In the blink of an eye the refugee camp is plunged into utter chaos. Everybody runs toward their wagons and shelters to grab at least some of their belongings before they flee in all directions. People accidentally knock each other down, trample each other in their panic. Wagons are overturned and shouts and cries and screaming fills the air, accompanied by the brawling of hundreds of terrified animals. Thick clouds of dust rise from the dried out ground. Thrice damned bloody fuckery! Almost immediately Cahir has lost sight of the Witcher and his comrades in the dust and mayhem. He quickly untethers his horse and jumps onto the mare's back ready to ride after the White Wolf the moment he sees him leave the camp. Hopefully with all limbs attached and together with his companions.
The moment does not come. Instead, a Nilfgaardian cavalry unit charges at the fugitives from one side, driving the fleeing and horrified refugees toward the river in between carts and wagons, sheep, goats and all kinds of other animals. The camp swiftly transforms into a battlefield, no, a slaughter. Cahir knows how it works and why they are doing it. To spread terror among the civilians and break their morale. The fugitives that are not instantly cut down by Nilfgaardian swords, will be captured and taken prisoner to transport them south and turn them into slave labourers. He has been part of attacks like that before, has even ordered them and never thought twice about it. It was what the White Flame expected him to do for some higher purpose, and he never questioned it. Now things are different. Now he sees how horribly wrong all this is. But what can he do? Nothing but wait and hope that the Witcher and his company will get out of there in one piece.
Suddenly the pandemonium of screams and cries takes on a different note. The clanging of sword against sword echoes across the river as another army shows up. Temeria? If the Temerian forces get the upper hand over Nilfgaard, the Witcher and his friends might be lucky. They might be saved from the Nilfgaardian swords. If they have not been killed by the enemy soldiers yet, or trampled to death by the fleeing fugitives or panicking animals. It feels weird and wrong, but, for the first time in his life, Cahir hopes that Nilfgaard will lose the battle and the Temerians will win. For the Witcher's sake.
Not long after the Temerian forces have arrived, a movement further downstream catches Cahir's eye. A group of peasants on horses are making their way across the ford to his side of the river, away from the fighting. Though the riders do not, the horses look somewhat familiar. Is it possible? Are they really Milva's black colt, Jaskier's fattish gelding, the Witcher's bay coloured mare and his chestnut colt? They are too far away to be certain, but if they are indeed what he thinks they are, the peasants must have stolen them. The men seem to have some difficulty steering the horses, too, especially with the bay coloured and the fattish one, a clear indicator that they have not been in their possession for long. Presumably no longer than a few minutes. Should he follow the thieves and try to steal the horses back? It would be one against four, but they are just peasants, what can they possibly do against a trained soldier with a sword? If they are clever, they will just give up the horses and keep their wretched lives. Let's hope they are and he will not have to seriously hurt or kill them. With a light clap from the knout Cahir spurs his horse to ride through the dense, riparian forest in pursuit of the peasants. Unfortunately, despite the mare being willing enough for once, it is not an easy feat and far from as fast as desired. The thieves, on the other hand, are travelling on a forest track and will forge ahead at a much swifter pace. If their newly acquired mounts cooperate, that is. Hopefully, they will not.
Soon it not only turns out that the mounts do not cooperate as willingly as the overly optimistic horse thieves expected them to, but, judging by the noises coming from their direction, the peasants appear to be in real trouble. Besides an angry whinny, Cahir hears a loud, pained howling and calling upon the gods. Has one of the horses gone wild? Or are the thieving peasants being attacked? If the latter is the case, by whom? Soldiers? Other peasants? A monster? Everything is possible in these endless forests right in the middle of a war. Cautiously, Cahir rides closer. A short moment later he spots the peasants from between the trees, no monsters or soldiers in sight. There are three of them. They have dismounted. One of the men is lying on the ground moaning and holding his bloodied nose. Has he been kicked in the face by the Witcher's unruly bay mare? The skittish animal is standing there, snorting irritably and pawing the ground with her front hoof. Then Cahir notices that there is another person on the ground. A woman who looks like an elf. Or a dryad. Milva. Has she assaulted the thieves to get her horse back? Cahir knows that she is a fierce fighter, however, without her bow things do not look too good for her. She is drawing her knife but one of the peasants hits her over the head with a stout stick so hard that it breaks. Fuck.
