Nasty Little Witchling

“What’s your plan if we run into a ghoul?” I asked as we tried to find our way around the inner wall.

“Depends which kind finds us.”

“There's more than one?”

“If you listen to the kuba, yes. The stronger kind stays in the castle where there’s more mweya from the walls pulling it in. We shouldn’t encounter any of them. The weaker are pushed to the edges and are feeble enough for us to handle in small numbers.”

An average person would have described the difference, but evidently, I was not in the presence of such. “A who and what?”

“Don’t make me use the names the death squads outside our walls give them.”

“A mage and mana?” I tried and received a glare in return. I was beyond caring and chose to move on to a more contentious matter. “Are these walls not technically theirs?”

“What portion of them were born within the city,” Ulia said far too loudly. “What claim do they have to it?”

I didn’t think I was wrong to consider the capital belonging to the inhabitants who had stayed close over the years, protecting the rest of the country from the horrors within. Did it matter that they were born a few yards outside the walls? The people in the village we came in through were probably considered to be from the capital as well.

“It belongs to those that emptied it?”

Ulia stopped and turned on me, marching me into a wall. “You weren’t there.”

“And you were? How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty, old enough to learn from the elders what it was like back then. Werl was a nobles' playground, elevating their kuba friends to rule over us, passing down scraps and demanding fielty.”

I raised my hands, remembering I was supposed to be getting on her good side. “Sorry, my mother didn’t explain any of this to me. It’s all new.”

“Just keep it to yourself if you don’t want to be thrown out.”

Either she didn’t fully believe what she was saying or was being awfully lenient towards me for some reason. I didn’t want to push the boundaries of that lenience too far and resumed my vigil on our rear.

We walked through rusted iron bars and steel doors that had been snapped off their hinges. The distant string of screeches from multiple ghouls echoed through our passage, hastening our steps. What little life existed down here was terrified of our approach, assuming we were the sharp-toothed and clawed ghouls looking to hunt them.

Ulia bent an iron rod out of our way, snapping it off and tossing it to the side.

“How do they hunt? Not with their hearing, I hope, with how little you care about making noise.”

“For the outer ghouls, you’d need to wave your hand in their face. The inner could track us in the same building. The ones in the castle are said to hunt you across the city if you provoke them.”

“I thought there were two kinds, and aren’t we going into the interior?”

“It’s a continuous scale from those roaming the outskirts to those sitting in the throne room. We only have distinctions because of the three walls separating them. And we won’t leave the outer edges of the second…we might need to surface if we can’t find the right tunnel.”

My confidence in walking through the underbelly of a city—infested with hundreds of thousands of monsters—came from the fact that most lived away from us on the surface. Her suggestion put that confidence in jeopardy. “Is that safe?”

Ulia shrugged, not helping to assuage my worries. “During the day, depends.”

“Is it still day? It was late afternoon when we entered, and it feels like it’s been ages.”

She shrugged again…

I started collecting the bits of steel and miscellaneous metal lying in the tunnels, preparing for the worst. I’d practised with steel as that was what the bulgasari used, and some silver to varying success; copper and lead couldn’t have been too dissimilar. However, Ulia mentioned the ghouls gather where there was more mana, and I wasn’t sure if that meant using mana would attract them.

We found a pathway up, an old staircase manually carved out of the stone. We both peered up at the stairs illuminated by her fire elemental, considering the merits of traversing the surface. “Where are we going exactly? And if you shrug at me again, I’m going to push you down those stairs.”

She looked down at me, considering how serious I was. “We live in the barracks that’s attached to the southern gate; the wall wraps around it, and we don’t get bothered too much unless we’re scavenging.”

“And which side are we on now?”

“Hopefully, still the south.”

Going up to the surface through a narrow stairwell wasn’t my ideal battlefield for a creature bigger than me. It would be better to have a weapon and risk exposing our whereabouts than not having one at all.

I clasped my hands behind my back, putting on a contemplative expression while I worked with the little steel I’d scavenged. Forming it into a knife didn’t work out because I didn’t have the mana to extend my reach that far away from my body. It would have also been a tiny fruit knife without a sharp edge, so I went for something more natural.

