The Vampire & Her Witch

The sounds of the approaching army grew louder and louder until everyone in the northern districts of High Fen City could hear the steady beat of drums and the clinking of armor as soldiers marched toward the city. The glow from more than a thousand torches and lanterns lit the sky and dozens of wagons trundled across the canal bridges outside the city gates.

”Look, look! The Golden Eyed Clan,” an excited young man from the Glass Eyed Clan shouted as he strained against the ropes, hoping for a better view of the approaching army. His sinuous neck stretched out far enough that one of the stone-faced soldiers from the palace rapped him on the back of the head with a mailed gauntlet before jerking a thumb in the direction of the side street the boy was standing in.

”Hey, look,” a shorter boy from the Clan of Painted Masks said, tugging at his taller companion’s tunic. ”Look at the man leading them, the one with the pure white fur! He must be seven feet tall. Do you think he’s High Lord Hamdi?”

”High Lords don’t walk when others ride,” a wizened, serpentine woman said from behind the young men who were jostling for a better view. She might never have seen another High Lord in person but when had anyone ever seen High Lady Erna slithering along on her own tail while others rode horses or stayed in carriages? The notion was preposterous!

”But he shouldn’t be anyone weak,” she added. ”He might even challenge our arena champions.”

After decades of watching fights in the arena, she knew strength when she saw it. More than that, her flickering tongue could all but taste the aura of blood that clung to the white-furred lupine man at the head of a long column of soldiers. Only champions who had slaughtered countless foes in the arena possessed the aura that this man did, so whoever he was, he couldn’t be unimportant.

At the head of the column, Savis trotted forward briskly, stopping just outside the walls and drawing a deep breath. The words he was about to speak burned in his chest like the flames of the cursed Inquisitor and his tail hung limp with shame but there was nothing he could do about the position he found himself in. Now, he could only do as he’d been ordered to in the hopes that his obedience could purchase salvation for his sire.

”People of High Fen City,” Savis roared in a voice so loud that it could be heard all the way to the palace gates deep within the city. ”I am Savis, Eldest Progeny of High Lord Hamdi of the Tangled Wood, Slayer of Garibor and Talshafan, called the White Fang of the Tangled Wood!”

”What business do you have in High Fen City, Savis of the Tangled Wood?” The answering call from the guardsmen at the gate lacked the strength of Savis’ powerful sorcery but it was still clear and resounding to all the gathered common folk pressing against the ropes.

”Today, this defeated dog serves as herald for the woman who toppled the Tangled Tower,” Savis answered. His fur bristled with barely suppressed rage, but he had little choice in the matter. Lady Nyrielle’s instructions had been clear, and this was hardly the first time she’d sent him out to serve as a visible symbol of the fate that awaited those who thought themselves stronger than the youngest True Vampire.

”Lady Nyrielle, Eldritch Lady of the Vale of Mists, called the Blood Princess of the Arena, Her Eternity the Harbinger of Death has come to visit her former student, High Lady Erna of the High Fen, and to secure passage for her army to return to the Vale of Mists,” Savis said formally.

Behind him, Nyrielle’s army continued to advance, showing no sign that they intended to slow for the gates that currently barred their way. Inside the gatehouse, however, several of the workers were too stunned by what they’d heard to notice their leader waving at them to open the gates.

”Did he say that Lady Nyrielle toppled the Tangled Tower?” one man said as he stared out the narrow windows of the gatehouse at the advancing army. ”Then, are these all the men who are left from High Lord Hamdi’s Black Wolf Brigade?”

”Shush, don’t use her name so casually!” Another man scolded. ”You heard what Master Savis called her! She’s ’Her Eternity’ now.”

”She might be ’Her Eternity’ but she’ll always be our Blood Princess,” the men’s leader said proudly moments before his hands grabbed both slack-jawed men by the necks and shook them fiercely. ”And you lot need to raise the gates to welcome her home!”

When the gates shuddered open, Savis stood perfectly still for a moment as he stilled his heart and fixed his gaze on the silvery crescent moon hanging high in the sky. Then, with an ear-piercing howl, he vented all of his rage and shame as he called out to the soldiers behind him.

Immediately, one hundred and sixty howls sounded as one, answering his cry as the men of the Black Wolf Brigade echoed their commander’s outrage. Then, like hounds let loose after straining at the leash, they charged into the city in two neat columns.

In the streets, some people shrieked in fear, shrinking back from the velvet ropes and falling all over themselves in their desperation to escape the attacking army. The soldiers, however, only rushed a few dozen paces into the city before they began to peel off in pairs every ten paces, taking positions lining either side of the road and kneeling to welcome the remainder of the army.

The crowd’s initial panic at the howling charge gave way to both respect and a bit of awe as they watched the disciplined movements of the Golden Eyed soldiers. Here and there among the crowd, some children even clapped as though they were watching a performance of gladiators in the arena on a scale the likes of which they’d never seen.

After all, even when battles between two groups of gladiators took place there were rarely more than thirty or forty warriors on the sands. Yet now, under the watchful golden eyes of their white-furred commander, more than a hundred and fifty soldiers had moved not only with deadly swiftness but perfect harmony as though they were ready to envelop and pounce on any prey unlucky enough to be caught between the two jaws of wolf soldiers.

At the gate itself, Savis knelt with his head bowed, refusing to watch his soldiers execute their orders or the arrival of the people behind him. He had done as he’d been ordered. Now, like the defeated dogs he’d called them, they would yield their position in the vanguard to the people following behind. Only when the remainder of Nyrielle’s army passed by would he be permitted to stand and join the procession once again.

The group that followed after the Black Wolf Brigade drew an entirely different reaction from the crowd. People cried out in shock and horror at the sight of the men entering the city. Mothers covered their children’s eyes and countless people felt their stomachs churn in revulsion.

Were people like this really going to be allowed into their city?