Chapter 310: Rescue From the Ruins

Rod stood beneath the starting shelter and read the board while the official checked their roster.

Eight survivors. Six required. Two hours. Survivors counted only after reception at the shelter. Any competitor could withdraw by asking an official or using the marked exit. Death ended that competitor’s attempt.

Beyond the closed gate, a narrow street ran between damaged houses. Rod could see the remains of a wagon in the square and something moving behind its far wheel. A faint voice called from a window, then stopped. The sound made the course feel less like a model Max had prepared for them.

Nessa inspected the supplied water and carrying boards. They could use them, leave them, or bring them back. Dain tested the handles while Dirk climbed onto a bench to study the visible roofs. Lana checked the lane beside the shelter. Everyone had an assigned first task, but the view beyond the gate already suggested changes.

The official asked whether they were ready.

Rod looked around the group. Four nods answered him.

The gate opened and the clock began.

Dirk moved ahead only as far as the first doorway. From there he could see the square without exposing himself to the whole street. Rod and Dain followed, leaving Lana and Nessa near the closest voice. The window belonged to a room whose door had jammed beneath fallen plaster. Lana freed the latch with a small spell, pushed inward, and found a woman holding a bloody cloth against her arm.

"Can you walk?" Nessa asked.

"Yes. My brother went to find another way out."

Nessa checked the wound before accepting the answer. The woman had lost blood and was frightened, but she could move with support. She remembered her brother going toward the old bakery. She also knew that a man had dragged someone into the cellar opposite the square.

Lana repeated the locations to Rod. They had their first map of people, more useful than the blank outlines on the supplied sheet.

The creatures came when the woman stepped into the lane.

They were lean, long-limbed things with claws that caught the broken paving. Dirk’s warning gave Dain time to set himself at the corner. Rod met the first rush beside him while Lana guided the woman back toward the shelter. The narrow lane kept the attackers from surrounding them. It also prevented Rod from ending the fight quickly with broad swings.

He struck when a creature climbed the wall to reach past Dain. Dirk took another before it landed. The rest withdrew toward the wagon, making short, sharp calls. Rod wanted to follow. Instead, he held the corner until Nessa called that the survivor had reached reception.

One out. The clock showed they had spent twelve minutes.

They entered the bakery together. Its lower room contained a broken counter, flour sacks, and tracks leading toward a rear stair. Dirk found blood on the rail. Nessa called upward, received an answer, and told the man above not to move until they could see the stair.

He had twisted his ankle falling through a damaged step. He could manage the descent with help, but the landing below him was rotten. Dain tested it with the end of a board and broke through. The man stared at the hole, then sat back against the wall.

Rod looked toward the window. "We can lower him."

Their practice paid for itself. The sling supported the man’s weight while Dain managed the line from above. Lana kept the street clear, and Nessa waited below to prevent an awkward landing. They had him down without needing to rebuild the stair. Dirk checked the next room while the others secured him.

The man called through the window about a woman across the lane. Rod told him she was safe at reception. His shoulders dropped, and he stopped resisting the order to let someone carry him.

At the shelter, the siblings found each other. Rod was already turning back when the receiving attendant confirmed the second count.

They had used twenty-six minutes.

Dirk marked the safe lowering point on the map before they left. A route that worked for one person could serve another, and he did not trust himself to recognize the same window from the far side of the square. Dain checked the line for damage and coiled it so the end would feed freely. Lana wanted to leave it secured for a second use, but the next room might need it more. They carried it with them and left the beam accessible. Rod waited through the check instead of urging everyone onward.

The cellar opposite the square offered a harder approach. The wagon had become a nest for the creatures, and several moved beneath it whenever anyone crossed the open ground. Lana could clear the wagon with a strong attack. Nessa pointed out the cellar door only a few paces beyond it.

"We don’t know who is behind that."

Rod studied the houses along the square. "Inside route."

They broke a shutter and crossed two rooms. Dirk found a passage behind a collapsed pantry, too narrow for Dain’s shield but wide enough for a person moving sideways. It emerged near the cellar without exposing them to the wagon. Rod widened one section with his axe while Lana supported a cracked lintel long enough for everyone to pass.

