I could not catch him.
That is the part nobody tells you about carrying a woman heavier than you through six hours of broken rock. You do not get to choose your speed. You get the speed your knee gives you, and my knee was giving me the speed of an old man in a bad winter.
So I did the only thing left and shouted into the dark.
"HEY!"
The word went out along the tunnel and came back off four different walls, the way sound lies down here, and I stood there with Ilse's head under my jaw and listened to my own voice arrive from the wrong direction three times.
Nothing answered.
'Wren. Find him.'
'I'm a sword.'
'You're a sword with range.'
'I'm a sword with opinions. Put me on the rock and shut up.'
I got down on one knee, which took a negotiation, and laid Wren flat against the stone with Ilse still in my other arm.
'…Anything?'
Ahead. A long way ahead and not moving.
'Not moving?'
Sitting, Cade. He's sitting down.
