Autumn gasped as her head bounced off the wall behind her. Pain instantly clouded her vision, sending a roiling wave of nausea surging up her throat that almost made her vomit as the world spun around her. Her hands futilely grasped for her weapons as they slipped from her fingers, falling to the steps with a startling clatter.
Terror soured her mind as the drow’s weight pressed up against her. A desperate wheeze escaped the dark-haired witch as the air was driven from her lungs.
Mistaking Autumn for a female drow, the male drow panicked. Frantically, he tried to distance himself from Autumn, but in doing so, he accidentally cracked her across the jaw with a flailing backhand.
With a pained groan, the witch slid down the wall, falling roughly onto her behind.
The drow looked terrified.
Terrified herself, Autumn twitched her fingers towards the knife that’d fallen near her feet. Anger took a hold of the witch’s features as she funneled her fear into power.
Turning her eyes upward, she glared at the blurry form of the drow standing awkwardly over her.
In the darksome light, he cut an unimpressive image. A slender physique lay uncovered by any armor, clad only by a pale tunic and supple leather pants. Around his thin waist he’d hastily buckled a leather belt, adorned by a sheathed dark dagger.
From a pair of terrified lips, hurried apologies fell.
“I’m sorry, Mistress! I wasn’t looking where I was going! Please forgive—”
Autumn’s heart thundered in her chest as she lay on the ground.
Above her, the drow continued his wild gesticulations and hurried apologies, trying in vain to appease what he thought was a furious drow female. Perhaps it’d have been a kinder fate if she was.
Taking steadying breaths, Autumn carefully dragged her feet beneath herself and crept her fingers tight around her black knife’s hilt. At her silent command, magic bloomed along her fingertips.
Violet light lit up the stairwell.
As the drow’s red eyes widened, the witch leapt with terror and dread in hand.
The drow tried to scramble back, but there was nowhere to go in the narrow confines of the spiraling stairwell and, in his haste, he tripped on a step behind himself. As he fell, Autumn descended upon him like a furious dragon. Her hand, wreathed in violet terror, latched onto his throat and stifled his cry with a wave of paralyzing horror.
As he froze in place, there was little he could do to halt what was to come.
Through the stilled air, a knife of dread sang.
Autumn thrust her dreadful knife up into the drow’s unprotected armpit, feeling little resistance as she parted his flesh, spilling his crimson onto the steps. She recoiled slightly as the coppery scent filled the air.
The sudden pain tore the drow from his terror-induced trance, driving a breathless cry from his deprived lungs. Beneath Autumn’s grasp, he thrashed, fearfully seeking to cast her off and unsheathe his own blade to defend himself. However, with his blood still spilling onto the metal steps, he couldn’t find the strength nor the leverage to tear it free from his belt.
In his desperation, he swung out wildly towards Autumn.
Almost contemptuously, she leaned back, dodging the weak blow. Grabbing his overextended arm, Autumn twisted the drow over, jerking her knife free from his armpit as she did so, splattering the ground with more blood. Now sitting heavily on his back, Autumn wasted no time in yanking his head back by his hair and resting her black blade across his exposed throat.
With a grunt and a heave of exertion, Autumn carved him a new smile from ear to ear.
Hot blood splattered across her hands.
Dying gurgles filled the silence as the pool of crimson grew.
The heady scent made Autumn want to hurl. Still, she kept a hold of the drow’s scalp till his struggles ceased. When he finally did, the pale witch let his head fall with a wet thud.
Panting laboriously, Autumn staggered to her feet before she practically collapsed against the cool metal wall as the rush of adrenaline faded from her system. The room spun as a pulse of agony from the back of her skull reminded her of her rising nausea.
With her lunch threatening to make an unwanted reappearance, Autumn took a moment to just breathe.
The smell of death lingered in the air, the silence broken only by Autumn’s rough breathing.
Quietly groaning in pain, she heaved herself off the comfort of the wall and glanced down towards the body.
“Fuck me. What shitty luck.”
Crouching down, Autumn rested her crimson-coated palm against the shadows cast by the cooling body with a grimace and opened them up to the black waters with a muttered ritual. She watched with a tense jaw as the waters swallowed the young drow.
Tiredly, Autumn reached up to massage her eyes, only to recoil as she caught sight of them. Blanching, she plunged them into the still open portal below her and frantically scrubbed them until they were clean in the icy waters.
Once done, she snatched her wand up from where it’d fallen and glanced around the stairwell.
A pained look flashed over her features as she spied the blood splattered walls.
Cursing beneath her breath, Autumn flicked her wand back and forth, casting her magic to scour the blood from the walls and steps as much as she could. While she got most of it with her hurried casting, some stains remained in the steps’ grooves and a coppery smell lingered in the air. She just hoped she’d be long gone before anyone noticed.
