The Vampire & Her Witch

”There are five ’western’ barons in Lothian March,” Ashlynn continued, gesturing at the map. Much like a sailing ship needed to haul in several lines in order to adjust to the wind, Ashlynn intended to ’tug’ on a few of the barons of Lothian March in order to pull the rest of the March onto the course she desired.

On the map, they looked like powerful domains ruled by capable men with borders that had only expanded over the years since they were first drawn, but to her, they were little different than the spokes of a ship’s wheel, unaware that the force that was preparing to descend on them was only intended to cause a greater power to move.

”But of the five, only three directly border lands controlled by Eldritch nations. Baron Dunn to the north-east is the closest to the Vale, Baron Hanrahan to the south-east is closer to Airgead Mountain than to the Vale, and Baron Aleese, even further south, borders the Southern Steppe,” Ashlynn explained, tapping each territory in sequence.

Sitting in their seats, Savis and Tausau perked up at the mention of the ’Barons’ who controlled the territory neighboring the local Eldritch Lords. From what they could make out on Ashlynn’s map, each of these men controlled a swath of land roughly the same size as the Vale of Mists, which should mean that these ’Barons’ should be prey on the same level as an Eldritch Lord.

For Tausau, such powerful foes were a risk that his Mongrel Horde would need to avoid at all costs, but Savis’s eyes took on a predatory gleam as he imagined adding a third or even fourth Ring of Conquest to the piercings in his left ear.

The lesser soldiers in the Black Wolf Brigade marked significant kills with small rings and their ears often held five or even six slender rings, but Savis only marked his ears when he defeated an Eldritch Lord or greater foe. The two thick, heavy rings in his ear bore delicate inscriptions and the glyphs that represented his conquered foes, standing out as a mark of pride that no one could ever strip from him.

If he could add another ring for killing one of these ’Barons’, then the shame he felt from his humiliating encounter with Thane and the defeats that brought him here would fade like fog in a stiff breeze.

”Commander Bassinger’s men have just finished a summer campaign against the Dunns forces in the foothills, here,” Ashlynn said, pulling the bloodthirsty vampire’s attention back to her briefing. ”And this will be the one of the first places we begin our attack after tomorrow’s festival.”

”It wasn’t much of a campaign, my lady,” Commander Bassinger said humbly. ”We mostly fought to buy time for the people in the outlying villages to evacuate to the Vale of Mists and to give the Dunn’s enough of a bloody nose to train our own men,” he explained.

As much as he wanted to stand up tall and proud for what they had accomplished, just being in the presence of the bloody and aggressive aura that radiated from his white-furred ’fellow commander’ was enough for the veteran soldier to recognize that there was a gap he still had to cross before his ’ordinary’ soldiers could meet the standards that would be necessary in the war to come.

”Still, your delaying campaign set the stage for our plan,” Ashlynn said, nodding her head in genuine thanks, and not just for the way his actions improved their military footing. Without his efforts over the summer, far fewer people would have made it to the safety of Ollie’s village and there would have been many more people with the haunted eyes of those who had lost loved ones than she’d seen when she visited the village for Ollie’s trials.

”Without your efforts this summer,” Ashlynn said. ”The attack we have planned would be much, much more difficult.”

”My lady,” Mashal Jakob said hesitantly. ”Of all the humans we have fought, I thought that the Dunns were only barely weaker than the Lothians. They have nearly a dozen knights under their command, at least five times as many soldiers as the Hanrahans. Should we really be attacking them when they’re already on alert after Commander Bassinger’s campaign? Wouldn’t it be better to pursue the Hanrahans instead?”

”Instead?” Ashlynn said, giving the marshal a very flat look. Was he looking down on her and the forces they’d gathered to suggest they couldn’t afford to fight a single baron? Or perhaps he simply hadn’t adjusted to the idea of going on the offense after Nyrielle’s people had spent so many generations fighting mostly defensive campaigns.

After all, she’d spent months considering how she would lash out at the Lothians and their vassals when the time came and she’d had weeks to discuss these matters with Nyrielle once they reunited in High Fen City. By the time they’d arrived to begin sharing their plans with Thane and adjusting to recent events in both the Vale and the March, she had long come to accept that the first war they fought would be an offensive one. The Marshal, however, was hearing about these things for the first time. In which case, perhaps all he needed was a few pointers in the right direction to adjust his thinking.

”Marshal Jakob,” Ashlynn said, subconsciously drawing herself up to her full height and smoothing out the faint wrinkles in her crimson and black gown. ”We intend to attack the Dunns and the Hanrahans at the same time. As I said, Commander Tausau,” she added with a nod at the Clanless vampire. ”We’ll be spreading your men a bit thin, sending them in small groups to strike several places at once.”

Tausau frowned slightly as he examined the map. Even though the Mother of Trees had promised him the support of the former gladiators along with the hunters, trappers and warriors of the outlying villages who had resettled in the Vale of Mists, the territory Lady Ashlynn was talking about was vast.

And yet, when he thought about it, the thing his ’irregular’ forces were the least suited to was participating in a large battle that required close coordination between troops. Spread out and acting as small squads of men with one of the locals to act as a guide for his Mongrels and the gladiators from High Fen City might just be the best use his warriors could be put to.

”Marshal Jakob isn’t wrong, the Dunns have more men under their banner than any other baron. Their forces are nearly as powerful as my father’s and many would consider him to be a Count in all but name. But he isn’t a count,” Ashlynn said pointedly. ”He is forbidden from naming barons to serve him and by royal decree, a baron may not be served by more than ten knights.”

To the Eldritch, these artificial sorts of restrictions were utterly foolish. But to the Kingdom of Gaal, preventing a lord from amassing too many knights under his banner was a method of preventing him from bullying his neighbors or challenging his own liege lord. A knight was entitled to privileges that few common soldiers could enjoy, and no matter how much the Dunns wished to prop up their elite ’captains’ they were still lacking when compared against properly trained and equipped knights.

”The Dunns have been skirting the restrictions placed on barons by building dozens of small hamlets, tiny fortified farming and ranching communities tied together by a network of simple roads that cavalry can move swiftly along during the dry months, though the dirt roads become treacherous in the rainy season,” Ashlynn explained as she traced a finger along a network of dotted lines on the map.

”Commander Tausau,” Ashlynn said with a predatory smile. ”These hamlets are your first target.”