The sound was wrong.
It wasn't footsteps. Footsteps had weight and rhythm. This was a constant scrape-and-pull, claws raking stone, muscles flexing, joints bending the wrong way.
Kael ran in the lead, the lantern in his left hand casting wild arcs of light over slick stone walls. Behind him, boots pounded, breaths came sharp and shallow, curses hissed between clenched teeth.
"Faster!" the pale-haired scout barked at the younger one, who was already gasping like his lungs were on fire.
From above, the thing followed.
Kael didn't need to look to know it was there. The pressure in the air told him, the faint displacement of cold air rushing past his ears each time it shifted position on the ceiling.
They reached the chamber with three branching tunnels. Kael didn't hesitate, he veered right.
"Not that way!" the scar-chinned scout protested, pointing left. "That's the marked path..."
"It's the path it wants us to take," Kael cut him off, voice calm in a way that made the man's protest die in his throat.
Something landed behind them with a wet thump. The stone shuddered under the weight.
"Move," Kael said.
The younger scout looked back. One glance was all it took. His face drained of color, and his next scream was high and wordless.
Kael caught a flicker of movement, the creature pushing off the ground and vanishing into the dark above again, using the ceiling like a second floor.
They sprinted down the new passage. The air here was thicker, almost gelatinous with damp, the walls slick with black moss that squelched under the lightest touch. The lantern flame struggled, sputtering.
A sound rippled through the tunnel, like a wet rope being dragged slowly across stone.
The younger scout stumbled, nearly going down. Kael grabbed him by the collar mid-stride and yanked him upright without breaking pace. The move was too fast, too perfectly timed, as though Kael had known the stumble would happen before it did.
The pale-haired scout noticed. He didn't say anything, but Kael felt his eyes on him even as they ran.
They hit a narrow bend, and Kael's steps slowed just enough for the others to catch the change. "Lanterns out," he ordered.
"Are you insane?" Scar-chin hissed.
"It sees the light."
"Then how..."
"Just do it."
The darkness closed around them like a living thing. The air felt thicker, the scrape of claws above louder now, deliberate. It was listening.
Kael placed one hand lightly on the wall and began moving at a measured pace. He wasn't feeling for the path, he already knew where it turned, where the ceiling lowered. His steps avoided every loose stone and shallow puddle without hesitation.
No one questioned him now.
The sound above slowed too, keeping pace.
Kael waited until the tunnel began to slope down before whispering, "Run on my mark. Hard left in thirty paces."
The pale-haired scout's breath caught. "How in the hells do you..."
"Mark."
They bolted. Kael counted each stride in his head. At the thirtieth, he turned sharply left into a low passage. The others followed, stumbling into the cramped space just as the creature dropped into the main tunnel behind them with a sound like meat hitting stone.
It shrieked, a noise so sharp it made Kael's teeth ache and launched itself after them.
The passage was too narrow for it to run upright. Its limbs folded unnaturally, claws stabbing into walls and floor as it pulled itself forward with alarming speed.
Kael could hear the scrape of its claws growing louder, closer.
They burst into another chamber — smaller than the first, with a single black pit yawning in the center. A broken ladder led partway down before vanishing into the dark.
"Down," Kael said.
Scar-chin swore. "That's a drop into gods-know-what!"
"Better than staying here."
The pale-haired scout was already moving, slinging his lantern on his belt before grabbing the ladder. He went first, boots clanging against rusted rungs, disappearing into the dark below.
The younger scout hesitated, frozen. The creature's shadow flickered on the walls as it entered the chamber.
Kael stepped in front of him without looking back. "Go."
The boy's hands were trembling so badly he nearly missed the first rung, but then he was gone, following the pale-haired man into the depths.
Scar-chin went next, muttering curses under his breath.
Kael stayed until the last possible second, watching the creature slink forward. It moved like liquid, each step too smooth for something with joints and bones. The white eyes fixed on him, unblinking.
It stopped at the edge of the pit.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Kael stepped backward and dropped into the darkness without using the ladder.
He landed silently, knees bending to absorb the fall that should have shattered bone.
When he straightened, the pale-haired scout was staring at him. Not at his face — at the way Kael's boots had landed without a sound.
Above them, the creature's claws scraped once against the stone lip of the pit. Then the sound faded as it moved away.
The younger scout exhaled shakily. "Is it… gone?"
Kael didn't answer. His head tilted slightly, listening.
"No," he said at last. "It's hunting ahead now."