The moment the generator died, Rusthaven transformed. The perpetual twilight plunged into a near-absolute darkness, and the constant, reassuring thrum of the city's heart was replaced by a terrifying silence, which was immediately filled by a rising wave of panic. Shouts and screams echoed through the metal canyons.
The fragile order of the scavenger city, built on a foundation of scavenged power, had shattered. It was every predator for themselves.
"This way! Now!" Zarok's voice cut through the chaos. He grabbed Jacob's arm and pulled him along, with X close behind. They couldn't go back the way they came. The main thoroughfares would be a maelstrom of riots and looting. They had to take the back ways, the high ways.
Zarok led them up a rickety, spiraling staircase made of welded scrap, ascending into the upper levels of the city. Below them, the darkness was punctuated by flashes of gunfire and the bloom of spreading fires. The city was eating itself alive.
"They played us perfectly," Jacob panted, clutching the precious map to his chest.
"They let us do the hard work of convincing Silas, then used the chaos to try and take the prize."
"They're not done yet," Zarok growled, his eyes scanning the network of catwalks and gantries that crisscrossed the darkness above them. "They know we have the map. They'll be hunting us. They'll expect us to head for the main gate."
He pointed to a massive, rusted crane arm that stretched from their level across a wide chasm to the outer wall of the city. "That's our way out. It's risky, but they won't expect it."
The journey to the crane was a nightmare. They had to navigate a treacherous, three-dimensional maze of walkways, some of which were little more than single, narrow beams suspended hundreds of feet above the chaos below. The darkness was their ally and their enemy, hiding them from pursuit but also concealing deadly drops and unstable footing.
They were not alone in the upper levels. Other denizens of Rusthaven were on the move, some fleeing, others looking for opportunities. A shadowy figure lunged at X from a dark corner, a knife flashing. X reacted on pure instinct, his spear shaft coming up to block the strike and a swift kick sending the attacker tumbling over the edge with a short, choked scream.
The brutal, split-second act of self-preservation left X trembling, but there was no time for shock. He had to keep moving.
They were halfway to the crane when they were spotted. A group of five Children of the Sun appeared on an intersecting walkway behind them, their pale robes almost invisible in the gloom. They didn't shout or challenge.
They just attacked.
The fight on the narrow catwalk was a terrifying, vertiginous affair. Zarok met the first two head-on, his heavy blade a blur of motion in the dark. He was a whirlwind of controlled violence, his every move economical and deadly. He fought not with the wild fury of a berserker, but with the cold, precise lethality of a professional soldier.
X and Jacob were left to deal with the other three. Jacob, using the crossbow as Zarok had taught him, stayed back, firing bolts to disrupt their advance. X stood before him, spear held in a defensive stance, a guardian protecting the scholar. The narrow confines of the catwalk made the spear a perfect weapon, its reach keeping the cultists at bay.
One cultist, armed with a pair of wicked-looking hooks, tried to rush past X's guard.
X didn't try to meet his charge with force. Instead, he used the cultist's own momentum against him, deflecting his attack with the spear shaft and using a quick, precise leg-sweep. The cultist's feet went out from under him, and he toppled over the side with a cry of surprise that was cut short by the distant, sickening crunch of his impact.
The remaining two cultists hesitated, their fanatical zeal momentarily broken by the sudden, efficient lethality of their opponents. In that moment of hesitation, Zarok finished his own fight, his blade striking with finality.
He turned, his face a grim mask in the sporadic light from the fires below.
"Go! Now!" he roared.
They ran, leaving the remaining cultists behind. They reached the base of the massive crane, a platform of rusted steel shuddering in the wind. The crane arm stretched out into the darkness like a skeletal finger, its far end resting somewhere on the city's outer wall. It was a hundred-yard walk on a beam no more than three feet wide, with nothing but a dizzying drop below.
"No time to think. Just move," Zarok commanded, already stepping out onto the beam. He moved with a steady, confident balance. X followed, the memory of the training voice whispering in his mind:
"Balance is not stillness. It is controlled motion."
He focused on the far end of the beam, not the terrifying drop below.
Jacob was last, his face pale, his fear of heights warring with his fear of the cultists behind them. He took a deep breath and followed, his knuckles white as he gripped the precious map.
They were halfway across when more cultists appeared at the base of the crane. One of them raised a crossbow. A bolt whistled past X's head, missing by inches.
"Don't look back! Keep moving!" Zarok yelled.
They scrambled the rest of the way, their hearts pounding. They leaped from the end of the crane arm onto the top of the city's outer wall, a wide, flat surface. They had made it. They were out of the maze.
From the top of the wall, they could see the full extent of the chaos. Rusthaven was a city tearing itself apart, a bonfire of anarchy against the dark canvas of the Glass Desert. They could also see the Slumbering Scaly, where Seren was waiting. A group of Children of the Sun was trying to batter down the guesthouse's reinforced door.
"Seren!" Jacob cried out in alarm.
"They're trying to cut off our escape and take our supplies," Zarok analyzed, his mind already working on the tactical problem. "We have to get to her. And the brutes."
There was a system of ropes and pulleys nearby, used for hauling cargo to the top of the wall. Without hesitation, Zarok grabbed a rope and began to rappel down the sheer, hundred-foot wall. X and Jacob followed, their descent a dizzying, controlled fall.
They hit the ground running, charging towards the guesthouse.
They slammed into the group of cultists from behind, taking them completely by surprise. The fight was a short, brutal explosion of violence in the narrow alley. When it was over, they hammered on the door.
"Seren! It's us!" Zarok yelled.
The door creaked open, and Seren stood there, pale but unharmed, clutching a heavy iron skillet as a weapon. The relief on her face was immense.
"No time!" Zarok said, pushing them towards the back yard.
"Get the brutes! We're leaving now!"
Minutes later, the four of them were mounted on the pack brutes, charging out of a secondary service gate and into the eerie, silent expanse of the Glass Desert. Behind them, Rusthaven burned, its death rattles echoing in the night. They had their map. They had their lives. But they had made a powerful new enemy, and the hunt was now on.