The first stretcher jammed before it reached the bend.
The patient cried out as the frame knocked the stone wall. Behind him, dust sifted from the roof. Odran caught the stretcher’s rear pole with his good hand and leaned into it, but his injured shoulder buckled before he could turn it.
“Back,” Aren said. “Easy. Don’t pull his leg.”
The surveyors eased the wounded man into the shelter again. Nine more waited behind him, packed between the old lift housing and the quarry wall. The passage was the only way out. A distant gun boomed, and the floor gave a short, hard shudder beneath their boots.
The wounded man swore through his teeth. Aren felt the vibration climb his numb right arm and stop at his shoulder. He kept that arm close to his side.
Odran crouched at the passage mouth, studying the worn rails embedded in the floor. “We’re trying to take a litter through where the ore carts went.”
“That cart hasn’t moved in years,” one of the surveyors said.
“Then it’s due.” Odran tapped the narrow metal frame half-buried beside the lift housing. Its wheels were stiff with rust, but its bed was narrow enough for one person. “Strip the litter poles. Tie the canvas down. We can push it on the rails until the bend, then pull it around by hand.”
The next boom arrived before anyone could answer. A crack snapped somewhere above them. The shelter’s hanging lamp swung, scattering light over the nine waiting faces.
Aren looked at the low roof, then at the wounded man whose stretcher they had just backed out. “How long to get the trolley ready?”
“Five minutes.” Odran’s gaze stayed on the rails. “If the wheels turn.”
“Take three. I’ll clear the bend.”
Odran studied Aren’s right hand. “With what?”
“My left.” Aren took a sapper’s pry bar from the tool roll. “And anyone who can still stand.”
The trolley’s wheels resisted at first. Two surveyors lifted the frame while Odran worked grit from the axles with a knife. Aren pulled the first stretcher’s canvas free and lashed it to the cart bed. Their knot was ugly but held when he tested it with his left hand.
The first wounded man had a bandage wrapped around his ribs and a splint along one leg. He watched the team lash him down, then looked at the dark passage.
“Just one at a time?”
“One at a time,” Aren said. “We’ll get you through.”
The man swallowed and nodded. “Then don’t let them tip me.”
Next
With the nine wounded safe but the return route buried, will Aren follow the fresh northbound tracks to learn where the evacuation network leads?
Aren walked ahead with the pry bar, clearing loose stone from the rails. Odran and two surveyors pushed the trolley behind him. They reached the bend, where the passage dipped and turned beneath a thick timber support. The trolley’s right side scraped the post. Aren wedged the bar against the wall and levered the frame sideways, inch by inch, while the others shoved.
The wheels caught. Odran’s face tightened as he pulled from the rear. His injured shoulder shook, but he kept his grip.
“Again,” Aren said.
The cart lurched past the post. The patient gripped the canvas with both hands. Beyond the bend, the rails sloped gently upward toward a pale seam of daylight.
The team moved him out without another impact. When the trolley rolled into the north adit, the wounded man blinked against the gray light and let his head settle back. One of the surveyors stayed with him while the others returned for the next.
They built a rhythm: one person secured, two pushing, Aren guiding the front through the bend, Odran calling each snag before it could wrench the trolley sideways. They sent the second wounded person through. Then the third. The adit filled with people waiting to receive them, and the shelter emptied by degrees.
Aren did not count aloud. He checked each face as it came through. At the fifth, a gun struck somewhere beyond the ridge. The passage shivered. A timber brace popped, and a long seam opened across the ceiling.
“Stop!” Odran shouted.
The trolley sat halfway between shelter and bend, carrying a wounded demon with a crushed foot. Aren had one hand on its front rail. The weakened brace leaned over the track, its lower end grinding against the wall.
Odran limped toward it. “We can’t take the cart back through that.”
The wounded demon’s face had gone gray. “Leave the cart. Get me out.”
Aren looked at the brace. Its weight pressed the trolley against the rail. The patient’s foot was strapped to a board; if the frame twisted, the board would catch beneath the support.
“Can we lift it?” Aren asked.
“Not with the roof settling.” Odran pointed to a wedge trapped beneath the brace. “If I knock that out, the timber might drop clear. Might take the whole ceiling with it.”
Another report rolled over the quarry. Dust swept down the passage. Aren’s right hand hung numb and useless at his side. The wounded man clutched the canvas so hard his knuckles showed pale against his dark skin.
Aren set his left shoulder beneath the trolley rail. “Pull from the far end.”
Odran stared at him. “If the brace drops—”
“Then pull faster.”
Odran did not waste a reply. He and the surveyors moved to the far end of the trolley. Aren braced his boots against the rails, bent his left arm around the frame, and leaned into the weight. The trolley shifted a finger’s width.
The brace groaned.
“Now,” Aren said.
Odran struck the wedge with the back of his knife. Once. Twice. On the third blow, the wedge jumped free. The timber dropped, hit the trolley’s rear corner, and tore the canvas lashings loose.
Aren’s shoulder took the frame’s weight. Pain flared down his left arm. For a moment the cart held still, pinned beneath the brace. The wounded demon’s strapped foot was caught, the passage roof grinding above them.
“Cut the front tie!” Odran shouted.
Aren reached for the knot with his left hand. His fingers fumbled against the rope. He grabbed the knife at his belt, but the handle slipped against his palm.
The patient looked at him. “My foot.”
Aren caught the knife against his thigh and forced it into his grip. He sawed through the lashing. The canvas loosened. The trolley slid forward, dragging the wounded man clear as the brace crashed onto the rails behind him.
Odran and the others pulled. Aren stayed with the cart until the patient’s whole body had passed the fallen beam, then stumbled after them. The roof settled with a grinding roar. The passage mouth vanished in a billow of dust.
For several heartbeats nobody spoke. Aren coughed grit from his throat. Odran sat hard against the quarry wall, clutching his shoulder, while the surveyors checked the wounded man’s strapped foot.
“Still attached,” the demon said, voice thin. “That’s something.”
Aren looked back at the sealed passage. The trolley and their tools were gone behind the fall. There would be no easy way back to the shelter.
“Count them,” he said.
A surveyor went down the line, touching each shoulder as he counted. “Nine.”
All nine had made it out. A human woman with a bandaged head had begun crying quietly into her blanket. The wounded demon beside her reached over and held the edge of it down when the wind lifted it. No one asked them to stop.
Aren flexed his left hand once. His shoulder trembled. His right arm remained numb, the black mark hidden beneath his sleeve. He looked at the faces the team had carried through the stone and let the number settle: nine living people where the mountain had meant to keep them.
Odran pushed himself upright. “We need to move them farther from the quarry face. If the guns keep shaking the ridge, this adit won’t be safe either.”
They shifted the wounded into the covered service cut beyond the adit. The old rails continued there, half buried in grit. At the first junction, Aren found fresh drag marks alongside the tracks. They ran north, past a stack of empty litters and into another covered way.
Odran saw them too. He brushed a finger over the newest groove, then glanced back at the nine wounded gathered behind them.
“Someone went on ahead,” he said.
Aren followed the tracks until the next passage swallowed them. The wounded were safe for the moment. The way forward was still open—and someone had already taken it.