Spiked claws that could sit on my fingertips weren’t the most practical, but they were the best I could do with what I had. I got as far as three fingertips since the bronze from old coins felt like I was trying to manipulate something entirely foreign to steel. I didn’t have enough time to play with it before Ulia started walking up the stairs, taking my inaction as a move to make her go first.

I trailed after her, forming the claws into bangles under my tunic and dropping the scraps I no longer needed.

“What was that?” she asked, the metal clattering down the stairs.

“Sorry, kicked something?”

She sighed in relief, moving up the stairs more cautiously. They didn’t lead to the surface, but rather, a more modern sewer system we needed to navigate. When we eventually found that, I was surprised and dismayed we were in yet another tunnel system. This one was narrower, with smaller pipes that would have supplied the individual homes above.

“How many are there?”

“I didn’t expect this many,” Ulia admitted. “We have a separate passageway to get out of the abbey.”

“And we couldn’t take that because…”

“Because It leads to the largest death squad encampment, and we look like we escaped prisoners?”

“Ah…I feel like going under the cover of darkness would have been easier than this.”

Ulia stopped and turned to me, again looking like I was saying something absurd. “They can sense us…do you not know that?”

I looked away sheepishly. “I did…I just thought they wouldn’t care about two people taking a nighttime stroll.”

“No, their security is quite tight, and they’d think us ghouls before anything else.”

I kept my mouth from asking any more strange questions, concentrating on the increased population of sewer inhabitants in the area. They spoke of a route to the surface that earned me a ‘good job’ from Ulia for noticing it.

It was a ladder to a metal cover that had slipped off, revealing a clouded sky. With the fire elemental still guiding us, we almost missed the faded light coming through. Ulia stared up while breathing deeply, her confidence wavering.

I stepped forward and gripped the ladder, ready to garner some appreciation before finding the coven. My shirt was stuck to my shoulder, sticky with blood, making my climb uncomfortable. I’d steadily put more weight on my ankle during our walk and stopped cradling my arm, but it had taken longer than I was used to.

I blamed the stifling lack of mana in the underground.

It wasn’t much better on the surface, as I found out when I slowly pushed aside the cover, poking my head out in the middle of an overgrown cobblestone street. My eyes widened as I found the house beside me had a boulder nestled in the ground floor, having mashed down through the roof.

“What is it? Is something there?”

“No, looks fine,” I said, climbing out and surveying the street. Besides the crushed house, the others looked habitable. However, the signs of neglect were everywhere. Flowerbeds were overtaken with weeds, and vines hung down to the street from the tallest buildings.

Windows were cracked or dirty, and doors hung ajar. Carts with broken wheels lay across the street, abandoned alongside their cargo. A blackened building had collapsed into the road behind us, cutting off the view we would have had down the entire street to the outer wall. The buildings still standing tall had lost most of their paint with signs of rot and water damage.

Ulia stopped to check the area for herself before climbing all the way up. I yanked her out by the shirt and pulled her across the street into one of the homes, pushing the door closed so there was a small gap.

She had the decency to keep her protest to herself and crouched behind me. “How many?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, having sensed an even dozen approaching us. “I just heard them.”

The first of the inner walls was nearby, and all mana in the area flowed subtly towards it, obscuring their approach. But I still tracked them coming from the collapsed building and the second group exiting a house from the wall’s direction, squashing us in the middle.

I checked behind us for a way out.

The building we entered looked to be the lobby of an inn. There was a drawer to one side, a closed door on the other, and a counter on the far end with faded signs and rusted key hooks. A staircase to the side of the counter went to the rooms above, but I wasn’t sure if the four stories above us would be helpful or merely more time before we were trapped again.

The two groups of ghouls changed course to approach each other, meeting directly outside our door. I wanted to shove Ulia away as she leaned over me to see what was happening out of the small gap, especially when there was a window beside us. But I confessed I was only comfortable not watching because I could tell what was happening without it.

They slowed, making strangled snorts at each other that were meant to be a growl of sorts. It was a minor consolation that they simply didn’t like each other rather than meeting to barge in on us.

