Page 17 of Beds and Blades

“I have never met a scholar of war who looked like you.”

I smiled.

A slow smile spread across his face in return.

The warmth that followed had absolutely nothing to do with the hearth.

Focus, Meghan Callahan.

I turned to Caen.

“The fortification,” I said. “What is it defending against?”

“Morvanna and her army of the undead,” Caen said.

I considered this.

“Do these undead happen to drink blood and have fangs?”

Caen blinked. “Yes. How did you know that?”

“We have stories about them in my world.”

“Stories?”

“Mythology. Fiction. A thriving body of fiction, actually. They’re quite popular. We call them vampires.”

“Well,” Caen said, “I wish they were fiction here, but they are regrettably real.”

“So how does a vampire army end up contained behind a military fortification?” I asked. “And who is Morvanna?”

“Morvanna was Queen of Newardia,” Caen said. “Four hundred miles south of here, on the coast. A remarkable ruler. Intelligent. Ambitious. Beloved.” Caen took a sip of deeproot. “She also feared aging. More accurately, she feared dying before she had finished everything she intended to finish. She turned to sorcerers who promised they could help.”

“I assume they could not.”

“Correct. They could not.” She set her cup down. “The magic these men practiced—we call it sorcery to distinguish it from the living arts I practice—works against the natural order. What it extracts from the practitioner does not return. Their bodies deteriorated. Their souls severed from the living world in ways that cannot be recovered. Animals recoiled from them. Forests went silent. Something in every living thing recognized what they had become.”

“They knew the cost?”

“They knew the cost in the theoretical sense.” She looked at me steadily. “They paid it, anyway. They paid it because Morvanna was a queen and the kind of woman who does not accept no for an answer. They attempted for her the one thing they had never attempted. True permanence. Immortality.”

“And what they got instead…”

“It was not what any of them intended. She did not die. She also did not remain what she had been. What woke up could not tolerate sunlight. Fed on blood. Could pass its condition to others. She turned her sorcerers first. Then her commanders. Then anyone who struck her as useful.”

“Vampires are generally difficult to kill in fiction,” I said. “I imagine a vampire queen is worse.”

“Substantially worse,” Caen agreed. Caen’s voice thinned on the last word. “She and those she had turned possessed strength no living soldier could match. They did not tire. Did not fear. Did not hesitate. It took years to push her back.”

“Years?”

“Years. Entire towns abandoned. Fortresses fell. Villages burned. Newardia’s armies could not destroy her. Morvanna could not destroy the armies of Newardia. Morvanna realized she could not break through a prepared defense without exposing her forces to daylight. The war changed shape.”

“A line was built.” Caen gestured toward the map on the wall. It was hand-drawn but legible, the outpost line marked clearly. “Five fortresses between the Zhaduun Mountains and Newardian territory. They keep her forces confined to the mountains and this valley. They intercept raiding parties before they reach the villages. They also deny her army the blood that amplifies them.”

“Amplifies?”

“Blood does not sustain them. That is the common misunderstanding. They can survive without it. What blood does is amplify. Blood fuels speed, strength, healing. An unfed vampire is already faster and stronger than any living soldier. One that has fed recently is something substantially more dangerous.” She held my gaze. “The line denies them that. Her forces have been contained.”