Burke stopped to light his torch after just a few steps; what little daylight had fallen into the entrance didn't reach beyond the gates. Virdon also stopped to wait for him, impatience radiating through his silence.

Burke didn't really mind. If this had been a fallout shelter, their little trip would end at the first blast door, and then he'd force Al to abort this crazy mission. He was vaguely aware that forcing Virdon would probably involve brute force, but that was a problem he'd tackle when they reached that point. For now, he'd indulge his commander's obsession - maybe the man would see sense when they literally hit a wall.

The torchlight revealed an unremarkable tunnel that lead downwards at a slight, but discernible angle, its walls a dull grey that looked like ordinary concrete, but pretty likely wasn't. Beyond the flickering halo of their torches, the tunnel was pitch black and silent.

Burke suddenly understood Zana. He preferred the sky, too.

"What now?" He kept his voice low, just in case.

Virdon hesitated, his gaze brushing over the naked walls and the equally naked floor. No rubble anywhere, Burke realized, following his gaze. That was what had rubbed him the wrong way since they had entered the city - no weeds, no rubble, everything was licked clean like a gnawed-off bone. Part of it was due to the strange, non-decaying material, which just didn't produce any rubble, but it also indicated that nothing lived in these ruins, which was... strange. Usually, life didn't lose any time before it crept back through every crevice, after civilization had left.

"We go down," Virdon murmured back in an equally low voice. "If something has outlasted the centuries, it'll be in some sort of archive in the basement."

"Terrific," Burke muttered, trying to hide his unease. Hell, he wasn't some little kid, scaring himself with his own thoughts! "Here. Just in case..." He handed Virdon the knife Galen had given him.

Virdon stared at it with a frown. "This city is empty."

"Yeah, that's why we're whispering," Burke hissed. "Admit it, your spider sense is tingling like crazy. I know mine is, it's like the spiders hung themselves on the fucking bell wire. Guess they don't want to be around when the shit hits the fan."

Virdon just huffed, but he took the knife.

They moved forward, keeping as silent as possible - because yeah, nobody home, Burke thought sarcastically. Their tiptoeing wouldn't make any difference, anyway; the light from their torches would announce their presence to whatever lurked in the darkness, long before they'd have reached it.

His heartbeat picked up when he suddenly became aware that he could see the floor, and the edge where the floor met the walls, way beyond the edge of the torch's halo. He blinked, and lowered the flame to the floor. He could see down the corridor, which was suddenly no longer black; its contours were dimly visible in a pale, gray light...

"Pete..."

Virdon was staring at the ceiling. Neon lights were glowing so faintly that they didn't really throw a halo, or cast shadows from their bodies. Their light was too faint to really illuminate anything, just outlining the contours of the corridor. Like a row of landing lights.

Burke's neck was tingling.

"Al. Let's go back," he whispered. "You can't tell me that someone left the light on a thousand years ago, and it's still burning."

Virdon was still staring at the lights as if hypnotized. Finally, Burke saw his shoulders rise as he took a deep breath. "Don't be silly, Pete," he whispered back. "Not even a solar collector would still work after all this time. This can mean only one thing... there are people here, somewhere. They might even have kept records of what had happened to this place."

"I don't wanna sound negative, Al," Burke whispered, more urgently, as Virdon began to move again, creeping farther down the corridor, "but considering our track record with this kind of ruins, I'm not too optimistic about these people. I mean, why didn't they come out to say hi, and give us a copy of the city records? Something's not right, Al, don't tell me you don't feel it!"

Virdon didn't acknowledge him; Burke saw his shoulders tense as he kept creeping along the wall, cautious, but relentless.

You obsessed, suicidal cowboy!

Burke wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and unsheathed his own knife. Ahead of him, Virdon was setting his crutch on the floor without a sound, easing his other foot forward while supporting himself against the wall with the hand that was holding Galen's boot knife.

I could kick the crutch out from under him, knock him out, and haul his stubborn ass out of here before whatever lives in the basement wakes up.

The temptation was growing with each silent step. They only had their knives for self-defense, and Burke doubted that it would make a difference for Virdon, who still struggled with his lame leg, and would probably be crippled for the rest of his life, even if Galen had assured him that damaged nerves just needed a long time to heal.

