Murky mist rolled through the entrance of the shallow cave, carrying the thick stench of artillery smoke and the bone-chilling cold of the Bighorn Range.
The faint groans of wounded warriors were drowned out beneath the ear-splitting roar of the distant cannon battery.
A tall silhouette parted the fog and burst into the cavern interior.
White Feather.
The second-in-command held none of his usual refined composure.
His long dark hair hung loose and matted, flecked with dark soot and dry, hardened bloodstains.
The sacred string of blue clay beads around his neck—usually still as lake water—was caked in black grime, trembling with every heavy, labored breath he drew.
He cast a quick glance over Running Deer's unconscious frame, looked at Elena's blood-soaked hands, and spoke in sharp, concise Lakota, which Sarah frantically translated with a trembling voice:
"Whitfield's wheeled cannons have lowered their firing elevation. They are no longer targeting only the defensive ledge; they will flatten every tipi within ten minutes."
White Feather took a step forward, his penetrating black gaze drilling directly into Grey Elk—who had just strode into the station beside him:
"We must evacuate now! Through the narrow fissure behind the northern cave. Move all women, children, and elders out along the secret trail leading up the Bighorns, while the remaining warriors hold the blue-coated cavalry at the river bend!"
Grey Elk did not hesitate for a single second.
The chief's marble-sculpted face was filled with absolute resolve.
He nodded, issuing a firm, gravelly command in his native tongue:
"Do it now."
Elena stood beside the makeshift operating table, silently gazing at her man.
The sharp mind of the cardiothoracic surgeon instantly processed the gravity of the moment.
Protecting those who could not fight—the women, the children, the elderly—was the ultimate priority, a law etched into the very bone and marrow of Grey Elk and these wild people.
Even if it meant burning through every last warrior at the southern ledge, he had to preserve the future spine of Talon Ridge.
"White Feather! Dr. Marsh! Lead the evacuation column!" Grey Elk commanded.
Elena and White Feather quickened their pace toward the northern corridor.
The deeper they advanced into the heart of the limestone mountain, the less the cutting cold of the snowstorm raged, yielding to a faint electromagnetic field that made every strand of Elena’s ash-blonde hair stand on end.
The tribe's secret escape route lay right along the edge of the faulted rock face.
And directly beside that narrow stone fissure...
The deep violet and jade-green ribbon of light of the temporal rift was glowing with fierce intensity.
The violet light no longer flickered as it had the night before. It pulsed and swirled like a mystical river of flame flowing along the continental rift, radiating an uncanny electromagnetic warmth that illuminated the dark gray limestone walls.
Elena froze, her chest constricting tightly.
The screen of the iPhone in her tunic pocket flickered the numbers 00:00 more violently than ever.
The portal was in a state of complete activation. If she merely stepped through that stone gap alongside the refugees, she could disappear from this massacre forever.
White Feather paused beside her.
The second-in-command looked at the ribbon of deep violet light dancing against the stone.
His face betrayed neither shock nor bewilderment. His penetrating black eyes reflected the strange light with a profound, quiet still.
Exhaling a plume of white steam, his voice fell low and steady in fluent, archaic English, meant for her ears alone:
"I have seen it... many winters ago, Elena."
Elena froze in place.
She turned to look at him, her ash-gray eyes trembling subtly.
White Feather gazed at the ribbon of light, his calm words falling like snow breaking off a bough:
"This land holds the fissures of the Great Spirit. I know not where it leads... but I know it belongs to you."
He turned back to look at her, his eyes filled with absolute understanding and primal grace:
"If you step into it... no one at Talon Ridge will blame you. You have given this tribe far too much already."
The verdict of the most brutal choice rested squarely upon Elena’s shoulders.
On one side lay the wide-open portal of time, leading back to a safe, safe, and civilized twenty-first century.
On the other lay the field medical cave reeking of fresh blood, where severely wounded warriors writhed on the threshold between life and death.
"Elena! You must go!"
Sarah rushed forward, her small hands clutching Elena’s arm tightly.
