The Vampire & Her Witch

Lord Jalal knew that he wasn’t a great warrior compared to the champions of the Vale of Mists or even the Golden Maned Children of Destiny who roamed the Southern Steppe. Airgead Mountain had never sought great power, nor had it built the sort of coalitions that gave rise to warriors like the gladiator beside him, who had fought against warriors from at least a dozen clans.

Whether a person derided them as lazy or praised them for their artistry, one thing everyone agreed on was that Airgead Mountain depended on its neighbors for protection from the humans, and they were lucky that the mountains beyond their home were too inhospitable for any but a few remote bands of outcasts to call home.

But Jalal still held his pride as a warrior, and he’d fought more than a dozen challenges over the years to retain his throne instead of sitting idly upon it like so many before him had done. He dedicated his life to Stargazing, and he followed the trail blazed by the First Warrior, even when it seemed like fewer and fewer people in his clan did with each passing year.

”Wisdom of the First Warrior,” he said as he dashed across the snow. ”Guide my blades true.”

The sorcery of Stargazers was among the hardest to learn. For a Frost Walker like Hauke to grasp the idea that water flowed and ice froze was common sense. Using his energy to bend nature to his will was almost second nature.

Jalal’s sorcery was different. He invoked the legends of the First Warrior, not as a prayer, but to infuse himself with the fabled powers of the warrior who taught the Eldritch people what it meant to fight with all of your strength, your heart, your senses, and your will. To fight for what truly mattered in this world while the things that were trivial or unimportant passed beneath your notice.

In order to fight against two of humanity’s sacred warriors, Jalal conjured up an image of an ancient, venerable warrior with eyes so keen they could see the swing of a man’s sword before it began to move and ears so sharp they could tell which way he would turn from the crunch of his boots in the snow. It was the ability to read even the slightest hint of your opponent’s actions and respond to them before they’d even made their move.

Now, his eyes sparkled with the reflected light of the stars above and Hauke’s blue and green shimmering banners of light and his thin lips pulled into a predatory grin as he dashed toward the men in polished armor and gleaming tabards who defiled Dame Sybyll’s duel by using their sorcery to heal the Templar with a glowing blade.

”Come, men in metal!” Jalal taunted in the language of the humans as he drew his most treasured blades, forged of precious, glittering Star Metal, and took a fighting stance. ”Come and dance with death!”

”The Cat Lord!” Sarbil, one of the Templars, cried as he drew his blessed longsword. The blade immediately began to glow with pale golden radiance, matching the other three Templars as they fell into a disciplined formation, like the arc of an axe blade with each man protecting the one to his left and forming a shield before the ranks of the Temple Guard behind them. ”Brothers, stand together as one! This is the demon that rules Airgead Mountain!”

Unlike the common soldiers cowering behind their barricades, most of whom spent at least half their year as farmers tending to their crops or their herds, these men had spent years training specifically to fight against demons.

Their shields bore not only the raised emblem of a shining Holy Sword, but sacred inscriptions that were said to defend against demonic arts that could ensnare the heart and confuse the mind. Their armor had been crafted for each of them individually, custom fitted at great expense and mended after every battle they fought against the demons in the wilderness so that it always gleamed as if it were new.

”Sarbil, Godfrey, pin down the Cat Lord, don’t let him escape! Ibar, hold back to aid them with prayer,” Templar Aldric, the most senior among the Templars, commanded as he took several steps back to study the demon who was almost as legendary as the Crimson Knight.

There was something disturbingly familiar about the feeling that clung to the cat’s body, as if the sacred symbol of the Ascended Swordsman across its chest was more than just a profane decoration and the implications of that realization shook Aldric to the core.

”Don’t ignore me!” Kurtz shouted, bounding forward with a speed that he could never have managed before he tasted Sybyll’s blood. His cloven hooves struck the cobblestones beneath the snow hard enough to crack the stones as he leaped high into the air, twisting his body as if he intended to crash horns-first into the startled Templars.

”Cover!” The Templar named Ibar called as he raised his shield up high and prepared to thrust upward with his blade as soon as the foolish horned soldier collided with his shield.

Kurtz, however, was no fool. He knew how to put on a good show and his acrobatic fighting style was one that had dazzled crowds of thousands in the arena of High Fen City. Even though he’d slowed a bit in the years since he became a father to Emmie, with the power of Sybyll’s blood surging through his body, he was in better than top form and he pushed himself to the limits.

Ibar grinned behind the visor of his helm, anticipating the shock to his shield when the weight of the horned demon would batter him like a stubborn goat. He had only a moment to adjust his stance, resting the edge of his blade against the rim of his shield and bending his knees in preparation for a counter-thrust as soon as he felt the impact, but nothing could have prepared him for what the demon actually did.

Kurtz tucked his head and rolled mid-air, flipping himself over and curling into a ball before kicking out explosively with his cloven hooves. The force of his blow combined all of his weight along with the unnatural strength of a vampire every bit as powerful as Savis or Tausau, and all of that force landed squarely in the center of Ibar’s shield, punching downward with the force of a small battering ram.

-CRACK-

The sound of a shield breaking filled the air, drawing gasps of surprise and reluctant admiration from the soldiers hunkered behind their improvised barriers. Meanwhile, Kurtz rebounded off the shield, flipping over in the air once again before he landed back on the ground, having returned almost exactly to the spot where he started as he flashed his most dazzling smile at the Templar with the broken shield.

There was only dirty snow and hard cobblestone beneath his hooves, not the hallowed sands of the arena floor, but Kurtz didn’t care. A Champion of the Arena stood upon the cobbles of the plaza, and the humans were about to learn why a warrior who stood only half the height of his Templar foes was considered every bit as much of a giant as the Tuscans outside the walls!