A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

by Spike368

Sent out to gather the knowledge of the real world. A young scholar from the University of Oxenfurt finds a wounded Witcher on the steps to the inn where he was staying. So he starts gathering the material for his journals. Rated T for language I will be publishing this story on Royal Road /profile/349358

145. Chapter 145

(A/N: Writing this chapter has been hard work, a lot like having my fingernails pulled out. A classic example of knowing what needs to happen but the difficulty lies in getting the words on the paper. I hope it works for you all. Thanks for reading)

Kerrass likes to give lectures.

He will dispute this, but he is lying to you. The earliest example of his formal lecturing prowess was the time where he acted as a guest lecturer at Oxenfurt university. He gave a lecture and practical demonstration on the nature of monsters on the continent. I attended that lecture. It was actually quite good, aided by the physical specimens that he had procured for the purpose as well as his gruff, no nonsense way of answering questions from idiots.

When well meaning, if arrogant, idiots who had never left Oxenfurt since arriving there to begin study, argued that Kerrass was lying, he could easily refute that. Like many other scholars of that time or place, they were upset that an uppity Witcher would so casually disprove their own theories. So it was easier for them to suggest that Kerrass was spreading falsehoods or making up stories about the various monsters that exist in the world. He was able to point out that their theories were utterly wrong. He would cite sources, manuscripts and known books from renowned sources. He could go through their theories, hypothesis and methods before easily pointing out fallacies. Many of my, now, fellow faculty members were astonished at the "itinerant vagabond's" ability to speak so adeptly on the subject.

I remember laughing when I heard those arguments and almost violent tantrums. I was well aware of Kerrass' ability as a teacher, because he had been teaching me from the moment that I had first met him. Not always in the most enjoyable way, but his methods certainly bore fruit.

In those early days, it was rare that we weren't training with weapons, talking about monsters or any of the other things that he would wake me up at all hours to talk about and discuss. On those rare occasions though, he could be persuaded to go through the investigation process when it comes to how to figure out a curse or a monster.

I had some ability in this field although I was far from entirely confident in my own abilities. But I could use those skills taught in my history classroom to learn about buildings and what used to happen there. Also, my formative years, training as a courtier was also a lot more applicable in the investigative arts than I might have thought. Neither side of the divide would be pleased to learn that there are actually a lot of similarities between the highest court in the land and the village politics that occupy so many people's time.

Who has an agreement with who? Who is training who? Who is sleeping with who? Who has a marriage agreement with who? Who is jockeying for position with the people in charge? Why did they say or do that, when they could have said or done this? The same questions are discussed in a courtroom, just as much as they can be dissected on the village green. Or the market place, or the… Well, I'm sure you get the idea.

Early on in our relationship, when I was not as comfortable in offering my own opinions or thoughts on the matter as I would become later, Kerrass would sit me down and talk about these kinds of things. His expertise in this area was most in use in tracking down the origins of curses. Who said what, with which emotion behind it and where. It is detective work, very similar to how the town guard will investigate a murder and I remember that one of the subjects we discussed one night was about how people react under stress.

It is very easy, now, for me to imagine the situation. The two of us, sitting around a small campfire on tree stumps while I turned a steak over on one of the frying pans, or stirred my little stew pot. Doing so until I reached the magical point where the stew was as cooked as it was going to be before it turned into mush. We would be sharing a bottle, passing it backwards and forwards between us and given that Kerrass would be involved in this, the bottle would smell sharply of apples.

"You can tell a lot about how a person reacts." He said. "If you stand somewhere and say something in a loud voice, even if it is a lie, or you cannot prove everything that you have said, it can still have a massive effect. You have to watch what they do. Who goes for a sword, who listens attentively, who scoffs, who laughs, who runs to obey, who gives orders, who asks questions. All of it tells you something.

"The Wolves have this trick where they go to the seedier end of town and wait until someone picks a fight with them. They wait until it becomes obvious that someone else attacks them before defending themselves in the same manner that they are attacked. They can see how that particular part of the world is going to treat them and can, from there, adjust their behaviours. To the end of being able to work within the confines of what that particular bit of society was expecting."

"Does it work?" I wondered at the time.

"I only saw it done once." Kerrass answered. "I was travelling with Eskel at the time and he did the trick. The other purpose of the trick is to prove your competence to whoever might be watching. The Lord Mayor, the Monarch, Lord or whatever. As well as sending a message of "Don't fuck with us." I didn't like the trick myself. Too many risks. If you need to explain to someone who you are, then they are not going to hire you or treat you with respect anyway."

I remember being impressed with what he said and wondering if I could apply it in any other walks of life.

I had even seen Kerrass do a version of this activity on occasion. Except his method was to start shouting orders, throwing out demands and explanations in front of large groups, that the watchers might not want to be public. He had said it was like throwing a rock into a pond in order to see where the hidden rocks and things are.

I had never quite seen such a perfect example of this in action as I had that night in the Manor house of Raoul Leblanc.

I had told everyone that I knew what had happened and that we needed to get back to Beauclair.

Right. Fucking. Now.

Kerrass' reaction to my declarations was instantaneous. He didn't even pause, he was already on his way out the door to find us all transportation. Now to be fair there. Kerrass and I have been working together for a number of years now. All but living inside each other's pockets. We have worked together, fought together, thought together, dreamed together, eaten, drank and laughed together. The only thing that we hadn't done was loved together and that was because our tastes didn't run in that kind of direction.

So it was entirely possible that he had seen what I had seen, realised what I had realised and had acted in the same way that I wanted to act.

I never checked with him about that later.

Damien de La Tour, Captain of the Beauclair town guard. His job has been to investigate the sinister goings on that happen on the underbelly of every city in the world, even one as perfect and idyllic as Beauclair. Since he had been raised to the Knighthood, he had investigated the murders, the smuggling rings, the enemy intelligence agents and all of the other unglamorous, unromantic, dirty crimes that were beneath the notice of the Knights Errant. He was an investigator, a soldier rather than a Knight, and the kind of man that does what it takes, rather than what is attractive. He reacted next.

"What? Why?" He demanded.

He was asking questions. Every inch the investigator. I would like to believe that if he had been allowed to be more of a courtier and to be allowed to work some of the more "high level" crimes, then he might have spotted what was happening that little bit quicker. But the strict social arrangements of Toussaint meant that he didn't think the way that Nobility did. He thought the way that scumbags think.

He was also tired, in pain, had given himself up for dead and had just allowed the possibility of romance with one of the highest ladies in the realm to enter his mind. He was not thinking in the way that he was fully capable of.

That didn't matter though.

"What do you need me to do?" Ariadne asked.

Ariadne, Scientist, Sorceress, Non-human. If there is one person in my life that understands that you get the right person for the job rather than getting anyone to do it, it's Ariadne. The very pinnacle of, "get a professional." She was not an investigator, she was a scientist. And a Sorceress. Which meant that she had a very clear idea of what her capabilities were. If someone needed to be torn apart, then she could do it. If something needed some magic or science to applied to it, then she could do that as well. She had an outsider's perspective that was useful on occasion, but she sometimes lacked the ability to leap to the right conclusion in social situations. Why? Because she is not human and therefore does not, can not, think like us. So instead of trying to guess what we needed, she asked how she could help.

"Can you get us to Beauclair using, I don't know, a transport gate or something?" Syanna asked.

Syanna was the wild card. She had been a princess, a bandit, a conspirator and now a commander of Knights. Her perspective was unique and I honestly couldn't tell you whether or not she had seen what I had seen. If she had, then she cut out the middleman and leapt to what was needed.

If not, she had that absolutely most treasured quality of a ruling person, or person in charge. She was able to listen to the professionals that she surrounded herself with and expected them to do their jobs. She didn't get in their way, or second guess them. She just acted.

"No." Ariadne said. "The transport gate is closed for the night now and warming it up to be opened outside of its normal operating hours would need an hour or two's work. And that would be if Fringilla was standing next to it, ready, willing and able with all of the…"

"I get it." Syanna waved her off as we all started to stride towards the courtyard.

"I still don't…" Poor Damien tried to keep up.

Syanna ignored him. "We need horses. Guillaume?"

The last name was shouted at a bellow and the man himself came running over. Guillaume, Knight, warrior and as dependable as a rock. You could see him thinking, you could see him take in the expressions that I wore and that the other people in the group wore and you could see the questions that formed on his face. And then, with an effort that was almost Witcher like in it's discipline. He took those questions and set them aside.

"Horses Guillaume," Syanna ordered. "Myself, Lord Frederick, Lady Ariadne, Witcher Kerrass. You and Gregoire as my two best swordsman and and whoever you need as an escort for the road."

Guillaume saluted and spun, shouting his own orders.

Syanna turned on Damien. "I'm sorry Captain." She said formally, it would seem that after the romance of the preceding times, the Knight Commander had returned. "But you are injured and cannot ride at the pace I fear we must set." She gestured to his arm. "I will leave you and any that Guillaume does not think he needs, to secure this place and the prisoners. See if you can find any testimony that corroborates…"

Damien waved her off. "I know what I'm doing." He said without bitterness. "I would like to know why though."

"So would I." Syanna turned on me. She had not followed. I could see it in her eyes. After the emotions and the turmoil of the last few hours, she looked as though she was almost in a daze. But she trusted me and was acting accordingly. I was suddenly struck with an irrational fear of what might happen if I was wrong.

Kerrass was leading his and Ariadne's horse. Mine was already tied to Kerrass' signifying his intention to keep me safe. It would seem that Kerrass was turning back into being the ever present nursemaid again.

"What is happening in Beauclair Freddie?" Syanna asked.

I looked around. Ariadne, Damien and Syanna all looked at me expectantly.

I took a deep breath. Flame but I was so tired. And I committed.

"Jack is going to kill again tonight." I told them all. "And we must stop him."

Syanna nodded. "Of course." She said and turned away while Damien gaped a little.

They didn't understand and I needed to make them understand.

"No you don't get it." I said. "We need to stop him and we need to take him alive. It is vital that we catch him."

I went to my horse and vaulted into the saddle.

"I don't understand." I heard Damien complain as I moved.

"Neither do I." Syanna admitted. "But this is one of those times that understanding is clearly not required. See you soon."

Apparently they kissed farewell and Damien wore a goofy smile for a few minutes as Guillaume, Gregoire and a party of four Knights rode up.

