Freedom Star

Chapter 4

The next few hours did credible impressions of years. The tunnel seemed unending and unchanging, to the point where Jon began to feel as if he had spent all his life trudging along a narrow ledge—or climbing over slippery rocks—above an almost-empty riverbed.

They stopped frequently; Jon hated being so weak, but he simply couldn’t keep up the pace Dar would have set had he been alone. Dar never complained, just hunkered down beside him while he rested and filled him in on all the details of what this or that member of their band had been up to while he’d been away. Kira, Dar admitted somewhat grudgingly, had done a wonderful job organizing the move of the camp. That impressed Jon—not the fact that Kira had done a good job, but the fact that Dar had credited her with it. As second-oldest in the group, Dar sometimes seemed to resent the fact that the younger—not to mention female—Kira had fallen naturally into the position of second-in-command. But Jon knew Dar could never lead the troupe; many of the smaller children were afraid of him.

As they might be of him, when they knew that he’d killed...

He tried to put that out of his mind.

About three hours after they’d set off the charge, the tunnel began to change character. The roof sloped down, the walls began to close in, and the riverbed deepened. “This next bit is kind of tricky,” Dar told Jon. “But once we’re through it we’re practically out.”

“Where soldiers are bound to be waiting,” Jon reminded him.

“We can handle them,” Dar said with supreme confidence. Another reason he’ll never make a leader, Jon thought. He doesn’t worry enough.

“I almost wish we hadn’t managed to block the river so completely,” Jon said.

“Why?” Dar didn’t look back. “Just imagine all that water backing up into all the buildings in the city. Maybe they’ll be so busy they won’t think to send any soldiers to the river outlet.”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Jon said. “No, I was thinking if the river were still flowing we might be able to float right past them. You know, the old breathing-through-straws trick.”

“If we had any straws.”

“Good point.”

The ledge narrowed to almost nothing. Dar stopped. “From here we have to shimmy around on the rock itself. Fingernails and toenails. Are you up to it?”

Jon considered the state of his injuries. “How far?”

“Maybe a hundred metres.”

Jon winced, then sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

Dar grinned at him and, without another word, started forward.

It proved harder than Jon expected. Muscles he hadn’t had to use walking complained bitterly at the strain. He could feel the wounds in his back and calf pulling and was afraid he’d pull them open again. But there could be no going back now. He gritted his teeth and pushed on.

They were less than halfway when the tunnel began to shake and a distant roar sounded behind them, swelling as rapidly as the sound of a high-speed transport approaching down a canyon. Jon clung desperately to the rock, feeling his fingers and toes slipping. Dar looked back at him and shouted something. Jon could hear nothing above the thunder filling the tunnel...but for the first time since he had known him, Dar looked scared.

His right hand slipped. He scrabbled desperately for a new hold, finding one just as the rock beneath his left foot gave way. As he dug frantically with his toes, he felt damp wind blowing past him—from up the tunnel. He barely had time to look that way before the wall of water hit.