Neena slept peacefully, and her low, regular breathing even lulled Blade into a few minutes' doze. He jerked himself awake, shook his head to clear it, then gently awakened Neena.
«It is time.»
She sat up, brushed the hair out of her eyes, shook herself, stretched like a cat, loosening every muscle, and nodded.
As silently as prowling animals they crept across the floor toward the grating and opened it. Blade took two of the wooden bars with him. Win or lose, they would not be back here.
They moved down the tunnel, Neena leading. Blade found himself fighting not to hold his breath. He accidentally put a hand down on Neena's ankle, and heard her give a small «yip» of surprise and fright. She was obviously just as nervous as he was.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever. At last Blade felt Neena stopping in front of him and reaching out with one hand to probe the darkness ahead.
«We're there.»
Blade crawled forward, until he sensed that he was on the edge of the gap. Slowly he stood up, arms probing on either side, then above him. He was standing where he'd intended to, far enough from the edge to have firm ground underfoot, yet close enough to have a high ceiling overhead. A good starting point, but that was all. Neena would literally have to make a leap in the dark, with a three-hundred foot drop to certain death below her if she missed.
Blade turned to Neena, sensing her rather than seeing her standing in the darkness beside him. She was breathing deeply.
«Are you ready?»
«Yes.»
She stepped in front of him and he knelt down and caught her about the waist. Blade told himself that they'd rehearsed the positions half a dozen times, that everything should go right.
You haven't rehearsed going through with it, a voice in his head reminded him. He told the voice to shut up. In his arms he felt Neena tensing, crouching down for her leap. Blade dug in his heels to get a firmer footing, then squeezed Neena's thigh.
«Now?»
«Now.»
All of Blade's muscles and all of Neena's uncoiled in a split second surge of controlled power, as the man and the woman shot up from their crouch. Blade felt Neena leave his arms, felt his toes come down on the very edge of the gap, felt earth start to crumble beneath him, and threw himself backward. He landed with a thud and his head smashed into the packed earth of the tunnel floor hard enough to half stun him. His head still spinning, he sat up and looked out across the invisible gap to the equally invisible far side.
He hadn't heard the sound of a safe landing, but he hadn't heard the dreadful death-scream of someone plunging down three hundred feet either. Then from the darkness he heard a faint «Ouch!»
«Neena? Are you all right?» Blade had intended to whisper. His voice came out in a roaring bellow that went echoing away up and down the tunnel.
The words he'd been hoping to hear came out of the darkness. «Yes, I've landed all right. Just a moment-«Another «Ouch!»
«I think I've sprained a finger and a couple of toes. That's all. I'm going to crawl down and get the rope now.»
«Good.»
There was the sound of bare feet and hands scrabbling away down the tunnel, fading away into a new silence. Blade waited. If the rope wasn't where Neena could get to it, the escape was doomed and Neena herself would be trapped in the tunnel, unable to return across the gap or climb upward to freedom.
A foot scraped on hard earth in the darkness. Blade stiffened.
«Neena?»
«Yes. I've got the rope. You can throw the stake across now.»
Blade picked up the two wooden bars and heaved. Two soft thumps were followed by another «Ouch!»
«One hit me on the shin,» said Neena. Blade laughed, the first time he'd been able to do that since entering the dark tunnel tonight.
Thudding and thumping noises followed, as Neena tried to drive the stake into the floor of the tunnel. The noises went on for quite a while. Finally-
«It's not in very deep. The floor's too hard.»
«Think it will hold?»
«It had better.»
There was nothing more to say. A faint hiss in the darkness, and something fell beside Blade with a soft thump. He bent down and touched the rope.
Carefully he tied a small loop in his end of the rope, to give himself a better grip. Then:
«All right, Neena-pull in the rope until I call.» The rope in Blade's hands started to tighten. «All right. I'm coming over now.»
Blade sat down on the edge of the gap, his legs dangling down into empty space. There was just enough slack left in the rope to provide a loop around his chest. He checked everything once more, took a firm grip on the rope, and slid off into space.
He swung down into the gap, seeming to float through the silence and darkness all around him. He thrust his legs out in front of him to take the shock of striking the far wall. He had a moment's impression that he'd stepped off into a whole new realm of space and would go swinging on through it for the rest of time.
His feet slammed hard into the far wall. He heard clods of earth break free and fall. He shifted his grip on the rope slightly, ready to start climbing up hand over hand.
Then the rope shivered, and a sharp cry came from above. «The stake's pulled loose. The rope's-«Blade didn't need any more words from Neena to know what was happening to the rope. Inch by inch it was sliding downward, carrying him with it. Eventually the end would pass through Neena's hands, and after that Blade was already acting as he thought, gouging at the wall with both feet, working furiously to dig out a foothold. He managed to make one that would take at least one foot. He jammed his left foot in hard, and the deadly sliding of the rope stopped for a moment.
The rope tightened in his hands, then there was a thump from above and it drew even tighter. Neena's breathing turned into painful gasps.
Cautiously Blade shifted his foot. The rope went still tighter. Neena gasped again, but Blade did not sink down. He began to work his way up the rope, moving one hand at a time. Each movement drew another gasp from Neena. But the rope held.
The minutes that it took Blade to make the twenty-foot climb seemed like hours. Eventually he reached up and his hand came down on hard level ground. He felt for one handhold, then for another, shifting all his weight onto his arms. There was a sigh of blissful relief from Neena. Blade hung for a moment, then heaved himself upward with all the strength in both massive arms. He flew up over the edge like a cork coming out of a champagne bottle and sprawled flat on his stomach-squarely on top of Neena. She gasped again. He hastily rolled off her and reached out to her.
She lay on her side on the floor, face toward the gap, several coils of the rope drawn snugly about her waist and hips. She'd thrown herself down and used her own body to anchor the upper end of the rope. The rope had squeezed and pinched and bruised her every time Blade moved. Even worse, it had dragged her slowly and steadily toward the edge. When Blade reached the top, there had been barely a foot to go before she reached the edge and they both fell down into the darkness together.
Blade sat beside Neena for some time, catching his breath and letting the princess catch hers. He wondered how to thank her adequately for her display of courage and quick thinking. In the end he said nothing, simply took her hand and squeezed it. Then he coiled up the rope and they moved on.
Side by side they crawled down to the mouth of the tunnel in the great pit under the Hearth of Tiga. The night was overcast, and no light came down through the grating overhead. A strong wind was blowing, and Blade could hear its whistles and moans clearly. The darkness and the wind would help hide the next stage of their escape.