The Vampire & Her Witch

Morwen Thorne had never seen a man hit someone the way Sir Ollie hit the first guard who stood against them inside Lothian Manor.

She’d seen sparring. She’d watched the knights of Dunn Barony train in the practice yards since she was old enough to climb the fence and perch on the top rail with her legs dangling while Cadeyrn poked her in the ribs to make her fall off.

She’d seen her father, Sir Brennus, take a blow to the helm during a mounted exercise that left him sitting in the dirt with a dazed expression on his face, and she’d watched Lord Liam spar with his father’s best swordsman until both men were gasping for breath and grinning like boys.

But what she saw when Sir Ollie’s armored fist connected with the guard’s chest was something else entirely. There was no wind-up, no telegraphed swing, no grunt of exertion. The punch simply happened, as fast and as natural as blinking, and the guard’s feet left the floor. He traveled backward through the air for a full pace before his back hit the stone wall of the corridor with a crack that she felt in her own spine, and he slid to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs and loose mail.

He didn’t get up.

Morwen pressed herself closer to Samira’s side, keeping her shoulder against the pregnant woman’s arm the way Lady Ashlynn had asked her to. Their group moved through the wide corridors of Lothian Manor in a formation that reminded Morwen of the stories her father told about the shield-wall tactics from the War of Inches, except that instead of a wall of overlapping shields, the people around her formed a wall of purpose.

Lady Ashlynn walked at the center. The cavalier hat with its midnight feather sat on her head at a rakish angle that made her look like one of the pirate queens from the stories Morwen’s mother used to tell her. Her sword, the one she’d called Water’s Edge, hung undrawn at her hip, and her emerald eyes swept the corridor ahead with the same calm focus that Morwen had seen in the eyes of hunting falcons.

On Samira’s other side, Isabell adjusted her spectacles and kept her right hand extended slightly at her side, fingers loose and ready. Morwen had no idea what Master Isabell was ready for, but after seeing the way she’d transformed bows into living wooden serpents that turned on the archers holding them, she was almost afraid to find out.

The three women stayed close together, with Cadeyrn half a step behind his sister. His sword was drawn, and his youthful face was set in an expression of determination that would have been comical if the circumstances had been anything other than what they were.

The fighters formed the storm around them. Sir Ollie and Sir Elgon led the advance, with Captain Devlin and Sir Beathan on the flanks and the rest of the knights and Templars filling the corridor behind and ahead. Diarmuid stayed just ahead of Lady Ashlynn, his crimson and gold robes vivid against the emerald-and-midnight gambesons around him, and his voice rang off the vaulted ceiling with an authority that seemed to come from some deeper place than his lungs.

"Make way for the Inquisition!" Diarmuid shouted. "Make way for the Marchioness!"

The reaction was immediate, though it was far from uniform.

A cluster of servants who had been carrying platters toward the great hall froze at the intersection ahead. Two of them dropped their trays, sending silverware clattering across the herb-strewn floor, and all of them pressed themselves flat against the walls with their hands raised and their eyes wide with terror.

"Stay where you are," Diarmuid called to them as the column passed. "Go to the kitchens and stay there. Tell Master Jean that Diarmuid sent you, and no harm will come to you, you have my word."

The servants didn’t need to be told twice. They fled down the side corridor toward the kitchens before the last of the Templars had passed, and the trays they’d abandoned lay scattered across the floor like the wreckage of a ship.

But the soldiers who appeared at the far end of the corridor were nothing like the half-dressed men who had stumbled out of the barracks in the bailey.

These men were ready.

They wore full coats of mail over padded gambesons, the links freshly oiled and gleaming in the lamplight. Steel kettle helms sat firmly on their heads, noseguards lowered, and each man carried a shield on his left arm and a weapon in his right. The front rank held swords, but behind them, taller men hefted halberds and long-hafted axes, the polearms’ reach extending well past the shield line to create a bristling hedge of sharpened steel.

They’d been dressed for the ceremony. Standing guard inside the manor during the wedding feast, positioned along the corridors and at the entrances to the great hall under Sir Franc’s command. When the commotion at the gatehouse reached them, they hadn’t needed to scramble for armor the way the barracks guards had. They were already wearing it.

"Stand aside in the name of the Inquisition!" Diarmuid commanded, hoping that it would work as well on the soldiers as it had on the household staff. The words still tasted like ash on his tongue, and he silently resolved to burn his robes after this so that he would never again give in to the temptation to abuse the authority of an order he could no longer consider himself a member of. But at the moment, if it meant less bloodshed, he had to give it a try. "Give way before the Marchioness!"

The sergeant at the center of the line, a thick-necked man with a scar that pulled one corner of his mouth into a permanent sneer, didn’t even acknowledge the command. His eyes swept over Diarmuid’s crimson robes with the flat indifference of a man who had been told exactly what the Inquisition’s authority was worth in Lothian Manor.

Perhaps it would have been different if Ignatious had been the one at the head of the line, carrying his flaming sword and striking fear into the hearts of anyone who had to face the terrifying weapon, but the High Inquisitor had fallen back to the very rear of the column, hurling balls of golden, Holy Fire down any corridor where soldiers seemed to be attempting to circle around Ashlynn’s column to attack them from behind.

Compared to Ignatious, Diarmuid felt almost ordinary, and he was far easier for the Lothian soldiers to defy.

"Sir Franc’s orders," the sergeant said with a mocking grin on his lips. "No one passes. Lay down your weapons and Lord Owain might take mercy on you..."

The sergeant’s words were proper, but his tone was anything but. Like many others, he’d seen what Lord Owain had done to the Inquisition’s acolytes, but unlike most people, who feared receiving the same treatment, this man had taken it as a lesson that he should aspire to. And now, one of the Inquisition’s dogs had delivered himself right to his door... How could he refuse such a splendid opportunity to cut the church further down to size?

Sir Elgon was the first to engage. The veteran knight wasted no words on the posturing sergeant as he closed the distance in three long strides, his sword sweeping toward the nearest halberds in a probing cut designed to test the defender’s resolve. What he got in return nearly took his head off.