Chapter 23
Prairie Fire
"Thud!"
A dull crack came from behind Ron—hammer head into bone. In the tunnel-mouth shadow, Eren smashed the gunner's wrist flat. The rim of the head bit flush into bone and flesh; barbed wire dug in with it. The gun flew free, bounced twice on the rock. The man went down hard and could not get up.
Nobody had seen that coming.
While the enemy pressed forward, Eren had hugged the inner shadow of the bend, ducked low, and slipped around behind the gunner.
The gunner never noticed him.
Then Eren vaulted again and put himself between Ron and the dropped gun.
"Six rounds. You're empty."
Ron saw his man go down. Surprise flickered across his face and was gone.
"Who are you? I've never seen you."
"Doesn't matter."
"Not with the revolutionaries? Maybe we can work together…" Ron was still smiling when his hands moved—blade out, driving in.
Eren kept his eyes on the hands. He brought the hammer up. The blade locked in the blunt teeth of the head. Steel rang; sparks jumped.
Ron broke contact. His foot hooked and swept for Eren's knees.
Eren stepped aside; the hammer head rode the motion down.
Ron flipped his wrist. The blade ran up along the haft, straight for the fingers on the grip.
Eren twisted his wrist clear. The haft slipped a few centimeters in his palm; he kept it, barely, but the force drove him toward the ore cart.
"That's all you've got, and you still want to play hero?" Ron's voice was right in his ear.
The last man behind the cart tried to cut in for Ron. He had barely edged half a body out when Lila's bolt pinned the stone in front of his foot—sparks and chips spraying his shin. He jerked back behind cover and stayed put.
Ron used the beat. His toe flicked a loose half-stone into Eren's knee and the blade came with it. Pain spiked through the knee; Eren's weight dropped. The hammer swing missed. The back of the blade cracked his wrist bone.
His wrist went numb. The hammer left his hand.
It hit the rail, rolled half a turn, and jammed in a gap—only a few steps from the gun by the mouth.
Ron glanced at the war hammer gone wide and laughed low. "Can't even hold a weapon. Think this is swinging a sledge at the mine?"
His eyes tightened. The point drove for the throat—no time for Eren to bend and grab the hammer.
The tip dropped, slipped past Eren's blocking left hand, and punched into his side, half the blade in. Blood surged and soaked the cloth.
Ron started to pull for another thrust. Pale gray lines on Eren's hand lit all the way to the fingertips. He twisted and locked the blade in his fist.
It cut into the left palm—and stuck. Where the lines burned, something like an extra layer sat under the skin. The edge stopped half a centimeter deep and would not go farther.
Ron's pupils shrank. "Mutant?"
He was fast. The pull failed. He dumped the weapon at once. Shoulder dropped; a fist smashed for Eren's ear, then a knee for the gut.
Eren turned his head past the punch, ignored the knee, and put everything into a hook from the side that drove into Ron's ribs.
No hammer—and heavier than any blow he had landed with one.
Ron left the ground, flew sideways, and slammed into a gravel pile, breath locked in his chest.
The knife jarred loose from Eren's palm and fell among the stones.
Eren did not chase. He knew an ordinary man did not walk away from that punch.
He took a few steps, picked up the hammer, and scraped a nail along the outer rim of the head, knocking loose a scrap of meat stuck in the wire.
Ron had no idea how many ribs were broken. He could not stand. On one knee, he still reached for the knife on the ground.
"This is where you die."
Eren did not cut him off. He swung the hammer sideways instead.
The head hit a stretch of cart brace. The pipe screamed and snapped. Rubble and iron above gave way, crashed down, and pinned Ron under stone and scrap.
Ron thrashed. His legs were trapped; his upper body still twisted.
A bolt came through the lifted dust.
Side shot, clean into the chest.
Ron stopped moving.
The rest saw their lead go down and lost the stomach for it. They broke and ran.
