The Vampire & Her Witch

At the edge of the Vale of Mists, a strange caravan made its way along the ancient roadway that, if followed to its end, would lead all the way through the High Pass before ending in High Fen City. Before anyone could enter the Vale of Mists and continue on further, they would be confronted by the Vale's first line of defense, one of the largest walls ever built in Eldritch lands.

The Vale of Mists lay nestled in a steep-sided valley along the River Luath and when Nyrielle had retaken the Vale from Lothian hands, she looked for the most defensible position to establish the new border separating the Vale from Lothian lands. In the end, she chose a point in the mouth of the valley between two steep cliffs more than ten leagues apart and built a series of towering walls between the cliffs on either side.

The outer wall was the tallest, from its base to the top of the wall it stood nearly forty feet high and at the top of the wall, it was more than a dozen feet thick. Moreover, every thousand paces along the wall, a small tower stood, providing rallying points that would prevent attackers from easily sweeping the wall if they could climb to the top of it.

Behind the first wall, a second, shorter wall lay just far enough uphill to place the first wall within range of a strong shot from a skilled bowman. The space between the two walls was normally used for the grazing of cattle and sheep, but in times of war, it could quickly become a killing field for anyone unfortunate enough to become trapped between the two walls.

Beyond that, the Vale's final wall stood at the top of a steep rise. Anyone charging the third wall would need to struggle uphill while defenders were free to bombard them using the piles of heavy stones or stacks of logs that were kept atop the wall, should the Vale of Mists ever find itself pushed back to the final line of defense.

Now, Sir Hugo Hanrahan and Sir Rain Aleese stared at the towering walls of the Vale with an impending sense of dread.

When they woke in the strange camp where Lady Ashlynn had left them, the first thing that struck both knights was how quiet the camp was. There were faint sounds of a few servants moving about and the shifting of horses against their harnesses, but soldiers weren't a quiet sort, especially after a night spent in a rough camp.

By the time the knights woke, there should have been at least a few men belly-aching, whether it was about the food, the camp, or just the eerie mist that enveloped them, but they didn't hear a peep of complaint from any of their soldiers, and when they glanced at the place where the men had bedded down the night before, they didn't see any sign of them either.

"Where are our men?" Sir Rain demanded, his hand snatching his sword from where it lay next to him on the cold, damp ground as he scanned the eerily quiet camp.

"You can relax," Sir Ollie said as he gestured toward a nearby wagon where a dozen forms lay motionless beneath heavy blankets, their chests rising and falling in deep, peaceful sleep. "They're still sleeping, we've just loaded them up in the wagon for the journey. Now that you're both awake," he added as he approached both men with a smile that looked gentle and amicable but for some reason, was even more terrifying than if he'd approached them with a naked blade.

"I need you to make a decision," Ollie said, folding his arms across his chest and making a show of not touching the hilts of any of the knives at his waist.

"What did you do to them?" Hugo asked as he stared at the unconscious soldiers, his mind reeling. How had they all been rendered so helpless without anyone raising an alarm? Just the act of picking them up to load them into the wagon should have woken them but they all looked like they'd been asleep for hours. Some of them had even rolled over onto each other, staying close for warmth through the cold night.

"The same thing I can do to you, if necessary," Ollie said gently. "You can enter the Vale of Mists as Lady Ashlynn's honored guests so long as you give your word as knights that you would conduct yourselves as gentlemen visiting a foreign nation, or you can join your men in peaceful slumber until we reach our destination."

"The potion that I added to their food last night will keep them asleep until after we've arrived," Ollie explained. "I'm sorry for the necessity, but just like Constable Daithi and Eamon, they'll need to spend a number of days in confinement before we're ready to let them have more freedom."

"Potion?" Sir Rain said with a frown. "Something like the essence of poppy?" the knight asked, instantly thinking of the medicine that physicians and even a number of priests carried to dull the pain of wounded soldiers. Among knights, it was considered shameful, close to abandoning their duties even, to indulge in medicines that dulled and clouded the mind in order to escape from pain, but if Sir Ollie had dosed all of the men under their command…

"It's something like that," Ollie said with a smile. "Lady Heila, Lady Ashlynn's lady-in-waiting, is very skilled at healing arts. Much better than my fumbling attempts," he laughed. "So, what will it be? Will you enter the Vale of Mists willingly as Lady Ashlynn's guests, or will you take a nap? There's no shame in the latter," he offered quickly. "If you feel like your virtues demand that you be taken prisoner, then we'll respect that."

"Willingly," Hugo said quickly, giving a panicked look at Sir Rain, fearing that the man would insist on being taken captive rather than submitting to… To whatever awaited them in the Vale of Mists. "We'll go willingly as guests," he insisted, summoning up all of his courage and committing to his decision. Though whether it was an act of courage to enter the Vale of Mists as a guest or an act of cowardice to escape being drugged and taken captive, even he couldn't say for certain.

Now, however, as the massive stone walls loomed ahead of them, Sir Hugo began to have second thoughts about his decision. Sir Ollie had said very little during the hours they spent in the carriage, and nearly an hour ago, the young knight had clutched his chest in pain as some kind of fit came over him. Ollie insisted that he was fine, but he'd become increasingly impatient to reach the Vale ever since that strange attack.

Worse, the sun hung very low in the sky and the mists had grown so thick that they could only see a few hundred paces ahead. The towering walls of the Vale loomed before them like giant headstones poking out of the earth and Hugo could already see the figures of several horned demons standing atop the walls, and behind them, the looming figures of claw demons, looking like they were ready to tear a man to pieces.

Directly ahead of them, however, striding out of the fog as if she'd been summoned by dark, unholy magic, was a figure conjured directly from the most terrifying of bedtime stories told by parents in the Kingdom of Gaal to their children. A single claw demon was already frightening enough, but to see one wearing the wide-brimmed conical hat of a witch turned even Sir Rain's knees to jelly and sent shivers down his spine.