The Vampire & Her Witch

The ’rapids’ of Coldwater Creek didn’t look like much to Serge Otker, who lived near the churning white waters of the mighty River Luath where it tumbled through Otker Canyon. To his mind, it hardly warranted being called rapids at all.

The creek was narrow here, only two or three dozen paces across, and it was only as deep as a man’s waist. If not for the boulders that filled the long stretch of the creek and pockets of surprising depth beneath the churning waters, even a man like him could ford the creek here.

Not that Serge had any intention of getting off his horse or going anywhere near the frigid water when he didn’t have to. But, to his eyes, it just wasn’t that impressive, and the idea that it would offer the elk some kind of advantage in the hunt, one that the stupid beast would be clever enough to exploit, was just ludicrous.

Erling, however, saw things differently.

”This is good,” the young baron said, reining in his horse as he surveyed the terrain. ”Tulori, Serge, head up the trail about thirty paces from here to block the way. Reynold, do you think you can follow that game trail into the trees for a dozen paces or so? Will you still have room to work your spear?”

”It’ll be fine,” Reynold said as he nudged his horse in the direction Erling pointed him in. ”Look,” he added, pointing at a few of the trees near the game trail. ”All of the tender new growth from this year has been stripped bare. Looks like our friend has been browsing here too,” he said as he leaned over in his saddle, stretching out a hand to inspect the gnawed branches.

”It’s been a while, though,” Reynold added as he snapped a small twig to compare a freshly broken branch to one that had been torn by an animal’s teeth. ”It may not come back here.”

”I know,” Erling said as he pointed to a spot nearby for Wes to guard Reynold’s flank while he took a position among the tall sword ferns just off the trail. Baron Iriso drew his longsword, resting it across his lap once he was in position. If the elk rushed him, he’d need to switch quickly between sounding the horn and fighting with the blade, and the extra heartbeat or two he gained this way was worth the awkwardness of sitting with a naked sword in his lap.

”It’s a gamble,” Erling admitted. ”The odds look better here, but it isn’t certain. Now, we just have to wait.”

For the first time since the hunt began, Erling felt Owain’s frustration with the poor turnout for the hunt. He’d arranged the five lords into an arc that covered a quarter of a circle. It was the bare minimum to turn the beast in the direction they wanted, forcing it to run along the trail that followed Coldwater Creek to the south.

If they’d been able to keep their knights with them, another ten men would have let them extend the line further to the south, preventing the beast from breaking east once it got past Lord Reynold. Unfortunately, Sir Gilander, as Master of the Hunt, had split their knights up into smaller groups to cover a wider area of the hunt.

Clearly, it was the best use of the available men. They needed to spread out in order to encircle the beast, and they couldn’t do that if they formed into large clusters of a dozen men. At the same time, the arrangements clearly hadn’t been sufficient to prevent the elk from slipping the net, or they’d have heard the blasts of horns signaling its arrival at the hollow where Owain had gone to confront his prey.

It was a frustrating situation, but Erling was no stranger to making the most of too few men and limited means. He’d dealt with worse at home, and he would deal with this now. At the moment, he just had to be patient and wait, and he was good at that.

Others weren’t as good at being patient, and within a handful of minutes, Tulori Leufroy broke the silence, speaking loudly enough to be heard over rushing water by his companions who were more than a dozen paces away.

”Lord Reynold,” Tulori called, losing some of the practiced diffidence he would normally have adopted at a time like this in order to achieve the volume he needed to be heard by the furthest lord in their party. ”I was thinking about what you said. About carving a county out of the lands south of Aleese.”

”What are you wondering?” Reynold responded, shifting in his saddle to look at the young man. ”Are you wondering if you can join in on the venture? Do you think I should consider marrying your sister to give your family a piece of the pie? Somehow, I don’t think that I’m Lady Adala’s type,” he said with a slight smile.

Tulori might have been educated in the prestigious Keating Academy, but at least he’d only gone to the neighboring duchy to receive his schooling. Lady Adala had famously been sent across the sea to study in the Iron Kingdom. Whatever plans Baron Valeri Leufroy had for his eldest daughter, they likely weren’t simple.

Reynold didn’t know what those plans had been, but Adala’s return to Lothian March likely indicated a failure of one sort or another. Now, he suspected that the influential baron would be looking for a new method of recouping his investment, and he doubted that it would involve a marriage to one of his fellow barons in Lothian March.

”No, not that,” Tulori said, his cheeks turning slightly red in a combination of exposure to the cold, winter air and mild embarrassment. ”I was wondering why you feel so confident that a county can be forged south of Aleese with the help of noble families from across the sea.”

”No one has taken more land from the Horse Lord since the War of Four Brothers,” Tulori said. ”And that was only possible because Lord Caleb Lothian was a swordsman as great as Lord Owain and a Templar besides,” Tulori pointed out, heaping praise on Marquis’s family even though he wasn’t present to hear it.

”So what makes you think you can lead the charge to transform Aleese into a county when even Lord Templar Caleb failed?”