XXXIThey crawled for a long time, the sound of their laboured breathing filling the narrow tunnel. Finn's knees soon ached sharply; it felt as though his bones had worked their way out of his skin to jut against the stones of the floor. The tunnel was utterly dark. Every now and then something tickled his face: the fronds of a tree's roots or a spider's web. For a while his father called to them, asking how they were, his voice hollow and sounding strangely near. But now, when Finn called back, there was no reply. His father had gone. Perhaps the ironclads had been sighted nearby.
The air grew warmer and thicker. It was impossible to know how far they'd travelled. Somewhere up above them were the walls of Engn: those massive stone ramparts pressing down into the ground. He imagined he cou
