Bram Holt stepped between Eli and Venn before Eli reached the veteran.
“Give me the paper,” Bram said.
Eli stopped. The folded manifest was hidden against his leg, but Bram was looking directly at his hand. Behind him, Venn was helping another hunter to his feet. The man had lost his shield and was holding a torn sleeve against his side.
“It’s a supply list,” Eli said.
“Give it to me.”
Bram wore the dark gray armor of an Aegis enforcer. His left shoulder plate was scored by an old cut, and his face had the drawn look of someone who had been awake too long. Eli had seen him at the perimeter before the raid, checking names against the roster. He had not seen him among the people who opened the hidden chamber.
“Venn,” Eli called.
The veteran turned. Bram shifted, blocking his view of the folded sheet.
“Commander Rusk has ordered me to secure a suspected breach of procedure,” Bram said. “Hand it over and return to your assignment.”
“What procedure?”
“The one he gave you.”
Eli looked past Bram. “Venn, there’s a room off the survey camp. Bodies inside. We found Mara there—”
“We found her at the camp,” Venn said, confused.
“Not Mara. Other people. Restrained to a machine.” Eli drew a breath. “Mara’s name was on the withdrawal list. The others weren’t on the casualty notices I saw.”
A crash cut through the last word. The first creature struck Venn’s line again, knocking a hunter against the rock. Venn turned instinctively toward the fight. The injured man beside him dropped to one knee.
Bram held out his hand. “The paper.”
“Have you seen the room?”
“No.”
“Then come and look when this is over.”
“Give me the paper.”
“Ask Rusk why it was locked.”
For the first time Bram’s gaze moved from Eli’s hand to his face. “Locked?”
“There’s a panel at the entrance. We followed a cable from the camp. Tessa saw it too.”
Bram glanced toward the medical wall. Tessa was bent over a patient, pressing a dressing against his shoulder while the other medic prepared a bandage. She looked up briefly, saw Eli and Bram, then returned to the wound.
“You can ask her,” Eli said.
Bram’s hand dropped. The change was slight, but Eli saw it. The enforcer looked at the passage leading back to the camp, then at the commander on the ridge.
Rusk was shouting to the elite hunters. One of the chains had caught on a broken pillar; two hunters struggled to free it while the second creature pulled against the other end. Rusk pointed toward the hollow, directing the ordinary team to keep the first monster away from the ridge.
“You were ordered not to discuss an unassessed area,” Bram said.
“He told us it might be contaminated. The guard who went in didn’t even put his respirator on.”
“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a risk.”
“No. It doesn’t.” Eli held up the folded manifest, careful not to let Bram take it. “This is the supply count. There were forty-two casualty bags for twenty-eight people. Tessa asked why before we left.”
Bram looked at the paper. A tremor passed through his fingers. Eli wondered whether he was frightened of the creatures or of the commander, and was ashamed that he had not wondered before.
“Take it to Venn with me,” Eli said. “He can keep it until we get out. You can come with us to Marin, the advocate. We can show her the room’s location and ask for an inspection.”
“Marin?”
“Tessa knows her.”
Bram’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking you to look.”
The second creature roared. A fragment of stone struck the floor between them. Eli flinched; Bram did not move, though his eyes went briefly to the ceiling.
“Give me the paper,” he said again.
Eli stepped to his right. Bram matched him.
Venn had reached the medical wall with the injured hunter. Tessa called for the folding frame. It was still on the upper route, where Eli and Neri had left the patient with the leg wound. Neri appeared at the top of the slope, pulling the empty frame behind her.
Eli could have handed Bram the manifest and gone to help. Perhaps Rusk would return the paper after the raid. Perhaps a record of the chamber would survive in Tessa’s notes. But the commander had already locked the entrance and forbidden them to speak. If Eli gave him the manifest now, he would have no control over what happened to it.
“Bram,” he said, “there are names in my notebook. People with restraints around their wrists.”
“Where?”
“In my pack.”
Bram’s eyes flicked to the pack. Eli saw the mistake he had made a moment before Bram reached for its strap.
Eli twisted away. Bram caught the fabric instead of the buckle, and the pack swung between them. Eli held on to the manifest with one hand and shoved Bram’s arm with the other.
“Stop,” Bram said.
“Let go.”
The pack strap tightened across Eli’s shoulder. Bram was stronger. He pulled Eli half a step toward the ridge, then stopped when Eli dug his heels into the stone.
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Then let go.”
“If you hand it over, this ends.”
Eli looked toward Venn. The veteran was arguing with a support hunter over the route to the entrance. Tessa had reached the injured man and was checking his breathing. Nobody was watching the struggle closely yet.
Eli forced his arm out of the pack strap. The weight shifted, and Bram caught the pack against his chest. Eli lunged after it, but Bram stepped back. The notebook was inside, along with water, spare tape, and a pair of gloves.
“My notes are in there,” Eli said.
“Then you know why I need it.”
Bram unfastened the flap. Eli caught his wrist. They struggled over the buckle, neither getting a firm hold. The manifest crumpled in Eli’s other hand.
“Venn!” Eli shouted. “The commander locked a room with bodies in it!”
Venn turned. So did the support hunter. The guard who had accompanied Rusk to the chamber began moving toward them.
Bram’s face went pale. “Don’t.”
“Look at it,” Eli said. “You can see for yourself.”
