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defire · 3 months ago

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Dance of Death Chapter 11:

Druid Justice

Content: beating, choking, minor character death, death threats, restraints, captive whumpee, gang beatdown, multiple whumpers

Nife poked her head out into the miasma, and clambered out of the gaps and onto the massive pillar that had nearly crushed her twenty minutes ago. She paused while she took a couple more breaths of slightly cleaner air, feeling her limbs ache and tremble with the lack of oxygen.

She heard muffled voices above her, and from the darkness, she was pretty sure it was past dusk now.

"Alright, but nobody has seen Nife Raizden?"

"I'm not searching the bottom so I can arrest her corpse."

"Nobody asked you to, Wick. Nobody asked you to."

Nife sighed a little. She wasn't exactly surprised that they were going to try to arrest her. She also didn't want to be arrested, no matter how bad a situation she was in. When a Druid was arrested, they often came out beaten up. Sometimes they came back a few fingers short.

And if she did get out with all of her digits, they'd fine her family into oblivion for her conduct today.

She couldn't just stand there strategizing in the miasma, so she achingly found a way around, then carefully climbed back up in a side street fire escape, and finally lowered her mask and took a real breath of air.

"Oh, hell, I missed you." She said to the oxygen, finally blinking the tears out of her burning eyes as they adjusted to the very dim light of a gaslamp in the street.

"No way." Came a voice behind her.

She stiffened and glanced back. There was a silhouette at the other end of the alley she was standing near.

"Is that her?" The person said. "I see a Druid!"

Of course, he'd seen the little tops of her horns peeking out of her curls. Now would’ve been a great time to have normal Druid magic, but as always, Nife only knew how to draw attention.

Nife spun down around the corner, dashing down a ramp to escape from the voices behind her. She was dipping down into the miasma again. At least they wouldn't be able to see her--unless one of them was a Druid.

"Are you sure?" The voice had a very distinctive speech impediment that made "are" sound more like "awr".

"I saw horns!" The other one replied. "It's her! It's got to be!"

Nife kept running, hearing their voices behind her.

"Acorn, your eyes are better in the dark, you go."

Shit. Nife thought. Acorn was a Druid name. He'd see her heat easily in this night chill.

"Wick, don't leave me!"

Her boots were so damn loud. She envied Kit's tough bare soles that could dash quietly up this walk faster than anyone she knew, and for double her time too. She was already getting winded as she heard them coming behind her.

The road she was on continued downward toward the Ink Lake district, which was terrible for her, because many older roads dipped down into the flooded old residential district.

Her feet splashed into the putrid blackness of the rotted water. She looked around for something to climb, realizing that all her recreational climbing hadn't prepared her for climbing fast. She'd better get faster, right now, if possible.

Following the smell of bacteria and mold., she plunged southward, now up to her shins in water. The Druid was gaining on her. She'd only made a few blocks now, and the lights were gone.

Finally she reached a fire escape. She climbed up and the first rung in her hand broke in the middle, making her stomach lurch in terror of falling before she caught herself on the next rung with a knee. This close to the rot, she was lucky that the sides held. She pushed onward, upward.

Slowing down to collect her energy, she made it up three levels. Reaching down with her nightsight, she saw the Druid's heat, hesitating at the bottom. He had to know she was up there.

Faintly she hoped that he'd choose to leave her alone because of their shared race. He had been standing there hesitating for a while.

This was the only habitable building for several blocks in the area. She had chosen it because she hoped that the other heat blobs inside would disguise her from her pursuer’s nightsight, making her look like a resident.

Then her heart sank as she heard him call out.

"Wick." Acorn said through his mask. "Help me... I hear her."

"Don't tell me this is a heights thing again." Nife heard the other enforcer's voice quite a way off.

Nife grinned down into the misty thick air below her. Acorn was a wimp.

She pushed her toe against a pane of glass in the window to her left. She reached over to feel if it budged. It had a little give, but it was a slide-up window. Bracing against the ladder, she pushed it a bit, then got her boot-toe in it and yanked upward the rest of the way. She crawled in carefully and knelt just under the sil, panting. She didn't shut the window so she could hear the progress of her pursuers.

As she caught her breath, she brushed curls off her forehead and wiped sweat off onto her puffy shirt sleeves. She could feel her heartbeat in the wound in her leg–another bad sign–but she had started to feel like she could escape.

Acorn was complaining at Wick, who was already on the ladder. At least Wick wouldn't be able to see her slipping away.

The people who stood across from Nife were all Druids, which she could tell by the slightly warmer spots on their foreheads or temples where the horns started, and they watched her silently without even a gesture. Nife was staring back at them, not sure what to do.

