The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 423: Across the Bridge

Chapter 423: Across the Bridge

A heavy wool cloak hung from Laya’s shoulders as she tried not to shiver in the cold of the High Pass. When she became a vampire, she thought her days of fearing the cold were over. As a descendant of both the Ancient Clan and the Scaled Clan, she preferred to bask in heat and warmth whenever possible, and her thin, weak scales only made her aversion to the cold worse.

Since becoming a member of the Mongrel Horde, she’d left behind some of the weakness that plagued her as one of the misshapen Clanless, but even in death, bitter cold still seemed to be just as great an enemy as any she’d ever faced.

Underneath the heavy cloak, she clutched the heavy, flagged mace that she’d taken from her night in the arena in High Fen City. Lady Heila, the Willow Witch herself, had given her permission to keep the weapon after the battle she and her fellow Mongrels fought against convicts and condemned criminals when they arrived in High Fen City. At the time, Laya was considered one of the weakest members of the Mongrel Horde, but that night, inspired by the diminutive witch’s words, she’d lead the charge against the vile criminals who had been condemned to die.

It was the first time she ever tasted the sweet blood of victory, and since then, she’d fought in smaller arenas twice more. Neither battle was fought to the death, and she didn’t win both of them, but her chest filled with pride nonetheless. For years, she’d been cared for by the stronger members of the Mongrel Horde, but now, she’d proved that she could fight on her own. She’d even earned a purse full of silver by fighting in the arena and purchased a few simple treasures for herself before they left High Fen City.

All of this was something she owed to Lady Ashlynn and, more specifically, to Lady Heila. It wasn’t just the opportunity Heila bestowed on the Mongrel Horde, allowing them to prove their strength on the sands of the arena, but her words that night that had given Laya the courage to fight for herself instead of depending on her brothers and sisters within the horde.

Which was why, when she saw the Frost Walkers they’d traveled to this barren, cold place to meet with, Laya’s normally quiet heart exploded with rage and hatred she didn’t know she could still feel the instant Hauke attacked Lady Heila. Seeing the woman who had transformed her life, with her blood splattered across the snow, filled her heart with fury and painted a red haze across her vision.

The mace trembled in her hand as she listened to Lady Nyrielle snap out calm, clear orders to her sire Tausau and uncle Savis. Finally, she could do something!

"Mongrels!" Tausau shouted when he joined his progeny alongside Savis. "Our goal is the gate. Seize the gate and keep it open for Savis’s Black Wolf Brigade. We are the point of the spear! Do not stop, do not feed, but tear your way through these traitorous sheep until the gate is ours!"

A ragged cry rose from the vampires of the Mongrel Horde as they charged into the drifting cloud of snow that made it impossible to see what was happening beyond the bridge across the chasm separating Nyrielle’s army from the Frost Walker’s towering fortress carved from Ice and snow.

As the horde charged past Lady Heila, and the icy prison that held Lady Ashlynn captive, the brilliantly glowing blade in the Willow Witch’s hand pulsed brightly. What she said, even Laya’s enhanced hearing couldn’t make out over the noise of the Horde’s charge, but a soft, white point of light, no larger than a single snowflake, began to glow on Laya’s shoulder, and a similar point of light appeared on the rest of the Horde.

When they reached the cloud of lazily drifting snowflakes, the snow seemed to move aside for them, as if it was clearing a path to the bridge, and the balls of ice and snow that Heila formed within the snow cloud to pelt Lord Ritchel and his guards completely ignored the Horde as long as a glowing snowflake clung to their body in one place or another.

The distance to the bridge wasn’t far, and before she knew it, Laya and the others had emerged from the cloud of snow, coming face to face with an answering charge by Frost Walker hunters and soldiers, rushing desparately to reach the side of their beleaguered lord as he and his honor guard fought off the combined assault of two witches.

