The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 685: Leaving Camp (Part One)

Silence filled the camp like a thick mist, hanging over everyone and stifling their will to be the first one to speak, or even to move, for fear of drawing Lady Ashlynn’s attention. Darragh’s blood covered the entire length of the longsword in Ashlynn’s hand, but strangely, none of it had stained as much as the sleeves of her dress as she stood over the traitor’s body. freewёbnoνel.com

"My Lady," Marcel said quietly, appearing beside her as though he’d stepped out of the dancing shadows cast by the camp fire. "We have some time still, but we should make preparations and depart soon," he reminded her.

"Depart?" Sir Rain said, blinking in surprise at the youthful merchant’s statement. "It’s the middle of the night. Shouldn’t we camp here and move again when there’s daylight?"

"You’ll be staying until dawn," Ashlynn said, doing her best to shake off the thoughts that clung to her mind and shrouded her heart when she looked at Darragh’s corpse. She’d thought it would feel the same as when she’d killed Sir Broll, or perhaps Sir Kaefin. But Broll died in a duel, and Kaefin... Kaefin’s circumstances had been unique.

But executing Darragh didn’t feel like either of those men, and he certainly didn’t feel like the Tuscans she’d fought on the ice in the High Pass. There was no fight in Darragh. No struggle, not really. He was bound, gagged, and held by two other men. He had already been captured and he was no longer a threat to her... but he still needed to die.

Darragh was the first man she felt like she’d truly killed when she didn’t have to. He could have been imprisoned in the Vale until after the war. He could have been exiled, sold to the arena in the High Fen to never see human lands again. He could have suffered so many other punishments but she’d chosen the one that was the most definitive because she couldn’t give him another chance to betray the people who were close to her.

It was a choice she made, and one that she would have to live with. Part of her felt that she should have been more disturbed by it, while another part, a part that had been shaped by conversations with Nyrielle, Amahle, and even High Lady Erna... That part of her reminded her that doing the right thing for the people she was responsible for didn’t always allow her the luxury of making the decisions her heart might wish for. And if she truly thought about it, even her father might have agreed with the necessity of what she’d done.

"Almost everyone here will be staying until daybreak," Ashlynn said as she finally tore herself free of the thoughts that swirled through her head like a reed caught in the eddy of a river’s current. "Sir Ollie, bring them to the castle when you’re ready. They are to be treated as our guests," she said as she handed Sir Rain back his sword.

"Sir Rain, thank you," she said as he took the weapon. "Ollie will settle you in quarters befitting your station. In fact, Ollie, see if you can find them space near Ritchel’s quarters. Talauia is still tending to him so she’ll be nearby if they give you any trouble, and Hauke visits his father frequently. I’m sure he’ll be curious about our new guests as well."

"I’ll see to it," Ollie said, giving a formal salute with his fist to his chest in the human style rather than saluting as he would have in the vale, with his hand open to clutch his chest above his heart. "Gentlemen, I’m afraid we don’t have much to offer in this camp for such a large group to stay overnight, but I promise to make it up to you with a good meal in the morning and a better one when we reach the fortress."

"Fortress?" Hugo asked, wrinkling his nose and furrowing his brows as he tried to remember anywhere that there could be a fortress in this part of the march, if they were even still within the borders of Lothian March.

The most he could think of were ancient relics that might have been constructed more than a hundred years ago during the crusade. It wasn’t uncommon to build up a crude fort during a campaign that could then be rebuilt and fortified over time, but he couldn’t imagine any such relics having survived until the modern era.

"You’ll see when you arrive, Sir Hugo," Ashlynn called over her shoulder as she walked across the camp to Isabell and Tiernan’s waiting figures. "In time, Sir Ollie may even give you a tour of his village. For now, I suggest you fill your belly while the soup is still warm and get some rest. It’s sure to be an early morning for you tomorrow."

Behind her, Ollie exchanged a brief look with Eamon and Diathi, making sure both men understood the burden that would fall on them without Lady Ashlynn and Sir Marcel’s protection.

Neither man looked concerned, but still, they couldn’t deny that they were outnumbered by more than two to one and every person that Owain’s knights had brought with them was a soldier wearing armor and carrying weapons of war. There wasn’t a single servant or wagon driver among them.

With Ashlynn and Sir Marcel here, numbers hardly mattered. Either of them could have killed every soldier here in less than a blink, including the knights. Now, however, the only person who could approach that power was Ollie and he wasn’t entirely certain that he could handle everything by himself.

Decimating the soldiers was certainly within his ability, but Sir Rain gave him some pause as Ollie had never faced a knight in combat outside of the vision he experienced during his trial to become the Cypress witch. If push came to shove, he wasn’t entirely confident he could achieve victory, and if he did, it would almost certainly require killing the other man as he doubted that he could make such an experienced knight submit and surrender.

"Eamon," Ollie said, shaking off speculation about what might happen and turning his mind to practical matters instead. "We’re going to be short on space in the tents, so see if we can string up a tarp or two to help keep the mist off if it decides to rain. Daithi, talk to Sir Rain about getting their soldiers settled. I’d feel better if they would place their armor and weapons in one of the wagons tonight instead of keeping it close..."

Six months ago, Ollie wouldn’t have thought of half of the things that needed doing tonight, but his time under Sir Thane, Commander Bassinger and even Marshal Jakob’s tutelage had given him several new insights that helped him to take up the responsibilities Ashlynn had given him and he moved from one to the next smoothly as he organized the camp.

That was, of course, until Daithi raised a question that he felt only Lady Ashlynn could answer...

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