"YOU!" a voice roared from behind them.

Carmen looked back to see the guard she had shot at earlier advancing on them from across the prison yard, his eyes alight. He pointed a finger at Corvus. "BRING HER HERE!"

Everyone in the yard looked up.

"Run," Corvus hissed.

She jerked herself away from him, feeling her arm slip out go his grip. She sensed him stumble, but didn't look back.

She sprinted to the rubble pile that had been the prison wall and clambered up it like a monkey. Shouts from behind her, but she barely heard them over the sound of her own pumping breath and hammering heart. When she reached the top she chanced a look back. Four men were pursuing her. One of them was Corvus. She turned and monkeyed down the other side.

She leapt off a big block of stone and landed awkwardly on the road, going into a dusty roll, but she bounced up again, her knees and elbows stinging, and set off up the road towards the warehouses. She had torn both knees on her pants and they flapped about in the wind as she picked up speed. Despite everything she felt exhilarated. Running was something she was good at.

Yells and thudding boots from behind her. Some of the men must have cleared the rubble pile and reached the road. She opened up into a sprint, feeling adrenaline rush through her body and the wind rush past her ears and icy air filling her lungs and the pain behind her ribs that she knew would go away if she kept running.

Apart from Corvus, the men would be taller and stronger than her. Faster. But they would be weighed down by their uniforms and boots and clubs. She had a head start on them, but it was hard to know whether or not they were closing the gap, and she didn't dare waste time looking back. Perhaps it was only her imagination, but the thud and crunch of their boots on the gravel road seemed to be growing louder. They didn't yell. Probably saving their breath.

Knowing that if she stayed on the open road she would soon be run down, she turned into an alley between two warehouses.

At first she turned corners at random in the hope of losing her pursuers. Last night Mildew had shown Carmen and Ward the rendesvous point on a map of the city: an abandoned factory to the prison's west, somewhat south of the road that led to the city's western gate. But Carmen didn't know this part of the city, this maze of abandoned and semi-functional factories and warehouses, and she soon realised that, in the exhilaration of running, she had lost track of where she was.

She was lost. But she had also lost her pursuers.

The sun was still low in the sky and she couldn't see it above the walls that surrounded her, so had no way of knowing which direction she was running in. For all she knew she could be running back towards the prison and the waiting Reds. Her chest was burning and her eyes watering. The panic that had set her off was hard to fight, but she made herself slow to a walk, allowing her breathing and heart to slow. Now she could think. She kept walking, to keep warm more than anything else, as the shade cast by the buildings was chill against her sweaty skin. She wondered if Corvus had pretended to pursue her for a while before slipping away. She hoped so. He had taken a great risk to rescue her. If he was captured...

She stopped thinking about Corvus. She had to concentrate on her own predicament. She still had no idea where she was.

Then suddenly she did.

She had come unexpectedly out into the open. The Fens lay before her, the marshes that led down to the delta of the river Yar. The industrial area's southeastern border was demarcated by a regular and clearly manmade slope, which fell down to the low ground of the Fens; looking along this boundary she descried the black walls of the prison hulking before the rising sun. The city, hazy with morning, seemed to float above the Fens. The Wharflands that separated the marshes from the city were invisible but for a couple of ship masts that could have been dead trees. Winding tracks led into the marshes – as likely made by animals as people. She had never ventured into the Fens before. But skirting them was out of the question: it would take her too close to the prison. And she didn't want to go back into the industrial area to look for the rendesvous point. Even if she could locate it, the Reds would be looking for her in there. Would the Scowerers still be there anyway? Perhaps they had already given up and returned to the underground.

Her mind made up, she set off down the slope.

The Fens had not seemed so large from above. She kept her eyes on the city as she progressed through them, but its towers and spires never seemed to get any closer. It was impossible to travel in a straight line. Pools of stagnant water dotted the marsh, and rushes concealed treacherous pits of mud. It had been rumoured that there was quicksand here, and she avoided the sandy areas, but a couple of times she took a careless step and sunk to her knees, her heart jumping into her throat. She was able to pull herself free of the sucking mud though and get back to firmer ground.

Chapter 16 is a scary one. Best get your incontinence products on now.