Time he won't have if he gets us all killed here.

"Al."

Virdon didn't show any sign that he had heard him. Well, he had kept his voice low. No way to tell how far this corridor would transport his voice. Burke caught up with Virdon and grabbed his arm. "Al, let's abort. C'mon, it's far more probable that whoever lives down there is unfriendly. And we're not equipped to defend ourselves. Not with just these knives."

Virdon jerked his arm away. "I can't stop now, Pete," he whispered. "Not when we're so close. These ruins are far better preserved than Atlanta. I just... I know I'll find something here."

"Yeah, I'm absolutely sure we'll find something here," Burke hissed. "Something that'll kill us! You're endangering all our lives with your stu... with this obsession! We have a pregnant woman waiting upstairs, in case you've forgotten!"

Virdon stumbled on for a few more steps before he came to a halt. Burke stayed where he was, giving him space, giving him the opportunity to come to his senses. To make a rational decision.

"Pete..." Virdon's voice sounded thoughtful.

"Yeah?"

"C'mere."

Burke frowned and closed the distance to see what Virdon was staring at. He had a bad feeling about- "Holy shit."

The light of Virdon's torch fell on the lean heaps of four human skeletons. At least Burke assumed that it had been four people, because he counted only four skulls. But the bones were scattered over the whole corridor, as if animals had torn them apart - hopefully post mortem. Burke rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and threw a suspicious look down the corridor. "So," he growled. "Maybe those gentlemen can convince you that coming here was a bad idea?"

Virdon crouched down and began to tug at the scraps of fabric that were still clinging to the ribcage of the nearest corpse. "No uniforms," he murmured, "of course it's hard to tell after all this time, but it looks as if they'd been civilians... Can you hold that?" He handed Burke his torch and began to nestle at a dark bundle that was somehow tied to the corpse.

With a last glance down the corridor, Burke knelt down and picked up the skull. "No bullet hole," he murmured, and scanned the floor, even brushed some bones aside. "And no shells anywhere. Don't know how these guys died, but they weren't shot, 's far as I can see."

"But they also had no chance to use these," Virdon murmured and pulled something out of the rotting backpack.

A handgrenade. Burke let out a voiceless whistle. "Now why would someone go down there with a dozen of these babies? Gimme your thoughts on this, Al, I really think I need an analysis here."

They weren't of a type he knew, but this whole city was probably from their future, going just by the architecture and the non-corroding materials they had found, so of course their weaponry had to be more developed, too. But they were still recognizable enough that he was confident he knew how to use them.

Virdon was silent for a moment. Then he looked up. "These backpacks are too decayed to hold them - how many do you think you can carry?"

Burke gaped at him. "Wha- you're not still goin' down there?"

Virdon began to stuff the grenades into the pockets of his vest. "Sure I am. You said that we were insufficiently armed, with just our knives." He nodded towards the backpack. "Now we aren't."

"In case you hadn't noticed, their grenades didn't do shit for them," Burke snapped. "They still died, they had no chance to use them on whatever got them in here! They should've taken whatever they'd used to blast open the entrance with them, only I got the feeling they were ambushed, which means they were ambushed in a fucking corridor where the attackers couldn't hide, so what does that tell you about these attackers?"

He stabbed a finger at the heap of bones at their feet. "They didn't have a chance, and we won't have a chance, either! This is madness, Al, madness!"

They stared at each other in the flickering yellow light of their torches; Virdon's eyes were stony, the eyes of a man who had set himself on a track that he was now doomed to follow to the end.

"You can turn back any time, Pete," he said finally. "I'm not forcing you to come. But I, I can't. I can't turn my back on the possibility that down there... down there could be my only chance to send a signal home."

"It's much more likely that whatever's down there is gonna kill you."

Virdon shrugged. "That's a chance I'm willing to take." He turned and limped away, deeper into the darkness.

Burke cursed and quickly snatched up some grenades. He stuffed his pockets just like Virdon had, and their collective weight was threatening to drag his pants down with every step. He could only hope that the waistband would hold.

