Rasp’s feet pounded against the cobblestone, sending jolts of pain coursing upwards through his leaden legs. He ran, unable to focus on anything more than setting one stubborn foot in front of the other, as Whisper guided them deeper into the mazework of back alley streets and unlit ginnels. Rasp didn’t know where they were going and had a sneaking suspicion that Whisper didn’t either. He continued to slam his aching heels against the buckled street regardless, as the sounds of their pursuers grew fainter in the distance.
He and Whisper were gaining the lead. Which was a good sign, because Rasp wasn’t sure how much longer he could carry on. Already, his lungs felt as if they were folding in on themselves. Everything hurt–his knees, his bones, the steadily growing throb that tightened on the inside of his skull, threatening to send his brain matter shooting through his eye sockets.
“So dramatic,” Whisper muttered.
He may have been short of breath, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t make the effort to complain when the opportunity presented itself. “You know, when you first kidnapped me–”
“I did not kidnap you. I relocated you. By surprise.” Whisper added, quietly, “Very suddenly.”
“Yeah? Well you failed to mention there would be this much running!”
Prior to his surprise relocation, Rasp hadn’t had much experience with cities. Zero experience, to be exact. Lonebrook had been the largest populated settlement he’d ever visited and he had found that overwhelming at times. The idea was somewhat laughable now. Alas, his newfound career as a fugitive witch meant Rasp had become well acquainted with cities of all shapes and sizes. Much of this experience constituted running through them attempting to evade the law, but he chalked it up to useful nonetheless.
There was one thing that stuck out to him. Be it a wealthy cityscape that straddled the western coastline, or a landlocked sprawl surrounded by expansive farmland, there was a common denominator that united all of the cities of the realm: the seedy underbelly. It didn’t matter if the city had iron gates and the finest towering stone walls to keep the rabble out. You could bet your last coin that beyond the cobbled pavers and lantern lit streetways, there existed a district the rest of society turned a blind eye to. It was these such places, Rasp discovered, that he usually found himself neck deep in trouble.
Tonight was no exception.
“Curse this abysmal city!” Whisper’s fingers dug deep into Rasp’s arm as his mentor pulled him to an abrupt halt.
“What?” Rasp whipped his head from side to side, resisting the urge to keel over from exhaustion. Whatever moonlight had managed to break through the dense cloud bank above stopped at the terraced roofline, rendering the surrounding alleyway impossibly dark. A light wind whipped through the stone alleyway, carrying with it bits of garbage and the stench of spoiled food and manure.
Rasp’s dry words came out between desperate gulps for air. “What is it?”
“A dead end.”
“So? We just up-and-over it.” It wasn’t like this was the first time such a thing had happened. Being a blasted witch had to have some advantages, after all.
“Normally I would agree, but one of our pursuers presents a problem with that plan.” Before Rasp could ask how, Whisper turned him to face the mouth of the alleyway. “Do as we have practiced. Reach out with your magic and listen to what it is telling you.”
Old Rasp would have protested the idea, insisting their remaining time was better spent finding an alternate escape route. Current Rasp felt similarly. The only difference being that he now possessed the wisdom not to mock Whisper’s suggestion out loud. Stifling a sigh, Rasp sucked in a lungful of dingy alley air and focused on his heartbeat, allowing its rampant drum to drown out his other senses.
His magic intermingled with the breeze and allowed the current to pull it further down the dark alleyway. A series of faint energy pulses glowed within his mind, growing stronger as their sources neared. “I sense three witches,” he said.
“Good. Dig deeper. Tell me what type.”
Rasp tried to focus on the energies but the effort succeeded only in making his head swim. “Red, green, and blue?”
“Are we in primary school, little bird? Those are colors, not magical classifications.”
“I don’t know, alright!”
“An earth elemental, an energy caster, and an alchemist.” Whisper kindly provided the answer. “The reason we cannot up-and-over it, as you put it, is because the energy caster would strike us down the moment we tried.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
In other words, they were trapped and the only way out would be to go through the enemy. Lovely. He tilted his head, listening as three steps of footsteps flooded into the narrow alley. Try as he might, there was simply not enough light to distinguish the new arrivals from the dark blur of their environment.
“You are surrounded!” a voice bellowed across from them, reverberating off the surrounding stone buildings. “Surrender now and–”
Rasp didn’t bother to listen to the rest of the witch’s instructions. Having heard one overconfident call for surrender, you had heard them all. They ended basically the same anyway: give us what we want or we hurt you. Rasp leaned closer to Whisper and said, “What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. What is your plan?”
“My plan?” he sputtered. “You’re the mentor! You’re supposed to tell me the plan and I half-ass my way through it.”