Two survivors waited below. One had a deep cut along his calf. The other lay on a makeshift bed, conscious but unable to sit without pain. Nessa knelt beside him while Dirk checked the cellar’s second exit. The injured man’s breathing troubled her more than the wound they could see.

"Board." She said. "Keep him level."

The route through the pantry would not accept it.

Rod returned to the square and measured the distance between the cellar and the shelter. Fighting a way out would be quick compared with taking apart two walls. He told Dain where to hold, asked Lana to keep the cellar steps clear, and let Dirk choose targets rather than filling the air with arrows at anything moving.

They drew the creatures away from the wagon and fought on ground they had selected. Rod took more of the pressure than he wanted, but Dain kept the return lane open. Lana froze the paving beneath the flankers and broke their attempt to climb over a low wall. Once the nearest attackers were down, they did not pursue the retreating ones.

Nessa brought the board out with the second survivor leaning on her shoulder. Dirk took one end. Rod took the other after wiping his hands. Dain walked behind them, shield toward the square, while Lana watched the roofs.

The board felt heavier halfway back. Rod adjusted his grip without lifting his end higher and heard Nessa approve. They reached the shelter with both survivors alive. Four received. Fifty-two minutes left.

They drank while the attendant took charge. Rod’s forearm had a shallow cut, and Dain’s shield straps needed tightening. Nessa dealt with both while Dirk marked the houses they had searched. There was no point entering them again simply because the street looked different from the other direction.

The fifth survivor answered a call from behind a collapsed door. She was uninjured but trapped by rubble. Rod could have smashed the frame. Instead, he and Dain shifted the loose weight while Lana held the door steady. They freed her in minutes, and she gave them the location of a man pinned beneath a beam two houses farther on.

"Two more went north." She added. "I heard them shouting after the roof fell."

Dirk looked at the map. North meant the far end of the course.

They escorted her back and went for the trapped man. His leg lay beneath the beam at an angle Nessa did not like. She needed the weight lifted, not rolled. Dain and Rod braced themselves while Lana cleared loose masonry. Dirk watched the corridor and warned them when claws sounded on the far side of the wall.

The beam rose. Nessa and Lana moved the man onto the sling. Dain set the timber down before turning toward the approaching creatures. Rod could not reach his axe without dropping his end of the sling, so Dirk covered the first rush. They withdrew through the room together, leaving Dain room to follow.

At reception, the official called the sixth count.

They had passed.

Rod looked at the clock. Twenty-four minutes remained. The north houses stood beyond the square, and the creatures had begun gathering there again.

"Two people." He said.

"We know a direction." Dirk replied. "Not a room."

Nessa checked the remaining water and nodded. They could try, provided they agreed when to turn. Rod set a return point with ten minutes left. Nobody would stay beyond it because they heard one more voice through a wall.

They reached the north row with nineteen minutes remaining. A call brought an answer from a roof space. Dirk climbed high enough to see a woman beside a fallen chimney. Her companion was visible through a gap below, trapped on the floor beneath. They could reach one quickly. The other needed work.

Rod took the lower room while Dain and Lana helped Dirk. Nessa examined the man through the gap and found him breathing, his arm caught beneath a beam lodged against the chimney. Shifting it carelessly could bring the remaining masonry down on both survivors.

Above them, the woman began moving across the roof on the secured line. Dain guided her weight away from the broken edge. Lana watched the chimney, ready to support it if the shift started a collapse. Rod forced a brace beneath the beam and tested the load.

It held, but the remaining gap was still too small.

"Another support." Nessa said.

Dirk called down that the woman was clear. The clock left them twelve minutes. Rod could hear the nearest creatures entering the lower street.

He looked at the brace, then at Nessa. She shook her head before he asked whether speed could make up the difference.

"We need to secure the chimney."

Rod called for retreat. He hated the answer and gave it clearly anyway.

They brought the seventh survivor through the inside route while Dain held the final corner. At the shelter, Rod set down the unused brace and watched the attendant receive her. The clock stopped for their withdrawal with six minutes left.

Nessa sat beside him on the bench and began cleaning his forearm.

"We could have got him with more time." Rod said.

"Yes."

Dirk laid the course map beside the brace. Rod studied the long detour around the pantry, then drew a line through the wall they might have opened before committing to the street.

"Next practice, bring the board." He said.

Nessa pulled the dressing tight enough to make him stop moving his arm.