The gate smelled of wet stone and something burned long ago.
Eli stepped through with the casualty case pulling at his arms. The light closed behind him. He had crossed enough gates to expect the brief sensation of falling, but his stomach still lurched as the warehouse yard vanished. His next step landed on a floor of black rock, slick beneath his boot.
Ada staggered beside him. He caught the case before its corner struck the ground.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I was until you asked.”
She adjusted her grip. Ahead of them, the first hunters had formed a loose semicircle around the entry point. Their lamps illuminated a tunnel broad enough for two transport vehicles, although its ceiling disappeared in the darkness. The pale light of the gate cast long shadows toward a bend in the passage.
Commander Rusk stood beside a scout who was checking a handheld instrument. The needle on its face shivered, then settled.
“Stable,” the scout said.
Rusk raised a hand. “Assault team forward. Support and medical behind them. Porters maintain the equipment order.”
The silver-armored hunter led the assault group around the bend. Eli and Ada followed Tessa at a distance, carrying the case between them. Len came behind with the climbing rope and his canvas satchel. The fourth porter, a woman named Neri, pushed a two-wheeled cart loaded with water and spare lamps.
Tessa looked back. “Tell me if that case gets too heavy.”
“It was heavy before we crossed,” Ada said.
“I meant heavier.”
“Then I’ll complain louder.”
They passed beneath a ridge of stone scored by parallel marks. Eli lifted his lamp to examine them. The grooves were too regular to be natural, and a line of chalk had been drawn along their base. Someone had surveyed this passage before the current raid.
He checked the copied manifest in his vest. Still there. The paper had grown warm against his chest.
The tunnel widened into a chamber where broken slabs jutted from shallow water. The assault hunters crossed first, testing each stone before allowing the others through. The floor was marked with more chalk, some of it worn away by water. A length of cable lay near the wall, half buried beneath gravel.
Neri’s cart caught on the first slab. Eli and Ada set down the casualty case while she tried to lift the wheel free. Len took the cart handle, and Eli pulled the wheel over the lip.
“Thank you,” Neri said. Her left sleeve had been repaired at the elbow with a patch of different-colored cloth. “They told me it was a flat route.”
“They tell everyone that,” Ada said.
A shout came from ahead. The hunters tightened their formation, weapons raised. Eli heard a scraping sound, followed by a sharp metallic clang. The silver-armored hunter drove his sword into a creature that had emerged from a crack in the far wall. It was about the size of a dog, with a shell like layered slate. The blow threw it back into the water.
A second creature rushed from the crack. One of the support hunters caught it with a spear before it reached the medics. Tessa moved toward the fight, then stopped when the first hunter waved her back.
“Nothing serious,” he said.
The spear hunter pulled his weapon free. A dark fluid spread across the water around the creature’s shell. It smelled sharply of metal. Eli watched the hunters check the crack for more, then signal the porters forward.
The first creature twitched as they passed. Len flinched. Eli stepped between him and the shell, but the movement was only the last reflex of its legs. Within seconds it lay still.
“Does your talent work on those?” Len whispered.
“No.”
“What if they used to be people?”
Eli looked at him. “Were you told that happens here?”
“My cousin said some gates turn people into monsters.”
“I’ve heard stories. I haven’t seen proof.”
Len considered the body and walked a little faster.
The chamber narrowed again. After twenty minutes the team found a campsite on a shelf above the passage. A blue tarp hung from a broken frame. Two portable lamps sat in the dirt, their batteries removed. A stack of ration boxes had fallen on its side, spilling sealed packets among the stones.
The veteran hunter at the front raised a fist. The formation halted.
“This wasn’t on the briefing map,” he said.
Rusk walked up beside him. Eli could not hear their first exchange. The commander examined the tarp, then sent two hunters to check the shelf. Tessa set down her medical case and asked the nearby scout whether the site belonged to the expedition that had entered the previous week.
“Probably,” the scout said. “They pulled out after the route survey.”
“All of them?”
“That’s what the report says.”
Eli remembered the young medic in the loading bay repeating the same claim without having read the report. He put down his end of the casualty case and waited while the hunters searched.
