The Vampire & Her Witch

The soldiers behind the halberds were ready. One man hooked Elgon’s blade with the beak of his halberd and immediately stepped forward, crowding the older knight’s space while the man beside him thrust with the point of his halberd, aimed at the gap between Elgon’s chainmail coif and his chin.

Elgon twisted aside, catching the thrust on the flat of his own blade and turning it past his body, but the movement cost him his balance, and the first man used the beak of his halberd once again, this time catching Elgon behind the knee, where he had only thick, quilted layers of fabric to protect his vulnerable joint.

–RIIIIP-

The sound of fabric tearing felt all too loud in the crowded hallway. Several layers of quilted armor parted before the sharp point of the halberd’s beak, but somehow, the inner layers of the fabric held, preventing the polearm from severing the tendons of Elgon’s knee.

Still, the impact alone would leave a horrible bruise and may even have cracked bone. Elgon’s sword arm dipped, and for one terrible moment, Morwen saw the tall knight with the well-trimmed mustache stagger the way her father had staggered during that training exercise, except this time, there was no one to call a halt.

Then Ollie was there.

He came in from Elgon’s left side, moving so fast that Morwen barely tracked the motion. Frost Fang caught the polearm that was stabbing toward Elgon’s exposed flank and deflected it into the wall, where it struck sparks from the stone, and in the same movement, the darksteel cleaver swung in a brutal horizontal arc that cleaved through the hafts of two halberds without slowing down.

"No, you don’t!" Ollie shouted as he charged into the gap opened by lopping the heads of halberds off their staves, launching a vicious kick directly into the shields of one of the swordsmen preparing to receive his charge. Wood cased in leather was no match for the force of Ollie’s kick, and the shield splintered with a loud -CRACK- as the soldier staggered backwards.

Devlin hit the right side of the line half a heartbeat later, driving his curved fighting knife into the gap between a soldier’s helm and his mail coif while his sword engaged the halberdier behind the fallen shield man. The halberd’s long haft was an advantage in the narrow confines of the corridor, keeping Devlin at a distance that his shorter weapons couldn’t easily bridge, and the sailor was forced to give ground, using his sword to parry the axe-head with a ringing -CLANG- that numbed his arm to the elbow.

"These aren’t farmhands," Devlin called out, his voice carrying the clipped urgency of a man who had just realized the sea had changed beneath him. The men in the bailey had likely been the greenest of recruits, too inexperienced to be trusted with responsibilities during Lord Owain’s ’Grand Ceremony,’ but the men inside the manor were entirely different.

Veterans, Devlin realized. Likely men who had fought the Eldritch at Owain’s side and survived to tell the tale.

"Watch yourselves!" Devlin shouted, but that was all the time for warning he had before he was forced back yet again, this time by a man swinging a long-handled axe that looked like it was meant for felling giant trees instead of men.

Sir Beathan charged into the gap that Ollie had created, his Templar plate absorbing a sword stroke that would have opened an unarmored man from shoulder to hip. He bulled forward with his shield, driving the broken front rank backward, but the second rank of halberdiers was already stepping forward to fill the space, their long weapons probing over the heads of the retreating swordsmen to strike at anyone who pressed too close.

A halberd’s blade caught one of the Blackwell knights across the forearm, parting mail and gambeson and opening a wound that sprayed blood across the polished stone floor. The knight swore viciously and switched his sword to his other hand, but the damage was done. The polearms were making the corridor into a killing ground where Ashlynn’s shorter-armed fighters couldn’t close the distance without taking punishment.

Elgon recovered his balance and drove back into the fight with a fury that belonged to a much younger man. His sword found the haft of a halberd and hacked through it in two strokes. The soldier holding the shortened weapon stumbled backward, suddenly armed with nothing but a stick, and Elgon’s pommel strike caught him beneath the rim of his kettle helm and dropped him to the floor.

But as Elgon pressed forward, a second halberdier lunged from behind the falling man, the axe-blade sweeping in a vicious arc aimed at the veteran knight’s unshielded left side. Elgon saw it too late to parry. He threw himself sideways, turning the killing blow into a glancing one, but the halberd’s edge still caught him across the ribs, tearing through the links of his mail and carving a furrow across his side that immediately darkened with blood.

Elgon grunted, a sound that was more surprise than pain, and his left hand pressed against his ribs as he continued fighting with his sword arm alone. The wound wasn’t deep enough to stop him, but it slowed him, and the soldiers ahead could see it. The sergeant with the scarred face barked an order, and three men converged on the bleeding veteran, sensing weakness the way wolves sensed a limping deer.

Ollie didn’t let them reach him.

The darksteel cleaver came down on the nearest shield with a force that split it from rim to boss, the darksteel edge shearing through laminated wood and leather and iron as though they were parchment. The man behind the shield threw himself backward, his arm numb from the impact, and the other two hesitated just long enough for Elgon to take a step back and let Beathan fill the gap with his plate-armored bulk.

"Fall back, Sir Elgon," Ollie said, and his voice was rough with something that went deeper than exertion. "Let me take the front."

"I can still fight," Elgon protested, pressing his hand harder against his side as blood seeped between his fingers.

"I know," Ollie said. "But they can’t hurt me the way they can hurt you. Fall back and protect the others. I’m trusting Lady Ashlynn to you," he added, meeting the older man’s gaze directly with cold, pale eyes.

"No one will reach her," Elgon promised, giving way to the younger knight and falling back toward the protected group at the center of the formation. His jaw clenched against the pain, and Morwen saw Isabell move toward him with a strip of cloth already in her hands, ready to bind the wound.

At the front of the column, Ollie stepped into the space Elgon had left and raised the darksteel cleaver.

The corridor was narrower here, the ceiling lower, and the soldiers ahead had reformed their line. Eight men with shields and swords stood shoulder to shoulder, and behind them, four halberdiers held their weapons ready, the long hafts braced against the stone floor and the blades angled forward like the teeth of a trap.

Ollie’s restraint was wearing away. Morwen could see it happening the way you could see the river receding after a flood, each wave pulling back a little further than the last until the rocks that had been hidden beneath the surface were exposed.

The Ollie she’d met had been soft spoken and humble. He’d risked his life to save a woman who hated what he was, and he’d taken on two years of another man’s pain in an instant in order to free Sir Gavin from the torment of his old injury. He was the kindest, gentlest knight she’d ever known.

But the Ollie before her now resembled a rabid dog let loose from its leash. He charged forward with a bellow of fury and blades in his hands that were eager to spill blood...