The Vampire & Her Witch

”The first village we planned to attack was completely abandoned and I’ve never seen that happen before,” the handsome heir of the Dunn family said as he joined Loman by the wounded captain’s side. ”Demons don’t flee, even when they should. They all think that they can fight us off because we don’t have any Inquisitors with us, but this time, everyone had already left long before we arrived.”

”A moment, Lord Liam,” Loman said, interrupting the young lord to tend to his patient. ”Before I remove the arrow,” Loman said to the wounded man as he reached into a pouch for a small bottle. ”Would you like a sip of Essense of Poppy? It will dull the pain and cloud your mind but...”

”Never,” the man spat fiercely before a horrified look flickered across his face as he realized who he’d spat at. ”I’m sorry, my Lord Loman, I, I forgot myself. Please save it for those who are too injured to fight again. I do not wish to become a man who needs to escape into the poppy’s fog.”

”Then bite down on this,” Loman said, passing the man a short stick wrapped in leather and soaked in strong willow bark tea. ”This will hurt,” he said.

When he first began treating the wounded, he had been tender and gentle with each soldier, treating them like the common people who came to the temple in Lothian City for healing and aid.

By the second day, he’d all but eliminated his pleasantries as his bedside manner became brisk and more efficient. He no longer asked people to think about a time they were happy or to imagine that the hand of their fellow soldier was the hand of a loved one for them to clutch. ”Bite down, this will hurt,” was all the warning he gave before he shoved forward on the arrow, pushing the barbed head all the way through the leg and removing it from the other side before he began his prayer.

”O Lord of Light who rules on high,

Whose mercy stretches ’cross the sky,

Let healing light mend his flesh and ease his pain,

Make whole the broken so he may walk again.”

Pale golden light gathered around Loman like a halo, shining on his chestnut hair and making his white and gold robes appear radiant and far too pure for the dirty, bloody world in this field hospital. Then, as he pressed his glowing palms to the wound, the energy spilled from his hands into the wound.

Captain Jorg’s teeth had bitten into the leather hard enough to leave an impression of his teeth in the wood beneath the leather with his eyes screwed so tightly shut that tears leaked from them. The instant Loman’s hands touched the wound, however, the pain melted away like the aches of the body fading in a hot bath. Flesh moved like putty under Loman’s gentle touch and within the span of a few minutes, not a trace of the wound remained.

”May the blessings of the Holy Lord of Light be upon you,” Loman said in a shaky voice. ”May you live virtuously from this day and wield your sword against the demons of darkness to repay the Holy Lord of Light for the gift of healing he has bestowed on you.”

”Thank, thank you, my lord,” Jorg said, reaching out with his fingers to gently touch the patch of pale skin where the wound had once been. Not a trace of the injury remained and his leg felt strong enough to run back to his injured men if he wanted to... or to chase down the idiots responsible for getting them caught in a trap.

”Don’t thank me,” Loman said humbly. ”I’m nothing more than a vessel for the power of the Holy Lord of Light. Give your thanks to him.”

”Lord Loman,” Liam interrupted before the freshly healed soldier could say more. ”You’re tired. You should rest. Let my physician see to the wounded who arrive next. They can summon you if anything urgent requires your intervention.”

”I think, I think I may need to do that,” Loman said, pushing himself up off the cot only to stagger as his vision swam from the sudden movement. Thankfully, Liam was close by to catch the exhausted priest and help him out of the tent.

”Lord Loman,” Liam said as he helped the young priest across the camp to his personal tent. ”I’m worried that the demons are trying to wear us down by wounding so many of our men. Abandoning one village and leaving only the elderly and the infirm in the second village we attacked... I think they’ve gathered all of their capable fighters at the village ahead and now they’re preparing a counterattack.”

”Why do you think that, Lord Liam?” Loman asked as they walked. The light of the sun, the first he’d seen of it in what felt like days, was warm on his skin and seemed to breathe a bit of life into his body as if the Holy Lord of Light was helping him find the strength he needed even if it was for something as small as returning to his own bed for a nap before he returned to the tents.

”We have always had the advantage of numbers over the demons when we face their warriors in battle,” Liam said confidently. ”But now, they must think that half our men are wounded after so many days of their fiendish traps and cowardly archers picking away at our scouting parties and sentries.”

”Any day now, I imagine they’ll attack our camp in force,” he said. His words might have been grim but both his tone and expression were eager. ”Because of you, Lord Loman, they will be very, very wrong about the number of wounded men in our army. They think they’ve softened us up, but the truth is that you’ve turned their strategy completely against them.”

”When the time comes, I’ll make sure my father knows that this victory is one we owe to you and your efforts,” Liam said with a wide grin.

”If we achieve victory here,” Loman said with praise for the Holy Lord of Light upon his lips. At the last minute, however, he changed his mind. After all, he wasn’t here just as a priest. He was here to prove that he could be the heir to the Lothian throne.

”If we achieve victory here,” he said with more strength in his voice than he truly felt. ”It will be because your men are disciplined and well-trained and because you possessed the vision to see through the demon’s cruel plan. They wish to wear us down, but you have all the support I can offer to ensure that your men meet the enemy at their strongest.”

”Together,” Loman said, giving the other man’s shoulder a squeeze before he stepped away to enter his tent. ”This time, the Dunn family won’t fight the demons alone.”

”Together,” Liam said, bowing slightly to the young Lothian Lord with a predatory smile on his face. As soon as the demons attacked his camp, he would spring his trap and pay them back a thousand times over for the wounds they had inflicted on his men. All he had to do was wait and strike when the opportunity came.