The seep of the moonlight was a poor illumination through the weathered slats of the last lonely structure. The indistinct outlines of what might have been a thin bar of sandalwood perfumed soap, a gentleman's razor, a silk handkerchief, an egret's feather quill, and bits of cloth covering too little food had rolled away from an upended canvas pouch. His ragged leather journal opened deliberately to dry, rested on a swath of moldering alfalfa. An idle stub of pencilled charcoal was placed by the stained vellum. The leather cover was discolored and roughened from the dirty river waters. The irregular stains on the paper within were evident even in the dim light, the pages not camouflaged by lyrics, stanzas or notations for a story. The first few pages warped together, hiding bittersweet music smeared by water a second time. The river wash obscured the salty droplets that first punctuated the page with hurt written into the words. The remaining conspicuously blank pages curled apart in the hours they sat forlorn.
The musk of the original inhabitants of the hayshed filtered up through the smoky air. The once sweet smell of the shed was smothered by the acrid bite as winter carried on, the rising dusty damp perverting the freshness. The rodents had hidden when the latched door wrenched open and his body twisted in to drop unmoving amongst the feed. The creatures grew bold creeping nearer, sniffing at their surroundings with interest as the time passed without further commotion. When the figure stirred and had turned to dump out his pack amongst the straw, they bounded back to the safer corners. He rummaged through the items scattered about, until he leant back again, and seemed to partially disappear into the pile. The figure never moved sharply again, but the vibrations of the hay intensified. The small creatures ventured out, entreated by the scents emanating from the oil cloth sealing around firm objects, but the danger of the large figure kept them from making more than cursory checks.
The banging of the freed door against the sagging frame with the wind did not disguise the intermittent cracks of distant noises that were not natural thunder. The aberrant booms and the slamming of the door did not damper the hitched breaths that only settled after hours into a congested snore. Stronger gusts of sulphur followed the sounds of battle invading the shack. It mingled with the stench of newly scorched timbers in the ghostly farm yard. The odour associated with hellish heat played at odds with biting winter chill. It did not entirely mask the sweat, filth and blood brought in by the motionless man collapsed among the old grey straw.
The noise from yells and horns rose with the morning sun, and if it were possible, the figure became more still. His breaths had become shorter and shallow over the course of the night now burst out as muted pants. The thickly accented voices bellowed cries, rallying them together. The uproar swelled with shouts, footfalls, and the beat of hooves against old roads, but soon receded, rewinding the procession that must have visited only days before. The ransacking of the farm, the cacophony accompanied by the black clad soldiers razing, murdering, and if they had time, raping could not be repeated as their prior thoroughness had left nothing but the overlooked grey boards assembled at the edge of a field.
An uncharacteristically rough groan left his lips as impatient relief, followed by a deeper in draw, and a whimper. A gentle caress of a hand across a lute case in a familiar grip squeezed the comforting leather neck spasmodically. A squeak of air from his throat and the rustle of straw were both too loud as the piercing commands sounded again through the thinned forest.
Jaskier blinked slowly and intentionally, mastering himself, and waited for the foreign presences outside to fade back farther away. He pushed his left hand against the floor, grimacing at the wet of the mud and animal faeces and tried to lever himself to his feet numbed with cold in soaked riding boots. The pull of his shirt stuck to his skin now tearing away from his shoulder blade was a fresh agony. He stopped. His jaw quivered, not from the cold, and his lips curled inward pinched by his teeth. The dull ache in his lower belly spurred him onwards, and the bard spun his instrument backwards. The splinted wood raked against his bare hand, as he slowly pressed the boards of the door away from the frame.
Jaskier gave a furtive glance around, but no one greeted him. Two stiff steps over and he forced cold fingertips to work the laces of his trousers, and emptied his bladder against the side of the hut, ignoring the older brown and red snow that melted away. The sour feeling in his gut, did not compare to the sour smell emanating from the lumps of those unfortunates underneath a thin blown layer of snow behind him. The air had warmed up noticeably, allowing those frozen resting to rot.