Someone was laughing. "So you have finally realised it then Freddie?" Raoul called. His laughter was edging towards the hysterical end of the scale. Pain will do that kind of thing to you though so I can't really get too amused at his predicament. "This raid of yours was illegal." He shouted. "I am innocent of what you have charged me with. I have done nothing wrong and yet I lie assaulted and crippled in my own…"

"Best speed to Beauclair then gentlemen." Syanna shouted, drowning him out.

"Your time is coming bitch." Raoul shouted as we clattered down the road.

Kerrass led my horse. Two men with Torches went in front and there were another two men behind. We rode quickly. Far more quickly than was entirely advisable if we're being honest with each other. Riding at night is dangerous anyway. The sky was overcast, so there was little light from the moon or the stars to see by, an advantage that would disappear the closer we got to Beauclair anyway. The other thing is that that kind of light will not protect you from potholes and broken cobble stones.

Torchlight doesn't help as much as you might think it does. All that can do is make the shadows leap about, so small inconveniences can look like massive problems, minor banks by the side of the road can hide armies and a wheel rut can become a gaping maw in the ground that threatens to open up and swallow you whole.

The purpose of torchlight is to make sure that you don't lose the trail. Easier said than done when there are only patches of the road that are cobbled.

In this instance, all I could do was to trust that Kerrass was leading my horse in the right direction, Ariadne was behind me and that there were enough powerful people in my party to scare off any that might want to do me harm.

It was not the worst ride to and from danger that I can remember during the last few years. Now that I am coming to the intended end of my journeys, I find I am looking back on earlier adventures with a certain amount of nostalgia. I look back at the earlier monsters, at the earlier fights and the earlier horrors with a strange kind of nostalgic affection. This monster is scary but it wasn't as scary as that time we faced the Thing at the village of the Blah. This curse is insidious and horrific but it isn't as bad as that time we had to do such and such in order to lift the curse of the frozen doo-dah. So I find that I do that a lot now. I will freely admit that I lost my objectivity a long time ago but now, the more recent circumstances never seem as bad as the ones that have gone before.

So it was not the worst journey that I have ever had. I was afraid, certainly, but that was not a fear for my life, nor even really a fear for the people that I really loved or cared about. They were riding nearby, far away from this place or surrounded by so many guards that any attack on them, even by Jack, would be almost laughable.

Instead, I was scared that all the work that we had done was going to be for nothing.

I was worried about myself and whether or not I was becoming more of a liability than an aid. The morning where I had been woken from too little sleep after a long day seemed so very far away. Days, months, even years ago.

I knew that the artificial energy that had flooded through my system would not last forever. The buzz of the fight, the joy of the triumph and the undeniable satisfaction that I had received from breaking Sir Raoul's nose had been wonderful. That had carried me through the battle. The herbs that Ariadne had given me were powerful things and in theory, could last for hours.

The problem there was that it had taken some of the power of those herbs to lift me from being utterly exhausted, to being merely tired. So I fretted and in fretting, I made the problem even worse. I tried to see if I could tell what was actual paranoia about the creeping fatigue and what was I imagining. What was legitimate fatigue and what was just my fear of not being able to do what I would need to do.

The exhaustion that hovered at the edge of my vision in a grey haze that seemed to ripple with the torchlight. But was it real?

I determined to husband what strength I had left. I had no doubt that I would need it. I tried to keep it warm and keep it safe against what was to come. To that end, I was glad that Kerrass was leading my horse as it meant that I didn't have to devote any strength to that effort. Unfortunately, what that left me with was time to think. Too much time to think.

I was tired. I knew that and so I found myself doubting my own thought processes. We were tearing through the night air on a hunch of mine. A hunch that stood every chance of being utterly wrong. So utterly wrong in fact, that it might result in us losing everything that we had worked for.

I tried to go over it and over it again. Going back to the beginning of the events and putting it back together. Again and again and again. To the point that it all started to blur together rather than to actively come together. I could no longer tell where the thought process began and where the fatigue took over.

Kerrass called a halt.

"What's going on?" Syanna demanded after seven heavily armed men and one woman came crashing to a halt. "Surely we do not have time for…"

"Freddie's about to fall off his saddle." Kerrass told her, taking a length of rope from his pack. "And if he's going to be of any use to you at all, I rather thought that falling from his horse and breaking his neck would be…"

Syanna waved him off. "Of course. I apologise it's just…"

Kerrass said nothing as he got to work

Syanna visibly fumed but sat her horse still as Guillaume dismounted to help Kerrass tie me to a horse.

"Sorry Freddie." Guillaume whispered.

"I know the answer to this." Syanna said to Ariadne, "But I have to ask anyway. Is there anything you can do to…"

"No." Ariadne said firmly.

"It's just that I kind of need him to…" Syanna wasn't arguing. I think it was more that she just hadn't stopped talking yet

"I know what you need him to do." Ariadne said. "I love him for that reason. If I give his body anything else, whether magical or herbal, then it stands the risk of permanently damaging his heart or his pulmonary system. As it is, he is almost certainly going to be quite ill when…"

"And of course, the Ducal physician will attend to him when…"

I lost track of that conversation. There is something about being tied to a saddle that kind of draws the mind. The problem being that if it's too tight, then you're going to lose circulation. But if it's too slack, then you're going to fall off and the ropes are pointless. The two men worked quickly. They were not gentle but they could have been a lot harsher at the same time.

I would normally have protested at such a treatment. After all, Father had insisted that we all be learning to ride from a young age. But I rather thought that the extra aids were needed.

Then we were off again, riding as fast as we dared through the Toussaint countryside.

It was one of those times where I don't remember falling asleep, but I remember waking up when Kerrass, who had changed his mind and had started riding next to me, gave me a little shake.

I had been in a dream where I had been sliding down a muddy hill in a large pool of water. I remembered thinking that it had looked deep enough to be perfectly safe when I had started the descent but now that I was on my way down the slope, I was not sure that it was deep enough to arrest my fall. I had buried my face in the armpit of the person that I had been sliding down the hill with, when Kerrass woke me up. I have no idea who the person in the dream was.

"Talk me through it Freddie." Kerrass said.

"What?" I was blinking furiously. I desperately wanted to rub the sleep from my eyes but my arms had been tied down along with the rest of me.

"Talk me through it. Talk me through the thinking. I know you Freddie and by now you've convinced yourself that you're wrong. Tell me what's happening in Beauclair right now. Work it through, stay awake."

"I don't…" I blinked. "I'm not sure I can… Flame Kerrass, I feel like I'm losing my mind here. I don't think I can do this."

"Of course you can." He scoffed. "You carried me through the Northern Redanian wilderness. You can explain why you are sending us careening through the dark now."

"I must admit that I too would like that answer." Guillaume spoke up.

Syanna said nothing but I could tell she was listening. I remember taking a deep breath and considering where to start.

This was a mistake as no sooner had I started that consideration than I felt my head begin to nod forwards again. This time I shook myself free of the warm embrace of the darkness and just started speaking. Hoping for the best that the babbling that I was sure that I was going to produce would be, at least, coherent.

"This is not about you personally." I said. "This is not about the Knights, me, Raoul or any of the rest of them. It doesn't matter who Jack is, it doesn't even matter what Jack is or who he's killing. It only matters about what it looks like and what people think about it.

"All they need to do. The conspirators I mean. The only thing that they need to do is to sow doubt into people's minds. They knew that they might get caught. They also knew that there might be a weak link in their chain somewhere and that someone might give them up. They also knew that you are not stupid. So they knew that there were going to be mistakes made by them, that would lead you to them.

"And they know several other things too. They know that you are not the most popular person in Toussaint. They know that you have worked on that and that it has not been easy. You have to live to a higher standard than they do because one little mistake can send you over the edge into a disgrace that your sister cannot protect you from.

"So there they are. They are the landowners and the famous Knights. The dashing men who have led Toussaint for centuries. And here you come with your new fangled Imperial ways that go against a lot of the traditions that Toussaint holds dear.

"So your accusations, your case against them, needs to be absolutely perfect. There has to be no doubt at all in anyone's mind that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Therefore, all they need to do is to suggest that you might have made a mistake. Just a hint that you might be wrong, and everything comes crashing down around you.

"Their mastermind, the man, or woman to be fair, behind all of this. And I'm convinced that it was Raoul now. They will have made sure that each of the people involved in the conspiracy are disposable. We know, or have some proper proof, against Alain and Sir Velles right?"

There was some nodding.

"Those two men will break." I told them.

"Velles already has." Someone muttered but I didn't catch who it was.

"It will be a condition of Velles' diplomatic whatnot with Temeria, that he tells everything that he knows. Alain will talk because he's a coward and a bully. The thought that he might lose his head over this will be terrifying to him. So he will talk. But there will be arguments against why anyone would, or should, trust either of them.

"Velles is a foreigner and a merchant. Both things, as Guillaume said, count against him and mean that in the eyes of Toussaint, he has no honour and therefore, his word cannot be trusted when up against the other conspirators.

"Alain can be dismissed as either working with Velles for the money in order to… Oh I don't know, pay off gambling debts or to ensure the silence of irate male relatives. Or that he will be desperate to say anything in order to get out of the penalties resulting from his lost duel. His well known capacity for bullying will play into that. Kerrass proved him to be a liar and a cad at the point of a sword. Therefore, why should the rest of Toussaint trust anything that he says? 'He will say anything to save his own skin,' they will say."

"And they would be right." Pretty sure that it was Gregoire that muttered that.

"The same can be said of Velles. That you caught him doing something and that he would then do, or say, anything in order to get his sentence commuted or to arrange that he would be saved when it comes down to it. In both cases, it will be argued that you fed them the lies, you gave them a script in order for them to take down your political enemies in court and they said those things in order to have their own sentences commuted."

"It's a believable story." Gregoire admitted. "I would have believed it once upon a time."

"So all we have," I went on. "Against some of the most famous, wealthy, powerful and known-to-be-honourable men is the word of two liars, one proven and one generally known to be a liar anyway. So the rest of it will be done on word and incidental evidence.

"I would even bet you some money that the reason that the body of Madame Duberton was hidden in Raoul's basement is because there is, so far, nothing else to incriminate him. Everyone else is disposable with built in reasons as to why they can't be trusted, he will have seen to it. Other men will not be stupid and will have realised that Raoul has made them disposable and therefore, they will have wanted a card to play against him."

"Why wouldn't Raoul have protested that evidence being planted on him?" A woman's voice, probably Syanna.

