Tunnels 03, Freefall

fire!" he shouted as he spotted that both the rucksacks were quickly smoldering. "Quick!"
    Chester and Martha immediately set about rubbing handfuls of dirt on the burning rucksacks.
    "Are they okay? Have we lost anything?" Will asked, worried that there contents might have been damaged.
    "Nah, I don't think so," Chester replied, opening one to check inside. He glanced up at Will. "You shouldn't have gone back. Not by yourself."
    "I had to," Will said.
    Chester wasn't convinced. "It was a crazy thing to do," he said.
    Martha glowered at Rebecca. "And because of that Styx and her antics, we're going to be short of water until the next spring." She turned to face down the tunnel. "We should go."

    * * * * *

    Several kilometers later, Martha seemed to be slowing down. She approached the tunnel wall, fumbled with something, then swung open a rough wooden door.
    "What's this place?" Chester asked as she stepped through the timber doorway.
    "They're called the WolfCaves -- it's a bolt hole Nathaniel found. He kept some spare spider traps here."
    With Elliott between them on the stretcher, Will and Chester followed her in and found that it was a reasonably sized space with a floor of soft sand. The tunnel seemed to extend further, but Martha didn't make any move to go down it, instead dumping her kit on the sandy floor. Rebecca and Bartleby had also come in, although Rebecca, still not fully recovered from her ordeal, simply lay down on the ground.
    "Why the Wolf Caves?" Chester inquired as he and Will found a level piece of ground on which to place the stretcher.
    "Because of the wolves," Martha said matter-of-factly.
    "Wolves?" Chester stuttered nervously. "I haven't heard anything."
    "You wouldn't." Martha made sure the door was shut and secured, then continued to talk as she went about the business of preparing them some food. "They move like specters, hunting in packs of three or four. They usually pick stragglers off and avoid larger groups of people." Sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out before her, she sliced the ends off the Loop Snakes, then peeled the pale white skins from them. "I only just managed to escape them the last time I came this way. So if you ever get separated from the rest of us, remember where these caves are."
    Having asked the boys to light a fire, Martha suspended the skinned Loop Snakes over it. When they were cooked, she distributed tin dishes of them to everybody, and Chester seemed to forget his earlier promise that he would never eat them.
    "So, what do you make of it?" Will asked, as Chester nibbled a long strip of yellow-white meat.
    "Bit like jellied eels," Chester reflected as he chewed. "But they don't taste of eel, and they're not jellied."
    "Helpful," Will replied, taking his first bite.

Part Three
The Metal Ship

16

    They left the WolfCaves after a few hours, resuming their journey. Will had lost track of how long they had been walking when Martha indicated that there was something up ahead.
    "We're close now," she told them as they came up to a rope bridge.
    Chester whistled. "I can't even see the other side. How far across is it?" he said.
    "Maybe... twenty-five... thirty meters," Will estimated as he regarded the precarious-looking structure that spanned the chasm before them.
    "Did you make this?" Chester asked Martha as he and Will put Elliott down. Martha took a step onto the bridge and it swayed and creaked ominously. She took several more steps, cautiously trying each of the wooden stairs as she went. "Or was it Nathaniel?" Chester asked, having received no response.
    "The boat people," Martha replied, peering anxiously into the darkness above. "I can feel them. They're up there."
    "Who?" Will asked.
    "We're near the nests... where the Brights live." Despite the heat, she shivered. "I can feel them up there -- ready to swoop." Her eyes met with Will's. "This is a wretched place. We're not meant to be here. It's their place." Her gaze drifted from Will as if she was seeing something behind him, but there wasn't anything there.
    Will realized that she must be exhausted. Although he and Chester had had the odd nap on the unforgiving ground along the way, they'd found the journey tiring enough. Martha rarely seemed to allow herself even that. She'd been in an almost permanent state of vigilance for the week since they'd left the shack, watching out for dangers and navigating them through the labyrinthine tunnels with phenomenal accuracy.
    Her clothes, never clean