The Vampire & Her Witch

Ashlynn rose from the sofa and took up the practice sword, settling into the opening stance that Thane had drilled into her body over months of brutal repetition. Her weight was balanced on the balls of her feet, her blade held at a slight angle across her center line, and her free hand was positioned to guard or grab as the moment demanded.

Across from her, Nyrielle held her own blade with a looseness that would have looked careless to an untrained eye. But Ashlynn had sparred with Thane and Sybyll, and she recognized the deceptive economy of a fighter who could explode into motion from any position.

”The Lothian method of fighting is the product of a century spent fighting against the forces of the Vale, Airgead Mountain, and the Southern Steppe,” Nyrielle began, circling slowly. Her bare feet whispered against the dream-grass, and the moonlight caught the edge of her blade as she moved.

”It also borrows heavily from the traditions of the Templars,” Nyrielle added as her lips twitched in distaste. ”For all that Templars enjoy the benefit of lavish weapons and the highest quality of armor to protect their miserable lives, they train to fight in the vanguard, wading into battle wherever the fighting is hottest and carrying the banner of their Holy Lord of Light with them wherever they go.”

”Caleb Lothian was a Templar,” Ashlynn said, adjusting her guard as Nyrielle circled her so that her blade was always between herself and the other woman. ”You think he passed down the teachings of the Templars to Bors and to Owain?”

”I know that he did,” Nyrielle said as she launched a powerful overhand blow directly at Ashlynn’s head. The blade gleamed in the moonlight, transforming into a silvery arc that possessed enough power to crack a man’s skull even if he were wearing a helm.

-CLANG!-

Ashlynn sidestepped the blow, angling her own blade to deflect it rather than blocking it and letting Nyrielle’s sword move harmlessly past her. But even that brief contact was enough to leave the palms of her hand stinging from the impact.

”Bors would never have been as successful as he was without the lessons he received from Caleb,” Nyrielle said as she returned to her circling. ”In Bors’ hands, Caleb’s fighting methods were set free. Bors brought power and ambition to the fighting style, and he opted for an axe rather than a sword in order to unleash more power.”

”Bors failing was that he traded his ability to fight the strong for the power to decimate weaker foes,” Nyrielle said, lashing out with a punishing sweep of her sword. She swung with both hands but as soon as Ashlynn moved to defend, Nyrielle’s wrists twisted, spinning the sword in her hand to strike from the opposite side and forcing Ashlynn backwards.

”Bors wanted to fell men like a woodsman felling trees,” Nyrielle explained as she chained her attacks together, unleashing a relentless onslaught that battered Ashlynn’s defenses.

At first, it was overwhelming. Each blow held so much power that Ashlynn’s heart raced at the thought of what would happen to her if one of those strikes landed. But by the seventh wide, sweeping blow, she was starting to notice a pattern in Nyrielle’s attacks. Nyrielle’s offense was overwhelming, but there was so much power in her attacks that it took an extra heartbeat to change directions, which meant...

”You’re open!” Ashlynn shouted as she stepped forward instead of back when she saw Nyrielle changing direction. That brief heartbeat gave her the opportunity to counter, knocking Nyrielle’s blade further out of line so she could step in close, thrusting with the clipped point of her falchion just as Thane had taught her, aiming for a gap between the armor of the arm and the breast plate.

”Good,” Nyrielle said, nodding and smiling as she retreated several steps. ”You see the problem. Against the smaller soldiers of the Horned Clan or the lightly armored warriors of Airgead Mountain, Bors’ axe was lethal. But whenever he faced off against truly powerful warriors, people like Virve or Bassinger, he found himself easily overwhelmed and reliant on his honor guard to preserve his life.”

”He fought like a bully,” Ashlynn said. ”Picking on those who are weaker than him.”

”It worked against the isolated villages across the march,” Nyrielle pointed out. ”Those without a powerful champion couldn’t stop him. But he learned the limits of his method during the War of Inches,” she said with a heavy sigh. ”And he corrected his own errors when he arranged for Owain’s training.”

”Owain had more than a dozen tutors for the sword,” Ashlynn said, pausing to lower her blade as a thought occurred to her. ”Do you think that he was able to remove the flaws in his father’s fighting method by borrowing the techniques of others? Does he still fight like a Lothian?”

”Bors wasn’t humbled enough to throw away his family heritage in the name of producing a great swordsman,” Nyrielle said, shaking her head with a look of disappointment. ”Years ago, when Owain was just starting to rampage around the march, picking fights with High Lord Dirar’s raiding parties or Lord Jalal’s scouts, Marcel tracked down one of Owain’s ’tutors’ to learn how he’d been taught to fight,” Nyrielle said with a slow smile that revealed a hint of her gleaming fangs.

”Those men weren’t meant to pass on their techniques to Owain,” Nyrielle said. ”Bors could never overcome the truly strong, so he hired the best swordsmen he could recruit from across the Kingdom of Gaal to serve as Owain’s training partners.”

”He hired them as whetstones to sharpen Owain’s skills,” Ashlynn realized. ”He wanted to put pressure on Owain so that he would have to learn how to fight against people who held advantages over him.”

”At one point, Owain swore that he would be the man who put an end to the ’Demon Lady of the Vale’,” Nyrielle said with a predatory grin. ”I will confess, there was a part of me that was looking forward to teaching him a lesson about the limits of his ambitions...”

”I wish he’d been stupid enough to try facing you,” Ashlynn said in a voice tinged with bitterness. ”Then he wouldn’t have...”

”Ah, ah,” Nyrielle said, vanishing from the spot where she was standing in order to appear before Ashlynn in a blur of movement. ”None of that,” she said, placing a slender finger on Ashlynn’s lush lips. ”What has been, has been, for better and for worse.”

”You’re right,” Ashlynn said softly. ”There’s no use wishing things had been different from what they were. The important thing is to put an end to him now, before he hurts anyone else,” she said. There was a slight tremble in her voice, and she almost said ’before he hurts Jocey,’ but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.

Not because her heart was so large that it was filled with equal love and concern for all the people who might find themselves victims of Owain’s cruelty, but because she was afraid that if she spoke about any more harm befalling her sister, just speaking of it would invite the danger in.

”So,” Ashlynn said, taking a deep breath to clear her mind of worries about Jocey as much as she could and returning her focus to the lesson. ”Tell me about fighting Owain. What was the result of all of those tutors?”

”If you want to understand Owain,” Nyrielle said. ”And if you want to defeat him in a fight that looks fair, then you need to understand his sword,” she explained.

”You need to understand Mountain Breaker.”