"Because he didn't care. His motive is to watch Toussaint destroy itself. And he has mercenaries in his pay. It will not be difficult for him to argue that he knew nothing about the body. That he has not been home in ages and that the mercenaries have been using it as a base to engage in some petty banditry."

I made my voice sound like a skeptical courtier, "Why hire mercenaries Lord Leblanc?"

I swapped back to my normal voice, "Why, to protect his villagers from Jack of course. As well as the bandits that the Knights of Francesca, who are little better than bandits themselves judging by the recent actions of Captain De La Tour and their allies, are singularly unable to catch. It is not his fault that one, or some, of those mercenaries had less than entirely honest tastes. Or was involved in a conspiracy to frame him."

I fell into silence then.

"But they would still need something to prove their innocence? Something to make everyone doubt our story." Kerrass prompted me when it became clear that I wasn't going to start talking again.

"Which is why they had another Jack." Gregoire hadn't realised that Kerrass was just prompting me in order to keep me awake.

"Yes." I said before yawning enough to crack my skull. "I don't know, but I think they've always had an endgame in reserve. I think that they've always known that we might figure it all out. So one of the first things that they did when they were putting all of this together was getting ready for that moment that this happened. I doubt that it was part of the plan that they would get caught, but I can absolutely believe that they had this as a contingency. I can also believe that it might have been part of Raoul's plan that some people, or some of the conspirators would get caught. But we can't prove that of course."

"So what happened?" Kerrass prompted again.

"I think that they have had this strategy in reserve since the beginning." I told them. "Or as close to the beginning as it doesn't really matter. I think they set up a fall guy. Someone who can take the blame for anything and everything."

"But didn't they want the fall guy to be Kerrass?" Guillaume wondered.

"I think that would have been an ideal," I mused. "Although it's entirely possible that that was an improvisation on the part of Alain. After all, he had recently, or relatively recently found out that he had been cuckolded by Kerrass. He strikes me as the kind of man where he would be angry that what he did to other people would be something that was done to him. It also makes a certain amount of sense. A Witcher, especially a Feline one, does make a good fall guy for a set of supernatural, superhuman murders. It would also play into the prejudices of those people that are angry that as prestigious and historic a vineyard as Corvo Bianco would be given to Lord Geralt. Those people will fall over themselves to automatically believe something negative about Witchers. They would use it to try and hound Lord Geralt out of Toussaint."

I was rambling and knew it too. It just felt so good.

"But why will that work?" Syanna asked. "We know that there has been more than one Jack, we have known that for a while. So why does it help them for another Jack to come out of the woodwork?"

I took a breath, trying to rein in those parts of my brain that were trying to run away with themselves. Trying desperately not to follow those thought processes down into slumber.

Over the years and especially during my time as a student, having an ongoing thought process can have two outcomes when applied to a tired mind. The first is the stereotype of the tired, nay, exhausted scholar staring at the ceiling while the thoughts go round and round in their head. I have certainly done this. Enough so that the beams holding up the roof in my student rooms have started to take on a whole new meaning.

The concept of a Mind vault doesn't really work for me, but the closest that I've come is that when trying to remember something or some form of answer to the riddle that lies before me, I have leaned back in whatever chair that I find myself in and tried to imagine myself in my rooms, staring at the ceiling until the answer, or the train of thought, comes back to me.

The other thing though, the one that doesn't get talked about too much, is the moment where a tired mind can follow the thought process down into the deepest parts of fatigue. That sucking hole that calls to us to just lay down our heads for a little while longer and that the entire world will begin to seem that little bit better after several days snooze.

"We know that there is more than one Jack." I told them. "We have even said so in the courtly system of things. But does the average person on the street know that? Does the average courtier? And do they believe it? I am an outsider to Toussaint and it rather strikes me that, although I like, respect and admire the people that surround me now. You people that are trying to make a difference and drag Toussaint into the modern continent while still preserving what makes Toussaint, Toussaint. There are a lot of people that are trying to hold onto you, to drag you back and to keep you from going too far."

"Not too far from the mark," Guillaume said. "Certainly the case from what Vivienne tells me."

"So the conspiracy isn't playing to the Duchess. They're not really even playing to the common man. They're playing to the court. The only people that the court has that are telling them that there is more than one Jack are the Duchess' treasonous sister. The jumped up peasant Knight who most of them hate for ordering them around when they don't want to follow orders. A Witcher who they distrust because, who knows who the Duchess is going to give out writs of land to. The foreigner whose sister is showing them all up for their incompetence by ignoring centuries of tradition that they, the court, have died trying to uphold…"

"We get the point." Syanna said. "A puppy dog of a Knight who does whatever his wife tells him which goes against the laws of prophets and man."

"Hey… wait… that's me isn't it." Guillaume grinned. "But Vivienne is so much smarter than I am."

"Precisely." Syanna said. "They hate us."

"All of this against the Knights and nobles that come from long lines that are not trying to turn Toussaint on its head. Now I'm not saying that they are bad people. Sometimes people do need to be hauled back from the precipice of going too far and too quickly. But in this case, they are the target of the conspiracy. The men and women like Lord and Lady Tonlaire who remember you, Syanna, and the Duchess herself, setting fire to the Nilfgaardian ambassador's headpiece."

"Heh," Syanna smirked at the memory. "People still don't believe that that was Anna's idea."

I didn't stop.

"The people that agree that Toussaint is doing better with the Duchess ruling rather than the Duke who was incompetent at best, corrupt at worst. But they still believe that Toussaint should be ruled by a Duke, not a Duchess. Those are the people that this arrow is aimed at."

I took a deep breath.

"There they all are, the conspirators that we blame for these crimes. They are under arrest, their resources and their… whatever… taken away from them. They are in prison. Their guards and their mercenaries are neutralised by Ducal forces. So what are they able to do?

"And then a new Jack comes forth and drowns the streets of Beauclair in blood."

We could now see Beauclair in the form of an orange haze on the horizon. It had begun to drizzle, just a gentle kind of rain that soaks you through to your skin. It was cold, in that place just shy of when water turns into snow instead of rain.

"At that moment," I said. "The doubt that they are wanting to sow reaps it's harvest. Suddenly, everything is wrong. Everything has been wrong and everything will be wrong. The Knights of Francesca are failures. The foreign Witcher, Scholar and Vampire have led you astray. The treasonous bitch, the stupid Knight and the jolly jump up have so colossally fucked up. Going after their betters, in order to fulfill some old grudge of hatred, they became so blind to the truth that they locked up their political and historical enemies. And they had been wrong because Jack was still moving around Beauclair. Killing."

"Doing it just when everyone thought that they were safe too." Guillaume commented.

"And now, the conspiracy will be there, protesting their innocence. 'What do they have?' they will cry. 'The word of a foreign merchant and a disgraced bully of a Knight. And with this they are tainting the word of good, honest and decent men.' And the court will rise up because their greatest fears will have been realised.

"The good, noble and honest conservatives of the court will think, 'What happens when Syanna, Guillaume, Damien and the rest become dissatisfied with me? What happens when they decide that I need to be removed for the good of Toussaint?' And they will demand that the Knights of Francesca be disbanded. That Knights become lone operators again without a central control, answering only to the Duchess, or better, to answer only to the court. They will demand it and the conspiracy believes that the Duchess will be forced to agree."

"But she can't." Guillaume said. "The changes were ordered by the Empress."

"Ah my friend." Gregoire shook his head. "You are sometimes the most progressive, and most traditional Knight I've met at the same time. The people that Lord Frederick is talking about don't care about that. They see themselves as peers of the Empress. They will argue, indeed they did at the time, that Toussaint is it's own sovereign nation. And who was the Empress to arrange such a thing in the first place. They see that as foreign interference. They will use the fact that The Duchess refers to the Empress as 'cousin' in order to wonder why they should ever have to listen to the Empress in the first place."

"And they are the same kind of people." Syanna said. "Who thinks that Toussaint can stand up to the Empire on a military level. I've seen the reports of what would happen. The wine industry would be decimated, yes. And yes, there would be protests, but all of the allies that we would have once depended on to defend us. All of those allies are now part of the Empire themselves. It will be their troops that come into our borders with a view of taking our land and taking our money. Because those allies, as well as being our allies, are also jealous of us.

"They have been jealous for a long time. Those of us that actually know about such things are well aware that the myth of the military might of Toussaint is just that. A myth that we tell ourselves in order to keep us warm at night. The flower of Toussaint Knighthood would be obliterated in hours. Days at most. That is why these bastards are quite as dangerous as they are.

"If they are allowed to take power, or to take control of the courts away from my sister and those progressives, as well as more than a few conservatives to be fair, that have been arguing for this since… fuck since all of this began. Then we will have gone against the Empress' decree. Then, even though she won't want to, the Empress will have to order the Imperial second army into Toussaint with orders to destroy us. And Toussaint will be the first rebellion against the Empress' reign.

"Still," She said, brightening, "The answer still seems obvious to me. Damien and his people have been prepared for this for a while. Jack will be met by a storm of crossbow bolts. This will still all be over by morning."

This startled me out of the gentle doze that I had been sinking into since I had stopped speaking. Odd that sometimes, the slow and gentle movement of riding a horse can become quite soporific.

"No." I snapped. "No, that would be the worst thing that we can do. This Jack must be taken alive. It is absolutely vital that Jack not be killed. He needs to…"

"Why?" Guillaume wondered.

"Because if he is killed, then he is a lone man, a mad man. Committing his crimes for his own reasons. Doing what he wants for whatever reason that he wants. Remember this is about what people can paint this as. He needs to be taken alive so that he can tell us, so that he can tell the world what is happening, what has happened and so that he can nail these fuckers to the wall for us. He must be taken alive so that all of this will not be for nothing."

"That will depend on who he is though surely." Gregoire argued. "Why would the world believe that 'some nobody' would do all of this?"

"It won't be 'some nobody'." Kerrass said. "It needs to be someone who can believably be Jack." he spoke calmly.

"So who is it?" Gregoire demanded.

"RIDER." One of the forward scouts called back.

We clattered to a halt.

I saw the flames first. The rider was carrying two. The first was a large torch that lit the immediate area and also pointed out where the rider was to anyone that might be watching. The second light was in the form of a mirrored spotlight lantern. A dwarven invention, prohibitively expensive and was only really used for this kind of thing until the manufacturing cost could come down.

