"The man you're looking for, the one who left these marks," Leo said, his voice a low rasp that was barely audible over the hiss of the rain, "he's a professional. A Cleaner. They call them Huntsmen. When a cell is compromised, when a secret is at risk of getting out... the Cult sends a Huntsman to erase the problem. The cell, the evidence... and anyone who might have stumbled upon it." He looked at me, his pale grey eyes like chips of ice in the gloom of the alley. "We are the last, and most significant, loose end on his list."
The revelation, delivered in the grimy back-alleys of the tanner's district two nights after my heist, had shattered any lingering sense of being in control. We had spent the last forty-eight hours in a frantic, paranoid dance across the city's underbelly. Leo, now fully invested, had taken charge, his cynicism replaced by a cold, deadly focus. He led me through a masterclass in urban tracking, his every action a lesson.
He showed me how to read the secret language of the city, a language I had been utterly blind to. We didn't barge into taverns asking questions; we observed from rooftops, watching the subtle exchanges, the dead drops, the signals passed between seemingly unconnected people. He pointed out the scratches on a warehouse doorframe, a specific pattern of three vertical lines and one horizontal. "Safe house marker," he'd whispered. Then, a few blocks away, another warehouse, the pattern two vertical and one diagonal. "Compromised. Abandoned. They're purging their own network. Recently." He was showing me the ghost of a presence, the trail of a serpent that had already shed its skin.
My own skills found a new purpose. While Leo read the physical signs, I read the Aetheric ones. My Rhythmic Sense, a tool of combat, became a tool of perception. "Two more," I whispered from the shadows of a fish market, my Sense picking up cold, still signatures on a nearby rooftop. "Hidden. Not moving. Watching the street." Leo's eyes had narrowed, a flicker of impressed respect. "Your rhythm-sense has its uses after all, lordling. Good catch." We had become a team, our skills, one born of the gutter and the other of a dragon's heart, complementing each other in an strange, effective harmony.
This trail had led us here, to a dilapidated tenement, the last known address of a fence who moved the kind of alchemical reagents used in Void rituals. But we were too late. Through a grimy third-floor window, I could just make out the shape of a slumped figure in a chair, their head at an unnatural, broken angle.
"Damn," Leo had breathed. "They got to Ferris first." And that's when we saw him. The Huntsman. An executioner, cleaning up the last loose end, confirming our worst fears.
His senses were as sharp as his blades. He had detected us, and the hunt had reversed. Now, we were the prey.
"Running is death," Leo hissed, pulling me back from the street and into the suffocating, labyrinthine alleys. "A Huntsman doesn't chase; he corrals. He'll have every escape route watched. He's herding us."
The next hour was a blur of adrenaline and fear. A frantic chase through the fog-shrouded city. Leo was a ghost, his knowledge of the city's secret passages—its rooftops, its sewers, its hidden courtyards—the only thing keeping us a step ahead. Several times, I felt the sharp, focused pressure of the Huntsman's Master-level senses sweeping over our position, a terrifying, invisible spotlight that sent a jolt of pure dread down my spine. He was toying with us, letting us think we were escaping, all while subtly guiding our path.
We finally found a momentary reprieve in the cold, damp dark of an abandoned cistern, the sound of our own ragged breaths loud in the enclosed space. "He's pushing us south," Leo panted, his face pale in the gloom. "Towards the Sunken District. It's the only direction he's left open. It's a trap."
"Then we don't go south," I countered, my mind racing. "We go down." I looked at him, the desperate, insane plan crystallizing. "The Cult is planning a major ritual. The Huntsman is here to clean up before it happens. He expects us to run from him. He doesn't expect us to run towards his objective. We find that ritual site. We make ourselves the problem he cannot ignore. We force him to confront us, not on his terms, in a carefully prepared kill box, but on ours, in the heart of his own operation."
Leo stared at me, his ancient eyes wide with a mixture of shock and a flicker of mad respect. "It's suicide," he breathed.
"It's our only move," I replied. "Can you get my team? Can you get them to the Sunken District without leading him to them?"
It was a staggering risk, trusting him with the lives of my people. He held my gaze for a long moment, a silent negotiation passing between us. He finally gave a single, curt nod. He gave me a set of complex directions to a specific, crumbling aqueduct on the edge of the ruins. "Be there in one hour," he said, and then he was gone, a shadow swallowed by other shadows.
I arrived at the rendezvous point feeling exposed, vulnerable, my heart hammering with the weight of my gamble. But they were there. Garrick, Rolan, and Seraphina, huddled in the shadow of the ancient, moss-covered structure, having been led there by Leo through paths I couldn't imagine.
I explained the situation quickly, my voice a low, urgent whisper. "Leo and I are being hunted by a Master-level specialist. The Cult is planning a major ritual, tonight, in the ruins below. We are going in. Our only chance is to strike first, disrupt the ritual, and force a confrontation."
Garrick's face was a mask of grim determination, but he immediately objected. "My lord, this is a trap," he growled, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "We don't know the terrain, the enemy's numbers, or the nature of this ritual. It is a tactical nightmare. We should fall back to The Grey Anchor and fortify."
"And wait for him to pick us off one by one?" I shot back. "He's a Master, Garrick. No fortress is safe if he wants in. Leo is right. He is herding us. Our only chance is to do the one thing he won't expect." I looked at each of them, my own fear warring with my resolve. I felt the immense weight of command, of sending these people, my people, into a situation that would likely kill them. "This is not an order," I said, my voice tight. "It is a choice. But I am going down there. I will not let them finish whatever dark work they have started."
Rolan stepped forward, his jaw set. "Where you go, my lord, we follow."
It was Seraphina who sealed it. She clutched the satchel containing her reagents and the Silverwood cutting, her gaze fixed on the dark, gaping entrances to the ruins below. "I can feel it, my lord," she whispered, her voice trembling but firm. "Down there. The air is sick. It feels like a graveyard. If there is a wound in this city, it is there." Her Life Sense was a beacon of purity, recoiling from the immense concentration of Void energy below.
Garrick looked from Seraphina's resolute face to my own, and his objections died. He gave a single, sharp nod. The team was assembled. The target was identified. The die was cast.
Leo reappeared from the shadows, his presence as silent as the fog. "They're beginning," he said, his voice a low growl. "No more running. Tonight, we hunt the hunter."
We descended into the darkness, a small, desperate pack walking willingly into the heart of a spider's web, our only hope to burn it all down before the spider could claim us. The air grew cold, thick with the stench of stagnant water and the growing, palpable wrongness of the Void. The hunt had truly begun.