The Vampire & Her Witch

”I almost feel sorry for him,” Roseen said as she looked at Loman’s broken, sobbing figure, kneeling on the cold stone floor of the great hall.

”Don’t,” Cossot said, and there was a hint of steel in her voice that Roseen had never heard before. ”He killed at least seven men tonight, and you heard what Lady Heila said. He didn’t risk his own life to fight Dame Sybyll’s army; he just sacrificed the poor men that Head Priest Germot sent him,” she said, wondering if those poor acolytes had even known what it was they were volunteering for when Loman demanded a dozen ’arrows for his quiver.’

”And the whole time,” Cossot said as the look in her eyes grew colder. ”He acted like he was our savior. In a way, that’s even worse than what Ian Hanrahan did.”

”How is it worse?” Roseen asked, genuinely curious at how her friend had come to the conclusion that Loman was worse than a man who had spent his entire reign stealing from both his subjects and his liege lord while deflowering any pretty woman who caught his eye and fathering nearly half a dozen children in the process.

”Because Baron Hanrahan knew that what he was doing was wrong, he just thought he was getting away with it,” Cossot explained, her eyes never leaving Loman’s broken figure. ”He knew he was stealing and hurting people, and he did it anyway because he was that twisted and wicked. He wouldn’t have tried so hard to hide his deeds if he thought there was nothing wrong with them,” she pointed out.

”But Lord Loman thought he was doing the right thing,” Cossot said with a heavy sigh. ”He thought the Holy Lord of Light wanted him to sacrifice those men. I, I don’t think that’s right. The Holy Lord of Light is supposed to want us to struggle to do our best in this life. To rise up to the challenges we’re given. But Lord Loman, he didn’t just push those men down; he all but threw them off the tower, just so he could chase his own victory. I, I don’t think it’s supposed to be that way.”

”But if Loman was just using the, um, the sorcery that Exemplar Domas gave him,” Roseen finished slowly, ”then it isn’t just Lord Loman who’s like that. And if an Exemplar is like that...”

”Then is the Church any different from Lords like Ian Hanrahan?” Cosset asked rhetorically. ”Maybe, maybe we’re no different to them than crops in the field, just waiting to be sacrificed to fuel their prayers, or, whatever. I don’t know,” she said as she turned her gaze to Dame Sybyll. ”All I know is, I’m glad to finally hear the truth...”

While the two women leaning against the wall exchanged whispers, the members of Sybyll’s court looked at the collapsed Lothian Lord with looks that varied from pity to contempt and even outright disgust.

Liam Dunn was, perhaps, the most disgusted with the fallen priest. He had commanded men in battle more than once, and he’d sent men to their near-certain deaths on two occasions that he could remember. Those men died as heroes, and when Liam returned from those battles, he visited their families personally and saw that they had enough money to live on for at least the next ten years to come, not as compensation for their loss, but as thanks for the sacrifice those soldiers made to save their companions.

But here Loman knelt, battered, broken, and sobbing after sacrificing his own men. He had made no moves the entire night to honor that sacrifice; he’d even indirectly castigated Head Priest Germot for sending him men of ’weak faith’, whatever that meant. It was as if he couldn’t accept responsibility for what he had done as their commander, because somehow, it was all the arrangement of the Church, and the whole thing left a taste in Liam’s mouth like ashes.

Lord Jalal had lost an arm, and he wasn’t crying over it. Dame Sybyll and Lady Heila must have lost friends in the clash with defenders, but neither of them was sobbing over it. Even Hugo, the man who Liam had once thought didn’t possess a brave bone in his body, had spent the night rushing about trying to stop his people from fighting the Eldritch because he knew even more of his people would die if violence broke out.

No, Liam realized. He’d thought that the Eldritch were weak and cowardly because he’d only ever fought villages full of farmers and woodsmen with barely any real soldiers among them. He’d thought that he fought on the side of the Holy Lord of Light’s chosen people who were destined to achieve victory, and that he would ride that cresting wave to greater heights himself.

It was only now, after seeing Ian Hanrahan and Loman Lothian stripped bare and broken before him, that he realized he’d never even seen true strength. But he’d seen it now, and besides the disgust he felt at seeing Loman’s broken, sobbing figure, a part of him had begun to wonder if he would really have done any better... or if he could one day learn to be as strong as people like the Eldritch people around him.

”Exemplar Domas wasn’t wrong,” Loman repeated as he fought back the sobs, clutching to the only thing he had left... his faith in his teacher and the ways of the Holy Lord of Light. It was impossible for the divine emissaries of Light to be wrong, so if a crime had been committed and a great wrong had been done, then Loman felt that he alone must bear the blame for it.

”His Holiness can’t be responsible for what I’ve done,” Loman said more firmly as he straightened his back. ”So if a crime was committed, then I am the one who is guilty of it. I won’t let you put the blame on him.”

Perhaps he was lost. And maybe, because he was lost, he’d done something terrible, possibly even something unforgivable. But if he had done wrong, he knew that it was his error, just like it had been an error for men of weak faith to step forward to serve as arrows in his quiver, or for Head Priest Germot to send him those men.

There had been many, many mistakes made today, but those mistakes belonged to the people who were here, and Loman wouldn’t foist the blame for it on his teacher in the Holy City. On this, at least, he would take a stand.