As well as the beam of light that would be generated by a normal bullseye lantern (a lantern with shutters so that one side can be opened casting a beam of light forwards), the mirrors focused that beam so that the light can be projected further. It is a relatively new invention, as in the last couple of years. It is being used by Watchmen who guard important gates and waystations at night. It blinds approaching riders as well as making matters so that people can see further. It is also used, occasionally and only under extreme circumstances, for night time riders. It does not make travelling by night safe, but it does mean that a messenger can see further ahead.

There is talk about weaponizing the new devices for Night fighting, using larger versions to blind enemies but there seems to be a problem of expense versus usefulness. I was told about an argument, that is probably apocryphal, between a dwarf and a merchant. Where the Dwarf said something like:

"Yes, I absolutely can build a huge one of these. The lenses to focus that amount of light would need to be even larger and more carefully crafted however, as we are no longer talking about a candle flame or a torchlight. Any light that would be useful on that scale would need to be a large, roaring flame which would come with so much more heat that it would potentially cause real problems to the frame of the device. And also, that amount of glass of that level of purity comes with a much higher price cost. And the process of using the focus would make the device prohibitively heavy. And while we're on the subject…"

And on and on it went.

Someone had thought the message important enough that this man was carrying one though. He was an older man, as the really good messengers tend to be, and he was riding quickly. He had seen the group and was heading towards us where he was intercepted by a scout. Not that we were afraid of one rider, but there are always risks.

"Report," Syanna snapped when the man was brought forward.

"Jack," the man was breathing easily. I am always surprised by the fact that he had no arms or armament other than a sharp dagger that he had on his waist. I know why of course, in that if a messenger is intercepted by something that is going to be negated by a fast horse, then a sword and shield is not going to provide that much help. Better to be lighter in order to be able to move quicker.

The dagger was for himself in case he was about to be taken. Messengers of this level get really well paid and there is a guarantee that should anything happen in the pursuit of their duty, then their families will continue to be looked after by the state that they serve.

"Jack is attacking. He has been sighted in the lower city and killed a sailor that was disobeying curfew."

Guillaume swore.

"Is he still attacking?" Syanna asked.

"Yes Commander." The messenger responded. "He is leaping over rooftops and attacking guardsmen and anyone that he comes across. He seems to be working his way up towards the upper city."

"Anything else?"

"He is calling for Lord Frederick." The messenger told her. How he managed to keep from looking at me is beyond me. Some kind of superhuman trick that they must teach in Messenger school. "He is inviting Lord Frederick to 'Come out and play'."

I nodded as that point went home.

"He will be heading to the fishmarket." I said.

"Or the graveyard." Kerrass added.

I nodded, I should have seen that possibility as well.

"He is trying to commit suicide by Guardsman," I added. "He must not be permitted to do so."

Syanna looked at the pair of us, at me, for a long moment. I got the feeling that she was weighing me in her mind. Then she nodded.

"Return with the best speed. I want the messengers to be gathered by the gate when I get there as I will have a lot of messages to be sent when I arrive at Beauclair. Things that cannot easily be carried by flags."

"Yes Commander."

"And pass word that Jack is to be taken alive. No-one is to attack, or engage Jack unless to directly defend themselves or a member of the public. The man that kills Jack before I get there will answer to the Duchess."

"Yes Commander." The messenger turned and galloped off into the night.

Syanna turned on Ariadne. "As I recall, the night of Jack's last attack, the Sorceresses had a thing where they were talking to the people hunting Jack. Can you speak to Fringilla and get her to pass the same word."

"I can. But you should know that the matter will not be perfect." Ariadne said. "Telepathy of that level is a spell and speaks to minds of people that we know. Unless a ritual has been performed in advance of course, but there still needs to be someone on the other end that we know or are acquainted with."

"So if Lady Vigo only knows the guard commanders around the market square, that does not help the people in the slums." Gregoire mused.

"Send the message anyway." Syanna said. "I will take any edge we can have. In the meantime, we are wasting time gentlemen. Let's pick up the pace."

A blue light danced around Ariadne for a moment as we pushed our own, now tired, steeds to a gallop. I know how they felt.

The drugs, the spells and the buzz that I had received from defeating Raoul at his own game had faded down to the echoes. Yes, it is entirely possible that this was all in my head. That they had only just begun to wear off and that this was what I was feeling. That is entirely possible. I admit that.

But it is also true, from those times that I have had to resort to using these kinds of crutches before, that when you have spent so much time under the influence of such chemicals. When you come down, you come down hard. Really hard. And that is one of many reasons as to why such things can become addictive. The urge to think and act and move on that kind of level is an intoxicating one.

Yes, I had been lifted up. But now I was beginning to fall back down again and I felt awful. But as well as that, there was the sinking feeling that if I felt awful now, then I still had a long way to fall. All I could do to get through it was to grit my teeth, keep my eyes open and really feel everything that happened.

What was that like?

My father loved hunting. To love hunting, requires you to have good horses and to have a certain fondness for horses. To love horses you have to have a skill at that, experience at that. And when you love something, you want to share it with other people. Especially with your family.

Whether they might be interested in such things or not.

But I had been learning to ride from a very young age. It was one of those processes where I was cleaning out stables and taking care of horse gear before I could do any of the fun stuff, so that by the time it came to actually riding the horses, it was more like the extension of an existing chore rather than it being even remotely fun.

But if there was any way that I could make my Father proud of me, then I was still at an age that I would take that path. So I learnt to ride. It became something that I was good at. Never quite good enough to race or do tricks. But good enough and experienced enough that I could easily ride for long times and long distances without really thinking about it. And experienced enough that riding at the gallop could be fun.

That last ride as we came over the bridge of the Cockatrice inn. Charging up the causeway towards the city. It was the longest, most agonising time that I had spent in the saddle.

Ever.

I am confident of saying that. This is not some Hyperbole made to sell the most recent issue. That was the worst ride of my life.

And I started to lose my mind a little bit.

Long term readers will remember the ride out of Northern Redania when Sir Rickard rode to inform me of my father's illness and pending demise. Where we rode south as though the very hounds of the wild hunt were chasing us.

So it should come as something of a shock when I tell you this.

We rode, not as fast as the messenger but still pretty quickly. Quick enough that I can call it a gallop, but not so fast that we couldn't keep our formation as we travelled the wide, older roads as we approached Beauclair. We clattered over the bridge, our hooves sent the thawing ground flying in small clods of earth. The rain water made our cloaks heave as we clattered through the gate and thundered to a stop.

I went to dismount but Kerrass held me in the saddle while Syanna shouted down at the gate.

I didn't listen and looked around, frowning.

"How are you doing Freddie?" Kerrass asked.

"Where is Rickard?" I asked him blearily.

"Where is…?" His face hardened. "Freddie. I know that this is the worst possible… I need you to come back now."

I blinked and stared at him as the horror of what I had just said and how I had reacted came back at me for a moment.

"Flame Kerrass," I whispered so that the others couldn't hear me. "I don't think I can do this." I said again

"Yes you can Freddie." He looked up so that he could see what was going on around us and probably gestured Ariadne over as she rode up and bracketed me on the other side.

"You can do this Freddie." Kerred muttered quietly and darkly into my ear. "You can do this for the same reason that I do this. The same reason that you made me do the same thing in Northern Redania. The same reason that you carried on going when we fled from Cavill and his ilk. You will do this because there is no other choice. You will do this because I will carry you if I have to and you will do this for the same reason as you did then. Because there is no-one else."

"Just a little more Freddie." Ariadne had retreated behind a mask again. I was looking at an illusion and I couldn't figure out why. She had cleaned herself up and had no reason to wear one since the Leblanc estate, but now she was here and wearing her illusion again as she looked at me. "Just a little more."

She turned to Kerrass. "I have to go." She told him. "I will be watching."

He nodded, only glancing at her briefly.

"Come on Freddie. One last bad guy. We can do it. You and me, just as we have done so many other times." He smirked. "Come on my friend. Don't make me do this on my own. That's no fun."

I nodded. I didn't believe it but I nodded. Mostly to shut him up more than anything.

I could smell woodsmoke and could hear hoofbeats.

I blinked again, those weren't hoofbeats.

In the time since the first time that Jack had attacked Beauclair, the people of Beauclair had developed a real phobia of large scale supernatural attacks. They had visions of single monsters attacking and massacring the citizenry en masse.

The innovation that Colonel Duberton and the members of the 4th Alba regiment of peace keepers had brought to combat this was a system of communication by flags. Men standing on prominent areas would wave their flags in specific patterns that could pass simple messages between towers and groups of people. My understanding of this was that it was not a complex system as complex messages would take more than the amount of time that it would take for a single man to simply wander over to the intended recipient of the message and tell them what was going on. But what it could do was pass simple orders around the nearby area.

The system was not without its critics, most notably was a problem that it actually did nothing to protect anyone who did not live in Beauclair. Nor would it be difficult to disrupt the system as all that Jack, a single monster, a horde of Vampires or an attacking army had to do would be to infiltrate the system and either kill the flag wielders or force them, at knife point, to send false messages.

All of which were perfectly reasonable comments and not a small amount of brain power was being devoted to considering how to fix this. Another argument that I have heard is that this measure does one thing that no other measure does, which is that it can be seen and therefore, it means that the populace feel more secure in their homes. It acts in the same way as seeing a patrolling pair of guardsmen act. If the guards are walking around on patrol, then there is nothing to worry about.

And it was that that I could hear. Flags clacking against each other, snapping in the forced wind of the moving flags. How I could have mistaken these things for the sounds of hoofbeats, I do not know.

I stayed in my saddle. One of the soldiers that was waiting at the gatehouse brought Kerrass and I a small tin cup each of the strongest, most pungent, sourest, bitter teas that I have ever had the misfortune to drink. But it scoured the scummy, wooly feeling off the back of my throat and I nodded at the man gratefully.

Kerrass poured his out onto the roadside.

Syanna was issuing orders in the rapid kind of delivery that comes with much practise. Messengers ran off in all directions. I didn't listen, paying attention seemed like spending so much effort and energy on something that I didn't need. Jack would be waiting for me at the Fishmarket and all I needed to do now was to catch him and end all of this. I was bored although that doesn't really sound like the right word. Nor can I really say that I was chafing at the inactivity.

Impatience might be the right thing I suppose. I was impatient to have it all over and done with. One last ordeal to go through. One last mountain to climb.

I watched, dully and with burning eyes as the messengers mounted their fast horses and rode off into the night.

I could smell the burning oil and woodsmoke in the air from all the fires that were being kept burning to help us all to see.