He had to give it to Al, this raid had been productive. Being properly armed was a nice feeling, for a change. Now if they could just go back and return with their backpacks for a second run, they'd stand a good chance to reach the mountains without having to worry about Urko. Hell, he almost wished for the black menace to show his ugly face...

With a sigh, Burke returned to reality. Chances were that they'd stumble over some mutated shit, and waste their precious grenades on it.

If they got a chance to use them at all.

Zana watched as Galen removed the saddlebags from Tala's and Ahpahchee's backs, and began to rub down the horses, then checked their legs and hooves, and began to repack their belongings. His movements were stiff and jerky, and he stopped every few moments to peer up and down the street.

It made her increasingly nervous.

"What did Peet tell you when he came to get the torches?" she finally asked.

Galen didn't answer immediately; he fastened the repacked saddlebags on Tala's back and tugged at them to test their balance. "That he'll try to herd Alan back to us as quickly as possible," he said finally. He straightened and surveyed the street again. "I'll be happy when these ruins are far behind us," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

"Is something wrong?" There had to be something wrong. Galen wasn't given to irrational fears. Zana felt slightly dizzy as her heart began to pound the old, terrifying drumbeat against her breastbone. Blood was rushing in her ears, pulsating in her fingertips.

Galen didn't look at her as he handed her the horses' ropes. "No, don't worry, I'm just... I just want to be ready to leave when they come back."

He jogged down the ramp and through the gate that Alan and Peet had vanished into, and for a heart-stopping moment, Zana thought he'd go after them, and leave her to wait outside all by herself. The knee-melting relief she felt when he returned a moment later turned to alarm when she saw the crooked metal rod he was carrying.

"Atiba Galen, you tell me what is going on here right now!" Because something was going on, and not knowing was frightening her more than anything he could tell her. Even the demons from the books of her childhood wouldn't frighten her as much as this cold, waiting silence all around her, and Galen's tension, his penetrating stares into the shadows and edges of this alien place.

"It's just a precaution," Galen said nervously, "who knows what kind of disfigured beasts roam these ruins? And I only have five bullets left, Peet told me that parts of the gate had been ripped out, and that I could get this," he waved the rod, "as a, a, backup weapon..."

Something clinked.

Galen's head whipped around. His knuckles went white around the rod.

Zana's heart was hammering against her ribs in a rapid, desperate rhythm. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run!

"You've heard that before? You heard that before!" she hissed. "What is that?"

She could see Galen's shoulders rise and fall rapidly. He was gripping the rod and the gun as if he couldn't decide which one to use first. "I don't know," he murmured, "but it's too furtive to be friendly."

Oh Alan, where are you? Zana threw a hasty glance towards the black maw of the gate behind her; but no sound came from it. The humans were probably too deep inside the tunnel to notice what was going on outside.

"We... we're so exposed here," she said with a trembling voice. "Let's lead the horses down the ramp, and behind the gates. We can defend ourselves better..."

"We'll just get trapped in there," Galen muttered, but he grabbed the ropes from her, and dragged the horses towards the gate. The animals moved as stiffly as him, jerking up their heads, their ears pressed flat to their heads.

They had heard it, too. It hadn't been her imagination, Galen's imagination. Zana hastily followed them, feeling irrationally reassured by the walls rising up to her sides - like a rabbit ducking into a furrow, out of sight of predators.

She saw Galen cast a worried glance at the sky that had overcast again and turned into gunmetal, promising another storm. The white walls enclosing the ramp glowed weakly in the blueish light, and the wind had picked up and was now whispering all around them, strumming the sharp edges and metal spires of the ruins into a moaning choir that concealed the soft sounds of their unknown enemies. Now it was impossible to tell from which direction they were stalking them, and the weakening light did the rest. They wouldn't be able to tell a flapping piece of scrap from a darting shadow of an attacker anymore.

"Go inside," Galen ground out. "With the horses. I can't see from where they'll be coming." He handed her the ropes, and Zana took them with shaking hands.

"I want your knife," she said. Galen blinked at her.

"A knife won't do you much good," he pointed out.

"It's better than nothing. You're not going to let me stand here barehanded, what if there are too many of them to fight them all on your own?"

