The Vampire & Her Witch

If Ashlynn’s first decree had struck a spark, and the second one fanned the flames, then her announcement in the Plaza set the whole of Lothian City ablaze.

”Did you hear, did you hear?” a serving girl at a pub said when she finally had a few moments to rest in the back with the cooks. ”The Demon Lady of the Vale is coming tonight. Lady Ashlynn intends to make peace!”

”I heard the Horse Lord is coming, all the way from the Southern Steppe, with a thousand demons in his horde,” the portly cook said as he stirred the stew before pouring in an extra measure of dark brown ale. ”They’ll trample us down, they will.”

”Shush you two,” the matron of the pub said, scowling at her hired help. ”We’re not to use the word ’demon’ no more. It’s ’Oldish’ now... The Oldish Lady of the Vale is older than the march, you know, and we’re supposed to respect their age. They might be our customers tomorrow, you know, so it’s important to get it right.”

”Our customers?” the serving girl said, nearly falling off the keg she was leaning against. ”Demo-, er, ’Oldish’ customers? Here? You... You’d let them in?”

”If they have silver to spend, why wouldn’t I?” The matron said with eyes that twinkled at the thought of unclaimed riches just waiting for her to stretch out her hand to claim. ”This could be an advantage for us, you know. You think the Oldish will be comfortable at the Gilded Horns? Someone might even burn the place down seeing so many horns presented like trophies.”

”No, tonight, we’ll stay late to spruce the place up just a bit,” she said, ignoring the horrified looks from her staff as she started to inspect the stores in the kitchen. ”Say... What do the Oldish eat? I heard they eat raw flesh, so... that’s good for us, right? You don’t even have to spend time cooking the meat!”

But while some saw opportunities dancing before their eyes, others hunkered over their ale as they searched for courage or comfort at the bottom of their cups.

”I’m telling you, Pawl, I saw her up close. Two paces closer and she’d have splashed Petrok’s blood on me boots,” a middle-aged cooper said, shuddering at the memory of it.

”Lord Owain wasn’t one to cross, and he’d make a man’s death painful for sure,” the man said. ”But when you died you stayed dead, and that was the end of it. Lady Ashlynn ran a man through, killed him clean and cold, like it weren’t any trouble. Then she brought him right back, twisted his ear like she were his mother giving him a scolding and took him off to the temple with her to beg forgiveness for his sins...”

”They say she’s a Saintess,” Pawl said, swirling dregs of his ale around in his cup without taking a drink. ”Now that the manor’s open, I heard from my cousin in the laundry. She says Saintess Ashlynn used a Holy Flame Blade to execute the abbot, and she summoned some kind of sacred tree...”

”Crazy things, she says,” Pawl added as he finally finished the last of his ale and signalled for another cup. ”Witches and vampires in the manor. A baron dead and another missing... Feels like the world’s ending and we’re right here when it’s starting.”

”So, you gonna watch?” the cooper asked. ”The Ostrich, when they get here tonight. Lady Ashlynn says it’s like a parade when an Ostrich Lord arrives, and we’re welcoming three of ’em tonight. The new lady of Hanrahan counts too, you know.”

”The what?” Pawl asked, furrowing his brow at his friend. ”Ostrich Lord?”

”It’s what Baron Loghlan said to call ’em,” the cooper insisted as he pushed back from the bar, standing on unsteady feet as he prepared to face the cold walk back to his home. ”The baron said they aren’t demons and it’s not right to call them that. Lady Ashlynn calle’d ’em ’The Ostrich’ so, so it’s like that...”

”I don’t think that’s right,” Pawl said, reaching out to steady his friend. ”And I don’t think you should go see them if you’re walking like that.”

”So walk with me then!” the cooper said, grabbing hold of his friend’s tunic. ”Walk with me to see them because, because if I can’t even go see them walk in the gates.... I might... I might just run away... and I, I never run away from anything, but... If they’re as scary as Lady Ashlynn is... then maybe, maybe I should...”

”A walk in the cold and a long nap is what you should do,” Pawl said, dropping several snips of tin on the counter before helping his friend toward the door. ”And Light bless me, I’ll help you do it too. We can see your ’Ostrich Lord’ and everything else, and then, if you think running’s the right thing to do... Maybe I’ll do that with you too.”

While many people across Lothian struggled to take in all of the shocks that Lady Ashlynn had inflicted on them since sunrise this morning, there were a few people who took no chances with what they’d heard. People who wrote down everything they could on small slips of parchment or in tiny leather notebooks.

A few of them even lingered in the plaza, waiting to chat with the laborers who were already dismantling the platform that Lady Ashlynn had leaped down from when she challenged the crowd.

But no matter how meticulous their notes were, or how many ’secrets’ they’d obtained from the men who labored in the manor, by the time they returned to their rooftops with a fresh bundle of messages, nearly all of them were greeted by the same terrifying sight. Footprints in the snow that didn’t belong to them and coops that stood completely empty...

At the same time, in Lothian Manor, Ashlynn received a guest in her sitting room who bore a striking resemblance to his great-uncle.

”Master Jean,” Ashlynn said as she set down her pen. ”Is it done? Was the map I marked for you sufficient?”

”Good enough to find pigeon coops at eleven of the twelve places you circled,” the Master of Kitchens said with a wide smile. ”Six of them still had a few birds, enough for a luncheon of roast squab if you’d like,” he offered.

”No, keep the birds for now,” Ashlynn said, shaking her head at the man whose sense of humor seemed every bit as dark as his uncle Marcel’s. ”Without knowing where the birds will fly to or the codes used for their messages, we can’t make use of them yet, but Zedya and Thane will both arrive tonight...”

”Assuming the bird’s handlers don’t vanish the way Valeri did,” Ashlynn said hopefully. ”We might still be able to make use of those birds. And if we can’t use them to send messages of our own, we can still send them on their way. A messenger bird with no message can be ominous in its own way...”

”As you wish, my Lady,” Jean said with an exaggerated bow. ”But if you change your mind about the squab, I’m always at your service.”

”I know you are, Jean,” Ashlynn said with a warm smile. ”Marcel is the same way. But for now, the most important thing is tonight’s feast. I can feel them now,” she said, looking out the window to the south. ”They’re almost here...”