"I'd best move on." His croaky words shocked him. His throat stung with the effort, and he was torn between the itch to cough, and a hopeless desire for some warm and sweetened tea. And a pang of guilt washed through him for thinking only of his pains when those bodies would stay exposed in the yard, until someone better happened through this way. The Nilfgaardian army did more than hold territory as they marched through to Cintra. They had not left peasants to till the land and collect tax from, spared no women and children or submissive farmers. The unprecedented cruelty of the total slaughter of cities and decimation rural areas had caused a storm of panic on the fringes of the war. No one caught by the southern force had been spared the brutality. The aftermath discovered bread horrific tales.
Jaskier's voice had not been tried since his failure at the ferry dock the previous day. No one had shown up to save him yesterday, or restore order, or better yet sanity to ill-placed soldiers fleeing to join their northern comrades on the right side of river, mustering leagues away at the Sodden bridge crossing. The men at arms had been a vanguard force, scouting the edge of Nilfgaardians. The undisciplined ranks of this pocket of northern forces had called their own retreat from the black sea burning and salting their way through to Sodden from Cintra. Jaskier had been unable to sway the soldiers there, unable to help himself or the peasants who had cried and begged to cross the Yaruga using the ferry. It fell upon him to protest loudly to the aggressively unhearing soldiers.
The men had appropriated the ferry from their civilian countrymen, and reserved its entire use for their obliterated forces, leaving the refugees to a likely grim end. Jaskier's impassioned oration highlighting the spirit of the northern kinship, the strength in unity had garnered no positive reaction from the men holding the crowded ferry, the last ferry for miles. The pillar of safety for himself and the other travellers trapped against this bank was beyond their reach. The only reward for his efforts was the haft of a long pike to his jaw. While the soldiers did not have time to aid their allies or countrymen, they took the opportunity to strike at the man who had half the fearful folk organized and queuing for next ride on the ferry which was never going to aid them. The army planned to burn it after getting their people across, as was standard procedure in troubled times. The only party to get across hours before must have held the group of merchant and nobles he had been with, and the prick who had stolen his horse overnight.
The commander with a bandaged head who struck him then reversed his weapon and Jaskier missed most of the blade by dodging, unceremoniously landing in the flowing water himself. Jaskier came up choking on the brine, and immediate lost hold of his carpet bag containing hundreds of old poems and ballads, clothes, and the majority of his vittles. By instinct he kept a sure grip on his lute strap and a smaller pack. Almost everything he had was lost because Jaskier did not leave the heroics to heroes, again.
The water was swollen with precipitation and Jaskier was borne downstream and until he found his footing and wrenched himself out before the banks became cliffs. His jaw pulsed yesterday. Jaskier was sure it's coloration now rivalled his finest dress, forever lost to the wide river. The distance had been enough to let him see the crash of a horse and cart full of caged chickens hit the middle of the Yaruga and be rushed down towards him, and then just down. The last bit of the army must have shoved it off in a selfish bid to secure their own safety from the advancing Nilfgaardian forces.
At first the pain of glancing off river rocks not yet worn smooth, and the shock of the cold water stole his breath. Then his desperate jog down the river bed away from the landing and through the woods, left him huffing. Luck did not favor him to stumble across a raft, boat, or some party to fall in with. The whip of the air through his clothing and his chattering teeth were his only company.
Just as his energy begin to fail completely, the poor refuge Jaskier located the prior evening stood out like an infected blemish in the scarred rubble of the charred farmyard. It was in this shelter, a building so meek an invading army did not bother it wipe from existence, where he had spent the night. He rested up against it now in the wan light of the new warmer morning, feeling too worn, too unsteady in his riding boots to trudge away for an unknown end.
A chastising, gruff voice warned inside his head. The bodies under the snow were likely going to attract the worst sort of attention, if not from predators, but also the necrophages who followed war more closely than prostitutes. Having heard a lecture in Oxenfurt about the purposed benefits of the corpse eaters in decreasing incidence of disease associated with the prevalence of dead bodies, he knew from years of dogging the witcher, the lives saved by limiting disease outbreaks were only balanced with those stupid enough to linger by the untended corpses. The living were devoured just as easily, probably tasted fairer.
"Melitele or whomever you said your prayers to, guide you on your last safe passage." Jaskier spoke, knowing he held the farthest profession from a priest, and wondering if those dead had believed in anything at all.
