Eli’s fingers found a crack between two stones.
He hooked them into it and pulled. His body moved a little. The wound in his side opened wider, and the effort left him unable to breathe for several seconds. When he could draw air again, the gap in the rubble was no closer than the length of his hand.
“Tessa,” he said.
Dust drifted through the opening. Beyond it, shadows crossed the light. He heard someone shouting for the retreat route, someone else calling for a shield, and the heavy scrape of the creature moving through the cavern. His own voice disappeared among them.
He tried to turn onto his back. A stone pinned the edge of his vest, and twisting pulled the fabric tight against the wound. He worked his fingers under the stone and pushed. It rolled a few inches, enough to free him. He lay still, his cheek against the cold floor, and counted his breaths.
One. Two. Three.
He lost the count when something struck the wall. Dust sifted onto his hand.
The small gap admitted a narrow view of the medical position. The broken wall was visible, as was a corner of Tessa’s open trunk. A hunter stumbled past it, clutching his arm. Behind him, Eli saw Neri kneeling beside the injured man they had carried up the slope. The folding frame lay on its side.
“Neri!”
She did not look up.
Eli pressed harder against the wound. His palm was slick. He tried to remember what Tessa had done for the hunter’s leg: a dressing, pressure, a wrap. His own pack was beyond the slab, with his spare cloth inside. The sleeve of his shirt was reachable. He pulled at it, but the seam held.
A piece of metal protruded from the rubble. He dragged his arm across its edge until the cloth tore, then used his teeth to make the tear wider. The effort made him dizzy. He folded the strip and pressed it beneath his hand.
The fabric soaked through almost at once.
He looked at the gap again. A boot appeared on the other side, then Tessa’s face as she dropped to her knees.
“Eli.”
He had never been so relieved to hear his name.
“I’m here.”
“I see you. Keep pressure on the wound.”
“I’m trying.”
“Good. Don’t move unless I tell you.”
She put down her medical case and examined the stones. Eli could see one of her hands through the gap, fingertips searching for a grip beneath the lowest slab. She pulled; the slab did not shift.
“It’s resting on something above it,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Neri, I need the frame pole.”
Neri appeared beside her. “The frame’s bent.”
“Bring it anyway. And find someone who can lift.”
Neri ran. Tessa leaned closer to the opening.
“Can you feel your legs?”
“Yes.”
“Can you move them?”
He tried. His left leg responded. The right dragged against loose stone, but he could move his foot.
“Both,” he said.
“That’s good. Keep the cloth in place.”
“Tessa, the room.”
“I remember.”
“Tell Venn. The cable from the camp. The panel—”
“I remember, Eli.”
He could not see her face clearly through the dust. He wanted to make her repeat the route, to hear the words and know they had survived outside his head. He also knew she was trying to get him out. He held the blood-soaked cloth in place and let her work.
Neri returned with the support pole. Its end was bent where they had used it to lift the slab from the injured hunter. Venn came with her, one hand wrapped around the broken shaft of his spear.
“We need to lever the bottom stone,” Tessa said. “Slowly. If the upper one moves, stop.”
Venn set his spear aside and pushed the pole into the crack. Neri braced beside him. Tessa guided the end under the slab, then moved back to watch the upper stones.
“Now.”
They pushed. The pole flexed. The bottom stone lifted a fraction, scraping against the one above it. Eli drew his hand back from the gap.
“Again,” Tessa said.
Venn adjusted his grip. His forearm trembled as he bore down. The stone rose another inch. Tessa reached through and pulled away a smaller piece lodged beneath it.
“Keep it there.”
She reached for a second stone. A sharp crack sounded above them.
“Back!” Venn shouted.
The pole sprang upward. Tessa pulled her hand free as the upper slab shifted. Stones crashed into the opening, throwing a gust of dust into Eli’s face. He coughed, and the cough sent pain through his side.
For a moment he could see nothing. He covered his mouth with his sleeve and waited for the dust to thin. The gap had narrowed. Tessa’s hand was gone.
“Are you hurt?” he called.
No answer. He listened until he heard her voice, farther away.
“I’m all right. Venn, your hand.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. Let me see.”
A different voice called from the cavern. “The line’s breaking!”
Tessa said something Eli could not hear. Boots scraped against the stone. The fight moved closer; each impact seemed to travel along the wall before reaching him.
