The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 317: A Healer’s Limits

Chapter 317: A Healer’s Limits

As the moon climbed higher in the night sky, casting long shadows through the ancient forest outside the Vale of Mists, Commander Bassinger stood over the map in his command tent, glowering at it as if he could change the positions of soldiers or scraps of information through sheer force of will.

The tent itself bore little resemblance to the luxurious pavilions like the one used by Liam Dunn to coordinate his campaign. Bassinger’s tent had simple canvas walls, weathered and patched in places, that had been deliberately covered in places with mud, twigs, and loose leaves to help it blend into the surrounding forest. The tent’s peaked ceiling barely cleared the commander’s bearlike frame, keeping the profile low enough that even the sharpest-eyed human scout would struggle to spot it among the dense underbrush in the hills to the north of the Vale of Mists.

While Loman Lothian collapsed into exhausted slumber in the human camp miles away, the commander’s own forces had gathered to discuss what they had learned from the past several days spent harassing Liam Dunn’s forces with everything from ambushes to primitive traps.

Several other men and women crowded into the command tent. Most came either from the Clan of the Great Claw or the Horned Clan. Much like Lennart, they were captains in Nyrielle’s army and had served for well over a decade each, some of them twice that. Two figures stood out both for their lack of formal position and their membership in clans that had been long absent from the Vale of Mists.

"Well Milo," Bassinger’s deep voice rumbled after several minutes as he looked at the the Heartwood archer. "You and your men have done a very difficult job this past week. It must have been hard on you."

"The hardest part is holding back, Commander," Milo said with a polite bow that hid his pursed lips and tight jaw. Again and again, they’d been given orders to inflict injuries only but kill no one and again and again, he and the other refugees from his village with the skill to build traps or fight had followed their orders.

It hadn’t been easy, even when he realized that none of the men marching against them now had been in the raid on his village. It wasn’t personal, these men weren’t responsible for his brother’s death, but they represented the same insatiable human greed and bloodthirst nonetheless.

More than once, that slight difference, the fact that these weren’t the men who had killed his family and friends was the only thing that allowed him to aim for a leg when he could have sent an arrow through the human soldier’s eye.

It had been even harder when he had to round on his own people to hold them back from claiming some measure of vengeance against the humans. More than once, he had to physically grab a friend and pull him away to prevent violence from escalating to killing.

"I know," Bassinger said, placing a heavy paw on the younger man’s shoulder and meeting his dark, clouded gaze directly. "But this is war, not a single battle. Battles are brawls, wars are dances. Right now, we need to learn about our partner if we’re going to take the lead."

"And just what have we learned?" The woman who spoke was the second person in the tent who hadn’t come from the Vale of Mists originally. Dark hair flowed in waves down a face marked by crimson eyes that each held eight pupils and four, spider-like limbs protruded from her back, supporting most of her weight as she stood overlooking the map. On her shoulder, a long-legged spider the size of a man’s palm perched, its dark, beady eyes surveying the room as though it were trying to remember everything that happened here tonight.

"My Tusi entered their camp days ago," the woman said, gently petting the furry spider with a slender finger. "You have the names of their commander, their priest, their captains. You know their intentions. Now, they’ve figured out that we’re trying to systematically weaken them before assaulting the camp, so just what is it that’s been so important to learn that you won’t allow us to kill any of them?"

"Peace, Akshala," the bearish commander said, holding up his hands as if he wanted to surrender. "If the humans have concluded that we’re going to attack them after weakening them, then they have misunderstood the dance from the very beginning," he said with a grin. "That’s a very good thing for us."

"Then why?" Milo asked. He clenched his fists so tightly that his sharp claws bit into the palms of his hands even through his leather gloves. All these days, the men who followed him here had believed that they were softening the enemy for a critical strike, but if that wasn’t the goal, then what was?

"Akshala," Commander Bassinger said, lowering his rumbling voice to the gentlest tone he could manage. "You said that Loman Lothian collapsed tonight after healing one man, and that the other wounded have been made to wait until morning?"

