forearm. Another fighter had taken a rock on the shin and walked with a limp.
"Tracks say a group came through. We don't know if there are more traps. Can't push farther." He glanced at his teammate's bad leg, then at the rubble sealing the entrance.
Lila walked past him alone to the tunnel mouth.
The opening was narrower than she had expected. Fallen stone had squeezed what used to be two men wide into a vertical slit. Black inside.
She crouched, edged two steps in, braced a hand on the wall, and leaned her upper body through for a few seconds. Then she backed out and brushed the dust off her palms.
"Good call. That way's dead unless you want to get buried alive."
The tunnel was a no-go—too tight to send more bodies in.
Lila flicked a look at Eren and Nova. "Don't trust these two either. Could be they led us in on purpose."
"Best shot is to find the other end and cut them off there," Alan said. "Otherwise we're stuck."
On the revolutionaries' field map, this old mine was marked Collapsed—abandoned. Nobody had the full run.
They had the entrance now. Nobody could say where the far end came out.
Lila stood at the mouth, swept Alan and the fighters, and settled on Nova.
She watched him two seconds. "You're a mutant, right? Can you still hear which way they're going?"
As soon as she said it, every revolutionary fighter looked at Nova.
They had heard of mutants—after the Impact, radiation had left a few people with strange gifts. Rare. And this kid was one?
Nova did not answer. He only raised a hand and pointed—northwest, toward farther slopes.
Lila stood and followed the line for a few seconds. The distant slopes were pale under the moon, gravel and scrub mixed; nothing to see.
She patted Nova's shoulder. "All right. You lead us."
"Wait." Eren lifted his head so the men around them could hear. "We'll guide. If it turns into a fight, we stay out—information only. If you get the researcher back, I want a few questions."
Lila turned on him. Her voice went cold. "You're a hostage."
She tipped her head toward the men behind her. "Bind his hands. Pack off. Search it."
Two fighters stepped in. One twisted Eren's arms back; the rope dug into his wrists until the bones ached. The other yanked the pack off his shoulder and crouched to dig through it—lime powder, sulfur, oil-paper packets, a coil of hemp rope, a few iron nails, barbed wire, an empty clay jar. Lila said nothing. She only told the man to keep the pack.
Eren did not break free with that strange strength. He still needed them, so he held still.
Nova edged closer. Eren murmured that it was fine.
"Alan—hold the tunnel mouth. Watch the wounded. We signal if anything kicks off." Lila said.
So the white-haired veteran's code name was White Wolf.
Alan opened his mouth to say more, but Lila was already ordering the rest: "Anyone who can move—with me. Run."
Nova walked with his head tilted, listening. Every so often he pointed a new direction.
The revolutionaries knew this ground. Nova's line ran roughly north-northwest along the old mine fringe—gravel slopes, ruined gear. How the tunnel ran underground, and where it came out, Lila did not know.
"That way hits a cliff in two kilometers—no go," she said as they moved. "Lower road to the west. Ground dips. We can cut around."
About five minutes on, something underfoot caught Eren's eye. He stopped.
A round concrete base, maybe half a meter across, showed a rim through the gravel. Beside it, a broken iron ladder, rusted dark brown, half buried in dirt.
Vent shaft footing.
He started: "There's a—"
The fighter escorting him shoved him. "Move. Shut it."
Eren shook his head and said nothing more.
Lila heard the noise behind, glanced back, and tossed one line: "Vent shaft. Bearing's good. Keep going."
A vent only proved the tunnel passed underneath. It did not give them the exit.
A few minutes more and the ground narrowed. Lila worked from memory: "End of that track ahead—a low hollow, old mine scrap beside it. If the tunnel runs straight, the exit might be there."
Nova's brow knotted.
"Wrong… the sound shifted."
He pointed again. The line had slid—no longer toward the hollow, but farther west. The tunnel had bent underground.
The men ahead hesitated a half step. One muttered, "This kid for real…?"
Lila cut in fast: "Beats standing still." She turned onto the new line.
"Keep up."
Not far along the new heading, surface signs thickened.
