The Vampire & Her Witch

The section of the central table immediately around Jocelynn had gone very quiet as Rastlan began to describe the grim realities that faced women of the Southern Steppe, and both Mairwen and Sorcha gripped their wine goblets tightly as they imagined what it would have been like to face such a fate when they’d given birth to their own children.

Heila’s reaction, however, was different from any of the mothers at the table.

”Your healers follow an Oracle’s path,” Heila said, speaking to Rastlan without so much as a glance in Jocelynn’s direction. Her eyes went wide as she latched onto the problem itself rather than Jocelynn’s hasty offer to solve it, and the pieces started falling into place for her rapidly as she considered how healers who weren’t witches might approach the problem. ”They can know if the birthing will go well or not before it even begins!”

”Knowing anything before it happens is difficult and dangerous,” Rastlan said, pursing his lips slightly and hesitating before speaking again. ”To know the fate of a mother and child even a week before they’re born would be too great a burden to ask a healer to bear, even for the Highest One’s own children.”

”But an hour or two can make a great deal of difference,” Rastlan said. ”Once a birthing starts, every minute matters.”

”How often do the Swift Hooves and Long Horns face this kind of difficulty?” Jocelynn asked, trying to understand the scale of the problem.

”Two in every twenty births,” Rastlan said with a heavy sigh. ”The Swift Hooves possess tremendous power, and the Long Horns are the same. In that way, they are similar to the Tuscans or the Frost Walkers,” he said, nodding to the far end of the table where Hauke sat across from Isabell.

”The Heavens demand a balance in life,” Rastlan said, looking slightly helpless. ”The Frost Walkers and the Tuscans are powerful, but they live in the harshest of places where food is scarce, and the environment itself is their enemy. The Heavens bestowed a different curse on the Swift Hooves and the Long Horns,” he explained.

”Even if the child survives being born,” Rastlan said. ”The mother may still die. Bleeding within the womb claims as many as one or two mothers out of every fifty births. They may appear to be fine, but within an hour, their lips turn blue, and they begin to shiver.... Some survive by holding perfectly still for days until they recover but... Too many succumb within hours of holding their newborn child.”

”That, that’s horrifying,” Heila said, glancing once again at the table where Olwyna sat, leaning against her husband and chatting peacefully with the young women at the table. Olwyna faced similar challenges as a woman carrying twins, but her situation was far more rare than the sort of numbers Rastlan had described.

”You mentioned ’foaling season,’” Jocelynn said as she recognized another wrinkle of the problem. ”Humans give birth year-round, but it sounds like it’s different for the Swift Hooves and Long Horns. A whole year’s worth of newborns all happening at the same time...”

”The last months of spring,” Rastlan said, nodding his head. ”Right before the herds begin to roam again, or even into the first month of their journey. Almost every one of them is born in the same ten to twelve week span.”

”No wonder you never have enough healers,” Heila breathed as she tried to imagine what would happen in the villages of the Vale if every mother gave birth at the same time while facing such cruel odds. It would be impossible for her to reach every village to help and even if she could teach simple sorcery to a dozen midwives to help, it still wouldn’t be enough to cover every village in the Vale...

”Lady Heila,” Jocelynn said, pulling together the best ’peace offering’ she could form under the circumstances. ”I doubt that we can help the Southern Steppe with the first problem that Captain Rastlan explained.”

”The bleeding, on the other hand,” Jocelynn continued. ”Is both rarer and, as I understand witchcraft, more easily healed with a potion, but I don’t know for sure. Do you think this is a place where your skills could produce a cure? I’m certain that the Southern Steppe would be happy to lend us their support, whether it’s in lands to grow the herbs, or skilled hands to tend them.”

”I, I think you’re right,” Heila said almost reluctantly as she was finally forced to answer Jocelynn directly rather than speaking to Rastlan. ”Potions that stop external bleeding are among the most common that witches can produce, and Lady Ashlynn and I sold several of them to the Arena in High Fen City while we were there. The potion for internal bleeding is different,” she said, furrowing her brow as she tried to think through the things she would need.

”I guess you could plant large fields of shepherd’s purse and yarrow,” Heila said after thinking for a few moments. ”But you’d still need a tremendous quantity of witch hazel bark. It wouldn’t be easy,” she warned. ”Or quick to produce.”

”But it would be possible?” Rastlan said, glancing briefly in his lord’s direction. ”If you could do this, or teach our healers the method, then our healers could spend the months between foaling seasons preparing in advance... Even if they only refined ingredients for you, it would still let us change the fates of countless mothers...”

”I’ll make sure that we discuss it at length,” Ashlynn said, smiling at both Heila and Jocelynn as she reentered the conversation now that her sister seemed to have found her footing. ”Nothing will change overnight, but we still have some time before the next foaling season.”

”Given a bit of time to plan and work together on a solution,” Ashlynn said, turning back to Rastlan. ”I think Jocey and Heila can find a way to supply the Southern Steppe with a quantity of potions. Enough, at least, to ensure they’ll work for the Swift Hooves and Long Horns before we invest in doing anything at a large scale.”

”Assuming, of course,” Ashlynn added. ”That we can come to an agreement on the Southern Steppe’s inclusion in our new empire...”