Magic screamed as a baleful claw raked across a conjured purple shield, sending sparks and shards of fear scattering. Autumn flinched back. While her shield had stopped the strike in place, it still felt like she’d taken a sledgehammer to the chest. The magical drain from her well matched that feeling. It looked like her taunting had worked a bit too well, as the hag with burning eyes wanted to rip the young witch limb from limb. 

Mildred growled like a furious beast at seeing her strike foiled.

Quicker than a blink of an eye, the hag had crossed the open space that divided them in a single, loping bound. The sudden assault was too fast for Autumn to track. It was only Nethlia’s rigorous training that saved her life.

A purple gloom hung between the two combatants and in the time it did so, they glared a deep enmity between one another. 

It flickered out. 

Autumn hurled herself aside in a hurry. A claw wreathed in twisting curses blazed past her face by mere inches, narrowly avoiding having her face carved apart. However on her hip one of her charms snapped, declaring she’d not escaped as unscathed as she first thought.

Only two charms remained. 

Autumn hit the blood-soaked ground with a grunt, her heart beating a mile a minute from the close shave. Above her loomed the hag, claws flashing to strike again and tear her asunder. 

Like a venomous serpent, a battered and scorned iron blade lashed out. 

Ever wary of blades that snicker and snack, Mildred flew back on thundering steps. However, the young witch’s strike had not meant to carve or cut, only drive the hag from her perch above her, allowing her to rise. And rise she did on stumbling steps. She now stood on firmer feet to glare upon the fled hag. 

Mildred glared back. 

They stood across from each other in an arena of gore and shattered crystals, lit only by the magical lanterns of the discarded dead. It cast them in an otherworldly light that reflected and bounced through the towering pillars. 

Autumn’s back was awash with sweat. 

She blinked, and foul magic flew. 

A wave of curses, hexes, and rotting maladies crashed like breaking waves across the spell-shield that she conjured without a word. Behind her Aversion, Autumn sweated as her magic rapidly drained. She was in a bind, as without her wand, she lacked any means of casting at range. There was the option of trying to force her jinx through without a magical medium, but that felt foolish. At best she’d fail outright, at worst she might lose an arm when her magical channels exploded.

Not really an option to consider right now. 

Thundering steps drew Autumn’s attention. Casting her eyes towards the sound, she looked past the blinding waves of corruption, only for them to widen in fright as she spied Mildred charging her way. Autumn quickly shifted her spell-shield to the side to catch and deflect the however many tons of hag barreling towards her. Even so, she was still sent stumbling away as Mildred crashed into her. 

Ragged nails shrieked across the purple glow. 

“Stop squirming, you pesky worm! Be a good girlie and die!” Mildred growled out.

Again and again, the pair clashed with might and magic. They were testing each other, searching for any weaknesses to exploit. 

Quicker than she’d like, Autumn was forced on the back foot. Mildred was proving faster, stronger, and more skilled than the young witch. Her wealth of experience in dealing with foolish adventures was just too high of a wall to hurdle. 

Yet, Autumn still stood a chance. For as angered as she was by Autumn’s taunts, Mildred was still holding back; the spells and hexes that were splashing across Autumn’s shield weren’t of the flavor that’d necessarily ‘harm’ her. That’s not to say they wouldn’t do something…unpleasant, just not ‘harmful.’ 

Perhaps they’d turn her into a toad or a newt?

Autumn was forced down onto one knee as Mildred pressed into her with a roaring stream of black flames. They washed over her spell-shield like a sable nightmare, coating her world in an oily film of darkness. Slowly, the mountains of fear that Autumn had collected chipped away, flooding down her magical veins in order to keep her safe. 

It burned.

Autumn gritted her teeth as sweat now dotted her brow. Frantically, she cast her blackened eyes around her for anything that’d aid her. Surrounding her feet was a scattering of broken crystals, some only the size of her thumb while just further away, out of reach, lay her iron knife. 

A plan bloomed in Autumn’s mind. A horrible, stupid plan, but a plan nonetheless. 

With one hand, Autumn scooped up as many broken crystals as she could and dumped them into her coat pockets, its ragged seams somehow still holding together. Taking one in hand, Autumn focused. In the Tome of Witchcraft, there were many spells—or rather constructs—that directed her to infuse her magic into objects. The bone totems, alarm wards, and hex charms she’d made before being a prime example of this. This process had to be managed carefully as infusing too much power into an object that couldn’t house it would result in a rather violent explosion—or so the book had said.

However, right now, what she wanted was violence. 

