The Vampire & Her Witch

”Snow Flurry Steps,” Heila whispered as soon as the explosion of snow erupted from the small sword at her hip.

She’d barely had time to practice the technique since coming to High Fen City and receiving the weapon from Artificer Erkembalt but the spell she’d crafted to use with her new weapon wasn’t very different from the Mistwalker Dance used by the vampires of the Vale of Mists. For a moment, Heila was all but weightless as she threw herself into the swirling maelstrom of snow, drifting with the wind and treating the snowflakes like solid ground she could spring off of.

By the time the Tuscans arrived at the place she had been standing, the Willow Witch had already circled around behind them and begun her next attack. She knew she wouldn’t have much time, but all she needed were a few seconds as she began to speak.

”By willow’s peace and evening’s sigh,

Let heavy lids now close each eye.

Through branches swaying, soft and slow,

To dreamland’s depths now shall you go.”

The swirling winds of the snowstorm carried her voice like snowflakes on a breeze, wrapping it around the Tuscans like a heavy winter blanket. The Tuscans, however, weren’t fools and they weren’t as disorganized by the snow as many would have been.

”Hunters, form circle!” Ipiktok shouted, holding his spear high in the air. Instantly, the men around him gathered into a tight formation, standing shoulder to shoulder with their weapons facing outward.

”Clear the air!” The Tuscan leader roared, raising his trunk in the air and taking a deep breath to gather his energy. Moments later, a loud -BRRRUUUU HUUUUUMMMM PFREEEEEE!- split the air as all ten Tuscan hunters let loose not only a powerful trumpet blast, but powerful sorcery that rippled visibly through the air, stilling the wind and knocking the swirling snowflakes from the air.

In the stands, the crowd covered their ears and small children broke out in distressed cries as the noise assaulted their ears. Several people shrank back from the haunting sound in fear and a few even tumbled from their seats when they felt the impact of the sound washing over their bodies like a physical blow.

At the far end of the arena, Heila’s smiling figure was revealed, standing on the ground near the iron gate that the Tuscans had entered from. The Tuscans had succeeded in dispelling her snowstorm, but by using sorcery to do so, they’d weakened themselves, losing much of their ability to resist her spell of sleep.

One by one, the lumbering giants lowered their trunks as their eyelids grew heavy. Weapons clattered to the ground, falling from fingers too tired to hold them moments before several of the powerful warriors swayed on their feet and crashed face-first onto the snow-covered ground of the arena.

-THUD- -THUD- -THUD- -THUD- -THUD- -THUD-

The earth shook and seats in the arena rattled as six powerful Tuscan hunters dropped like felled trees, falling to the ground where they lay snoring loudly into the rapidly melting snow.

In High Lady Erna’s box, Nereida and her friends whooped with delight, clapping their hands and pointing excitedly at the fallen warriors.

”Just look at that! Six of them, she defeated six of them in an instant!” Nereida said with a grin so wide that it completely revealed her venomous fangs. ”She’ll be done with them before we finish our snacks!”

”Not that easy, really, really not that easy,” Talauia said, perching at the edge of her seat. Her multifaceted amethyst eyes tracked every motion on the arena sands but more than that, they revealed to her just how much energy Heila had used to subdue those six men.

”But if she got six with one spell,” the serpentine woman said, confused by why not only the normally animated Talauia but the supremely confident Mother of Trees looked concerned. ”She, she should be able to win easily now, shouldn’t she?”

”I don’t know,” Ashlynn said softly. ”The arena is the worst place she could possibly fight. Nothing grows on the sands there. Heila is very strong but she isn’t very versatile. In the Briar or the Vale of Mists, she’d be unstoppable against so few men, but here...”

”In the arena,” High Lady Erna said, leaning forward with a predatory gleam in her eyes. ”A person can only rely on their own strength. There is no strength here for a witch to borrow. For her to overcome six men at once, just how much of her energy did she have to expend?”

”Most of it,” Ashlynn said nervously. Heila knew better than to exhaust herself but she was pushing things to use her spell of sleep on all of them. If she’d only attempted to lull five of them to sleep, it would only have taken a third of the energy and she likely would have succeeded on at least four out of five. By pushing for everyone, she had achieved greater results but at a much higher cost.

”Now is when the real contest begins,” Erna said, holding up a squirming rodent and dropping it into her mouth. She took a single bite to release the rich, fatty flavors of the specially prepared rodent before swallowing it whole and returning her attention to the battle below.

Ipiktok was a disciplined commander and he wasn’t about to let the loss of more than half of his soldiers bring him to an easy defeat, especially when the stunned men were merely asleep. It was obvious, however, that this witch was slippery and a simple charge would be all but useless.

”Iron shot!” Ipiktok shouted, shouldering his spear and retrieving a long loop of reinforced leather. From a pouch at his waist, he retrieved a smooth iron ball. The iron ball was roughly the size of a plum, and when Ipiktok placed it into his sling and began to spin the weapon through the air it made a terrifyingly loud low-pitched hum. The three men still standing beside him copied his movements and soon the air was filled with the sounds of whirling slings.

Heila’s confident smile vanished in an instant, replaced by a look of grim determination as she lowered the brim of her War Hat. Her mind worked rapidly as she realized that these men, unlike the bloodthirsty trophy hunters she’d seen in the High Pass, fought more like the professional soldiers of the Vale of Mists than any of the gladiators she’d faced so far.

These me, she acknowledged privately, were worthy of respect...and that only made it harder to find a way to subdue them without killing them.

”Don’t let her speak,” Ipiktok commanded as he let an iron ball fly toward the Willow Witch at the far end of the arena. The ball of iron split the air with a sound like a crack of thunder before slamming into the stone wall behind Heila, missing her by mere inches. Fragments of shattered stone fell to the ground in a clatter as the iron shot buried itself several inches deep in the arena wall. An instant later, another ball dropped into his sling, and the hum of four slings again filled the air.

”Advance with me,” Ipiktok said, striding forward with slow, lumbering steps that shook the sands of the arena. ”Just like hunting rabbits,” he added with a dark smile. All they had to do now was keep her boxed in so she couldn’t flee until they were close enough to lay hands on her. Once they were close enough, the witch was all but doomed!