Chapter 161: Beneath the East Road
The convoy departed Atlas Base at exactly six in the morning.
Two M939 trucks rolled through the eastern gate under a pale sky, their diesel engines rumbling across the compound while guards raised the barriers ahead of them. The first truck carried Marcus, Tomas, Rolf, twelve infantrymen, and the equipment selected for the investigation. The second followed with engineers, medical personnel, additional supplies, and enough lighting equipment to work underground if the evidence forced them in that direction.
Marcus sat near the front of the first vehicle with Lord Cedric’s map spread across his lap.
The three disappearance sites had been marked again in dark ink. The abandoned wagon lay closest to Atlas Base, approximately four hours away by road. The old mill stood another twenty kilometers south, while the stone bridge sat near the edge of Cedric’s lands. Marcus intended to examine them in that order unless the evidence suggested otherwise.
Across from him, Rolf checked the contents of his pack for the third time.
Flashlight.
Spare batteries.
Rope.
Medical kit.
Two extra magazines.
Food.
Water.
And, for reasons nobody had approved, a small metal flask.
Tomas noticed it immediately.
"No."
Rolf looked up. "You don’t even know what it contains."
"I know you."
"It could be medicine."
"It isn’t."
"It could become medicine under the right conditions."
Tomas held out his hand.
Rolf sighed and surrendered the flask.
Marcus returned his attention to the map while the soldiers around them laughed quietly. The exchange helped ease the tension, but not by much. Every person inside the truck understood that this mission had begun with twenty-seven missing civilians and almost no physical evidence. The Forest of No Return had at least provided tracks, wreckage, and survivor testimony. Greyhaven offered nothing except abandoned property and old stories about voices beneath the ground.
The landscape changed gradually as they traveled east.
The thick woodland surrounding Atlas Base gave way to rolling fields, low stone walls, and villages built along streams. Farmers paused beside plows to watch the trucks pass. Children ran toward the roadside until adults pulled them back, while horses reacted with the usual mixture of fear and resentment toward the diesel engines.
Greyhaven territory appeared peaceful.
That made the disappearances more disturbing.
This was not an isolated frontier where travelers expected danger. People lived within sight of one another. Farms shared roads. Mill workers traded with nearby villages. Guards patrolled the main crossings. Whoever had taken twenty-seven people had done so inside a populated region without creating enough noise to draw witnesses.
Marcus looked through the window at the passing farmland.
"Any new reports overnight?" he asked.
Elaina had remained at Atlas Base to manage administration and incoming contracts, but her intelligence summary had been delivered before departure. Tomas opened the copied report.
"No additional disappearances. Cedric’s guards sealed all three locations. Witnesses are waiting at the nearest village."
"Good."
Rolf leaned back against the metal wall. "No new disappearances could mean they stopped."
"Or they already took what they needed," Marcus said.
The truck became quieter after that.
They reached Cedric’s lands shortly after ten.
A mounted patrol waited beside the road beneath a blue banner bearing the Halvern family crest. The patrol captain introduced himself as Garran, a broad-shouldered man with gray beginning to show through his beard. He looked like a soldier rather than a court guard, which Marcus appreciated immediately.
Garran stared at the trucks while they slowed beside him, but he recovered quickly enough to salute.
"Commander Manfred."
"Captain Garran."
"My lord instructed us to assist without interfering."
"That is a useful instruction."
The captain almost smiled. "I thought so too."
Garran and his riders guided the convoy away from the main road toward the first site. The route narrowed after several kilometers, passing between wheat fields and scattered groves of oak. Eventually they reached a low hill where an old stone watchtower stood in ruins above the road.
Only half of the tower remained.
Its upper floors had collapsed long ago, leaving jagged stone walls wrapped in vines. Below it, the road bent around the hill before continuing toward a farming village visible in the distance. Cedric’s guards had established a perimeter around a covered wagon standing near the roadside.
