The Vampire & Her Witch

"None of us may survive the winter!"

Liam Dunn's bold declaration shocked everyone present, especially when he mentioned the Undying Demons, the scourge led by the Demon Lady of the Vale who ravaged the countryside a hundred years ago and recaptured the Vale of Mists from Lothian hands.

"You know them to be Undying Demons?" Diarmuid blurted, lurching to his feet as he was unable to restrain himself when he heard something so shocking. "Has a Templar or Inquisitor confronted them in your barony?" the Inquisitor asked as he stood, staring at the young lord of the Dunn barony with an intense stare.

"We have witness accounts," Liam said, shaking his head at the Inquisitor. "From at least two of our hamlets, where men saw the demons attacking the night before the storm. One of them even found the bodies of our fallen soldiers drained of their blood. If not the Undying Demons, who can only be killed with Holy Light and Fire, what else could it be?"

"Many things," Diarmuid said as he slowly sat back down. "More than you might imagine, young lord Liam. Many times over the years, men have attempted to invoke the fear of Undying Demons by draining the blood from the bodies of the slain in the same way you drain the blood of slaughtered cattle and goats."

"Indeed," High Priest Aubin said while gently stroking his thin white beard. "It is best to avoid wild speculation about something as shocking as the return of Undying Demons. But you said there were witnesses as well. Did they describe these demons in detail?"

"My father is still gathering the details," Liam said, clenching the small scraps of paper he'd received from his father in his fist while he struggled to bite back the hot words on the tip of his tongue.

Liam had been in the Village of Maeril, overseeing the loading of their goods onto barges when the unnaturally fierce thunderstorm struck. He'd been delayed by a full day as he and his men worked to retrieve the pair of barges that had broken free of their moorings in the storm. When he returned to Sir Garrick Maeril's castle that evening, there had been half a dozen messages carried by pigeons waiting for him, each one more concerning than the last.

In a few days, Liam was certain that he would learn a great deal more, but now, he had only a few cramped lines of text and his father's dire warning to present at the meeting of the Lothian Court. And if he failed to convince these men of the danger…

"The witness account describes the demons as twisted creatures," Liam said as he unclenched his fist and carefully smoothed out the slips of parchment on the table in front of him before selecting one to read. "It had horns like a steer and scales like a snake with claws as sharp as a hawk's," he read, shuddering at the thought of such a potent demon.

"Preposterous," Baron Otker snorted. "Demons are creatures that blend the features of man and beast, but they never possess the features of multiple beasts. Likely, you were attacked by cattle rustlers wearing crude masks and putting on a show to stop your soldiers from chasing them."

"No, that might not be true," Loman said carefully, glancing at the High Priest and waiting for the old man's gentle nod before he continued. "In the sealed archives of the Church, there are tales of demons known as Twisted Ones, demons who result from the union of two different types of demon. They are weak, cursed beings so filled with evil and wickedness that their bodies fail them not long after they're fully grown, if they even live that long."

"Twisted ones are just as rare as Undying Demons," Diarmuid countered, frowning at the way the young lord had casually mentioned the sealed archives. He may have received permission from High Priest Aubin to speak about the Twisted Ones, but that didn't mean he should casually reveal that he was in possession of the church's secrets, especially while he wasn't wearing the robes of a priest.

"We may still be looking at men in crude masks," the Inquisitor continued. "Because Twisted Ones are the weakest of all demons. Even a housewife armed with a pitchfork could overcome one of these cursed creatures. I doubt they would cause much trouble for the soldiers of Dunn Barony who fought so bravely against the demons this summer."

"What if, what if they aren't Twisted Ones or Undying Demons," Bastian Hanrahan said as he stood, unfolding a large sheet of parchment as he spoke. Unlike Liam, Bastian had ridden here directly from Hanrahan Town once they'd learned what happened to Sir Carwyn's caravan, and he brought with him an artist's rendering of the demons one of the wagon drivers saw.

"Our caravans were attacked in broad daylight, and one of the survivors was able to describe the demons he saw to an artist in my father's court," he said, holding up a charcoal drawing that featured a serpentine demon wearing the armor of a knight. Once he'd displayed the first drawing, he passed it over to Baron Otker before holding up a second one, this time featuring a demon with a powerful, muscular chest and a head like a lion's, complete with a wild, flowing mane and wicked, hooked axes in each hand.

"Loman?" Bors asked from his throne as he peered at the drawings. "Have you heard of demons who resemble these in the records you've reviewed? Are these a new kind of demon we haven't fought before?"

"I, I don't know," Loman said with a frown as he studied the images. "They match up to sketches of some of the Undying Demons from a hundred years ago," he admitted with a heavy sigh. "But Young Lord Bastian said that their caravans were attacked in broad daylight. The Undying Demons cannot face the light of the Holy Lord of Light, even if the sun is hidden behind clouds. Sunlight sears their flesh, and they would burst into flames."

"And this armor," he said, tapping the first image of the serpentine demon. "This armor looks similar to the armor worn by the Crimson Knight, but even the Crimson Knight has never been seen in daylight."

If the demons had figured out how to create an armor that would allow their most powerful forces to move with impunity during the light of day, then Lothian March was as good as doomed. But Loman's faith refused to accept that something like a suit of armor would be enough to allow an Undying Demon to bask in the cleansing light of the sun.

No, he thought, there had to be another explanation for these strange demons… But what?