The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 417: Forming Cracks

Chapter 417: Forming Cracks

Trapped within his own mind, Hauke watched helplessly as Ashlynn and stood in a deadlock with Ansgar and Ines until she kicked off of the frozen ground, wrenching her blade free and spinning. Ashlynn used pure momentum more than technique to bring her weapon around for another strike, trying to force an opening where there was none.

Ansgar blocked again, staggering slightly, ice cracking under the impact and sending fragments flying through the air like diamond dust in the dim light of their icy prison.

"She has no training," Eraric observed clinically from his pedistal. The entire time they’d been watching, his hands never stopped working on the blade in his lap. When the first side of the blade had been covered from hilt to point with dimly glowing, hooked runes, he simply turned the blade over and began carving another set on the opposite side. "All she seems to possess is raw power and determination. In life, Ansgar would have dismantled such an unprepared opponent in seconds."

Indeed, as he watched the battle heating back up, Hauke could see Ansgar’s growing frustration as his attempts at trickier combat maneuvers failed against Ashlynn’s brutally effective swings. When he tried to brush her blade aside to create an opening, even if it was a narrow one, Ashlynn simply powered through, ignoring his subtle positioning and forcing Ansgar to defend against her direct assault.

"Your body is not responding as he expects," Kimsel said, paying more attention to the fight occurring in the world outside of Hauke’s mind. "His memories tell him he should be stronger, faster, with greater advantages of reach and size. If he doesn’t adjust quickly, young Hauke may be badly injured."

"So let me talk to her," Hauke snapped bitterly. "Let me put a stop to this before he gets me killed and we all die!"

"Told you already," Eugen said. "Some things, more important than life are. Protecting your people, worth sacrificing your life is," he said with a grim determination that should never have come from someone who looked and sounded as young as the fabled Greenwind Healer did.

In the vision of the battle, a particularly vicious clash sent both combatants staggering backward. Ansgar’s ice gauntlet shattered completely this time, while Ashlynn nearly lost her grip on her falchion as the bitter cold numbed her hands. Both of them panted heavily in the frigid air, their breath creating clouds that hung between them like the ghosts of the ancestors watching the battle from within Hauke’s mind.

"No one can be allowed to wield a weapon made from our horns. You’re a witch, why can’t you understand this?" Ansgar demanded, his voice still resounding powerfully despite Hauke’s heaving chest.

"If one person cuts down a Frost Walker to make a blade, then another will do the same until the world treats us like we’re no different from trees to be cut down to build something else with," Ines cold, feminine voice added, hoping that cold reason would prevail where Ansgar’s brute force had failed.

"But we are not like your trees," the sorceress emphasized in a voice that was so cold it cut like the winter wind. "We cannot be replanted or spread across the world simply by scattering our seeds on a summer breeze. There are so few of us left that we must protect every single one."

"Just give up the witch who carries a blade plundered from one of our people," Ines said, trying her best to sound reasonable. "She wields a weapon that should never have been made, stolen from someone who deserved a chance for his horn to rest among his honored ancestors."

"She wields a traitor’s horn, claimed as compensation for the crime Elder Paulus committed," Ashlynn responded fiercely, readjusting her grip on her blade and doing her best to banish the cold from her limbs. After several minutes of fighting, she’d pushed off most of the oppressive, icy magic that sealed her own energy, but she was still too inexperienced with wielding fire to do more than banish the frost from her extremities.

"Even if that horn hadn’t been crafted into a weapon," Ashlynn said, using the opportunity of what might be a reasonable conversation to recover her breath and some of her strength. She didn’t believe that these ancestral spirits could be convinced with reasoning, or they never would have attacked without asking questions in the first place, but as long as she could keep them talking, she might be able to find an opportunity or even drag things out long enough for help to arrive. "Lord Ritchel himself intended to destroy the horn. It never would have found a place of honor among the horns of his ancestors."

For the first time, Hauke felt a flicker of uncertainty ripple through the ancestral spirits in the cavern. The mention of Ritchel’s approval had created a momentary doubt, the tiniest crack in their convictions, but the spirits quickly buried the thought as if it had been covered by fresh snow.

"She lies," Eraric declared, but his eyes held a hint of uncertainty as he looked toward Lord Ritchel’s son, wondering if there could be any truth to the witch’s words.

Before anyone could respond, however, Ansgar seemed to notice Ashlynn’s efforts to purge the icy energy that trapped her magic and threatened to freeze her extremities. With a bellow of frustration and rage, Ansgar charged again, forming not just gauntlets but forearm guards of ice that extended nearly to the elbow.

As Ashlynn met the charge with her own frustrated cry, Hauke renewed his efforts against the chains that bound him. That single moment of doubt might be all he needed to begin reclaiming control of his body before this tragic misunderstanding spiraled beyond repair.

Chained in place, Hauke felt utterly incapable of convincing these stubborn ancestors that things were different than what they knew. They were older, wiser, and had seen far more of life than he had. No matter what he said, at this point, he was convinced they wouldn’t listen. But if they wouldn’t listen to words, then he could only take control of the situation by breaking free of these chains.

"There must have been some time when we could accept justice that required the sacrifice of a horn," Hauke said, altering his approach to escaping the chains. Seeing Ashlynn stall for time to thaw her hands by keeping Ines talking inspired him to try something similar.

If he couldn’t break them by force, he would find a way to slip free, but to do that, he needed the ancestors who kept him captive to focus more on his words than they did on his actions.

"Are you just refusing to speak of them?" Hauke asked in an accusatory tone. "I don’t believe that in all your lifetimes you never found an ally you could trust with our horns."

"Even when we ruled Seven Peaks," Eraric said, standing up and holding his rune-covered sword aloft. "We never would have traded away our horns, not even the horns of criminals, no matter what our most trusted allies might have promised."

"In my era, we let it be known far and wide that if anyone found a member of our clan who had fallen in distant lands, we would give something far more valuable than a weapon crafted from our horns, so long as they returned the body to us with the horn intact," the Frost Architect said.

"After all," he said as the sword in his hands flashed with brilliant light before vanishing from the ancestral chamber. "A horn can only grow so large. But a sword forged of Eternal Ice..."

As soon as he mentioned the blade, the situation in the vision changed dramatically. Ines unleashed a brief but potent flurry of snow and wind, pushing Ashlynn away and giving Ansgar precious seconds to banish an icy gauntlet moments before Eraric’s runic blade appeared in Ansgar’s outstretched hand.

"You’ve stalled me long enough, witch," Ansgar spat. "But now, this ends!"