Chapter 106: THE SECOND COUNT

The ceiling forced Sio to carry the crossbar along his forearm. Water slid between the stones beneath his boots, cold enough to sting through a split in the leather. Behind him, the entrance had shrunk to a pale rectangle tangled with roots. Gumm tucked himself beneath Sio’s collar whenever the rock brushed his back.

The square-heeled print at the entrance had no match on the dry stone ahead. At a junction, though, Sio found a scrape across the wall where something heavy had been dragged around the corner. He stopped when a faint rasp came from the narrower branch. It sounded like someone fighting a cough.

An inspection recess lay behind a rusted iron frame. A man sat inside with his wrists bound to a pipe, his knee drawn against his chest. His lip was split. A wad of cloth filled his mouth, and the sleeve at one wrist had been torn away. When he saw Sio, he shook his head and stared at a thin cord attached to his bindings.

A metal clapper hung above the cord. Pull too hard, and it would strike the pipe. After the signals on the ridge, Sio could guess how far that sound might travel.

"Bren?" he whispered from the opening. The man nodded. "Kell and Eda are alive. Eda’s knee is hurt, but she’s out of the pipe."

Bren’s shoulders loosened before he caught himself and glanced toward the junction. Sio followed his look to a narrow observation slit facing the washout. An empty brace beside it pointed toward the place where Eda had been trapped. Whatever viewing instrument belonged there had been removed.

Sio set the crossbar within reach, steadied the clapper with one hand and slipped its cord off the hook with the other. The knots were stiff with dried mud. Gumm extended a small limb from his sleeve to keep the slack line clear of the water. Once the alarm hung loose, Sio worked the wrist rope against a jagged corner of the pipe bracket until the fibers gave way. Bren had to keep his arms still throughout. The clapper swayed above them but never touched the pipe. Sio pulled the gag free.

"Two watchers," Bren said, his voice rough. He rubbed at the marks on his wrists. "One with square heels came into the tunnels, took my broken cuff and left me tied here. Another stayed with that lens. They wanted to know who tried to reach us on the Arcline."

"Did you give them a name?"

"I didn’t have one." Bren swallowed painfully. "They kept asking where we’d go if somebody came looking for us. One said to leave me where the rescuers would find me." He looked at his wrists. "I tried telling them there were still people in those locked cars. Neither asked how many."

Sio looked at the alarm, then at the observation slit. The square-heeled scout had been in this passage before him. Whether the cloth had been lost or deliberately dropped, it had brought Sio straight to the bound prisoner.

A soft footstep came from the side passage beyond the observation brace. Sio turned as a second watcher emerged from a narrow service branch. Their boots had flat, worn soles rather than the square heels from the ridge. A close-fitting mask covered most of their face. The viewing instrument in their left hand swung toward the disabled clapper.

Their right hand went for a short tube at the waist. Sio dragged the crossbar up across the service-branch opening, forcing the watcher to stop short. The tube snapped, scattering silver powder across the stone. Its bitter smell caught at his throat. Sio ducked behind the iron frame as the dust swirled through the cramped passage.

"Cover your mouth," he told Bren, pulling his collar over his nose.

The watcher raised the viewing instrument. Sio could see the lens tracking the powder settling around his boots. Moving through it would mark every step. He pushed the crossbar along the floor instead. The iron scraped loudly against the wall; the watcher followed the sound, taking one step toward the junction with the tube raised again.

Sio opened a portal from behind the frame, placing its exit in the short space behind the watcher’s shoulder. He couldn’t see the whole corridor from his crouch, only the bend and a patch of wall, but that was enough. His arm reached through, seized the back of the coat and pulled the watcher sideways into the iron frame. The tube fired against the ceiling. Silver dust burst over the junction.

He withdrew his arm and closed the openings, then kicked the tube away as the watcher stumbled. Bren caught it before it could slide into the stream. Sio got the crossbar under both of the watcher’s forearms and pressed them against the frame. The stranger struggled, boots skidding on wet stone, but there was no room to turn.