Jaskier ducked back inside, and the corners of his mouth twitched down as he saw a large rat eating a piece of hard cheese through a chewed hole in the oil cloth. "Cheers. Guess you've earned it." He tucked his few unsullied possessions back into his pack. He flinched as he picked up his last journal, the blank pages staring accusingly at him. His throat closed up again.
Jaskier trembled wondering why he had bothered to go south, when he had accomplished nothing but endangering himself. Rumours of Nilfgaard's activity should have incited a driving urge to be on the forefront of the news, a desire to collect the first hand story of the impending war. His sources among the gentry and poor had differed on the direction and the motives of Nilfgaard, but it had become clear too late they prized first Cintra. But Jaskier deceived himself, calling it his vocation as he strayed towards Cintra, not admitting he really searched for just one man. He had invested far too much of his life listening for those specific rumors, to be able to give up that vice now that the witcher was surely headed into the veritable lion's den.
Jaskier had been too slow find him before all reputable sightings of the White Wolf ceased. It had appeared Geralt had rushed through the villages, not stopping to work and made it to Cintra proper shortly before the conflict had erupted. And no one had heard tell of the witcher leaving the area through the expanse of the invasion, and now its ebb, pushed back by the allied north.
Geralt falsely pretended to self-reliant. The witcher had always shown a self-destructive bent when left to his own devises for too long, and he must have truly felt isolated after the emotional upheaval with the adventure of Borch Three Jack-Daws.
For Jaskier "See you around," had become a bitter anthem of avoidance of someone who could not speak to call him even a friend or worthy companion. Jaskier knew he hid away too long among the vacuous attentions of others, nursing his own sense of hurt. His performances received rave reviews from bleeding the fostered emotions out on stage until only a deadened disillusionment gripped him.
That weariness had been replaced by newfound urgency when he heard about the gathering of southern forces by the new Usurper Emperor Emyr, and his focus on Cintra. Jaskier knew then, Geralt's insurrectionist heart would not let him hide away without aiding the ill-fated Lion Cub. Geralt's bold actions had always defined his compassion, where his spoken words denied the depth of his soul. But fair words would have been needed to navigate the Cintran Courts, so Jaskier had endeavoured to intercept.
And Jaskier now had been too slow and stupid to steal back up to the safety of distant banks, having failed both at shielding Geralt from politics in time to escape before Cintra's fall, and keeping his own self away from the thick of the fighting. Nilfgaardian forces hunted on this bank in a meticulous line, pursuing those straggling civilians fleeing their homes. The tales he had heard from Cintra itself were enough to make his blood freeze, and he was certain no action of his could have outwitted destiny. No one had heard word of any one man, elf, dwarf or witcher making it out of that city. Reports from those outside the walls, and the braggadocio of the soldiers' gossip confirmed fantastic atrocities.
Jaskier had counted the faces he would never see laugh or smile again in the nights past. Too many Jaskier called by name, the hundreds he had entertained, the lovely few he had experienced intimately. Valiant Calanthe, ended face down in the muck, indignities done upon her body. The charismatic Eist dead and left on a field to break down with his iron swords and armor. The stories of the Cintran nobles who determined their own dark fates. And all the children of the keep, their own demise ensured by their parents. For a child of destiny to finish like that, Destiny's blade must have cut down the other side as well.
Maybe if those tied by destiny truly did not believe their fate, they would be spared. But as wise priestess Nenneke said, the absence of faith has no power at all. But Geralt did believe, or at least had his lack of faith in everything shattered by the existence of the impossible golden dragon. When Jaskier managed to get out of the mess he was in, as he was sure he would, Jaskier would honor the fallen girl cub and the lion queen with a triumphant ballad. Something empowering, never maudlin, for a queen who would never have her state funeral. And something new, something more for man with insurmountable compassion buried in a heart that the world would not let the witcher acknowledge.
A shiver routed through Jaskier, spreading from the wound on his back. Jaskier shrugged what was left of this cloak around himself tighter, and a pained moan left his chapped lips. The woods were quiet now, for what he must have heard in between restless bits of sleep would have been the battle for Sodden Hill. The north's stand to hold the bridge crossing. The low sound of cannon fire must have carried for miles on the chill night air. What had been the likely retreat of Nilfgaard's dispersed forces meant the war went well for Temeria and Kaedwen. The damage to this part of the countryside had been done however, and he eyed again the bodies under the snow stained red. The choice to wander towards a battlefield through disparate forces and hopefully arrive at sympathetic allied civilization, or to venture down river and into the backs the retreating Nilfgaardians before they withdrew south, was made easily enough.
