Giselle drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair at the head of the table as she waited for everyone to enter the room. Thus far, only two of the five captains of the Knights of L'Oriath present in Tru'Lis had arrived. The long meeting hall table had room to seat over fifty people. Her seat was where the Knight Commander would typically sit during important meetings. Seeing as he was currently not present, that put Giselle as the highest-ranking person in the room.
Auguste sat to her right, hands folded politely in his lap as he waited patiently. Captain DuHain sat several seats away, apparently knowing that he was about to receive a severe tongue-lashing. He kept his head down, refusing to look anywhere even remotely close to Giselle's direction. His curtain of wavy brown hair hanging down in his face did little to hide the embarrassment evident in his eyes. Captain Lambert sat next to him, his blond hair tied up neatly in a bun. He had not hesitated to occasionally glance in Giselle's direction despite the glare he would receive each time. Mostly, he also kept his head down and whispered quietly to DuHain.
"Where is Dyanna? And what about Fauste and Vaughn? I thought they knew the meeting was today?" Lambert whispered, loud enough for Giselle to hear.
"I don't know," DuHain hissed to his fellow captain. "I told them several times to be here by now."
The doors to the meeting room opened. Three more captains quickly entered the room, doing their best not to appear out of breath as they hurried to take seats at the table opposite DuHain and Lambert.
"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen." Auguste regarded the tardy captains with a polite but serious gaze. Giselle was not so gentle in her display of disapproval as they all bowed their heads and mumbled apologies for being late.
"Does Commander Allard allow such tardiness under his watch, First Captain DuHain?" Giselle asked once she had shot a scolding look to each of the chagrinned captains.
"No, Duchess. This will be disciplined after our meeting has concluded," DuHain said meekly, reluctantly raising his gaze to meet hers as he spoke. He quickly looked back down at his hands that he had folded tightly on the table in front of him, a subtle pink flush of embarrassment tinging his ears bright pink. He flinched as Giselle rose from her seat and began to pace a slow circle around the table
"The lords of the city should be with us shortly. While we wait for them to join us for the main reason for our visit, I want to make a few things incredibly clear to the five of you. The empress is not happy with what has happened in the city over the last month. Nor am I to hear that you all have been complacent enough to allow anything like this to happen while your Commander is away."
"Please, Lady Labelle, we are doing our best. But without the Commander...." Captain Zhovda lapsed into silence when Giselle fixed her with a warning glare.
"What about the Commander's absence warrants such negligence, Captain Zhovda? Are you all so incapable of thinking for yourselves?" Giselle asked. "Three dozen people are dead or missing. Lord Gaimunth and Lady Isendra are lucky to be alive. Had you been more proactive in patrolling the city, none of this would have happened."
"We're already stretched thinly, Lady Labelle. Between werewolves to the north and vampires along the southern border, we barely have enough people to spare that aren't assigned to protecting the leaders of the city." Captain DuHain seemed to have suddenly found his confidence. He kept his head up when Giselle stopped to look at him, but his brown eyes betrayed his nervousness. After a few moments of staring at each other, he lowered his head again.
"I believe the rich can fend for themselves well enough, Captain DuHain, if the records I've been going over are accurate," Giselle said. Auguste, as if to emphasize her point, shuffled the papers in front of him. "The only people of this city that should be under the direct protection of the Knights are the lords and ladies. Anyone else is a drain on precious resources that could be better spent elsewhere. It may bring in additional funds to treat your men like blades and mages for hire, but when you serve under the imperial crown, we'd like to see a bit more decorum from such a venerated Order like yours.
"The Empress is beginning to feel that her coin could be better spent funding the local guilds of bounty hunters. They have certainly risen to the occasion in trying to curb this incursion. And it would certainly be a cheaper and shorter-term arrangement compared to what we currently have with you." Giselle let her words sink in for a moment, noting the looks of disgust and disapproval that fleetingly flashed across their faces. How else would they afford to maintain their expensive armor and many outposts without money from the crown? "I will be remaining in the city until the lords and ladies feel that the incursion has been dealt with and put down. During that time, I expect complete compliance with any orders I give to you. Commander Allard, as far as I am concerned, is no longer in charge until we get word from his battalion. By decree of the Empress, I am to head this order until further notice. Understood?"
"Yes, My Lady," the captains said quietly, like a group of chastised children. Despite their submissive appearances, Giselle could tell that they did not like a single word she had said. Having an outside power dictating their actions was never something the Knights enjoyed. Now, they had little to no autonomy with Giselle in charge. As of late, she considered that to be the best course of action, even if the common folk saw it as an aggressive expansion of imperial power.