"Is it always like this?" Sam asked me.

"What?" I was startled from my own thoughts.

"Is it always like this? The waiting."

"Come on Sam, you're a soldier and you've waited for battle before." I told him.

"Freddie," Kerrass shook me.

"I'm awake." I told him, rubbing my hands across my eyes. "I'm awake."

"That's good because it looked as though you were about to fall off your horse." He was trying to lighten things with the joke.

"I couldn't." I told him. "You tied me to the horse, remember? Speaking of which, untie me would you?" I asked him. I was eyeing a nearby water trough and rather fancied some ice cold water being splashed over the back of my neck.

Kerrass did as I had asked and I headed over. Cupping my hand and splashing some water suddenly seemed like too much effort so I ducked my head and plunged it into the icy water.

As ways of waking yourself up go, it was not the best, but it was far from inefficient. I giggled at the thought that it would probably have made Ariadne cross with me.

"Freddie." It was Guillaume who clapped me on the shoulder. "It's time for us to part this night." He spoke formally. I would ask that you stay safe so that we might celebrate the capture of the people responsible in the morning. If for no other reason than I want to cheer your victory over the blaggard Leblanc. No matter what else might happen tonight, you should hold that high in your memory as the victory it was."

"I will." I said. "Where are you going?"

"I'm off to command one of the guard squads." He told me, dropping the more formal tone. "We are to block off areas to ensure that Jack cannot escape."

I nodded. "Be careful Guillaume," I told him. "He will be very good."

"I have a large shield." He told me with a grin. Guillaume has grins that you can hear.

"The last Jack laughed as he made mincemeat of overconfident Knights." I warned him. "I don't want to lose a new friend quite so quickly."

He sobered. "I am honoured that you would consider me a friend." He told me. "Honoured and moved sir. I hope to be worthy of your estimation. I will be careful, I would not wish to make Vivienne a Widow just yet." He smiled and the formality left his voice again. "She will never forgive me apart from anything else." He straightened and the formality was back. "The Knight Commander has ordered that we focus on defence and that Jack be taken alive. I will defend myself and my fellow and not move forward to the attack. It seems the least that I could do. Farewell my friend, and Good Fortune."

"Guillaume you too. I would shake your hand but that huge gauntlet of yours would…"

He laughed as he left. The loud booming laughter that was his trademark. Sir Guillaume, the laughing lion of Toussaint. Another man that takes guises and masks on himself in order to do those jobs that he needs to do. I watched him go with some nervousness. It sometimes strikes me that the graveyards of the world are filled with overconfident men.

And women too.

And I turned to face Gregoire who was waiting politely.

"He'll be fine," he said. "That one leads a charmed life."

My previous thought crossed my mind again. That the Graveyards of the world are filled with men of whom others once said 'They lead a charmed life.'

"It is now my turn to depart." He said.

"But before I go I am forced to ask a question or two. Will you answer?"

"If I am able." I told him.

"I am feeling very stupid." He rumbled, "I know that I am new to this investigative thing. New to the interrogation of suspects and the gathering of evidence. But everyone seems to be aware of something that I am not. You all seem to know who Jack is. Who is he?"

"Many different people." I said.

"Freddie is being smug." Kerrass said. "The truth is that a lot of people think that they know, they pretend that they know and then when the mask is removed at the end, everyone will say 'I knew it,' and pretend to genius."

"Do you know who it is?" Gregoire asked him.

"I think so." Kerrass mused. "I think it is the final folly of men who think that they can win."

Gregoire scowled before smiling at himself. "I feel as though I am being mocked."

"Kerrass is pretending to be smart." I told him.

"So who is it?" Gregoire asked me.

"I don't know." I admitted. "But I am as confident as I can be that I am right."

"See what I mean." Kerrass teased.

"Speak plainly." Gregoire managed the feat of smiling and scowling at the same time. "Who is beneath the mask this time?"

"Who would be the worst possible person for it to be?" I told him. "Who would cripple international relations between Toussaint and the rest of the Continent? Who would give our enemies the excuse to throw everything out that has happened since the Empress was here?"

"Guillaume." Gregoire said. "You maybe, or another Witcher…" He trailed off. "Prophets," He said before swearing for a while.

"You have it." I said. "That is what it is like to do this."

"I'm not sure I care for it." He said. "Thinking like that."

"The truth is," Kerrass put in, "That when you investigate this kind of thing, the killer is solved by asking yourself the questions of 'Who haven't I accused yet?' I am always surprised by how many times I have solved something with that question."

Gregoire smiled. "I suspect that there is some truth to that."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"On a similar errand to Guillaume." He answered. "Although not as near to danger as him. I am to guard the bridge in case Jack makes a break for it and has loftier targets in the palace in mind. I would not have said no to something closer to danger, but it would seem that my authority amongst the guard is not yet as strong as it could be. Therefore, it is best if I lead a defensive position rather than one where men who have been trained to fear me, by me, must now follow my orders without question."

He scratched his chin.

"I can see the logic, and truth be told I am much more confident issuing simple orders like "Hold the line," rather than something complex as to where to march and how quickly. That strikes me as a headache waiting to happen."

I laughed at him and he smiled.

"We do not have time and I wanted to say some things before I go to where I have to go and you have to go where you have to go." He told me. "I wanted to tell you that I do not have many friends and what friends I thought I had would not have done for me, half of what you have done. I thank you for that and you will have my undying gratitude."

"Gregoire I…"

"I know that what you did you did for Anne as much as you did for me, but that still stands. I would be honoured, sir, if you would stand next to me when we stand before the priest. I mean to ask Guillaume as well. I will understand if you say no. I can appreciate that the matter is delicate and…"

I put my hand on his arm.

"It might be the fatigue speaking," I told him. "But I would be honoured."

"Good… Good." He grinned and as was his way, the years seemed to fall off him when he smiled. "And watching you kick the shite out of Raoul was glorious. I don't mind telling you."

We laughed like children. "It was pretty fun." I told him.

"I cannot tell you how often I've wanted to do that to someone." He laughed. "But still. Farewell Lord Frederick. And Good luck."

"Gregoire, you too."

He marched off without another word, mounted up and rode towards the palace.

Kerrass was behind me.

"They're nearly ready for us Freddie." He told me.

"Oh good." I replied. "Who is 'they' and what are they nearly ready for?"

He sniggered as he led me over to a Syanna who had her map out.

"We are just waiting for everyone to be in position." She told me. "According to my reports, Jack is currently in the fish market, pacing up and down in frustration, swinging his sword about. Occasionally, he is striding up to a group of guardsmen or a group of Knights and trying to start a fight with them. He has also tried to break into a couple of houses and things although those houses are locked and the people inside have been evacuated."

I nodded, only partly taking the information in.

"He's asking for you by name Freddie." She told me.

"Poetry." I snarled. "What has he actually done so far?"

"He's killed three guardsmen and a sailor who was roughing up a homeless beggar. I say guardsmen but one of them was a woman."

I nodded, that worked with what I was thinking. I nearly tilted my head back and closed my eyes in order to think but that might have been disastrous. The possibility that I would fall asleep, or tip back into memory was something that could not be avoided.

"Are there any supernatural effects?" Kerrass asked.

"Witnesses say that he is extraordinarily fast with his sword."

Kerrass grunted at that. I finally noticed that the magical light had gone out around him, healing finished then. Not that this meant that the discomfort was over.

As I knew from bitter experience.

"Also, he has a booming voice that is much louder than it should be given the volume and force of his voice."

Kerrass nodded at that. "No teleporting or anything out of the normal realms of a very fit human or Elf?" He asked. "I'm assuming that he's not a dwarf in stature."

"He is no dwarf."

Kerrass nodded again.

A man ran up and whispered something in Syanna's ear and she nodded.

"Well, that's it then." She said, "These men will escort you both to the fish market. No big speeches from me, no flowery farewells. I will see you both when this is over. Good hunting."

And that was it. Kerrass and I moved to our horses and mounted up as Syanna herself mounted her own horse and rode off under escort to another part of the city.

Six horsemen rode up. They were guards rather than Knights. You can tell the difference after a while. Closer to soldiers rather than Knights. Their weapons looked more used, their armour looked that little bit lighter and more battered. They were dirty, one or two of them were badly shaven and faintly bored looking.

All of them looked as though they could do with more sleep.

I could relate.

Sam once told me about the difference between a guard, a soldier and a Knight. He told me that it doesn't matter about titles or where they serve in the order of battle, or even if they serve in the order of battle at all. In this fashion, he argued, a man can be the highest born nobleman in the land and still be a soldier or a guard. Whereas the lowest born muck shovelling beggar can become a Knight when things come down to it.

He then added this quote that I will never forget. "Happy is the land that allows people to be what they were meant to be."

He also told me that a man can start off at one point on the scale and then move to another depending on what was happening, how old the person was and so on and so on.

He said that men become soldiers when they find that they have no other choice. Often dictated by the country that they are part of, they simply must become soldiers because they are drafted into the army in one of the many ways that that can happen, or they are forced there by a magistrate, or the fact that it is the only place that will take them, or they are simply starving and that the clothes are falling off their backs. The army will generally give someone food, clothes and all kinds of other amenities that they wouldn't get otherwise.

Men stay soldiers for the same reason. They are still at war, or find that they cannot imagine life any other way. But they are still soldiers because they are forced to do what they are doing.

For guardsmen, it is a job. A task. A way to pay the bills. Often professional because they can be trained to do the thing that they are being paid to do and if a person is being unprofessional, they can be replaced fairly easily. The person needing the guards will pay for better equipment and on the grounds that a well fed, well trained and well equipped guard will perform their duties better. So guards can often do quite well for themselves. The fact that in most environments, corruption is rampant, means that guards are often very well paid as well.

Apparently, the worst thing that can happen is when you force soldiers to do the duties of a guard, or a guard to perform the duties of a soldier.

Knights are people that have been called to it. In the same way that some men and women are called to religious service, so too can people be called to service of the more military kind. These are the people that go out of their way to keep their equipment spotlessly clean, that work hard to learn how to use their weapons, they look out for the less experienced people under their command.

The problem is that they always, always seem to volunteer and as a result, they tend to be hated by the people around them. When they are leading other men into danger and they have volunteered their people for that duty, or they volunteer making the other soldiers look bad in comparison.

I remember asking him which one of these options he was. He laughed at me.

"Why Freddie," he said. "All of them."

I didn't know what to make of that at the time.