Done with cleaning, Autumn marched swiftly up the remaining steps, only stopping just before the doorway to the next floor. Carefully cracking the heavy door, she peeked beyond it.
Thankfully, only an empty hallway stretched before her
Autumn leaned on the heavy door, straining to listen for any whisper of movement beyond, but all she could hear was the muted conversations coming up from below or the occasional sound of combat from out in the city.
Feeling marginally more confident in her safety, Autumn stepped nervously out into the hallway, making a dash towards the nearest shadow.
A quiet ritual and a drop of blood saw her dipping back into the icy blackness.
Peeking up, Autumn got a better look at the floor above. Two spacious rooms sat on either side of the hallway. On Autumn’s left sprawled a cramped barracks, full of half-made beds and lockers, while on her right lay a mixture of a canteen and recreation hall, complete with a gambling table covered in hastily discarded cards.
Thankfully, both currently were utterly devoid of life.
Autumn reemerged from the freezing waters with a sigh and, after cleansing herself once again of the water’s cloying weight, rushed down the empty corridor towards the doorway at the end. Every heavy step she took on the bare metal made her wince, but she couldn’t afford to go any slower than she already was.
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Upon reaching the end of the hallway, Autumn paused before testing the door.
Blessedly, it wasn’t locked.
Quietly opening it, Autumn gazed up at the staircase before her. Unlike the last, this one curved upwards to the left along the outer wall rather than spiraling back upon itself.
Autumn listened at the base. Once more, she heard nothing.
With a quickness, she flew up the steps towards the next floor. Pausing at the top, she looked beyond the opened door she found there.
To her immediate right sat the other side of the heavy, banded door Autumn had seen atop the city wall whilst scouting from the outside. Directly opposite, a wide, lavish hallway stretched. Rich tapestries and banners of purples and blacks hung between a series of ornate doors while a velvet-looking carpet ran underfoot.
In the rush of alarm, some of the former occupants of the private rooms had left their doors invitingly half-open.
However, just before Autumn could properly gather her bearings, she heard the telltale thunk of a lock being disengaged beside her. Snapping her head to the sound, she watched on in horror as the outer door swung slowly open.
Panicking, Autumn scurried down the hallway, making a beeline for one of the opened doors. She ducked inside one just as the heavy door creaked fully open behind her.
While desperately stifling her heavy breathing, Autumn looked wildly about the room she’d hurriedly hidden herself in.
A small, but well-appointed, office greeted her searching eyes. An extravagant, dark oaken desk dominated the center of the room, absolutely covered in a mess of notes scrawled on loose velum. Looking beyond it, Autumn spied a curtained off bedroom at the back of the chamber, complete with a luxurious bed and expensive-looking wardrobe.
Still listening at the door, Autumn paled as she heard soft footfalls approaching. Silently, she cursed her luck. She’d hidden in the very room the owner was returning to!
Making a snap decision, she rushed to hide.
Carefully, Autumn brushed past the large oaken desk and rushed towards the back bedroom. There, her gaze flickered between the rumpled bed and the extensive wardrobe. And as the footsteps behind her grew, she discounted the bed, making her way towards the wardrobe. As quietly as she could, Autumn clambered inside of the closet to hide amongst the hanging robes.
Just as she shut the closet doors, the office door slammed closed.
Holding her breath, Autumn peeked through the thin slit left by the mostly closed doors and got a good look at the room’s owner.
Into the cramped chamber marched a tired female mage, her toned body clad in tight, purple and silver robes. A spiderweb-patterned cowl framed her beautiful drow features, pulling her long white hair to coil about her shoulders. Sharp eyes flickered around the chamber, narrowing as she spied an errant parchment that Autumn had accidentally knocked to the floor in her rush to hide.
Autumn quietly gulped as the drow mage rounded the desk towards the wayward parchment.
Now that she was closer, Autumn could see she carried a long, silver staff in one hand. To her witch-sight, it glowed brightly with magic.
Grumbling under her breath, the mage leant her staff against the wall and bent to pick up the parchment.
“Fucking little shit making a mess. I don’t need this shit. He’ll need another session with the whip if he wants to keep warming my bed.”
The mage angrily threw the retrieved page back atop the messy desk before turning to a shelf along the wall. Autumn couldn’t see from her position what they were looking for, but before long, they plonked a decanter full of a silvery-green liquid onto the desk, uncaring about the papers already there.
After filling a retrieved glass with a generous pour, the mage slugged it back, wincing at the taste.
“Urgh. Fuck, I needed that!” she growled before pouring herself another. “Fucking fools, the lot of them. Can’t even handle a minor rebellion, can they?! Heads will roll for this. I know it. Hopefully, it’ll be Vanessa’s. That bitch.”
Fright stifled the giggle that threatened Autumn as she realized she was back in the closet. Physically, if not metaphorically. Her fingers were tense as they gripped her dragonbone wand.