The chamber doors opened again as Giselle returned to her seat at the head of the table, satisfied. Lady Mordona Macneera, Earlina of Elenne, and her young twin sons were the first to enter the room, surrounded on all sides by their guards. She was a short middle-aged woman, with grey streaking her light brown hair. She walked with a commanding presence that Giselle had always respected. She took the seat on Giselle's left, regarding her with a polite but tired nod. Her two sons followed suit before quickly turning to one another to whisper about something unrelated to the meeting. Giselle didn't think this was the place for two twelve-year-old boys to be, but she understood their mother's desire to keep them close. After what had happened to the Labelle family ten years prior, all of the empire's nobility had become increasingly paranoid about the safety of their families.
Lady Isendra Greymoore, standing Earlina of Ilham, entered the room next, accompanied by her court mage. Isendra was close to Giselle's age, barely twenty-five years old, but she looked to be almost ten years older with how tired she looked to be. Since her older brother went missing, she had taken on many responsibilities that her aging father could no longer attend to. Giselle understood that burden all too well. She took the seat beside Auguste while her court mage stood against the wall behind her. Auguste greeted her, asking quietly about her father. All she did was shake her head, which did not bode well for his health. She looked as though she had been crying at some point this morning.
Lord Arion Omura, Earl of Ohma, entered last, followed by his youngest son. He was the oldest of the earls, close to seventy years old, if Giselle was remembering correctly. His black hair and beard were almost completely silver now, compared to the last time she had seen him. His face seemed permanently frozen in a slightly disapproving frown. His piercing blue eyes gazed icily at the five captains seated at the other end of the table before he sat beside Lady Isendra, placing his son in between them. His son, Rolin, blushed furiously as his father said a polite greeting to her and urged his son to do the same.
With everyone gathered, Giselle cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. "Now that we are all present, let us get this meeting underway so that we may all return swiftly to our duties. Empress Esmée has sent me here to address the vampire incursion directly. Any and all information that any of you have will be immensely helpful in ensuring that I can track down these monsters and slay them once and for all.
"Lady Isendra, I understand Ilham has been hit particularly hard by these attacks. Is there anything you have learned from any of the guild masters over the last few weeks?"
"It is both my pleasure and regret to inform you that the bounty for the vampires responsible for the incursion in Ilham was fulfilled yesterday morning, Lady Giselle," Isendra said. "The Huntress Valerie brought me twenty-three heads. She brought them down by herself with no guild backing and assured me that these attacks would slow, but not stop. I do not know this bounty hunter, but the guild masters seem to assure me that her word is good as gold."
"Ah, yes, The Witch. We were fortunate to have her arrive when she did," Lord Arion said, stroking his beard. Giselle exchanged glances with Auguste. Sure enough, there was the name again. It seemed they truly would have to seek this woman out. "She does exceptional work. But what makes her so sure these two dozen are the culprits?"
"Pyrdel, if you could relay what the Huntress told you?" Isendra beckoned her court mage to come forward.
The mage nodded, drawing back the hood of his red robe. He bowed to Giselle before speaking. "The Huntress Valerie had an amulet with her that she claimed belonged to a vampire supremacist cult. She killed two of their leaders, insisting that they were the main cause of the sudden attacks. Their death would scatter the hoard, but not eliminate the threat entirely. She rather bleakly explained that it would only be a matter of time before we saw this supposed cult raise its head again."
"This huntress is wise, it seems. There are not many Halaani witches left these days. It is a blessing to have one in your city that is so skilled." Auguste said thoughtfully, raising a hand to stroke his own beard thoughtfully now. "If this bounty hunter has killed the leaders in the area, then you don't have much left to fear from them for now. Thorough sweeps of the districts with the help of the knights should suffice in ensuring that they don't manage to regroup.
"I am curious though, Master Pyrdel. How did she know that they were involved in a cult? And did she name it specifically?"
"Huntress Valerie had an amulet that she had taken from one of the bodies. It was an old third empire symbol for the god Attan. A peculiar symbol. I'm not entirely sure why the undead would be interested in using it for anything meaningful."
Giselle's stomach clenched at the description of the amulet. The Hands of Death were here in the city. Worse still, this bounty hunter had killed two of the first leads she had come across in months. It seemed she and Auguste were obligated to track down this bounty hunter now. She had vital information if she truly was familiar with the cult. Auguste seemed equally as concerned by the news.
"Thank you for the information, Lady Isendra and Master Pyrdel. Does anyone else have any information about the vampires they wish to discuss?" Giselle asked.
Lady Mordona merely expressed a sudden drop off in attacks in her district over the last two weeks, but noted that there had been an increase in attacks along the eastern highway leading toward Cintois. Giselle grimly acknowledged that she knew that fact all too well, and counted her blessings that she had not been one of them.
Lord Arion said that his local guild masters had been having immense success in culling the undead's ranks in the city, having reported over a dozen confirmed kills over the last week. The captains, not surprisingly, had little to add to the conversation, muttering about a confirmed kill here and there but little else. Not even their efforts to the north seemed to be having much success in hunting the lycans.
"I am confident that the Huntress meant what she said about not having much in the way of trouble from the vampires for now. But, will you be staying to ensure that the undead incursion has truly been stopped, Lady Giselle?" Lord Arion asked.