Marcus stepped down from the truck and studied the area before approaching.
The wagon remained exactly where it had been discovered. Its canvas cover was intact. Two horses stood inside a temporary enclosure nearby, cared for by Cedric’s men. The road showed heavy traffic marks, though the guards had placed ropes around the immediate site to prevent further disturbance.
Garran dismounted beside him. "The wagon belonged to Edric Orren. Farmer and part-time grain merchant. He traveled with his wife, two sons, his brother, and four hired guards."
"Eight people."
"Yes."
"Who found it?"
"A shepherd the following morning. He knew the family and became concerned when the wagon sat here unattended."
Marcus looked toward the ruined tower. "Any reason they would stop?"
"None that we know. The horses were still harnessed. Grain remained inside. Their food had not been unpacked."
Tomas moved toward the wagon with two infantrymen while the engineers began photographing and marking the surrounding ground. Atlas had learned during earlier investigations that people destroyed evidence without realizing it. This time, every object would be recorded before anyone touched it.
Marcus walked around the wagon slowly.
No visible blood.
No damaged wood.
No signs of struggle.
The driver’s bench held a folded blanket and a small leather pouch containing coins. A wooden cup had fallen onto the road beside the front wheel, but that could have happened after the wagon stopped.
One of the engineers crouched near the rear wheel and examined the dirt.
"Commander."
Marcus joined him.
"What do you have?"
The engineer pointed toward several shallow marks. "Footprints. At least four people stepped down from the wagon."
"Direction?"
"That’s the problem."
The prints moved toward the edge of the road.
And stopped.
Not faded.
Not disturbed.
Stopped.
Marcus crouched beside them.
Four sets of human tracks left the wagon, crossed several meters of dirt, and ended near a patch of grass beside the hill. There were no returning prints. No continuation toward the trees. No sign that anyone had jumped or been carried.
Tomas examined the area beside him. "Same as the reports."
Marcus pressed one hand against the ground.
The soil felt firm.
Too firm to hide a trapdoor without visible seams.
"Clear the grass carefully."
Two engineers began cutting and lifting sections of vegetation without tearing the underlying soil. Nothing appeared beneath the first layer except packed earth and small stones. They expanded the search outward while Marcus studied the angle between the wagon, the footprints, and the ruined tower.
Rolf looked up at the broken structure. "Maybe they went inside."
"Cedric’s guards searched it," Garran said.
"Cedric’s guards don’t have our engineers."
Garran accepted the comment without offense.
The team divided into two groups.
Tomas remained at the wagon while Marcus, Rolf, three infantrymen, and the engineers climbed the hill toward the watchtower. The structure had once guarded the road below, but time had stripped it of everything useful. The roof was gone. One wall had collapsed inward. Weathered arrow slits overlooked the fields, and broken stairs ended beneath a pile of rubble.
Marcus stepped through the open entrance.
The interior smelled of damp stone, old leaves, and animal droppings. Light entered through the missing roof, revealing weeds growing between floor slabs. Cedric’s men had already searched the main chamber, but their boot marks showed they had focused on obvious spaces.
Rolf walked toward the rear wall and knocked against the stone.
Solid.
He moved several steps and tried again.
Still solid.
The engineers began using handheld detectors from the system inventory. The equipment was not advanced enough to produce perfect underground maps, but it could identify changes in density, hidden cavities, and metal beneath shallow surfaces.
The first sweep found nothing unusual.
The second produced a faint reading near the collapsed stairway.
The engineer repeated it twice before calling Marcus over.
"There’s a void beneath this section."
"How large?"
"Hard to say. At least three meters across. Possibly deeper."
Garran frowned. "The old cellars."
Marcus looked toward him. "You knew about them?"
"Stories only. The tower was supposed to have storage rooms below, but the entrance collapsed generations ago."
Marcus examined the rubble. Large stones covered the base of the stairway, but their arrangement looked wrong. Natural collapse created disorder. These rocks had been placed tightly enough to seal the passage.
