The Vampire & Her Witch

”Little brother, I think you made them jealous,” Heila teased as she watched a golden glow rising from behind the walls of Hanrahan town. ”Listen to how many of them are singing just to light up the night like you did.”

”It’s still not my own effort,” Hauke said with a horn that was tinged lavender with embarrassment. ”Without the sword...”

”The sword is just a tool, no different from my Severing Blade or Snow Fang,” Heila interrupted before the young Frost Walker could diminish his accomplishment. ”We’re standing in a field of snow that represents your effort, under a sky lit by your effort,” she reminded him. ”Without you, everything we are about to do would be harder and more people would die. So don’t pretend that it was the sword that did all this. You did it, and we all thank you for it.”

”She’s right, lad,” Sybyll said with a surprisingly gentle smile on her crimson lips. ”Once this is over, I owe ye’ a pint of me finest ale. No, yer too big fer a pint,” she corrected as she looked at the young Frost Walker’s tall, sturdy figure. ”Two pints, an’ I won’a hear a word of refusal from ye.”

”But fer now, we have work ta’ do,” she said as she turned to Ipiktok, giving him a simple signal as she strode forward to stand in full view of the human archers on the wall.

-PFFREEEEEEEEET-

-PFREEEEEEEEEET-

-PFREEEEEEEEEET-

Ipiktok and his men let out three, sharp trumpet blasts that chilled the heart of every human soldier, whether they were atop the walls, sheltered within the gatehouse, or standing in ranks beyond the gates awaiting the ’demon’s’ attack. Hands tightened unconsciously on weapons, and a few people even took one or two steps back before the hands of their neighbors caught them, firmly holding them in their positions to face the terror beyond the walls.

”Ian Hanrahan!” Sybyll bellowed in a voice so loud that it echoed off the city walls and carried all the way to Hanrahan Keep, where the imprisoned baron jumped in surprise at hearing a woman shouting his name.

”Get yer murderous arse out here an’ face me! I’ll not have tha’ son o’ that murderin’ usurper Aiden sittin’ on me throne an’ pillagin’ from me people one night longer,” she yelled, allowing the power that filled her voice to spread her words across the entire town.

”So come! Prove yer lord enough ta’ fight fer yer throne, cousin!” Sybyll shouted, pouring out all of the grievances in her heart as she yelled at the stone walls of the distant keep. ”Ye were brave enough ta’ murder me mother, Caitlin, weren’t ye? Ye wanted ta’ kill me then, didn’a ye? So come on then! Come out from yer hidin’ an’ face yer cousin Sybyll.”

For several moments, no one in the Eldritch army moved as they waited for a response, any kind of response, from the town. The sound of prayers sung in homes of ordinary people had quieted, though it hadn’t stopped entirely. Many people, however, had gone quiet so they could listen, waiting for the strangely familiar voice to speak again.

”She sounds like me neighbor Yenfer,” one man who had taken shelter from the snow in a pub said to the half-drunk man sitting next to him. ”I swear, I’ve heard tha’ voice b’fore.”

”Sure ye’ have,” the man next to him said, blinking in confusion as he looked off in the direction of the west gate. ”Yer neighbor’s a witch what dances wit’ tha’ demons under tha’ green skies...”

In a certain quarter of the city, a group of working women was even more struck by the familiarity of the voice that called their baron a murderer.

”Don’t she sound a bit like Sista’ Red?” one of the older women working at the Slow Flame brothel said as she looked at the gathering of women who had decided to bar the doors of their business rather than accommodate the sort of men who came looking for the comfort of a woman’s touch on a night like tonight.

”Tha’ one what visits in tha’ winter?” another woman said as she imagined the figure of the crimson-haired woman with the perfect, pale skin who asked after customers who had been rough with the girls. She never stayed with them for long, but the men she ’entertained’ had a way of either turning into much more respectful customers or going missing within a few days of their night with ’Sister Red.’

”A bit, I guess,” a third woman said, smiling as she recalled the day the red-haired woman had ’convinced’ the previous owner of the brothel to sell his business to the women who worked for him before he fled the town in spring to do ’more respectable business’ in Lothian City. ”But ye don’t think it’s really her... Do ye?”

Inside Hanrahan Keep, the baron himself had an entirely different reaction as his face drained of color and his knees shook so badly that he had to sit down in one of the plush, overstuffed chairs near the hearth that didn’t seem to provide any warmth to the suddenly shaking baron.

”Father?” Bastian asked, setting down the cup of fine wine he’d been enjoying since it didn’t seem like Lord Loman would be partaking of any of the fine refreshments they’d stocked the guest rooms with. ”What nonsense is this witch spouting?”

”Witch,” Ian said slowly through lips that had almost forgotten how to form words as his mind struggled with what he’d heard. ”Yes, yes, that must be it, a witch... the mad woman from all those years ago went off and turned into a witch... No wonder, no wonder,” he muttered as he pushed himself up from the chair and began to pace around the room, though his eyes seemed like they were focusing on something in the distant past as he walked, and his fingers were busy counting off the years.

”No wonder the Crimson Knight sent such a message,” Ian said with increasing conviction as the dates all seemed to line up. ”It’s all that mad woman’s fault!”

”The Crimson Knight sent you a message?” Bastian asked in confusion. For years, Bastian had known better than to mention the legendary demon-knight in the presence of his father. While the common folk told countless tales of the unbeatable monster who could cleave through a man’s armor and shield in a single swing of his ax, just mentioning the man in Ian Hanrahan’s presence was enough to provoke a tongue-lashing that dripped with venom and denials of the knight’s supposed powers.

Only now, the Crimson Knight was outside their gates, and his father looked more terrified by the moment. Moreover, all of the boasts that he’d made about how easily the Crimson Knight would be slain if he ever approached their home had melted away like snow before the hearth, leaving behind a baron who looked like he was staring into his own grave.

”Father, what is happening here?”