Autumn blocked out the hag’s horrific cackling, who seemed content to drain Autumn’s reserves with a deluge of dark flames. Something that she was oddly thankful for right now, as it meant that she had time to work. If the hag actually took her seriously, she didn’t know how long she’d hold up against the worst the hag could throw at her. 

Focus.

Autumn corralled her wayward thoughts. She needed every scrap of concentration she could muster. Trying to split her mind between infusing the crystal with power and keeping her spell-shield powered was incredibly hard; she was thankful that her methods were rather brute force and didn’t require any complex thinking. What she was doing right now was the magical equivalent of rubbing your belly and patting your head, only with an angry hag ready to kill you if you mess up.

Autumn managed it even so. Magic poured into the crystal in her hand, shaking wildly as it did so, turning darker by the second till it was a deep purple. Still not content, Autumn pressed her will into the crystal and forced it to take in more of her power, more than it could allow. And under the attention of her grand might, it shook with terrible violence.

Black eyes rose and met with burning orbs. 

Mildred sneered at her, thinking her cowed, but Autumn just smiled a wicked, taunting smile and let fly with her Fear Bomb™. 

She’d workshop the name later.

Sneering eyes turned to shock as the overfilled crystal emerged through the wall of magical flames. With how unstable it already was, the crystal could not last long beyond the witch’s control and, upon contacting the whirling flames, it exploded. 

A violent violet display roared into life, the booming sound rocking the cavern to its foundations. The crystal towers that surrounded them cracked from the thunderous detonation. Nearby, a pillar could not hold itself up anymore and fell to the earth with such force that it quaked the ground and rent the air. 

Mildred shrilly shrieked as she recoiled in surprise, pain, and rage. The dark flames cut off with a snap as her concentration on them broke.

As soon as they did, Autumn dropped her own concentration, letting the spell-shield fade and hurled herself to the side towards her knife. With a quickness, she scooped it up and channeled her magic into it, same as the crystal. Over the iron blade crept a purple stain and within moments it strained to contain what she’d gifted it, vibrating in her palm. 

By now, the foul hag had recovered from the blast. She looked none the worse for wear besides a scorch across her mask and a few splinters embedded within. Yet, despite that, the rage in her eyes burned ever deeper, ever fiercer with indignation. 

“YOU!” The word came out as a hiss.

“Me.” Autumn grinned a grim grin. 

A wordless roar, a howl of hate, erupted forth, and a tide of loathsome magic followed in its wake. More crystals shattered as it lashed out at all it could touch. The few crystalline animals foolish enough to stick around were crushed and pulped into a thousand shards. From within the bubbling shadows that slinked behind the cruel hag burst forth a pack of crow-hounds, eager to do the finger-eater’s bidding. Baying in their odd chirping clicks, they locked their red eyes onto Autumn.

However, that was not all the hag had deigned to level upon the defiant young witch.

With a twist of her curled fingers, she sent out fireballs of the darkest magics. They exploded all around Autumn, engulfing her in curse-flames. Hurriedly, Autumn raised her shields, but doing so left her open. A beam of sickly energy punctured the purple shield before she could react and slammed into her, seeking to petrify her limbs. 

Upon her waist, another charm broke, and so did the hag’s curse. 

Only one charm remained.

Mildred snarled as her hex failed. 

“Go, my pets!” 

The crow-hounds scurried forth to obey the rasping roar of their master. They wound their way across the blasted arena on sharp talons and claws, beaked jaws clicking and clacking. As they drew near her, they lunged for her limbs with razor-sharp beaks. 

But Autumn was not fooled.

They were muzzled, just like their master, and could not harm her. At least, not without consequence. 

The razor-beaks slammed shut in ineffectual bites well before they’d ever threaten her. They were never meant to hurt her, only to corral her, keep her in place long enough for their master to wear through her protections and finally catch her with a curse or hex. 

Autumn wasn’t willing to play that game.

To the hound’s surprise, she charged at them. 

The beasts scrambled away in shock. Those of them that either couldn’t move away in time or tried to stop her, she met them with a boot or blade. They were left behind, whimpering from the deep gashes the witch had cut into bony hides or broken bones she’d kicked into them to remember her by.

Mildred snarled at the approaching girl. “Fool!” She spat.

“Nuh uh. You are!”

Another blast of sickly light splashed across her for her cheek. 

The last charm snapped. 

A pulse of fear rushed down Autumn’s arm as she drew it back before flinging it forward with a snap. The knife rushed forth beyond her grasp, flying for the hag. To give her credit, Mildred tried to dodge, but Autumn had drawn close enough to her that missing would have taken far more skill. Already Autumn could feel her putrid breath tarnishing her fair skin once more.