Jaskier's feet should have ached after rubbing in the riding boots, but he trudged ever onwards. His path lead him southeast to wind a ways from the Yaruga as the elevation increased, staying to the forest to keep himself hidden from retreating Nilfgaardians. He avoided the exposed riverbank as it opened up to the mighty cliffs approach bordering Sodden Keep.
All the times Jaskier had meandered through the wilderness with the witcher, confident of his inevitable safe arrival contrasted with his present anxiety. Even his boot knife that had spent more time honing quills and giving his charcoal pencil a point had been lost. Jaskier had ruined the luxury of a companion who had taught the bard as much of woodcraft as he had been willing to absorb. The details of wild flowers could be woven into song. What was edible or toxic was just frankly important before the dearest patrons, grateful taverns and opulent courts had redeemed his valuable talents. But, tracking signs and defence against the wild creatures had never been necessary. Jaskier had loitered in the great cities, and toured with the caravans since he had come off the mountain side where a golden dragon had meddled.
Jaskier moved as fast as he dared, and bent to slip clean snow into his mouth at times, feeling dreadfully daft to be without even a canteen, and no one to share one to him. A small flask of Est Est weighed heavily in his breast pocket, tempting him. The day dragged on and he kept shuddering, needing to lean on the trunks and bows of the tall trees. A frantic laugh escaped his lips, and he keep himself moving onwards, the rush of the Yaruga in his left ear, the whiff of burning in front of him growing stronger. He had at least not stumbled into a pack of unfriendly soldiers, Nilfgaardians or otherwise.
As motivation abated, instinct herded Jaskier onwards while his thoughts spiralled. No one was going to rescue him from this mess. There were no well-meaning people placed auspiciously to help the hapless travellers, and he had no one left who gave a personal shit about his continued existence. A Redanian intelligence officer would cross his name of a mental list, perhaps the Countess de Stael would remember him fondly when bored with her next husband, and the collectives of court scribes would hum in frustration when they could not get word to the illustrious troubadour Jaskier to come entertain some function. His music would persist at least for a time, only its subjects immortalized as long as the collective memory lasted.
Jaskier blinked again, feeling more than a little melodramatic, which was wearying him instead of inspiring. Nothing struck him as worthy of weaving into composition, and he stumbled, suddenly more dizzy. He crouched to get another mouthful of snow, soon found himself on his hands and knees not by intention.
"Fuck!"
Wet soaked immediately through his trousers, and he grabbed a handful of snow to plop in his mouth with a vindictive motion. "Shouldn't have tried, should stick to writing not playing the protagonist. What a cock up chasing him was. Couldn't find him. Sure I would have fucked it up worse. The child surprise is dead, and Geralt dove after her. Gods, Geralt at court alone… if he would listen to me at all." His sense of balance careened around, his brain burning. The pain increasing in his jaw confirmed the condemnation spoken, "He never would have gotten involved here at all, if not for me." Unconsciously Jaskier fluttered his eyelids. "Geralt's gone along with that poor girl…"
Sure he would swoon, Jaskier tucked his chin down reflexively and vomit appeared upon the snow in front of him. The hum in his ears filled his thoughts and his vision whited out. He gave one last strong push to let himself fall away from the pile of sick before the world palled away.
The cold against his face melted across his brow into his hair. The damp embrace was the first feeling of many uncomfortable sensations as awareness increased. He lingered sorting out up from down, right from left, where the devil he was and what strives of legendarily bad decisions propelled him onwards until he just quit thinking at all.
The new rustling of armors filled him with enough dread and Jaskier rolled onto his stomach. He had to fully open his eyes, and time passed before what he could see made sense again. Forms coalesced out of the expansive white of the disappearing snows. A dark figure. And behind, men in chain mail.
Jaskier kept low, his lips drew apart to take a small breath, unsure if he could tell this band's affiliation, and if any group of armed men would take pity on a loner in the woods. Jaskier could not discern their chatter through the ringing in his ears, but the group did not notice him either.
