The Vampire & Her Witch

Sir Carwyn’s enemy’s armor bore no coat of arms, and he held no shield. Instead, the serpentine demon carried a hooked sword in one hand and a short spear in the other, as if every fiber of his being was intended to attack and not defend.

It was a posture that Carwyn welcomed as he closed the final distance between them, swinging his flail in a wide arc, aiming for the oversized, cage-like helm with its brilliant green plumage. For a moment, everything seemed to come together as the demon didn’t even seem like it intended to get out of his way, but in the next moment, everything changed.

The serpentine demon moved with inhuman speed, using its short spear in place of a shield to knock Carwyn’s flail aside. But the spear and the sword were both distractions compared to the demon-knight’s most lethal weapon.

Originally, Carwyn had thought that the polished metal tip that wrapped around the demon’s tail was just another piece of armor, or perhaps a decoration like the green plumage in its helm. It wasn’t until the serpentine demon flickered to the side, moving just out of the way of the horse’s charge, that the young knight realized his fatal mistake.

The demon’s tail went suddenly stiff, striking like a spear and tearing through the horse’s neck in a spray of crimson blood. Instantly, Carwyn’s world exploded into chaos as his horse’s dying scream filled his ears and hot blood splattered across his face. The familiar rhythm of hoofbeats vanished, replaced by the heavy thud and sickening crunch of his long-time companion collapsing beneath him. Before the young knight could even react, a brief sensation of weightlessness overwhelmed him as he was sent tumbling through the air.

Sky and earth spun in a nauseating blur before the muddy ditch rushed up to meet him. His body moved without thought as he tucked his chin to his chest and tightened his stomach, curling into a ball as best he could.

”If you ride, then one day you’ll fall,” his father had told him when he met his first horse. ”And if you fight while you ride, then one day, you’ll be thrown. Learn to land, tuck, and roll,” his father said, slapping him on the shoulder. ”Aim for this. It’ll hurt, but banging your head is worse. Then across to the other hip. Even in armor, you can tuck and you can roll. Remember...”

Those lessons and countless others were the only things that kept Carwyn from getting tangled up in his horse’s fall, and now, as he slammed into the earth, those lessons once again saved his life.

The impact drove every breath from his lungs with a sound like a bellows collapsing, and cold, fetid water immediately soaked through his gambeson, carrying the stench of rotting leaves and animal waste. His flail flew from numb fingers as he rolled instinctively across his back, feeling every stone he rolled across like a punch landing on his body until he kicked out with his feet and brought himself to a stop, lying in the putrid mud of the ditch.

For a moment, the world went silent except for a high ringing in his ears and the wet gurgling of his dying horse somewhere that sounded far away. The taste of his own blood filled his mouth, and when he tried to breathe, pain flared across his ribs. His left shoulder screamed in pain after absorbing most of the force of his fall, and a tingling sensation like pins and needles running over his flesh spread all the way from his left elbow to his fingertips.

The edges of Carwyn’s vision went black, and the sounds of his men fighting against the demon-knights grew faint as he struggled to draw breath. His right hand fumbled about in the mud, searching for his flail while his left arm drew his shield across his chest in an almost reflexive desire to protect himself.

A moment later, however, it all felt futile as the green-plumed demon arrived above him, pointing a spear down toward him while it rested the spine of its hooked sword casually on one shoulder.

”Olwyna,” he said softly as he closed his eyes, waiting for the final thrust of the spear. ”I’m sorry. I’ll wait for you in the heavenly shores...”

The final thrust of the spear never came. Instead, he heard the demon shouting in their strange, infernal language as it towered above him.

”Kvarna halt! Vri’na, zha ékrium ikta zhal tuor. Izh zha’ra!”

A handful of breaths later, the sounds of fighting seemed to stop. The demons shouted a few more strange phrases at each other before Carwyn opened his eyes, surprised to see one of the knife-wielding, flat tailed demons approaching with a scowl on its face.

”Iitkā̧ ušbîl, nūl ôntok nēl kâti qíka. Iitkā̧ nūl, ôk ṿār - īmal púrok, nūl tûr mīr ħína,” the serpentine demon said, looking at the shorter flat tailed demon while pointing his spear insistently at Carwyn’s chest. A moment later, the flat tailed demon gave the young knight yet another shock as it opened its mouth and spoke the king’s common tongue.

”He says that your battle isn’t over,” the flat tailed demon said. ”He wants a true battle between champions, and so he challenges you to single combat.”

Single combat? Carwyn struggled to believe that a demon would have any concept of honor or a fair fight in a duel, yet here he was, lying flat on his back and vulnerable before the demon’s spear, yet he hadn’t been killed.

So why did this demon want to fight him? What did the demon possibly have to gain from it? Was it just to humiliate him before the other demons in some strange mockery of a ’fair’ fight? Carwyn was about to reject the offer when the flat tailed demon opened his mouth again and made an offer that Carwyn couldn’t refuse, even if it was a lie.

”He says,” the flat tailed demon said, ”that if you defeat him in single combat, then you and your soldiers and all of your common folk can go free and we will not hunt you down. Even if you kill him, his brothers will honor his word.”