They moved the carts through the cut before the light failed.
The last of the bodies had already been dragged aside. Harren's people worked in near silence now. Earlier nerves had thinned into something closer to respect. The hired blades kept clear of Atlas, of Eli's still-bloody knuckles, and of the calm way Lara packed the medical kit as if binding knife wounds were simply another item on a list.
Atlas walked with the bandage tight under a spare sleeve. The cut on his forearm throbbed in time with his pulse, but the bleeding had slowed. Lara checked it twice more before full dark and once after they made camp beyond the cut. Each time her hands were precise and her mouth set in the same controlled line.
"You'll live," she said the last time. "But if you tear it open tomorrow because you decided to take another slope alone, I will make the recovery unpleasant."
Eli, seated nearby cleaning her blade, snorted. "She's not joking."
