The Vampire & Her Witch

The Crimson Knight.

Sybyll sat her nightmare of a horse in her blood-colored armor and listened to her name run the length of the walls of Lothian City like water from a burst dam.

”...say the Crimson Knight cleaved a knight clean through. Not just him, either, through knight and horse as one...”

”...armor dyed red with the blood of the slain...”

”...always thought he was a traitor from a fallen house out to watch the world burn...”

”... hear that right? The Crimson Knight is a woman?”

”...nonsense and lies is this? Brighton Hanrahan died without so much as a bastard to claim as his own...”

Sybyll’s hands clenched into fists at the last one, and she resisted every urge in her body to leap onto the wall for a few pointed words with the man who implied her father would have sired a bastard. Sybyll had never known her father, but the stories her mother had told her painted the picture of a man both devoted to and besotted with her mother despite her difficulties bearing a child.

The flare of anger caught her off guard, and she shook her head slightly as she realized that her reawakened heart still had a number of surprises in store for her. Old hurts had been laid bare again, and in some ways, she felt like a lass of less than twenty, just as she’d been when Mistress Nyrielle found her.

But today wasn’t a day for bloodshed, she reminded herself, and a single old man questioning her parentage was undeserving of her attention. Soon, she’d be able to set the record straight for the entire march. Until then, she could at least warm her heart with the fact that there were still people who remembered her father well enough to know that he died without ever meeting his daughter.

Then she grinned up at the gatehouse and tapped her armored fingertips to her breastplate with a clash that rang through the night, silencing the whispers before she spoke.

”So, Master Isabell,” she called, sweet as anything, while two hundred merchants leaned in above her. ”Ye’ve collected from the last great lord ta reach yer little toll gate t’night. What’s tha’ price fer me? Shall I send home fer a wagon o’ mountain silver? Or will ye take me best manners as tha’ rarer coin?”

And atop the gates of Lothian City, before the most talkative audience in the March, the Hemlock Witch took off her spectacles, polishing them slowly on her sleeve as if she needed to seriously consider the toll she would collect... and then laughed.

”Tribute? From you?” Isabell said with a chuckle. ”Dame Sybyll, as I understand it, you’re the same as a sister-in-law to me; what tribute could I possibly collect from my own family? It’d be no different than passing a coin from the right pocket to the left, and only a fool would call it profit.”

”You’re certain, sister-in-law?” Sybyll said, easily accepting Isabell’s choice of term for their relationship. ”I always pay me debts, ye know. I may not have gilded firewood ta offer as collateral, an’ I can’t be leavin’ Poppy behind either. She bites,” Sybyll said, tapping Poppy lightly on the neck. The horse whinnied and tossed her head, blowing out her lips and revealing her emerging fangs to those with sharp enough eyes to see them, eliciting a round of gasps from the walls.

”I do have a mangy old housecat I could leave with ye,” Sybyll added thoughtfully as she glanced at Jalal. ”But I’m a bit partial to him, an’ I promised ta’ care fer him in his old age...”

”How could I deprive an old woman of such a fine and loyal companion?” Isabell teased. ”The gates of this city will always be open to you and all those you call friends. Your cousin is already waiting for you at the manor, and the feast will start as soon as your lady arrives,” Isabell said, gesturing to the guards at the gate to open the massive, iron-bound doors.

”Right then,” Sybyll said, turning on Poppy so she could face the rest of the people who had followed her from Hanrahan. ”Pipers! Drummers! Play us a lively tune,” she commanded before turning back toward the gates and leading her people into the city.

It had taken her several days of searching in Hanrahan to find pipers who were willing to learn to play with drummers from Jalal’s clan, but as Sybyll heard the sweet, vigorous notes of the piper’s tune blending with the racing, energetic beat of the drums from Airgead Mountain, she was glad she’d put in the effort.

The tune Jalal’s drummers played when they approached Lothian from the darkness was meant as both a warning and a reminder to all those who plundered Airgead Mountain that their crimes hadn’t been forgotten, even if Ashlynn pardoned them for things that had happened long ago when both sides were at war.

But now, as she entered Lothian City, the tune her musicians played was bright, cheerful, and energetic enough to call people to dance.

Common folk lined the street despite the late hour, and though many looked fearful, a nearly equal number craned their necks, hoping to get a better look at the next wave of ’demons’ to enter the city.

High Lord Dirar had arrived in Lothian heralded by thunder and lightning and a clash at the gates. When his soldiers and sorcerers entered the city in their polished armor and resplendent robes, the people shrank back in terror, convinced that violence could erupt at any moment.

When Sybyll entered the city, the only people wearing armor were the knights of Hanrahan. Even if their faces weren’t familiar, the crests on their shields were known to nearly everyone in the march. One pair of knights, however, was distinctly different from the rest, and the people of Lothian stared in amazement as they watched a grizzled, veteran knight leaning over in his saddle to talk to a serpentine knight who rode in a vegetable cart as though it were one of the chariots of the Southern Steppe.

”... somewhere warm soon enough, Barsali,” Sir Rhodri told his companion as they rode along. He spoke slowly, as though he wasn’t entirely certain that the serpentine knight understood his words, but there was no condescension in his tone. Rather, he wore a look of genuine concern as he watched his scaly companion holding himself up proudly in the cold winter air.

”I trust Carwyn,” Barsali replied, speaking just as slowly as he carefully selected his words. ”He would not leave me in the cold. But you, Rhodri, you know this city?” Barsali asked, gesturing to the streets filled with onlookers. ”Can you show me this place and where we can drink and fight?”

”Well, if it’s a rough tavern you want, I do know a few...” Rhodri said with a hearty laugh. ”But to fight the way your people do, for entertainment and a crowd... There’s no place like that here, not till tournaments late in the spring or summer...”

At the head of the column, Sybyll wore a genuine smile on her face as she watched the people of Lothian responding to the arrival of the Hanrahans. Several pointed at Sir Rhodri and Barsali, but just as many watched in wonder as the men and women of the Soft Paws Clan danced their way through the streets. Some even beckoned to the crowd, inviting men, women, and young children to come dance with them to the sound of the pipers and the drums as the Hanrahan column snaked its way toward Lothian Manor.

She’d have been happier if more people accepted the invitations, but seeing the few who did, and watching the ripple of shock spread through the crowd when dancing partners returned to their friends after a few breathless heartbeats spent ’dancing with a demon,’ she still considered it a success.

The common people had rarely been her enemies, but just because they weren’t enemies didn’t mean they were friends. At the moment, however, it seemed like they could at least meet as strangers, and if they could manage that much, and if they could dance with one another, then there was hope for a great deal more.

Unfortunately, the time to dance and revel in the laughter of children would never last long enough, and before she knew it, Sybyll found herself at the gates of Lothian Manor where the smile on her lips once again turned cold. Here, she thought, were the people who had actually been her enemies in the War of Inches and the years since then, and she was very much looking forward to their reunion...