The Vampire & Her Witch

”The First Herder’s Trickster Snake,” Aspakos told his dumbfounded adversary. ”Of all the First Herder’s pets, he is the most troublesome and the most difficult to tame. But he can be very useful in provoking the herd to move where the Herder wishes,” he said, sounding like a teacher at an academy rather than an enemy on the battlefield.

”You have fought well and bravely, Rastlan,” Aspakos said. ”You have shown us the fundamental skill of a Warrior, the precision of the Hunter and the dedication of the Watchman. These things are all admirable. You are deserving of the title of Master,” he praised.

”But this is the end,” Aspakos said as he raised his staff high above his head. ”You’ve reached your limit. Surrender now and descend the stairs on your own. Accept this defeat with the grace and dignity for which your clan is famed.”

”Defeat?” Rastlan said, his lips twisting into a sneer while his golden mane bristled. ”You’ve done nothing to breach my defenses! You’ve made no attacks. You think I’ve lost the strength to finish you off?” Rastlan asked rhetorically.

”Have you broken my defenses?” Aspakos asked. ”Or have I granted you the privilege of displaying your skill against them? Am I vulnerable? Or are you standing in the center of my trap? You have mastered four constellations: Warrior, Hunter, Watchman, and Scholar. The first three cannot escape Acat’s Snare. What does the wisdom of the Scholar tell you?”

For a moment, Rastlan said nothing.

At the beginning of their duel, he’d offered to match Aspakos constellation for constellation, but even a man as proud as he was had to admit that Aspakos had countered him in the most unexpected ways. The Warrior was met with the Hunter’s least trustworthy hound. The Hunter had been countered by the Musician’s horn and the Watchman thwarted by the Herder’s mischievous pet.

It was a battle unlike any Rastlan had ever fought, filled with unexpected tricks but... Aspakos hadn’t attacked him once. Because he couldn’t? Or because he had no need to?

Desperately, Rastlan tried to recall everything he knew of the Sovereign of the Stars and his powers, but... It had been so long since the end of the Age of Ice, when the Sovereign of Stars walked the lands of the Eldritch world with his Celestial Court.

The teachings of the First Ones had endured because they could be practiced, to a lesser extent, even by those who weren’t oracles. But the techniques of the Sovereign of Stars himself... Perhaps only the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth had a true accounting. Everyone else was left with only myths and legends.

Perhaps there was a message that a better scholar could tease out of Aspakos’s warning. But if there was, Rastlan couldn’t find it. Each question spawned two more, and none of them gave him any useful answers.

In the end, this was still a battle. There was no time to consult ancient scrolls or solve scholars’ riddles. He could only advance or retreat based on what he knew when he ascended the platform.

And everything he knew told him that he still had a chance.

”I cannot surrender so easily,” Rastlan declared, standing up straight and proud with his spear held comfortably in one hand. ”Even a beast caught in a snare can still be deadly. I will not give in to you so easily.”

”So be it,” Aspakos said, hanging his head briefly before raising it again to fix his malevolent gaze on Rastlan. ”At the end of the Age of Ice, the Frost Walkers seemed undefeatable, towering above all from their mountain tops and ruling over a world of ice,” he said in a voice that echoed off the icy sails surrounding the arena, sounding as if his voice had been carried on the wind from some far distant place.

”It was Acat who reversed their fortunes,” Aspakos said, bringing his staff down in a sweeping motion that pulled the quartet of crimson stars along with it, casting them toward Rastlan. ”It is Acat’s Snare that will reverse yours. Guard your heart well, Watchman,” he added in a voice that resembled a magistrate pronouncing a sentence from the bench. ”It is the only hope you have.”

The glittering constellation arced across the sky, sailing over the edge of Rastlan’s shield and falling harmlessly onto the stairs behind him. Then, like the jaws of a trap slamming shut, the wide V-shape of the constellation snapped closed before streaking directly toward the feline captain.

”A Watchman stands his ground...” Rastlan started, spinning around while swinging his spear in a wide, flat arc in an attempt to bat the stars aside.

The stars, however, were not to be deterred, and before Rastlan could finish his invocation, nine blades of light fell on him, each from a different direction.

”Nine strokes,” Thane said in the Imperial box as he watched Rastlan desperately trying to defend himself with his spear. He managed to block the blow to his head, his groin, and the attacks high on his right and low on his left, but the remainder got through. At the end of the onslaught, Rastlan only narrowly dodged the thrust aimed straight at his heart.

”Aspakos has returned Rastlan’s attacks to him,” Isabell said, watching as the ice shield in front of the feathered sorcerer appeared to be repairing itself. ”A true reversal of fortunes...”

On the icy platform, Rastlan bled from several wounds, and his once pristine robes hung in tatters. The cold night air felt like a brand against his wounds while his blood dyed his golden fur red. Yet he had no time to waste binding his injuries. If Aspakos truly had returned his attacks to him...

”The Hunter keeps the wind at his side, sweeping his scent away from his prey,” Rastlan said in a rush, desperate to conjure a breeze that would deflect the arrows of light that had followed after the opening spear strikes.

A fierce wind whipped around him, but the luminous arrows never came.

”Because they were defeated by the horn,” Rastlan realized too late. The only blows that Acat’s Snare returned to him were the ones that had landed on the shield, which meant....

”AAAARRGGGGG!!!”

Rastlan screamed in pain as sixteen spears of light plunged into his feet, his shins and his thighs, striking his legs the way he’d struck the base of Aspakos’s shield. Blood spurted from a wound just above his knee, and Rastlan dropped his spear in his haste to clamp his hands over the wound.

”The Watchman binds his shield with... AAAAARRRRRGGGG!!!!!”

His chant cut off in a second cry of pain as the sixteen spears stabbed him again, and then again, just as he’d repeatedly attacked the base of his enemy’s shield. One spear pierced the hand that clutched the most dangerous wound while others tore flesh from his bones.

”The Watchman shields...” Rastlan tried to say, gritting his teeth to speak through the pain, but then the final blow arrived as all sixteen spears of light plunged toward his heart.

The platform beneath Rastlan shattered under the onslaught, and his body tumbled through the night, briefly displaying to the assembled crowd the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had once been.

Then, with a sickening crunch, Rastlan’s body hit the cold, frozen ground, never to move again.