Elina Cross's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Elina crouched by the driver's door and read the ground. Two sets of boot prints led out of the wash. Then a third mark joined them — a long smear where something heavy had been dragged. She followed it a few steps and found more: parallel drag lines cut into the dry crust, and a set of narrow tire ruts beside them. The tracks bent south through the rocks. "Cart," Harlen said behind her. "They took them." "Both of them. Maybe the girl too." She stood. "South goes to the old mine." He checked the rig on his mouth and nodded. She lifted him again and they went low over the rocks, wings tilted to keep her shadow off the open ground. She set them down on a ridge above the mine. The sign was still there, half fallen, the paint sunburned off. Below, the pit had been widened. A ramp cut into the wall. Carts on rails moved up and down it, pushed by thin figures in dirt-caked clothes. Humans. Working. Elina flattened against the stone and pulled Harlen down with her. They lay there and watched. She counted Vael scouts first. Six at the ramp. Four more at a line of cages built from wood and black metal, the joints glowing a cold blue. Inside the nearest cage she counted eleven people sitting on the ground. She did not see Mendez. She did not see Riley. She did not see Emmy. "Not yet," she whispered. "They're not here," Harlen said. "They're not in that cage. There are three more." A larger Vael came up the ramp. It stood a head above the scouts, purple plates thick across its shoulders, one antenna slow in the still air. A tail dragged behind it and left a clean line in the dust. The scouts turned toward it as it passed. One bowed its head. The big one stopped at the cages and pointed with a clawed hand. Two scouts opened a door and pulled a woman out by the arm. She did not fight. They walked her to the ramp. "Commander," Harlen said. Quiet. "That's the one giving orders." Elina watched the tail cut its line through the dust and did not answer. They stayed until the sun moved a hand's width. She counted guards, shift changes, the gap between patrols along the rim. She marked where the cages sat and where the ramp mouth opened. She fixed the big one's path in her head. "They bring the workers up at dusk," Harlen said. "We'll see the rest of the cages then." "We wait." She eased back from the edge and folded her wings tight against her spine. Mendez and Riley were alive, or they were in one of the cages she hadn't seen yet. Either way, she knew where to come back to. That was more than she had at dawn.