Every shallow breath Autumn dared to take cut through the surrounding silence like a gunshot to her ears. The thunder of her heartbeat sounded to her as if she had an entire marching band hidden in the closet with her.
If she could just take a moment to whisper her black water ritual, she’d be gone. However, without knowing how sensitive the mage was to magic or just her hearing, Autumn couldn’t risk it.
So she forced herself to wait.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she’d be getting her chance.
Autumn jumped as thundering knocks pounded on the mage’s door. She bit back a curse as the wardrobe creaked at her movement.
A voice cried loudly from out in the hallway. “Mage Iraeanna! Come quick!”
Furious at the interruption, the so named mage snatched up her staff and stormed towards the closed door. Wrenching it open, she snarled in the guard's face.
“What! Don’t you know I’m busy!”
The armored drow blanched, but valiantly delivered his message. “My apologies mistress, but there’s blood in the lower stairwell and we can’t find young Derrick!”
“Oh? Is there now?”
Autumn didn’t know what ultimately clued her in. Perhaps it was the far too calm tone of voice that the drow mage answered in? Perhaps it was how she tilted her head towards the closet ever so slightly? Or maybe Autumn was just too fucking paranoid.
Either way, it meant that Autumn emerged from the closet as it exploded around her, clad in a powerful magical shield.
The room lit up with violence — violet light clashing with a silvery glow.
Jinx after jinx screamed towards the drow mage as Autumn sought to push her out into the hallway. Yet, like herself, the mage intercepted the flying spells with a shield of her own, cast from her leveled staff.
In retaliation, she sent a barrage of magic missiles hurtling back towards the witch.
Autumn grunted in annoyance as the spears of light bloomed one by one against her hastily erected shield. Sweat poured down her back as she forced more and more magic through her aching body and pounding mind. Steadily, she pushed towards the drow, growing closer step by step.
Around the pair, the small office was shredded.
With so much deadly magic blasting back and forth between the pair, inevitably, something was bound to give.
Luckily, it wasn’t Autumn who flinched first.
An errantly-cast jinx splashed across the drow’s silvery shield, deflecting off at an angle that sent it careening towards the guard frighteningly huddled beside her, catching him full in the face. He went down with a scream as the jinx’s harmful effects rotted his face off.
Startled by the cry going off so close to her, the drow mage flinched, halting her barrage for just a second.
Just long enough for Autumn to yell, “Begone, bitch!”
A tide of magical force crashed into the mage, punting her across the hallway. With a choked gasp, the drow woman crashed into the far wall.
Autumn rushed out into the hallway behind the mage, even as her head pulsed in agony, and sent another necrotic spell flying. She had just enough time to see it graze the mage’s temple, sizzling her flesh, before a tower shield slammed into her side, sending her flying down the hallway.
Rolling to a stop, Autumn pulled herself to her feet with a groan and looked back down the hall.
Standing protectively between her and the mage was the towering, heavily armored drow she’d spied loitering outside along the wall. His looming tower shield provided more than enough cover to protect both himself and the mage from a lucky jinx or hex. To make her day even worse, the rest of the guards were rushing up the stairwell behind him, all armed with dark crossbows that they trained towards Autumn’s position.
“Fuck my life! What is with my luck today?!”
Backpedaling down the hallway, Autumn sent wave after wave of necrotic jinxes towards the guards even as they returned fire with a barrage of poisoned bolts. While none of the bolts pierced Autumn’s violet shield, the guards could not say the same about her attacks. Several of them fell to the ground with a gurgle as violet lights struck them dead.
Upon reaching the end of the hallway, Autumn ducked to the right — her left if looking back towards the guards — breaking line of sight. She sprinted along the curving corridor. Behind her, she heard the furious pursuit of vengeful guards.
At the end of the short corridor, another spiral stairwell loomed, ripping a frustrated growl free from Autumn’s throat. She flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time with her long legs.
The guards were still hot on her heels.
A short corridor led away from the top of the stairs, at the end of which loomed a thick, metal door that a drow guardsman was hurriedly trying to close. Upon seeing Autumn thunder out of the stairwell, he redoubled his efforts.
Autumn huffed and puffed as she sprinted along the hallway towards the door, not liking the burn in her lungs and thighs. Drawing closer, she leveled her wand towards the closing door.
With a supreme force of will, the dark-eyed witch forced a tremendous amount of magic through her wand and cast the strongest forceful jinx she could. A surge of magic screamed across the gap between her and the door, and like a fist of god, it slammed into the metal, sending the heavy door careening back along its hinges.
With a crunch, the door crashed into the guardsman’s nose, sending him sprawling.
Autumn shouldered her way past the opened door and into the winch-house. She looked up just in time to catch sight of an unleashed bolt whizzing towards her.
“Fuck my life.”