Three days later.
Autumn awoke from a nightmare. She gasped awake, feeling the dark dreaming fade from her mind, taking with it the shades of her past like water slipping through her outstretched fingers. She couldn’t recall the face that’d haunted her with the gentle smile of a mother.
Blinking awake, she glanced out the dusty window beside her, taking in the crooked moon hanging caged in the sky. It shed a foggy moonlight from its cratered surface. There was still no dawn in sight.
Shedding her nightmare-slick bedsheets, Autumn groggily rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she sat up. Her other hand reached for spiky fruit she’d left for her breakfast by her bedside, quickly peeling it and stuffing it into her yawning mouth. The tart flavor woke her up.
Today was the day she left.
Her fever had broken yesterday, and her feet had finally healed enough for her to stand without wincing. The soles of her feet were still tender, but she had no more time. The fey had almost broken through the last of the old witch’s protections.
She hadn’t spent the last three days idle. In between reading the tome and practicing her jinx, she’d made a few more anti-hex charms and a couple more pots of healing balm. Unfortunately, she’d exhausted the ingredients to make any more, else she’d have made as many as she could’ve.
Going to the bathroom had been a chore, but she’d managed it, although she’d give anything for a roll of toilet paper.
Aside from her magic, she’d also dried out a decent supply of fruits, and had filled up another wineskin with boiled water. She’d packed both her food and water away into her pack alongside a bundle of spare clothing, underwear, extra socks, and anything else she thought might prove useful.
This included a few of the more esoteric jars lining the shelf. While they’d add a significant weight to her pack, she reasoned that she might be able to sell them later, once she escaped.
Once she escaped, not if.
Chewing on her breakfast, Autumn put on a relatively fresh pair of socks and laced up her boots before slipping into her robe and donning her hat. The leather sat upon her head like a mountain. Her pack quickly clad her back as she secured her belt around her waist. She tucked her wand into its firm embrace around her.
She was ready.
Autumn’s eyes roamed over the cottage one last time, looking to see if she’d missed anything. She was a little sad to leave this place. It’d grown on her. In a moldy, mushroom-struck kind of way.
Tightening her pack’s straps, she strode over to the door and took down the iron horseshoe hanging above the entrance. It came away in a shower of rust and dust. Autumn coughed away the grimy powder before sliding over to the shattered window and peeked outside.
Like the last time she’d looked, the gathering of fey had grown. More had gathered before the cottage throughout the endless nights while Autumn had slumbered and healed. Thankfully, with how the cottage was situated within the clearing, they had a hard time circling around it, and focused instead on breaking through the enchantment protecting her.
They were distressingly close to breaking it fully. They stood now within the ring of the broken stone wall, a stone’s throw from the front door. She could see their faces twisted with grim pleasure, eager to kill and consume.
It was time to leave.
Picking her way back over to the window she’d been using to get to the garden, Autumn quietly leveraged it open and squeezed out. She landed on her feet in the tall grass outside. The cornucopian maze lay before her, some of the branches and vines picked clean, but many more still bore bright fruits.
Unlike every other time she’d used this window, Autumn must not have been as stealthy today, as a cry of alarm sounded out as she exited the cottage.
Springing to her feet, the young witch kicked off the ground and sprinted away from the front of the hut, heading toward the back and the forest there beyond the boundary. Flares of wild magic echoed from behind her as the fey sent bolts of their strange magic chasing her feet. Dirt and stones exploded around her.
Autumn ducked low, sliding beneath a twisting vine. It exploded behind her, showering her back with sticky sap.
The dense overgrowth clawed at her legs as she ran. She skipped over hidden rocks and jumped over low vines in her desperate bid for freedom. Hisses and fey curses resounded behind her as she darted out of range of their spells deeper in the garden maze.
In fury, they launched themselves at the remaining charms, tearing into them with great ferocity, hastening the protection’s demise.
Autumn drew her knife as she came upon twisting vines blocking her way. More sticky sap coated her hands as she carved a path through them. She pushed her way through a bed of chromatic flowers which disgorged a cloud of pollen at her passing which turned her head dizzy and strange.
