The Vampire & Her Witch

”I think you’re being very restrained,” Isabell said, reaching out to set a hand gently on Master Tiernan’s forearm. She shook her head slightly at the muscular ironmonger before turning her full attention back to Ashlynn. ”At least, so far. But how long will your restraint last now that your army has tasted blood? You said they’re hungry for vengeance of their own. Will they really be content to raid livestock and caravans?”

”Of course they won’t,” Ashlynn said, accepting Isabell’s point without attempting to counter it. ”Though it isn’t as bad as you might think, at least for now. Commander Tausau’s Third Army draws heavily from irregular warriors recruited from across the mountains. While they all have their own reasons for joining the fight, the woodsmen and hunters who are native to the Vale of Mists and the Outlying Villages are in the minority among his soldiers.”

The early reports might not have mentioned it, but Ashlynn was certain that another reason for the heavy losses suffered by the raids targeting Hanrahan Barony was poor discipline among men who felt like they finally had a chance to vent their hatred for the things they’d suffered at the hands of human soldiers and knights.

Even if the men they were fighting weren’t representing the same lords as the ones who had caused their grievances, asking every soldier to make such nuanced distinctions between ’Owain’s men’ and ’Sir Carwyn’s men’ was more than she felt she could ask of people who had lost mothers, sons, wives and bosom friends, not to mention their homes and the lives they’d built there.

The Mongrel Horde had a chip of their own on their shoulders. Many of them were unleashing years of repressed anger at the way they’d been hunted, bullied, and spat upon by the Eldritch world now that they were finally the ones in a position of strength. Ashlynn would hardly call them ’dispassionate’ recruits in this war, but the hatred wasn’t as intense as what people like the survivors of the Heartwood village felt.

”Third army?” Isabell said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. Heila had told her that they’d recruited a significant force from across the mountains, but she’d been vague about how ’significant’ that was. She knew that Heila had obtained the services of several gladiators after some kind of ritual combat, and she assumed they formed a core of ’Ashlynn’s army’, but had she been mistaken?

”When you said ’armies,’ I thought you might be referring to a division between your forces and the forces that belong to Lady Nyrielle,” Isabell said. ”But you have more than just two armies between the two of you?”

”Nyri gave me command of all the Vale’s forces for this war,” Ashlynn said, her face heating slightly as she remembered Nyrielle’s grand, romantic gesture at their betrothal celebration. The memory also helped to cool her own heated emotions and slowed her racing heart as she explained the situation to the Guild Masters.

”In most respects, the third army is the weakest,” Ashlynn said. ”They aren’t true soldiers, though some of the ones who trained to fight as gladiators in High Fen City’s arenas are as well equipped and capable as any knight. But when I said that these raids served multiple purposes, I meant it.”

”These raids are an opening move to give the people of Lothian March a bloody nose,” Ashlynn explained. ”We need to lure the barons and their armies into the field, and behind them, Marquis Bors and Owain as well.”

”So your true targets aren’t the common people,” Isabell said, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as tension melted from between her shoulder blades.

Next to her, Master Tiernan’s clenched fist slowly relaxed as a similar wave of relief swept over him, though he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with what he was seeing and hearing. In his mind, Ashlynn was still the studious and attentive young woman following behind her father when he held court.

Often, she’d had her nose in a book or was carefully taking notes, fading into the background of proceedings until many attendees forgot she was there. The woman sitting in front of him now resembled the young woman he’d known before on a superficial level, looking physically almost exactly like he remembered her.

But the more she spoke, the more he felt as though he was in the presence of a great lady or a powerful queen from across the sea, the likes of which the Kingdom of Gaal had never seen in its hundreds of years of history.

”If I could solve all of this with just a battle between Owain’s army and my own, I would,” Ashlynn said. ”But Nyri has fought generation after generation of Lothian lords and their vassals. If I want to break the cycle and build something new, something better where there has only been an endless grinding of a millstone that breaks down both our peoples, then I have to do more than just killing Owain or winning a battle.”

”So what do you want from us?” Isabell asked bluntly. ”An engineer and an ironmonger. I’m sure you’d have been happier if we’d brought armorers and weaponsmiths with us, but we didn’t even bring apprentices to do the work. Just a pair of masters who are getting long in the tooth to do much actual labor.”

It wasn’t that Isabell wanted to be rude, but in her mind, there was a clear line between her friend Ashlynn and the... Mother of Trees or Seneschal of the Vale or... or whatever Ashlynn’s place was in all of this. At the moment, even though Ashlynn was her friend and she wanted to be understanding, she needed to be the Guild Master first and a friend second.

”I’m sure you need arms and equipment for your armies,” Master Tiernan quickly added. ”But I’m going to say it right now. I won’t help to smelt iron or refine steel that will be used in war against our own people. I, I know you have your reasons for this fight. Good ones even,” he said as his resolve softened like hot iron in the fires of the forge.

”And I’m not sayin’ that Owain and his ilk are in the right in any way,” Tiernan said, holding up a hand before Ashlynn could say anything. ”But... Lots of soldiers we met, they’re just simple folk, making a living for their families and doin’ what their lord tells them to do. The thought of helping to make weapons just to cut them down,” he said with a heavy sigh.

”I’m sorry, Lady Ashlynn,” he said, hanging his head low before lifting his gaze back to meet hers. ”There are some things I just can’t do. Not even for you.”