The Vampire & Her Witch

”I don’t understand,” Sir Hugo said as he stared at the map Ashlynn had unrolled in confusion. ”Hanrahan Barony would almost completely envelop Airgead Mountain... That, that more than doubles our territory!”

On the map, the border for Hanrahan territory had expanded slightly to the north, east, and south, but the true expansion of the territory was westward, encompassing all of Airgead Mountain except for its northwestern slopes, where the border seemed to run into another territory they’d never heard of.

”What are the ’Four Peaks,’” Sir Carwyn asked as he stared at the map in confusion.

Despite living in the shadow of the mountains, the maps available to humans were very limited. Explorers often ventured into the mountain ranges, but few returned. A few had made it back, telling tales of distant peaks, monstrous demon giants, and weather so cold and air so thin that men froze to death in their sleep.

Whether those tales were true or not was a subject of great debate in the frontier. One thing was certain, however. The Vale of Mists lay at the mouth of a way across those great mountains and demons had built a road that lasted for a thousand years running all the way from the distant shores, through the Vale and to the lands beyond, so there must be something further west for humans to discover, they simply hadn’t made it far enough yet.

”Long ago, this whole land was buried beneath sheets of ice,” Ashlynn began, smiling slightly as she watched the map sparking genuine curiosity in their minds. ”It was known as the Age of Ice, and during that era, there was a Frost Walker High Lord named Ansgar who was called ’the Lord of the Seven Peaks.’”

”The High Pass threads its way between two of those peaks,” Ashlynn said, tapping on the map just beyond the Vale of Mists. ”Fortress Peak is the current domain of the Frost Walkers. Their people have dwindled to a point that it makes little sense to them to claim any other mountains. Across from that, and behind Airgead Mountain, is Knife Peak. If you look south from Fortress Peak, you can see the top of Knife Peak above the clouds, looking like a sharp blade stabbing up from below.”

”You mean that you’ve,” Liam started to say, only to shake his head and hold up his hand in apology. ”I’m sorry. Of course, you’ve seen it. You’ve traveled beyond the mountains and seen many things we haven’t. Mountains taller than clouds...”

”Fortress Peak and Knife Peak aren’t the only giants in this range,” Ashlynn explained as she traced her finger north from Fortress Peak. ”They call this one the Sage’s Summit,” she said, tapping a mountain. ”It was once home to Frost Walker sorcerers, and it was the birthplace of both Ines, the Unending Blizzard, and Erarik, the Frost Architect,” she said, pausing briefly as she remembered the tragic end of the ancestors who had tormented Hauke.

She didn’t regret their deaths. Nyrielle had been right to destroy them utterly before they could cause any greater harm, and both Ashlynn and Nyrielle still wondered if they had been acting on some ancient plan of Shubnalu’s when they possessed Hauke.

But to live through so much and die the way they had still felt like a great loss. Hauke greatly valued each of those ancestors as mentors, and the knowledge he’d gained from them in just a brief half year was already substantial.

Losing them had cut off access to some of the Frost Walker’s greatest legacies of sorcery. More than that, the loss of the ancestors themselves cost them a number of people who could have been powerful allies against the fire sorcery of the Church of the Holy Lord of Light.

”My Lady?” Carwyn said gently. ”Was there something more about the people you mentioned from this ’Sage’s Summit?’ Those sound like impressive titles, and from what little I’ve learned of the Eldritch, they don’t give such titles lightly. But, if it’s a sacred matter or a deep secret, just tell me and I won’t pry.”

Now that he’d made the decision to surrender to Lady Ashlynn and to come under the banner of Dame Sybyll Hanrahan, he found that he was much more curious about the Eldritch people. Or perhaps his curiosity had been growing ever since his duel with Captain Barsali, and it was only after his surrender that the dam holding his curiosity back finally shattered.

Whatever the reason, when he saw the complex look flicker across Lady Ashlynn’s eyes as she gazed at ’Sage’s Summit,’ he felt like there was something important there. At the same time, he wanted her to know that he would respect whatever boundaries she chose to put in place. He was a very new ally and he’d done nothing so far to earn her trust.

”In their eras, they were great heroes and guardians of their people,” Ashlynn said with a heavy sigh. ”Ansgar is the man who shattered my sword when we fought in the High Pass,” Ashlynn explained. ”Hugo and Liam will be traveling with young lord Hauke, the future ruler of the Four Peaks, though he hasn’t seen this map yet, so I’d ask you to keep this detail to yourself,” she said with a slight wink.

”If you want to hear about Ansgar, Ines, Erarik, and the other ancient heroes who guarded their mountains,” Ashlynn said as she looked between the two men. ”You can ask him if he’s willing to share what he knows when you all return. I think it would be good for him to speak of it,” she said softly. ”When he’s ready. Don’t press him,” she cautioned. ”He’s only just recovered from his own conflict with their lingering spirits.”

”I, I see,” Carwyn said carefully, exchanging a surprised look with Liam and Hugo. Lady Ashlynn had spoken of a time long ago, not only before the founding of the Kingdom of Gaal but before humans even arrived on this continent, and yet these powerful ’Frost Walkers’ had lingered on to this day?

If ancient ghosts were frozen in the ice of the mountains, then it was no wonder that so few explorers returned from the snow-covered peaks, and the ones that did seemed half mad when they described what they’d experienced.

The lands that Lady Ashlynn was describing sounded like they were covered in ancient magic and lost ruins, haunted by centuries of ghosts... Things that no amount of armor could ever protect a knight from. And these Frost Walkers who ruled there were just one of the many dangers waiting for humanity’s relentless push west.

Hearing that, it was no wonder she’d drawn the borders the way she had, but... just what other dangers were out there waiting for them that they’d never even dreamed of?