The edge of the clearing towered before her, growing larger, then smaller, then larger again as her body fought off the hallucinogens bothering her lungs.
Eventually, Autumn clambered over the low stone wall behind the cottage, and fled into the fey forest once more. There wasn’t a path to guide her on this side. No vine bridges, no grown stairways and tunnels, nothing but small game trails weaving through the underbrush.
Autumn followed a trail.
The eerie woods traveled on for an eternity, lit only by pale moonlight, dancing fireflies, and the lone will-o’-the-wisps that sought to beguile her from her flight. Autumn ignored their bright lures, clinging to the trial set before her feet. She felt so, so tiny as she ran beneath the behemoth trees’ gazes.
Time, like usual, felt disorganized here, and she couldn’t tell how long she’d been running before she heard the tell-tale sounds of hoofbeats that signaled that the outriders of the Wild Hunt had caught up to her.
Autumn pushed desperately through a swarm of dancing fireflies only to come to a screeching halt as a fey stood in her way.
The fey resembled a harpy. It was thin and bird-like, standing hunched and menacing as scratched at the loamy soil with talons sharper than any knife. A woman’s torso stood atop its bird-like legs, naked but for a coat of downy dull-brown feathers. Humanoid eyes sat above a wicked beak on an otherwise normal human woman’s face. Long feathered wings sprouted from her side instead of arms, tipped with razor-sharp claws.
A plume of red feathers lined the fey’s head like a mohawk, lifting up in a display of aggression. It didn’t speak as it examined Autumn, head bobbing like a vulture as it hissed and raised its wings wide.
Running was clearly not an option.
She’d have to fight.
The harpy preened triumphantly upon seeing her trapped. It sauntered side-to-side, scraping its clawed feet against stones and roots. Its beak snapped together like gunshots. Moonlight gleamed across the keen edge as it grinned viciously.
Autumn’s heart hammered in her chest. Her right hand tightly grasped the iron horseshoe from her belt, going white around it, while her other drew her crooked wand. She let out a shaky breath as she paced toward the fey.
Like a shield, she lifted the iron high, earning her a squawk of fright from the harpy. Outraged, it lifted itself up higher to appear larger and more intimidating. Autumn’s steps faltered.
Suddenly, the fey swooped towards her, sensing weakness.
Autumn dodged to the side with a yelp. She hissed as a talon from its outstretched wing scored a faint line of red across her cheek. Raising her wand in retaliation, the witch cast her jinx at it, causing it to leap away in a flurry of feathers.
Feinting right, Autumn tricked the fey into swooping forward. And when it was beside her, eyes going wide as it realized it’d been tricked, she swung the iron horseshoe at it. Feathers and flesh blackened where the cold-iron struck.
The fey hissed in pain. It hurriedly distanced itself from the witch with cold-iron in her hands, eyeing her warily. With prowling sharp footsteps, it circled Autumn, clicking its beak together rapidly like rasping laughter.
Blood was pulsing in Autumn’s ears. Thrusting her hand out, she unleashed another jinx, sending a fear-fueled tendril searing across the space between them lightning-quick. The lance of dark energy struck the fey’s feminine chest with the sound of shattering glass and the screech of tires.
Terror flooded the fey’s mind in an instant. The raw fear Autumn had invested into her spell sank into the harpy’s chest, coiling around its heart and mind, freezing it in place. An aborted leap sent the creature crashing to the dirt as its limbs seized.
Autumn didn’t waste the opportunity. Before the fey could regain control of its limbs, she was upon it. The iron horseshoe in her hands came down upon the harpy’s neck, driven deep into the soil on either side by fury and fright, pinning the fey with metal that burned its skin.
An awful wail shattered the air.
Ethereal smoke billowed up from the fey’s combusting neck. It thrashed, kicked, bucked, and screeched. It could not touch the iron pinning it down, leaving it at the non-existent mercy of a metal that rejected its very nature. Already its form flickered with nonsensical colors. Its loud cries echoed through the trees, drawing the attention of the host at the witch’s heels.