Mildred screamed in pain as the knife dug into her shoulder with an awful, meaty thud. 

Then it exploded into a thousand iron fragments. 

Autumn’s ears popped at the deafening noise. 

Mildred recoiled in both pain and shock. While the wound itself was horrible, as if someone had taken a blender to her shoulder, it was more the fact that she’d been hurt at all that rocked her. Hurt by some no-named little witch-girl. She swiveled her burning eyes back to the one who’d done this deed. 

An iron blade slashed her forehead to jaw. 

Mildred lashed out instinctively. 

The aged metal that bound the Tome, still clutched in her spindly hand, cracked Autumn across the jaw. 

Upon the Throne of Spring, the Fae King turned. 

A Ferryman smiled, a coin in hand. 

And an old Witch laughed. 

Autumn blinked as she stumbled back from the blow. Working her jaw, she spat a broken tooth into her hand. She stared at it dumbly in the silence of the world, before raising her eyes up to the hag.

“Huh. You hurt me.” 

And she had. 

The pact was broken. Null and void. The Fair Maiden fumed. 

Mildred was silent. The hag of a thousand bloody pacts had been played, of that she now knew. Utterly and completely. She’d thought herself the master of her own fate, the weaver of destinies, hers and those she bargained with, but she was just dancing to another’s carefully crafted tune. Others had noticed her desire, her greed for godhood and they weren’t keen to be neighbors. 

Was it all one plan? Had they conspired together to bring her low? Or had they just seen the opportunity and added their weight to the scales? To the trap.

In her ears, she could only hear a familiar, hated laugh. 

Before Autumn could even react, a clawed hand clamped around her throat like a vise. She gurgled as it squeezed, cutting off her airway. Gone was the earlier caution. It crushed tighter and tighter, leaving Autumn dizzy as she dangled, feet not even scraping the ground. 

With blurry eyes, Autumn looked up. She wished she hadn’t. 

Her earlier strike had split the mask upon the hag’s face, unveiling the nightmare within. What she saw could not be even charitably called a face. It was a ruin, like some unskilled sculptor had tried—and failed—to create a face from a description they’d gotten from a blind man who had forgotten what a face even was.

Autumn wanted nothing more than to look away from the curse-struck visage, but the hand that held her was unbreakable, forcing her to look. 

“I guess I’m doing it the hard way!” Mildred said, voice quaking with never-ending fury. 

Autumn kicked and struggled. Her iron sword cut and carved into the hag’s wicked hide, but nothing would distract the foul hag from watching the life slowly leave Autumn’s eyes. 

The world slowly blurred. 

Without the strength to hold it anymore, the iron sword tumbled from Autumn slackening grasp. It fell to the ground with a ringing clatter. 

A bloody, gap-toothed smile bloomed like a broken flower in the dark. A final defiance. 

…

Autumn glanced across the way. The Ferryman’s boat rested upon the rocky shore that bordered the river of the dead. He held up a pair of tarnished gold coins: her debt to him.

…

Soft spoken words drifted from the grandfather of all. 

“A debt of two cannot be recalled. You have passed once, and can only pass once more. Mildred, I claim to one of your coins. She has yet to fall, and another you still owe.”

…

…

“It is not your time.”

…

…

Air rushed back into Autumn’s starved lungs as she was suddenly dropped. She crashed down in a pile of tangled limbs, choking and spluttering as her bruised throat hauled in more vaunted oxygen. 

Mildred screamed a shrill, guttural cry.

Autumn looked up. Through watery vision, she saw the hag clutching at her forearm, a long Elven arrow impaled straight through her wrist. Following her bloodthirsty gaze, Autumn’s eyes landed upon a lone figure resting his weight against one crystal that ringed the arena of death, looking like death warmed over. The very canvas of his soul was a deep, somber blue. 

Vuriac looked across to Autumn with a sole remaining eye.

“Go! I’ll hold her off!” 

Another arrow cut through the space, but snapped midair by a wave of the hag’s hand. 

“More of you wretches! I knew I should’ve just eaten you all and been done with it!” Mildred snarled. 

The fury of the hag knew no end as she charged across the space. The young witch was all but forgotten, if only for now. Arrows peppered the hag’s hide, few finding purchase. 

Heart thundering in her chest, Autumn drew forth all the might of her magic and poured it into her channels, into her soul. It dripped from her bleeding fingers, cut from the glass of the crystals. It fell down and down till it stained the shadows that pooled around her feet. 

…and it ate her for it. 

The last thing Autumn saw before she fell into the black waters was Vuraic’s death when the hag reached him. 

It was not pretty.