Her boots crunched softly against moist bone. Her knees bent ever so slightly, the featherlike impact of her landing dispersing through her body in mere seconds.
And then the smell hit.
A musty haze of salt overlaid with a tattered sheen of putrefying flesh snaked into her nostrils, bristling against the hairs in her nostrils like her boots on the pile of refuse that she quickly scrambled off of. Her steps squelched in a mire of wet marrow, swimming up to the surface of the shallow water flooding the dim room like scum bubbling out of a pot.
The crust of mud and dirt that had slipped through Serana's boots in the marshes days ago chafed with a newfound vigor between her toes. It was impossible not to envision the particles prickling against her skin as shards of bone, spearing through the wet soles of her boots.
It didn't slow her stride one bit.
Her keen eyes traced along the ceiling, running over the grime-smeared archways which stood above the filth beneath her. One opened into a shadowy maw that wound deeper into the stone. Another spilled out into an open tunnel, the sound of rushing water faintly audible in the dark that laid beyond.
There it is.
She sucked in a deep breath, heedless of the foul miasma which swarmed her senses. She needed to draw in whatever air she still could into her lungs- once she was within the current rushing out to the open sea, there wouldn't be much opportunity to breathe at all.
She'd learned that the hard way the first time around.
But then there was something that punched through it all- a sliver amongst the grotesque melange of smells, a splash of bright red on the liquefying brown. A churn in her stomach which growled instead of recoiling. It was a smell that awakened a sharpness in her teeth that she'd not felt for what seemed like days.
It was still fresh. Tangy and musky with the heat of a human's blood, spiced over with a diluted inkling of elven scent.
She froze mid-stride, fingers growing cold.
It's too late, she tried to tell herself.
That scent came from an open wound. Freshly spilledblood.
There was a chance that Cedric was still alive. The scent was still faint, a trickle winding down into the stone halls behind her. Behind her escape route.
There was a far larger chance that by the time she traced down the stream of blood, she'd find nothing but a mangled corpse.
It… wasn't worth it.
…
…
Her hands curled into fists.
She spun on her heel. Magicka surged through her veins in an overwhelming concoction with rushing adrenaline. Murky streaks of soiled water lashed against her breeches as her legs kicked through the mire with a newfound urgency.
Her nostrils flared, the wispy trail of Cedric's scent splashing over the darkness as though it were vivid enough to carve into her vision. Lumps of marrow splattered over solid stone as she took off out of the mire in a dead sprint.
The waft of odor that snaked up from that splotches of fresh waste wasn't enough to blot out the blazing scent that wound down the hall.
She darted off, musty air blowing into her open nose. One of her hands unfurled, currents of magickal energy bubbling under the surface of her fingers. Her other rested on the hilt of the sword sheathed at her waist.
Hang in there. I'm coming for you.
0-0-0
It wasn't long before she found the actual blood trail. Splotches of vivid red, barely spreading larger than the tips of her fingers, dotted the grey stone. Thin lines connected the sparsely scattered dots, winding down to an enclosed staircase to her left.
She strained her hearing as she clamored down, listening for the slightest disturbance in the dark above the din of her own footsteps. Her breaths echoed huskily in her head, the sprinkles of dust crumbling down from the eroding stone overhead punctuating each step she took.
The moment her boots touched down on flat stone again, her ears pricked up. A muffled rush of water surged along the left wall of the alcove she found herself in, the rumbling roar audible even through thick layers of brick.
She steeled her senses even further as she dashed under a fallen pillar to her right, then over a pile of rubble to continue following the string of crimson strewn over the dust and debris.
The ceiling fell away, rising up from being only a few heads above her to reaching up into a towering abyss. The walls splayed out to her sides, stretching into a wide hall that bellowed with water rushing through a myriad of unseen sluices.
Serana skidded to halt, dust scraping against her boots. She braced herself against a worn pillar as her eyes momentarily darted over the gaping tunnels that burrowed into the sides of the hall.
