The Will to Live Is My Strongest Skill

The morning in the camp smelled of smoke and stagnant cold. Iron sat in his chair, leaning his shoulder against the main support post of the tent. A wide pine board, pried from some crate, rested across his knees.

​The lines were turning out crooked. The piece of charcoal crumbled continuously, leaving thick, uneven streaks. Iron was trying to sketch a schematic for a simple pulley system, but his fingers refused to cooperate.

​"Too dark," Elyria squeaked, hovering directly over the board.

​She flared brighter, washing the wood in a deathly green light. The shadows from the charcoal crumbs lengthened, turning the blueprint into a jumble of gray smudges.

​"Turn down the light," Iron muttered hoarsely. "It's blinding."

​Elyria dimmed with a pout but didn't fly away. Noah stepped into the tent, tossing a bundle of damp branches near the entrance. His jacket was soaked through from the morning mist.

​"Darwin is hunting for cables in the factory ruins," Noah said, stepping closer to inspect the scribbles on the board. "What's this?"

​"A hoist. To haul out heavy beams without breaking our backs," Iron said, setting the charcoal aside and rubbing the bridge of his nose with a soot-stained hand. "Noah, it just occurred to me... Cassian. Has anyone seen him since the blast?"

​Noah wiped his hands on his trousers and gave a solemn shake of his head.

​"Forget it. The basement of that warehouse is buried under ten meters of concrete. The vault collapsed first, even before the fires reached the residential quarters."

​"So he's still in there?" Iron clarified.

​"If he wasn't crushed immediately, he suffocated when the dust choked the ventilation," Noah shrugged, his voice entirely flat. "Nobody's going to look for him. We don't have enough shovels for the living, let alone digging up a corpse. One less problem to worry about."

​"Right," Iron said, picking up the charcoal once more.

​He turned back to the board, forcing his hand to trace a straight line. Outside the tent, someone was shouting angrily over spilled porridge.

​A heavy, wet cough rattled from the adjoining cot. Wayland, who had been lying with his eyes closed the entire time, slowly turned his head. His pale face glistened with cold sweat, and the bandages on his chest were soaked with a yellowish discharge.

​Iron set down the charcoal.

​"Count," Iron called hoarsely, turning his chair. "How did you survive the fight against Elias? Even if you made it through that, the blast should have wiped you out."

​Wayland grimaced, inhaling carefully so as not to agitate his broken ribs.

​"He spared me," the Count replied dryly, staring straight ahead. "Sounds pathetic, I know."

​"What do you mean?" Iron frowned. "He wasn't there for you?"

​"He had a different objective." Wayland swallowed thick saliva. "What exactly it was, I have no idea."

​The Count closed his eyes.

​"Afterward, I crawled. Using only my arms, clawing my fingers through the broken brick. I made it out to the old warehouses on the outskirts, far away from that place. I wedged myself under some concrete slab and stayed there until Albert found me."

​"I see."

​He picked up the crumbling charcoal once more. His hand was stiff from picking it up over and over, but he forced himself to trace another thick, crooked line on the board.

​"Noah, tell Darwin to hurry up," he muttered without looking up from the drawing.

​The tent flap lifted, letting in a damp draft. Walter walked in. He silently approached Iron's chair and stared down at the charcoal-scrawled board.

​"What's this?" Walter asked hoarsely.

​Iron wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, smearing soot across his pale face.

​"This is the intersection by the former town hall," he said, jabbing a dirty finger at a crooked square on the board. "The load-bearing floor beam there is resting on a piece of bent rebar. If we knock it loose, the entire facade will come crashing down."

​Walter narrowed his eyes, peering into the tangled mess of black lines.

​"You want to trigger a collapse? Who's going to knock out the beam?"

​Iron drew an uneven line from the "town hall" to the edge of the board. "Darwin will string a steel cable at horse-knee height. The end of the cable is secured to a retaining pin. A rider catches the wire, the pin flies out. Three tons of concrete and rusted iron drop right on their heads."

​The captain shifted his heavy gaze from the drawing to Iron.

​"And if they go on foot?"

​"Then they fall through right here," Iron said, pointing to another section of the board. "The basements of the merchant quarter have subsided. The ceilings there are thin. We'll blanket them in ash and construction debris to make it look like a solid road. Under the weight of an armored man, the floor will give way. Noah can line the bottom with sharpened rebar."

​Elyria, perched on the backrest of the chair, shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. Walter slowly scratched his chin.

​"Traps, pits, falling rocks... Dirty work."

​"Exactly," Iron said, raising a hollow gaze to him. "We use rat tactics."

​The captain nodded.

​"Darwin brought back a spool of cable from the factory," he said, turning toward the exit. "Give me the schematic. I'll get the boys digging before the ground completely freezes over."

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