The Vampire & Her Witch

Twenty years ago, the Isabel who stood atop a ridgeline overlooking Umwelt City was even more severe than the one who sat across the table from Baron Hanrahan. Her long, raven black hair whipped about her in the wind and the fitted black dress she wore had been cut to resemble the tunics of the Emerald King’s soldiers. Only the slender emerald green and silver sash across her modest bust and the ceremonial sword at her waist gave any color to the Engineer of Destruction as she surveyed the city below her.

Umwelt City had a great deal in common with the Town of Hanrahan. A few thousand people living simple lives, packed into a walled town that resembled a rectangle someone had shorted on one side. Neither settlement felt well planned and both of them had opted for a location in the lowlands where water was easier to obtain rather than a more defensible position on one of the many ridges or hilltops in the region.

The biggest difference was that Umwelt City had been there for far longer, existing in a quiet and forgotten corner of the Emerald Kingdom in the shadow of vast mountains. For the people of Umwelt City, the fact that they were part of the Emerald Kingdom only mattered twice a year, once when the tax collector arrived from the royal capital, and a second time when the entire kingdom celebrated the ruling monarch’s Reign Day.

All that changed when the old king passed and his younger brother Pasqual attempted to claim the throne instead of allowing it to pass to his fifteen year old son, Marius. Pasqual’s coup might have succeeded if he’d managed to hold on to the Royal Capital. Seizing the Royal Palace and the city while young Marius was away at the Emerald Academy should have been a stroke of genius that carried him to an easy victory once his forces captured the crown prince.

Unfortunately for Pasqual, Marius was a charismatic young man who had built a loyal following among the future lords and even the commoner scholars who studied at the Emerald Academy... Commoner scholars who included a foreigner from across the sea who had come to the Emerald Kingdom to study the system of tunnels that kept the city’s cisterns full and carried sewage away from the ever-growing Royal Capital.

If not for her help in guiding Marius’s band of loyalists through tunnels under the palace that few were aware of and even fewer fully understood, the crown prince’s counterattack wouldn’t have been nearly as effective, but when Pasqual fled the royal capital to build a coalition among the outlying lords in the countryside, it brought years of bitter war to every forgotten corner of the kingdom, including the City of Umwelt.

”Do you think they’ll surrender?” Isabell asked the knight standing next to her overlooking the city. Sir Rafael Soteras and his ’Winged Lances’, a company of nearly two dozen light cavalry men, had been tasked with Isabell’s security for much of the war and the two had long become comfortable with each other despite the gap in official station.

”Baron Balleste is a stubborn man,” Rafael said, shaking his head. ”All he cares about is that Duke Grandee Pasqual has promised positions on the ruling council to every lord who supports him, regardless of rank, and a ten year exemption on the taxes on wheat and wool.” In the end, it had been promises of wealth and power that had brought dissatisfied country lords under Pasqual’s banner in droves, even though the kingdom would come close to bankrupting itself to keep all of his promises.

”That, and I don’t think he believes that you can do what we claim,” the armored knight added, giving the slender woman an appraising look. Year after year, he’d watched the light fade from her gray eyes as she cracked fortresses like eggs.

He hadn’t been present the first time she walked through the devastated ruins of one of Pasqual’s strongholds, but men who had been present said that she fell to her knees and wept at the sight of twisted and mangled bodies burried beneath the rubble, many belonging to ordinary servants and common people. Years later, he knew that she wept still, the only difference was that the tears would come in the night, long after the battle ended when she was alone in her tent.

”How many soldiers does Baron Balleste have under his command?” Isabell inquired as she gazed at the small, bustling city. They might be surrounded by five thousand men raised by Count Faura and marching under his majesty’s banner, but the people of Umwelt still went about their daily business, trading vegetables from their small gardens or drinking at alehouses to pass the time until the siege ended and they could return to their farms. Only, if things went badly, it was unlikely any of them would ever return to those farms.

”Two hundred of his own men,” Rafael said. ”Not enough to be a threat. But Sir Alba and Sir Enric managed to bring over close to five hundred survivors from the battle of Abasqe, including more than a hundred horses. There’s no way we can leave such a powerful force to nibble at our flanks while we march on to Hosque.”

”I know,” Isabell said bitterly, closing her eyes as she imagined how many common folk would die because a few foolish nobles refused to surrender and instead used the common folk as shields.

”When this is over, his majesty should require that every lord and knight attend the Emerald Academy before they are allowed to inherit their titles and soldiers,” Isabell said, trying to distract herself from the horror that was about to unfold. ”It would prevent these ignorant country lords from leaving their people to languish in squalor and poverty like this. And maybe they would learn that some things aren’t worth dying for.”

”These are simple country folk, Isabell,” Rafael reminded her. ”Even the nobles and their knights out here aren’t that far removed from the farmers and shepherds they rule over. They are content with their ways,” he said with a hint of longing in his voice, as though he yearned for a life like the one lived by these country lords. ”Some people prefer a simple life, free from the worries found in your books and libraries.”

”They can only live in ignorance until the world comes knocking at their door,” Isabell said with a heavy sigh as she spotted a messenger racing up the hill toward her position. Grandee Count Faura had given Baron Balleste until the sun reached the height of its journey across the sky to surrender. The time had come and gone by more than an hour and for a time, Isabell had allowed herself to hope that the Baron would see sense. Unfortunately, it seemed her hopes were doomed to disappointment... again.

”Miss Isabell,” the messenger said as he reigned in his horse. ”His Grace, Grandee Count Faura asks you to begin your bombardment as soon as the towers begin to roll and he asks how long you will need to find the range.”

”Tell him to light the towers as soon as they’ve all reached the gates,” Isabell said as she turned to face the long row of siege weapons her company of craftsman had spent the past five days constructing on the ridge line. ”I’ll use the smoke from the fires to judge the wind. Once I can see the wind in the valley and the wind on the ridge, it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to find the range and begin the bombardment.”

Five minutes for the messenger to return to the camp below, Isabell thought. Another five minutes to relay orders and send three towers rolling along the country roads that led to each of three gates in the wall surrounding Umwelt City. Ten minutes for the towers to roll into position and another five minutes for the men hiding within the towers to set the fires that would make it impossible for anyone to flee the city when her siege weapons began to rain down death from above.

Half an hour. The people below had half an hour to savor the last moments of their lives before Isabell began to erase the city of Umwelt from the map.