The room she had entered was completely dark. But looking up, she realized that there was quite a bit of warmth here in this unheated room. Over twenty bodies were standing around at the edges and in the next rooms, and they were completely silent. All facing her.

The only sound she could hear was the rain hitting the glass window, and the muffled steps of bare feet gradually climbing up the ladder outside.

"Acorn?" Wick called back. "You got your whistle on you? Can you call backup?"

"What abawt yours?" Acorn called back. "Come awn, it's just a scrawny little kid."

Scrawny, huh. That was quite a derogatory way to describe her lanky build.

Wick sighed, looked in at the blackness where Nife was, and called back to Acorn.

"Go get reinforcements. I'll go in ahead."

Nife had to move, now. She looked across the room at the warmth of the Druids that were all facing her. They stood there, creepily silent, and she wasn't sure if she'd rather face an enforcer or the horde of silent Druids that were staring her down with unseeing eyes, watching her with their nightsight the same way she was watching them.

The enforcer fumbled at the windowsill.

"Acorn?" He called back. "Are you coming?"

"I'm coming." Came a very faraway call.

Wick hesitated, sighed and pushed himself in.

Suddenly there was a scuffle at the window as the Druid lunged right past her, grabbed the man in the window, and yanked him inside.

She heard a gagging noise, struggling and gasping in the blackness. She focused through her horns and made out the two forms--the Druid on top with his legs out for support, and Wick kicking and struggling beneath him. She knew it was Wick who was on the bottom of the scuffle, because his feet were terribly cold from being doused in the lake.

"Wait, stop," She said. "He can't breathe, man, what are you doing?"

"Choking him." Came the strained response as she saw the Druid pressing in dangerously hard on the trachea.

She stepped toward him as she spoke--

"Just let him up for a minute. Please."

The Druid let his thumbs relax a bit. The Bane gasped in a terrified breath, whimpering slightly as he tried to recover.

"What." The Druid said.

"You're just going to choke him for being around?" Nife said, searching in her mind for something that might sound reasonable to someone that seemed kind of crazy. "The other guy went for backup. Aren't you going to clear out before the other enforcers arrive?"

Now the Druid turned a bit more to face her, with the Bane struggling ineffectively to get his hands off his throat.

"You're not working with Acorn, are you?"

"Working with..." Nife hesitated. Why would she be working with the other enforcer?

"Who the hell are you?" Someone said from behind her--one of the other Druids watching this scene unfold.

"Who is she?" The man asked Wick.

"Look I was just running away," Nife interjected. "I have nothing to do with this. I just don't want to watch someone get murdered to death."

"You're a Druid, right?" The man said, betraying that he couldn't' see as well as Nife could. Most people couldn't, but there were a few exceptions.

"I am," Nife said.

"So, he's a Bane." The Druid said. "Can't you tell?"

Nife didn't answer.

"So why do you care?" The Druid said.

"Why do I care?" Nife repeated. "Why do I care that I'm watching a possible murder unfold?"

"Oh, this is definitely gonna be a murder." The man said. "Well don't just stand there, come 'ere and help if you're gonna help."

There was a harsh blow as the man struck Wick in the jaw.

Nife forced herself out of her shock and lurched toward them. At the same time the other Druids gathered around them. Nife grabbed the leader's wrist and attempted to yank him away from the victim. When that didn't work, she used the hilt of her dagger to punch the guy in the back till he turned around with a curse in Nife's direction.

As he reached to grab the offending hand, Nife ducked back under the crowd of arms and legs of the other Druids, who were all focused on Wick.

Nife realized with a sickening churn in her stomach that the man was being kicked onto his stomach and tied up tightly, his squirming body held down by a forest of feet and hands while a couple Druids tied him up.

If she kept going, Nife thought she might be able to sneak out the opposite window without any of these Druids noticing that a witness was escaping until it was too late.

Suddenly an arm came into her path from the hallway, looped around over her shoulders, and dragged her back toward the others.

"No wandrin off naw," The Druid said in a soft voice.

"Is it illegal to use the latrine now?" Nife whispered.

"Don try dat shit wid me," The soft voice went on just as gently, but the grip was like iron. "I saw everyting."

Nife elbowed back into her ribs once, then again, harder, and all she got was a grunt. She flipped the knife down, prepared to drive it into the woman's thigh. And then her arm just froze there for a moment.

Do it, she told herself. You have to. Defend yourself.

But I've never stabbed anyone! She wanted to scream.

She was just staring around herself, hand shaking as she tried to get the will to drive it down into the muscles of the woman's leg.

"Good, she didn't leave." The leader was saying. "Get that newbie over here. That you, Breeze?" He frowned into the darkness to make out the face of the person dragging Nife.

