Crawling forward, Kit rubbed her wrist ruefully. Colo was stretched out with fatigue. It was several minutes before either of them could speak. They could hear the roars and thrashing of the water beast below. No doubt the creature was disappointed by Kit's narrow escape.
"Definitely not a slig," Kit remarked at last.
"No," said Colo, sitting up. After a moment, she added wryly, "Now we're even anyway."
They rose slowly and began their way back. They could hurry but even so, it was some time before they re-emerged into the chamber of death. Two clear tunnels remained to be explored.
Kit figured it was already past midday, and they were hungry. They shared their modest provisions in the presence of the victims of Luz Mantilla's lust for revenge. They were almost becoming accustomed to the grotesque surroundings.
Sprawled on some rocks, Colo spoke. "As I see it," she said sensibly, "if each of the two other tunnels takes as long to explore as that one, we will be underground all day and far into the night. And even then, we may not have found what we are looking for."
"I was thinking the same thing," responded Kit cautiously.
"I don't want to spend two days in this hellish place," said Colo, looking around warily.
"Nor do I," admitted Kit.
"We should split up. Each take a tunnel. If nothing pans out, meet back here."
"Agreed."
"Take it slowly," urged Colo. "Carefully. Watch out for traps and . . . the Iron Guard."
"Don't worry," said Kit with her crooked smile. "I won't make the same mistake twice." They stood and clasped each other's shoulders. Kit realized she had grown fond of the tracker's company. Colo's eyes shone with similar feeling.
Turning first, Colo made for the far tunnel and disappeared into its entrance. Kit waited for several minutes, but heard nothing other than her companion's receding footfalls. Then, with trepidation, Kit headed toward the last tunnel.
* * * * *
After about ten minutes Colo's tunnel became virtually impassable for all of its debris. Not just rock and timber, but junk and clutter. Perhaps, the tracker debated with herself, this stone tunnel was no longer in use, and she ought to turn back and hook up with Kitiara.
The tunnel was littered with objects—rusted pieces of armor, clumps of smelly clothing, stained rugs, broken pottery, old farm tools. Webbing and moss hung down from the ceiling, tangling with her hair. Spiders and bugs as big as saucers dangled over her head. She could hear rats and other small creatures skittering into their hiding places as she passed.
"By the gods," she muttered, using her sword to sweep away the webs. "I must have got the worst of the two choices."
After almost an hour of wending forward, Colo came to a dead end, a slagheap of stone, timber, and assorted junk that formed a veritable wall, stretching up to the ceiling. She was about to turn back when she noticed a pinprick of light showing through from the other side. When she got down on her knees to peer through the tiny hole she could see that the tunnel continued with less impediment on the other side of the mass. With a sigh she took her sword and jabbed at the opening, working at hollowing out a wider egress. When it looked big enough to crawl through, Colo wriggled in head first and found that, with some effort, she could snake forward. After crawling on her belly for some minutes in this fashion, she was well coated with dirt and slime and dust. Holding her knife in front of her, she found that she could chip away a path. She progressed a couple of feet at a time until she came upon a particularly large rock, whose jagged, down-slanting edge blocked any further advance. After some time she managed to pry it loose, but when it dropped out, she could feel the weight of the slagheap above her creak.
Colo thrust herself forward as quickly as she could, considering how narrow the burrow was. But there was a tremor, and behind her, just before she was able to push out the other side, the rock and junk pile collapsed, crushing her left ankle.
"Damnation," Colo screeched, trying to twist her head to get a look at her foot. The pain was excruciating.
She managed to corkscrew around and, lying on her side, poke her sword around near her foot. With some twisting, she was able to work her foot out of the mess. She had just yanked it free and lurched forward when the entire blockade started to tremble and groan. Colo rolled forward as it came crashing down.
The dust and noise settled. Propped up a safe distance away, rubbing her bloody, mangled ankle, Colo looked back and observed that the entire slagheap had flattened out, so that now there was easy passage over it.
Ahead of her was another section of tunnel, relatively clean and lit with torches, angling sharply to the right. Her ankle was hurting badly, but it was twisted, not broken, and Colo could put some awkward weight on it.
She tore off a piece of sleeve and wrapped it around her foot, then hobbled forward, using the wall for support, dragging her crippled foot.
As Colo followed the angle of the tunnel, she realized that she was in a sort of underground jail, with rows of cells on opposite sides of the sconce-lit corridor. The cells were mostly empty, with old bones in some, twitching rats in others. As she