In this case though, the man in charge of the small patrol that had been put in charge of escorting us to the Fish-market looked about twelve to my eyes. In all truth, he was probably older than I am, but he seemed… keen. I suppose that is the right word. 'Eager' might be another word.

"Gentlemen," he said, "Shall we go?"

"One moment." Kerrass waved him off before turning to me. "Are you ready for this Freddie?"

"I don't know." I told him as honestly as I could manage.

He nodded. "Best to get it done then eh?"

"One way or the other."

We mounted back up. I couldn't remember having dismounted. Nor could I remember having been untied from my horse. It only struck me then as being strange that this might be the case.

We rode slowly, again, there was that feeling that the guards wanted to chase us along a bit, the men in front kept pulling away from us a bit further than I was entirely comfortable with while those behind seemed a bit closer than they needed to be. I didn't know what to make of it. It felt uncomfortably like being taken to the place of my execution.

The streets of Beauclair were deathly silent, all but deserted. I could see lookouts on the rooftops and occasionally shutters or windows would open so that people could peek out at us and watch us pass by. There was plenty of light though, despite the light rain that was still falling which hissed as it struck the hot metal of the fire baskets and sent the torches fluttering. All the time, the slow rhythm of Kerrass' and My horses along with the variable speeds of the Guards horses seemed to echo off the nearby buildings. Echoes bouncing, reverberating and echoing until they became like cushions that pillowed me on either side, begging me to fall asleep and allow myself to drift off into the soft arms of slumber.

I felt like I was in a dream. One that I was desperately trying to wake up from.

The streets were becoming familiar to me now. I knew which way we were going and which roads would be coming next. The fish-market would be just down the way, surprising me the first time, with the fact that it's not actually on the edge of town, but rather on one of those waterways that runs through it.

From there, the fish that are caught, gutted and prepared, are taken all the way through Beauclair. To the chefs that eagerly wait in their taverns to turn the fish into the latest delicacy that they have dreamed up. To the salters and smokers so that the tasty, delicate meat can be utterly ruined as it becomes preserved for long journeys.

Beauclair was, like a lot of the major cities of the continent, Elven first. And there is a not small amount of discussion as to what the different parts of the city were for when they were under Elven rule. Whatever else might be said of the Fishmarket, it was always a meeting place. What other purpose could it serve?

"What are you going to say to him?" Kerrass asked me as we rode.

"What?" He had startled me out of a thought process. Or possibly kept me from falling asleep. "Who?"

"Who else?"

I considered the question.

"I have no idea." I said. "I thought I would start with, 'Please don't stab me in the face.'"

Kerrass considered this.

"Eloquent." He decided. "Lacking a certain punch though."

"What else am I going to say? In those first few moments, what can I possibly say?"

Kerrass considered that a bit longer.

"Nope," He agreed. "You were right the first time, best to keep it simple. How are you doing Freddie?"

"You keep asking me that?"

He laughed. He was doing that a lot more often since he had fought Alain. "Oh how the tables have turned." He said. "As I recall, I remember getting so angry with you when you steadfastly refused to ask me anything else when we were fleeing from Cavill and his gang of… drug crazed lunatics. Over and over again you would ask me how I was doing and more and more often I found that I was getting angrier and angrier at the question. Tell me Freddie, have you yet reached the point where you want to drive my face into the ground?"

"I am close." I admitted. "I did it at the time to remind you of where you were and what we were doing. Trying to keep your head in the present rather than sinking into the madness that I knew was clawing at your soul."

He nodded. "And that is precisely why I ask you the same thing now Freddie. So how are you doing?"

We rode down the road a little way further. There was an archway coming up. One of those places that probably had gates attached to it at one point or another. The kind of place that you could imagine had once been part of the city walls before the city itself had expanded into the nearby countryside. There was a house on top of the wall now and it formed, almost a tunnel through which we had to ride. The fish market was on the other side of that tunnel.

"I have nightmares that start like this." I told him.

Kerrass grunted.

There we were. I had come to this place from a different direction last time. The square looked smaller this time, less open. Less filled with still activity. We were more inside the depths of winter now and I suppose that the fishing had stopped with the river having been frozen over in various stages. There was a lot missing, there were no wooden tables littering the place. No benches or stands of stalls covered in flapping canvas.

It seemed to be a tableau frozen in time,a carving of a place rather than the actual place itself. In the same way that men have tables with constructed, miniaturised versions of the terrain of the various battlefields, it felt like that. A replica. I had an uncomfortable feeling that we were small, toy soldiers being moved around while others discussed the various ways that they would have done things differently if they had been in our place.

There were much fewer of us this time. Kerrass, myself and six guards. I could see other entrances and exits to the market, avenues that were being blocked off. Black armoured soldiers of the Imperial forces that were still garrisoned in Toussaint, The shining armour of the Knights reflecting the torchlight. I thought I could see Guillaume pacing at one of the entrances.

The rain was still falling gently in the kind of steady mist that made the stones seem slick and shining. Making the light that the torches give off a kind of fuzzy halo.

It still seemed so dreamlike to me. Unreal, remote and oddly peaceful.

I was glad that we were coming to that place by a different route. I do not know how I would have handled the matter if we had come at it from the same direction that I had with Sam the last time we were here.

At first I couldn't see him. Even though I looked for him rather carefully. But at first I couldn't see him. I have thought about it since and I do not entirely think that it was because of my fatigue or the fact that I could no longer entirely trust what I was seeing or doing. He was… less than Jack had been the last time we were here.

That Jack had dominated the space. There was no way that you could miss him, even as he was fairly small in stature, he drew your eye and it was almost impossible to look away from him. And it wasn't just that he had been kicking decapitated heads into the river while singing a little song. The presence of the man had been like a… Like a Bull in a field.

I had once had to hide in a hayloft with a cattle farmer who told me all about how to deal with Bulls. His wife and children were quaking next to us and in his head, the way to calm them, and himself, down was to talk about farming. Specifically, he was talking about the keeping and the use of breeding bulls

He told his son, and therefore me, that one of the hardest things to deal with when you are dealing with cattle of any kind is the "Stud" part of the livestock. Sheep, goats, horses, deer, the male can be extremely territorial and protective of those that are in it's care.

But none of them can compare to the amount of trouble that a bull can be when it comes to that. He told a warning story about how he was forced to work with a bull. A story from his childhood I think. He said that his father had a breeding bull and when he wasn't needed for any of the breeding work that was required of such an animal, the beast was kept in a field a little distance away, behind a row of trees and well away from all of the other farm animals.

His father had tried all the tricks, tying him up from a young age so that he was used to being restrained… all of it had worked on every other animal that was in the farmer's care. But this bull ignored all the attempts and laughed at attempts to tame him. He seemed to know that his worth was more than any two or three other animals as he was a prize Bull, his children were always strong, healthy and good producers of either meat or milk therefore, he could not be got rid of.

The Bull had to be kept away from the others because otherwise, whenever the farmer would approach any of the cows, the Bull would start getting aggressive, which the cows would run away from. One of the jobs of the young farmer's son was to sit near to the Bull's field in order to warn off people that might think of taking a shortcut through the field to the nearby river for fishing or any of the other reasons that you might need to go near a river.

The use of signs were pointless given how few people could read in that area and in that walk of life. I had learned not to ask that kind of question early in our travels together. It was much cheaper and easier to put a young child on a stool with a hunk of bread and cheese in order to warn off locals and to scream an alarm in case of poaching attempts.

Prize stud Bulls are rare apparently.

The Bull had been taken and slaughtered by one army or another during the various wars and, as a result, the damage to the farm had been almost irreplaceable. It still hadn't reached the same levels that it had once been able to command and the family that had once been masters of a considerable amount of land were ekeing out a living from the ground that their grandparents had lived in.

They were trying to grow Barley when we were there. Including in those fields that had been cursed when a large number of a local population had been rounded up into the field and then massacred. Which had led to the Echinopse problem that Kerrass hired to deal with.

But I've talked about that in other publications.

But the way he described the Bull was really interesting to me. He said that there was no way that you were unaware of the presence of the Bull. You could not ignore it, it was this… he described it as a "presence" in the field. As a solid, weight that drew the eye. He hated it when it was his turn to watch the bull and his friends would come and tease him about the fact that he was plainly terrified of this Bull. They would come and play a game of chicken where they would get to the field and dare each other to go further and further into the field in an effort to antagonise the Animal.

He said that the Bull would watch them, that he knew that those children were there and stared at them with a fierce and horrifying intelligence as it snorted and pawed at the ground. It would fake the charge towards them if they touched the fence, or if they started to climb the fence. And sometimes, it would watch, and wait until the child had climbed the fence and gone into the field. It would pretend to not know that the child was there and then it would leap forward into a charge.

The locals thought it was a fun game until one time a child slipped in his haste to get away from the Beast.

The Farmer said that the Bull was a solid presence, it dominated the ground that it was in. You were always aware of it because you knew that in the face of such raw power, there was nothing that you could do to stop it or turn it aside. That if you tried to force it, or divert it, then it would have you. It would turn it's dark eyes towards you and you would be able to see it plotting your destruction. It would destroy you and you would be powerless before it.

That was what that first Jack had been like. He had dominated the Fish market, there was no way that you could escape him. He drew the eye and to go up against him was to know that he was a greater… He was a force. A solid force that you could not avoid or look away from. He owned the space that he was in. It was his territory and we had the temerity to enter that space. He dominated the landscape and only left it on his own whim.

This Jack was different. This Jack… did not own the ground, he moved through it. He was more like a Cat moving through the grounds of a castle, slinking from one place to the next. He moved with the grace of a fighter, a lot like how Kerrass moves, or Ciri moved when she wasn't being the Empress. He was loose and easy and relaxed. And he had absolute authority.

The last Jack was a cackling madman. This Jack was calm, upright and collected. He was dressed almost the same though. The darkness, the misting rain and the leaping torchlight obscuring details. He had a sword in his hand and an off hand fighting dagger, just shy of the length of a short sword. It was still some distance away but it looked to me as though it was a better made sword as well. More expensive.

He wore a long dark cloak or coat that was open at the front showing the doublet of a gentleman beneath the coat. I saw a white collar and cuffs and he wore riding trousers and boots. The boots did not have spurs on them which I found interesting as I always do when I notice that fact about people.

He wore a dark felt hat with a wide brim that shadowed his face quite deeply and underneath he was wearing a cloth mask with eye holes cut out. There was a larger hole for his mouth and nose though, holes from which we could see his breath steaming.