He pressed the cloth against his side. It was no longer enough to keep his hand from slipping. He folded the remaining sleeve over it and held both in place.
There had to be another way out. The passage behind him continued into darkness. It was the route from which Rusk had said the team would retreat, but the fallen stone blocked his view of the cavern and the tunnel itself bent after a few yards. He had not been down it.
If it connected to the main route, he could crawl around the collapse. If it did not, he could spend the strength he had left moving away from Tessa.
He raised his head and listened. No wind came from that direction. The air smelled of dust and blood.
“Tessa,” he called. “Does this passage go through?”
Her answer was lost under another shout. Eli waited. When the noise eased, he called again.
“Don’t go farther in,” she said. “We haven’t checked it.”
He let his head fall back onto his arm. She was right. He hated that she was right.
Light flashed through the narrowed opening. Tessa appeared again, followed by Neri. Blood ran from a cut on Tessa’s forehead, leaving a thin line down the side of her face. She either had not noticed it or had decided someone else needed her hands first.
“Venn’s keeping the creature back,” she said. “We’re going to try the side.”
A small object came through the gap and landed near Eli’s hand: a sealed dressing. He picked it up, tore the wrapper with his teeth, and pressed the pad over the soaked cloth.
“Can you get it under your vest?” Tessa asked.
He worked the dressing beneath the torn fabric. The pad touched the wound and he nearly dropped it. He forced his hand down until the pain became a steady, hot pressure.
Neri pushed another strip of cloth through. Eli wound it around his waist as best he could, threading one end under himself. He could not pull it tight enough. Tessa reached through the gap and caught an end.
“On three. One, two, three.”
She pulled. Eli bit his lip. The cloth tightened around his middle, holding the dressing in place. Tessa tied the ends as far through the opening as her hand could reach.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Save your breath.”
Neri was digging at the side of the collapse, shifting smaller stones one at a time. Tessa joined her. They made a little space, enough that Eli could see a wider patch of the cavern floor.
The manifest was there.
It lay beside the broken frame, one corner trapped under a metal support. Dust had settled over the handwriting. Eli could make out the line where he had written the casualty-bag count.
“The paper,” he said. “Beside the frame.”
Neri turned. She started toward it, then stopped as a hunter fell between her and the wall. The man’s face was gray. A length of broken armor had pierced his thigh, and blood spread beneath him.
Tessa looked at Eli. The choice lasted less than a second.
“Keep pressure on your wound,” she said. “Neri, stay with him.”
She went to the fallen hunter. Eli watched her kneel, watched her ask the man’s name and press a dressing against his leg. He wanted her to come back. He wanted the other man to live too. The two wants did not fit together in the space the cavern had given them.
Neri shifted another stone. “She’s coming back.”
“I know.”
“She is.”
“I know.”
He did know that Tessa intended to. He did not know whether the fight would allow it.
Neri reached for the frame, but the second creature’s tail struck the ridge. Rock broke loose overhead. She threw herself against the wall as fragments scattered around the medical position. One landed on the manifest. Another hit the broken frame, turning its support pole across the paper.
When the dust cleared, he could see only a narrow white edge.
“Leave it,” he told Neri.
“You said—”
“Help Tessa.”
Neri hesitated. Then she ran to the injured hunter and held the dressing while Tessa tightened a bandage. The man cried out. Tessa apologized without stopping her work.
Eli had spent ten years in jobs like this one. Not all of them had gone badly. He had carried equipment through gates that closed on schedule, collected pay from supervisors who knew his name, eaten hot meals with teams who counted him as one of their own. Those memories made the present stranger: a guild raid could look ordinary until the moment it stopped being ordinary, and by then everyone was already inside.
He remembered the missing porter’s sister at the terminal. The photograph had been in a cheap frame, the glass cracked at one corner. She had taken it out when the receptionist asked for identification, as though the picture could answer every question the forms could not.
Eli had found the casualty notice for her. He had shown her the wrong surname and the date. She had thanked him, then asked which office she should visit next.
He had pointed her toward the insurance desk. His shift was ending, and he had another job the next morning. He had not walked her there. He did not know whether the desk had helped her, or whether the wrong name had sent her back to the beginning.
He had told himself there was nothing more he could do. Perhaps there had been limits he could not change. He still could have asked what happened.
