The Vampire & Her Witch

Hauke watched in stunned silence from within the prison of his own mind as Nyrielle laid out a history of his people that he had never heard, even from the ancestors who had dwelled within his mind.

From Ansgar, he had heard of the era of Seven Peaks when the Frost Walkers ruled not just the High Pass but Airgead Mountain and several other nearby mountains whose summits rose above the clouds. In that era, Ansgar hadn’t been the Lord of High Pass but the High Lord of Seven Peaks and Frost Walkers held power for nearly the entire length of the eastern mountains.

Each generation after that dwindled as the ice and snow of the glaciers retreated and by the time Kimsel ruled, only the High Pass remained within the Frost Walker’s domain. This was the history that they’d shared with him but they said nothing of an age of ice before, nor of a vampire breaking their bloodline!

But now, as he listened to Nyrielle’s words, Hauke felt like the powerful vampire was about to explain something even more important, and even more relevant to people like him who managed to manifest the iridescent horn that belonged to the broken bloodline of his clan.

”It’s true that Acat’s sorcery, however it functioned, made it possible for people with iridescent horns to be born again,” Nyrielle said, continuing her explanation. ”But I doubt that this was deliberate, even though it might be fortunate,” she said with a brief glance at Hauke’s listless figure.

”It was my mentor Shubnalu who responded to the reemergence of the iridescent horns among your people, when a powerful High Lord used his strength to extend the glaciers for the first time in hundreds of years, linking seven mountains together in a world of ice that lasted through even the hottest summers,” Nyrielle explained.

”The Fangs of Death exist to reap the lives of individuals who have grown so powerful that they can shake the foundations of the world with their will,” she said, turning her gaze back to the crowd who now hung on her every word. ”But once again, vampires showed mercy. Shubnalu offered a choice to this powerful High Lord. Rule as a man for the remainder of his life, or preside over his people for eternity as a powerful guardian who could ensure that the nation he built never failed.”

The account of the ’bargain’ that Shubnalu had made with High Lord Ansgar wasn’t outlined in great detail on the tablet Nyrielle found in the ancestral cave. Her mentor left behind just enough information for whoever followed after him to continue the legacy in order to suppress the Frost Walkers and contain their threat, but it was enough to understand the many lies Shubnalu must have told the High Lord of Seven Peaks for him to agree to what happened next.

”Shubnalu never offered to take this High Lord as his progeny,” Nyrielle said. Or if he had, the offer had been rejected and her mentor hadn’t written of it. ”Instead, he offered to turn him into an immortal guardian formed of frozen blood. A guardian who could watch over his people for all time.”

”I have seen the records of the sorcery used to create these ’Frozen Blood Guardians,’” Nyrielle said as she suppressed a shudder. ”You cannot imagine the cruelty and sacrifice that was required to produce just one of these immortal guardians, let alone five of them. Before I leave the High Pass, I will shatter the records of the ritual so that it can never be attempted again.”

”Why?” Commander Jannik asked, though he did not shout or stand from his seat. ”Vampires took away our strongest bloodline, and when it reemerged, they gave us the gift of these guardians. Now you would take away the gift that your own teacher gave us? Just how far must our people be ground down for what happened centuries before any of us were born?”

”Still childish,” Nyrielle said, glaring at the dark-furred commander. ”I spare you the horrors but you demand to hear them for yourself. So be it,” she said, narrowing her midnight eyes as she looked at the assembled Frost Walkers.

”If I drained your body of blood, do you think there would be enough blood to form a statue of ice the same size as you?” Nyrielle asked bluntly. ”Of course there wouldn’t. So to craft the body of a Frozen Blood Guardian, more blood must be obtained. Only it isn’t enough to take just the blood,” she added.

”A Blood Golem is a simple construct formed from blood around the heart of a creature. The heart provides a ’will’, a desire strong enough to give the construct purpose. Defend this place. Attack people from your most hated enemy. The desires of blood golems are not complicated because have no mind, only hearts filled with a single purpose.”

As she spoke, comprehension began to dawn on the faces of the sorcerers among the crowd as they realized that, unlike the willing offerings given by Nyrielle’s people when a vampire needed to feed, the formation of these ’Frozen Blood Guardians’ would require a much greater sacrifice.

”You begin to understand,” Nyrielle said as she watched comprehension turn into horror on more and more faces. ”These ’immortal guardians’ were much like blood golems. They existed for the singular purpose of protecting your people. Everything else they either cut away or lost to the millstone of time after giving their lives in ritual sacrifice to take their place in the ancestral cave with their companions.”

At this point, Ashlynn stood up from her chair, gathering all eyes on her while she gave Nyrielle a brief smile of thanks. Everything that had happened before brought them to the tragedy of the night before, but without understanding what had really happened to the ancestors, the people gathered would never be able to understand what had happened to Hauke.

Now that they understood, Ashlynn could begin her own part of the story. One that she hoped would result in not only understanding, but a willingness to step forward on a different path than the dark one that had haunted Frost Walkers since the end of the Age of Ice.

”By the time the Fangs of Death was done with them,” Ashlynn said, taking over the explanation. ”They weren’t the same as the ancestors you visit in your ancestral halls. They had been turned into weapons little different than the one my Lady Heila wears at her waist. And after centuries spent sealed away in a flooded ancestral cave with sorcery that unraveled with each passing year, they had transformed from immortal guardians into weapons that hungered to be used...”