He was pacing, backwards and forwards, half a dozen steps one way before taking another half a dozen steps the other way. He was glaring at the walls of soldiers that were obscuring and blocking one of the routes into the square.

"How are you doing?" I asked Kerrass.

"I'm tired." He answered. His eyes had narrowed as he studied Jack carefully, taking in the details. "I could do with a long sleep as it's been a hell of a day all told. And if I'm tired then I hate to think how you're feeling."

He laughed suddenly, a short bark of laughter.

"I also hope that this isn't too strenuous a confrontation. I have a distinct feeling that I need a shit. Except it won't be a good, solid and reassuring bowel movement. It's going to be a liquid, squirty thing that burns as it…"

"Thank you Kerrass."

"The healing has stopped," He said as the humour subsided. Jack had heard the laughter and turned towards us. "But I don't feel well." He shook his head. "The last time we fought Jack, you nearly died and we had the full force of the Imperial guard and half a dozen other Witchers to help us. I fought Jack that night and I could not have taken him by myself. We were lucky to get him at all. You say that you have nightmares about this? Well, so do I."

He drew his sword and gestured with his of hand until a golden light started dancing around his body.

"But this is not Jack." He said. "Is it."

The question was rhetorical, but I answered it anyway.

"No." I said. "It's not."

Jack had turned, his left hand was behind him now under his cloak so that when he turned during his pacing, we still couldn't see it. He held his sword towards us as he moved, placing his sword between us and him, always ready. Out and down when his right hand side was towards us, across the body and up when his left profile faced us.

A fencer's stance

"He's waiting for us." I sighed, trying to put some bravado into my voice. I failed. "What do you think he wants?"

"Yeah." Kerrass said. "You're right." He took a deep breath, sounding just as tired as I felt. "Let's go and find out."

We started walking towards Jack. Kerrass moved, a little ahead of me and I followed him, behind and slightly to the left. Our oldest formation. One that we have used against monsters, men and everything in between.

"Finally." Jack's voice was obscured by something. I have no idea what it was. It sounded echoey though. As though it was being spoken into a metal box. He didn't speak loudly, there was no volume to what he was saying, but there was a power to it. We both heard it as though it was a conversation and Jack was standing nearby.

Jack flexed his sword arm and stretched before settling into a fencing stance. All of the standard things, it was like it was directly out of the manual. He stood side on, left hand in his coat but it could be easily supposed that it was on his hip. The hilt of the sword was low, near the hip, with the blade angled up to a point which would have been on the same level as our eyes and faces. It was pointed between Kerrass and I, slightly towards Kerrass given that he was in the lead. All of that to be expected.

"What do you want?" I asked, speaking clearly and with properly supported breath so that the other soldiers and Knights could hear me speak.

"I would have thought it would have been obvious." Jack hissed. "I want you to die."

"We don't want to…" I began.

"But I do." He snarled. His left hand came round and his hand came up, holding a small crossbow and fired it at Kerrass.

The Golden explosion that followed the explosion of Kerrass' Quen shielding always has a bit of a kick and I skipped sideways to avoid the worst of it. Then Jack was on us.

He attacked Kerrass first, darting in with a series of lunges. Kerrass was trying to use another sign with his right hand, whether to try and cast another shield to protect himself or some other gambit in order to help us against our foe. Kerrass fell back, parrying the lunges relatively easily with his left hand.

I moved in with a sweeping cut. Kerrass and I were both tired and we were falling back on our oldest techniques. Fighting is about lines and trying to get round other people's lines of defence. I knew that I would not challenge Jack in a straight fight, but if I could turn him around a little. Try and force him to leave one side of him open to Kerrass then that was what I was there for. The other two men were already working on a level that I could not comprehend anyway.

I had expected a parry which would have pushed my spear, and therefore me, out of the way. I had hoped for a block which would have meant that Jack was more closely engaged with me. Instead, Jack simply skipped out of the way.

I followed. Trying to keep the pressure on while giving Kerrass the space to come up with another gambit. Kerrass cast another Quen shield and moved in around me, trying to come in on Jack's other side.

Jack fell back from me, parrying my attacks easily and with little effort. My arms ached and I had to grit my teeth to make sure that the attacks had the necessary snap to them.

Jack's peripheral vision and his spatial awareness of the combat was incredible. He had seen what Kerrass was doing and dodged around me, putting me between Kerrass and himself.

Jack laughed and I wondered if I could hear a bitter edge to that laughter.

I should not have thought about that, the momentary distraction of that wondering opened up my defences and Jack was on me, forcing me back and into Kerrass' way.

I was struggling to focus and I think that Jack could tell that as well.

He attacked me a few more times, they weren't real attacks, they were closer to being… almost leisurely. I blocked and parried, but the point behind each blow was that it pushed me further and further backwards, therefore further and further into Kerrass' path. So that when Kerrass would try and get round me to bring his own weapons to bear, he would find himself impeded by a foolish scholar who didn't know what he was doing.

Jack started to laugh again. He ducked under one of my sweeping attacks and stabbed me in the chest. Not hard and not particularly quickly. And he stabbed me in one of the tougher panels of my leather coat. I threw myself backwards from the blow and very nearly collided with Kerrass.

The leather was scarred, but not seriously damaged. He had drawn no blood. I had a bruise there for several days however.

Kerrass finally stepped around me, straight into another object that Jack had produced from underneath his coat that was thrown into Kerrass chest. Again, the Golden shield of Quen fired. This time I was not as prepared for it, still recovering from the jab to the chest and I fell, desperately trying to turn it into a roll so that I could come back to my feet.

There was not quite enough inertia for that and I only managed to get to my knees.

Jack feinted towards me in my vulnerable state and Kerrass moved to block him. And that was when we found it was a feint as Jack fell back from us.

"I can kill you anytime I want to." He told us, chuckling. "The great scholar Knight and his Witcher lackey."

"Then why don't you?" I wondered as I climbed to my feet.

"Because that wouldn't be as much fun." He said with a horrible relish before leaping into the attack, literally leaping forward with a lunge.

Kerrass gestured and a blast of air knocked Jack from his leap and sent him sprawling. He showed me how it was done though and rolled with the impact, coming to his feet with grace.

Kerrass gestured again, a white light glowed around his hand and I saw a similar glow appear around Jack's head before Kerrass charged in. I followed only a fraction of a heartbeat afterwards.

Jack shook his head violently for a moment and leapt to meet Kerrass' attack.

I hung back a little. Jack had shown that he was more than capable of using me to interfere with Kerrass and to throw the Witcher off his game. Kerrass was just as sick and tired as I was though and I could not afford to leave off forever. So I hung back and looked for an opportunity to get involved and also to see if I could see something that would help us.

There has been some criticism of why I did not shout, or try to get someone's attention and try to bring things towards their conclusion here. The answer is a simple one. Fighting takes an immense amount of concentration. If I had called out, then even though Kerrass was not really trying to kill his opponent, there was a real risk that there would be some form of accident. Kerrass could be distracted in his weakened state, leaving an opening for Jack to exploit. Or Jack, who I was desperately trying to keep alive could make a mistake and jerk left when he should have gone right and ended up on the end of Kerrass' sword.

So I spent some time analysing.

It was a strange fight. Kerrass and I have certainly fought more dangerous opponents. Whatever else could be said about the person that we were fighting, he was only a humanoid person. There was a chance that he was an elf, but I doubted that given the breadth of Jack's shoulders. So one way or another, Jack was still human. Which meant that he was still ruled by the laws of human biology. His arms would only work in a certain way, he could only be so strong and so fast. His breath control, while obviously prodigious, would not last forever.

He was an exemplary fighter but, again, I was left with the feeling that Kerrass and I have faced better. Not many, but better. There was something lacking in his technique.

"I can kill you any time that I want to." He had said. He had been right as well. I was no match for him alone. He had made none of the assumptions about my fighting techniques that Raoul Leblanc had made. Raoul had been better than me but he was used to dancing and duelling in tournaments, not real fighting and as such, his overconfidence had been his downfall. This man was used to fighting.

He had also been prepared for a Witcher's signs. There are a number of counters for a Witcher's signs that I have learnt over the years. Some are simple and some are more complex. This man had fallen on the most simple way to get around the shielding sign. I had no doubt that he had a number of easily throwable missiles in his cloak that could be used to dispel the shield of Kerrass'. He had ignored the sign of suggestion and if Kerrass found some time in the combat to draw a sign on the ground in order to impede Jack's speed and mobility, I would not doubt that Jack would simply avoid it.

I made a small wager with myself that Jack's cloak was an expensive, flame proof weave, if in no other way, I bet it was soaked in water. There are alchemical solutions that can do the same thing I understand.

He wasn't fighting with us. I don't know where the realisation came from. It was suddenly just there. He wasn't trying to fight us. He was goading us.

Flame I was tired.

I acted on the thought as soon as it came, leaping back into the melee.

I fought carefully, methodically, focusing on my defence above all else, staying out of reach, blocking and parrying and only going for an attack when I knew that there would be nothing to come back at me. And most importantly, I only attacked when I was sure that I would not actually hurt him.

I was tired, and it took me a long time to see it. It might even be true to say that I only saw it because I was actually looking for it.

Jack was leaving openings. He was, deliberately, inviting me to kill him. And if I took any of those opportunities, I had no doubt that he would not survive them. He even made an effort to trap my blade and force it into his own body, but I was ready for it and pulled back.

"What are you doing?" He demanded in a hiss.

"It's over." I told him, falling back a little way and bending double as I gasped for air. "It's all over,"

"You don't need to do this." Kerrass tried. "It's…"

"Who are you to tell me what I need to do?" Jack demanded. This time without the strange, echoey sound that was added to his voice.

I opened my mouth to try and speak.

"Fine." He whispered, the enchantment back. "Then how about I give you some encouragement."

He turned away from us and ran for the water of the frozen river.

"Fuck." Kerrass was as tired as I was, drinking a potion. It's important to remember that the use of his signs tires him out faster than full contact fighting does.

"He's not going to listen." I said between gasps. Desperately trying to get my breathing under control.

"Then we must make him listen." Kerrass growled. "Fucked if I'm letting this get any worse. Come on Freddie, we must chase him."

"Oh good." I groaned. "I like chasing people."

We ran to the water's edge. The fight and the thinking were tearing through my body now and I felt a burning pain in my limbs, especially around my calves and thighs. I desperately wanted to throw up but I wasn't entirely sure that there was anything there to throw up.