"Someone blocked it intentionally," he said.
The engineers agreed.
Clearing the entrance took nearly an hour.
Atlas soldiers formed a line and moved smaller stones by hand while the engineers used compact hydraulic equipment on the larger pieces. Cedric’s guards watched from outside, visibly impressed by machinery that lifted rocks several men would have struggled to move.
As the last large slab shifted aside, cold air flowed from the darkness below.
Not stale air.
Moving air.
That mattered.
The passage connected to something.
Marcus stood at the top of the exposed stairs while an infantryman lowered a light. The beam revealed stone steps descending into a narrow corridor. Dust covered most surfaces, but not all of them. Several marks disturbed the floor near the bottom.
Recent marks.
Tomas arrived from the wagon just as the passage became visible.
"You found it."
"Something."
Marcus looked toward the road below. "Anything new at the wagon?"
"The footprints line up with this side of the hill. No visible trail between them, but the distance is short."
Rolf stared down the stairs. "So they walked toward the hill and vanished into a secret entrance nobody could see."
"Possibly."
"How?"
That remained the question.
The exposed stairway had been buried when the disappearances occurred. If the victims entered underground, they had used another access point.
Marcus activated his flashlight.
"We find out where this leads."
The first underground team consisted of Marcus, Tomas, Rolf, four infantrymen, and two engineers. The remaining troops secured the surface while medical personnel prepared a temporary station near the trucks. Garran wanted to accompany them, but Marcus refused.
"If we need local knowledge, we call you."
The captain did not like it, but he accepted the order.
The team descended carefully.
The air grew colder with each step. The stone walls had been cut with simple tools, their surfaces rough but stable. Moisture gathered along cracks, and thin roots pushed through the ceiling in several places. The corridor extended downward for approximately twenty meters before opening into a rectangular chamber.
Old wooden shelves lined the walls.
Most had collapsed.
Broken barrels lay near one corner.
The room looked like an abandoned storage cellar, exactly as the stories suggested.
The engineers swept the floor.
No traps.
No immediate danger.
Marcus moved toward the far wall, where another passage disappeared into darkness. Unlike the storage room, this corridor looked maintained. The floor held fewer stones. The walls showed recent scratches. Someone had moved through it often enough to prevent dust from settling evenly.
Rolf crouched near one mark.
"Boots."
Tomas looked closer. "Bare feet too."
Marcus’s expression hardened.
Human movement.
Recent.
The team continued.
The passage curved beneath the hill, descending gradually. After fifty meters, they reached a fork. The left route had partially collapsed. The right continued toward the east, roughly parallel to the road.
One engineer studied his compass. "This could run beneath the farmland."
"How far?"
"No way to know without following it."
Marcus looked at the walls.
Small iron brackets remained fixed at regular intervals, perhaps once used to hold torches. Several showed fresh soot.
Someone still used the tunnel.
The team moved more slowly from that point.
Weapons remained ready.
Lights stayed low.
Every sound echoed along the stone, turning boot steps and equipment movement into distant whispers. The corridor narrowed twice before widening into another chamber where the first direct evidence waited.
A piece of blue cloth lay near the wall.
Garran had described the Orren family’s hired guards as wearing blue armbands.
Marcus picked it up with gloved fingers.
Freshly torn.
No dust.
Tomas examined the floor nearby and found a dark stain between two stones.
Blood.
Not much.
A few drops.
The missing people had been here.
Rolf’s humor disappeared completely.
The engineers photographed everything before Marcus placed the cloth into an evidence bag. The chamber had two exits. One continued east. The other descended along a steeper slope beneath the road.
Marcus listened.
At first, he heard only the faint movement of his own team.
Then something else reached him.
A distant metallic knock.
One strike.
A pause.
Another.
The sound traveled through the passage from somewhere ahead.
Every rifle rose.
