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"Sounds bloody fine to me." Ben grinned one of his wide smiles, every tooth showing, then set off down the passage.
She tramped after him, determined now, ready to run miles if necessary. But after only a hundred yards, Ben stopped. He held a hand up in the air, his ear cocked.
She remained silent, straining to hear. But she heard nothing unusual. "Ben…? What is it?"
"A breeze." He pointed to a side tunnel.
She stepped next to him. Now that he mentioned it, she could feel a slight wafting from the passageway, raising a few stray strands of her black hair. "What does it mean?"
"I think… it's the end of this maze."
"Then let's go." She headed out, taking the lead this time.
As they progressed, the passage narrowed with sudden knife-sharp turns, the breeze becoming stronger and stronger. The fungus on the walls had thinned as they followed the turns; eventually they were forced to click on their hand lanterns and helmet lamps.
After almost a mile of trekking, Ben spat, "Bloody hell."
"What?"
"We've yet to cross a single side passage in this chute. It would be easy to get pinned down in here. No escape routes."
She frowned and continued. Great. One more thing to worry about. But they were committed, with only one way to go: straight ahead.
As she worked around the next tight bend in the corridor, the roof lowered. Crouching, she continued. The breeze had become a wind, blowing hair about her face, whipping it behind her as if pointing for them to turn back. The rushing air whistled in her ears.
Ben poked her from behind. "Did you hear that?"
She twisted around. "What?"
"They're behind us now-and they're coming fast."
She turned around, her lips drawn into tight lines. She increased the pace, crouching and running into the wind. She turned the next corner, and the passageway ended just yards ahead. Wind blew from a wormhole opening at the end of the tunnel. The first they had seen since entering the maze.
She ran forward, praying that this tunnel would lead up, toward home. She knelt beside the opening and pointed her lantern. The sight forced a groan from between her lips. It not only led downward, but at a frighteningly steep slope, deeper into the heart of the continent.
Ben leaned beside her. He already had his sled out and was releasing the catch to expand it. "Better hurry, Ash. They're about a hundred yards behind us."
She pointed at the wormhole sullenly. "It heads down. Pretty far too, I'd say."
"We can't go back." He helped her unstrap her sled. "I have the sneaking suspicion that we've been herded to this place."
"What?" She unhooked the catch to expand her sled.
A scrabble of rock echoed from behind them.
"No time," Ben said. He waved to the hole. "Ladies first." He pointed his gun to their back trail.
Ashley glanced at the black tunnel behind them, then at Ben. She took a deep breath and shoved into the wormhole on her sled. The steepness of the slope quickly accelerated her plummet. She braked with the heels of her gloved hands and toes of her boots, but succeeded only in slowing her pace slightly.
She heard Ben enter the wormhole behind her, his wheels whisking toward her.
"Hell!" he called to her. "It's like a slide. Let's see those bastards catch us now!"
By now, her rate of descent was such that it burned her hands to brake, even through her climbing gloves. And as they flew farther down the tube, the fungus began appearing in patches on the walls.
"We're in a big corkscrew!" yelled Ben. "Can you feel the centrifugal force?"
She did. Her board kept climbing higher on the walls as their speed increased and the tunnel's curves tightened. To try to brake now was impossible. During their flying descent, the fungus had grown thicker and thicker, its glow almost blinding now. The mold also made the walls slick so even the tips of her boots dragging across the floor failed to offer any significant braking.
She hoped the tunnel would level out before ending. Give them a chance to slow down. At this speed, she'd hate to be spewed out of the tunnel right into a slumbering stalagmite. She watched the tunnel ahead, praying for an easing of the slope.
No such luck. The tunnel exit appeared around the next bend. No time to brake. No time to slow down. Only time to cover her head with her arms and cringe.
She shot out of the tunnel, blasting into the next cavern. Blinded for a moment by the bright light, she jolted and bounced across the slightly rugged floor. When her eyes adjusted, she saw herself barreling toward a solid wall of yellow vegetation. Closing her eyes, she slammed into the thick stalks of growth. Her collision tumbled her from her board, but the field cushioned her fall as she rolled for several yards.
Once stopped, she pushed to her knees. She was almost up when Ben tumbled into her with a wild yell. She fell in a tangle of arms and legs.
"Well, that was different," Ben said, speaking to her left knee.
She untangled herself and stood up with a groan. Bruised everywhere, she glanced around as Ben stood up. The field of yellow vegetation, like wheat, stood chest-high and spread for miles across the rolling cavern floor. Miles! She craned her neck around. The cavern was monstrous, dwarfing even Alpha Cavern. Almost like the Grand Canyon-but with a lid. The walls stretched hundreds of stories high. The roof, far overhead, glowed with thick fungus, some patches glowing as bright as sunlight. She glanced across the smooth yellow fields that undulated across the wide plain, broken only by tiny groves of spindly trees, like islands in a sea.
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Ashley said, with her mouth hanging open.
A rustle of vegetation drew her attention from the panorama around them. From several yards away, something was working through the field toward them, maneuvering around clusters of trees. Too low to be seen except for the wake of bending stalks, like a shark through water.
She glanced at Ben as she backed away. He pointed off to the left. Two more wakes arrowed toward them. She studied the field more closely, now noticing three other trails moving in their direction. Six in all.
She backed away, pulling Ben's sleeve. He didn't resist.
Almost tripping, she stepped from the field onto bare rock and stumbled back until she stood by the wormhole opening. Their sleds were lost somewhere in the field. Reaching for her pistol, her hand touched the empty holster. Damn, the gun must have been knocked away by her fall.
She turned to Ben. Thankfully, he had his pistol already gripped in his right hand.
"I lost mine," she said between tight lips.
