The exodus began in the dead of night, when the city above was deepest in its drunken slumber. There was no ceremony, no farewell to the damp, smoky cistern that had been their home. It was a funeral march for a way of life.
Morwen divided them into three groups, each taking a different, treacherous route out of the city's underbelly. Smaller groups were harder to track. Some would try to blend into the flow of migrant workers heading to outlying farms. Others would take to the waterways, risking the polluted currents and the river patrols. Their goal was a single, pre-arranged rendezvous point two days' travel north, a forgotten waymarker on the edge of the wildlands.
Kaelen's group consisted of Morwen, Bramble, Thorn, and Wisp. The core. The ones most tied to his fate. They took the riskiest path: the old aqueduct system that snaked along the city's cliffs. It was exposed, treacherous, but the fastest route to the open ground.
The climb out of the sewers was a nerve-shredding ordeal. They left the world of dripping stone and rusted iron for a vertiginous ledge of slick, moss-covered masonry. A cold wind whipped at them, carrying the distant, indifferent sounds of the city. Below, the lights of Ain glittered like a bed of jewels, a world that had condemned them to darkness.
They moved in single file, hugging the wall. Bramble led, his solid form a bulwark against the wind. Thorn followed, her senses stretched to their limits. Then Kaelen, with Wisp clinging close behind him, the boy's small hand sometimes brushing his back for reassurance. Morwen brought up the rear, her ancient eyes scanning the darkness behind them.
For hours, they navigated the crumbling architecture in silence. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the scuff of their feet on stone. Kaelen's mind raced, replaying the fight, the Inquisitor's cold gaze, the weight of the decision to flee. He was a poison, leaking out of the city and infecting the countryside with his presence.
Just before dawn, as the sky began to lighten to a murky grey, they reached the end of the aqueduct. It emptied into a rushing, ice-cold stream that carved a path through a narrow gorge. This was the boundary. Beyond lay the wild, rolling hills that eventually gave way to the vast, humming expanse of the Whispering Woods.
They paused for a moment, catching their breath, drinking from the stream. The water was clean here, tasting of pine and stone.
"We follow the water until midday," Morwen instructed, her voice barely a whisper over the rush of the stream. "Then we cut east, into the hills. We'll meet the others at the Standing Stone."
They had just begun to pick their way along the rocky bank when Wisp froze, his head cocked. His small body went rigid. "They're here," he breathed, his eyes wide with terror. "The humming… the earth… it's closer. Much closer."
Bramble swore, hefting his hatchet. "They didn't follow our trail. They anticipated our exit."
It was a trap. The Hounds hadn't been searching the tunnels; they had been corralling them, herding them towards this natural choke point.
From the shadows of the gorge ahead, figures emerged, blocking their path. The Gevurah, his stone armor glinting dully in the pre-dawn light. One of the air scouts. And the cloaked Inquisitor, his form seeming to drink the light around him.
They were cut off from the front. The way back was the sheer drop of the aqueduct.
"Well, Decay boy," Bramble growled, planting his feet firmly on the stream bank. "Time to see if those lessons stuck."
The Gevurah didn't bother with words. He slammed his fists together, and the very ground beneath their feet shuddered. A spike of rock shot up from the stream bed, aimed directly at Kaelen.
Thorn was faster. A dart flew from her hand, not at the Gevurah, but at the base of the spike. The toxin acted instantly, not paralyzing the stone, but somehow making it brittle. The spike shattered harmlessly as Kaelen stumbled back.
The air scout moved, a blur of motion, a blade of condensed air forming in his hand. Bramble met the charge, his hatchet deflecting the invisible weapon with a shower of sparks. The force of the impact still sent a shock up Bramble's arm.
It was chaos. But through the chaos, Kaelen saw the Inquisitor. He wasn't engaging. He was simply walking towards them, his focus entirely on Kaelen, as if the battle around him was irrelevant.
Morwen stepped forward, placing herself between the Inquisitor and Kaelen. "You will not have him," she said, her voice carrying a strange, resonant power that Kaelen had never heard before.
The Inquisitor paused. For the first time, he seemed to take note of someone else. A faint, dry sound escaped from the shadows of his hood. It might have been a laugh.
He raised a hand towards Morwen. Not a beckoning gesture this time, but a crushing, dismissive motion.
Morwen cried out, clutching her head as if struck by an invisible hammer. She staggered, her eyes losing focus.
"NO!" Wisp screamed. The boy focused all his fear, all his panic, into a single, concentrated sonic shriek aimed at the Inquisitor.
The effect was more powerful than before. The Inquisitor recoiled, his cloak whipping around him. The oppressive mental pressure vanished.
It was the opening they needed.
"The wall!" Bramble roared, still locked in combat with the air scout. "Kaelen, now!"
Kaelen turned. The gorge wall was a sheer face of rock looming over them. It was too big, too vast. He couldn't collapse it. But he didn't need to.
He saw what Bramble meant. A massive, precariously balanced boulder, lodged high above the path. A keystone.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He simply reached out with his will and poured every ounce of the cold, hungry void into the tiny points of erosion holding the boulder in place.
There was a deep, grinding crack that echoed through the gorge. The boulder shifted, then broke free, plummeting down with a roar that drowned out the stream.
It didn't hit the Hounds. It crashed onto the path directly between them, sending a shower of rock and debris flying, completely blocking the gorge.
Silence descended, broken only by the rush of the stream and the sound of their own panting. The Hounds were cut off. For now.
"Run!" Morwen gasped, shaking off the daze from the mental attack.
They didn't need to be told twice. They scrambled up the opposite bank, leaving the blocked gorge behind, fleeing into the uncertain sanctuary of the hills as the sun finally broke the horizon, illuminating their flight. They were free, but they were exposed. The hunt was no longer confined to the city's shadows. It was under the open sky.