The Vampire & Her Witch

The world seemed to tilt sideways as Morwen crested the hill and took in the devastation below.

Dead trees. Everywhere she looked, there were dead and dying trees, their branches bare and skeletal against the pale morning sky. The evergreens had shed their needles in brown carpets across the frozen ground, and the massive oak that dominated the clearing looked like something out of a nightmare, its limbs scattered across the earth like the broken bones of some ancient giant.

And there, standing among the wreckage of what had once been a living forest, were the demons.

No, Morwen corrected herself sharply, her hands tightening on her reins as her horse shifted nervously beneath her. Not demons. Eldritch. Sir Gavin had called them Eldritch, and she needed to remember that, needed to remember that these ’Eldritch’ people were supposed to be their allies now, even as her heart pounded against her ribs and every instinct screamed at her to turn her horse around and flee back to camp.

One of them was short, almost petite in stature, with curving horns that rose from his head like one of the Dunn barony’s prized sheep and cloven hooves instead of feet. The other one was slightly larger, covered in brown fur with a wide, flat tail and prominent buck teeth. Both of them were watching the approaching party with wary expressions, but even though they were clearly armed, neither of them placed a hand on their weapons as Sir Gavin led them closer. .

Brothers, Sir Gavin had said. One of them was as close to Sir Ollie as a brother.

Morwen forced herself to breathe and to think about what she was seeing instead of simply reacting to it. This was real. This was happening. The Eldritch weren’t here as enemies, and they were standing right there in front of her. But it was fine, because they were friends of Sir Ollie’s. Sir Ollie the witch. The witch who had just saved Lady Cerys’ life...

The witch who, according to Eira and Lord Loghlan, needed tending just as much as Lady Cerys did.

Morwen’s mind was reeling, struggling to reconcile everything she’d been told in the last few minutes with everything she’d been taught her entire life. Demons were evil. Witchcraft was an abomination. The Church protected the faithful from the darkness beyond the borders of the kingdom. These things had been as true to her as the fact that the sun rose in the east and set in the west.

But the ”demons” standing in that clearing didn’t look evil. They looked worried and tired and protective, gathered around a small group of people near the base of the fallen oak. And the witchcraft that Sir Ollie had performed, according to Sir Gavin, had healed wounds that the Church’s own priests couldn’t touch and saved a woman’s life when no ordinary medicine could have done so.

Nothing made sense anymore. Or perhaps, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind, perhaps nothing had ever made sense, and she was only now beginning to see how little she actually understood about the world.

”Are you alright, Lady Morwen?” Sir Gavin asked quietly, and Morwen realized she had stopped her horse at the top of the hill, frozen in place while Eira and Cadeyrn and the cart continued down toward the clearing.

”I... yes,” Morwen managed, though her voice sounded thin and uncertain even to her own ears. ”I’m fine. It’s just... It’s a lot to take in.”

”I know,” Gavin said, and there was genuine sympathy in his voice. ”Believe me, I know. But Sir Ollie is a good man, and his companions are loyal friends. You don’t need to be afraid of them.”

Morwen wanted to believe him. She wanted to take Eira’s advice and see this as an opportunity rather than a threat. She wanted to hold onto the image of Sir Ollie’s kind eyes and polite manners rather than the terrifying reality of what he was, or the thought that he’d spent an entire night at the heart of their camp... That they’d shared a meal in the same tent, less than ten paces apart.

She realized that her mind was starting to spin out of control again, and she took a deep, steadying breath to calm herself down. Everything was fine. Lord Loghlan wouldn’t have let her and Eira come out here to help if it wasn’t. She reminded herself of that fact several times in an attempt to quash the surge of cold fear that kept her from moving forward, but it was hard.

Holy Light, it was so hard.

”The shorter one is called ’Harrod’,” Sir Gavin said gently, moving his horse close to Lady Morwen’s and nodding in the direction of the horned Eldritch warrior. ”He’s a close friend of Sir Ollie’s. Maybe something like a squire... He can be a bit sharp, but he takes protecting Sir Ollie very seriously. He also helped to pull Lady Cerys from the water when Sir Ollie collapsed from the effort of healing her.”

”Pull her... from the water?” Morwen asked, furrowing her brow in confusion and turning her gaze away from the scene below so she could meet Sir Gavin’s gaze.

”I don’t understand much of it,” Gavin said with a slight smile as he watched the young lady slowly pulling herself free of the fear that gripped her as she struggled to understand. ”But Harrod said that Ollie draws his powers from a tree that thrives in places that flood. He needed to be standing in the stream in order to summon enough power to heal Lady Cerys.”

”The other one, with the wide tail and the bow on his back, is called Milo,” Gavin continued. He’d already come to realize that it was harder to think of them as ’demons’ once he knew their names. Now, he hoped it would be the same for Morwen, and that understanding Sir Ollie’s companions as people would help her to move forward.

”Milo and Sir Ollie treat each other as brothers,” Gavin added. ”When Ollie needed help healing Lady Cerys, Milo swam in the stream to keep Lady Cerys safe. He’s a brave man who made sure Cerys was safe even before he rescued Sir Ollie from the current. You can trust him. You can trust them both,” he said gently. ”I promise, they won’t hurt you, and if they try, then I’ll protect you.”

”Milo,” Morwen repeated, saying the name over and over again in her mind until it was firmly fixed there. ”And Harrod. And they’ve been helpful in saving Lady Cerys and even Sir Ollie,” she said, nodding as she felt the butterflies in her stomach starting to settle and her heartbeat beginning to slow.

”Thank you, Sir Gavin,” she said, taking one last deep breath before she urged her horse forward. She had come this far. And Eira was already dismounting near the group by the oak tree, moving with the confident grace of someone who had already accepted the impossible and made peace with it.

If her friend could be brave, then Morwen could at least try to match her courage.

Milo and Harrod. She knew their names. Now, she just had to do what she would do when joining other young ladies for tea... She just needed to introduce herself and make some friends. She could at least do that much... Couldn’t she?