"That’s right," the dark-haired woman from the Night Weaver Clan said, tapping one of her spider-like limbs in irritation. "Right now they have lost their support. If we attacked them this night, even the ones we didn’t manage to slay might still die from their injuries."

"That would be a pointless victory," Bassinger said with a shake of his head. "And one we couldn’t afford to win unless we were very careful to avoid the Lothian Priest. Most of you are young," Bassinger said, looking around the room at the faces that were as familiar to him as his own family as well as the two who weren’t.

Many of them were older than he had been during the last war. When he first marched to war, it had been as a common soldier, fighting in the front ranks, tearing into Lothian soldiers with his fighting gauntlets and even his bare claws.

The captains serving him now had been too young then to have gained real battle experience and there was much that they didn’t know. Or perhaps they’d forgotten because their days as a fresh recruit, when they soaked up stories of battle and glory like eager sponges, were too far in the past for them.

"Our target this entire time has been Loman Lothian," Bassinger said. "According to the reports gathered by Sir Marcell’s spies, Loman is a rising star within the Church. He has been given power beyond what men his age should possess and he has the ear of the High Priest. Recently, he’s been keeping company with Templars and Inquisitors and we’ve learned that a Holy Light Sword was granted to the Templar that serves as his personal guard."

"Now, what does that tell you about Loman Lothian?" the commander asked.

"If we kill him, it will only provoke the wrath of the Church," Milo said bitterly. "They will return with even more of their sorcerers, raining fire down on village after village until they vent their anger for killing their holy man. That’s why you said we have to be careful not to kill him."

"You aren’t wrong," Commander Bassinger said. "But you don’t know the humans well enough to know what we’ve been afraid of."

"You think he has the same power as their High Priest?" one of the horned captains asked. "Is that why you’ve been targeting him?"

"Not a High Priest," Bassinger said grimly. "An Exemplar. They are the chosen of the human god, the true rulers of the human Church. It is said that Exemplars have power that rivals that of Witches, that they cannot be exhausted as long as they fight beneath the sun and stars."

"That’s why I’ve asked you to pile up so many injuries on their soldiers," the commander explained. "I needed to see Loman Lothian’s limits. Perhaps, one day, he may become an Exemplar. I confess, I do not know how a human priest becomes one and the Church may be protecting him because they see that potential in him. What I do know is that he doesn’t have that power today."

"Humans with the power of Witches?" Akshala said with a derisive snort. "Fairy tales and folk legends. No one has seen a human with that sort of power on any battlefield anywhere. Someone is exaggerating the strength of enemies long dead to claim greater glory than they deserve."

Several of the captains shuffled uncomfortably at the accusation and a few even dropped their hands to their weapons only to still when their commander raised a hand and nodded in understanding.

"What little I know of Exemplars was told to me by Lady Nyrielle when I became her Commander," Bassinger said. "I understand that people from the outlying villages may have reason to doubt her words. I’m not asking you to put your trust in her. Instead, put your trust in the woman who told her that Exemplars should be treated much the same way we would treat a hostile Witch."

"Oh?" Akshala said, raising a sharply pointed eyebrow and looking at Bassinger with an intense, crimson gaze. "Which one of her progeny found this nugget of wisdom? Sir Thane? Or the Black Merchant, Sir Marcell?"

Even though her tone held a hint of mockery, seeing how many of the gathered captains still held their hands next to the hilts of weapons, she took at least a small step backward, using the titles the people of the vale used to refer to their human vampire overlords. She may not like her hosts, but as long as she was depending on them to protect the people of her village, there were limits to how much she could provoke them.

"I’m not privy to the details," Commander Bassinger said. "But it was a member of your clan who obtained the information," he said, shocking not only Akshala but everyone else gathered in the tent as well.

"The pronouncement that Exemplars resemble Witches came from the Mother of Thorns herself."