"I will be staying a few days to conduct my own investigation into this supposed cult. But if it appears that this Huntress did my job for me, then I will be returning to report my findings to the empress." Giselle glanced over at the captains, none of whom dared to meet her eye. As much as she wished to humiliate DuHain further, fueling animosity between the city's leadership and the Knights was not in her best interest. "Though, I will be visiting the area more frequently from now on. Please, if any of you have any concerns, let me know."
"If no one has anything else to add, I believe that is all we are here to discuss. Safe travels home to all of you. " Auguste rose from his seat, signaling the end of the meeting. He walked Lord Arion and his son toward the door, asking after family relations and friends. Lady Mordona ushered her two young boys toward the doors, fussing over their hair and their capes dotingly as she reminded them of their schedule for the day. They merely nodded disinterestedly and walked along whispering to one another. Lady Isendra rose to leave, but Giselle called her back, waiting until the captains had scurried out the door.
"Do you require something, Lady Giselle?" Isendra asked.
"You don't look well, Isendra. Has something happened?" Giselle asked.
Isendra rubbed the bridge of her nose as she sank back into her chair and leaned over the table. Giselle sat beside her, concerned. "I ought to be relieved that this nightmare with the undead might finally be over, but I just feel sick to my stomach. She... She brought me Talondin's head! He was one of them, all this time."
"The Witch killed Talondin?" Giselle placed a hand on Isendra's back. As far as she knew, Talondin had disappeared years ago and was presumed dead after several months when no ransom came.
"She marched right into my throne room clutching his head like a trophy. I don't think she knew who he was, but she made a big emphasis that I should expect more attacks on my family in the future even though he's dead. I haven't told my father yet. My steward and I agreed that the stress wouldn't be good for his recovery.
"I had to have Pyrdel burn the head. I couldn't stomach the sight of him. He looked terrified. I don't want to know what that bounty hunter did to him before he finally died, but I'm glad all I had to see was the head. For all I know, she could have tortured him."
"Was your brother one of the ones wearing the amulets?" Giselle asked. It didn't feel right to be questioning her friend when she was grieving, but if Talondin had been involved with the cult, it was of the utmost importance to track down this bounty hunter to get answers.
"Yes, she made that abundantly clear to me. She at least had some heart not to wave it in my face too harshly," Isendra said bitterly. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose had begun to flush pink. Her hazel eyes had become glassy and tinged with red. "Talondin was a monster... and he wanted me dead. He wanted us all dead. Gods, Giselle, he probably was the one that lead the attack on our carriage! They all wore these terrible masks, strange effigies for some dark creatures. And they were laughing as we screamed." She shuddered, a few tears streaking down her cheeks as she clutched her arms tightly around herself. After she took a deep breath, she continued. "I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad they're all dead. I ordered a group of men to bring his remains back to be burned privately and to ensure his signet ring is not found amongst the undead should the scene be discovered later.
"You won't speak of this to anyone else, will you? If word gets out, then I fear the people may suspect that my father and I are also undead." Isendra asked her, reaching over and grabbing Giselle's hand tightly. Giselle squeezed her hand back and gave her a bracing smile.
"I won't. I promise. I'll ensure the knights have ample protection around your family and the other two Earls, alright? I'm here to help you." Giselle looked up briefly when she saw movement by the door. Auguste waved for her to follow him, signaling that it was time to get moving. "Would you like an escort back to the keep?"
"No, I know you have work you need to get done. Tracking that witch won't be easy."
"She did mention where she was going, my lady." The court mage stepped forward. Despite his obvious desire to be gone from the citadel, he seemed concerned for Isendra. Giselle had seen him casting the occasional worried glance in her direction throughout the meeting. "She mentioned being called east toward Cintois. I am not sure how much longer she will remain in the city, but I doubt it will be very long."
"Thank you, Master Pyrdel," Giselle said. She gave Isendra's hand a final squeeze. "May I call on you to say goodbye before I leave for Cintois, Lady Isendra?"
"If you have the time, you are always welcome at Greymoore Keep, Lady Labelle." Isendra rose from her seat, pulling her hand away. She at least seemed to be feeling a touch better, judging by her attempt at a grateful smile. "Until we meet again."
Giselle also rose from her seat and followed Auguste out of the room. Once Isendra and her entourage had left the area, Auguste took a step closer to her and whispered in her ear. "We should make haste to catch Lord Arion before he leaves the citadel. Lady Isendra can wait until later for your moral support."
Giselle clenched her hands into fists at her sides, feeling a furious blush rise to her cheeks as she followed her steward down the stairs at a brisk pace. "She is a friend, Auguste. She has no one else to talk to with her father on the brink of death."
"As you say, My Lady," Auguste said, the faintest hint of a knowing grin on his face. "Lord Arion seemed as though he knew this Witch in some capacity. If she is more well-known there, then I suggest we start in Ohma."
"Very well, Auguste. Lead the way."