First a stretch of rail out from under gravel—rust dark in the moonlight, the line still clear, running along a shallow trough. Then a heap that was not natural rock: slag, pale chips piled into a little mound against the darker gravel around it. Farther on, another vent remnant—a rusted iron ring in the ground, smaller than the last, filled with rubble.
The marks grew denser.
Close.
Nova said, "Sound's closer. And… they slowed down."
Lila looked up the slope. A dark hollow sat there, half masked by gravel and old timber—shadow unless you looked hard. Closer, the tool-cut arcs showed on the rock face. Scattered around: pieces of arched reinforcement rings, a mine-cart wheel frame, all thick with rust.
Eren saw it too. This time he kept his mouth shut.
Nova stopped and pointed at the hollow.
"Sound's coming from there. Close."
Lila listened a while and heard nothing—no surprise; tunnel noise did not reach the surface. Nova heard it anyway.
She was running out of time.
Deep in the tunnel the escort column stayed tight. A man mid-file pressed the micro-radio at his ear, voice barely above a breath: "Contact. Movement near the exit—small unit, not many."
Someone in the dark forced words through his teeth: "How'd they lock on this fast? We were told they didn't even know this passage."
The man at the tail did not flinch. "Relax. A handful of militia. As if they'd match us."
Lila took in the ground. A dry gully bent into a curve, gravel slopes on both sides, open ground beyond the exit—scattered wreckage, an overturned ore cart, a derailed cart frame, a rust-eaten vehicle shell by the track. Good ambush ground.
The bend arced left to right. Slopes on both flanks. At the pinch, two men could walk abreast and no more.
Anyone coming out of the tunnel would lose sight behind the arc wall first—and by the time they read the outside, they were already walking into a bag.
On the right of the bend, stacked rock made a natural high point—climb it and you owned the whole exit. On the left, an overturned ore cart, tub facing out, rust grown into the gravel; room for two to crouch behind it. From the exit, that cart was the most obvious cover.
Lila called a few fighters in and kept her voice down.
"They've got electronics. Worst case, they already know what's outside." She pointed at the overturned cart and the rock high point. "They'll take those first—cover and the high ground."
One fighter: "So we work those?"
"Right. Plant a few traps." She pointed at a dead angle outside the bend. "You take the signal bolt. Confirm it's the researcher before you loose it."
Eren could not help it: "They'll shove the hostage out front."
Lila did not even turn her head. "Not your call."
"Listen. Don't get blood up. We don't know how many or what they're carrying." She pointed at the bend. "Confirm the man's there first. If he is—signal, buy time for backup."
Time was short. Nova said the people in the tunnel had slowed—maybe clearing an old cave-in near the exit. A few minutes at best.
Two fighters dug through Eren's pack, laid trip lines where Lila pointed, packed oil-paper and lime into a broken clay jar, hung it near the high point, and ran out a length of fuse. How to trigger it they worked out between them. Nobody asked Eren.
Meanwhile Lila had already found her spot.
She settled into a crack in the rock on the left of the bend, higher ground—a dozen paces past the obvious high point, screened by two slanted slabs. Invisible from the exit, invisible from the overturned cart. She could see the whole stretch behind the cart.
Eren was held a little farther off, hands still bound. He could read her shooting line: it covered the back and flank of the overturned ore cart—the false cover.
The other fighters took positions. One stayed a rock away from Lila—close cover and the signal for help. Another swung to the far side of the bend to cut off the dry-gully retreat. The rest scattered into the flanks and the foot of the slope, each behind cover.
The man on Eren and Nova pushed them into a low hollow inside the bend, rock screening them. He told Eren, "Down. Try moving." Then tipped his head at Nova. "You too. Don't wander."
Nova could feel every shift inside the tunnel.
"They're almost here," he said.
Everyone went quiet.
The eastern sky had already taken on a thin gray. Dawn was close.
Eren set his back against the rock. The rope at his wrists ran cold in the night wind. He watched the tunnel mouth and ran through his out one more time: break the binds if he had to, run while they were busy, stay alive first.
Lila did not move behind her cover.
Nova said, "They're at the mouth."