The Fallen World

Escape - Part 4

     Shaun and Matthew paced impatiently up and down the tunnel, wondering what was keeping the others and looking in on Gulda from time to time to make sure he was in no danger of escaping. Time stood still in the dark and dingy dungeons, and they soon lost track of how long they’d been gone. Had it been minutes or hours? Were the others on their way back even now, or had they been found out and caught? Perhaps a troop of guards was already on its way to lock them back up in their cells and punish them for their defiance.

     Finally, Shaun could stand it no longer. “Here,” he said, giving Gulda’s sword to Matthew. “I’m going to see what’s down that tunnel, see where it goes. All this waiting is driving me crazy.”

     “I’ll come with you,” said Matthew.

     Shaun stopped him. “You’ve got to stay here and keep an eye on him,” he said, indicating the guard. “And if the others get back before I do, you can tell them where I’ve gone. I won’t be long.” He then set off down the tunnel and was soon lost in the darkness.

     The sparse glowing globes of marble that provided the dungeon’s dim illumination stopped just around the corner, and the tunnel beyond that point was in almost complete darkness. He stopped for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust, but it didn’t help much and when he started forward again he had to grope his way along the wall like a blind man. Fortunately the floor of the tunnel was flat and level, with nothing to trip over or stub his toe against, and after a while he grew more confident, walking along at almost normal speed. He allowed the fingers of his left hand to brush against the slimy tunnel wall while he reached out ahead of him with the other, feeling for the sudden end of the tunnel that he prayed would never come.

     Something hard and sharp crunched under his feet, and he stopped to see what it was. He picked up something small and hard with sharp, spiny bits sticking out at odd angles, but it had broken open to reveal a soft centre which was sticky between his fingers. He brought it up to his face to sniff it, and threw it away in disgust when he recognised the acrid smell of beetle. He wiped his hand on his clothes before continuing on.

     As he went the beetles became more numerous and his bare feet began to throb painfully from treading on their hard, spiny exoskeletons. One ran up his body inside his clothes, its legs tickling his bare skin, and he reached his hand inside to grab it and throw it away. Annoying as the insects were, though, they gave him hope that the tunnel did indeed lead somewhere, since they couldn’t live on bare rock. They had to have some food source, and since he hadn’t passed it yet it had to be somewhere up ahead. He carried on with new hope, therefore.

     After he’d gone about a hundred yards the tunnel grew narrower, something he became aware of for the first time when he bumped his shoulder on a lump of rock jutting out from the opposite wall. The tunnel was now growing more irregular, twisting and turning and with lumps and bumps on the floor that forced him to slow down in case he twisted an ankle or stubbed a toe. The roof got lower as well, forcing him to stoop a little as he went, and he began to fear that it would just keep on getting narrower until he could go no further.

     A few yards further on, though, it widened out again, and by groping his way blindly around its roughly oval wall he found that he was in a small cave about twenty paces long by ten paces wide, with a roof so high that he couldn’t touch it with both hands stretched to their limit above his head. It was alive with the rustling sound of beetles and other insects, some of which bit and stung his feet as he trod on them, and he guessed that he was close to their food source, whatever it was. There was only one way out of the cave, so he continued on down the tunnel, which was now sloping downwards at a noticeable angle.