Free Shade's Children by Garth Nix Page A

of their net guns.
    Twice they’d almost been netted, but always the swords rose and fell and the catch ropes parted—leaving them to hobble on as best they could with the matted plastic dragging on hands or feet. And Drum still carried Ninde, whose legs were totally encased in the foul stuff.
    When they finally stopped, he laid her down across the drain, so the water poured over her legs. Gold-Eye wondered at that, expecting her to shriek again, but she was silent. Then he realized that Drum wasn’t punishing her—the running water was slowly dissolving the net material. Small pin-holes were appearing. Over the next ten minutes, they would become larger holes, joining together until what had been a solid mass of plastic was no more.
    “So you decided not to wait,” panted Ella. She stood with her sword in hand, facing back the way they’d come. “I presume your Talent told you we were still alive?”
    “Yes,” said Ninde very quietly. “Sorry.”
    She moved her legs a little, and the plastic snapped farther apart. Impatient, she struggled to get up, but Drum pushed her back down with one finger.
    “Let it all dissolve,” he piped. He had one foot in the water too, where the corner of a net had struck his boot.
    “We’ll talk about what you should have done when we’re back at the Sub,” Ella continued curtly. “You too, Gold-Eye. Just be thankful that we weren’t washed too far away to help you in time. Or drowned.”
    Gold-Eye nodded vigorously, eager to show that he totally agreed with Ella. Ninde didn’t say anything. Head down, she watched shreds of plastic fall apart in the flowing water.
    “I don’t suppose anyone managed to count manholes?” Ella asked. “No? I guess. I’d better go back to the junction and do it myself.”
    “I go,” volunteered Gold-Eye, keen to make amends.
    “No,” said Ella. “There’s a slim chance those Myrmidons might risk the lower walkway. They will enter shallow water sometimes. I’ll be back in five minutes. If you hear me screaming, run.”
    No one said anything as she splashed away from them, back toward the Main Junction. Her body melded with the darkness until only her witchlight was visible—a ball of golden light that seemed to dance of its own accord across the tunnel.
    “How water not get you?” Gold-Eye asked Drum in the now oppressive silence. The big man was as obviously unimpressed with Ninde and Gold-Eye as Ella was.
    “Held on to the ladder till it broke,” Drum replied after a long pause. “Most of the first rush was past then, so we could swim. Grabbed another ladder about half a mile east.”
    It sounded simple, the way he said it so matter-of-factly. But Gold-Eye had been farther up the ladder. He could imagine the terrible force of the water hitting full-on, the lack of air, the ladder breaking—and the frantic struggle to break through to an air gap, not knowing if one even existed…
    He didn’t ask any more questions, so they sat in silence till they heard Ella coming back, counting manholes.
    “Fifteen…sixteen…okay, on your feet! Drum, check my count from that last one, sixteen.”
    The drain grew smaller and seemed to slope upward after manhole twenty. At manhole twenty-seven, Ella stood on Drum’s shoulders and lifted the manhole cover a few inches, just enough to let sunlight stream in through the crack. Noise came too—the three-part whistle of a pair of red parrots, and the distant chuckle of wibewa birds.
    There were no creature sounds. No crash of Myrmidon hobnails or Trackers whistling. Just the birdcalls and the breeze. Even those faded for a minute or two, leaving an eerie silence.
    Ella lowered the cover, and Drum knelt so she could jump down.
    “It seems okay,” she said. “Ninde, see if you can pick up anything.”
    Ninde complied in silence. This time she did break the skin on her knuckle, blood slowly welling out of the joint to mix with spittle, running into the corners of her mouth.
    “Nothing,” she