The Vampire & Her Witch

Despite the frosty sorcery that encased the walls of the tent in the thinnest layer of ice, the tent felt even stuffier than it had before, and sweat glistened on the brows of nearly every knight sitting around the table. Postures were tense, hands had drifted closer to daggers, and even though Sir Gavin and Sir Padraig had returned to their seats, they looked ready to explode out of them at a moment’s notice.

”All right, everyone, that’s enough,” Lady Mairwen said, looking from her pale-faced husband to her anxious son and all around the table as she drew a deep, steadying breath. ”Everyone of you with your hands by your blades, take them off and set them in the middle of the table, hilts to the center of the table,” she commanded.

”Sir Ollie, I don’t dare to command you, but I’d appreciate it if you’d match the gesture,” Mairwen added with a fragile smile toward the flame-haired witch.

”I don’t mind at all,” he said, carefully removing Frost Fang from his hip and placing it on the table with the ivory hilt facing toward Baron Loghlan. He followed that action with another, reaching behind his back to remove a second blade, sheath and all, from the small of his back before setting it on the table with a heavy -THUMP.-

Ollie’s willingness to disarm himself went a long way toward reducing tensions in the tent, though there were those who wondered if being unarmed even mattered to a witch. Those same people then recalled the way he’d drawn the ivory and bone knife before using his witchcraft to summon frost, which should mean that he was at least weakened without his weapons... right?

Most of the men seemed slow to move, but Sir Bedwyr had no hesitation in stripping off the long, curved hunting knife that was his constant companion while patrolling the wilderness at the northern border. He’d never been in a situation like this, with a man who should be their enemy sitting across the dinner table from them and talking politely, and part of him wanted nothing more than to prove to his wife, Esme, that he’d meant it when he swore that he would face death before he allowed her to come to harm.

The rest of him, however, put his trust in Baroness Mairwen. His father had always praised her wisdom and understanding of people, and if she said that what they needed to do was to disarm themselves, then he wasn’t about to quibble with her.

Sir Cynwrig wasn’t nearly so naive about things, but he complied for other reasons. After all, he had no idea how effective the meager protection offered by his dagger would be against the power of a witch, but by giving it up, they convinced Sir Ollie to remove his own significantly more threatening armaments.

It was a brilliant move, and Sir Cynwrig should have known to expect that the Baroness could accomplish with words what five of them could never have accomplished with blades, but he was still impressed every time he saw her skillfully wielding her insight into the hearts of men... and he knew that he still had much to learn from her example.

”Now,” Mairwen said, once the table that had previously been covered with a hearty meal was now covered with an eclectic collection of both practical and decorative daggers. ”I can already see all of you doing the sums in your minds, counting up soldiers and envisioning battles, but I have questions, and Liam,” she said, fixing her son with a fierce stare. ”I expect complete and honest answers from you. No more secrets or evasions, just pure, simple truths.”

”Yes, Mother,” Liam said almost reflexively. ”There is one set of secrets that I cannot share,” he added quickly. ”They don’t affect us at all; they’re matters of faith that were meant for Inquisitor Diarmuid and Disciple Loman,” he said, deliberately emphasizing Loman’s title within the Church rather than his position in the Lothian family.

”If you wish to hear those secrets,” said in an attempt to leave a small way out in case his mother pressed on this point. ”I think it’s better that they come from Sir Ollie, or from the Inquisitor among Lady Nyrielle’s progeny.”

”There’s an Inquisitor among the vampires?” Lady Isolde asked, staring at Liam in shock. ”How is that even possible?”

”It’s... It’s complicated,” Liam said. ”I won’t pretend to understand everything they discussed, but Inquisitor Ignatious, High Inquisitor Ignatious,” he corrected himself. ”He was taken by Lady Nyrielle during the Brothers’ War. He still possesses a Holy Flame Blade, and from what I’ve been told, he’s still capable of using it.”

”I’ve seen him call down Holy Flame and perform other miracles myself,” he added, carefully avoiding looking at Ollie as he spoke. After all, the miracle that High Inquisitor Ignatious performed had been to rescue them from the dark wind of the Void that Sir Ollie had summoned with his witchcraft, but explaining that would only muddy the waters.

”Let’s set aside matters of faith for the moment,” Mairwen said, accepting her son’s boundaries even though Isolde looked like she was full of questions, which was hardly surprising since her younger brother had become an acolyte at the Abbey of the Inquisition in Maeril. Right now, there were more important things that they needed answers to.

”Liam, I want to fill in some of the gaps in your story, starting with the conquest of Hanrahan,” Mairwen said calmly. ”You’ve all been focused on how many soldiers it took, or how fast the defenses fell, but I want to understand something else about the battle.”

”You said that you served in the healer’s tents after the battle,” Liam’s mother said, smiling with pride that he had chosen to uphold his virtue of mercy, even among the demons. ”How many people died on each side? How many were wounded and how were they cared for after the battle? Sir Ollie said that Lady Ashlynn prefers to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, so what did she and Dame Sybyll do to accomplish that in the middle of sacking a town?”

”Most importantly,” Mairwen asked. ”How were the townspeople treated after Dame Sybyll, the Crimson Knight, seized the town? Vampires and the demons of the Vale of Mist aren’t known for being kind to their enemies,” she pointed out.

”It’s easy to say the right words,” Mairwen concluded. ”And to use pretty turns of phrase that sound noble on the surface. It’s much harder to live up to those words, and I want to hear what things were really like now that Lady Ashlynn is working with this ’Harbinger of Death’ from the Vale of Mists. Not so much in the thick of battle, but afterwards...”