He stared at her for a moment, then handed her his second knife without a word.

She took it, half expecting that it would soothe her; she had seen Peet touch the hilt of his knife when he was stressed, and it always seemed to calm him down. But whatever magic Peet's knife and the gun were working on him, was lost to her. The knife was heavy, surprisingly heavy for something so sleek, and warm from Galen's body heat, and both the weight and the heat made it feel real, but she felt as cold and dreamlike as before, caught in a gray nightmare that she couldn't shake off.

They were on the other side of the gate now, the horses even more spooked than before - like Zana, they didn't like being underground, even if it was just at the very edge. Or maybe they didn't like the darkness engulfing them here, pressing against them from behind. Zana threw a hasty glance over her shoulder. The tunnel was pitch black and silent... but it seemed to her that the silence was breathing, and watching.

She could never have walked into it. How the humans had done it, she had no idea. Peet hadn't looked very happy, at least.

"Whatever it is, it must come through these gates if it wants to get to us," Galen said. His nose twitched as he stared at the patch of blueish light before them. To Zana, it looked too big, too open, the doors twisted shards of metal that couldn't be closed anymore. On the other hand, the thought of barricading themselves inside the gate choked her breath. It would be like being buried alive.

"I may only have five bullets left," Galen murmured as to himself, "but the first five attackers will meet their death exactly where I decide they will.

"Not bad for a pen-nibbler."

Zana lowered her gaze to the knife in her hand. And what about the sixth attacker? Or the sixtieth?

A knife wouldn't be enough. Neither would be an iron rod.

With a sniff, Zana tucked the knife under her belt and dug into Tala's saddlebags for the ropes to hobble her and Ahpahchee. They were not going to die here, they would fight like mandrills, if necessary, and they'd need the horses to outrun whatever was sneaking up to them. Alan and Peet would turn around and race to help them - she faltered for a moment; Alan wouldn't be able to race, no matter how dire the need - anyway, they would rejoin them as quickly as possible, and then they would escape together, and she was making sure that the horses didn't bolt and leave them behind in the meantime. And it was better than standing here and fretting, like Galen was.

She slung the ropes around the horses' forelegs like Alan had shown her. During his recovery, after Zana had sat with him in the wagon day after day in the brooding heat, patiently tending to his wound, teaching him their script, teaching him - and Peet - keppa and tiska, to pass the time, Alan had struggled to find something he could teach her in return. He had taught her - and Peet, who had for some reason latched onto their gelding - how to manage the horses; among other things, how to keep them from wandering off during their nightly grazing.

If only he'd see reason and break off his exploration, she thought feverishly, so they could leave this nightmarish, alien tomb!

It was getting even darker. The rain would begin to pour down any moment now.

And then she heard Galen growl, a deep, primitive sound that she hadn't thought him even capable of, cultured, soft-spoken Galen...

Zana spun around and stared up the ramp.

A low shadow rushed down the ramp and towards the gate, and Galen dropped the metal rod and fired. The gunshot echoed from the naked walls and joined with the next shot, and the next, and the next, and the next, as Galen took out another shadow, and another, and another, but still more were pouring over the edge and down the ramp, like a black flood.

And then the magazine was empty, and they were still coming, and coming, and Zana ripped the knife from her belt and braced herself against the creatures whose contours seemed to dissolve into the blue-black morning. Galen had dropped the gun and exchanged it for the rod and moved between her and the twisting, snarling bodies, in a doomed attempt to shield her from their mindless fury. Behind her, the horses were yelling and trying to run past her. Zana hung onto the ropes, trying to stop their momentum; it helped that she had hobbled them a moment earlier. They were kicking at the beasts that were swarming them, trampling some of the bodies.

One of the things jumped at her and for a moment, Zana saw nothing but rows and rows of teeth, thin and sharp like needles.

Then its head was gone, chucked away by Galen's iron rod in an explosion of bone and blood. Zana stared at him, and he froze for a moment, caught in her gaze. His lips were peeled back into a deadly grin, eyes savage and uncomprehending.

Zana gripped her knife harder and felt her lips curl in response.