The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 441: Explosive Clash (Part Two)

No matter where people stood, everyone with a view of the clash between Ashlynn and Ansgar seemed to lean forward, some taking involuntary steps and many stretching out their necks, hoping to see what had happened when two powerful artifacts, one formed of the coldest ice in the world and the other forged to call upon the heat of the sun, met in a ground shaking collision.

-CLANG- -TING- -TING-

-CRUNCH-

The Holy Flame Blade clattered to the ground, dropped by a hand so badly abused by the battle that it couldn’t possibly endure the force of Ansgar’s heavy overhand blow. An instant later, the Runic Blade of Eternal Ice cleaved into the stone and ice beside Ashlynn, embedding itself in the ground just inches from the witch’s feet.

"Let my friend go!" Ashlynn shouted, ignoring the fallen sword and lunging toward Hauke with her Severing Knife held high. Everything from the moment she charged forward to her desperate deflection of the icy blade had been for this moment, but if she couldn’t cut the horns away from Hauke’s body then all of this would have been for nothing.

"Frozen Sleep," Eugen’s childish voice echoed in Hauke’s mind as the juvenile Greenwind Healer made his move at last, unleashing a powerful burst of soothing wind that enveloped Ansgar’s mind, dulling his senses and trapping him within a moment of perfect, restful sleep.

"Eugen! Traitor," Eraric roared, summoning chains of ice to bind the youngest of the ancestors in place.

"Already decided, you have, and acted already too," Eugen said softly. Originally, he’d spoken in support of capturing the witch who bore a forbidden blade, carved from the horn of one of their descendants. Once the walls of the ice prison shattered, however, and the young healer had a chance to see the bodies piled up by Hauke’s father or tumbling from the walls above, he realized that the price Hauke’s clan was paying for their actions was already far too high, and everything he’d seen since then only made his earlier support feel like a greater sin.

"Wrong we were, to choose for Hauke. The witch, for him she fights, but for whom do we? For whom did we do this?" he asked, staring at the wall that showed the world outside Hauke’s mind and watching the young witch give her all not to obtain victory, but to rescue a young Frost Walker from his own ancestors. "Asked to do this, we weren’t..."

Before anyone could respond to Eugen’s words, a tearing sensation filled Hauke’s mind. Ashlynn’s knife was wickedly sharp and sheared instantly through the leather bandolier that held the Ancestral horns firmly to Hauke’s chest. Along with the leather, the curved knife descended rapidly, cutting away the bonds of magic that allowed the ancestors to control Hauke as they pleased.

Given time, Ashlynn could have removed the horns one by one in a way that was both gentle and respectful, but at the moment, she cut through everything, unable to care about the storm of energies that rippled through Hauke’s mind as the ancestors were torn from him, one after another until he was left alone, imprisoned in his own mind and watching helplessly as his body tumbled to the cracked and broken ground like collapsing snow.

Ansgar, Ines, Kimsel, Eraric and Eugen. For months, they had accompanied Hauke during every waking moment of his days and at times, even appeared in his dreams while he slept. He had grown accustomed to being one among many as he listened to their wisdom and studied their techniques. But now, Ashlynn’s knife had severed their bond, tearing them away and leaving him alone, still bound by Eraric’s sorcery, chained within his own mind as nothing more than a spectator.

He wanted to cry out, to tell Ashlynn that he wasn’t free yet, that she had to break the chains that held him prisoner, but no matter how much he shouted in his mind, his lips didn’t move and his eyes remained unfocused, staring up at the sky as a figure on dark, raven wings descended to the shattered ground of the battlefield.

Dimly, Ashlynn heard a ruffle of feathers, blowing away the surrounding cloud of freezing steam as Nyrielle arrived at last. The wind of her wingbeats revealed to the world that Ashlynn still stood while Hauke had fallen and lay helpless on the ground below. Then, after only the briefest hesitation while her midnight eyes roamed over Ashlynn’s battered, bloodied figure, wrapping her arms and wings around her lover in a gentle embrace.

"My darling," Nyrielle’s gentle voice said, soothing Ashlynn’s hurts with her simple presence. "I should never have left you alone here," she said, holding back the fury she felt at Ashlynn’s battered state in order to give her love all the comfort she could.

More than fury at the Frost Walkers, her heart trembled with the thought that Ashlynn might have fallen here, and it would have been her fault for jumping at shadows and leaving her alone. She never would have imagined in a hundred years that Hauke could learn enough from the ancient, nearly broken horns to threaten Ashlynn so much, but clearly she had been just as wrong about the threat her lover faced as she was about the cause behind Hauke’s betrayal.

"Mistress Nyrielle," Ashlynn said, dropping her Severing Knife to the ground and turning in Nyrielle’s embrace to gaze longingly into the other woman’s midnight blue eyes. In her mind, a brief fantasy of kneeling before her lady while two armies watched flickered past, like a scene from a story book, but now that she was here in just such a moment all she could think about was how she could cool the simmering rage she felt underneath the surface of Nyrielle’s gentle affection.

"I, I give you this victory," she said, feeling the weight of hundreds of gazes on her from every direction. After everything she had done to establish herself as a powerful, commanding presence in Nyrielle’s absence, one who could stop the fighting with the power of her words alone, she now felt like a trembling kitten, clinging to Nyrielle as her strength finally failed her.

"Hauke was possessed," she tried to explain. "The ancestors, their horns," she added, pointing to the gleaming iridescent Frost Walker horns that lay in a heap on the ground where they had fallen, still secured to each other by the leather bandoleer that she’d cut off of Hauke. "They wanted to kill Heila," she explained haltingly. "Because, because of the blade made from Paulus’s horn.

"I-I’ve severed their connection to him," she added, rambling on as she saw Nyrielle’s gaze becoming increasingly complex as the vampire realized how greatly she’d misunderstood things. "But there is still, still so much, much..."

Ashlynn’s words trailed off as exhaustion overtook her even though she was certain that there were things, important things, that she needed to say. Things about Ritchel and the leadership of the High Pass, and, and... And her mind couldn’t summon anything else that was important enough that she had to force herself to remain awake to say it.

In the end, it seemed, all that mattered was that she had returned to Nyrielle’s cool, comforting embrace. Anything that was important, she knew that Nyrielle would handle it well, and anything that dared to threaten her or her loved ones would never survive her lover’s fury.