She had just reached the hallway leading deeper into the complex when she saw the big cabinet with its doors not quite closed and caught sight of the weapons.
She stopped where she was, debating, and then walked over and opened the doors all the way. There were all kinds of old-world guns, explosives like the ones Deladion Inch had carried, knives, swords, and bows and arrows. She smiled in spite of herself, taking a set of the latter and adding a long knife in the bargain.
She almost left the Flange 350 behind, but at the last minute changed her mind and kept it in her pocket.
The light was poor at best within the corridors she followed, making it no easier to read the sign markings during the day than it had been at night. But she persevered, using the torch when no light penetrated from ventilation shafts, taking her time.
Because the rear of the compound was elevated, there were stairs to be climbed, and as long as she was going up she could be certain she was headed in the right direction. It wasn’t like tracking out in the open, where you could see the sky and the sun and the way ahead was clear. But her sense of direction was strong enough that even without those indicators to rely on, she could find her way.
Still, she got lost and was forced to retrace her steps more often than she would have liked. It was oppressive being closed in like this, buried under tons of stone and shut away from the light. She thought about how people had lived like this before the Great Wars, and she wondered how they had endured it. If she had lived then, how would she have managed? She expected she would have lived her life much as she was living it now, even given the differences. She couldn’t imagine living it any other way.
At one point, she sat down and rested; the complex was so much bigger than she had expected, and the constant back and forth of her efforts was draining her strength. If Pan were there, this wouldn’t be so difficult. Pan could read sign and intuit trails much better than she could. He would have had them out by now. Back in the light. Back in the fresh air.
Thinking of his absence depressed her, and she got back to her feet and continued on.
It took better than an hour, but finally she found an exterior wall and a huge pair of metal doors. Light seeped through the seams of the doors, and their size and shape and the presence of huge iron latch bars marked them clearly for what they were. She studied them for a moment and then decided that opening something this big and closing it again was too risky.
She moved right along the wall, searching for a smaller portal. She found one another fifty feet and several storage bays farther on, tightly sealed with a drop bar and slide latch. She stood at the door and listened, but heard nothing. Carefully, she lifted the drop bar, slid back the latch, and opened the door, just a crack.
The daylight was hazy, but visibility was good, and she could see hundreds of yards in front of her where the foothills climbed toward the distant mountains. She opened the door a bit farther, looked right and left, and didn’t find anything that looked out of place. It should be all right, she thought. The Drouj were still out front. She could slip away before they knew she was gone.
She pulled the door open all the way and stepped outside—right in front of a Troll as it came lumbering around a corner of the outside wall.
She froze, stunned by her bad luck. What were the odds that a Troll would appear just now? It was moving parallel to the wall perhaps twenty yards away, studying the ground, glancing up toward the hillside as it did so, clearly believing she had already gotten clear. Against all odds, it hadn’t noticed her.
She backed toward the open doorway, slowly and carefully. She took one step after another, eyes fixed on the Troll.
Then her foot slipped on the loose rock, and the Troll’s dark eyes found her.
She had but a moment to escape back inside; the Troll was coming much too fast for anything else. It carried a war club studded with spikes, a killing weapon she could not defend against. She was quick, but too small to stop a creature like this without help.
The bow and arrows were slung across one shoulder—no time to get them free. She had the long knife out, but she didn’t think it would do much good. She would have to run, but there was no time to go anywhere but back inside.
It took her only seconds to gain the opening and rush back into the building. Once there, she began to run. The Troll came after her without slowing, undeterred by the darkness. It was faster than she had thought it would be, picking up speed as it pounded down the corridors. She would have to hide or outmaneuver it. But she didn’t know her way. Where would she go? She began to panic, searching the shadows for a way out, for an escape. But there were only other corridors and locked doors and hundreds of feet of stone floors and walls.
I should have stayed inside, she thought despairingly. I should have stayed hidden. I