The team stopped breathing loudly.
Another knock echoed through the darkness.
Three slow impacts.
Not random.
Not shifting stone.
Deliberate.
Tomas leaned closer to Marcus. "Someone working?"
"Or signaling."
Rolf looked toward the eastern passage. "Either way, we’re not alone."
Marcus activated his radio, though the underground signal struggled. Static filled the channel before the relay unit carried his message back toward the surface.
"Surface team, this is Atlas Actual. Confirm reception."
A broken reply came several seconds later.
"Reading you... weak but clear."
"We found evidence of the missing group. Tunnel remains active. Prepare additional relay nodes and hold the entrance. Nobody enters without authorization."
"Copy."
Marcus looked toward the passage again.
The knocking had stopped.
That bothered him more than if it had continued.
If someone made the sound accidentally, they might not know Atlas had entered. If they stopped because they heard the team, then the mission had already changed.
The point element moved ahead.
Ten meters.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The corridor ended at a wooden door reinforced with rusted iron bands. Light leaked through a narrow gap near the floor. Not daylight.
Torchlight.
Tomas placed one hand against the door and felt the vibration.
Movement existed on the other side.
Marcus signaled the team into position.
Two infantrymen covered the corridor behind them. The engineers stepped back. Rolf moved beside Tomas, rifle raised, his usual complaints replaced by complete focus.
Marcus leaned near the gap and listened.
Voices.
Low.
Human.
At least two speakers.
He could not understand the words clearly through the thick wood, but the tone sounded tense. One voice asked something. Another replied quickly.
Marcus looked toward Tomas.
The former adventurer nodded.
Contact.
Not necessarily hostile.
Not yet.
Marcus raised three fingers.
Two.
One.
Tomas pushed the door open.
The chamber beyond erupted into movement.
A man near a table reached for a short sword. Another figure scrambled backward while holding a lantern. Three more people stood near the far wall beside stacked crates and sacks.
Atlas rifles fixed on them immediately.
"Do not move!" Tomas shouted in trade speech.
The armed man froze.
His sword remained half-drawn.
Marcus stepped through the doorway.
The chamber looked like a hidden supply post. Food, rope, tools, clothing, and lantern oil filled the shelves. A second door stood behind the occupants. None of the people wore uniforms, but all looked strong enough to fight.
The man with the sword stared at Marcus’s weapon, then at the soldiers behind him.
His face had gone pale.
"Who are you?"
"Atlas."
Recognition appeared instantly.
Not relief.
Fear.
Marcus noticed that.
The man slowly released the sword and raised both hands.
"We didn’t take them."
Nobody had accused him yet.
That answer told Marcus almost everything he needed to know.
He stepped closer. "Take who?"
The man swallowed.
"The road people."
Marcus’s voice remained calm. "Where are they?"
The other people in the chamber exchanged frightened looks.
One of them, a younger woman holding the lantern, shook her head. "You should leave."
Rolf looked around the hidden room. "That doesn’t sound suspicious at all."
The man with the sword ignored him. His eyes remained fixed on Marcus. "You don’t understand what is below."
"Then explain it."
The man looked toward the second door.
A heavy impact echoed from somewhere beyond it.
Closer than the earlier knocking.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Every person in the hidden chamber stiffened.
The woman’s lantern shook in her hand.
She whispered a single word.
"Collectors."
Marcus looked toward the door.
Another impact followed.
This time, something on the other side dragged across stone.
The civilians backed away from it.
The armed man finally drew his sword, but not toward Atlas.
He faced the second passage.
"They found us."
The mission had begun with missing travelers and abandoned wagons.
Now Atlas had found a hidden tunnel network, an occupied supply post, and people who were clearly hiding from something deeper underground.
Marcus raised his rifle toward the door as the wood began to tremble inside its frame.
Whatever had taken the people from Greyhaven had not disappeared.
It was still beneath the road.
And it was coming closer.
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