The Vampire & Her Witch

”You cannot match the speed and accuracy of the Southern Steppe’s archers.”

That had been the first thing Milo told Erling when he began preparing for this contest two nights ago.

According to the archer from the Heartwood Clan, the sorcery of the Southern Steppe allowed them to predict not only the movements of their targets, but every gust of wind between them and their target, along with even the most chaotic movements of their prey.

It was a skill that went beyond leading a running target, and the accuracy it gave them wasn’t only unmatched; it removed any trace of hesitation when they loosed their arrows.

”Can I learn to do the same?” Erling had asked, touching the book that Dirar had given him. ”If I apply their techniques...”

”Those techniques take years of practice to learn well enough to use them reliably, my Lord,” Milo said, shaking his head at the idea. ”It’s the same if you wanted to learn the Heartwood Clan’s method to achieve the same result. We don’t predict the target; we touch the wind and guide the arrow, like a breeze flowing through the branches of a tree.”

”It’s a technique my clan has practiced since the Mother of Forests taught us, and every hunter in the Heartwood Clan learns it at the same time they learn to use the bow. Some are better than others,” he said with a trace of pride in his voice that he couldn’t disguise. ”But all of us spend a long time practicing before we can use it to hit something that’s running away from us.” ”

It’s just,” Milo said, lowering his tail enough that it nearly brushed the ground. ”It’s just that an arrow is a very light thing and if you fumble with the wind, you’ll miss more, not less,” he said, hoping the human hunter would understand the difficulty of what the technique required.

”So what am I to do?” Erling said, frowning at the buck-toothed archer and the witch who had brought him well outside of Lothian City to practice. ”You’re making it sound like I have no chance to win.”

”You have a chance,” Ollie said. ”You just won’t like it. I don’t know what Ashlynn has in mind for your contest, but we know it will be outside, and she said it won’t be a contest of shooting at straw targets as they do at tournaments. You’ll have to deal with the wind, and so will your opponent.”

”Naturally,” Erling said, not entirely understanding where this was going. ”But you say they’ll have an advantage, because they can predict the wind.”

”Exactly,” Ollie said with a wide smile. ”So take that advantage away from them. Give them nothing to predict. You can’t tame the wind and make it serve you, not in two days. But killing a thing is easier than taming it, and the same is true of the wind. That’s the sorcery we’ll teach you.”

”Kill... the wind?” Erling said in disbelief. The idea seemed preposterous. At the same time, if he could actually do it, then hitting his targets would be considerably easier. Against anyone else, it would also be making it easier for his opponent, but if his foe was guaranteed to be better at reading the wind than he was, he would be taking one of their advantages away from them.

”It isn’t a perfect plan, my Lord,” Milo warned. ”Stopping the wind will take a toll on your body. The longer you have to hold the wind at bay and the larger the area you cover, the more strain it places on your body. Push too hard, for too long, and you may do worse than defeat yourself.”

”A witch like Sir Ollie could do this for hours,” Milo told him bluntly. ”You’ll only have minutes. You have to make them count.”

”What do I need to do then?” Erling asked. ”There’s not much wind here, but if we hike out to the Snake’s Tooth on the river...”

”Don’t worry about the wind,” Ollie said, clapping a hand on Erling’s shoulder. ”I’ve got that part covered. We chose this place because it’s sheltered enough that you only have to stop the wind I conjure. It’s just that my wind is a little... haunting. You’ll see. Consider it extra motivation to kill the wind,” he said with a feeble smile as if he didn’t entirely believe in his advice.

It didn’t take long for Erling to learn what Sir Ollie had meant about ’haunting.’ By the time he staggered back to his bed in Lothian Manor, he was certain that he’d have nightmares for weeks.

When his mother joined him for lunch the next day, she’d taken his pale face and dull eyes as a sign that he was pushing himself too hard for this challenge.

To an extent, she was right, but how could he explain to her that he’d been tormented by a voice he only dimly recalled as it pleaded for forgiveness and relief from the cries of its victims? How could he tell her that he now knew, to the depths of his bones, that his father’s greatest regret was following Bors Lothian to war, leaving his wife and child behind and staining his hands with the blood of the Eldritch?

He couldn’t. There was no way his mother could bear hearing that. Not after she’d done so much to put the past behind her and build a future for herself and her son. So when she asked what his training had been like to leave him looking so ragged, he’d told her the truth about the energy it took to wield sorcery while he devoured oversized portions of ham steak, eggs, and oat porridge.

The fact that eating so much covered for his brevity was an added bonus, but he truly had needed the giant meal to feel human again after the night he’d experienced. And he still had to do it a second time.

Sir Ollie had been right, though. It gave him an extraordinary motivation to learn the technique Milo taught him for ’Pinning the Wind.’

Now, as Erling watched the Ice Fruits bouncing and swaying on the chaotic winds that swept through the hollow between the hills, he felt both an overwhelming gratitude for the lessons he’d been given and a deep sense of foreboding.