“I would not be a good mentor if I spent your entire training handing you the answers, little bird. I have full confidence that you can devise a competent strategy to free both of us of our present situation.”
Before Rasp could voice his outrage, a crackling ball of green energy zipped between them and erupted against the wall at their backs. Shattered bits of brick and stone shrapnel ricocheted across the alleyway amidst the downpour of green sparks.
“Hey! We weren’t ready!” With his temper flaring, Rasp drew inwards, hastily searching for the nearest element. The breeze responded, whispering into his ear as it tousled his hair across his face. Rasp reached out with his magic, harnessing the power of the wind, and channeled it into a single force. He could feel the warm heat of the energy caster’s power building into another attack across from him. With seconds to spare, Rasp unleashed the torrent of air into the narrow alleyway. Over the howling wind raging in his ears, he was rewarded with the panicked screams of his attackers as they were buffeted backwards.
It wasn’t a lasting measure by any means, but it did provide him with the opportunity to turn to Whisper and ask, “That was too close, even for you. You depleted your magic with that little spell back in the square, didn’t you?”
“Regrettably, yes. But I still maintain that it is important for you to learn to rely on yourself,” Whisper admitted, sounding remarkably unconcerned over the fact that their current powers were only a shadow of what they once were. The latent effects of iron poisoning, unfortunately. “Now, stop thinking about me and focus on the fight at hand. You are outnumbered and your opponents currently have you on the defensive when you should be on the offensive. What is your first prerogative?”
Level the playing field. If Rasp couldn’t rely on vision to aid him, then neither should his opponents. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a single matchstick.
“Oh dear gods,” Whisper groaned.
“You told me to do this my way. This is how I’m doing it.” Before Whisper could knock any sense into him, Rasp struck the match against his belt and a flicker of flame ignited the gloom. Fire was one of the easier elements to manipulate. Control, no. Manipulate, yes. Burn the town down in the process? Sometimes. All that mattered now was that he and Whisper got away.
Rasp pictured a blazing ball of flame and willed it into existence. In a single pulse, a beacon of light flared across the alleyway, chasing the darkness away and blinding his pursuers with the sudden transition from dark to light. It remained solid for only a few seconds before the magic broke loose, shooting tiny fireballs in every which way.
“Crap!” Rasp said, realizing several of the burning balls of fire were hurtling in his direction.
A flickering blaze of blue light leapt up around him, shielding both him and Whisper from the fiery onslaught. Rasp uncovered his face and then checked his hands, realizing the magic was not his own. With a heavy sigh, he turned to his mentor, grousing, “What happened to your magic being depleted?”
“I thought perhaps a sense of false urgency would cause you to make better decisions. Obviously I was wrong.”
Whisper’s protection spell dimmed, allowing Rasp to get an idea of what sort of damage he’d inflicted to the alleyway. The scattered flames spread by his fireball provided enough contrast for him to pick out the outlines of his attackers from their muddled surroundings. One looked to be down for the count and possibly on fire. The other two, unfortunately, were no worse for the wear and had regrouped a sensible distance away from the worst of the flames.
Before Rasp could ask which of the three he’d managed to take out, the buckled cobblestone heaved beneath his feet, sending him flat on his ass. A hazy swirl of red magic lifted slabs of broken street into the air across from him. Shouting a spell at the top of her lungs, the earth elemental hurled her arsenal in their direction.
Rasp threw his palms out in front of him and the debris jerked to a stop midair. Gritting his teeth, he staggered to his feet as raw magic poured from his hands, forcing the shrapnel in the opposite direction. Yellow sparked against red as his magic combatted the other. He was gaining the upper hand, having forced her into retreat, when a stray flash of green struck the building above him, sending a cascade of broken clay tiles onto his head.
Oh how he missed the days of the bare-knuckled brawl. Things had been simpler back then. The rules were more straightforward–no weapons, no magic, just a man and his fists. “This is why nobody likes witches!”
Rasp rushed forward, channeling all of his power into his magic as he tripped and stumbled over the shattered roof tiles. Blood trickled from a fresh split in his forehead, but the pain faded into the background as fresh rage pumped through his veins. The earth elemental was weakening. Rasp could feel her concentration slipping. Despite the dark of the alleyway, he swore he could see her magical signature pulsing within the center of his vision. He followed it, like a beacon, barely conscious of the strange sensation stirring to life within his chest.
Power, cold like ice, snaked and slithered beneath his skin. The sensation started at the base of his neck and spread downwards, wrapping his body in its icy tendrils. Amidst the chaos, a startling realization occurred to him. He was suddenly very, very hungry.