The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1242: The Search for Liam Dunn (Part Two)

"This isn’t how they fight at all," Loghlan said as he straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at the map. "Or at least, this isn’t how they fought during the War of Inches. In the last war, they’d grind us down. If they attacked one night, they would attack again at dawn, and again the next night, and again at mid-day..."

Loghlan closed his eyes as he rubbed his face with one hand, trying to scrub away the memories of some of those terrible battles. The demons had their own sense of rhythm, and they excelled at forcing Bors Lothian and his army to be eternally vigilant. The attacks often came just when they’d started to feel like the demons were done with their most recent offensive, forcing men to sleep in their armor in scattered naps here and there so that fatigue itself became a weapon in the demon’s arsenal.

Then, they’d stop, sometimes for days or even a week at a time, waiting for Bors’ forces to come out from behind their fortifications before they attacked again. It was brutal, unrelenting, and calculated to exploit the weaknesses shared by all of humanity. The need to rest, to eat a meal, and the impatience that would fill a man’s heart with a need to do something, anything, rather than passively waiting for the next attack to come.

"In all my years fighting them," Loghlan said, looking at his wife with gray eyes that were filled with worry. "And in all the tales from my father and grandfather before me, I’ve never heard of demons doing anything like this. They’re a ruthless force of destruction, not... not whatever this is."

"Unless they’re not demons at all," Mairwen said quietly, giving voice to the thought that had been growing in both their minds. The Church would have called such a statement blasphemy, but neither Loghlan nor Mairwen was the sort of person to shy away from a thought that might be true just because it didn’t fit the Church’s view of the world.

"Or maybe they’re not just demons," Mairwen added, her brows furrowing in thought. "Something else is at work here, Loghlan. Something we don’t understand."

She felt like she was standing on the edge of something that she couldn’t quite see. Like looking out over the rolling hills of the barony and only being able to see the hilltops and the forts or hamlets on them, while fog filled the lowlands and valleys. The parts she could see told her a story that didn’t fit with what she knew or expected, but unless she could part the fog to see what lay beneath it, she would never understand why the story was unfolding the way it was.

"That’s why I have to believe that Liam is still alive and out there somewhere," Loghlan said firmly, his gaze hardening as he stared at the map and all of the markers on it. "I think you’re right, Mairwen. Something else, or someone else, is directing things here. Someone we haven’t crossed swords with before. It’s the only thing that makes sense if these raids truly are different."

"There’s something else you should know," he added as he moved around the table to stand beside his wife, wrapping his arms around the soft waist that was no longer as trim as it had once been, but had grown full with time and love following the birth of their son.

"The official letter from Lothian said that Lady Ashlynn was killed when the Summer Villa was attacked," Loghlan said softly, as if he was afraid someone standing outside the tent might overhear him. "But my informants in Lothian Manor, the ones I pay to keep their ears open when the servants gossip, they overheard Sir Gilander saying something different."

"What did they hear?" Mairwen asked in a low whisper, wrapping her arms around her husband’s solid frame and leaning her head against his broad chest, where she could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart. "And how trustworthy is this gossip?"

"I’ve received the news from enough of our sources to put some trust in it," Loghlan said as he began to gently stroke Mairwen’s hair. "Gilander told someone that Lady Ashlynn had been taken prisoner when the Summer Villa fell," Loghlan said, his hand tightening slightly on his wife’s shoulder. "Not killed. Taken prisoner, along with all of the other servants in the manor. Just like we think Liam might have been."

"So if she survived being taken prisoner by these demons or whatever they are," Mairwen said, her voice gaining strength as she followed the logic, "then Liam could have survived as well. They might both be prisoners together. They might both be alive."

"Exactly," Loghlan confirmed. "One of the servants claims that Sir Gillander found tracks leading northwest from the Summer Villa, toward the Vale of Mists," he said, relaxing his grip and leading his wife over to the table beside the map. "But, what if they weren’t going to the Vale of Mists, but past it instead? Continuing north through the wilderness until they reached the same place that our stolen herds were taken?"

His wife nodded slowly, her lips pursed in thought. On the one hand, it made sense that a force of demons intent on taking captives would bring those captives together. On the other hand, it made no sense at all.

From the hamlets, the demons had taken only livestock. They took no prisoners and even killed a handful of ranchers and the soldiers who protected the hamlets. There had been bodies left behind, but no people went missing. In the Summer Villa, soldiers had once again been slain, but the servants were taken prisoner along with Lady Ashlynn. Why?

And when it came to their son, he’d gone missing with his entire escort of soldiers, yet no one could find even the slightest trace of a battle. He arrived one day in Maeril, returning with word of Bors Lothian’s decisions regarding the demon raids, and the next, he was gone like smoke, along with all of his men. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

When the demons killed soldiers, they left the bodies behind; they didn’t take trophies from their kills the way that humans did. So if Liam’s men had fought the demons and lost, where were the bodies and the signs of their battle?

The puzzle was infuriatingly incomplete, and it was the most important one Mairwen had faced in her entire life...