"Take the cord from the alarm," Sio told Bren. "Tie the wrists. Keep the knot where I can see it."

Bren looped the cord around the watcher’s hands, checking the binding despite the tremor in his own fingers. Sio held the bar in place until Bren was done. Only then did he step back, take the powder tube and check the coat for another weapon. He found a spare cord and a narrow metal pick, which he put beside the confiscated tube, out of reach.

The watcher’s mask had shifted, showing a bruised cheek and blood beneath one nostril. No insignia marked the coat. Their gaze darted to the spot where Sio’s portal had vanished.

"Who hired you?" Sio asked, keeping a hand on the bound wrists.

"You’ve already shown us too much."

Sio could feel powder settling on his sleeves. "Then tell me what you were hoping to see. Why take Bren’s cuff? Why watch a road you weren’t using?"

The watcher glanced at the leather folio tucked beneath the observation brace. Bren noticed it too. At Sio’s nod, he pried the viewing instrument from the watcher’s fingers, laid it facedown and retrieved the folio.

"We were told to count who answered," the watcher said. "The escaped prisoners drew them out. I don’t know who ordered it."

Inside the folio were rough maps of the washout, supply track and exposed maintenance ledge. The hidden entrance to Safe Node Seven was absent. Beside the sketches, Sio found short descriptions written in narrow, careful lettering.

RED SCARF. IRON BAR.

BEASTKIN FEMALE. INJURED HAND.

PORTAL USER. SMALL COMPANION.

Sio stared at the last entry. The lens had been aimed at the fallen tree, where he had opened a portal to move Eda. Someone had watched the rescue even while he thought the roots screened him from view. Gumm pressed against his neck, warm beneath the collar. Whoever compiled this list knew what he looked like, and had noticed something far smaller than a face.

A knock traveled through the pipes above them. Three short impacts, then a longer one. Sio couldn’t read the signal, but Angle had reached the warning system, and somebody was using it.

The watcher listened, then lowered their head. Sio closed the folio. "We’re leaving this tunnel. You’re coming with us. And you’re not going anywhere near the shelter."

He studied the silver dust spread across the junction. Leading a bound prisoner through it would give another observer a clear trail. Bren pointed out a dry stone lip above the stream, just wide enough to take one careful step at a time. They used it to reach the entrance, with Bren behind the watcher and Sio following with the confiscated tube and lens. No one crossed the fresh powder. Sio checked the stone behind them before they rounded the last corner; water was already washing silver grains toward the lower channel. That still left the upper scout unaccounted for.

Rhea met them beneath the overhang. Her uninjured hand lifted toward the crossbar before she recognized the man behind Sio. Kell was already standing, calling Bren’s name. Eda tried to rise from her folded coat and cried out when her swollen knee moved.

"Don’t," Bren told her, kneeling at her side. "I’m here." His hand hovered over her injured leg before he took the hand she offered instead. She gripped his sleeve, checking his face and bruised wrists as though each mark needed to be accounted for.

Kell bent beside them, speaking too quickly for Sio to catch every word. He kept touching Bren’s shoulder, then pulling back to give Eda room. Sio let them speak while Rhea took charge of the bound watcher, positioning them against a rock where they couldn’t see the maintenance route.

Sio handed her the folio. "They used the prisoners as bait. They were recording who came to help, and they’ve described all three of us."

Rhea opened the pages with her good hand. Her eyes stopped on the line about her injured palm, then moved to the empty space beyond the map’s last marked ledge.

"They haven’t found the entrance."

"Not yet." Sio looked toward the ridge where the square-heeled scout had escaped. Somewhere above them, that second watcher still had the other half of the operation. Safe Node Seven’s entrance was hidden, but the watchers had found something nearly as useful: the people who knew how to reach it.