One of them opened a ration packet and sniffed it. “Still good.”
“Leave it,” the veteran said.
The hunter tossed it back onto the pile. “They left plenty.”
There were six sleeping mats beneath the tarp and a seventh rolled against the wall. A kettle sat on a cold portable stove. Eli could imagine a team breaking camp in a hurry, taking their essential equipment and leaving the rest for a later collection. But the lantern batteries had been deliberately removed and placed together in a tin. Someone had expected to return for them.
“Porters, inventory the usable supplies,” Rusk ordered.
Eli climbed the shelf with Len. Ada stayed below to help Neri secure the cart. The veteran hunter crouched near the edge of the camp, examining a set of drag marks in the dust.
Eli picked up a ration box. It was heavier than it looked, and when he moved it, something underneath shifted against the rock.
He set the box aside.
A boot protruded from beneath a collapsed equipment rack. At first he thought it belonged to a mannequin used for field exercises. The leather was coated in pale dust, and the trouser leg above it had been pinned flat beneath the rack’s metal frame.
Then his talent stirred.
A line of pale text appeared over the boot, steady despite the shadows from his lamp.
Mara Denn.
Cause of death: crushing injury.
Eli’s hand tightened around the ration box. He knew the name. It was on the withdrawal list posted at the terminal, a list he had glanced over while waiting for the quartermaster to open the supply cages. Mara Denn, scout. Withdrawn with the survey team.
“There’s someone under here,” he said.
Len turned. He saw the boot and took a step back. “Are they alive?”
“No.” Eli set the box down carefully. “Tessa!”
She was already climbing the shelf. The veteran hunter came with her and helped Eli lift the equipment rack. Together they moved it far enough to uncover the body beneath. Dust rose around them. Tessa pulled a cloth over her mouth before kneeling.
Mara had been trapped against the rock by the rack and a slab fallen from above. One arm lay across her chest. Her other hand rested near a torn strap attached to a small satchel. There was no movement when Tessa checked her.
“Mara Denn,” Eli said. “Crushing injury.”
Tessa looked at him. “You’re certain of the name?”
“My talent is.”
“Did you know her?”
“I saw the withdrawal list at the terminal. Her name was on it.”
The veteran’s face changed. “Denn? Let me see.”
He took a small identification book from his armor and turned pages until he found a photograph. He held it beside the dead woman’s face, shielding the light with his hand.
“It’s her,” he said. “I worked with her before she joined the survey team.”
Len looked from the book to Eli. “The report said they all got out.”
“That’s what we were told,” Tessa said.
She examined Mara’s injuries without moving the body unnecessarily. Eli held the lamp. A dark bruise showed above the torn collar of her jacket, and the weight of the equipment rack had driven her shoulder against the rock. Tessa studied the fallen slab and the damage around it.
“Could she have withdrawn with them and come back?” Eli asked.
“Possible,” Tessa said. “I don’t know why she would, and the camp looks abandoned, but I can’t tell you where she was every day since the survey.”
The veteran touched the satchel strap without lifting it. “She’d have reported a return. She was careful.”
“That doesn’t prove she did,” Tessa said.
“No.” He looked toward the passage ahead. “It proves we should check.”
He went to Rusk while Eli kept the lamp steady. The commander listened with his arms folded. The conversation rose enough for the porters to hear.
“Her name’s on the withdrawal list,” the veteran said. “There may be others.”
“The survey team was accounted for.”
“She isn’t.”
“We have an objective and a limited window. The camp can be searched after the gate is secured.”
“If someone’s still alive—”
“A week after the withdrawal?”
“We haven’t checked.”
Rusk’s voice hardened. “Your squad is responsible for the forward route. Return to it.”
The veteran did not move. Two assault hunters stopped what they were doing. The silver-armored man looked between them and the commander, his expression impatient rather than frightened.
Rusk pointed toward the bend. “Delay this operation again and I’ll include it in your report. Go.”
The veteran’s hand closed around his identification book. For a moment Eli thought he would refuse. Then he put the book away and returned to his squad. As he passed Eli, he said quietly, “Remember the shelf. Just past the flooded chamber.”
“I will.”
Tessa rose and went to Rusk. “I need time to document the body.”
