The Vampire & Her Witch

”Yer tha’ one who’s weak,” Sybyll shouted as she charged forward, this time striking out with a thrust from the butt of her ax to force Tommin to defend himself before slamming the blade of her ax into his armored shoulder.

Metal screamed as it tore under the force of the blow and the blade of the darksteel axe sheared through links of chain like a tailor’s scissors through wool before the edge of the blade cut through the cloth of Tommin’s gambeson, tasting flesh and spilling blood at last. As soon as the blade touched flesh, crimson rivulets began to flow upward from the wound, following deep channels in the blade before sinking into hooked, angular runes that pulsed with a lurid red glow.

Sir Tommin staggered back, swinging his sword to force distance between them, but immediately felt the unnatural cold spreading from his wound. Where the axe had cut him, a creeping numbness began to sap the strength from his arm, and he could feel darkness spreading beneath his skin like writhing maggots gnawing through his flesh in search of a tastier meal..

”Brother Tommin!” one of the Templars called out, raising his voice in prayer. ”Oh Holy Lord of Light, grant strength to your faithful servant! Let your radiance burn away the corruption that seeks to claim him!”

The other three Templars joined their voices to his, and warm golden light began to push back against the spreading darkness in Tommin’s wound, though it could not heal the flesh that had already been torn

”I may be weak,” Tommin agreed as he flexed the fingers of his wounded arm, adjusting his stance into a lower guard that put less strain on his wounded shoulder. ”But the Holy Lord of Light is stronger than you will ever be, and he will never abandon his faithful! You cannot win, demon,” he shouted as his sword pulsed with an even brighter radiance.

”Never abandon ye?” Sybyll scoffed. ”Commin’ from ye, that’d be a laugh if it weren’t a crime. Yer the one who abandoned ’is wife an’ child,” Sybyll snapped as she flung an arm up to shield her eyes from the pulsing, blinding light of Tommin’s blade. ”Yer the one who turned them inta targets fer Owain Lothian’s schemes,” she taunted. ”So how is yer faith so pure when ye forsake yer vows ta mother an’ son?”

”Don’t you dare speak of my family!” Tommin shouted in fury as he swung his sword in a wide arc. He wasn’t standing close enough to the vampire for his blade to reach her, but he wasn’t trying to cut her with the steel of his sword.

Instead, the blade flashed even brighter as Tommin cut a radiant arc through the air that extended far beyond the tip of his blade. While Sybyll quickly moved to block the arc of light with the blade of her ax, several motes of brilliant white light still slipped past her guard, piercing into the crimson darksteel of her breast plate with the force of a knight’s lance.

”AAaaaarrrrrgggg!” Sybyll cried in pain and fury as the light pierced not only the breastplate but through the links of chain mail beneath it, leaving bloody wounds across her ribs that smoked and smoldered as she struggled to extinguish the light.

”Look! The demon can bleed,” Sir Thorryn shouted, raising a cheer from the men under his command. ”If it can bleed, it can die!”

”You don’a want ta’ speak of family?” Sybyll spat as her wounds filled with darkness that snuffed out the light. Ignoring the cheers and exclamations of the men around her, she focused all of her attention on the Templar standing before her, stalking towards him as she raised her ax high.

”Ye won’t speak of yer family, but what about mine?” Sybyll asked rhetorically. ”Me own father died to shield me an’ me mother from ’is brother’s blade!” Sybyll cried, pouring out the anguish in her heart as she charged again at the Templar with the radiant blade.

-CLAAAAAANGGGG!- -SKREEEEEEEET!-

Light and darkness exploded against each other, and metal screamed in protest as Sybyll’s heavy overhand blow nearly knocked Tommin to his knees. Instead, the half-moon-shaped blade of her axe slid along half the length of Tommin’s blade before finally stopping on his cross guard as Sybyll pressed up close against the overwhelmed Templar.

”Me mother died on that scheming bastard Ian’s blade,” Sybyll snarled. ”Jus’ fer tha’ crime o’ tryin’ ta’ get him ta’ admit that I was his own blood kin! But he’d sooner kill a crippled woman than see me with a sliver o’ me birthright!”

-CLANG!- -CLANG!- -CLANG!-

Steel rang against steel as Sybyll poured her fury into her speed, battering Tommin’s defenses and driving him constantly back to the edge of the plaza where ranks of armored soldiers stood in awe at the fight unfolding before their eyes.

They had all been warned not to involve themselves in the battles between the Templars and the powerful demons who would slaughter them in the blink of eye but it was only now that they understood the difference between an ordinary soldier and the paragons of the Church like Sir Tommon... and by the same token, it was only now that they grasped just how lethal the great demons were and how helpless they would be without the Church to protect them.

”So what kind ’o man are ye?” Sybyll shouted as she slammed a gauntleted fist into the breastplate of Tommin’s armor, leaving the imprint of her fist on the once perfectly smooth armor plate.

”What kind o’ husband are ye ta’ yer wife? What kind o’ father are ye ta’ yer son?” Sybyll yelled as the blade of her axe bit deeply into the gap between Sir Tommin’s cuirass and his tessets, parting links of mail and leaving another festering wound along his ribs that sheathed with darkness before the Templars could once again summon their holy light to cleanse the wound.

”Where are ye when they’re lyin’ sick an’ dyin’ from Owain’s poisons?” Sybyll hissed as she slammed bodily into the reeling knight so she could deliver her most cutting words visor to visor. ”Where are ye when they need their man ta’ keep ’em safe?”

Each word was another blow, not only against Sir Tommin’s heart, but landing physically on his body as Sybyll punctuated her questions with punches, shoulder checks, or short, sharp thrusts with the blade of her axe from just inches away as she refused to give him the room to swing his word or bring the gleaming Holy Light Blade before her eyes were it could do the most harm.

Pain flooded Tommin’s mind as he struggled to regain control of the battle, grasping the blade of his sword with one hand as he tried to guide its point to a gap, any gap, in the crimson, demonic armor the vampire wore. But more than pain, confusion, and fear wormed its way into his heart as he listened to Sybyll’s words.

Owain had schemed against his family? They were sick and dying? He had left them and joined the Church precisely to protect them from Owain’s retaliation! So how was it that they were suffering at the hands of his murderous former master now that he’d cut all ties with his family?

”How?” Tommin asked as he grappled with the Crimson Knight, pressing the visor of his helm directly up against hers and staring into her crimson eyes through the slits in their helms. ”How do you even know that? And why should I believe the words of a demon?”