The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 446: Wounded Witches

Hours later, with little more than two hours before the sun would cast its harsh rays on the icy world of the High Pass, Nyrielle finally approached the chambers that Talauia had converted into a small clinic for Ashlynn and Heila.

The corridors leading here were lined with soldiers, many of them gladiators who had been defeated by Heila in the arena of the High Fen. Once, they had been the diminutive witch’s opponents, but many of them had come to possess a deep respect for the small, horned woman who fought with everything she had.

Now, hearing that something had finally brought her down, none of them felt even the slightest satisfaction at seeing the woman who defeated them suffer a similar fate. Instead, many shuffled nervously where they stood, adjusting their weapons in their sheaths or repeatedly checking the straps of their armor as if to ensure that it was still buckled firmly in place.

None of them had fought against the Frost Walkers. That honor had gone to Tausau’s Mongrel Horde and Savis’s Black Wolf Brigade. The implication that some of the greatest gladiators of High Fen’s current generation weren’t strong enough to fight in this battle spurred many more of them than were needed to show up here, where they could stand and protect the woman to whom they’d pledged their service...

But many of them wondered, what if their leaders had been right? What if they really weren’t strong enough to face the Frost Walkers at their strongest?

"Kurtz," Nyrielle said, more warmly than she’d spoken while outside the fortress, when she spotted a familiar figure standing next to the door. "Did you arrange all this?"

"Your Eternity," the horned gladiator said, dropping to one knee as soon as he realized Nyrielle was addressing him. "Madame Zedya and Captain Lennart have taken charge of securing the fortress. I asked a few of the big fellows to join me," he explained, gesturing to a pair of nearby Tuscan mercenaries. "The rest just volunteered."

"See that some of your men are able to rest, Mister Kurtz," Nyrielle said as she brushed past Heila’s loyal guard. "You are guarding my darling Ashlynn as well as your Lady Heila. The day is always more dangerous than the night," she said, entering the room and closing the door without waiting for a reply.

While the hall outside felt crowded with so many guardians, only a select few had been allowed inside while the Thistle Witch tended to her patients. To one side, Ignatious sat on a simple folding chair, holding Heila’s hands as she slept peacefully under a large pile of furs.

At the foot of the oversized bed, another small figure lay in an undignified heap, half covered by a small blanket of her own. Emmie had worked hard to fetch Heila’s things, helping Talauia to dress the Willow Witch in fresh clothes for sleeping and even following the Thistle Witch’s every direction to help wash away the blood and dirt of the battle while Talauia tended to her wounds but the night had been long and the young squire finally collapsed before she could return to a room of her own.

When Nyrielle examined Heila closely, it was clear that the diminutive witch’s complexion had improved under Talauia’s care, but she was still far too pale, with cheeks that looked sunken and a brow that trembled with the worries that haunted her sleep.

Ashlynn, on the other hand, looked much, much worse for wear. When Nyrielle entered the room, Virve and Talauia were carefully laying a thick fur blanket over Ashlynn’s torso, but her arms and legs were both left uncovered. Thick bandages wrapped around her feet and shins, and a strong smell of medicinal herbs filled the air as Nyrielle approached the foot of the bed.

The further up Nyrielle looked, the more her heart ached at the sight of her beloved. Wooden braces had been secured to her right arm, and bandages extended from the tips of her fingers all the way to her shoulders. Even more bandages circled her torso, and a thin layer of medicinal paste covered her frost-burned cheeks.

And yet, despite the severity of these wounds, Ashlynn seemed to be breathing easily. Her face looked calm and composed, as if she had set down her worries when Nyrielle arrived. The echo of her heartbeat in Nyrielle’s chest felt fainter than it should, but still beat with a strong, steady pulse.

"Thank you, Thistle Witch," Nyrielle said, folding away her wings and withdrawing as much of her dark aura as she could in this hostile place. "For everything you’ve done for her."

"Not enough, not enough," Talauai said, shaking her head while her wings trembled with anxiety. "Used up too much, and there’s no life here to give to her. No trees or plants to help her heal. If she wasn’t, if she wasn’t your Seneschal," the anxious witch forced herself to admit. "She’d have died, died from these wounds."

"That bad?" Nyrielle said, shocked at the Thistle Witch’s assessment. "I didn’t think that even ancient spirits could manifest the strength to hurt her so badly."

"She did it to herself, did some of it to herself, at least," Talauia explained, gesturing at Ashlynn’s right arm and the brace that held it firmly in place. "That sword, that flaming sword," she added, pointing at a box in the corner of the room behind Ignatious. "It burned her. Her gloves were wet and frozen, but the sword boiled the water inside her glove. She, she cooked her own hand just to hold that cursed sword!"

"Then, the hot and cold, hot and cold, it shattered her arm," the witch continued. "She has burns and frost burns on the same arm and her torso too. Her feet were frozen black and blue, and she bled in so many, so many places," Talauia said, tears filling her multifaceted amethyst eyes.

"When the sun rises, I want to put her in a wagon, put her in a wagon and take her to the forest in the Vale," she said firmly as she hovered protectively over Ashlynn. "She needs to heal, needs the forest to fully heal." freёnovelkiss.com

"I’m sure she does," Nyrielle said, reaching out to gently stroke her lover’s hair. "But not in the morning. Tomorrow night, we’ll sit in judgment of Hauke and the Frost Walkers. She needs to be there."

"No she doesn’t, no she doesn’t!" Talauia insisted, circling around the bed to confront Nyrielle directly. "Auntie Ashlynn doesn’t need to be there. You can be there. You’re still stronger than her, you can force the Frost Walkers to do whatever you need.

"And you can make them pay, can make them pay for doing this to her," she cried, her wings beating fast enough to fill the room with a high-pitched hum.