The Vampire & Her Witch

”It’s less dangerous for witches,” Ashlynn said quickly when she noticed the alarmed look on several faces. ”It’s the domain of the Mother of Thorns, and while it’s true that the plants there are almost as hostile as the beasts are, as long as you have a guide to show you the safe routes through the swamp, it really isn’t that dangerous.”

”So you survived by avoiding the great beasts?” Liam asked as he savored the strange, creamy, cold dish that tasted sweet enough to be a dessert even though it lacked any of the heaviness of the sweet things he’d seen served as desserts, either in Lothian March or at the academy in Keating Duchy.

”And how do you get something so cold somewhere so hot? It can’t have been easy to bring ice there from the mountains,” he asked as he considered the desert.

”We only avoided the beasts at first,” Heila said, smiling as she nestled up against Ignatious for extra warmth while she devoured her cold treat. ”You remember my armor from the Battle of Hanrahan and the hat that went with it,” she prompted Liam. ”Before we left the Briar, Lady Ashlynn and I fought one of the Giant Thornback Alligators of the Briar to test how much we’d learned. My War Hat and armor were made from its hide.”

”Your hat stopped several of my luminous arrows directly,” Loman said, blinking in surprise at the diminutive witch as he remembered the multiple occasions where he’d been certain that she couldn’t escape the arrows of light summoned by his Bow of Stars, yet she seemed completely unharmed when the arrows struck her. ”Are you telling me that the hide of this ’Alligator’ creature is that tough? How did you defeat something like that?”

”Heila restrained it with half a dozen willow lashes,” Ashlynn said as her face turned a subtle shade of pink when she recalled her method of fighting the monstrous alligator. ”Long enough for me to hit it over the head with a stick.”

”The skull of a Giant Thornback Alligator is tougher than the helms of the human knights you showed me,” Erkembalt said with a frown. ”And when it swings its tail, it can shatter any tree less than a pace thick. What kind of stick did you hit it over the head with?” the artificer asked.

Of course, there had been a great deal more to their battle against the beast than simply restraining it and hitting it over the head with a stick. Ashlynn had been sent sailing through the air for dozens of paces when the alligator’s tail struck her, and if not for the armoring spell she’d been using, she’d have suffered more than just a few broken ribs and a head wound that left her dazed.

There were portions of that battle after she’d been struck that Ashlynn couldn’t recall to this day, though Heila was able to recount them clearly, like the storm of cypress needles that Ashlynn had called down to pierce the beast’s eyes or the way she’d danced on the fog of the briar itself in order to drop down on the giant alligator with a shillelagh formed from a Cypress knee, shattering the beast’s skull and driving shards of bone into the soft tissues of its brain.

But before she or Heila could say anything about their fight against the beast that had been large enough to swallow the Willow Witch whole, Erkembalt had already moved on to his most important question about Ashlynn’s ’stick.’

”And can you give me one?” Erkembalt asked less than a heartbeat later. ”Would I even be able to carve such a stick with chisels and rasps, or would I need to treat it like metal to have a hope of shaping it?” he mused as he quickly got distracted by the idea of fashioning something from whatever kind of mighty ’stick’ the Mother of Trees had used to bludgeon a Giant Thornback Alligator to death.

”I’m certain there was more than a little witchcraft to it,” Aspakos said as he neatly speared one of the frozen treats with the point of a talon, dropping it into his mouth before it could melt enough to slide off the point of the talon. ”Just like I’m sure the Mother of Thorns and her coven used witchcraft to produce ice in the heart of the Briar.”

”And in the hands of the Mother of Trees,” the feathered sorcerer added. ”I’m sure that even an ordinary stick is a deadly weapon. Perhaps more deadly than any sword forged by Erkembalt’s hands.”

”I wouldn’t go that far,” Ashlynn said when she saw the artificer’s tail puff up and stand up straight in agitation. ”If I’d had the choice of using a stick or using my falchion, I’d have used the sword in a heartbeat,” Ashlynn said. ”But my big sister told me to leave the sword behind because she wanted to see me fight like a witch and not like the Seneschal of a vampire,” she admitted.

”The sword I received from Artificer Erkembalt recently is even better than the sword I shattered in the High Pass,” she added, offering unexaggerated praise for the artificer’s work. ”I truly couldn’t ask for better.”

”Of course you can ask for better,” Erkembalt said bluntly. ”Everyone always asks for better. The day you stop asking for better is the day men like me mourn the loss of a patron,” he said as he folded his arms over his chest. ”Besides, I’m alre...” he started to say, only to freeze mid-word at a pointed look from Nyrielle.

”That is to say, erm, I’m already looking forward to seeing how Waters Edge performs in your hands against a real enemy,” Erkembalt corrected himself quickly as he tucked his tail low and sank a bit in his chair under Nyrielle’s withering gaze. ”And when you’re ready, tell me how you’d like your next sword to be better,” he added in helpful tones, hoping that he hadn’t given away the project he’d already begun at Nyrielle’s direction.

After all, while Water’s Edge was a sword that any of the humans in this room would have traded half of their worldly wealth to possess, Dark Desire was a sword that only a Great Witch or a True Vampire could hope to wield, and it would take much, much longer for him to complete....