Cedric's trail wound into one tunnel then sprang out of another. Then another, on the opposite wall- and again it went, the streaks of red running deeper and wetter with each line she traced, erupting out of the shadows like water from a fissure.
She gulped, taking a steadying breath as she dashed out towards an opening on the left, zipping by three others in the process.
The scent grew stronger, so undeniably rich with musk.
As she slipped into the tunnel opening, disappearing into the shadows as though the wall had swallowed her, she became distinctly aware of the fact that it wasn't just her breathing echoing in her ears now.
The stone heaved with bestial panting, snapped at her with snarling barks. A few more steps, and she could hear the pitter-patter of paws racing across the ground. Splashing through shallow blood.
Her hand slipped away from her sword's hilt, reaching for the worn moonstone handle of her dagger.
She saw the death hound's eyes before anything else, red droplets bleeding out from yet another side tunnel in the wall. Her pace did not falter, even as it raced headlong at her with a frostbitten maw hanging open, clouds of ice crystals streaming out around the mottled tongue that dangled underneath it.
A flame sprung to life in her hands. The flickering orange light that it cast smeared over the decaying muscle of its front legs, the skin on its back stretched taut over its spine. Its teeth glimmered with red as its jaws snapped open, lunging up at her.
She stabbed forwards with her dagger at the crux of its lunge, expertly snaking her hand around its gaping maw and twisting the rest of her body so that its snout barely even grazed against her other shoulder. The moonstone edge flayed through layers of rigid flesh, driving deeper into the hound's skull as its oncoming momentum only pushed the dagger further. A choked whimper left its maw when Serana, without so much as breaking her stride, ripped the dagger free.
Its emaciated corpse landed in a limp heap behind her, its bones scraping against stone from beneath the thin layers of skin stretching over them. The silence that followed the noise of its impact was enough to assure Serana that it was dealt with.
But the panting and barking did not cease. The sounds swirled around her in the darkness, muffled b and spreading through dozens of unseen tunnels winding through the walls. It became harder to tell them apart from her own erratic breathing the further she ran.
She gripped her dagger tightly, keeping the flame in her left hand dimmed to barely a fluttering leaf within her palm. She couldn't trust herself to avoid bathing the whole path stretched before her in fire like this, from scorching away the thin red trail lacing that she had latched on to. It would have to be a final measure to take.
She only hoped she didn't run into the whole pack of hounds at once.
The trail slipped around another corner, and she followed in suit, boots clomping over the fading traces of red.
She kept running right up until the blood ran out.
It was a dead end. A sheer wall stood before her, the blood trail not even snaking up to its stony feet before tapering off.
Her body heaved, eyes darting over the scraps that were scattered over the stone. A few strips of fur, the scraggly brown fibres of them soaked through and ripped from days of travelling in rain. A chipped sword wrought from what seemed to be silver laid next to those fur scraps, its pristine blade shining in the firelight, its handle steeped in red.
But no flesh. No bone. Not nearly enough blood loss for a human like Cedric to have died- if anything, looking at how the trail had tapered off entirely, it seemed as though he'd actually managed to stem the bleeding.
But where was he now?
Her breathing grew faster as she realized the hounds were growing closer, their own breaths morphing into growls. The flame in her hand flared, and she made to pivot around to ready herself for the encroaching threat.
She stopped when the firelight illuminated an unlit torch sconce jutting out of the wall. Her eyes immediately caught onto it- the iron fittings bore only a smattering of rust, and the wooden stalk of the torch was smeared over in bloody fingerprints.
Serana sheathed her dagger, keeping the flame in her other hand aimed down the hallway. Their growls grew louder. She could almost hear the snapping of ravenous jaws echoing with them.
With her now free hand, she grabbed the torch, and yanked down.
A metallic thud resounded from somewhere in the walls, and she heard the telltale scrape of stone against stone behind her. A dim light descended on the walls, and she turned her gaze from its vigil to glance over her shoulder.
