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IG-11's metal feet make repetitive clanging noises on the ground behind them as they move forward, quiet and careful. The end of the tunnel spills out into a wider passageway, with what looks like metal tracks set into the floors. Greef moves past Cara and Din as they stop, pivoting on his heels to look down both ways of the seemingly endless tunnel.
"Do you know which way to go?" Greef asks, turning with Zoya still held in his arms. He shifts her up a bit, and she feels a rush of guilt as a slight tremor runs through the Guild leader's muscles. He must be getting tired.
Din shakes his head minutely, the beam of light emanating from his helmet shifting its ray across the ground. "No," he says. "I don't know these tunnels." As soon as his admission tastes the air, Cara chooses to turn right, flashlight flickering across the dark, stained walls. "I've only entered from the bazaar."
They keep moving through the tunnel, passing by entrances that branch off in every direction. "Well, if we get the smell of sulfur, and we follow it, it'll lead us up to the plains where the river flows," Greef says.
"And the Imps will catch us before we make it to the ship," Din replies, his voice strained and deep and trembling as it washes through the darkness. "We need the Mandalorians to escort us to safety."
They veer off down a separate path, and as Greef walks past the wall a little too close, Zoya's boot catches on the surface, and her leg gives a particularly nasty twinge. "Fuck." She winces, digging the nails of one of her hands into her palm.
Greef glances down at her, concern washing across his face. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she mutters. "Just fine. Are you? You can put me down if—"
"I'm good," he says. "I may be on the older side, but my arms are as strong as ever. It helps that you barely weigh ten pounds."
Zoya snorts. "Right. I felt you start shaking a little bit four steps ago."
"Well it's not like you can walk."
Din, wincing beneath the helmet as he stumbles forward ahead of them, leaning on Cara, feels something shaped like a dagger of ice twist into his heart. Though there hadn't been time nor a chance to explain how her leg had been seared almost all the way through, blood pooling around her in the dirt, everything that he'd seen had told him what Zoya had not—or could not. Her body, limp in the dust, blaster fallen beside her fingers. The corpse, collapsed nearby. What she'd said, when Din wanted them to leave him behind. I can't lose you, too. A fist of obsidian squeezes tightly around his chest because he knows deep down what she had to do, and a thread of guilt so thick and twisted and painful that it burns wreathes him in its dark glow.
