The Vampire & Her Witch

”Did you come for it tonight, your Eternity?” Erkembalt asked as he looked from the sheathed blade to Lady Nyrielle. ”Or was it something else that brought you here? I still haven’t finished the sketches for Lord General Thane’s new blade, or Sir Marcell’s knives...”

Nyrielle didn’t need new weapons for her progeny to fight in Ashlynn’s war, but as she looked to the Holy War ahead and the very real threat of a Crusade that would follow, she expected that her progeny would once again face off against Templars, Inquisitors, and even the Exemplars of the Church.

When those men marched against them, they would come with their holy swords, perhaps even blessed armor and who knew what else the Church had devised to fight their wars in the past hundred years since she drove Cellach Lothian from the Vale of Mists. The Lothians might not have grown much in power in the past hundred years, but their armor grew tougher with each generation and the rest of their warfighting materials had advanced as well.

If a frontier lord could boast such advancements, then Nyrielle was certain that they would face even greater threats when the warriors from across the sea arrived, bringing with them the same knowledge that had made Isabell such a formidable engineer. To combat that, she’d asked Erkembalt to push his craft to the limits to improve the tools used by her own progeny. Complacency had been the death of many ancient vampires over the years, and now that she had Ashlynn by her side, Nyrielle refused to be one of them.

”I did come for the first blade,” Nyrielle acknowledged. ”And you don’t need to worry about the weapons for the others just yet. Wait until my darling Ashlynn has settled things and the pass opens again in the spring before you begin planning your work. I know you couldn’t bring everything you desired across the mountains, so you need not rush to make do with what you have.”

”The other sword, however,” Nyrielle said as she reached into the pouch at her waist and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. ”I’ve finished the third Blood Potency Crystal,” she said as she handed over the pouch to the artificer. ”And, just as I said, there will be a fourth in the days to come,” she said with a warm smile.

”I see, I see,” Erkembalt said as he eagerly opened the velvet bag and poured a single blood red crystal the size of a small quail’s egg and pulsing with an energy that felt strong and fierce, like a wild animal straining at a leash. ”So this was made using the blood of the Oak Witch,” he said, marveling at the intensity of the power radiating from the small crystal.

”It’s larger than the other two,” he said as he walked over to a work bench where two similar crystals had already been cut and mounted into the ends of what would become the quillions of his next sword. ”I’ll have to mount this one as the pommel stone,” Erkembalt mused as he compared the latest crystal to the parts he had laid out on the table.

”She may not be able to harness the full power of the fury contained in this crystal if I do that,” he said with a disappointed sigh. ”Rage is a form of strength all its own and it carries with it the ability to ignore pain. But if I want her to harvest everything this stone could give her, I’d have to cut it down and diminish its power to mount it in the center of the guard,” he said with a frown as he fished out an additional set of magnifying lenses to clip onto his spectacles.

”Physical might, bodily resilience, explosive fury and...” he said as his voice trailed off in surprise. ”And an endurance that knows no limits. I can tap into the fullness of two of them, half of the power of three of them, or a quarter of the power of all four. How would you like it mounted, your Eternity?” Erkembalt asked formally as he turned away from the gem to raise a bushy eyebrow at the woman who had created it.

”Strength to strike down her enemies,” Nyrielle said decisively. ”And enough resilience to protect her body from a thousand arrows or a hundred blades. She has enough fury all on her own,” she said with a wry smile. ”And enough willfulness to persist long past the moment she shouldn’t. She doesn’t need more of either of those things.”

”I understand,” Erkembalt said as he carefully tucked the stone away.

When Nyrielle had described the blade she wanted him to forge as Ashlynn’s war sword for the battles looming against the greatest forces of the human church, Erkembalt’s first reaction had been to declare her idea impossible.

Blending the blood sorcery of vampires with the power of witches should be impossible. At best, if Nyrielle could truly form a Blood Potency Crystal using the blood of a witch, then a single such crystal could be mounted as the centerpiece of a weapon’s power. Doing so would already produce a weapon that Erkembalt felt certain the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth would seize to seal away in their vaults, but Nyrielle hadn’t been content to place the power of a single witch within a weapon.

”Ashlynn is my Seneschal,” Nyrielle had said when Erkembalt protested that it was too much power for a single weapon to contain. ”Her coven is bound to her and she is bound to me. My teacher might not be able to form a Blood Potency Crystal with the blood of a witch, but as long as it’s drawn from a member of my darling’s coven, I will not fail.”

”Further,” she added as she began sketching a series of ancient, hook-ended runes on a piece of parchment. ”Because the crystals come from members of her coven, they will not reject each other. Instead, in her hands, they’ll become as docile as kittens with cream and they’ll offer up their power to her freely.”

”No matter where she stands, Ashlynn’s coven will fight beside her,” Nyrielle insisted. ”And whether I am there or not, she will have my protection.”

”But, but even if you say that, your Eternity,” Erkembalt had protested. ”I don’t possess the skills to blend blood sorcery from so many different sources, much less sources as powerful as witches. This... Even if Aspakos could help me, I doubt he would be able to devise a way to do all of this.”

”In that case,” Nyrielle responded. ”Do your very best on the first blade that my darling needs, and as payment for your work, I will tutor you in the blood sorcery to complete this blade. I may not be an artificer, but in matters of blood sorcery, only the Fangs of Death is more knowledgeable than I.”

”Do we have a bargain, Master Erkembalt?” Nyrielle had asked with a look in her midnight blue eyes that made it clear that refusal wasn’t an option. But the intimidating stare was completely wasted on the artificer from the Clan of Painted Masks. His objections had evaporated as Nyrielle had offered to tutor him because she was right. In the entire world, other than the Fangs of Death himself, no one could teach Erkembalt the things she could.

Now, a week after he’d begun the work, she had delivered the third gem that would allow Ashlynn to draw on the power of her coven whenever she used the sword. The blade itself would do even more, once the time came to forge it. Nyrielle had promised that she would supply him with her own blood to quench the darksteel blade, imbuing it with her own power and the ability of a vampire to draw upon the blood spilled by the blade to fuel the sorcery of its wielder.

So far, Erkembalt had only begun with the hilt, but already the power of the weapon taking shape on his workbench intimidated him. When it was complete...

”Have you decided on a name for the second blade, your Eternity?” Erkembalt asked. ”If I know, I can prepare an inlay for the blade that’s appropriate for its name.”

”Dark Desire,” Nyrielle said softly, speaking the name that had settled in her heart for the first time. ”A witch’s power is rooted in desire and mine is rooted in darkness. This blade will carry both. It’s also a manifestation of my desire to keep her safe through the battles to come...”

”I’m sure she’ll understand,” Erkembalt said as he nodded his acceptance of the name. ”Dark Desire,” he whispered as he ran a claw along the unfinished piece of the guard. ”I promise to make you worthy of the name...”