Chapter 29
Prairie Fire
Eren took the stairs two at a time and pulled the door open.
Lila leaned half against the frame, chest still heaving, short curls stuck to her forehead.
"You hear that?"
"Hard not to." Eren stepped aside.
She stayed in the doorway, catching her breath. "I turned back halfway. That didn't sound like a fire. More like an attack."
Nova peered down from the stair landing, face white.
Lila wiped sweat from her brow. "Going back alone's a bad bet. Come with me?"
"Nova only needs to scout from a distance. Any hard fighting's mine," she added.
Eren didn't answer at once. He leaned in the doorway and asked first:
"On the way back—gunfire? Shouting?"
Lila steadied her breathing. "No. Just that one blast. I didn't dare get close."
Eren's hand paused at his chin. He looked at Lila, then at Nova on the landing.
"I'll go with you. Nova stays."
"No." Lila shook her head. "I need him."
"I can help." Nova was already coming down.
Eren let out a breath.
"We clear every move first. No fighting if we can help it. My wound's not healed, and Nova's still a kid."
Mr. He came from the front of the shop, oil lamp in hand, disapproval plain on his face. "You lot…"
"Mr. He—watch the place till we're back," Lila said.
Mr. He opened his mouth, then didn't stop them. He lifted the lamp higher and lit their way out the back door.
The night wind had turned colder than a few hours ago, shifted north, carrying a faint scorched smell.
They took the same road back. Lila in front, Nova in the middle, Eren last. Clouds tore the moonlight into patches—bright stretches of trail, then dark.
At the first gap, Lila slowed.
That afternoon a sentry in a gray-brown coat had crouched behind the rocks. Now there was no one.
Lila squatted and looked. No blood. No sign of a fight.
"Maybe they heard the blast and ran back to help," she said, standing.
The second post was empty too. No fighting there either.
They kept on toward the valley.
When the mouth came into view, Lila stopped first.
Heat hit their faces before they got close. The mountain night should have been cool; here sweat beaded at the temples at once.
The scorched smell thickened tenfold. Not only wood and cloth—something chemical scraped the throat raw.
They bent low, worked to a rock outside the mouth, and dropped to look in.
Eren didn't recognize it at first.
The old workshed was gone. What was left of the two-story building was one wall against the cliff, jutting at an angle like a snapped rib. The rest had collapsed—brick, sheet metal, timber in a smoking heap.
The row of sheds along the cliff face was wrecked. Canvas roofs torn away, metal twisted and flung; some pieces had been blasted into the far rock face and jammed in the cracks.
A crater had opened on the training ground. The dirt around it was baked black, cracked, still giving off heat.
The flagpole by the wall had broken midshaft and fallen. The ash-fire banner at the tip was already a burned clot. Night wind found one last spark in the ash, flicked it, and the fire's heat took it.
Eren swept the ground. No people. No bodies. If this had been an attack, the worst case should have left corpses scattered.
He looked closer. On the blackened earth, here and there, irregular dark marks curled at the edges—like brands left when a hot iron lifts away.
The valley held only the crackle of embers, the brittle tick of cooling metal, and the low moan of north wind through broken walls.
They were still trying to make sense of it when footsteps in the shadow of a ruined wall broke the quiet.
Three or four figures came out from behind the wall, backs bent, hands bound behind them, stumbling forward. The gray-brown coats flashed once and Lila knew her own. Another few steps and her chest dropped hard. The man in front still had a dirty wrap on his left forearm—Alan. Beside him, limping, was the one who'd taken a rock to the shin in the tunnel yesterday.
Her throat locked. The name nearly tore out. Then Eren's palm crushed over her mouth, his other arm locked her shoulder and shoved her deeper into shadow.
More shapes followed—nothing any of them had ever seen.
A powered-armor unit.
Dark plates made them more than a head taller than ordinary men: moving walls. Only a thin slit of light showed on each visor. Black tubes along the armor flexed with every step.
Even the scorched heat couldn't cover the reek of metal grinding on metal.
None of the three had seen armor like this. The first word that hit Eren was Space Marines. He couldn't find a better one.
Several troopers stood behind the prisoners, holding strange long guns—no stocks, barrels cut short, a bulging translucent block under the handguard with a cold blue glow in the seams.
One captive got a light nudge from a muzzle and shuddered, neck trying to disappear into his chest, as if the iron would bite if it came closer.
