CHAPTER 791: REAL MONSTERS

At the edge of the forest, Ashlynn stood next to Constable Daithi, silently watching the assault on the Summer Villa unfold. Captain Ipiktok’s men had already broken the gate portcullis, but they were too large to easily batter down the inner gate on the far side of the gatehouse.

Rather than attempt to squeeze through, Ipiktok’s team of Tuscans were hurling the ram at the inner gate before dragging it back with heavy chains, only to hurl it yet again. The inner gate wouldn’t break as quickly as the portcullis had, but Ashlynn estimated that it would still only be a matter of minutes before the Golden Eyed skirmishers of the Black Wolf Brigade would charge through the gap. Already, they had gathered at the gate, ready to charge in as soon as there was a large enough break in the gate.

Suddenly, a deep anguished roar sounded from within the walls of the Villa, shaking the trees of the forest and startling several birds into flight.

All around Ashlynn, the red cedar trees began dropping needles in a slow, steady rain like tears sliding down their trunks. Around the trunks of nearby oaks, the acorns laying on the ground exploded in gouts of flame like hundreds of candles flickering to life before dying on the breeze. High above, the boughs of the towering hemlocks shook and trembled as if they were caught up in a storm that only the trees could feel.

"My, my lady," Daithi said, backing away from the nearby cedar tree that had begun to ’bleed’ thick, resinous sap. "What’s happening?" the confused constable said as he glanced at the men from Commander Bassinger’s first army who had come to help bring the villa’s servants back to the vale. Most of them were natives of the Vale of Mists but even they seemed spooked by the sudden outburst from the trees around them.

"Virve was right," Ashlynn said as she set a hand on her chest, feeling an outpouring of intense desires for violence, retribution and destruction from within her coven. "Sir Cathal must have had something to do with her father’s death during the War of Inches..."

After so many years, Ashlynn and Virve both understood that her chances of finding the man responsible for her father’s death were very small. At the same time, few people who weren’t knights were capable of killing a member of the Clan of the Great Claw, which meant there was a chance that one of the surviving knights from that war would be the guilty party, or at least know who was.

Virve claimed the right to capture and question the knights who had fought beside Bors Lothian in that war in the hopes that she would find an answer one day, and Ashlynn freely granted it. After all, Ashlynn understood all too well the need to find answers to resolve the scars on her heart. But to see results so soon...

"Tell your men to gather around the hemlocks," Ashlynn said as she surrounded herself with a soft, nurturing green the shade of mint leaves. "Even if their boughs shake, they will not fall and they will keep you safe from anything... dangerous," she said softly, grateful that the force of Virve’s emotions only affected the trees in the surrounding forest and not the weather itself.

If Virve’s anger called down lightning and thunderstorms the way Ashlynn’s had, she would have had to step in for Virve the way Nyrielle had stepped in for her. As is, however, she limited herself to protecting the soldiers while Virve fought to resolve the feelings in her heart with her own claws.

Inside the curtain wall, the frantic efforts to resist the battering ram slamming into the iron-bound wooden gate temporarily paused as all eyes turned to the gleaming figure of Sir Cathal in his armor and the roaring demon towering above him. Several people dropped their weapons in fear and the men who were pushing a wagon to block the gate slipped and fell when the sound of Virve’s roar hit them like a physical blow.

"You MONSTERS!" Virve roared as golden flames danced in her eyes. "You savage beasts!"

She’d known for years that her father fell in the fighting on Airgead Mountain. He wasn’t the only one who never came home from that pointless war but he was the only one who’d mattered to her. But even though she knew he fell, his body had never been found... and now she knew why. Because he’d been skinned as a rug to be trampled eternally beneath Lothian boots.

"Die!" Virve shouted as she lunged for the knight with darksteel tipped claws ready to tear him to pieces.

Sir Cathal had been waiting for the moment. He might not know who the tawny furred demon with the golden patches in his fur was, but he understood that the man was important to this witch. Important enough that learning his fate was certain to provoke rage, and when it did, he was ready.

Cathal raised his shield high, sliding his back foot back and widening his stance as though he were sitting astride his horse. The instant before the demon’s claws reached him, he turned, angling his shield in the same way he’d angle it to deflect a lance while jousting.

-CLANG- -SCREEECH!-

The sound of Virve’s claws grating off his shield could only be called quiet when compared to her scream of wounded rage and many of the soldiers watching covered their ears in pain. Sir Cathal, however, kept moving, following his deflection with a precisely aimed stab that would slide between the demon’s ribs and penetrate her heart.

Or at least, it should have, even through the heavy gambeson the demon wore. But when the point of his arming sword pierced the green and blue checkered garment, it barely sank an inch into her flesh before it became stuck, like he’d stabbed through the bark of a tree only to encounter the solid wood underneath.

-CLANG!-

Another blow from Virve’s claws bounced off his shield as Cathal staggered back, wrenching his sword free of the demon’s flesh with his right hand while flexing the fingers of his left, confirming that his arm hadn’t shattered under the force of the blows he’d absorbed so far. A thin rivulet of blood spilled from the wound he’d inflicted along her ribs, but it was far too little for such a powerful demon to even notice.

"Butchers, and murderers," Virve spat as she watched the veteran knight dance away. Rage had clouded her vision but she reigned it back in as she realized that fury and power alone wouldn’t overcome a man wrapped in three layers of armor who had spent even more of his life on the battlefield than she had.

"Ancient Oak, burn and blaze,

Scorch my foe, till death’s repaid!"

The golden flames flickering in Virve’s eyes spread and grew, enveloping her body in an aura of flame that scorched the grass beneath her feet and blazed with the heat of a bonfire.

"So this is a witch’s power," Sir Cathal whispered, backing up from the heat before forcing himself to stand firm. Yes, it really was a witch. The pointed hat wasn’t just for decoration. But even witches could bleed, he’d seen it already...

He just needed to find a way to cut her down before she burned him to death, and before the gate gave way to usher in giants who would certainly finish the job of killing him if the witch didn’t.

"BURN MONSTER!" Virve shouted as she waded forward once again, this time, with a tightly leashed fury that would only burn itself out when the knight before her had been burned beyond recognition.