Fyre

Page 105

The tunnel was utterly devoid of light but the scorpion felt at home; the darkness was where it belonged. It trundled merrily along, its pincers brushing against the narrow walls, its yellow sting arched high above its head gauging the height of the tunnel, telling it all it needed to know. A wonderful feeling of lightness and agility suffused it as it hurried through the tunneled rock, heading out of the Port, following the tunnel downward as it dipped below the Marram Marshes.
Jim Knee was free—there was no way that his Master could get to him. He could do whatever he chose. Jim Knee’s choices were, however, severely limited. He could not turn around, for Smugglers’ Bolt was much narrower than he was long, and Jim Knee did not relish the thought of spending eternity as a giant scorpion wedged across a tunnel. Neither could he stop moving, because he had discovered that when he did, his legs had a disconcerting desire to tangle and send him crashing to the ground. And going backward with fifty-six knees to think about was not an option. So, Jim Knee could indeed do whatever he chose—provided that what he chose to do was to move forward along Smugglers’ Bolt.
Smugglers’ Bolt—or the Bolt, as it had been known to generations of smugglers, brigands and footpads—had been hewn from the great plate of rock through which the river carved its way from the Castle to the Port. Some half a mile out from the Port, the Bolt dipped even more steeply down to dive below the Marshes. The air quality fell and the atmosphere became oppressive. It was this section that had once terrified even the most hardened of Bolters—as regular users of the tunnel were known. Here the more fainthearted would turn and run back, often leaving their contraband behind. But not the scorpion—it scurried along, trundling over the rotten old barrels of ill-gotten gains that lay strewn along the rocky floor of the tunnel. Down, down it went through the darkness, and when it reached the muddy water filling the lowest point of the Bolt it did not panic as many a smuggler had done, but plunged into the brackish gloop and waded on, closing its spiracles, tightening its segments to protect its delicate little book lungs and keeping tabs on its middle legs which, Jim Knee had discovered, were the key to smooth running and had a tendency to get tangled if not concentrated on. And so, like a large mechanical toy, the scorpion clattered on its way—two-three-together, two-three-apart, two-three-together, two-three-apart, two-three-together, two-three-apart—rapidly closing in on the two desperate men staggering through the darkness.
Down in the deepest, foulest part of the Bolt, gasping in the bad air, Edmund and Ernold Heap staggered onward as their InHabitants pushed them ruthlessly forward through the tunnel, sending them stumbling through pools of sludge, tripping over fallen rocks, crashing into the rough tunnel walls in the pitch-blackness. The Ring Wizards were utterly careless of the two Heaps, using them up in their drive to reach the final stage of their Reversion, when they would be able to take their ancient form once more.
It was here, in the depths below the Marram Marshes, that Jim Knee caught up with his quarry. He heard them first—the sound of their labored breathing and their groans as they tripped, the splash as they fell, and their cries as they were forced to their feet or sent hurtling into yet another rock. Jim Knee slowed his pace—the last thing he wanted was to mow Edmund and Ernold down like a steamroller—and now he kept his distance, matching them step for step. And even though pity had no place in a scorpion brain, in the deep Jim Knee part of its thoughts, pity is what the scorpion felt.
On the far side of Deppen Ditch, the strange procession began the upward climb. The air began to feel fresher and the scorpion noticed that ahead of it, the desperate gasping for breath had eased a little. With its pincers waving in excitement at the change of air, the scorpion scrambled up the now-sandy floor as the tunnel dried out and leveled off below the fields. The going was faster now and the scorpion clattered happily on, pausing only when the two Heaps stopped for a moment to gulp in a downdraft of fresh air, like parched men swallowing water.
Edmund and Ernold had stopped beneath the first farmstead after Deppen Ditch. Named Smugglers’ Rest, it was here, clambering up a ladder through a shaft known as the Bail Out, that those who had braved the Bolt would emerge gasping for fresh air and the sight of the wide sky. Even now, air still poured into the tunnel from the ventilation shaft—a large chimney—around which the farmhouse was built.
The Heaps were not allowed long to drink the air, but from Smugglers’ Rest onward their path was easier. Smugglers’ Bolt now became a shallow tunnel, running no more than six to eight feet below the orchards and fields of the Farmlands. In the past, it had had numerous exit points into farmhouses along its route to the Castle. Most farmers had indulged in a little bit of smuggling when duty on brandy, lace and sweet wine from the Far Countries was astronomically high. In those days it had been well known in the Castle that, if you wanted to buy good wine at a reasonable price, then a lonely farmhouse on the winding road to the Port was your best bet. And if the farmer declared that it was her own homemade wine, you would be well advised not to comment on the surprising lack of a vineyard—or indeed the weather to grow the grapes.