The Vampire & Her Witch

”We mean no harm to anyone,” Loghlan said, placing one hand on Sir Gavin’s shoulder to stop the other man from taking a protective position in front of him while he held the other hand up in a gesture meant to show that he wasn’t reaching for his sword. ”We’ve just come to see what’s happened, and to help if we can,” he said, hoping to put the horned soldier at ease.

At the sound of voices, Sir Cynwrig’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened when he saw Baron Loghlan. He started to rise, then seemed to think better of it, instead pulling Dalwyn closer and looking at the baron with a complicated expression as he was caught between the etiquette of a vassal and the burdens of a husband and a father.

”Relax, Cynwrig,” Loghlan said, holding up a hand and shaking his head slightly when he saw the conflicted look on the knight’s face. ”Let me take Dalwyn for a few minutes,” he said quietly, as if he was afraid of disturbing Sir Ollie, or provoking the horned warrior who looked at him with wide, wary eyes.

”Sir Bedwyr has a change of clothes for you,” Loglan said calmly as he slowly approached the father and son, keeping his hands well away from the hilt of his sword in an effort to make it clear to the horned man that he meant no harm. The gesture seemed to have its intended effect as the Eldritch warrior nodded in acceptance before turning his attention back to Sir Ollie.

”You can get dressed,” Loghlan said, hoping that giving the clearly distraught knight something to do in the midst of this crisis would help to restore his balance. But even if it didn’t, once he was properly dressed, at least Cynwrig would be warm and better able to focus his attention on things that would actually help instead of falling into a spiral of worry.

”Then you can tell me what’s happened here while we wait for Sir Ollie to finish,” Loghlan added as he glanced back toward the scene in the water.

It really was one of the most remarkable things Loghlan had ever seen in more than fifty years of life. A young man, barely more than a boy, really, was standing in freezing water and enduring unimaginable pain to save the life of a woman who had fled from him in terror. An Eldritch warrior was helping to hold that woman steady, his face full of guilt, worry, and determination. A husband and child were waiting desperately for news of whether their wife and mother would live or die...

And all around them, the forest itself was dying in order to fuel a miracle.

”Thank you, my Lord,” Cynwrig said, giving Dalwyn a tight squeeze before he set his son down on the frozen ground, turning him to face the kind-hearted baron. ”Dalwyn,” he said softly. ”Your ’Uncle Baron’ has come to see you. Give him a hug, lad,” he said, tapping his son on the shoulder and giving him a slight push.

Dalwyn’s eyes were red and puffy from crying, and there was a trail of snot running from his nose, but the boy was still far too young to be ashamed of either of those things as he ran towards the doting ’uncle’ who had always treated the sons and daughters of his vassals as extensions of his own family.

”Oof, look at how big you’ve grown,” Loghlan said as he caught the young man in his arms, trying to be gentle despite the armor he wore. ”And how brave you are,” he added, ruffling Dalwyn’s hair as he inspected the young boy’s figure. There were a few bruises and scrapes; he’d clearly gone for a tumble, and the grass stains and tears in his tunic made that clear enough, but he was remarkably uninjured for a boy of his age who had taken a fall from a horse.

”Your mother must love you very much,” the baron said soothingly as he stroked Dalwyn’s back. ”She held you when you fell, didn’t she? And that’s why she’s hurt so badly...”

”Mmm,” Dalwyn said, unable to form words around the tightness that gripped his chest and throat, but he nodded his head against Loghlan’s armor even as he turned his head so he could watch what was happening in the water.

Lady Cerys looked both better and worse than when Loghlan had first entered the clearing. In just a few minutes, the bruises that were visible through tears in her dress had faded away, and the flowing water of the stream had washed away the bright, pinkish blood that stained her lips, making it clear that she was no longer coughing up her lifeblood with every strained breath.

At the same time, her complexion had gone very pale, and those very same lips had turned bluish from the chill of floating in water that was so cold that ice had formed along the banks of the stream. Her arm was still torn and mangled, and bone could still be seen protruding from the wound. Her left leg, floating limply in the water, still twisted at an unnatural angle.

If not for the tremble in her eyes and the occasional spasm of her limbs as she struggled against the cold, Loghlan might have thought that Sir Ollie and the Eldritch warrior in the water with him were holding the body of a dead woman.

Sir Ollie himself was another matter. The young man no longer appeared to be entirely human. His skin was covered in loops and whorls of jade-green lines that resembled the grain of wood, and his eyes, when he looked at the injured woman in his arms, were filled with shifting, flickering shadows, as if he was looking past Lady Cerys, to a place beyond this world that was dark and filled with terrors.

Ollie’s muscular chest rose and fell with the chaotic rhythm of exhaustion, and steam poured from his lips when he breathed, even as sweat poured from his brow despite the chill of the water he stood in. A faint line of blood running down his chin from his lips made it clear that he’d bitten himself in an effort to hold back the cries of agony that had torn free from his throat, and even now, he was struggling to speak....