The Vampire & Her Witch

Reynold walked Star Chaser down to the far end of the yard, breathing carefully, and did not look over at them.

He had spent a great many nights in camps on the edge of the Steppe, and he knew perfectly well what soldiers did with the long hours, whether it was dice or cards or wagering on whatever was in front of them.

Tonight what was in front of them was him. His own sergeants had run a book on him for three years, and as far as he knew, the captain of his company was still holding a pool of silver and snips for the person who correctly guessed which noble lady would become Reynold’s bride and put an end to his wandering days exploring the Southern Steppe.

There was no meanness in it. It was simply what men did instead of thinking about tomorrow.

”Three pennies say I hit the next mark clean,” Reynold called down the yard, without turning round.

There was a short pause.

”Hah,” Virve said in a short bark of laughter, sounding utterly delighted. ”Taken!”

This time, he hit the next mark clean, and heard the Oak Witch swear happily from the bench. Slowly, a smile spread on Reynold’s lips as something in his chest loosened by about a finger’s width.

Then, as soon as he started to relax like he was among friends instead of auditioning for the oldest, most experienced knight in the Verdant Hills, Thane made it worse.

”Off the left,” Thane said smoothly, instantly popping the bubble of satisfaction that had started to swell in Reynold’s heart.

That inverted everything. The lance had to come across the horse’s neck, which meant the whole angle of the strike ran backward through his shoulder and his spine, and he could no longer see the point even in the corner of his eye.

Reynold missed the first two entirely and took the sandbag square in the back for the second one.

”Ha!” Virve said, scooping up the coins between herself and Liam. ”That makes up for the loss a bit. Again?” She asked, raising a brow at Liam.

”I’ll hold my silver until Dame Sybyll has a run at him,” Liam said, shaking his head. ”I know I won’t go wrong betting on her to win.”

”Have some faith in your friend,” Virve said. ”I’ve got two snips right now that say he can walk back to the manor on his own without being carried on a stretcher.”

”Aren’t you here to heal him up in case he can’t?” Liam said. ”That doesn’t sound like a fair bet.”

”I’m not Marcell,” Virve protested, thwapping Liam lightly on the head with a furry paw. ”You don’t have to watch my words that closely. But if it makes you happy, if Dame Sybyll rocks him so badly he can’t stand, we’ll carry him back to the manor on a stretcher before I tend to his wounds. Better?”

Reynold shut them both out of his mind without hearing what they finally decided, climbing back into the saddle and taking up another lance.

”Again,” Thane commanded. ”Right side, this time at a gallop.”

The gallop was faster and in some ways easier; more speed meant less time for the tip to wander, but it also meant that if he was wrong, he was wrong at speed; the consequences would be worse. On the fourth pass at a gallop, poor timing on his part slammed the shaft of his lance hard enough into his own ribs that when he heard a loud -CRACK-, he wasn’t certain if it was the lance or his bones succumbing to the impact.

”Again,” Thane commanded, giving him very little time to recover. ”Collected canter.”

Reynold, halfway down the yard, actually laughed out loud.

Because that was the cruel one, and Thane knew it. A gallop gave a man momentum to hide behind. A collected canter gave him nothing at all. Star Chaser gathered up short and sprang underneath him; every stride had a rise and a drop with no forward rush to smooth it out, so the tip of the lance was climbing and falling through twice the arc, and he had to find his moment inside a rhythm that fought him the whole way.

It was also, Reynold knew, the only gait from which a man could actually fight. It was the gait you held when you were in close among your enemies and all the clever plans in the world meant nothing because you’d spent your charge and hadn’t gotten clear of your foes.

Any fool could strike a target in a straight line at a tournament, but this was something meant only for the field of battle.

He collected Star Chaser and felt the stallion come up under him like a held breath, and then they charged the target together.

He hit it four times out of six, but Thane still didn’t seem satisfied. Worse, he kept moving the chalk mark, forcing Reynold to mop the sweat from his brow to keep his vision clear and see the target on the target.

By the ninth collected pass, his left hand was no longer entirely his own and his right shoulder had begun to send up a bright complaint every time he set the lance.

”Halt,” Thane said, giving him a reprieve at last.

Reynold brought Star Chaser round and sat there with the lance butt grounded, sucking cold air while his whole left side felt like one long ache and his arm dangled loosely at his side.

Thane appeared next to Reynold faster than the young lord could blink, looking at him with deeply searching amber eyes.

”Do you know what you did wrong?” Thane asked lightly.

”The last two were low,” Reynold said between deep breaths that sent clouds of white mist billowing into the cold night air. ”I was tired, and my point dropped, and I didn’t feel it happen,” he said, making no excuses for his failure.

”That’s true, but it isn’t what I was asking after,” Thane said, shaking his head at the young lord. ”You struck that shield thirty-one times tonight. I counted every one. Twenty-six of them were as good as anything I have seen from a living man in this generation, your fathers or your grandfathers,” he praised.

”But you have done the same thing on every single pass, Reynold,” Thane added, his tone growing grave. ”Including the ones you got right, and you have done it so consistently that I do not think you know you are doing it.”

”What is it?” Reynold asked without a trace of defensiveness. If Thane said he saw a problem, Reynold believed him. He just had no idea what it might be.

”At the moment of contact,” Thane explained. ”You come forward in your seat. Against the lightly armored Swift Hooves you’ve been fighting and even against most knights, that commitment is an advantage,” Thane explained.

”Against the Long Horns of the Southern Steppe,” the vampire-knight warned. ”It will get you killed...”