With Gunwald's knout, Cahir gives his horse a quick clap. Not a hard enough one to hurt the stubborn animal, but sufficiently hard to startle her into motion. The grey mare and her rider burst from the trees, Cahir swinging the knout at the staggered men. He deals vicious blows at one peasant, then the other. The first one howls and keels over, the second brings both hands up to protect his head and yells from pain. Who would have thought that the whip with the multiple rawhide thongs would come in so handy today? Funny that it feels wrong to use it on the horse while it is quite satisfying to bring it down hard on the terrified humans. Well, they are thieves, and they beat Milva.
Luckily the archer does not seem to be seriously hurt. She is quickly back on her feet and kicks the prostrate peasant first in the neck, then in the crotch. He curls up in a ball and howls so loudly that leaves fall from the birch trees. Serves him right for hitting her, Cahir thinks with a grim smile while chasing the other two peasants away into the trees with a hail of blows from his whip. They run as fast as they can, one of them with his nose still streaming blood. Not their lucky day, no, that is for sure.
When he returns to thrash the one on the ground, Cahir reins in his horse. Milva has caught her black colt and is aiming her bow at him, the arrowhead pointing directly at his chest. Perhaps not his lucky day either? For a moment they look at each other. The bowstring is only pulled halfway back as if the archer has not decided yet whether or not to shoot him. It is only supposed to look threatening. She would not do it after he has just helped her, right?
"Did you get your arrow back?" he asks calmly, lowering the knout.
"I did. Thank you for keeping it for me, Nilfgaardian," she replies in an equally calm tone of voice, "and for dealing with that good-for-nothing I didn't hit properly the other day."
"I'm not a Nilfgaardian. And you're welcome. You can put your bow down. I do not wish you ill. If I did, I could just have stood by and watched those peasants kick you around."
"The devil only knows who you are and what you wish for me," she says through her teeth. "But thanks for saving me."
"You saved me first. I'm glad I could return the favour." Cahir smiles at her cautiously, ignoring the arrow that is still aimed at his heart. He is pretty sure that she will not lose it, no matter how grimly she glares at him. No, Milva would never shoot somebody who does not attack her. She would not have shot his chestnut colt the other day either, when she threatened to do it. Then he could not be sure, however, by now he is certain of it. And, somehow, he suddenly knows in his heart that they will become friends, eventually. If they live long enough.
"We better get further away from the river," Cahir says with a worried frown, "and fast, too. The army is sure to comb the forest on both banks."
"We have to? Together?" Milva asks, grimacing as if she had just swallowed something particularly disgusting. But she finally lowers her bow. "Since when are we comrades? Or a company?"
Her words strongly remind him of another woman. We are not we, she said. Yennefer. And only a minute later, she changed her mind ...
"I'll explain," Cahir promises, steering his horse over to where the chestnut colt is standing and grabbing his reins, "if you give me time."
"Time? I don't have any time. The Witcher and the others—"
"I know. But we won't save them by letting ourselves get killed or captured. Catch the horses and we'll flee into the forest. Hurry!"
As Milva is a sensible young woman, she does not object and does what the Nilfgaard - no, the non-Nilfgaardian - tells her to do. Not because she is afraid of him, no - the man Milva is afraid of has not been born yet - but because she knows he is right. So, together they catch the Witcher's skittish mare, which is not easy. However, both of them being experienced riders, they manage the tricky task astonishingly quickly. Then they ride deeper into the forest, leaving the one roughed-up and still sobbing peasant behind on the leaf-littered forest floor, holding his crotch.
They ride as far as they deem necessary to be mostly safe from both armies. To be doubly secure they sit down in the pit left by a fallen tree. The earth is still a little moist but it is a warm day, so they do not mind. Milva is wet anyway from half wading, half swimming through the Chotla in pursuit of the horse thieves. From the saddlebag of her newly recovered black colt, she has taken a pouch and produces two chunks of cold horse meat from it. Wordlessly she passes the bigger one to her newly acquired companion. His name's Cahir, Milva recalls. A strange Nilfgaardian who insists he isn't a Nilfgaardian. Cahir nods his thanks and takes a bite while listening intently to the sounds of the forest. It is eerily silent in their direct vicinity. The birds and other animals must have fled even further into the woods from the din of the raging battle - and perhaps because of the presence of the two humans and five horses. From the distance the faint noises of fighting can still be heard. The battle is not over yet and there is no telling which party will emerge victorious. It would not make much of a difference in any case, Cahir suspects. Falling into the hands of the Nilfgaardian army would mean certain death for him while capture by the Temerians would probably have the same outcome. They would either detect his slight accent and accuse him of being a southern spy and traitor, or arrest him of desertion from their troops. No matter which of the two, he would end up hanged. And eaten by ghouls, most likely. For Milva both armies would be equally horrible, too, as it is well-known what happens to pretty young women when soldiers get their hands on them. No, they better stay well out of sight until sundown. A little rest would not go amiss either. Cahir feels bone-tired all of a sudden. Having finished the meat, he leans heavily against the edge of the pit and tries to suppress a yawn, with little success.
