"We are going to the central rock."
The old man's wheelchair moved through the dark cave at a steady pace, the wheels finding the uneven ground with an ease that suggested either exceptional engineering or sothing else entirely. His eyes moved constantly, tracking the space ahead with a depth of focus that didn't match the limited range of what was visible in the dark.
He was seeing further than the others could.
Nobody comnted on it.
The operation had a shape. In and out. No unnecessary engagent, no drawn-out fights, no announcents of presence. They were thieves tonight, not slayers, and the distinction mattered. Every extra second spent in this mountain was a second sothing could go wrong.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Guilliman had sent the rats ahead.
Several of them, slipping into the dark before the group had moved twenty ters into the cave system. They spread outward through the tunnels in different directions, quick and quiet, mapping the space as they moved. Safe passages. Blocked routes. Where movent was concentrated and where it wasn't.
The information fed back to him in a steady trickle as they walked.
For a figure like Celestial Shadow, Guilliman was willing to put his cards on the table. Not all of them. But enough to be visible. There were things he needed to know, questions that sat at the back of everything he had been doing since the nightmare desert, and the list of people in existence who might actually have the answers was very short.
This old man was almost certainly on it.
Showing competence was the first step toward being taken seriously. Being taken seriously was the first step toward a real conversation.
"That's quite a handy aspect."
The comnt ca from the side, sliding in between the sounds of the siege echoing through the rock from outside. The noise outside was constant, a low percussion of impacts and vibrations that filtered down through the cave walls and made the interior feel like it was breathing.
The man who spoke was positioned just off Guilliman's shoulder. Casual. Almost friendly, if you didn't hear what was underneath it.
He wasn't complinting the rats.
He was pointing at them. Calling attention to what Guilliman was doing. Look at this one, performing for the old man, trying to stand out. The tone was light enough to maintain deniability but the ssage was clear to everyone in the group who was paying attention.
River Bandit didn't let it sit.
"Keep your remarks to yourself, Mash." His voice ca out flat and deliberate. "When it's your turn to smash an abomination to death with your bare hands, let us know."
Mash.
Not a code na anyone had given himself. The kind of na that accumulates when enough people need a word for what soone does to others. He had a history with new arrivals. A pattern of making things harder than they needed to be for anyone who hadn't yet earned the invisible permission to exist comfortably in spaces he considered his.
River Bandit knew him well enough to be done with him before the conversation started.
Mash said nothing back.
"A little competition never killed anyone."
The old man's voice ca in unhurried, filling the space without effort. He wasn't defending either side of it. He was acknowledging the dynamic and moving past it at the sa ti. "They are both A-ranks. Only the most useful will have opportunities to shine."
His eyes drifted to Guilliman as he finished.
Stayed there for a mont longer than the words required.
Sothing in his expression shifted. Not dramatically. A subtle tightening around the eyes. The look of a man who was trying to place sothing that didn't fit cleanly into any category he already had.
He couldn't put his hand on it yet.
But sothing was different about this one.
He turned his chair forward and kept moving.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The rats continued mapping.
Guilliman processed the returning information quietly as he walked, adjusting the ntal layout of the cave system with each new report. Dead ends flagged. Movent clusters noted. One passage running parallel to their current route had heavier beast presence, dense enough that crossing through it would invite engagent they hadn't budgeted for.
He steered the group's path slightly without making it obvious he was doing it, feeding directional suggestions through small observations rather than announcents.
Mash noticed.
Didn't say anything this ti.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
On the other side of the mountain, the sound was different.
Louder. More imdiate. Less filtered through rock.
The King Shi group had entered through the main breach and walked directly into the resistance the Red Mane Lions had organized in response to the cannon strike. Beasts had ford up in the interior corridors, layered in a way that suggested so remnant of command structure still functioning even with their leadership compromised by the war outside.
At the front of the King Shi formation, a blazing figure moved.
The S-rank.
He cleared the path the way water clears a channel, cutting through beast after beast with a efficiency that made it look like sothing other than fighting. The lions that survived his attention were the ones he allowed through deliberately, stragglers pushed backward into the reach of the younger generation behind him.
Training them in real ti.
Giving them enough contact to be useful without enough to be fatal.
The younger mbers pushed forward into the openings he created, working the stragglers with the focused energy of people who understood that every gene point here was a gift and the window for collecting them had a hard edge.
It was controlled chaos.
Loud and bright and moving fast.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Neither group knew where the other was.
The mountain was large enough and the two entry points far enough apart that the separate operations had no direct awareness of each other. Different corridors. Different depths. Different sounds bouncing off different walls.
Guilliman's group moved through the quiet back sections, the rats clearing the way, the old man's wheelchair steady on the uneven ground.
Victoria's group pushed through the lit and burning front sections, the S-rank at the head, the younger generation learning what they could in the gaps he left behind.
The distance between them was shrinking.
One hundred ters.
Neither of them felt it.
The cave absorbed sound and confused direction and hid distances behind curves in the rock that made fifty ters feel like five hundred. Guilliman's rats were mapping efficiently but the volu of tunnel was significant and the priority had been placed on the route ahead, toward the central rock, not on lateral awareness.
Victoria's eyes were forward, tracking the fight, tracking her team, tracking the positions of the younger Kong Shi mbers she was responsible for keeping alive.
Neither of them was looking sideways.
One hundred ters.
The mountain moved around both of them, indifferent.
The siege outside continued its low constant percussion through the walls.
And sowhere deeper in the rock, past both groups and past the corridors they were currently moving through, the central rock sat waiting in the dark, holding whatever it was that Celestial Shadow had co all this way to take.
The old man's eyes stayed fixed ahead.
Still seeing further than the rest of them.
Still not saying everything he knew.
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