The Vampire & Her Witch

"I may not be the Emissary of the Ascended Archer," Loman admitted as a hush fell over the hall once again. "But an Exemplar's eyes see far ahead and they can read a man's fortune in the stars the way lesser men read their books of prayers," he said, heaping praise on his mentor that didn't feel the least bit exaggerated.

Loman had seen more than enough demonstrations over the years of his teacher's ability to describe events that would soon come to pass, from things small enough to change the life of a single family to great events that could spell the rise or ruin of a whole barony or even a county. Now, Loman placed his faith in his mentor's uncanny ability to see far ahead as he addressed the crowd, revealing a truth he was only coming to understand at this moment.

"My teacher, Exemplar Domas Onaitis, sent me back to the march for a reason," Loman said as he looked out over the crowd of frightened, hopeless faces. "He told me that the day would come when I would be needed here, and that my star would only rise if I could meet the struggle that awaited me at home," he recounted.

"I thought I knew what I had to do," he admitted in a self deprecating tone with a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I thought he intended for me to take my place in the march as my father's son, to use what I had learned in my years in the temples of the Holy City to guide our people as a lord should. But I was wrong," he said with a growing sense of conviction.

For months, he had been lost in a fog, wondering if his teacher had done him a kindness by saying he would be needed at home and that his greater purpose could only be fulfilled if he returned. That greater purpose had increasingly felt like it would tear him away from his faith and Loman had taken it as his personal struggle to set aside his future in the Church for one where he protected his people as their Marquis.

Now, however, when a demon threat like none the Lothian March had faced before prepared to descend on the very place that he was standing, he understood exactly why his teacher had sent him home. He was like the arrow, fired from the Ascended Archer's bow, and it was time for him to strike the target he'd long ago been aimed toward.

"It was this moment that Exemplar Domas Onaitis prepared me for!" Loman declared in a loud shout that echoed off the walls of the great hall. "It is this moment that has revealed his purpose in sending me here and I will not forsake you! I may not be an Exemplar," Loman admitted in a quieter tone. "But that doesn't mean that the Holy Lord of Light has left us powerless and defenseless against the demons. We can still fight!"

"But can we win, your worship?" Baron Hanrahan asked from the place by the window where he still stood clutching his perspective glass. He hadn't taken a single step from the spot since he revealed that the Crimson Knight marched at the head of the army and his face had taken on a deathly pale, almost sickly hue as he grappled with what he had seen. The eyes that he turned now toward Loman Lothian were dull and his voice sounded flat and hollow when he spoke.

"There is no surviving the Crimson Knight, your worship," Ian Hanrahan said, echoing the words of the common people at the feast. "There is only running. We still have time to flee if we leave now," he suggested, throwing away his pride and dignity as worthless shackles in the face of the crimson armored doom descending on them.

"No, we will not run," Loman declared, definitively rejecting the baron's self-serving cowardice. "I may not be an Exemplar but my teacher has taught me much. Maybe enough to turn the tide, but I cannot fight alone. Thankfully, I do not have to, because the Holy Lord of Light has seen fit to provide us with the strength we need to meet our struggle!"

"Sir Tommin is not just any Templar," Loman pointed out as he turned to the man who had once been his brother Owain's personal guard. "He has fought and slain more demons than any other man in this hall and he bears a Holy Light Blade that can cut through darkness itself," he said, heaping praise on the man whose faith in righteousness had been so strong that he was willing to forsake even his own family in order to pursue a path of justice after Owain murdered Lady Ashlynn on the night of their wedding.

"Tell me, Baron Hanrahan," Loman said as he turned back to the frightened lord. "In all the years that your barony has struggled with this evil knight, has the Crimson Knight ever had to face a man like Sir Tommin?"

Now that he mentioned Sir Tommin, many people in the crowd began to nod silently in agreement. After all, were it not for the fact that Sir Tommin stood in Lord Owain's shadow for much of his life, the Templar would have been just as famed for his swordsmanship and skill at arms as Sir Carwyn Belvin.

For years, he had fought the demons side by side with the man who had been called one of the greatest swordsmen of the current era and in many stories he was the only man on the field of battle who could keep up with Owain Lothian.

"No…" Ian admitted as Loman's words ignited the smallest glimmer of hope in his chest. "No, but many say that the Crimson Knight is a vampire like the Demon Lady of the Vale, a creature of darkness," he said. "If there is anything that is the bane of his existence, it should be a man like Sir Tommin and his holy sword," he realized.

"Exactly so!" Loman said with an encouraging smile. "Sir Tommin will face the Crimson Knight head on, but he will not struggle alone! One man alone, fighting a duel in the middle of the battlefield, would surely be pulled down, but Inquisitor Diarmuid has come to us from the Holy City and he fought the demons in the wilderness. His holy flames burn hotter than any other Inquisitor in the march!"