I startled, almost knocking Ulia over, as the snorts turned to howls of pain and anger. A member of each group had charged into one another and were now tussling across the street. Their bodies collided with the wall separating us, scarily close to the doorway, and rained dust down on us.

They separated, swiping at each other. The remainder circled around their supposed leaders, rushing at their counterparts only to stop and retreat. I expected another brawl or full-on confrontation, but they circled to where they could back away in the opposite direction they came from.

I stood and stretched when they left our vicinity, sighing in relief.

But a second later, that relief turned to horror because stomping from the top floor dragged my eyes to the ceiling. There was another group far above us, quickly storming down the stairs.

Ulia was the first to react, going for the door and grappling with the handle. It jiggled but didn’t budge, locked from the inside. She panicked, searching the room for somewhere else to hide, briefly glancing outside.

I went over to the door as she hid behind the counter. I parted the already weakened wood and pulled at the knob, and was rewarded with a broken-off handle. The bolt was made of brass, and I had no experience with the metal.

I turned to flee, aiming towards the counter Ulia hid behind. A ghoul crashed into the wall up the stairs, and I froze a step into my dash across the room. I changed course and tucked myself behind the much closer drawer, wishing they would run past without looking to the side.

The first stumbled into the landing, a second knocking them both into the wall. Neither slowed and ran across the room towards the door.

They were pale, lanky things, all skin and muscle. Patches of long auburn and black hair shot out of their skulls to drape over their neck. Their nails had grown long enough to curve back at their palms and had been manually sharpened into points. I didn’t get a good look at their eyes as they ran past, but they were bloodshot.

These ones dragged in more mana and consumed it slower compared to the last one I encountered. To a mage, they might have appeared as an animal with little use for mana.

They didn’t care that the door opened inwards and ran into it, the first impact eliciting a loud crack while the second sent them tumbling out. A third ran past after them while a fourth lingered at the bottom of the stairs.

I wasn’t sure which way it was looking. Its breathing was a series of long sighs and short sniffs. Did it smell us? Was it the blood on me?

I couldn’t take it, not knowing if it was after me, and glanced around the edge of the drawer; it was staring at the counter. This one had larger patches of dark hair matted together and a hunched back with the segments of its spine poking out. I kept my eyes above its waist, uninterested and nauseated after a cursory glance.

The wooden boards creaked as it walked around to the counter’s entrance. I still had the door knob in my hands and considered throwing it at the ghoul’s head. I’d most likely miss, and even if I did hit it, what would that do? Annoy it?

I pulled back my arm as far as possible in my cramped corner and threw the handle at the intact window.

It shattered and spooked the three outside who were heading towards the other groups. The glass clinked across the cobblestone as it broke apart. The fourth by the counter ran towards the broken window, falling out and breaking the remaining glass pane. I left my cubby and scrambled to the counter, leaning over it and finding Ulia curled up.

“Come on,” I hissed, grabbing at her shoulder. She flinched at my touch, looking up at me with wide eyes. I didn’t think I was hideous enough to warrant the look of horror on her face, and I kept trying to pull her up.

Ulia relented and clumsily climbed over the counter. She paused with her legs straddling it, looking out the window at the four ghouls scrutinising the broken window. I dragged her off and up the stairs, locking eyes with a ghoul as I cornered the landing.

I cleared the steps two at a time and gradually reformed my steel claws, not wanting to use too much mana.

Either their eyesight was as poor as described, or they had no interest in us because there was no pursuit. We still didn’t stop until we reached the fourth and final floor, and by the time I caught up, Ulia was already throwing open or walking over broken doors.

“What are you doing? You’re making too much noise.”

“A way out,” Ulia said, checking another room. “If the looters have been here, then there should be a ladder or bridge to another rooftop.”

“We’re fine,” I said, keeping my focus on the four ghouls still outside. “They’re not following us.”

“But we’re trapped here if they do,” she said, and I couldn’t dispute that. “Why are you not helping me?”

She was hyperventilating, her eyes darting to each doorway while calculating her quickest way out. I didn’t want to say something foolish like asking her to relax when panicking was entirely reasonable. I went to grab her when I noticed my claws were still on and swapped them back to bangles before holding her still.

