The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 713: Restrained War

"Why? Why would you do such a thing to your own people?"

Tiernan’s accusation hung in the air like a sword ready to fall, and the burly man struggled to remain seated as he considered the meaning behind Ashlynn’s words. He’d heard several times how Lothian March was different from Blackwell County. The rolling foothills in the shadow of the great mountains in the west didn’t have the benefit of Blackwell Harbor and the ability to send out fleets for supplies if a harvest was lean or storms damaged their mills and granaries.

In Lothian March, the autumn harvest was about building up supplies to sustain families through the harshness of winter. Some hamlets in Dunn Barony and even entire villages closer to Lothian City could become completely cut off from the outside world once the snows started to fall in earnest.

These last few weeks of autumn represented a vital time for villagers to sell what excess harvest they had in exchange for the things they couldn’t grow on their own. Losing a caravan now could leave a family destitute over the winter, and losing herds of livestock could mean empty bellies, not just for the families that raised the livestock but for the people in the towns and cities who would have purchased them to last through the winter.

Prices for everything would go up, and fear of additional raids would make people in the farming villages less likely to sell their own surplus on the next market day. Depending on how large these raids were, the effects could be felt throughout the entire march!

"How many?" Tiernan said slowly. "How many raids?" he asked, unable to stop himself as the need to understand what Ashlynn had done overwhelmed him. If it was something small, if it had been necessary for some reason he didn’t yet understand...

"A little over a dozen on the first night," Ashlynn said, cutting through Tiernan’s attempts to manufacture excuses to justify Ashlynn’s actions like a hot knife burning his thoughts away as she severed the notion that she wasn’t harming many people.

"Why?" Isabell asked, setting her cup of tea down on the small table next to her chair. "Why these raids? Why now?"

Tiernan’s face started to grow red when he turned to look at the gray-haired engineer, sitting patiently behind her silver-rimmed spectacles as though she were a tutor, giving Lady Ashlynn an exam.

For a moment, he wanted to shout at her, to ask her what reason could possibly justify attacking so many commoners, but when he saw the focused, evaluating look in her steely-gray eyes he choked down the hot words that wanted to spill from his lips and made himself listen to Lady Ashlynn’s answers.

"Why did my father ask you to build a second bridge over the Ilen river outside the city walls?" Ashlynn asked, forcing herself to take a calm sip of tea even as her heart felt like it would gallop right out of her chest.

Tiernan’s reaction was one that she expected, but the fact that he seemed to defer to Isabell gave her a chance to engage the engineer on logic instead of interacting with Tiernan’s hot emotions. She would have to respond to his feelings eventually, but first, like tempering a piece of steel, she wanted to allow him some time to cool down while she brought Isabell around to her way of thinking.

"There were half a dozen reasons," Isabell said as she recalled the project her guild had undertaken over the past three years. "The old bridge needed repairs because the footings were starting to crumble, but more than a hundred wagons and carts cross the bridge every market day. If we had to run ferries across the river, people would have to come to market a whole day early just to manage all the river crossings..."

"But Father didn’t just ask you to build a new bridge to tear down the old one," Ashlynn reminded the engineer. "He wants the old one repaired as well. Why?"

"The old one will just be for foot traffic, men on horses or small carriages," Isabell said, frowning as she tried to follow Ashlynn’s meaning. "He wants wagons and carts routed over the new bridge because the old bridge wasn’t intended to manage traffic for inspections and tolls, but the new one is... But what do tolls have to do with your raids?"

"Nothing at all," Ashlynn said. "But like Father’s bridge, the raids serve multiple purposes all at once. My armies need supplies for the winter, the same as the common folk of the march do," she said calmly, giving Tiernan a stern look that pinned him to his wrought iron chair.

"The only difference is that Bors Lothian has the option of sending supplies from the Eastern Barons to cover the losses in the west," Ashlynn pointed out. "But the Vale of Mists can do little now that heavy snow has begun to fall in the High Pass. It’s too difficult to get supplies from Airgead Mountain with Hanrahan Barony blocking most of the routes between our two domains and the Outlying Villages..."

Ashlynn’s voice trailed off as she drew a deep, calming breath, choosing her words with care. Tiernan’s response was reasonable, she reminded herself. He didn’t know what had happened to the people in the outlying villages, and if he knew, he didn’t understand, or he never would have asked how she could unleash her armies on the ’common folk’ of Lothian March.

"Owain burned the Heartwood Clan’s village down to the ground this summer," Ashlynn said in a voice that was colder than she intended, but it was the best she could manage. "Liam Dunn led his armies against four other villages this summer, destroying each one in turn. It’s in large part due to Ollie’s efforts that we were able to convince as many of them to evacuate to the Vale as we did." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"Now, there’s almost no one left outside the curtain walls of the Vale of Mists who could aid us and help us supply our army through the winter," Ashlynn said in a tone that was as unyielding as the chair that Master Tiernan sat in.

"So, when you ask me how I can do this to my own people," Ashlynn said. "Consider what would happen if I treated the people of Lothian March the way they treat the Eldritch. I’m not the only one in the Vale who is looking for revenge, and others here have lost as much as I have or even more. Given that... don’t you think we’re being rather restrained?"

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