A name appeared in the darkness beside him.
Mara Denn.
Cause of death: crushing injury.
Eli blinked. The text remained, though Mara’s body was back at the camp. He could not see her body, and Gravekeeper had never shown him remains through walls at this distance before. Whether the change came from the dungeon, his wound, or the fact that he was dying, he had no way to tell. He could see only the name and the cause.
Another line appeared, farther to the left. Then another.
Eli turned his head. The names drifted across his vision as he moved, each fixed to a location he could not reach. Some belonged to people in the hidden chamber. Others were strangers. Gravekeeper did not tell him how long they had been here or what they had wanted. It did not tell him which of them had trusted a commander, or whether anyone was waiting for news.
He read each name once. When he reached one he did not recognize, he read it again, making sure of the letters.
The display was not a conversation. No voice answered. The dead did not tell him what to do.
A shadow fell across the opening. Tessa had returned. Neri was behind her, helping the injured hunter toward the upper route.
“Can you still move your legs?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to try the left side. There’s a gap behind the slab.”
She squeezed her arm through and shifted a stone Eli could not reach. He heard it roll away. A second followed. Cool air touched his face from a new direction.
“You’re doing well,” she said.
He almost laughed. He had spent the last several minutes lying on a floor while other people did the work. But he understood what she meant. He was still answering. He was still holding the dressing. He had not crawled into an unknown tunnel because he was afraid to wait.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“If I don’t—”
“You can tell me when you’re out.”
“The notes are in my pack.” He pointed toward the stone that blocked their view of it. “Bram had it. My notebook fell out.”
“I’ll look.”
“Don’t go back for it if—”
“Eli.” Her voice was sharp enough to stop him. Then it softened. “I heard you.”
She shifted another stone. The gap widened just enough for him to see her eyes. She was frightened. He had seen her angry, tired, and impatient with people who refused treatment. He had not seen her frightened before.
“You should get out,” he said.
“I’m working on it.”
“Rusk has the retreat blocked.”
“Venn is clearing a route. Neri’s taking the injured up first.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be behind them.”
A hunter shouted from somewhere above the medical wall. Tessa turned her head. Eli heard Venn call her name, then a crash that shook the rocks around him. She pulled her arm free as a piece of the ceiling fell into the space she had been opening.
“No,” she said.
She pushed at the new stone. It did not move. She tried again, planting both feet against the floor. Eli could see her hands but not the rest of her.
“Tessa!” Venn shouted.
“Get the frame!”
“The route’s going!”
“Get the frame!”
She reached through the smaller gap, her fingers stretching toward Eli’s. He reached back. Their fingertips brushed, then slipped apart. The distance between them was less than the width of the casualty case he had carried into the gate.
Another impact. Someone caught Tessa around the shoulders and pulled her away from the opening. She fought the grip. Eli saw her face through the dust, mouth open as she called for a stretcher. Venn was beside her, dragging the injured hunter with one arm and trying to keep her moving with the other.
“Go,” Eli said.
She could not hear him.
He tried to raise his voice. “Go!”
The ceiling came down between them.
Dust swallowed the light. A stone struck the floor near his head and rolled against his shoulder. Eli covered his face, waiting for the weight of the rest of the ceiling. It did not come. The passage settled around him with a series of small clicks.
He called Tessa’s name once more. There was no answer he could distinguish from the battle beyond the rock.
He could not know whether she had escaped. He could not know whether Neri had found the manifest, or whether Venn would remember the room Eli had tried to describe. The uncertainty hurt almost as much as the wound, because there was nothing left to do with it.
Gravekeeper’s names remained in the dark. He read them until his vision blurred. There were people he had passed in the loading bay whose names he had never asked, people he had described as numbers because the roster had described them that way. He had copied the porters’ names today. It was a small thing, done late, but Tessa had seen it. So had Len.
He thought of the pie waiting at Len’s home and hoped the young porter had reached the exit. He thought of the patients on Tessa’s unsent list and hoped her volunteers knew enough to find them. He thought of the room with the rings, and of someone opening the locked panel after the fighting stopped.
His fingers loosened on the dressing.
He tried to hold on. The cloth slid from his hand. Breathing became work he could no longer manage one breath after another.
Tessa had come back for him. That was the last clear thing he knew.
Then the names faded, and Eli died.