Chapter 197: Sounds from inside
Chapter 197: Sounds from inside
No description from Liora, Bren, or Maerin had prepared him for the reality of it. Veyrhold had been built from salvaged scraps and old metal bones, but those had only hinted at the scale. This was not a crashed vehicle. It was a fallen world of metal, shattered across an alien plain.
Pieces of humanity’s old sky-bound ambition lay buried beneath ash.
And somewhere in it, perhaps, answers.
Liora came to stand beside him.
"The first time I saw it, I cried," she said quietly.
Rohan glanced at her.
She kept her gaze on the wreck.
"I was nine. My father brought me to the southern ridge after my mother died. He said I needed to understand where we came from, and why grief was not allowed to make me careless. I remember hating him for that. Then I saw the hull, and I understood that Veyrhold was not only a prison. It was also a miracle. People walked away from that."
Rohan looked back at the wreck field.
"I understand why the ledger matters now."
"You understood before."
"Not like this."
The wind moved over the field.
Somewhere far inside the broken hull, metal groaned.
The sound travelled across the ash like a sleeping creature shifting in its dreams.
Rohan’s curiosity flared so strongly it almost hurt.
Maerin stepped up on his other side.
"We do not enter the central field."
"I know."
"I need you to hear it again while looking at it."
Rohan swallowed.
"I hear you."
Maerin’s voice softened, though only slightly.
"I know what it looks like to you. I know you see possibility. Records. Technology. Maybe even something that could help you leave. I am not blind to that, Rohan."
"Then you know why it is hard to stand here and not go closer."
"Yes," she said. "I do. That is why I am standing beside you."
There was more emotion in her voice than usual.
Rohan looked at her.
Maerin did not take her eyes off the wreck.
"My father stood on this same ridge before going deeper. Someone probably told him not to chase ghosts. He probably believed he was being careful. He may even have been right until the moment the Ash proved otherwise."
Rohan lowered his gaze.
"I will not go without your order."
Maerin turned to him.
"I am not asking for obedience because I enjoy control. I am asking because I want you alive long enough to use whatever answers we do find."
That struck deeper than any command would have.
Rohan nodded slowly.
"All right. I will stay with the expedition."
"Thank you."
It was the first time Maerin had said those words to him so plainly.
They moved along the southern debris edge.
The route was marked, but old. Some markers had been swallowed by ash. Others had tilted or cracked from ground shifts. Veska took the lead more often here, tapping the ground with her staff and listening to the vibrations. The harvesters walked close together. Even Jorren seemed more tense, shield raised slightly instead of resting against his shoulder.
The wreck field made sounds.
Not constantly, which was worse.
A faint metallic tick from beneath the ash.
A distant groan.
A whisper through broken ventilation channels.
Once, Rohan heard something that sounded almost like a voice.
He stopped so suddenly Liora bumped his shoulder.
"What did you hear?" she asked.
Rohan did not answer immediately.
The sound came again, softer this time. A thin, distorted murmur from a half-buried corridor mouth thirty metres to the left.
It did not form words.
But it wanted to.
Maerin noticed their pause.
"Rohan?"
He pointed toward the corridor.
"I hear something from there."
Everyone turned.
The corridor mouth lay beneath a leaning hull plate, its edges fused with blackstone. Ash had drifted halfway up the opening, leaving only a dark triangular gap. The metal around it bore old markings almost completely worn away.
Veska’s face tightened.
"Do not answer it."
"I did not."
"What does it sound like?"
Rohan listened, though every instinct now told him not to.
The murmur rose and fell.
For a moment, the translation effect in his mind stirred, trying to catch meaning where perhaps none existed.
Then one word emerged.
Not spoken aloud.
Not exactly.
Help.
Rohan’s blood went cold.
He stepped back.
Liora saw his expression and grabbed his sleeve.
"What did it say?"
He looked at her.
"It sounded like help."
Several people muttered protective phrases under their breath.
Maerin’s face hardened, but beneath the severity was fear. Not panic. Recognition.
"We mark it and move," she said.
Rohan struggled with himself.
Four months ago, faint cries for help had pulled him away from the path and led him to Liora.
Ignoring that word now felt wrong at a level deeper than logic.
But this was not the same.
This was the wreck field.
This was a place known for voices.
This was a trap old enough to have learned human mercy by sound.
Liora’s hand tightened on his sleeve.
"Rohan, look at me."
He did.
Her eyes were wide, not with fear for herself, but fear for him.
"I am alive because you followed a real cry for help. I know that. I will never forget that. But this is not the skarn pocket. No one from Veyrhold is supposed to be inside that corridor. No patrol came this way before us. There is no fresh trail. There is only an old opening in an old wreck that knows how to pull people toward it."
His jaw tightened.
"What if someone is trapped?"
Maerin answered, voice steady but not unkind.
"Then they have been trapped for longer than anyone can survive, or they are not someone we can save by rushing in. If there is a real possibility, we return with a prepared team. We do not break formation and enter a dead corridor because it learned a useful word."
Rohan looked back at the dark gap.
The murmur came again.
Help.
This time, he heard something beneath it.
A faint clicking.
Like metal cooling.
Or teeth.