Autumn could hear baying hounds on the wind, drawing closer by the second. She gave the thrashing harpy a final kick to its beak that almost cost her a slice to her calf before fleeing her pursuers, leaving behind the burning fey and her cold-iron protection.
As she ran, she understood that she’d just gotten exceptionally lucky. She had no training in how to fight, and if that fey had taken her seriously from the start, she might not have survived.
She was all the more motivated to escape.
Further into the forest, she ran, following the stringy game trails. Flowing streams soaked her boats and socks while thorn bushes tore at her pants and coat. Towering roots blocked her path while smaller ones tripped her exhausted feet. Yet she couldn’t stop.
She trekked through the fog of time. Slowing. Lagging as the burden of leaded limbs dragged her down. The only time she paused her flight was to gulp down a few mouthfuls of water from her wineskin before staggering on once more.
All the while, the sound of pursuit only grew louder and louder in her ears.
Despite her dips through frigid streams and dives under low roots and tunnels, she couldn’t shake the Wild Hunt. It had her scent. She was just a schoolgirl learning to be a witch. She was no match for them. They followed her blustering path with laughable ease.
The forest around her watched and waited, listening to her plight and flight.
Hunting horns sounded, echoing through the forest. Otherwise, only the haunting panic of her laborious breaths sounded in the silent woods. She ran and ran and ran. Moving as fast as she dared tread. As fast as her feet would allow.
Suddenly, the forest came to an end.
Autumn skidded to a halt at the edge of a depthless canyon. It looked like a giant had drawn a line in the earth with a titanic finger. Beyond the fey woods it yawned, and on the other side lay empty pastures. The gap wasn’t wide, only a dozen or so feet across, but as she peered over the edge, Autumn couldn’t see the bottom. There was a darkness down there that threatened to swallow the world.
Looking to the left and right, the canyon seemed to stretch on forever until the edges merged together to touch the night sky. She couldn’t see a bridge across in either direction – rope, vine, or otherwise.
Rolling hills lay tantalizingly close. Just a jump across.
As she stood there, the rocks at her feet began to skip and jump, singing as the earth quaked beneath the hoofbeats of a thousand thousand horses. The Wild Hunt had found a way across the river Styx! And as the quaking grew and grew, the rocks and stones lining the canyon began to detach, falling into the lightless abyss far, far below.
There were no sounds of impact.
Autumn let out a frustrated growl as fear surged through her body. Her freedom lay within reach, blocked from her by this gorge.
If she ran and jumped, she might just make it.
Her stomach fell out from under her feet as she glanced down once more, feeling herself standing at the precipice. Pulling the fear out of her chest, she tucked away her wand and knife, and backed up as far as she could. Pressing her back to one of the titanic trees, Autumn pushed off in a sprint, racing for the edge.
Faster and faster, she picked up speed, and just as she reached the lip, she pushed off and flew.
The ground behind her crumbled away.
For a moment, Autumn was weightless as she soared through the air. Then gravity reasserted its tyrannical grasp upon her body and dragged her down. Looking to the other side, she realized she wasn’t going to make it.
She slipped into the gorge.
Her body slammed into the rocky wall on the other side of the canyon, driving the air from her lungs. She bounced back, tumbling down, end over end. Crash after crash. Panicking, she desperately clawed at the stones and roots protruding from the wall, but all she earned for her efforts were torn fingernails and bloody gashes on her palms.
Once more, she went down and down into a deep darkness.
Leafy vines caught her body, snapping and breaking as she tumbled through them. High above, the sky vanished, merging into the same black as the canyon walls. Rocks struck her body as she tumbled. There was only fear this far down. She snatched at vine after vine, and root after root as she fell.
Fate, it seemed, had other plans for her. She intervened in Autumn’s descent, and the falling girl was caught unceremoniously by a thick root.
