The last pull was the hardest. Eliakim hooked his forearm over the cliff's lip, fingers digging into damp soil. Gideon was already crouched at the top, hand extended.
"Up, now!"
Eliakim shoved Skyling over first, the chain slackening as she scrambled free. Caleb followed with a grunt, hauling himself beside Gideon. Ezra crested last, wand in one hand, his other arm dragging Eliakim up the final inch.
And then they froze.
Vaeryn Solthir stood a dozen paces away. Moonlight caught the fine etching on his armor, the faint shimmer of his captain's mantle. His stance was relaxed, but his hand rested lightly on the pommel of his curved blade.
Behind them, the cliffside erupted in shouts — the patrols had reached the base. Torchlight licked the rock face like molten gold. They'd be climbing in seconds.
The captain spoke — swift, sharp syllables in the Elven tongue. Eliakim kept his face neutral, eyes faintly narrowing, still pretending he didn't understand. Caleb's voice translated low and urgent in his ear.
"He says we've got spirit — rare for prisoners. He's asking if he should call for the guards… or take us with him."
Eliakim murmured back without moving his lips, "And what's the catch?"
Caleb hesitated. "He says… follow him, we live to see dawn. Refuse, we're climbing straight into death."
Gideon shifted forward, twin axes ready, but Eliakim lifted a hand.
Below, a grappling hook clanged against stone. The first of the patrols had begun their ascent.
Ezra's gaze darted between Eliakim and Vaeryn. "This smells wrong."
Caleb relayed another phrase from the captain. "Possibly another cage," he warns. "But not theirs. Not tonight."
Vaeryn's hand dropped from his blade. He stepped back, leaving a gap in the shadows. "Choose," Caleb translated, "or lose your chance."
Skyling gave a low, anxious trill, her cuffed wings twitching.
Eliakim's jaw tightened. "Alright, Captain," he said in Common for show. "Lead on."
Vaeryn's lips curved — not into a smile, but something far more dangerous.
They plunged into the treeline, the forest swallowing them whole. The torches from the cliffside flickered through branches, but the captain moved with unnerving certainty, slipping between gnarled roots and moss-slick stone as if the path had been carved into his bones.
Eliakim kept his distance, eyes scanning the darkness. Every step took them deeper into the tangle of the forest ravine, its shadows layered thick enough to drown in.
Caleb whispered as they ran. "He's not taking us to the outer wilds. These turns… they're toward the old ravine routes — abandoned after the war."
"Abandoned," Ezra muttered, "or hidden?"
The canopy above began to thin, letting cold moonlight spill in patches across their path. Then Eliakim saw it — faint glimmers ahead, not torchlight, but the ghostly glow of wardstones embedded in the rock. They formed a perimeter, just visible through the mist that curled between them.
Beyond that mist, vague shapes loomed — spires half-swallowed by the cliff walls, bridges strung across yawning gaps, the distant echo of drills and clashing steel.
Gideon's voice was low. "That's no escape route. That's a… fortress."
Vaeryn didn't slow. "Welcome," Caleb translated breathlessly, "to the Queen's blind spot… and the Dark Elves' other war."
Eliakim's stomach sank. They hadn't escaped into freedom.They'd run straight into a battlefield waiting to happen.