The Vampire & Her Witch

Thane stood quietly in the darkness several paces away from Lady Nyrielle and Jocelynn while he waited for their conversation to come to a close.

Like Nyrielle, he had his own complex feelings about the city they were about to enter, but unlike her, Lothian City was a place he’d actually lived. More than that, it was the place that he and Nyrielle first met.

From here, as sharp as his eyes were, it was still impossible to make out too many details of the city below. The pattern of lights made the main roads clear, and the side-streets of the wealthy merchant’s district were well enough lit to be visible from here, but the building he’d converted into a school for swordsmanship was much further north, nestled between the tanneries and the smokehouses close to the River Luath.

At this time of night, that quarter of the city was almost entirely dark, and there was no way to know if the old building still stood.

Even if it did, it wouldn’t be the same. It had been eighty years since he last walked these streets, and in those days, much of the city had still been vibrant and new. The old man on the corner who sold fish poached in cream hadn’t been any more native to Lothian than the dishes he sold, and neither had the young woman in the shop next to his school. The recipes she used had come from her father, from all the way across the sea and the country he’d left behind to fight in Cellach’s great war...

Lothian City was the place that Thane went to rebuild himself after everything fell apart, and the place he’d hoped would give him an opportunity to avenge himself on the marquis who had executed his sister for the crime of defending herself against the advances of a baron. In the end, it had become the place where he was reborn to a life he could never have imagined, and he had Lady Nyrielle to thank for all of it.

If she wanted to burn the city to the ground, Thane would lead the charge himself. A year ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to follow the command. Now, however, the answer had become more complicated, and he found himself wondering if the day would ever come when he had to choose between obeying the orders of his mistress or serving the needs of her heart, whether she could articulate them or not.

Thankfully, tonight was not that night. Lothian City would survive Nyrelle’s arrival. But he would make certain they never forgot it, or that it was her mercy alone that preserved their lives.

”Is it time?” Nyrielle asked, pulling Thane from his thoughts. She’d known that he was nearby the entire time she spoke with Jocelynn, and Thane knew she’d been aware of his presence, but both had learned long ago to preserve the illusion of privacy, especially for those like Jocelynn whose senses were entirely ordinary.

”Your armies are ready to march, Mistress Nyrielle,” Thane said formally as he stepped out of the shadows. ”Hauke is ready for his part in things, as is Ipiktok. Everyone else is in place, awaiting your command,” he said, bowing with a flourish of his long, dark cloak.

”Then let it begin,” Nyrielle said lightly, as though she were about to take a stroll in the moonlight. ”And let them discover the truth of who we are.”

Thane moved through the column quickly, setting things in motion before arriving at the head of the formation where his horse waited for him, dark and fierce and ready to charge.

”No trouble tonight, Rapier,” Thane told the horse as he slid into the saddle. ”Unless there are fools who make trouble for you,” he added with a chuckle and an affectionate pat on the horse’s neck.

– HAAAAAARRRRUUUUUMMMMM! –

– HAAAAAARRRRUUUUUMMMMM! –

The sound of Tuscan’s trumpeting into the night filled the air, shaking the snow on the ground and resounding off the walls of the city below. It was a sound the people of Hanrahan had learned to dread, echoing from the chests of giants who stood as much as fifteen feet tall. But as dreadful as the trumpet blast was, it was only the beginning.

High in the sky above the river valley, the air itself began to shimmer and glow. Then, as if drawn by the tip of an artist’s brush, a veil of pale green light unfurled across the sky. It was followed moments later by a second line, this time in pale, icy blue, stretching all the way across the river from the ridge where Nyrielle’s army stood. The lights shifted and flowed like silk scarves on the wind, growing taller and wider until the whole valley had been bathed in blue-green light four times brighter than the light of a full moon and a cloudless, starry sky.

The army of the Vale may have been born in darkness, but it refused to hide in the shadows tonight. When Nyrielle’s chariot arrived at the head of the column, pulled by two dark horses every bit as powerfully built as Thane’s Rapier, the column began to move.

– HAAAAAARRRRUUUUUMMMMM! –

– HAAAAAARRRRUUUUUMMMMM! –

Thane followed Nyrielle half a horse-length behind, and behind him followed a force of three hundred of the Vale’s most powerful forces.

It took several carriages, each illuminated by lanterns at every corner, to carry the most powerful force the Vale could bring to bear. Zedya, Heila, Virve, Olle... Even Wolstan had stayed behind after Ashlynn decided to await her mother’s arrival before sending a message to her father. Of Nyrielle’s seven progeny, two rode with her army, and two were already within Lothian City’s walls. Three witches in the column would soon join their sister, Isabell, representing the greatest concentration of witches the Kingdom of Gaal had seen in more than two hundred years, and that was without considering Lady Ashlynn or Mistress Nyrielle herself.

But the Vale possessed powerhouses beyond Ashlynn’s coven and Nyrielle’s progeny, and they came along too. Aspakos, Savis, Tausau and Bassinger, representing the commanders of the Vale’s armies. While neither Savis nor Tausau possessed the same strength they had before High Lord Hamdi’s mysterious death, both men were fierce enough to face a dozen knights at once, and even Templars should hesitate to provoke their wrath.

Behind the carriage came hundreds of soldiers. Towering Tuscan giants, heavily armored soldiers with iron tusks or the looming, bearish figures of the Clan of the Great Claw. Dozens of nimble, horned spearmen raced alongside the feathered, glass-eyed archers who could clear the wall of onlookers in a pair of well-aimed volleys.

On the wall, Thane could already see the people starting to quake in their seats while a few of the soldiers reached reflexively for their weapons and shields. Tools that would do nothing to stop the force that had arrived at their gates... and it was time for Thane to teach them how useless their sharpened sticks were.

”People of Lothian, listen well!” Thane called, riding forward when the column stopped as he took on the role of Nyrielle’s herald. ”I was born in this March. I lived in this city. You have forgotten my name. You will remember it now,” he said, allowing his voice to ripple through the crowd.

Whether it was the people atop the wall or those lining the streets beyond the gate, everyone heard his words, resounding in their ears as though he were only a few paces away. From the moment he said ’listen well,’ every one of them turned to give him their complete attention. Conversations paused, and heads turned. The cooks in the closest tavern took their pots off the stove, or set down their knives as they waited to hear who this important person was.

”I am Sir Thane Corcan!” Thane said, using the surname he’d all but forgotten himself for the first time in decades. ”I was the Knight Protector of Corcan Village. Now, I am Lord General of the Vale of Mists and the voice of its ruler!”

Several people on the walls blinked in surprise, searching their memories for a knight named Corcan or a village bearing the same name. Whether they remembered or not, however, none said a word. They couldn’t, because they’d been commanded to ’listen well’ and none dared to speak up until the Lord General had finished.

”Behold!” Thane shouted, allowing his voice to echo across every street and alley of Lothian City. ”Her Eternity, Nyrielle, Eldritch Lady of the Vale of Mists, Blood Princess of the Arena, Breaker of the Tangled Tower, and Harbinger of Death!”

As he spoke, his cloak began to flutter in a wind unfelt by anything else, and darkness enveloped his amber eyes. Power seeped into his voice, and when he spoke again, it sounded as if a thousand voices spoke at once, issuing a command that even the dead would obey.

”Before her majesty,” Thane said. ”All. Will. KNEEL!”