The Vampire & Her Witch

Atop the walls, half a dozen prominent merchantmen who had traded in jewels or precious metals looted from Airgead Mountain had already made hasty retreats. Twenty years ago, they’d been young men willing to risk their lives for a chance to make their fortunes, and they’d been lucky enough to escape with more than just their lives.

Now, however, the drums that haunted their dreams for years after they’d left the mountain had returned, and none of them intended to stay to witness the horrors that followed the sound of those drums.

But it wasn’t the drums that had Adala leaning out over the parapet with her breath standing still in the winter air. Rather, it was the rider emerging from the darkness at the column’s head.

Torchlight found her armor first, reflecting off the polished crimson plates like a blood-red flame in the night. That dancing crimson flame quickly resolved into the figure of an achingly beautiful woman covered from the tips of her toes to the base of her neck in the most breathtaking, intricate armor Adala had ever seen on either side of the sea. Her crimson hair drifted lightly on the wind, framing a face as pale as moonlight with dark red lips that curved into a distinctly amused smile.

And at her side, Adala realized a moment later as her grip tightened on the blanket around her shoulders, rode a girl. A straw-haired girl no older than Adala herself, in a crimson gambeson with a sword on her hip and a helm shaped like a grinning skull cradled against her side, sitting her horse like she had been born in the saddle. Like she belonged at the right hand of the most feared knight in the history of the March...

”Adala,” Charlotte whispered, keeping her voice light as she spoke from just a few inches away. ”You’re going to make me jealous if you keep staring like that,” she teased, using the cover of the heavy blanket to wrap her arm around Adala’s slender waist and pull her close.

”No, I, it’s not like that,” Adala said, immediately losing what composure she had left in a way that only Charlotte could fluster her. ”Have you ever seen women knights before?” she said with wide eyes that seemed to sparkle in the torchlight. ”I mean, besides Lady Ashlynn...”

”Never,” Charlotte said, shaking her head even as she reveled in Adala’s enthusiasm. Ever since Adala had returned from the Iron Kingdom, it had felt like there was a heavy, gray cloud that followed her childhood friend wherever she went, drowning out all but the smallest expressions of joy and delight they’d once shared so easily as children.

Now, in the days since Lady Ashlynn had presented Adala with the key to her gilded cage, Charlotte had watched with open delight as Adala discovered a future that was filled with infinite possibilities. For the first time in her life, Adala had the power to choose the kind of future that awaited her, and each of the possibilities appearing before her was more dazzling than the last.

”Master Isabell was going to become a knight, wasn’t she?” Charlotte said lightly, drawing her companion’s attention back to the silver-haired woman dressed in a simple black outfit. ”Weren’t you just saying that you couldn’t wait to attend Lady Ashlynn’s academy to learn sorcery for yourself?”

”Well, I...” Adala started, blushing slightly as Charlotte carefully avoided calling her attentions fickle. ”It wouldn’t hurt to learn to use a sword too, would it?” Adala said as she looked back out into the night where the rest of the Hanrahan column was coming into view. ”That way, I’d have more options for protecting you, no matter what threatened us,” Adala said in a very small voice while her cheeks turned a shade so red she all but matched Dame Sybyll’s armor.

”Hey now,” Charlotte protested. ”We protect each other. That’s why I’m going to the academy too. We’re better when we’re together,” she said, giving Adala another tight squeeze.

”Then, if I wanted to study the sword,” Adala said, turning to look into Charlotte’s eyes. ”Would you do that with me too?”

”Mmmmm, maybe...” Charlotte said, as if she were weighing a difficult decision. ”The armor at least comes in pretty colors, don’t you think?”

”Crimson might suit me,” Adala said, absentmindedly, returning her gaze to the figures below, though her gaze wasn’t quite as sharp as it had been before as she tried to imagine what kind of armor would suit the soft, gentle woman next to her...

