Chapter 433: Standoff
For a single frozen moment, it seemed like nobody moved.
Ashlynn’s eyes darted about, growing wider and wider as she took in everything that had unfolded in the short amount of time she’d been locked in battle with the spirits possessing Hauke.
Her heart trembled at the sight of Heila’s bloodstained figure lying slumped in Ignatious’s arms, but the soft, protective way the fallen Inquisitor held her held very little anxiety for the diminutive witch. The vampire himself looked ragged, and the sleeves of his crimson and gold robes had been burned away, perhaps by the sword he held in one hand, but it was clear that whatever had happened had taken its toll on both of them.
Seeing Heila safe and sound, unfortunately, was the only bright spot in a snow filled world that contained far too much red.
Nyrielle’s army was still obscured by the blizzard Ines had summoned before they were trapped in the icy prison. When Ashlynn looked closely at it, the magic sustaining the snowstorm seemed to be feeding off of a deep reservoir of magical energy, trapped under layers and layers of ice and snow on the mountainside, as if it had been prepared in advance for just such a use.
In the other direction, a different cloud of fat, fluffy snowflakes was swept aside by the explosion of the ice tomb, revealing half a dozen corpses soaked in purplish-red blood that were all that remained of Lord Ritchel’s honor guard. The lord himself knelt in the snow, bleeding from dozens of small wounds. His hands were bound behind him, and Talauia hovered at his side with a long, glowing needle pressed into Ritchel’s neck.
On the walls of the Frost Walker fortress, the men of the Black Wolf Brigade fought side by side with the Mongrel Horde, staining the icy battlements with blood and littering the ground below with bodies. Atop the gatehouse, Savis and Tausau stood back to back, surrounded by more than a dozen Frost Walker sorcerers who seemed to be doing everything in their power to prevent the powerful vampires from reinforcing their soldiers.
It hadn’t been long since the ancestors seized control of Hauke, and Ritchel trapped her in the ice with the possessed young lord. Ten minutes, perhaps fifteen? But already things had progressed to this extent...
"You’ve chosen wisely, vampire," Ines’s cold voice said, breaking the silent stillness that surrounded them. "Bring the defiler to us, and we can put an end to this," she said, turning all of her attention to Ignatious and the sleeping figure in his arms.