Her ribs creaked dangerously at the sudden impact. Gasping, Autumn clawed at the slick roots, leaving bloody marks upon its surface as she struggled to get atop it. She slipped. Off the side she went. However, her foot got caught in a tangle of roots and she swung underneath the grand root, slamming to a stop against the wall with her back, hanging upside-down.
“...owwww,” Autumn moaned.
Whimpering, she hung inverted as she struggled to quell her racing heart and get her lungs to co-operate with her.
Miraculously, her hat still sat on her brow, seemingly unbothered by the change in Autumn’s physical orientation and alignment with gravity. The leather cap remained as heavy as ever, just pulling toward her rather than down. Turns out, it’d take a lot more than that to separate a witch from her hat.
Rocks and other stones continued to clatter down into the gorge from above as the drumbeat of the fey approached.
Fright stirred the dangling witch into action.
With a quickness of both thought and action, Autumn swung herself closer to the wall, catching the twisting vines there, and pulled herself completely beneath the shade of the root overhead. She wedged herself in tightly and securely, just in time for the fey’s approach to halt as they arrived at the edge of the Feywild.
Autumn swallowed nervously, breathing as quietly as she could.
The only sound she could hear was the thumping of her heart. It sounded far too loud in her ears.
Silence.
Cramps poisoned Autumn’s limbs. Her body protested the abuse she’d put it through, and the confined space she’d cramped herself into. With the adrenaline fading from her system as she waited, all the aches and pains, and cuts and bruises she’d acquired during her flight made themselves known. It took every ounce of willpower she didn’t know she had to hold perfectly still.
Heavy were her eyelids.
As the minutes of nothing rolled by, she struggled to stay awake. And, despite her best efforts, she slowly began to drift into an exhausted slumber. However, before she could fall into a dreamless sleep, Autumn hastily wrapped her arms and body up in the vines around her so as to not fall in her sleep.
No pesky dreams or ghoulish visitation bothered the witch as she snoozed within the fathomless gorge.
When Autumn stirred, she awoke to a body that was incredibly stiff and sore, and a head that pounded like there was an ape doing a drum-solo inside her skull. Resting wedged into a narrow crevice in the wall was not conducive to a comfortable sleep it seemed.
Her clothes hadn’t come out of her flight unscathed either. While her hat and coat were reasonably undamaged, her already threadbare tunic and pants had been torn relentlessly by thorns and burs, and her boots were coming apart at the seams. It looked like she needed to buy new ones already. Hopefully there was a town nearby.
Just as Autumn started moving, a rattling hiss froze her in her tracks.
As slowly as she could, she glanced toward the sound. There was a rattlesnake coiled near her face, long tongue tasting the air in her direction. How long had it been there? It stared in her direction, coiled like a spring, ready to strike at the slightest movement. A row of golden scales ran down the ridge of its eyes, highlighted against its otherwise dull copper-toned scales.
Autumn held her breath, keeping as still as possible.
Hot sweat trickled down her face, stinging her eyes. Slowly, cautiously, she stretched her fingers toward her belt where her blade lay within its sheathe. The snake rattled its warning. She was too close to dodge and flee. There was only one thing she could do.
The snake tensed as her knife left its sheathe with a dull rasp of metal against leather. Her lungs burned. With a gasp, she twisted her head, letting the leather of her hat take the snake’s bite as she flashed her blade up. The iron pierced the serpent, pinning it to the wall. It squirmed until it died.
Autumn checked herself over for any bite marks, heaving a breath of relief as she found none. Her luck had held out. “Stupid snake!” she hissed. She eyed the snake her knife was embedded in. While she didn’t know how to skin it, or how to cook it, she was willing to try after what it’d put her through.
Pulling her knife out of it, she sheathed her blade before tucking the serpent away into her heavy pack.
Thankfully, none of the jars had cracked after being slammed into the rocky wall. Her back, however, smarted.
Once that was done, she leaned out from under the root she’d sheltered up, and peeked up at the sky high above, listening for any sound of the Wild Hunt. She heard nothing. Breathing another sigh of relief, she distangled herself from the vines and began a long climb to the top.
The grass welcomed her with a soft embrace as she rolled over the top.