The Vampire & Her Witch

”Merciful Lords and Ladies, what, what are those?” A startled shopkeeper said, pointing at the group of strange, misshapen men who followed after the Golden Eyed Black Wolf Brigade.

”They’re Clanless,” a swordsmith from the Clan of Painted Masks said as he suppressed his urge to draw back in revulsion from the group of men and women who strode into the city with their heads held higher than they’d ever been and their backs as straight as they could make them.

Tausau, the vampire at the head of the Mongrel Horde, allowed a predatory aura of menace to seep from his burly body as his eyes swept the crowd, savoring the taste of revulsion and fear in the air. For too long, he’d allowed the judgment of outsiders to wear him and his mongrel progeny down, but since Nyrielle granted him a rebirth, reigniting the passions buried deep in his heart, he’d come to relish in the way his twisted appearance discomforted the more ’proper’ people in the Eldritch world.

Who among them had the strength to endure a twisted birth and a cursed life? Who among them had worked half as hard as the least among his progeny, simply to survive another day? Rather than accepting the judgment of the common folk, he looked down on them as people too weak to survive what he and his progeny had endured. Now, with the opportunity his grand-niece had presented them, they would teach the world to shudder in fear not at the appearance of the Mongrel Horde, but at their strength!

”They’re not just Clanless,” a grizzled gladiator standing next to the swordsmith said when Tausau’s Mongrel Horde passed by. ”They’re vampires. Thirty, thirty-one if you include the leader... How are there nearly three dozen Clanless Vampires, all in one place?”

”Atrice,” the swordsmith said in very hushed tones. ”Are Clanless Vampires as strong as other vampires? Or are they as weak as the Clanless?”

”I don’t know,” the gladiator whispered. ”But from where I stand, I wouldn’t want to fight them. At the very least, I’m not confident that I could win without suffering injuries that would end my career in the arena.”

Around him, several people nodded. No one wanted to fight a vampire if they could avoid it. They weren’t considered the ultimate predators for nothing. Perhaps the ill-fated Glimmerwing clan might once have enjoyed an equally fierce reputation, but their complete and utter destruction at the hands of Vampires had cemented the latter’s place in most people’s minds as the most deadly of all Eldritch beings.

The people breathed more easily after Tausau’s Mongrel Horde passed, followed closely by dozens of men and women wearing dark silk robes, covered by ancient glyphs and symbols used by some of the oldest traditions of sorcery in Eldritch lands. The people seemed to come from more than a dozen different clans, but all of them carried an air of mystery that drew the attention of countless commoners.

”Nana,” a young boy said, tugging on his grandmother’s dress while his eyes strained to capture every detail of the robed men. ”How do they make the writing on their robes glow? I want words on my tunic that glow, can you, can you sew words like that Nana?”

”You see them as glowing?” the stoop-shouldered tailor said, looking at her grandson in surprise. ”Don’t you lie to me about this boy,” she said, her voice unexpectedly sharp. ”If you see something on the robes of sorcerers...”

”I see it, I see it, I swear!” the boy insisted. ”They shine in blue and purple and gold,” he said, pointing at different robed figures with each color he named. ”They’re pretty, really pretty and...”

Behind the young boy and his grandmother, an artificer from the Clan of Painted Masks turned away rather than listen to the young man’s growing excitement. It wasn’t that he blamed the young man. Decades ago, he’d been much the same. But as soon as he recognized the robes worn by the group of sorcerers, he decisively left the crowded street, walking in the direction of the shop he knew he shouldn’t have left.

”Perhaps I won’t get to see Lady Nyrielle again after all,” Artificer Erkembalt said sadly. He’d hoped to get her thoughts about the weapons he’d forged for the Willow Witch and the human boy, but seeing his former associates gathered under Lady Nyrielle’s banner made him question whether or not she would welcome his presence. At the very least, it would complicate matters more than either of them would desire.

”I suppose if she wants to see me, she knows where I hang my hat,” the artificer said with a defeated sigh. ”But what in the world did she offer them to entice so many of those dogmatic fools to follow her?”

The Sorcerers of Sundered Earth weren’t supposed to care for the troubles of the world, which was part of why he’d left in the first place. Yet now, marching in Nyrielle’s army, they were certain to find themselves embroiled in a good many troubles, so what had changed their minds? Without a visit from the vampire herself, it was impossible to know, but the question was sure to gnaw at him for several months if he couldn’t find an answer.

Behind the robed men came another unit of soldiers with thick, leathery skin that looked almost like armored plates. After them, a clan of people even shorter than the horned clan with pinched, mouselike features followed, many of them dressed in black and wearing deep hoods with slits for their saucer-shaped ears.

The march lasted for close to twenty minutes before a dark carriage marked by a crimson glyph pulled into view. Driving the carriage were two pale-skinned humans who radiated a strength and power unlike any of the other vampires they’d seen come before. Even Savis couldn’t compare to the quiet, enchanting power that radiated from the amethyst-eyed woman driving the carriage or the slow-burning intensity they felt from the dark-haired man wearing red and gold robes sitting on the carriage next to her.

”The woman driving is Madame Zedya, she’s one of the Blood Princess’s direct progeny,” a well-connected merchant said proudly, strutting off his knowledge to impress the people around him. ”I saw her at the masquerade ball when the Blood Princess visited last time.”

”I don’t believe it,” the man standing next to him said. ”You’re not important enough to attend an event that fancy. There’s no way you had an invitation!”

”I didn’t say I was invited,” the man said in an aggrieved tone. ”I just said I saw her there. I, I was delivering ice from the mountains,” he added a touch awkwardly.

”Okay, so if you know so much then who’s the man next to her?”

”I, I don’t know...” the ice merchant said awkwardly. ”I’ve never seen or heard of him before...”

While common folk pushed and shoved, many of them hoping to catch even the slightest glimpse of the famed Blood Princess of the Arena, Lady Nyrielle sat quietly in her carriage. With the curtains drawn and only a single lantern burning, casting its flickering golden light across her perfectly sculpted features, she never for a moment thought about indulging the commoners in their desire to glimpse her beautiful figure.

It wasn’t that she looked down on them, rather, her slender fingers traced the place where Ashlynn had last sat in the carriage and her mind sank deep into memories of the night they’d met when she rescued Ashlynn in this very carriage.

”Soon, my darling Ashlynn,” she whispered, her midnight blue eyes sparkling with barely restrained eagerness. ”Just wait for me a few minutes longer...”