"Move, keep your boots light," Zoya hissed, her grip tightening on the strap of her bag as the freezing rain began to slash sideways across the open expanse of the siltlands.Ariful stumbled, his shoulder clipping the corrugated steel siding of an overturned cargo container before he caught his balance. "I'm moving. You don't need to remind me every three paces.""I do need to remind you, because if you pass out in this mud, I am not carrying you," Zoya shot back, her tone clipped, though she instinctively slowed her stride to match his ragged, wheezing gait. "Toby, keep your eyes on the ground ahead. If you see anything resembling a patrol trip-wire or a discarded alarm rig, signal me with a closed fist. Do you understand?""I understand," Toby whispered back, his teeth chattering so hard the syllables clipped together. He was shivering violently, his thin jacket soaked through from hours of trudging through the freezing drizzle. He clutched his bruised ribs with one hand, his finger

"If my lungs give out before these rails end, just roll me into the ditch and keep going," Ariful wheezed, his boots scraping against the frost-covered iron. Every step felt like driving a rusted nail into the base of his spine."Stop talking about the ditch," Zoya snapped without turning around, her silhouette cutting a sharp, rigid line against the pale, freezing dawn. "You’re not dying in a drainage ditch in the Grey Zone, Ariful. Not after I hauled you halfway across the gorge just to listen to you complain about the weather.""I'm not complaining, I'm negotiating with reality," Ariful muttered, coughing weakly into his collar. He reached up to press the palm of his hand against his ribs, wincing as a sharp twinge shot through his torso. "The reality is that my boots are soaked, my chest is full of wet gravel, and these old railway ties are spaced just far enough apart to guarantee I break an ankle before noon.""Then watch where you put your feet," Zoya retorted, her pace never s

Silas lowered the hammer of the antique hunting rifle with a slow, deliberate creak that matched the grinding of his own joints, though the heavy iron barrel remained pointed squarely at Zoya’s chest. The acrid stench of pine smoke and wet wool hung heavy in the cramped lean-to, stinging eyes and catching in dry throats."Not calling the Bastion, you say?" Zoya’s voice was like grinding shards of glass, her fingers still locked within millimeters of her hidden holster. "Then who were you talking to on that military-surplus receiver wired to your stovepipe just now? We heard the crackle, Silas. We heard enough to know you weren't ordering extra sacks of turnip seed.""I was talking to the only people who run this stretch of the valley since the regional guards abandoned the lower outposts," Silas spat, stepping back half a pace into the shadows of the soot-stained timber wall. He jerked his chin toward a wooden crate used as a makeshift table, upon which sat a battered, hand-cranked tr

"Keep your heads down and your mouths shut," Zoya whispered, her voice barely carrying over the steady, miserable hiss of the freezing rain striking the canvas roof of the leaky punt. "We are not looking for a fight today. We are ghosts passing through. Understand?"Toby gripped the small, oil-stained handle of the multi-tool he had salvaged back at the fish-processing plant, his knuckles white under skin blue with cold. "I didn't say a word, Zoya. My teeth are just chattering too hard to stop.""Then bite down on your tongue," she shot back, her dark eyes darting ahead through the thickening curtain of mist and sleet toward the rusted corrugated-metal roof of the valley checkpoint.The flat-bottomed punt drifted out of the reedy maze with a soft, sliding crunch as its wooden bow scraped against the muddy embankment just fifty yards downstream from the bridge itself. Above them, strung across the crumbling asphalt of the old regional road, a makeshift barrier of oil drums filled with

"Keep moving. The door’s right there," Zoya barked, her voice cutting sharply through the howling sleet as she shoved against Toby’s back, driving the boy forward through the drift of wet, grey snow piled three feet deep against the rotting wooden foundation of the structure."I'm moving, I'm moving!" Toby gasped, his boots slipping on the frozen shale before finding purchase against the iron-shod threshold of the abandoned railway signal cabin. He slammed his shoulder against the warped doorframe, his breath pluming out in ragged, frantic gasps. "It's stuck! The damn wood is swollen shut with ice!""Move aside," Zoya ordered, stepping past him with a fierce, practiced stride. She didn't waste time trying the rusted iron latch; she drew back her booted foot and drove her heel hard against the center of the rotting oak paneling with a dull, echoing thud.The timber groaned, iron hinges shrieking in protest as old screws popped from the frost-rotted frame. With a second violent kick, th