The Vampire & Her Witch

Reynold’s mind worked furiously while Star Chaser moved at a steady pace beneath him. The rhythmic clopping of his faithful mount’s iron-shod hooves helped to bring order to his world, and soon, he felt the world grow calm as his breathing and his heartbeat fell into time with Star Chaser’s steps.

The course ran half a circuit of the old racing track before it delivered them to the tilt. That was the first, and potentially the most important detail. They weren’t starting at opposite ends of a list and charging; they were starting at opposite ends of a curve and running the long way round in opposite directions. They wouldn’t meet until each of them had turned into the straight and put the barrier on his left.

Which meant the whole contest might run on where they met.

If he met Taghai at the centre of the list, then the Long Horn would have had the full half of the straightaway to build momentum; hundreds of pounds of bull-bodied Eldritch warrior with half a list to gather momentum in wasn’t something a lance could easily defeat. It was a landslide with a man’s torso on top of it, and it would crush Reynold for daring to defy a living force of nature.

But the further down the list Reynold could push the meeting, the closer to Taghai’s end they met, the less track Taghai would have had.

And the turn favored him. That was the second thing he wouldn’t have had in a normal joust that he had today. Star Chaser was sixteen hands of chestnut destrier, and he weighed a fraction of what was standing at the other end of this track.

For once, Reynold was the ’light cavalry’ in this matchup, and a lighter horse comes out of a turn faster than a heavy one. Reynold would be into the straight and moving while Taghai was still hauling his own mass around the bend. Or, better yet, slowing down from the curve in order to make the turn.

In which case, the right answer was to take the racetrack at a full gallop. Take the curve flat out, hit the tilt first, and be two-thirds of the way down the list before Taghai had found his stride.

By any normal calculation, it was the only winning strategy available to a man like him in such a disadvantageous position. The one and only ’advantage’ that he clearly possessed was the ability to be faster on a curve, faster on the turn, and further down the list when he and Taghai met.

But obvious answers, and definitive ones, were rarely the correct ones on the battlefield. And in this case, there was still another factor to consider.

The trees and the wreaths they carried.

They stood around the whole of the track, thin and spindly and made of ice, and out of every one of them a single long branch reached out over the course. From each branch hung a wreath of ice, glowing with those small bright berries, turning very slightly in the breeze that swept across the race track.

There were thirteen of them on each side of the course. Perhaps it was in honor of the thirteen constellations that both the Eldritch and the Church seemed to hold sacred. Perhaps it had just worked out that way with the length of the track and the spacing of the trees.

”The more you collect, the swifter you may run and the more powerful your lance will become.”

Those had been Empress Ashlynn’s words. Thirteen chances to gain an advantage in strength and power over his opponent. An advantage he desperately needed.

To take a wreath he would have to thread twelve feet of ash through a ring barely wider than a man’s shoulders, hanging at the end of a branch, while moving. At a gallop he might take three. Perhaps four, if the placement was kind, but he doubted he’d be that lucky. To take all thirteen he would have to come around that curve at a collected canter, the short springing gait that gave a man nothing to hide behind and everything to fight from, and he would arrive at the tilt late rather than beating Taghai there.

Late meant meeting Taghai further up the list.

Late meant the landslide would have its distance to gather momentum.

If he took his time with the wreaths while Taghai ignored them... Unless the wreaths granted him tremendous power of some kind, he was doomed to be impaled by the Long Horned warrior’s lance.

The worst part was that he wouldn’t know what Taghai chose to do. The helm narrowed his vision too much to glance casually at a man on the opposite side of the race track. He would have to make up his mind now and commit to the decision. He’d only know if it was the right one when he clashed with the man who had come for his head.

But the Empress wouldn’t have put them there for nothing.

That was the whole of it, in the end. Reynold didn’t know the Evergreen Empress well. He had watched her face down Owain Lothian in a duel, and he’d watched her summon a deadly forest out of frozen ground just an hour ago, but he had also watched her kneel on the ice tonight to work paste into the wounds of a woman who had just beaten one of her own lords.

Empress Ashlynn wasn’t simple, and she never did anything by half measures. In the Frozen Forest, the Ice Fruits had been the key to claiming victory. Now, she’d hung thirteen ice wreaths for him and only a fool would ignore them.

”All right,” Reynold said, and Star Chaser’s ears came back to listen to him. ”We’re doing it properly, then. Every one of them. You set the rhythm, and I’ll find the rings.”

The stallion blew out a long plume of white, steaming breath and shifted his weight forward.

Glancing across the field, Reynold realized that Taghai was almost in position, pawing at the frozen earth with his cloven hooves and preparing his lance for the charge. The people on the far side of the track booed the warrior from the Southern Steppe, earning an angry shout and a fierce glare for their efforts.

Which gave him an idea. One that was far from knightly, but then... How could he waste one of the few advantages he had, especially when Wes had worked so hard to give it to him.

”People of Lothian!” Reynold shouted, addressing the crowd after raising his visor. ”Who has wagered on me?”

”Three snips on you to win, Lord Reynold!” a gap-toothed pensioner in the crowd shouted back.

”Two silver pennies that ye collect more wreaths ’an he does, yer lordship!” another man shouted, holding up a sack of coins and shaking it vigorously.

”I have a wager too!” Reynold shouted, holding his lance up high and pointing at the stars above. ”If I lose, I die!” Reynold said, making it sound like it was a casual thing. ”But if I win, that bull of a man has to haul stone in an ox-cart for Lord Iriso!”

At first, the crowd didn’t know what to make of the strange wager, but several people saw the humor in it and started laughing, and the laughter quickly spread until the whole hillside seemed to be laughing at his joke.

”People of Lothian!” Reynold shouted over the laughing crowd. ”I need you to shout for me! Shout to let him know what waits for him when I win! Shout ’ox-cart’ at him as he runs. Shout until the whole of the arena can hear it. Shout for me, and cheer for my victory!”

”Lord Reynold!”

”The Lark of Aleese!”

”Down with the ox-cart!”

”Send him to haul stone!”

”Ox. Cart. Ox. Cart. OX. CART!”

A wide grin formed on Reynold’s face as he watched his opponent fume. White, steamy breath poured from the gap in Taghai’s helm as the taunt took hold, and Reynold couldn’t be more delighted.

”Come, Ox Cart,” he said as he slammed his visor back down. ”I know you have a warrior’s strength, but do you have a warrior’s discipline? Show me you’re made of more than muscle or I’m going to be very, very disappointed...

At the center of the field, Ashlynn raised her hand.

”Gentlemen,” Ashlynn said in a voice that echoed off the glittering, icy sails, reaching everyone in the winter arena. ”CHARGE!”