Meanwhile, Sybyll had reined Poppy in just short of the wreckage of Rastlan’s chariot. A few of the gatehouse workers had pulled it hastily to the side, but there was no hiding the blackened, scorched earth in the center of the roadway, or the mangled, broken heap of gilded boards and wheels that had once been a glorious chariot fit for the herald of a High Lord.

”Evenin’, Master Isabell,” Sybyll called up to the silver-haired woman standing at the ramparts. ”Rough day?”

”Dame Sybyll.” Master Isabell stood at the parapet with her hands folded, spectacles glinting, looking as though she’d spent the evening cataloguing a library. ”Mind the entrance. We’re having it mended.”

”Are ye now.” Sybyll let her gaze wander across the crater, the scorch-marks, and the wreckage of what had likely been one of the finest chariots north of the Southern Sea. ”I heard ye’d taken up a new trade t’night. Toll-keeper at tha’ city gate. Did someone forget ta pay tha’ toll?”

”Oh, that?” Isabell said, as if she was only now noticing the gilded debris piled beside the road. ”A minor dispute over exact change,” she said dryly. ”They left a chariot as collateral while they settle up with Her Dominion,” she said, provoking a wave of nervous laughter from the distinguished guests atop the wall.

”Now, I see that you’ve brought a herald of your own, Dame Sybyll,” Isabell said with a wide smile. ”And I’ve been told there is a ’proper way’ to do these things. Do you think you could give these kind folks a demonstration of how an esteemed Eldritch dignitary is supposed to present themselves?”

”Ye heard tha’ lady,” Sybyll said, sweeping one gauntlet grandly at the walls as she turned in the saddle. ”Do us proper, Jalal.”

”Proper,” Jalal said with a chuckle as he walked forward, standing in full view of the people on the gate wearing a tunic covered in gemstones. Several people atop the walls gasped as they saw, for the second time this night, a sacred constellation on the chest of a man they would have called a demon just days ago. Only this time, the constellation belonged to the Ascended Swordsman.

”PEOPLE OF LOTHIAN!” Jalal’s voice was velvet stretched over old iron, and it filled the whole night without seeming to try. ”I am Jalal! Warrior! Dancer! And the Last Eldritch Lord of Airgead Mountain,” he said, limiting the titles he claimed to those he deemed most important.

Atop the gate, the Hemlock Witch inclined her head, and when she answered, her dry voice had audible warmth in it, as though she’d warmed it by one of the braziers on the wall before she spoke.

”I am Isabell,” she said simply. ”Engineer, Architect, and Lady Ashlynn’s Hemlock Witch,” she said, dispensing with the long list of titles she’d used earlier to match Jalal’s more relaxed tone.

”I’ve heard tales of your bravery, Lord Jalal,” Isabell added. ”At the Battle of Hanrahan and long before then. You have my thanks for all that you’ve done, and my condolences for all that it cost.”

For a moment, the one-armed lord at the gate said nothing at all. His ears had gone very still, though his tail swished behind him in a reaction that bordered on surprise.

”I’d have paid twice as much for all I’ve received,” Jalal said, touching the tips of his claws to his chest. ”An end to the wars, the raids and the plundering, would have been worth twice as much, but to help a good friend and see her heart healed... What battle wouldn’t I fight and what price wouldn’t I pay?”

”Jalal,” Sybyll said in a tone that tried to be sharp while being utterly spoiled by the smile on her lips. ”I said to do us proper. Ye’ve wandered off script.”

”Right, right,” Jalal said playfully. ”We’re supposed to be terrifying them with your towering presence. Easily done,” he said, turning to address the gate before speaking in a voice that echoed off the walls.

”People of Lothian! It is my honor beyond deserving to announce my lady, the Crimson Knight herself, Dame Sybyll Hanrahan! Executioner of the wicked. Daughter of Brighton Hanrahan and rightful heir to his throne. Ruler of Airgead Mountain and all of Hanrahan!”