And there he was. Staring back at her like a doe caught in the plains, pressed up against an alcove, torchlight flickering over his icy blue eyes.
"Cedric!"
She began backpedaling towards the room before he could respond, setting her sight straight again when the oncoming surge of slobbering snarls reached a crescendo. A stream of fire erupted from her fingertips, engulfing the two beady red eyes at the forefront of the pack bearing down on her. Their bodies, flames dancing upon their bones, writhed and skidded over the ground, faint traces of liquefying white-hot flesh splattering on the stone as the hounds behind them tumbled into the same inferno.
"Can you close the door from inside there!?"
"Y-yes- Sera, is that-"
"Wait until I'm inside!" She exclaimed through gritted teeth, snuffing out the flame in her one hand and raising the arm to shield her eyes from the incandescent white while her other reached for her dagger.
One step back. Two steps back.
She withdrew her dagger just in time to catch one of the hounds, flames still peeling at its skin, soaring over the burning hulks of its kin at her. This time, she lashed out blindly, leaping backwards in the same motion, away from the now-burning teeth that gnashed at her from melting gums. The moonstone blade sunk through the softened muscle of its jaw effortlessly before lodging inside bone. Tongues of flame lapped up the length of the dagger, tickling at her nails.
She released her grip on it without a second thought, pivoting on her heel entirely and leaping over the last few strides between her and Cedric.
"Close it!"
She nearly collided with him as he launched off his perch from the wall, dashing over to the other end of the small cubic room and yanking down on a metal lever.
The slab door slid shut behind Serana with a definitive shudder, the snarls of some surviving hounds still snapping at them from beyond the inches of stone.
She could hardly hear her own breaths, heavy and ragged as she bent over with hands on her knees.
When she steadied herself enough to look up, she found Cedric pressed up against the wall again, pale blue eyes still wide in incredulity.
"Miss me?" She all but rasped, a wide and toothy smile splitting open her lips. She didn't mind the feeling of her fangs gnashing against each other this time.
"I- by the gods, more than you know," Cedric said through breathless laughter. "Oh, Sera, I… I didn't think I'd see you again."
Adrenaline and magicka still surging through her veins in an exhilarating rush, she allowed a laugh to slip out of her lungs as well. She held her position for a while longer, leaning back against the stone for balance as she greedily sucked in air.
"I thought I could do it for a moment, I really did," he continued. "It was like that something which was hounding me this whole time finally gave me clarity, a sense of purpose-" He trailed off, eyes darting nervously past Serana to the now-wall behind her. "-but… well…"
"Cedric," she said as she steadied herself, her mouth receding into a more reserved smile. "I'm just glad you're alive."
She stood up to her full height, rising just over his forehead as she strode over and wrapped her arms around him. The warmth of his flesh and thunderous pulse of his heart soothed her frayed nerves. "I'm sorry I pulled you into this," she murmured, chin resting on the nape of his neck.
"You came back for me though," he whispered back, trembling hands slowly trailing up her back in return. His fingers rested awkwardly over the Elder Scroll and the straps binding it to her, but it didn't make the moment any less for her.
He was alive. By the Gods, he was still alive.
Her eyelids flickered, as though she were ready to finally grant her body the rest that it ached for.
The muffled barks and scratches on stone behind her snapped her out of it.
"Yes. That won't be worth much if we don't get out of here though."
She gave his shoulders one last squeeze before pulling away, eyes scanning over the room. "Is there another way out of this room?"
"I… think so," Cedric ventured, pointing at another lever to Serana's right. "I didn't try pulling this one yet, but I'd guess it opens that door over there," he said, pointing to her left at another slab of stone. Illuminated in the torchlight, it was easy to see the outline of a sliding door hewn into the wall there. "I figured it would be safer to just wait in here for a while. It didn't look like they'd be able to reach the lever outside- or even recognize it for what it was. They didn't bite me too deep, and I figured they'd wander off eventually after the trail went cold."
