The Vampire & Her Witch

”Crimes?!” Baron Hanrahan blurted, loudly enough that several of the pages who were running errands for the various knights nearby stopped in their tracks before Inquisitor Diramuid’s dark, furious gaze sent them rushing back to their tasks with their heads lowered, pretending that they hadn’t heard anything they shouldn’t.

”Crimes,” Loman said darkly. ”Unless you can offer a very good explanation why there’s a demon army marching toward us under the banner of the Hanrahan family? Side by side with the ax and wing of the Demon Lady of the Vale and the Paw and Stars of the Cat Lord of Airgead Mountain,” he said.

There had been other banners as well, two of them displaying trees, though one seemed to belong to a human lord he didn’t recognize, while the other was in the style of the demon lords. Neither of them mattered, however, when the single largest banner on the field and the one carried by a demon walking beside the Crimson Knight belonged to the very same noble family that was charged with the protection of this very town.

”I, I don’t know,” Baron Hanrahan said as all color drained from his face. Ever since he’d seen the banner, he’d been terrified about what it could mean. He’d very nearly held back his perspective glass instead of revealing it to the Lothian Lord, but... at most, he would only have been delaying the inevitable.

”I swear to you, your Worship,” he said as he dropped to his knees and clutched at Loman’s inky black robes with hands that were slick with sweat. ”I don’t know why that banner is there, or who it could be! My family would never side with demons, you have to believe me,” he pleaded.

”I want to believe you,” Loman said as he scowled at the groveling baron. ”If for no other reason than that I don’t believe you have the courage to conspire with demons against your own kind. But I’m sure Inquisitor Diarmuid will find the truth of it when the battle is over.”

”For now,” he said as he turned to the white haired knight, who looked just as pale and green at the notion of imprisoning his liege lord as young Sir Niall had at the idea of fighting the demons. ”Sir Dollin, place the Baron and his son under arrest in my chambers, and stand guard at the door until you receive orders from me or a member of the Inquisition to do otherwise,” he said firmly.

”But, but I didn’t do anything wrong!” Bastian Hanrahan cried. ”I, I swear to you, other than shorting our tithe or helping Head Priest Germot find the company of a...”

”Shut up, fool!” Ian snapped at his son as he shot to his feet, reaching out to grab hold of the top of the young lord’s breast plate and shaking him before he could say another word. ”We’re already under arrest! Don’t make it worse,” he spat.

”We’ll go,” he said, wilting slightly as he confronted the dark gazes of both the Inquisitor and the Templar. ”And when this is all over, when you find the person among the demons who has slandered my family, then I want to be there when they burn at the stake!”

”You’ll have your chance to prove your innocence, my Lord Baron,” Diarmuid said in a tone that was carefully neutral. ”I’m not in the habit of declaring someone guilty and looking for evidence to support the accusation afterward, and neither is Lord Loman,” he added. ”But even I have to admit demons marching under your banner is enough to summon the Inquisition even if it happened a thousand leagues away.”

”He, he’s right, my lord,” Sir Dollin said awkwardly, looking ten years older than he had just minutes ago as he looked to the portly baron with pleading eyes. ”His Worship is only sending you to the guest wing,” he added. ”It’s not the dungeons. When this is over, I’m sure it will all clear up and no one will be worse off for it,” he suggested.

He also recognized the element of extraordinary kindness in the orders that Loman had given. Dollin knew that he was getting old, and he had no business on the field of battle with demons more than twenty years after he’d fought in the War of Inches. He’d donned his armor, and his mace hung from his hip, but his hands shook in his gauntlets, and his left knee was already trying to lock up on him as soon as the page had tightened the straps of his armor.

He was too old for this, and he knew it, but he couldn’t stand down at a time when the safety of the entire town was in jeopardy. Now, he could withdraw from the battlefield and leave the command of his soldiers to the younger knights while he took up an honorable position standing guard over Baron Hanrahan.

”Are you sure that was wise?” Diarmuid asked Loman gently once the elderly knight had escorted the baron and his heir away. ”Ian Hanrahan may be retiring soon, but his son will never forgive you for stealing his chance to cover himself in glory by defending his home and his people from demons.”

”He can thank me after we win this battle for preserving his life,” Loman said with a sharp shake of his head. ”How long has it been since Lord Bastian even showed up to fight in a tournament? Long before I came home from the Holy City at the very least, and before I left, he was already a laughingstock.”

There were many lords on the frontier who were also great knights. Men like Baron Aleese, who commanded the greatest cavalry force in the whole of Lothian March, or Baron Leufro,y who was said to make wagers with Marquis Bors before each battle about which man would slay more demons by the end of the day.

But there were also men like Bastian Hanrahan who had famously fallen from his own horse at a tournament, not when his opponent’s lance struck him, but when the starting flag was waved and his horse reared to charge. Many thought it would have been a kindness if he’d died from his injuries, leaving Hugo Hanrahan to take over the barony.

Hugo Hanrahan might not be a brave warrior either, and he was technically a bastard, but at least he wasn’t an idiot who only knew how to act like his father’s lapdog.

”Whether it was wise to arrest Ian Hanrahan or not,” Loman continued as he looked at the two men he would rely on the most to win the battle to come. ”I couldn’t take the risk that he would betray my plans to the demons. Now, listen closely,” he said as he pushed thoughts of the Hanrahans firmly to the back of his mind and focused on the battle to come.

”We’re going to lose the gates early in the battle,” Loman said more calmly than he felt. ”So this is what I need you to do...”