Tears streamed down the eighteen-year-old girl's pale cheeks, mingling with streaks of soot:
"Go with me and the others through the rock gap! You are the Wakan Winyan, you cannot die here!"
Elena looked at Sarah.
She saw the earnest innocence and sincere love in the young girl's dark eyes.
Then... Elena turned her head to look back toward the field medical station in the shallow cave.
In the flickering shadows of the oil lamp, dozens of wounded warriors lay scattered across buffalo hides. Running Deer remained deep in a coma, his vascular drainage requiring minute-by-minute monitoring. Warriors with shattered bones and punctured lungs were looking toward her with eyes holding their final sliver of hope.
She was a cardiothoracic surgeon.
Her intellect and her hands were not born to flee while patients collapsed on an operating table.
The place where she could save the most lives... was right here in the heart of this bloody warzone.
Elena gently pried Sarah's hands away.
She looked into the young girl's eyes, her voice concise, firm, yet overflowing with resolute tenderness:
"You go."
Elena’s words fell into the quiet space of the rock gap, absolute and sharp enough to slice through Sarah's unfinished pleas.
"Elena! No! You have to come with me!"
Sarah burst into uncontrollable sobs.
The eighteen-year-old girl lunged forward to embrace her, but White Feather reached out a large, calloused hand to firmly hold his sister's frail shoulders.
The second-in-command looked at Elena.
His penetrating black eyes reflected her slender yet stone-hard figure. He offered no arguments, used no empty moral platitudes to hold her back or rush her along.
He understood.
One who had chosen to surrender to the calling of medicine would never turn her back on lives writhing amid fresh blood.
White Feather bowed his head, placing his hand over his heart, speaking in a measured, low Lakota chant:
"May the Great Spirit watch your steps, Wakan Winyan."
He turned, firmly ushering Sarah toward the secret trail through the narrow stone gap.
Sarah looked back as she walked, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, her small hands clutching the white medical notebook Elena had given her the night before.
Their silhouettes gradually vanished into the dense fog wrapping the Bighorn peaks.
Elena stood alone before the cavern gap.
To her left, the deep violet ribbon of the temporal portal continued to dance furiously along the geological fault line, releasing its uncanny electromagnetic warmth.
The screen of the iPhone in her tunic pocket flickered 00:00 without cease, like a persistent call from a thousand years in the future.
Elena drew the phone from her pocket.
She looked at those cold, white digital numbers for a brief fraction of a second.
Then... without a single trace of regret, the cardiothoracic surgeon tossed the phone into the dark abyss of the rock fissure.
Clink...
The sound of metal striking limestone rebounded briefly before sinking forever beneath the dark interior of the mountain.
She turned on her heel, smoothed her deerskin tunic, and strode with firm steps back toward the field medical cave at the northern edge of the camp.
From this moment on, she was no longer a displaced prisoner anxiously searching for a way home. She was the sole doctor of Talon Ridge, who would fight to her very last drop of strength alongside Grey Elk and these wild people.
BOOM... MMM!
Thomas Whitfield's full-scale artillery barrage officially opened fire.
The three wheeled cannons positioned at the southern river bend roared furiously, belching thick, dark clouds of smoke that ripped through the snowy sky.
The explosive scatter-shot shells rained down upon the center of the camp like a merciless hail of meteorites.
BOOM! BOOM! BUM!
Buffalo-hide tipis were shredded to pieces, bursting into thousands of burning splinters.
Plumes of black smoke billowed high into the sky, mingling with the roars of blue-coated infantry and the desperate war cries of the Lakota warriors.
"Medic! Fresh casualty!"
Black Arrow shouted from the cave entrance, his armor shredded by shrapnel, dragging two warriors whose chests had been torn open by shell blasts into the station.
Elena dropped to her knees upon the cold stone floor immediately.
There was no time to breathe.
Snatching her titanium scalpel, she poured the final droplets of distilled spirits over the steel blade, her voice rising sharp and commandingly:
"Apply pressure to the artery! Place them on the main mat!"
Her hands plunged into the warm blood, beginning another relentless race against death in the burning hell of Talon Ridge.
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