"It's me." Breeze confirmed, and the tone sounded like a damn threat.

"Let me go," Nife said. "I don't want to have to hurt you, but I will."

Someone let out a short laugh, but Breeze seemed to suddenly notice the knife, slightly cooler in Nife’s warm hands. She lowered her arm to grab it from Nife, who jerked her hand away and quickly ducked out of Breeze's grasp.

She had ducked into a corner in a now-crowded dining room, where most of the Druids had gathered around the Bane captive. Some of them knelt by him on the mildewy carpet, some leaned against the bare walls with glances around the corners, as if to make sure they weren't going to be interrupted.

With a glance, Nife could see that even with perfect planning and speed, she'd have to get through one or two of them if she wanted to reach the sliding back door to the patio.

"Hey newbie," The leader said, delivering a booted kick to the enforcer's side. The prisoner let out a telling little sob. He was crying. "Come 'ere, newbie. You weren't a lotta help back there, but this part's an everybody game."

Another kick.

"Wait. Stop." Nife said. "You're just going to kidnap someone and start kicking them? Because... why? His race? His job?"

Aqua stepped over the Bane and grabbed her by the collar. He pushed her back a couple steps, and several other Druids followed her back. Nife thumped against the wall, looking down at the shorter man with confusion. He pressed his fingertips down roughly into her hair, rubbing a thumb up her forehead till it met her horns, as if he was double-checking that she was really a Druid.

"I don't understand." He said, through his teeth. "You're one of us. Aren't you? I don't understand."

"But you're hurting him." She said, still open-mouthed, refusing to accept what she was hearing. "Don't you hear him?"

Aqua punched her in the stomach.

Nife doubled forward, somehow not expecting that. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her toward the Bane, with the curse–

"Two-timing bitch."

She struggled against his grip, and finding that too strong, she resorted to the knife, slashing it around and upward toward his arm. He saw it last minute and released her, and she fell on the side of her thigh, scrambling backward as they reached and kicked in her direction.

"She kin feed the teeth too," Breeze was saying from behind them.

"She's a Druid!" Aqua kicked at her and just missed as she flattened herself against the floor and slashed her knife across a booted shin.

She'd been trained to fight Banes.

"Aqua, there's no point in letting a two-face live. We gotta waste 'er."

Nife was almost to the opposite wall of the dining room, hoping to cross into the hall and jump out the window at the end. A kick hit her in the cut leg this time and she screamed, cringing over her shin. "Rgh--not the leg!"

Their reaction to that was to start kicking her exclusively in the leg. A hand clamped hard on her shoulder to keep her from wriggling further. Another kick.

She screamed again and cursed, trying to protect her leg with the other one. It burned. At this rate they'd overpower her and "feed her to the teeth", whatever that meant. She couldn't hurt them. She couldn't hurt a person. She'd never hurt someone on purpose before.

She was seeing stars from how badly she was hyperventilating, and from the pain.

I'm going to die! She was panicking. I should really do something about that!!

She pulled a knife in her main hand–her left–and growled through her teeth.

The pain was lost in a sweaty adrenaline rush of limbs and flesh and blood. The smell of blood, rushing through her nostrils, disgusting and vibrant.

"Fuck it! You asked for it."

She was cutting, throwing, and scrambling toward the openings she made. Knives shot from her hands as she kept out of their reach.

"Hell, a knife?" Someone shouted. "She's throwing knives at us!"

She cursed as more ran down the right side of the corridor and yelped as she dodged a spear-thrust. The third dagger hurtled into the face of the spearman and she staggered back into the dining room, armed with the fourth.

She stabbed that in and had no time to retrieve it as she slipped out of their reach once more. The only remaining option was the window she'd come in by, and if she wasn't mistaken there was--

Fuck. Someone there.

Something hit her in the back of her head and she felt time slow and pause. She felt dazed and confused. Was this the fifth knife she was throwing, or the sixth?

Someone came up behind her as she tottered, almost falling to her knees, catching herself just in time. They were moving so slowly. Were they just that confident, or were they really that slow?

It occurred to her that she had been trained to fight Banes. The fast ones. She felt a short smirk cross her features. Even if she had to kill, she'd be glad to get out of here. The one behind her reached at her head and she stabbed behind herself with the sixth knife, leaving it buried just right of their crotch.

"How about I just say my farewells and leave you to it?" She panted, as the one behind her toppled.

And their answer was to laugh.

"Okay, I can work with that too." She muttered as a guy came toward her armed with something that must be long from his posture--fuck, those were short. Tonfa?!

When it whipped out and knocked into her jaw from the left, her leg couldn't take the weight and she was on her knees before she realized it.

