The Vampire & Her Witch

Sir Franc Kermeen stood at the center of his remaining soldiers, his ceremonial plate armor blazing in the lamplight like a second sun. The fox and hammer of Kermeen Village was emblazoned on his surcoat, and his longsword was drawn, held in a two-handed grip with the blade angled forward and low. It was a stance meant for conserving energy while he waited without giving up the ability to defend himself once trouble arrived.

"Damn it all," Franc swore as he squinted his eyes against the pain in his head. The pain came and went, along with the pounding drumbeat in his ears that thumped in time to his pulse. This morning, he’d blamed it on too much wine, but that should have faded away long ago; yet the aches and pains persisted, and the headache didn’t just make it harder for him to think, it left him even more on edge than the distant sounds of combat.

"Where is Bastwyl with a report?" Franc asked the nearby captain. "I’ve sent fifty men to repel these gate crashers. Fifty! And not one of them has returned with any news that makes sense!"

"My lord," the captain said awkwardly. "Kaspal’s report..."

"Kaspal’s report didn’t make a lick of sense!" Franc snapped. "The Inquisition and Templars storming the manor while protecting a pregnant woman, an old maid, and a pair of young ladies? Knights fighting with butcher knives? You want me to believe that the Church is moving against Lord Owain when Abbot Recared and High Priest Aubin are just the other side of these doors?"

"It’s utter nonsense," Franc spat. "And if Kaspal comes back with more of it, then I’ll have him flogged. I need to know what’s happening!"

It had only been a few minutes since Lady Jocelynn passed through these doors when he first received word that some lord and his knights were attempting to crash the wedding. His first thought had been that the missing Hanrahans had shown up at last.

One of his soldiers had mentioned a man who resembled the missing Lord Hugo, accompanied by someone who was almost certainly Liam Dunn. But whatever rag-tag force the missing lords had put together, only the Templars wore full plate armor, and from the scattered reports Franc had received, they weren’t interested in doing more than subduing their opponents.

The men he’d sent had outnumbered the attackers at least two to one, and they had every advantage imaginable other than their own lack of heavy armor. It should have been more than enough to force a pair of upstart lordlings to see sense and demand terms, but Sir Franc had heard nothing of the sort.

Instead, every man he’d sent to scout the corridors of Lothian Manor for the past ten minutes had gone missing, as if the darkened hallways had swallowed them whole.

"My lord," the captain said hesitantly. "Maybe it’s time to alert Lord Owain. Or perhaps a few of the knights in the Great Hall. We could have a maidservant pass a message if you’re worried about causing a disturbance," he offered. "Surely sending in a serving girl wouldn’t disrupt the ceremony..."

"I told you no," Franc said sharply, rounding on the grizzled veteran who seemed stubbornly unwilling to back down before his betters. "You can hear the ceremony as well as I can. The High Priest is almost finished with his prayers. It won’t be much longer now before Lord Owain has been anointed as the Marquis."

"Until then, he’s not to be disturbed," Franc said. "So stop trying to find a way to snivel out of this and start thinking about how we’re going to capture those lordlings to drag before their Marquis. Lord Owain will reward you handsomely if you..."

Franc stopped abruptly as he heard the sound of heavy footfalls approaching from one of the side passages that led to the vestibule. Suddenly, the air in the chamber felt heavy, and the heat from the torches and the braziers grew intense enough to be oppressive. Sweat broke out on Franc’s brow, rolling down his temples as he found it difficult to breathe.

"Father of Light," the captain muttered, making a sign with his fingers to ward off evil. His hands reached for the buckle on his chin strap, pulling the kettle helm snugly into place before he snatched up his spear and pointed it at the entrance to the vestibule.

His soldiers flanked the great hall’s entrance in two lines, though there were only eight men remaining. Their coats of mail and kettle helms gleamed in the warm light and their hands were steady on their weapons as they turned to face the aura of menace approaching the vestibule.

They were the last of the interior garrison, the men Franc had held back while the others went forward to meet the assault in the corridors, and their faces showed the strain of listening to their companions fight and fall while they stood here and waited.

The corridor opened into the wide vestibule before the great hall’s doors, and Ollie walked into it the way he’d walked into every other corridor since the Blood Acorn’s rage had swallowed the last of his restraint.

He walked in ready to kill.

His gambeson was soaked through with blood, most of it belonging to other men, and the darksteel cleaver in his left hand was dark and wet, the flat of the blade catching the lamplight with a dull, oily sheen that made it look less like a weapon and more like something dredged from a river after a flood. Frost Fang’s translucent edge flickered in his right hand, still clean, still cold, the ice-blue horn of its hilt pressing against his palm like the grip of a friend’s hand.

Behind him, the corridors were quiet. The last of the soldiers between the manor entrance and this vestibule had either surrendered, fled, or stopped moving entirely, and the assault column that followed in Ollie’s wake moved through the aftermath the way a ship moves through the debris field of a wreck. Carefully. Quietly. Trying not to look too closely at the ’wreckage’ of once living men.

Now, there were only a few soldiers left between Ollie and the woman he’d sworn to protect for Ashlynn... A few soldiers and one armored knight.