The Vampire & Her Witch

Sir Mor Penberthy had barely done more than doze in the long hours since he sailed away from the Isle of the Drowned, leaving Count Rhys behind to face... To face whatever had lit a blue flame in the ancient lighthouse carved into the isle’s central spire.

There were dozens of matters that needed his lord’s attention now that he was home, and Sir Mor had spent much of his evening organizing those matters into clear priorities once he was ready to resume his duties. It was important work, and on most nights, Mor would have retired to his bedchambers with a deep sense of satisfaction after completing his work.

Last night, however, was different.

Mor wasn’t a fool. If he were, he’d never have been granted his current station as Count Rhys’s Steward. He knew that his lord kept secrets that stretched back to the days before the Kingdom of Gaal unified the lands of the new world, and he knew that Lord Rhys wasn’t alone in keeping such secrets.

Most of the time, the existence of those secrets and the fact that he wasn’t privy to them didn’t trouble the loyal Steward. Secrets written in dusty tomes or hidden away in ancient vaults had little impact on day-to-day life. He might not know Phylip Blackwell’s secret recipe for ship’s biscuit, but he knew more about Count Rhys’s day-to-day affairs, the people he met with, and the money he spent, than almost anyone else in the County.

Mor knew that he’d earned Rhys’s trust, and he’d never doubted that until last night, when Rhys stepped off the small skiff, claiming that he would ’settle things’ with whatever entity was responsible for the haunting blue light that had burned on the Isle of the Drowned for three nights in a row. Until then, he’d never thought that Rhys would lie to him so directly, but he knew very well that there was very little that Rhys could do if things on the isle proved to be dangerous.

Mor didn’t know if this was all part of the gloom that had settled over Lord Rhys since his return from Lady Ashlynn’s wedding to Owain Lothian or not. After dealing with the frontier lord for months during his visit to Blackwell City, Mor felt like he finally understood why Rhys had sent Lady Jocelynn along with several knights to watch over his eldest daughter, but that alone couldn’t account for the aura of hopelessness that clung to Lord Rhys even after his return from Keating.

The only thing he knew was that, when Lord Rhys stepped off the skiff last night, he’d done so with the confidence of a man who was determined to do the right thing even if it cost him his life. And Mor feared that there might be a part of his lord that wouldn’t mind if he died that way.

Mor had no idea what might be on the Isle of the Drowned, but when it came time to arrange a boat to collect Lord Rhys at dawn, he wasn’t content to take another small skiff. Instead, he arranged for one of the Blackwell family’s longships, with thirty rowers and just as many soldiers.

Now, in the early morning light, Mor listened to the steady beat of the drum that kept the rowers in time as it blended with the creak of the boat, the crash of the waves, and the sounds of men checking their armor and weapons as they prepared to rescue Lord Rhys from... From whatever had lit the ghostly blue light on the Isle of the Drowned.

”There! I can see him!” A lookout at the ship’s bow called as the longship pitched upward over the swell of a wave. ”He’s on the pier. He, he might be wounded,” the young soldier added uncertainly as the ship pitched downward, crashing into the water as the rowers pushed the longship even faster across the water.

The next several minutes were agonizing as the ship’s captain barked orders, navigating the treacherous eddies and currents that surrounded the Isle of the Drowned in order to bring his vessel safely alongside the ancient pier. Haste at sea could easily doom would-be rescuers, but there wasn’t a man on the ship who didn’t want to race to the pier as they got a better look at Lord Rhys while the ship approached the isle.

Rhys lay propped against one of the weathered stone bollards that lined the pier, his cerulean blue tunic in tatters, and his oilskin cloak fluttered in the wind, looking almost like a shroud draped over a corpse if not for the fact that it left half his chest and his head exposed to the salty spray as waves pounded the stone pier.

It wasn’t until the longship had drawn alongside the pier, however, that Mor realized how badly wounded the count was, or that the sword he clutched in one hand had broken halfway along its length.

”Mor!” Rhys called as his loyal steward rushed across the plank to be the first one on the pier. ”You’re early,” he chided. ”The sun’s barely above the horizon,” he said with a toothy grin as he glanced east, where the water looked almost golden in the early morning light.

”Thank you,” he added in a quieter tone when Mor reached his side. ”I’m getting too old for this,” he complained. ”And it’s too cold to be on the water this early.”

”Merciful light,” Mor whispered as he got a good look at his liege lord and his injuries. ”What happened to you?”

Beneath the tatters of Rhys’s tunic, the Blackwell lord’s body was a mass of cuts and bruises. While none of the cuts looked deep, it was clear that whatever had torn through this tunic had also hit him with tremendous force. Rhys’s breathing was light and shallow, as if it pained him to draw a deeper breath, in a clear sign that at least some of his ribs had broken from the force of whatever pummeled him.

For a moment, Mor thought that Rhys had fallen off of the pier and that his body had been slammed against the stones, battered by waves until he managed to drag himself back onto the pier. That thought died almost as soon as it was born, however, when his eyes fell on the bent and broken sword clutched in Rhys’s hand and the blood that clung to what was left of the blade.

”Who?” Mor asked as he gestured for several of the soldiers to join him on the pier. ”Who did this to you, my lord?”