The pale gray lines from Eren's left hand to his left eye pulsed a few times, then dimmed as if something had dragged them back under.
The shoot had not run wild—better than the last times.
Four of that crew never made it out. Behind the cart, the one with bolts through upper arm and collarbone had bled out and gone still. At the mouth of the bend, one down with a bolt in the leg. In the tunnel-mouth shadow, the gunner Eren had dropped. And Ron—knocked flying, pinned under rubble, bolt through the heart.
Quiet settled over the bend. Only wind and the wounded breathing hard.
Lila rose from behind the seam. She had not expected this: the "hostage" she had bound and marched all this way, standing now among the bodies.
A thought cut through: if he had wanted to move earlier, that rope and the men holding him would never have held him.
No time for that now. She ran to the two downed fighters.
She found the first man's neck, then pressed his chest. No pulse. No breath. She held half a second, laid him flat by the wall, and went straight to the second—tore the cloth at the shoulder, checked the bullet hole, clamped the bleeding, ripped a strip and cinched it tight.
Teeth on the end of the cloth; one yank. The wounded man grunted.
"Stay with me. Don't sleep." She patted his cheek and made sure he was still awake.
Eren leaned on the ditch wall and wrapped his own side. The cloth soaked through fast. He bit the end, tied it off, pressed the wound a beat. Then he peeled the loosened strip of old belt off his knuckles, wound it back onto his left arm, cinched the buckle, and started along the ditch bottom toward Nova.
He crouched beside him.
"Eren…" Nova's voice was thin; his hands still locked on his knees. The gunfire had kept his head down the whole time. Seeing Eren squat there, his eyes slowly found a focus.
"It's over." Eren pressed his shoulder. "You hurt?"
Nova nodded first, then shook his head hard. "I'm fine. That was a gun, right? It was so loud…" He stopped mid-sentence, saw the blood seeping through the cloth at Eren's side. "Are you okay? Is it bad?"
"Yeah, a gun. But it's fine. It's handled."
Nova let the breath out. The tension that had held him all night went slack; fatigue rolled in like water. He sat on the ground, back to the stone, head down.
Lila came over, pulled off her outer cloak, and laid it over Nova—careful, light.
Then she turned to Eren.
The cold in her eyes had eased a little. One hand still rested on the long crossbow.
She stared at him—at the left hand that had lit a moment ago, now pressed to the soaking cloth.
"You're a mutant."
Eren eased the wrapped left hand a little behind him. That was answer enough.
"You pulled us out from under those guns."
She still would not say thank you to a stranger with a card like that in his sleeve.
She bent, pulled two reusable bolts from beside the cart, wiped the blood, and slid them back into the quiver. Her tone went back to business: "Wrap that wound. Once we're back, you'll get your chance to ask what you want."
She turned and went to check on the researcher.
He crouched behind the ore cart with the leather-bound notebook, voice rough: "Lila… finally."
Then he saw the dead fighter on the ground, and his voice went dead. "It's my fault."
Lila crouched and looked at him once. "Don't. Lin Ce—hurt anywhere? Can you walk?"
Lin Ce nodded and stood.
On the far slope, Alan and the reinforcements came into view fast, drawn by the gunfire.
Alan took in the ground, then the bodies. His face went dark. "Too late."
Lila tossed him the radio and the pistol she had stripped off Ron. "Take these back to White Wolf."
Alan looked at what was in his hands. His brow tightened further. "These bastards even have gear like this?"
East, the sky took on a layer of rust-gray. The column formed again. The wounded went onto stretchers. Eren steadied Nova under the cloak.
Nobody celebrated.
When the stretchers lifted, Lila looked back once at the fighter by the wall with his face already covered. Her mouth opened, as if a name were there—then she turned to the ones still on their feet. "Move."
Lin Ce walked in the middle of the column, notebook against his chest, face gray. He saw Lila's expression, started to say something soft, saw the blood still on her hands, and shut his mouth.