The Vampire & Her Witch

"It was years ago, when you were just a lad," Ian said as he began searching about the room for anything that he could use as a sack to carry supplies. A moment later, he pulled a dressing tunic from the wardrobe and tossed it on a small table before dumping the bowls of nuts, cheeses, dried fruits and other refreshments that had been prepared for Loman's visit onto the fabric of the tunic.

"During the War of Inches, the Crimson Knight left Sir Ryt Blewett badly wounded, but clinging to life so he could deliver a message to me," Ian said as he gathered up the corners of the tunic and tied them together to form a simple bundle that he tossed to his son before returning to the wardrobe for a warm cloak and anything else that might be useful when they made their escape.

"He said that Hanrahan would fall to him one day so its rightful heir could claim the throne," Ian explained to his wide-eyed son. "Shut your mouth boy, you'll catch flies," he scolded before he continued his explanation. "I thought I'd settled this nonsense years before, but I missed the girl," he rambled. "Now she's here, like a ghost that's haunting me and she brought that damn knight with her!"

"Father, I don't understand," Bastian said as he tried to conceal the hurt in his heart, focusing instead on learning as much as he could now that circumstances had forced his father to reveal one of his secrets. For years, his father had kept many of the things he did hidden, revealing them only when years had passed and the secret could no longer hurt him if it was exposed.

It had only been recently, when the aging baron confronted the fact that neither of his sons had managed to marry or produce a grandchild that he could pass the throne to, that he began to train his disappointing eldest child. At the time, Bastian had thought that he had finally earned his father's respect when he proved that he could recover from his fall, but now he felt like he'd only scratched the surface of the things his father hid from him.

"There was a woman once, a cripple with a lame leg and pretty, young girl in tow," the baron explained. "She showed up at the keep years ago, before you were even born, claiming to be my dead Aunt Caitlyn and saying the girl with her was my Uncle Brighton's daughter, Sybyll. It was lunacy!" Ian spat. "Pure madness!"

"And that's who's out there now?" Bastian asked, furrowing his brow as he tried to determine whether his father was telling him the pure truth or a version of the truth that concealed even greater secrets. "This Sybyll woman? You think she's involved with the Crimson Knight?"

"It would make it all make sense, wouldn't it?" Ian said, pausing his search around the room to focus on his son. "How else could a knight, even a vampire knight, become so strong? But if he's had a witch beside him all this time, then it all makes sense, doesn't it? But it also means we have to run," he said as he balled his meaty hands into fists that trembled with emotion.

He'd worked so hard, for so many years, to dig his barony out of the hole it had fallen into over the years. His treasury was once again filled with gold that even the Marquis didn't know he possessed, and he was ready to hire on enough zealots from across the sea to form an army that even Bastian could lead to victory in the Holy War to come.

Finally, people would stop suggesting that the Lothians should strip him of his title and lands in favor of a more aggressive lord who could lead an army to conquer Airgead Mountain and plunder its riches. He was about to do it, he was about to achieve what his father, his grandfather, and even his granduncle Brighten never had…

And now it was all going to be ripped away because of a stupid, silly girl who thought she had a claim to his throne! No doubt she'd spread her legs to win over the Crimson Knight, he realized. In fact, she probably even bore the heretic a brat that she could call the 'true heir' to his throne!

"Once a witch knows your name, if she's come to kill you, there's no way she'll stop," Ian said flatly. "Especially not this one. Not when she thinks I killed her mother. There won't be any surrendering to her or giving up territory for peace… she'll come for my head and yours too! She'll wipe us all out."

She would have to, Ian realized. If she wanted to place a child of her own on the throne, she'd have to exterminate the rest of the bloodline to do it. It was lunacy to think that she could seize power with a demon army and still rule over anything but a smoldering crater that would be all that remained once the Inquisition arrived to deal with her, but by the time she was burned at the stake for her heresy, Ian and anyone related to him were sure to be dead!

"But, but can't you just explain?" Bastian asked as he realized that he'd become implicated in this mess. "If she only thinks you killed her mother, just explain that you didn't. There's an Inquisitor out there who can light the flames of truth, you can prove it to her. A demon might be a bloodthirsty savage, but if this Sybyll woman can speak and reason like a human, then don't you think that…"

-SMACK!-

"Fool!" Ian shouted as his hand flew, slapping his idiot son across the face before he could utter another word that dripped with stupidity. "Of course, I had her mother killed! The woman claimed my father killed his own brother, my Uncle Brighton, just to take his throne! You don't know how much the people loved your granduncle, boy, but trust me, they never loved your grandfather half as muc,h and they love me even less."

Brighton Hanrahan was the hero who came back from the War of Four Templars covered in glory, and he'd spent his rewards lavishly, burning through the treasury to build not just his bell towers, but new cisterns in the poor quarters of the city, public fountains that required costly maintenance to save people a trip to the lakeshore to fetch water and all manner of other foolish expenses, often paying tradesmen twice as much as Ian would have and for half as much work!

Oh, the people loved Baron Brighton all right, but Ian Hanrahan had long resented the man for plundering the wealth that should have helped raise their family to greater glory and squandering it on things that only benefited the people who were meant to serve them.

"If that wretched woman convinced the people her words were true, do you know the damage it would have done?" Ian shouted as spittle flew from his lips along with a deep-seated loathing that had simmered in his belly for most of his life, splattering across Bastian's face as the baron raged. "You think I'd be sitting on the throne if rumors reached Marquis Bors' ears and gave him an excuse to hunt up some distant cousin to put on our throne and act like his puppet!"

"Father I, I…" Bastian stammered, unable to find words that would calm his father's fury as he slowly inched back from the man's imposing figure. None of this was his fault and he'd only tried to help, but it seemed like nothing he ever did or said would be good enough for the baron whose standards were higher than the fortress walls.

Perhaps even a paragon of capability like Loman Lothian would have been a disappointment to the scheming baron, Bastian realized as he imagined his father raging at the pious lord for being too righteous to go along with his hidden plans and plots. In the end, there was no way to win other than standing all but mute and doing as he was told.

"Just shut your mouth," Ian said. "And find something to use as a club. If that old fool Dollin won't help us run, then it'll be you who has to put him down."

"Y-yes, Father," the young lord managed to say before he went searching around the room for something that felt sturdier than the gilded candlesticks in the opulent chambers. If he had to knock a knight senseless, even one as old as Sir Dollin, a cheaply made piece of pewter with the thinnest layer of gold wrapped around it would never do the job.

Meanwhile, Ian Hanrahan turned to stare out the window, scowling at the bluish-green demonic light that mixed with the Church's golden glow to make the entire landscape look strange and foreign to his eyes.

He couldn't see the old farmhouse from here, it lay in the opposite direction from where the window faced, but he could see the tracks the demon army had left in the snow, and there wasn't the slightest sign that they'd sent a party to circle around the town's walls to where the farmhouse lay.

Which meant that whoever this witch was, she didn't know about the tunnels his great-grandfather had dug when the keep was first constructed. Nor did she know that he'd ordered fresh horses to be moved into the stables at the far end of the tunnels the very same day that he'd learned of the first demon attack against Sir Carwyn's caravan.

Lord Loman placing him under arrest had been one of the most humiliating insults he'd ever swallowed in his long years as the Baron of Hanrahan, but looking back on the moment, it gave him the perfect opportunity to escape this madness as the foolish young priest ordered every soldier other than the aging Sir Dollin to defend the town.

Now, only a single white haired knight stood between him and escape from a tragedy that would likely claim the Lothian Lord's life… and if the old man knew what was best for him, he would join his liege lord in their flight.