Chapter 195: Valdris

"Are you having a good trip, Count Rubenhart?"

Ulrich held the stranger’s gaze without a word. The fire behind him cast a low red sheen across his eyes, turning their natural color darker, deeper, until they appeared almost black at the edges.

The man remained smiling beneath that stare.

"My apologies," he said. "I failed to introduce myself when we met at the ballroom." He placed one hand over his chest and bowed slightly. "Valdris Nedomian. War-Mage Commander in service to the Valmorian Empire."

"Valmoris," Ulrich said, narrowing his eyes.

Far beyond Skargardia’s east lay the Valmorian Empire: a large and disciplined human dominion that had raised its cities, roads, and armies through generations of conquest. Its nobility did not inherit security simply because of blood. Strength earned rank there, retained it, and took it from those who proved too weak to keep it. Their soldiers trained from childhood. Their mages served their legions as weapons of war. Their craftsmen forged arms and armor whose quality few kingdoms could equal.

Ulrich knew enough of Valmoris to understand that a commander of its war-mages did not wander through foreign lands without purpose.

He did not know why Valdris had come for the sisters.

"Leave," Ulrich said.

The threat in his voice did not need embellishment.

Valdris let out a small laugh, though his eyes did not leave Ulrich’s face.

Boots disturbed the grass outside the crimson barrier.

Figures emerged from the darkness one after another. Their armor was blackened metal, fitted close over their bodies and stripped of every unnecessary ornament. Moonlight caught along ridged pauldrons, hooked helmets, and the edges of long weapons carried at their sides. They formed a loose line beyond the barrier, their movements ordered, their armor producing a restrained clatter whenever one shifted position.

"My lord!"

Hendrick’s voice cut across the camp.

Rubenhart knights rose from their places around the fire. Swords came free of scabbards. A few moved toward the large tent at once, placing themselves between the sleeping sisters and the border of Ulrich’s barrier. Others fanned out across the clearing, watching the unfamiliar soldiers through the faint crimson shimmer.

"There is no need for bloodshed, Count Rubenhart," Valdris said. "This matter may yet end without it."

"What do you want?"

Valdris’s smile returned, broader this time.

"Only the three young witches under your protection."

"No."

Ulrich answered before the last word had properly left Valdris’s mouth.

Valdris’s expression remained composed, but his hand lowered from his chest.

"I am aware that you took them in knowing what they are," Valdris said. "I am also aware of their talent. Yet talent requires proper cultivation. Those girls possess the potential to become far more than servants hidden behind a mere Count’s walls, or weapons trained in the customs of a kingdom that fears witchcraft whenever it cannot control it."

His dark gaze drifted past Ulrich toward the distant tent.

"They do not belong here. Skargardia will never offer them what Valmoris can. In my Empire, their magic would be taught, sharpened, and given purpose. They would stand among people who understand its value."

"You have said enough," Ulrich replied. "You will not take them."

Valdris watched him for a few seconds. The pleasantness left his face by degrees, replaced by open disappointment.

"That is unfortunate."

He raised his hand.

A sword appeared in his grasp.

It had no visible sheath, no flash of spell-light announcing its arrival. One instant his hand was empty; the next, long black steel rested within it. The blade seemed to drink the pale moonlight rather than reflect it. Its guard curved like talons around a dark grip, and thin runes ran along the fuller, dim as old ash.

"That barrier of yours is admirable," Valdris said, lifting the sword toward the crimson boundary. "It would trouble most mages. A ward strong enough to keep enemies out while warning its maker of every disturbance is no simple work."

He moved closer until the sword’s point hovered a finger’s breadth from the barrier.

"In Valmoris, however, we learned long ago that magic cannot be allowed to remain beyond reach. Mages are useful in war, Count Rubenhart, but they are also dangerous. An army that cannot answer magic becomes prey to it."

The runes on the black blade began to glow.

"We learned how to fight with magic. We learned how to fight those who wield it. And when the enemy’s magic is stripped from the field, they are often left with very little."

Valdris thrust the sword forward.

The blade struck the invisible ward.

Crimson light burst across the clearing. The impact sent a violent tremor through the barrier, its surface briefly revealing itself in a vast curved wall of red radiance. Ulrich felt the blow through the spell itself with a brutal pressure driven into the structure of his magic, searching for weakness.

A sharp crack rang out.

Thin fractures spread from the point where Valdris’s sword had entered the ward. They crawled outward in branching lines, glowing a feverish red before fading into the barrier’s surface.

Ulrich lifted his hand.

His sword came to him immediately, summoned from his space ring.

"Hendrick," he said, never taking his eyes from Valdris. "Wake the girls. Put them under guard."

"My lord."

Hendrick turned at once. Two female knights broke away from the formation and hurried toward the tent, their hands already on the hilts of their weapons. Around the camp, the Rubenhart knights tightened their line while the first crack in Ulrich’s barrier widened beneath Valdris Nedomian’s black sword.

