The Vampire & Her Witch

”Excuse me,” Liam Dunn said from the far end of the table, where he’d been exiled to keep an eye on the wounded Loman Lothian. Not that he blamed Captain Virve for doing so. The Lothian Lord was clearly bitter following his defeat and maiming in Hanrahan, and he was deeply uncomfortable about being seated next to the bird-man, Aspakos.

Having a ’friend’ nearby, even if it was only a superficial acquaintance like Liam, would likely be good for the man. But it did make it awkward to converse across the entire length of the table when there were six people between him and the person he was addressing.

”Lady Heila,” Liam continued as all eyes at the table turned toward him. ”Did you just say that you have a man in the south, preventing raids against Aleese and Fayle?”

”High Lord Dirar hasn’t raided Fayle Barony since the War of Inches,” Thane pointed out. Baron Coolin Fayle died early during the struggle for riches on Airgead Mountain, leaving behind an infant son, Erling, who posed no threat to the High Lord of the Southern Steppe.

Even as the young lord grew into a man, assuming the throne of Fayle as soon as he came of age, he posed no threat to High Lord Dirar. Some called him a coward for ceding land to the ’demons’, but Thane had always suspected it went deeper than that.

The man lost a father before he ever knew him, over a war that delivered no benefits to his people. While barons like Tybal Aleese and Valeri Leufroy turned the spoils of that war into infusions of men and materials to expand or elevate their domains, Erling Fayle had grown up with nothing but debts to be repaid from the war that claimed his father’s life.

Given his circumstances, Thane hadn’t been surprised that the young eastern baron had never done anything to offend High Lord Dirar. His lands hadn’t just been spared from seasonal raids because he was located farther to the east than Baron Aleese. He’d been spared because High Lord Dirar was willing to leave him alone as long as the young baron did the same.

”Aleese is different,” Thane continued. ”Baron Tybal sees his knights and soldiers as swords that have to be kept sharp and polished. If High Lord Dirar doesn’t raid him in the fall and winter, then Tybal Aleese sends men into the Southern Steppe in the summer to hunt for trophies.”

”It’s turned into a dance between them,” Zedya agreed. ”Tybal Aleese won’t commit enough men to his ’hunting parties’ to do more than nibble at the flanks of High Lord Dirar’s smaller caravans. At the same time, the High Lord restrains his raids to farms outside village walls, leaving the people of Aleese somewhere safe to retreat to.”

”Baron Tybal isn’t just hunting for trophies,” Hugo said carefully from his seat between Virve and Ignatious. ”For the past few years, he’s given Rain’s older brother, Reynold, the task of mapping the lands to the south. They’re searching for the farms and villages that sustain the Hors- er, High Lord Dirar’s war bands,” he said, stumbling slightly over the name of the unfamiliar Eldritch High Lord.

”Smart,” Thane acknowledged with a nod. ”At least from his perspective. But he’ll never make it far enough south to find the towns and villages under Dirar’s rule, and even if he could, he’s not strong enough by himself to assault them.”

”The point is,” Thane said, turning to look down the length of the table at Liam Dunn. ”High Lord Dirar has no reason to fight Baron Aleese this winter if we can put a stop to the Baron’s southern expeditions in the summer. He can save his men, and no one in Aleese needs to mourn for loved ones lost to this year’s raids.”

”Lady Ashlynn knows that peace will be hard when everyone has been fighting,” Heila added. ”She’s hoping that by putting a stop to the clash between High Lord Dirar and Baron Tybal Aleese, she can prove her ability to create peace before both sides are mired so deep in the grief and loss of war that peace becomes an unattainable dream.”

”Poor Wolstan must be running himself ragged to keep High Lord Dirar’s warriors in check,” Zedya mused. ”He hates it when he has to rush about in the rainy season. Lenny,” she said, cozying up to her husband. ”Help me pick out a good yarn so I can knit something cozy for Wolstan when he comes home.”

”I doubt he wants a blanket, my sweet,” Lennart said gently as he stroked Zedya’s soft, chestnut hair. ”The last time I met Sir Wolstan, he seemed very... Practical,” he said as he thought of the vampire who returned to the Vale of Mists so infrequently during the years that Lennart had served in Nyrielle’s guard.

”He won’t complain about a new pair of gloves,” Zedya said with a light laugh. ”And who knows,” she added with a thoughtful look toward Ignatious and Heila. ”Once he returns, he may have a change of heart,” she said as she thought about how much brighter her world had become since Lady Nyrielle helped her to reawaken the feelings that had been ground down to faint echoes by the millstone of time since she first became a vampire.

Like the rest of Nyrielle’s progeny, Wolstan was a man who had lost much and had a good reason to hate both the Church and the lords of Lothian for burning his world to the ground. He’d considered himself a rootless wanderer ever since, and he fit in well with High Lord Dirar’s nomadic nation because of that.

But Zedya couldn’t help but wonder... If Wolstan had a chance to feel again, if his heart was reawakened and he could come to terms with what he’d lost, could he find a reason to settle down again? Or would he forever remain a wanderer, staying far from the places where the simple happiness of ordinary life only served to remind him of the family he’d lost for daring to live free...