Voices, before anything else.
Not words Rama could parse, rhythm first, a call-and-response cadence carried on wind moving the wrong way, toward them instead of away. He'd doubled back for Sekar within the hour, their daughter riding his shoulders now, and the three of them had covered the distance to the tree line in near silence, stepping where the leaf litter looked softest, stopping every dozen paces to listen before moving again. His pulse hadn't fully settled since the sound he'd caught alone at the clearing's edge, and he kept one hand near his daughter's ankle the whole way, ready to steady her if the ground gave without warning the way it had once already today.
"Stop." Sekar's hand flat against his chest.
He stopped.