Her stiletto was in her hand. She pressed it against her attacker's stomach and released the blade. It shot into him, and she yanked it out and mule kicked the other guy from the ground, then she was on the move.

She kicked and sliced with her last dagger, and her feet punched into either leather armor or flesh as she evaded the swings of weapons--mostly. And she found herself with her back to the wall, facing Aqua with the rest of them right around him forming a ring.

Her breath was so ragged it hurt, and she couldn't think straight, not to mention where she'd been hit, especially her leg, was about the only thing she could think about in the first place.

Aqua grabbed her by the throat with his right hand and the wrist with his left. Apparently his nightsight was at least good enough to notice when she was armed. Close up, she could see his recognizably cold, long nose. Many of the other Druids closed in around her now.

Aqua squashed her throat back into the wall, and when she kicked at him, he kicked at her wounded leg, over and over again, till she would've screamed, but she couldn't breathe in or out past the choking hand. Her leg felt like it was being ripped apart. Tears rolled down her face as her throat squelched in an attempt to breathe.

"Let go. Let go." He was saying, gripping her hand above the stiletto, crushing her knuckles. She genuinely couldn't hold on, but his hand was actually keeping her from letting go completely .

"Let go!" He kicked her again as her tears ran over his thumb.

"I am," She tried to say, lips quivering.

Maybe he saw her try to form the words, or maybe he guessed, but he twisted his grip, pinched the handle and whisked it out of her fingers. The kicking stopped for the moment, mercifully.

"Anybody hurt?" He said over his shoulder, giving her a couple wheezes of breath before choking back up on her.

Several of them answered, but several just lay on the ground, bleeding out or already dead.

"Ringa's gotta knife in 'is gut." The words came through clearly, but didn't make a lot of sense. Nife saw stars in the corner of her vision. She was tapping and straining against his grip, panicked tears pouring out of her eyes as the Druids named off two others that she'd killed.

She could see Aqua's face wrench in anger.

"You... murderer!" He said, fingers squeezing tighter into her throat. "Killing your own kind! Treble--Ringa--Melody--" He kicked her leg for every name. She choked and struggled weakly against his grip.

She couldn’t breathe. She grimaced and pried at his fingers, terrified to see the lights and heat fading from her consciousness.

"Aqua, you gonna kill her?" Someone said to him.

He let her get a little bit of air, probably to make sure he didn't kill her yet.

"A-corn..." She gasped. "He's coming."

Breeze laughed, standing across the room with her arms folded and watching her and Aqua scuffling.

"Acorn's with us." Breeze said. "You ain't got that yet?"

Aqua closed his fingers around her neck again, and Nife's chest heaved uncontrollably, trying to bust open the blocked passageway to no avail. All she could think was "I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

Her head ached and her lips began to tingle; she was panicking. She was tugging and clawing with her left hand on his sleeved arm, kicking more weakly now, and when she did, he would kick back so hard her shin felt like it was going to shatter if she got another one.

"Please," She mouthed, but he didn't let go.

She vaguely heard them talking, and then suddenly there was a release and she gasped in, and it was after the oxygen flooded her lungs that she was falling on her knees, arms trembling.

They kicked her down till her chest hit the ground. There were hands behind her, pulling at her arms. Trapping them behind her back with a painful jerk and twist to each one. She was still fuzzy as she tried to get her breath back. Aqua dug his fingers into her wrists hard enough to bruise as he tied them together so tight that the rope bit hard into her skin. He stood up and stomped on her butt a couple times, taking a statuesque victory pose.

"Job well done," He remarked.

"No no wait," She panted, keeping her head up as she tried to remember how to negotiate. "I have something you want... I think..."

"What, you got some more Banes hiding somewhere?" She heard Aqua's voice above her as she stared into the carpet.

A groan scraped out of her throat. The other prisoner was actively crying.

"Nah, we're gonna feed 'er to the teeth," Breeze said. "Aqua, she ready to go?"

"Now hold on," He said. "I think she deserves some payback first."

Nife's breath caught halfway when she heard that.

"Wait, payback for--"

"Yeah, payback" He snarled, stomping her again. "I'm gonna hurt you for every one of my friends you killed. And then we're gonna kill you."

Fuck, I knew it, She thought, closing her eyes against the despair that choked up her throat. They're going to kill me.

First chapter: Next chapter:

Taglist: @tildeathiwillwrite @mimostic @fleur-a-whump @a-n-j-a-maria

Per Tumblr's content policy, this is the non-nsfw version of Dance of Death.

For anyone following along on this story that wants the canon NSFW version of the story, you can get the book on amazon for $0.99, but I just want to make it possible for anyone to access.

If you like this book, it would mean so much to me if you leave a review of Dance of Death on Amazon.

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