The Vampire & Her Witch

A fragile, crystalline silence filled the air after Zedya’s pronouncement that she had come to speak for the fallen. Her appearance alone made it clear that she took the role very seriously, but there was something more to her entrance that gave everyone pause.

The coffins carried into the proceeding came in many different sizes and reflected the different traditions of their people. Even on short notice, the honored dead deserved to be cared for in a way that recognized who they were in life.

Four of the coffins were simple but effective daybeds. While they lacked the comfort of the darksteel lined vaults that Nyrielle or Zedya used, the vampire’s of Tausau’s Mongrel Horde couldn’t travel without them and now that they had fallen, their bodies couldn’t risk exposure to sunlight, and so those very daybeds became their place of rest until Tausau could bring them home for their final rest.

Another five coffins belonged to soldiers of the Black Wolf Brigade. They had been assembled quickly from supplies carried by Nyrielle’s army and each one was marked with a red paw print representing the fallen soldier’s courage to fight until death.

The remaining eleven, however, were the ones that shocked the audience the most. Eleven Frost Walkers had been encased in ice, their horns flickering with the last traces of energy that had yet to fade from their frozen bodies. Many of them bore signs of the viscious wounds that had claimed their lives and six of them possessed an odd purplish-red sheen to their fur that no amount of careful washing had been able to remove after they died to the Thistle Witch’s curse.

Their mere presence, however, sent a strong message. Lady Nyrielle had promised that the dead’s demand for justice and vengeance would be answered tonight, and she included the Frost Walker’s fallen in that tally.

”Who are the dead who demand justice and vengeance?” Nyrielle asked formally, her voice shattering the stillness of the room. ”What are their grievances?”

”The first of the dead are Shu, Kuupi, Ropart and Laya of the Mongrel Horde,” Zedya said, moving to stand next to the coffins that held the vampires. When she learned that Nyrielle herself had flown into the chasm outside the fortress to retrieve the body of the fallen Laya, she knew that she needed to bring closure to these wounded, misshapen vampire’s lives and she needed to ensure that those who lived understood how noble the frequently despised Clanless truly were.

”As Clanless, not one of them has lived an easy life, and many of them were tormented by the pains of their own bodies. Few could live to become adults, yet these few found a way to survive even as their own bodies betrayed them.”

”Most died in the attempt, but these few found a second chance to live. Since reaching the safety of their Sire’s side, they have never left his domain and never known the danger of the battlefield. Moreover, everyone knew that they were too weak to fight in battles against the Eldritch nations. Yet for you, Mistress Nyrielle,” she continued, turning to face the powerful vampire sitting impassively on her throne of ice.

”For you, they traveled a great distance so they could use dull fangs and feeble claws to tear away at the flanks of our human foes, dragging them down to protect the lives of our soldiers. They came to offer themselves as living weapons, using their own twisted appearances to strike terror into the hearts of our enemies even as they reaped the lives of those who would have supported the Lothian armies arrayed against us.”

”But last night, they died without ever facing a human foe, broken in a battle against an ally who should have guarded our back. They died bitter and unfulfilled, my lady,” Zedya said, lowering her head and speaking solemnly. ”The treachery of our allies cost them a noble death and deprived us of the strength they could have used in the war to come. They demand that their deaths be given meaning and purpose or they will not rest.”

Around the Great Hall, several people on both sides of the hall broke out in quiet mutters or whispers to their neighbors. How did someone even compensate for such a senseless, meaningless death? How did someone make amends for this?

If a hunter died, his spirit might rest if the guilty party took up the burden of feeding his children until they were grown, taking up the burdens that would leave a spirit restless. When a child died unjustly and nothing could fill that hole it left in the spirits of their parents but the death of the murderer then the child would be avenged and the murderer put to death.

But how did you give a senseless death meaning? The Clanless members of the Mongrel Horde already had next to no one. No parents to mourn them, no children to care for, just a life filled with pain and a death bereft of meaning. So how could anyone give them what the dead demanded?

All eyes turned to the small delegation representing the Frost Walkers with many of the gazes collecting on Odette, expecting her to speak in Lord Ritchel’s place. But what could she say? Even as she sat there, nothing occurred to her that would answer the challenge they had been given.

As she drew breath to speak, hoping she could figure out something once negotiations began, she was interrupted by a sharp look from elsewhere in the delegation. ’Save your words for your husband’ the figure mouthed to Odette before turning to address Nyrielle and Ashlynn atop the dias.

”Your Eternity,” an aged voice said as Old Svenja stood to address their conqueror. ”Your Dominion, Speaker Zedya,” she continued formally, bowing to each person in turn. ”I know more of our ancestors than any living member of our clan. I know how we have treated the Clanless. We have pittied them, exiled them, even granted them merciful deaths as children rather than subjecting them to the cruelty of their own lives.”

”Last night, the Mongrel Horde taught us that even the Clanless can fight with courage and ferocity,” she continued, turning her gaze to the collection of coffins at Zedya’s feet. ”More than that, these people, Shu, Kuupi, Ropart and Laya of the Mongrel Horde, have shown us that the Clanless can die bravely, fighting for a cause or a leader they believe in. Their deaths’ have meaning.”

”They died so that we might see their courage and remember it,” the old Frost Walker said, lowering her horn until it pointed at the ice beneath the coffins. ”So in their names, I make this promise. For as long as the Mongrel Horde accepts the Clanless, the Frost Walkers will protect any of the Clanless who wish to make the journey to join Tausau’s Horde, including any of our own who are born Clanless.”

The declaration was a reversal of hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition and when she said it, it seemed like half the hall burst into outraged mutters. Many among the Frost Walkers leaped to their feet with icy energy swirling around their horns and hot words on their lips. So few people visited the Frost Walkers that affairs of love between clans were extraordinarily rare, but the child of an unwilling union was far more common. This alone was reason enough to maintain the tradition of granting a merciful death to any child born of such a union but now their Elder was promising to allow them to live?

”The Clanless are always blameless,” Svenja said, holding her head up high and glaring at the younger members of her clan until they stilled their tongues and the aura of icy menace filling the Great Hall faded. ”The Mongrel Horde have fought hard to survive their own births. And these four have fought hard and died so we might learn to treat them differently.”

”I am an old woman,” Svenja continued, turning back to Zedya. ”Soon, I will die, but I swear to you that I will carve this lesson into my horn so that I may speak of it to a thousand years of descendants. Shu, Kuupi, Ropart, and Laya have earned this with their deaths. I hope that they may rest knowing that their deaths held meaning.”

”Young woman,” Tausau said, wiping a pinkish tear from his eyes as he stood to address Svenja. ”All the Clanless have ever wanted was to live their lives and perhaps, chase their dreams. For this simple wish, they have been hunted, murdered, and scorned by the world.”

”But if you will send them to us, and protect the ones you find who seek us out,” he said. ”Then the Mongrel Horde will find a way to take them in. To die for such a gift,” he said, forcing the words out through a throat that wanted to clench tighter than his fists. ”To die for such a gift is a worthy death indeed. In the name of my fallen progeny, we accept your gift in the hopes that their spirits may rest.”

”If Uncle Tausau is at peace with it,” Nyrielle said, giving her tearful great-uncle a momentary soft smile. ”Then I am at peace with it. Let it be carved in stone and ice that there is an understanding between the Frost Walkers of the High Pass and the Mongrel Horde,” Nyrielle pronounced, her face growing solemn again as she turned to Zedya’s solitary figure standing among the coffins.

”Who else among the dead cries out for justice and revenge?”