"This is my last warning, Count Rubenhart."

The crimson ward gave way in splinters of mana. Red fragments scattered across the grass and faded before they could touch the ground, leaving Valdris’s face fully exposed beyond the broken perimeter.

"Withdraw," he continued. "We will take the girls, and no one here needs to suffer for your refusal."

"Do you need me to spell it out?" Ulrich answered back. "Get out."

Valdris’s mouth flattened.

"You will not leave this place alive, Count Rubenhart."

"We shall see."

Ulrich closed his hand around his sword’s hilt.

Crimson mana surged over the blade, winding along the steel in dense bands of runic light. The reinforcement spell strengthened the weapon from its edge to its core, binding mana into every inch of metal until the sword shone red against the night.

Valdris stared at it with mild interest.

"Take the princesses," he ordered.

The black-armored knights moved.

Valdris moved with them.

He crossed the distance between them so quickly that Ulrich saw only the black coat snapping behind him and the brief gleam of the anti-magic sword. Instinct turned Ulrich aside. He shifted one step to his left, barely clearing the line of Valdris’s first strike, and swung in return.

Their swords met.

The sound pierced through the camp.

Pain shot through Ulrich’s hand. His fingers nearly opened around the hilt as numbness raced from his palm to his wrist. The crimson spell around his sword burst apart at the point of impact, its runes breaking into scattered red sparks.

Ulrich did not retreat immediately. He watched.

Valdris’s sword had not merely overpowered the reinforcement spell. The dark blade struck through the runic structure itself, piercing the connected lines that held the spell together. The individual runes remained for a fraction of a second, but without the threads of mana binding them into a complete formation, the enchantment could no longer endure.

An anti-mage weapon.

A dangerous one.

Valdris came again.

His sword cut down toward Ulrich’s shoulder. Ulrich raised his blade to meet it, and another shock ran through his arm when black steel struck crimson-coated metal. His grip remained firm, though the force of the blow drove him half a step back over the wet grass.

The Valmorian commander was strong. Far stronger than his lean frame suggested. His weapon also possessed a quality Ulrich’s sword could not match.

Clang!

Valdris turned his wrist and attacked from the side, aiming for Ulrich’s ribs.

Ulrich shifted his stance and received the strike. Rather than meeting the full weight of the blow, he angled his sword and guided Valdris’s blade away from his body. The impact still jarred his arm, yet Valdris’s momentum carried him a step past the line he had intended.

For an instant, his guard opened.

Ulrich moved before the other man could recover.

He pivoted on his heel and drove a roundhouse kick toward Valdris’s head.

The commander’s eyes widened. He lifted an arm to shield his temple, but the kick landed against his forearm with enough force to send him sliding several paces across the grass. His boots tore shallow furrows in the soil before he caught his balance.

Ulrich did not pursue.

He jumped back and looked toward the camp.

The Rubenhart knights had already met the Valmorian force. Steel flashed among the tents and bedrolls. The invaders outnumbered them nearly two to one, and their disciplined advance pressed the Rubenhart formation inward. One of Ulrich’s men lay facedown near the dying edge of the fire, blood spreading beneath his breastplate. Another had fallen near the stream, his sword still trapped beneath one hand.

Hendrick fought at the center of the defense, holding two black-armored soldiers away from the tent while shouting orders to the knights around him.

"I underestimated you, Count Rubenhart."

Valdris spoke from across the clearing, his voice almost pleasant again.

Ulrich turned back toward him.

The commander rolled one shoulder beneath his coat, as though Ulrich’s kick had done little more than inconvenience him.

"You possess a crippled core," Valdris said. "My reports made that clear. I came prepared nonetheless, and it seems my caution was wise."

His gaze settled upon Ulrich’s stance, scanning the position of his feet, the way he held his sword, and the tension in his numbing hand.

"Your movements are excellent. Your instincts are better. You would have made a fine commander in Valmoris. Instead, you have chosen to waste yourself in Skargardia, among people who worship magic and fear anyone who stands outside their little order."

His smile gained an edge.

"A kingdom descending from the arrogant elves. Perhaps that explains the habit."

Ulrich gave him no answer.

Valdris stepped forward.

Movement came from the tent behind Ulrich.

"What is happening?"

Hermione emerged first, one hand gripping the tent flap. Her hair fell loose over the shoulders of her nightgown, and sleep still clouded her expression. Airam followed at once, placing herself partly in front of Esther without appearing to think about it. Esther peered from behind her eldest sister, her fingers clutching a fold of Airam’s sleeve.

The three girls took in the broken ward, the bodies on the grass, and the black-armored soldiers forcing their way through the camp.

Airam stopped.

Hermione’s face drained of color.

Esther pressed closer behind Airam.

Valdris looked past Ulrich toward them. His expression softened into the same smile he had worn in the ballroom.

"Princess Airam. Princess Hermione. Princess Esther," he said. "It has been a long time."