“You live here. How are you so freaked out by them?” I asked, stopping her from running into a new room. “Last I heard, remn—looters—hadn’t made it to the second wall, so I don’t think you’ll find anything.”

I was putting on a brave face, but the ghouls were beyond my wildest nightmares, and my confidence in holding them off with magic may have been the only reason I was coping well. But this would have been an everyday occurrence for her, and she should have been used to this.

“They’ve made it. A few times on their larger excursions…and this is why I volunteered to leave.”

Leave to stay in a cavern and produce dragon’s breath was left unsaid, despite me wanting to throw that at her.

“Can they hear us from here?”

“No,” she whispered. “These should have the same senses as us.”

“Any idea how we’re getting to your barracks?”

“It’ll have to be through the gate.” We checked outside a window facing the wall to find the gate towers three streets across. The issue was we also found roving gangs of ghouls occupying those same streets, overlapping to the point they seemed like planned patrols.

I had to admit I was misinformed about where the looters had reached when we found a wooden beam stretching across our street towards the gate. It carried on from a makeshift pathway between us and the outer wall, with wooden beams crossing the streets to avoid houses demolished by trebuchet boulders or fire.

We had to descend a floor to drop onto the roof of the shorter building next to ours. It was sloped with a thin section of curved tile to walk across at the apex. Ulia was nervous when getting out of the window but trapezed across the roof with practised ease. She finished at the safety of a chimney for support, the same one holding the long beam across the street.

It was my turn to drop onto the roof, and I planned to copy Ulia.

That failed once I tried to stand and wobbled to either side, windmilling my arms to keep steady without taking a single step.

“You need to move forward. It helps you balance.”

I didn’t trust that and got on my knees to awkwardly crawl towards her, whining all the way across. “I don’t like this.”

“We spend years practising this stuff in the abbey,” Ulia said, helping me to stand with no sign of her prior fears. “The roofs are the safest place in the city besides home, and it’s getting dark.”

“Ah, ha. And this is safe?” I asked, pointing to the wooden beam.

I was confident some type of weight spell was supposed to be used in conjunction with it. Because there was little chance it was sturdy enough to hold someone’s weight, even with the faint enchantment.

“Death knights cross them in full armour while carrying other wooden beams. We’ll be fine.”

I didn’t like her comforting tone and preferred that she return to looking at me like I was clueless. She crossed first, the beam bending with her hurried steps. Over the edge, there were no ghouls to watch our antics, and she made it across without issue.

I sighed; it was my turn after waiting for the beam to stop bouncing. I wasn’t about to run across like her, so I stuck my arms out to begin my slow heel-to-toe approach.

Halfway across the beam where it was the most precarious, a lone ghoul rounded the corner, followed by an entire group. I stood like a statue, shivering in the evening winter breeze as they prowled below me.

Ulia was waving me towards her, so I continued my steps with enthusiasm.

After crossing more rooftops and going through taller buildings, we went over three more bridges, the last ending on the upper floor of a blown-in gate tower. By the time we made it past the wall, the bright colours of the sunset were fading to black.

The barracks the witches called home weren’t hard to find as the entire inner wall diverted to encompass it. We started at a brisk walk, slowly gathering speed as the light faded. We were sprinting by the time we approached the large ornamental wooden doors.

Ulia went to the small practical entrance built into it and knocked in a rhythm. After three series of knocking that had gotten more frantic with each repetition, a wooden panel slid open to reveal a pair of deep blue eyes.

“Sikana?”

“Yes, yes, Ulia,” she said before switching to their language for a hurried explanation.

I watched our backs as I counted off the numerous bolts that clunked. The door eventually opened, and we pushed in to find ourselves surrounded by women, old and young, wearing the same style of robe.

Ulia glanced around before running into the arms of an older witch I recognised from the Drasdan caverns. She and the others smiled at their sikana’s return but kept a vary watch over me.

The door swung closed behind me, and the bolts were re-engaged.

In all honesty, I didn’t imagine getting this far after everything it took to navigate the city. And now that I was here, surrounded by stares full of suspicion, I had no idea how to win them over if Ulia didn’t stop hugging her teacher and start talking.