Chapter 22

Prairie Fire

"Bang!"

Out of the shadow at the tunnel mouth came a short, hard crack with metal in the echo.

The shot broke the quiet.

The round punched through the gravel cover in front of the signaler and went clean through him.

The fighter beside Lila never got the signal bolt off. He toppled back, half a mouthful of bloody foam squeezed from his throat.

One shot shredded every plan they had laid.

This was no longer an even fight.

Lila's first move was not to return fire. She ducked and shifted on instinct. Cover that had felt safe a moment ago suddenly looked thin as paper.

Eren lay flat in the hollow, bound hands clenched behind his back. Cold ran up his spine into his scalp.

That was no homemade piece. A real gun.

Ammunition had burned out in the first two or three years after the Impact. Ten years on—who still heard live fire?

No wonder they'd dared push into a surround. With that, bows, crossbows, and trip lines were kids' games.

The fighter beside him had no time for Eren. He stared at his downed teammate, eyes gone red in an instant, a rough roar rolling up his throat. He grabbed his crossbow, vaulted the lip of the hollow, and charged toward the sound.

The fog in Eren's head snapped clear. The shoot surged up through his tight wrists; the knot broke with a sharp crack. He did not think. He pulled Nova in with one arm, put his own back to the outside, and both of them flattened against the gravel.

The boy shook in the crook of his arm. Eren's palm held Nova's nape and kept his head down.

This was not Eren's fight.

He had already done plenty for the revolutionaries. They owed him. If he took Nova and ran now, nobody could say a word.

The shoot pulsed under his skin. He clenched his jaw, forced it down with that thought, and kept his eyes on the fight.

A stumbling figure was shoved out of the mouth. One man had him by the neck and shoulder, half dragging him to the lip. Another edged half out along the wall, eyes sweeping the bend and both slopes.

They wore dark-gray hard-shell jackets, matching elbow and knee plates, half-masks over their faces, thin black earpiece cords showing at the collars.

They already knew an ambush waited outside. Hostage out front so nobody dared go hard—then ease the formation out, bit by bit.

A low male voice came from inside: "Make it quick. Cripple them. Slow the reinforcements."

The voice stayed low, the end clipped clean and sharp.

The ringing after the shot still buzzed in her ears. The image of her teammate going down played over and over. She stared at the mouth, eyes dull—but that low voice put a prickle behind her ear, as if she had heard it somewhere and could not place it.

The scout peeled off along the narrow track to the right, where old footprints still showed. A few steps.

The trip line snapped taut.

He went down hard and jammed the man behind him in the choke of the path.

The ones at the rear saw it go wrong, yanked the hostage, left the lead man, and the formation bunched into a knot.

But the man who fell was faster than Eren had expected.

No panic. He rolled as he hit, cut the line with a knife, and was back on his feet almost at once.

Those few seconds were all the trip line bought them.

A bolt cut across the middle of the fight and nailed his leg in the beat between fall and rise. His knee buckled; he dropped hard into the gravel again. The knife slid from his hand. Blood ran down the pant leg.

The men behind had to drag him. A third and a fourth forced out of the mouth, spread, and moved low.

Last came the squad's commander.

He stood half a head taller than the ones ahead, and he moved differently. Out of the mouth he did not hug the wall. He looked up once over the whole bend, then signaled the flank—take the rock high point on the right.

The motion rode his sleeve up. An old burn scar showed on the inside of his wrist in the thin light. Lila's pupils tightened. The voice from the tunnel and this silhouette locked together.

Ron. A missing soldier from Field Team Three out of the old mine branch.

They had already infiltrated the revolutionaries.

Ron climbed the rock pile fast, body kept low.

At the natural crack he did not rush it. He stopped half a step, squinted at a hair-thin line along the edge of the seam—almost invisible.

He hooked it back, yanked the lime jar off the rock above, turned, and threw it toward Lila's side.

Lila raised and loosed. The bolt smashed the jar in midair. White powder burst and laid a thick white curtain between the two positions.

Two shots followed at once—Ron on the high point, two short, clean taps.

Rounds hit where Lila had been. A corner of stone shattered; chips and sparks scraped two pale scars across the rock face.

Lila was already gone.

She slid along the seam toward lower ground on the left and shifted early behind fresh cover.

They stayed methodical. One put down fire now and then; the other two dragged the researcher between them toward the ore cart.

That overturned cart, rusted into the gravel, was the biggest cover in the bend—tub facing out, room to crouch behind.

But Lila had planned for that.

She waited a few seconds in the new spot. Only after they tucked behind the cart and decided that angle was safe did she loose the second bolt.

It took the one behind the cart mid-reload. Side shot, through the upper arm. He grunted; the gun hit the ground.

His other hand went for it on reflex. Lila had no time to stirrup-cock the long crossbow again. Left hand brought up the short hand-crossbow from her belt, and from the gravel shadow she loosed once more. The tip almost rode the echo of the first bolt and drove in under the collarbone. He dropped at the cart rim and did not get up.

On the far side of the bend, the fighter cutting the retreat put two bolts toward the dry gully and forced a man trying the ditch bottom back the way he had come.

A third bolt lined up on Ron at the high point.

Ron saw it. He eased half a step back on purpose, so the fighter had to lean a shoulder out to aim. The instant that half-shoulder showed, the gun in the tunnel-mouth shadow cracked again.

One round into the shoulder.

A real firearm hit harder than any crossbow. The bullet punched the gravel seam and took the fighter in the right shoulder. He grunted and slumped against the rock wall.

In a few short minutes, two teammates were down—alive or dead, nobody knew. The gunfire had burned the ambush edge away.

Heat shoved up into Lila's chest: "Ron! You goddamn mole—"

Ron did not let her finish. He put fire on her: "Stupid woman. Who said you get to grill me?"

Another round skimmed the cover; gravel burst beside her face. Ron sounded like he was chatting: "Not killing you today. First I cripple you and send you crawling back. That handful you've got won't last long."

Lila braced her back on the stone, breathing hard. She lifted a hand—another round punched the rock by her fingers and drove her down again.

Ron gave her no air. The muzzle kept pecking; gravel blew apart in front of her.

The gunner in the mouth shadow matched the rhythm. The other two shoved the researcher forward and stopped falling back.

In a dozen seconds, Ron's people had pressed right up on her.

Eren's hand on Nova eased a fraction. His voice dropped as low as it would go: "Don't move."

Nova grabbed his sleeve, mouth opening. Eren shook his head and shut it down.

Another shot.

Eren shut his eyes once. When he opened them, something in them had already changed.