The silence after the avalanche was louder than the explosion, louder than the grinding roar of falling rock. It was a vacuum, sucking the sound from the world and leaving only the frantic beating of their own hearts. Dust, fine and grey as ash, settled over them like a shroud.
Corvin was the first to break the stillness, his body wracked with a violent, dry heave. He collapsed onto his side, curled around his injured arm, which was now bleeding freely through the soaked bandage. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps.
Mara didn't move. She stood at the cliff's edge, her bow hanging limply from one hand, staring at the devastation below. The river was choked with rubble. The burning wreckage of the skimmer sent a thin, black plume of oily smoke into the clear sky. There was no sign of the soldiers. They were entombed. Her face was a mask of stone, but Elian could see the tremor in her hands.