He held up his right wrist, the arm bare of its sleeve- it had been stripped off, the furs that remained having been chained around his wrist.
Clever.
"You did good," she said. He practically beamed at her in response, a peculiar shade of red seeming to spread over his cheeks. One of her eyebrows quirked up instinctively, but she didn't waste any time questioning him about it. Something else buzzed at the back of her mind.
A little voice nipping at her ears, telling her that this passage had never been here before- that she, of all people, would've found it all those eons ago.
She shook her head slightly, answering Cedric's tilt of his head with a dismissive chuckle.
Her eyes drifted back over to the door Cedric had pointed out, her mind flipping over as she tried to recall the route she had taken to get there.
"That could be just what we need actually," she concluded aloud. "Our best chance of escaping is through the waterway used for waste disposal- I heard some others through the walls on my here as well, but they all eventually run right out into ocean. The water should mask any scent we leave behind, and the old docks are practically right next to where they exit. It's daytime, so if we hurry, we might be able to just grab a boat and get out of here."
"Wait, we're… leaving the castle?"
She nodded, pausing in her racing train of thought as she remembered that he didn't know the decision she'd come to yet. "Coming back here was a mistake. I wish I'd realized that sooner." One step was all it took to put her in arm's reach of the lever.
Though the hounds continued to snap at them from behind the other door, she held still on the lever, taking a moment to address Cedric directly. "Are you ready?"
"Say no more, Sera. I trust you."
"Good."
0-0-0
Her instinct hadn't been wrong. They passed by countless side passages, Cedric's step often faltering whenever she dragged him by one of those shadowy mouths in the wall, but it wasn't long before her ears picked up the basso roar of rushing water again.
She felt Cedric's grip tighten around her, and his pace did not slow as they dashed past an arched passage to their left. The confines of the ceiling fell away once more as they came across a staircase, the walls closing it in seeming to stretch up forever.
A light, bright and blinding, shone back at Serana from an opening at the top. The roil of the ocean flowed freely over her ears, the frigid cold of the outside flooding her lungs.
"Sera," whispered Cedric, tugging gently on her wrist. She looked back, her face mirroring the concern etched into his. "What is it?" She whispered back.
"I think I still hear them."
"Hear wh-"
Snarling. Growling. Panting. Barking.
Bony paws pattering over the stone from the darkness behind them.
"Come on!" She yelled, nearly yanking Cedric off of his feet as her legs strode up two stone steps. It wasn't long before her muscles began to burn with a searing ache, the faint rays of light peeking through cracks in the distant ceiling doing little to help. Sweat ran down her forehead in stinging streaks.
"I- think they're getting closer-" wheezed Cedric.
"Just keep running, we can't fight them," she hissed out through a wince. She launched herself up another two steps. Cedric nearly stumbled, barely covering a single step in the same stride.
"Do I need to carry you!?"
"Wh- what?"
She gasped, halfway through a stride, emptying her lungs and sucking in a breath that swelled them back up. And then she reached back, the hand she held Cedric's with loosening to snake around his back, her other arm hooking around his ankles. He yelped as she swept him off his feet in one swift motion, her aching stride not slowed in the slightest.
The faint glimmer of red eyes behind them, swarming by the dozens, kept her going.
"They're not going to follow us!?" He bellowed into her ear, voice raspy with exhaustion.
"They can't swim!"
"Wait- swim!?"
"Yes! Take a deep breath!"
"Sera, wait-"
There was no time to wait. Wincing at the strain on her shoulders, on her bicep, she reached up from behind Cedric's back with the hand closest to his head, fingers closing over his mouth. She closed her eyes as her feet suddenly touched upon cold air, rushing by beneath her boot soles.
She really hoped she managed to get that waterbreathing spell off before the current tore Cedric out of her arms.