Bram pulled his wrist free and gripped Eli’s forearm. The manifest scraped against the armor on his chest. Eli tried to wrench away, but Bram’s other hand came around the back of his vest and held him in place.
The first creature surged toward the medical wall. Venn shoved the support hunter aside and raised his spear. The creature struck the shaft, snapping its lower half. Venn fell backward, and the support hunter fired a bolt of light into the creature’s exposed flank.
The monster recoiled. Tessa dragged her patient behind the wall while Neri abandoned the frame and ran to help her.
Eli saw the guard closing in. He twisted hard enough that his vest seam tore beneath Bram’s grip. The manifest slipped from his fingers, unfolding as it fell. Bram reached for it; Eli kicked it across the stone toward Neri.
“Neri! Take that!”
She looked up. The sheet lay between the medical wall and the narrow passage leading away from the fight. Neri started toward it.
Bram caught Eli around the waist. They stumbled together into the passage mouth. Eli drove his elbow backward and felt it strike armor. Bram grunted and loosened his grip, but did not let go.
“Leave him!” Tessa shouted.
Someone else was running toward them. Eli saw boots, a dark sleeve, and the edge of a blade in the flickering light. He could not see the person’s face. He thought it was the guard from the chamber; then the first creature slammed into the wall and the light shifted.
The blade entered his side.
The pain arrived as pressure, impossibly deep and hard, before it became anything he could name. Eli made a sound he had never heard from himself. Bram released him. He fell against the passage wall and struck his head on the stone.
The blade withdrew. The figure moved away, swallowed by hunters rushing toward the hollow. Eli tried to look up, but his vision narrowed around the floor. He saw a boot pass within inches of his hand. Whether it belonged to the person who had stabbed him, he could not tell.
Bram stood over him. His mouth was open. Eli heard no words.
The manifest lay a few yards away. Neri reached it, but a hunter slammed into her from the side, sending her against the wall. The paper skidded beneath a fallen piece of the medical frame.
“Take it,” Eli tried to say.
He wasn’t sure whether any sound came out.
Bram knelt. His hands hovered near the wound without touching it. Blood darkened Eli’s vest and ran between the stones.
“Tessa!” Bram shouted.
She was already moving. A hunter caught her arm and pointed toward the first creature, which had knocked another person down. Tessa pulled free and came toward Eli anyway.
The second creature struck the ridge. The chain jerked, tearing a section of stone loose. Debris fell across the mouth of the passage, forcing Bram backward. Eli raised an arm over his head. Rock hit his shoulder, then the floor beside him. Dust filled the air.
When he lowered his arm, the way to the medical wall was half blocked.
“Tessa!” he called.
His voice sounded thin. He pushed against the wall, trying to sit up. The movement pulled at the wound, and his hand came away wet when he pressed it to his side.
Through a gap in the debris, he saw Tessa struggling past the injured hunter. She had the small medical case in one hand. Neri was beside her, pointing toward the passage.
“Stretcher!” Tessa shouted. “Bring the frame!”
Venn turned toward her. He had lost his spear and was carrying the injured support hunter under one arm. The first creature lunged between them and the wall. Venn dropped the man behind a rock and met the attack with the broken shaft.
Eli tried to move. His pack lay near Bram’s feet, its flap open. The notebook had fallen out. He could see its cover but not reach it.
“The room,” he said. “Tell her—”
Bram looked at him. Eli could not tell whether the enforcer heard.
“Past the camp. The cable. There’s a panel.”
A second collapse drowned out the words. Dust rolled through the gap, hiding the medical wall. Bram retreated as another stone fell. Eli reached toward the notebook, dragging himself forward by his fingers.
His side burned. Each breath caught before it filled his lungs. He moved perhaps an inch.
The manifest was gone beneath the damaged frame. He could not see whether Neri had taken it. Someone shouted for the porters to evacuate; another voice ordered them to carry supplies to the ridge. The two commands collided in the noise.
Eli’s hand closed on a loose pebble. He threw it aside and reached again.
“Tessa,” he called.
A figure appeared through the dust. For one hopeful instant he thought it was her. Then the shape straightened, and he saw Bram’s shoulder plate.
Bram looked back toward Rusk. The commander stood on the ridge, directing the elite hunters toward a gap in the cavern wall. The second creature had turned after them. Rusk shouted something Eli could not hear.
Bram took one step toward Eli. Then another hunter seized his arm and pulled him back as the ceiling cracked overhead.
A slab fell between them.
Eli flinched and covered his face. Smaller stones followed, bouncing across his legs. The narrow opening to the cavern shrank to a gap barely wide enough for a hand.
He heard Tessa again, closer this time. “Eli!”
“Here!”
He tried to shout the chamber’s location. The words came out broken. He swallowed and tasted blood.
“Camp,” he managed. “Cable—”
A roar shook the passage. Somewhere on the other side of the debris, metal struck rock. Tessa called for the stretcher again. Eli pressed his palm against the wound and waited for her to reach him.
The notebook lay beyond the slab. The manifest had vanished from sight. Bram had stopped him from giving it to Venn, and another hunter had stabbed him in the confusion. Whatever fear had crossed Bram’s face, whatever order Rusk had given him, neither changed the stone between Eli and the people he had tried to warn.
Tessa’s voice came through the gap once more. Eli dragged himself toward it.