Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

In this way, they traveled as much by day as by night, only stopping for brief periods to eat or to gather water from scant trickles running from cracks in the tunnel walls.

“That is long enough,” Chane said to Ore-Locks. “I will take over.”

The dwarf was sweating as his thick arms pumped, sending the cart racing down the tracks. Wynn sometimes attempted to help him, thinking two could pump the cart more easily. She doubted she was much assistance, but it felt better to do something .

The worst part was not knowing how far they’d come, let alone how far they had to go. At times it seemed the tram tunnel was on a slight downward slant, and likely they traveled deeper as well as farther beneath the range.

Chane got up and stepped to the pump’s other side, timing his grab of the opposite handle so as not to break Ore-Locks’s rhythm. Keeping their momentum saved effort, for whenever they slowed or stopped, it took time to regain speed. Once Chane took hold, instead of letting go, Ore-Locks only pumped harder.

“I said that is enough,” Chane repeated.

“I am good for a while,” Ore-Locks panted back.

The cart did travel faster when they worked together. Wynn suspected Ore-Locks was bothered that Chane never became visibly tired, but Wynn knew how much this exertion cost Chane. He’d grown paler and quieter than usual, and there was nothing for him to feed on down here.

For Wynn, the endless darkness, broken only by artificial light and the monotonous walls racing by, was taking its toll. She began to worry what would become of them all if they didn’t reach the end soon. Only Ore-Locks seemed at ease in this dim underworld.

The cart picked up speed, the tunnel walls rushed by faster than before, and Shade began barking.

Wynn sat up to see that Shade had fallen behind. She turned toward Ore-Locks and Chane at the pump. Were those two idiots engaged in some petty contest of stamina?

“Slow down and let me get Shade back inside,” she called, peering ahead to where the engine crystal lit the tunnel. She realized that Shade was not barking because she couldn’t keep up.

“Chane!” Wynn cried. “Brake now!”

On instinct, he looked ahead over his shoulder.

“The brake!” she nearly screamed.

Chane released the pump and grabbed the brake lever, pulling it with all his weight. A shriek rose from the cart’s wheels.

Ore-Locks tried to reach Chane to help, but the cart’s sudden lurch threw him forward over the pump handle. Wynn toppled, slamming into the back of the iron box. She struggled up to peer ahead over the box’s short wall.

The cart was slowing, but not quickly enough, and a mass of rubble and stones blocked the tunnel ahead.

“We’re going to hit!” she shouted, and then she felt a jerk and looked back. Ore-Locks had his arms around Chane’s sides, and he’d grabbed hold of the brake, both of them pulling hard. The lever cocked back another two notches, and the cart jerked and bucked beneath Wynn. She ducked down and braced herself against the box’s back side.

The cart’s wheels shrieked as it skidded to a final stop, but Wynn never felt a collision. Everything went quiet but for her rapid breathing as Shade leaped onto the cart and scurried toward her, sniffing her face.

“Everyone all right?” Chane asked.

No one answered, and Ore-Locks released his grip, backing away from Chane to look beyond the cart. Wynn pulled herself up by the box’s wall.

Now that they were safely stopped, her relief vanished under a new fear. The blockage filled the tunnel from top to bottom and all the way to both sides.

Chane was already on the ground, trotting forward. He crouched before the mass of rubble, and then hung his head. Snatching up a small stone, he tossed it sharply aside.

“We cannot pass through this,” he said.

Wynn clambered out, rushing in beside him. “We have to.”

“We do not know how far this collapse reaches,” he answered. “It could go on for yards—or more. This is the end. We have to turn back.”

Shade was sniffing the rubble, but she looked up at Chane.

“Turn back?” Wynn said, gasping. “No.”

“The tunnel is impassable. Just as I thought it would be. It will not lead you to the seatt.”

Wynn couldn’t accept what he suggested. It would take another seven days and nights to return, and then what? Start from scratch and head into the mountains?

“We cannot turn back,” Ore-Locks said, coming up behind them. “Our rations are low, and we will need to find more, perhaps by going out of the seatt’s far side.”

His expression was dark, like a storm about to break.

“We have enough,” Chane countered. “It will be difficult, but Shade and I can hunt as soon as we are out. You will survive ... which is more than I can assure if we try to dig through this .”

Wynn couldn’t bear turning back, not now.

Ore-Locks strode back behind the cart to the open tracks.

“If you do not care that we starve, then come feel this.” He placed his hand against the stone floor. “Put your hands on the tracks.”

Wynn frowned in confusion, but both she and Chane joined Ore-Locks. She put her hand down into the wide groove. She felt a faint vibration in the aged steel in the track groove’s bottom, but she wasn’t certain if it was just her own lingering shudders from their close call with the cave-in.

“I felt it through the tunnel’s stone last night,” Ore-Locks said.

Wynn looked up at him, unsure of what he meant.

“ They must be a good distance behind us,” he added. “But we are being followed ... and cannot turn back.”

At this, Wynn dismissed Chane’s attempt at a rational argument. But Chane stepped straight toward Ore-Locks.

“You knew this last night and said nothing?”

Wynn moved between them. “Stop it, both of you.”

Ore-Locks’s revelation rattled her as much as it did Chane. They were trapped between a cave-in and ... who? Who else knew where they had gone and how?

Ore-Locks walked past them and grabbed his staff off the cart. “Give me one of your crystals. I will see how far the cave-in reaches.”

Handing him a crystal, Wynn looked at the rubble, densely packed all the way up to the ceiling.

“Can you pass through this?” she asked, for that option hadn’t occurred to her.

Without answering, Ore-Locks stepped to the cave-in and vanished through the debris.

Chane looked down at Wynn and then at the cart. For one horrible moment, she feared he might pick her up, toss her in, and leave Ore-Locks behind. Would Shade even try to stop him, or would she side with him, as she had when they forced her to abandon searching the foothills beyond the dwarven ruins?

Wynn found herself uncomfortably alone with Chane and Shade. This unlikely pair seemed to have joined forces in a mutual goal to turn her back somehow. What a bizarre state of affairs that Wynn now had to look to Ore-Locks as her only support in her purpose.

She backed away from Chane, gathering all the determination she could muster into her voice. “Don’t you even think—”

Ore-Locks lunged out through the rubble. His red hair and orange vestment were coated in dust as if he had rolled in the rubble.

“The cave-in does not reach far,” he announced. “It is much less packed on the other side. Digging from there, we could clear a crawl space in a shorter time.”

While this brought Wynn relief, she didn’t relish the delay if they were being followed.

“Can’t you try to do what Cinder-Shard did back in the underworld?” she asked. “Could you try to take us through stone?”

Ore-Locks shook his head. “Not you or Shade. I cannot take anything living with me.”