“You’ve identified her.”
“I need the location and the injuries recorded.”
“Record them on the way.”
“May we recover her identification tag?”
Rusk looked at the shelf. “Not now. We don’t know what disturbed the camp. Leave the body as you found it until the site is secure.”
Tessa glanced at Mara, then back at him. “The rack was on top of her. We had to move it.”
“Then don’t disturb anything else.” He turned to the guard beside him. “Keep the team moving.”
Eli looked at the tag clipped inside Mara’s jacket. It would be easy to take. He had handled tags for families before, and a name on metal was sometimes the first solid answer they received. But Rusk was watching the shelf, and a guard had moved close enough to see Eli’s hands.
He took out the scrap notebook he used for supply counts. His pencil had a broken point. He turned it against a stone until enough graphite showed to write.
Mara Denn. Crushing injury. Camp on shelf beyond flooded chamber. Identification confirmed against veteran’s book.
He hesitated before writing the withdrawal list detail. He had seen the name on the posted list, but he could not remember every heading above it. He wrote what he could accurately recall: Name appeared on terminal withdrawal list.
Tessa made her own notes. She included the position of the body and the injuries she could see, and marked the point where their current route passed the shelf.
Len stood near the ration boxes, his face pale. “Shouldn’t we cover her?”
“We should,” Tessa said. She looked at the guard, who was watching them.
“No further disturbance,” he said.
“We’ve already moved the rack. A clean sheet won’t destroy the site.”
The guard looked toward Rusk. The commander was talking to the scout and did not turn around. The guard’s uncertainty lasted long enough for Tessa to unfold a sterile sheet from her kit.
“We’ll place it without moving her,” she said.
The guard said nothing. Eli helped her cover Mara. The sheet was too short to reach both her shoulders and her boots, so they covered her face and torso and left the boots visible. Tessa tucked the edges where the wind from the passage would not lift them.
Len picked up the fallen ration packets and put them back in the box. He was halfway through before Eli realized he had not been ordered to do it.
“Leave those,” Eli said.
“They’re all over the ground.”
“We don’t know where they were before.”
Len froze, a packet in each hand. “I didn’t think.”
“Put them beside the box. Tell me where you found them.”
Len showed him. Eli noted the movement in his book. The action might be meaningless, but if someone returned to examine the site, they should know which objects the current team had disturbed.
Below the shelf, Neri checked the cart’s wheels. Ada called up to ask if they needed another case. Tessa answered no, her voice rougher than before, and climbed down.
Eli took one last look at Mara. The sheet lay still. His talent’s text had faded when he moved away, but he did not need it to remember her name.
The guard waved them onward. Len descended first; Eli followed, keeping his notebook open until he reached the bottom. He wrote the time from his wristwatch and added the number of sleeping mats. He had been a porter long enough to know that small details could matter later, even when he did not yet know how.
The team advanced. The veteran led again, his lamp moving over the walls. Nobody spoke for several minutes except to pass instructions along the line.
At the end of the passage, Eli spotted another length of cable. Its outer sheath was scraped where it crossed a rock. He raised his lamp and followed the line with his eyes. It ran beside the main route for several yards, then disappeared beneath a low ledge.
“Wait,” he said.
Neri nearly walked into him with the cart. Eli stepped aside and pointed. “That cable. Does it go to the camp?”
Neri crouched, squinting. “Could. There’s another piece in the water back there.”
Tessa joined them. Eli traced the cable with his lamp. Beyond the ledge, it emerged again and ran toward a narrow opening half concealed by stone.
The main team was already turning the next corner. Rusk’s guard called for the porters to keep up.
Eli looked at the opening. The cable had not been cut or coiled for storage. Someone had run it away from the camp and into a passage absent from the briefing map.
Mara’s name was on a list that said she had withdrawn. Her body lay under a sheet behind them. The commander had refused a search, and whatever the cable served was still somewhere in the dark.
Tessa met Eli’s eyes. She had seen it too.
Ahead, the hunters’ footsteps receded around the bend. Eli shifted the casualty case into Ada’s hands and pointed toward the opening.
“There’s a route here,” he said.
The guard turned.