"You alright?" Milva gives him a scrutinising glance. "You look a bit peaky, to be honest."
"Just tired. The night was too short. And full of monsters."
"Monsters? Real ones or the nightmare kind?" Milva asks, sympathising, and not a little curious. Their group of travellers has not come across any monsters at all so far, except for this giant log arthropod or whatever it was, and that was by day. However, she has had the one or other bad dream about all sorts of scary creatures. The side effects of journeying through dense war-time forest, she supposes. And, in contrast to Cahir, she was riding in a big group. They even had their very own Witcher. Alone it must have been a hell of a lot scarier. "It wasn't the vampire those useless, horse-thieving peasants were looking for, was it?" she adds, remembering her first unpleasant encounter with Cloggy and his friends. Was it just this morning?
"No. Not a vampire. Ghouls." Cahir says, shuddering inwardly at the recollection. "You don't look like you have slept that much yourself," he adds with a sideways glance at his companion when Milva also has a good yawn.
"Too much alcohol," she murmurs cryptically but does not elaborate. "Just yesterday we saw corpses hanging from a tree," she returns to the previous topic. "Their legs were half eaten and badly clawed. Not a pretty sight. It gave all of us the chills. But it was during broad daylight and not a sign of neither hide nor hair of the monsters. At night ghouls must be horrifying."
"They are," Cahir confirms. Horrifying and odious. The alghoul even more so. Definitely not encounters he would like to repeat. Ever.
"We thought you were dead in a ditch or something. That some peasants had noticed your accent and killed you," Milva says after a moment of silence. "The riderless chestnut came running past us ..."
"Had a minor misadventure with three brigands, as shaggy as werewolves. They ambushed me. The horse got away. The brigands didn't. But one of them knocked me out before he expired. When I woke up, you were long gone. The brigands were on foot and the chestnut miles away. I only managed to get a new mount and catch up with you this morning, right by the camp," Cahir explains. "What happened to that wagon and the rest of the dwarves?" he then asks.
"That blasted wagon, right." A gleeful grin flashes across Milva's face. "Bounced down a ravine and was smashed to matchwood. Finally. Beats me why the dwarves bothered with it for so long." She shakes her head. "Three of them stayed behind to bury whatever treasures were in those chests. We were meant to meet at the camp. They were lucky to be late."
"Very lucky, indeed," Cahir agrees. Exceptionally lucky even. Most likely they still are as they would have heard the noise of battle from afar. No human or dwarf in their right mind would have come close to the camp after Nilfgaard's attack, no. They would wait, holed up somewhere in the forest and then try to find the rest of the merry company, Cahir suspects. Not much different from Milva and him. Only they might be playing that peculiar card game to while away the time, albeit not as loudly as usual. Briefly he thinks of Gunwald and his family. How fortunate that they were not ready to depart yet when he set out for the camp, but needed another day or two to pack their things. They will only find death and destruction at the site of the refugee camp when they arrive. What will they do then? Where will they go? Cahir hopes with all his heart that they will find a safe place and survive the war unscathed.
"Now, what about your story?" Milva interrupts his silent musings, the somewhat grim expression back in her face. "Why are you following the Witcher? You've been riding after us for almost a fortnight, all alone. You've been trudging after us while surrounded by your own people. You might say you're not a Nilfgaardian, but they're still yours, aren't they? Devil take me if I understand it. Why aren't you going back to your people, Cahir?"
"It's a long story." He sighs. And gives another yawn. He would much prefer to close his eyes and sleep until dusk. However, Milva needs to know. For how can she trust him if he refuses to answer her question? No, sleep has to wait. This is more important. But where to begin? Thanedd? It is not where all this started, but it will suffice.
"About eight weeks ago, I set out on a ship to Thanedd Island with a commando of Scoia'tael," Cahir begins. "Our mission was to capture Princess Cirilla of Cintra ..."