They trekked to the south for a hundred yards, visible in flashes between the trees before turning back east, towards Sodden and Riverdell. Perhaps a northern patrol, but Jaskier vowed to follow them into civilization from a distance, not wanting to get strung up for any one of many excuses to dole punishment on the unexpected and blameless during times of strife.
The journey to his feet was farther than what Jaskier had walked that day. Jaskier hung his head and gasped, then forced a few deep lungful's before beginning his march again. Maybe some outlying village was close, and the coins protected in his watertight lute case would buy him a place to warm up.
Jaskier's hands felt numb when he let go of his lute strap, too tired to hold onto where he had it secured any longer. His vision continued to be unreliable and he fluttered his lashes and squinted to keep focus, "Keep the river on my left, and the smell of hell ahead." The words came thick as his face stiffened.
"Sorry Geralt.
"Sorry I bore you into this mess. The lion cub of Cintra is departed, you would have done anything to wrest her from that fate."
He choked a cough out.
"Sorry."
And he did not hum or sing or compose to verse to write in the unfilled journal which possessed only the remnants of indicted love. In it held the acknowledgement of what drew his friend to repeated misfortune of heartache, and his inability to avoid his own the painful climax. The true heart of the score was revealed to Jaskier after leaving the sorceress and the witcher on that hillside. No wisps of melody or words came to mind now to express his laments or recapture this final great tragedy to dramatic prose.
Jaskier tripped as his foot caught a rut of a proper road. "Oh." He hefted himself off his knees again, unconsciously cradling his wrist after sharply gesturing to no one present. "This way then." The pounding of his boots against it beat like a warning drum, but he could not make himself dip back away to the forest edge. Keeping to the road was just simpler.
Jaskier walked with his eyes down watching only what was in front of him. The small gravelled stones were driven into the tracks by the passage of many carts, hooves and feet before him. He did not hear any more noise, not even his own footsteps, just the relentless wash of guilt recurring in his thoughts. A plaintive "sorry" to the wilds did not carry away far enough to reach anyone's ears. The road loomed on for longer than imaginable in defiance of reality.
Jaskier had stopped shivering now, feeling a calm. His shoulders slumped, and his hands hung at his sides. If a tinge flared up on his right hand, or from his back, it did not penetrate the haze he had fallen into walking on. The uneven pattern of a well-used crossroad nearly fouled up his feet again. Jaskier swayed violently, distracted by the sight of a building standing whole and undamaged in front of him. A few more shuffling steps and he propped himself against the cool brick, his eyes closing.
A strong hand grasped his arm and spun him about. He could do naught but passively drift around with it, and when Jaskier opened his eyes, he found only an uncertain whir of color that continued after his feet had stilled. The hard voice cut through the pounding in his head. "Temerian check stop, identify yourself."
Jaskier felt his mouth sag painfully open, and he could only pant. Nothing approaching a reply reached his tongue. The answers spun around, dipping further away. Friendless Jaskier, the tavern Bard, never Julian Alfred Pankratz, absent Viscount de Letterhove, the paramour Troubadour, poet Dandelion, not the witcher's barker…. Jaskier's mind kept whirling with fleeting possibilities and he sure it had flown away.
"Fuck, boy. Easy. Men, a hand here."
An arm slid under his shoulder and gripped his sore wrist firmly and the throbbing roused him enough to jerk his face up. But it was a mistake and he shook violently, and more hands pulled at him.
"Was well dressed for refugee. That's silk and fine wools. Doesn't look like a Nilfgaard swine to me."
The hand that rocked his chin back and forth, swept across his brow, "He's burning up."
"One of you support his head, bring him inside." The strain on his back fouled every one of his senses for a moment, or an hour.
"Isn't that the famous troubadour? Saw him perform once for Foltest while I was on duty, and then he played the tavern for five nights afterwards. Talkative chap."
"Isn't saying much now. Half his face is bruised. Surprised you recognized him."
"Seen his lute before too, has to be him. Won from the king of the elves he says."
"He's got money for the inn, get him there, pay one of their girls to clean him up. His back is cut open. He's half froze through, where there's not with fever."
And that was the last Jaskier heard, before he was roughly lifted again, and he knew no more.