Before the Mongrel Horde could reach their first enemies, the Frost Walkers attacked, hurling heavy spears made of ice or pelting the rushing vampires with a rain of frozen arrows. Cold blood flowed from dozens of wounds, dying the frozen stones of the bridge a dark red as each drop of vampire blood froze instantly where it splattered on the ground.

Pain flared in Laya’s cheek as she barely avoided an icy arrow and a long, thin cut appeared on her delicate face an instant later, but she had no time to care as there were still more arrows of ice to endure before she could crush the skulls and horns of these vile cowards who wouldn’t face her weapon to weapon.

More pain wracked her body, this time accompanied by a deep, penetrating cold as an icey arrow buried itself in her left shouler, easily penetrating her heavy wool cloak and the thin, tender scales of her misshapen body that had never hardened into a protective layer of armor they way they would have if she’d been a pure descendant of the Ancient Clan or Scaled Clan.

Cold blood flowed down her tunic, and red haze obscured Laya’s vision as she pressed forward despite the pain. Sire Tausau had already reached the Frost Walkers, tearing into their ranks with a heavy darksteel blade despite his disproportionately short, misshapen arms.

The rain of icy spears and arrows didn’t stop, but it slowed, giving Laya the precious breathing room she needed to mark a target of her own and rush toward the young looking Frost Walker hunter with a pale blue horn and a heavy glaive held in both hands.

The young hunter’s pale blue horn glowed with a dim radiance as he gathered his magic, and a snarl formed on his lips, bearing his rows of sharp teeth at the short, misshapen Clanless vampire who dared to threaten him and his home.

"Die, traitor!" Laya shouted as she leaped into the air, propelled by a strength that no ordinary Clanless person could possess. With both hands on the heavy mace, she prepared to smash the horn that looked so perfectly pure, set in the brow of a man whose handsome face had never known the agony of struggling against a body that tried to kill the person cursed to be born in it.

The Frost Walker’s eyes narrowed at her approach as he refused to panic and began to counter the sloppy, amateurish attack. He shifted his stance, pivoting the glaive in a graceful arc that sliced through the air with a faint whistling sound, all but lost in the clash of battle around them.

"Filthy Clanless," he spat, his pale blue horn pulsing brighter. The air around him crystallized, forming a momentary shield of ice that Laya’s mace shattered with a thunderous crack, sending shards of ice scattering across the bridge like broken glass.

For a heartbeat, triumph surged through Laya’s chest. She’d broken through his defense! Following that moment of triumph, Laya’s heart was filled with anger, rage, hurt, and a desire to shatter the perfect, gleaming horn atop the head of a man who was lucky to be born the way nature intended. He’d been arrogant, confident that the Clanless could never hurt him, that she hated him more than she’d ever hated before and...

And none of her fury mattered. The shattered ice shield had been a feint to begin with, forcing her to make a move and commit fully to the attack. Even as her mace completed its arc, the hunter was already moving, sliding to her left with practiced ease, his glaive, no longer defending, but sweeping upward in a vicious thrust.

Laya tried to twist away, her vampire reflexes giving her just enough time to recognize her mistake but not enough to escape it. The cold metal bit into her chest, sliding through cloak and scales as though they offered no more resistance than fresh snow. Cold blood splattered across the young hunter’s white fur, and her heavy mace clattered to the ground without ever coming within an arm’s length of his glittering horn.

Shock filled Laya’s eyes, but strangely, there was no pain. For the first time that she could remember, the pain of her poorly formed body faded away. The world shifted and spun, and the red haze that had filled her vision turned slowly black as she tumbled through the air.

A moment later, as her vision narrowed, she saw a heavy darksteel blade slice through the neck of the handsome Frost Walker, sending his head tumbling after her as a furious Tausau appeared behind the man who had flung her into the darkness of the chasm below the bridge.

As she fell, Laya wanted to shout to her sire, to tell him that he didn’t need to be so angry for her. The pain that had plagued her for so long that she didn’t know what life was like without it was finally gone, and now... Now, as darkness claimed her, she could finally rest.

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