The one walking off the lead flank wore darker armor, a small reflective strip on the inner edge of the shoulder plate. He raised a hand. The whole file stopped. He tipped his chin. The amp on the helmet side clicked on. A voice, low and flattened by the modulator, rode over the wind: "Your commander. Surname Shen. And the operations captain—callsign White Wolf. Where."
No one among the prisoners answered. One man lifted his eyes, jaw set; firelight caught the tight line of his throat. Others stared at the mud, chests working, lips bitten white.
The leader cocked his head, as if listening inside the helmet, then turned back and tipped his chin toward the rear flank. One trooper stepped up, lifted Alan one-handed into the open like a chicken, and forced him to his knees.
Facing the kneeling man, the leader went on: "Scientist. Lin Ce. Where is he. Dead or alive."
Alan stayed on his knees under the hand, jaw locked. Not a word.
The trooper with the odd gun tapped a fingertip. The blue in the magazine seam sucked out at once.
A short hiss, like wet cloth whipped across red iron. A flash of white gone blue-green bloomed on Alan's chest, bright enough to burn a blot into Eren's sight. The familiar shape dropped short in the light. Everything above the ribs was gone—no blood fountain, only a puff of pale smoke that jumped up and collapsed into the heat. Sweet, scorched reek hit the nose.
A melted cuff button clinked into the mud. A new black mark curled at the edges. No full scream had time to leave.
That was when Eren understood: the marks on the ground were where people had been wiped away.
The valley went still a beat. Even the wind seemed cut short.
Another trooper shoved a second man forward. Middle-aged. His throat worked a few times before he got words out, voice rough as stone: "Missile came down. Everything fell. Who's still alive… I—I can't say." The leader listened. The cold white slit on the visor didn't move. He only tipped his head a fraction.
Another hiss. White light ate the rest of the words. Another curled black mark on the ground.
The survivors locked eyes. The limping man dropped a shoulder and drove himself into the nearest trooper's barrel.
The trooper flicked an elbow like brushing ash. The man flew and hit the dirt.
White flashes stacked with the hiss-hiss of suppression fire. Bodies flattened in the light. Scorched smell rose.
Lila surged. She bit hard into Eren's palm; her knees scraped blood on the gravel. A muffled animal sound tore in her throat. Tears and spit smeared the back of his hand.
Eren's arm stayed locked. The words came through his teeth: "You trying to get us killed?"
Lila's nails still dug into his forearm, but the fight in her eased. Only her chest heaved hard.
The leader seemed to catch noise from their side. He swept a look toward the valley mouth. All three of them froze.
He didn't bother to check. A tip of the chin to his men, and several peeled off to search.
The open ground sank into a thicker dead quiet—embers cracking, metal soles grinding ash.
Eren's mind flashed the two empty posts at the gaps: no blood, no fight marks. Had they heard the blast and run back to the fire—or been wiped behind the rocks like this?
He didn't dare stay. Under cover of the embers' rise and fall he hauled both of them along the rock face a few metres back into a deeper notch. There he eased the hand off Lila's mouth. She choked on a breath and bit it back. Nova's shoulders still shook. Eren pressed the boy's face into his shoulder so he couldn't stare at the open ground.
The leader turned his head. Something moved under the visor, but no one else caught a word.
Nova's brow locked tight.
Eren looked at him.
Nova pointed, feeding the intercept one word at a time: "…missile strike confirmed… enemy unable to organize effective counterattack…"
Eren and Lila stayed quiet, afraid to break his listen.
A few breaths later Nova added: "…Unit Three check underground bunker… report in three minutes…"
Then they watched the armor team fan out through the wreckage.
That only made Lila worse. The sweep wasn't done. People might still be underground—she shoved a shoulder, head tipping out again.
Eren gave her no room. One hand locked her upper arm, the other clamped Nova's wrist, and he shoved both of them deeper, spine hard against the cold stone of the notch.
Lila's mouth was almost at Eren's ear, voice a shaking whisper: "Below…"
Whether anyone was down there, she didn't know. She was betting.
Eren cut her off: "Stay alive first."
Nova's wrist was still in his grip. Both of the boy's hands clamped Eren's fingers and pulled forward: "There are people alive underground. I can hear them."
Lila's head whipped around.
"Underground… under the building that came down."
"There's a bunker under the workshed," Lila said, voice jumping, then forcing itself down. "Shelter and stores. Entrance at the end of the first-floor corridor…"
She didn't finish. The other two already knew what she meant.
Save them.