Jack was running across the ice in such a way that it made the entire endeavour look trivially easy. The light rain had made puddles form on the ice so that he splashed as he ran.

I blinked.

The fire was all around me. I had seen Francesca's head sailing into the water at the end of Jack's boot. He was laughing at me and as I charged towards him, he laughed once more and turned before diving into the water. An anger so huge that it was overwhelming leaped up from around my ankles and took hold of my chest.

"Flame no." I shouted. "Not again."

I leapt forward. Something stopped me. Pain exploded in the side of my face, white light exploded behind my vision.

I blinked.

"Not this time Freddie." Kerrass told me after slapping me.

"We have to catch him." I said.

"And we will, there is a bridge over there, he's not going the same way the last Jack went."

We charged off, the guards were already moving and we were off and running between armed men.

They say that mad men feel as though they are getting saner. I wonder if that is true, although I might have seen evidence of that. But as we ran I could feel myself beginning to slip away. The herbs and the spells were gone now. They shouldn't have gone, they should still have been in my system, but I could no longer feel them. I stumbled and blundered on. The only reason I kept going in the same direction at all was because we were on a bridge, there was a rail on either side and the other men were pushing me in the same direction.

The edges of my vision were going grey, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as well as feeling it all over my body. So much so that I could feel it in my toes, which ached.

I could feel an old anger in my chest, it was a memory of an anger from long before hand. A memory of rage that I was fighting off with logic. But logic is a wall of paper before all of that flame and all I could to stop it was erect more and more walls of paper.

This wasn't the same Jack. It wasn't. I knew that. But it was the same Jack. I can describe it in no other way and it is the weakness of this medium that I cannot… Flame but this is so frustrating.

I knew that the two periods of time were separate. I knew that Francesca had disappeared just under a year ago. I knew that that particular Jack had been anonymous, augmented by magic that we did not know and could not have understood. I knew that this was a different place, a different time and a different outcome.

Not least because I all but knew who Jack was this time and what was at the source of his presence. I knew what had brought him here this time. I knew what was happening and why he was the way he was. And I absolutely knew how vital it was that we keep him alive.

But I was chasing him through the streets of Beauclair. I had seen him massacre a square full of Knights and a couple of Witchers. I had seen him kill and kill and kill and I could not escape the feeling that those people deserved better. Here was a Jack that I could catch and maybe, this time… maybe I could catch him and then when I caught him…

I could force him to tell me where he had taken Francesca.

If I was just a little bit faster, if I was just a little bit stronger then I could stop Sir Thomas from dying, another one of those good people whose deaths I could have prevented. The young Knight of the Imperial guard that had had a crush on Francesca without knowing that Sleeping Beauty herself was beginning to nurse a crush on him.

He had died in my arms, left to die in agony so that Laughing Jack could make a point.

But this wasn't the same Jack. I knew it but I also knew that the other thing was also true. I knew it. I just had to be a bit quicker. Just a bit quicker.

But I was tired… No, that's not the right word. I was exhausted. I was not far away from collapse. And I could not stop.

We made it to the other side of the bridge.

Kerrass turned to the guards around us and grabbed a Sergeant while pushing me towards a wall, turning me and sitting me on a box by force..

"You." He shouted. I always find it insulting when superiors don't know the names of their subordinates. I know why it happens but it's insulting and I hate it. "Keep your squad here. Block the bridge and ensure he doesn't double back. Watch the ice as well. Then I want a messenger to..."

I blacked out for a second, someone might call it falling asleep while I sat. All I know is that I missed the next part of Kerrass' orders.

"... trying to get himself…"

I missed a bit.

"And if he dies then…"

I found myself in a nightmare landscape. I was on the hill in Northern Redania. Exhausted from fighting. Sick with malnutrition, blood loss and poison. The enemy was coming and there was nothing I could do. I was watching Dan, the long dead archer who had made the now fabled "Sun shot" to kill Lord Cavill. He stepped out from behind the tree to brace himself for the shot that would save us all. But this time he was met by a storm of crossbow bolts that almost cut him in half.

We were all going to die.

I slumped sideways and I started to laugh. Kerrass turned to look at me and for a moment, it wasn't Kerrass, it was Rickard. I knew it was Kerrass because he was wearing Kerrass' armour and carrying Kerrass' swords. But I swear to the flame that it was Sir Rickard. That Knight that now serves my family and is, as I write this, planning his coming marriage to Dr Shani.

I had nearly fallen off my box in falling asleep. For reasons known only to my tortured mind, I found that incredibly funny and laughed.

I blinked and Kerrass became Svein, the big Warlord of Skellige. The guards and soldiers had turned into the other crew of the Wave-Serpent. I had enough time to wonder what they were all doing here. Especially the dead ones. Just enough time to realise that I was thinking that before I realised what was happening and binked, shaking my head.

That was a mistake.

I turned my head and finally managed to vomit up some of the bile and acid that had been churning my stomach.

Kerrass was at my side with some water. It was ice cold and I drank it greedily, using it to clean the horror from my throat and my mind. I splashed some water over my head and the back of my neck to help with that which wasn't entirely successful.

"Dammit Freddie you need to…"

"Yeah I do." I agreed. "But I'm not going to."

"I know. But I would hate myself for the rest of my life if I didn't at least suggest it. If only because Ariadne will yell at me for letting you get this bad and…"

Someone screamed. It was a woman's voice and I was up, spear in hand and charging down the street. There was no conscious process in what I did. I was just up and running.

Kerrass yelled something. Probably cursing me for a fool or some other combination of words.

It was another one of those moments where I knew it had happened but there was no way of my being able to do anything other than what I had done. I knew he had yelled, but I hadn't heard him. I know that that is a paradox. I know it sounds strange and impossible and all I can say is that. I know, but that's what happened.

I was fighting myself now as well as Jack.

I could see Jack running along the rooftops above me. I could hear him scrabbling around and jumping and missing and all of the other things.

I also knew that there were sounds of combat ahead of me.

I knew that one thing would be my imagination, or my memory, or...well… something and the other was actually taking place. And because it was me, I was thinking about it logically.

Last time I had been chasing Jack through the streets of Beauclair, he was leading me somewhere. I rather thought that both Jacks were trying to make me lose my temper and get angry to the point where I would stop thinking and act irrationally. But last time, it was me and him in the streets with the guards, Kerrass and the rest trying to catch me while also coming up with the scheme to end Jack. This time, we were more prepared.

When we had reached this point last time, there had been little to no sounds of combat. This Jack was human, a pale imitation of what had come before. So the sounds of combat would be brief and to the point. And the screams of the dead and dying had been the screams of men that were on the end of Jack's sword.

There were no female screams that night.

Well, there were, but not by the time that I had started my own chase.

So I decided, in the strange logic that exists in exhaustion, that the sounds of combat and the woman screaming were the current memory and I ran after that.

I came round a corner and all of the exhaustion that made the edges of my vision go all ripply and grey, that tied the weights to my arms and legs and caused my heart to pound. All of it went away.

There were three guardsmen, one had grabbed the woman and pushed her into a corner where he was trying to get her to be as small as possible so that he could protect her with his shield. The other two men were just trying to put themselves and their shields between Jack and the woman in question. One of those, exceptionally brave and commonplace pieces of bravery from the standard city guard where they place their bodies between foolish people and harm.

We know that this incident occurred. We found the survivors later and spoke to them. They had no idea who the woman was either as she ran off as soon as she was able to. One of them claimed that she was probably someone's mistress or a courtesan trying to get home after an appointment. He said that she would have been beautiful if she hadn't been so terrified.

I came round the corner and took in the situation.

"Finally." Jack said again, twisted one of the guards weapons around and stabbed him in the shoulder. The injured guard's shield started to fall as he bellowed in anger and pain in an effort to keep the shield up, but the muscle was ruined and there was no way that he was going to make it.

I screamed and ran in, levelling my spear like it was a lance at a joust.

Yes it was stupid, but not as stupid as it sounds. Why?

"I can kill you anytime I want to," is what he had said. And he had been right. He could have killed me back in that first exchange back in the fish market. He hadn't. I still didn't know why. But if he hadn't killed me then, then there was a good chance that he wouldn't kill me now.

I charged in and to no-one's surprise, he parried, pushing the spear aside. However, he did not expect me to stop bracing the spear. In pushing the spear aside, it meant that his sword was also out of the way and I kept the momentum going, ducking my shoulder and driving it into Jack as hard and as fast as I could.

He was reassuringly solid when I made contact with him as we both went tumbling from our feet and rolled away.

It was at this point that one of the guards hauled the girl out of the way and she fled.

Jack made it to his feet first, to meet a ballistic and furious Kerrass who rained sword blows down on Jack. The guards moved to support him, leaving the wounded man to cut the heavy shield free of the injured arm and retreat in the direction that the girl had fled.

"GET BACK." I told the two guards. Too late. They had joined Kerrass in pushing him back which meant that Jack was more under threat. With a gesture that looked almost like a reflex thing, an unintended gesture. The sort of thing that is trained into you over years and years and years of having masters and tutors screaming at you that after "A" happens then you must ALWAYS do "B". Jack rolled his sword over the blade of one of the attacking guards and, aiming down and over the shield, sliced the guard's throat open.

The guard fell, desperately trying to keep the blood that was visibly pumping through his fingers in his body.

He wasn't going to make it.

I leapt to join Kerrass who was driving Jack back down the street now. There wasn't really much room for me to reach past and bring the spear to bear. Kerrass was calming down now. Whether he was dealing with his own fatigue or what, he was calming and the cold, clinical fighting style of the Witcher was back as he forced Jack back and back and back.

Jack brought his left hand into play again, bringing out a parrying Knife, trying to trap Kerrass' blade.

"Do you want to know what she looked like?" Jack asked him as they fought. He sounded out of breath. "As I slit Lady Moineau's throat from ear to ear. Do you want to know how she screamed and whether or not she begged for her life?"

I followed closely, looking for a gap, praying that Kerrass would do what I could not.

Stay calm.

"Do you want to know what it was like when I ripped her open? How she begged and whimpered. The whimpers of the dying woman, so close to the whimpers that they make when they are in the throes of passion do you not think?"

Of all the things that I expected Kerrass to do next, I did not expect him to laugh.

He fell back from Jack, sword steady and levelled at Jack, not wavering.

"You weren't there." Kerrass giggled. "You weren't there. You didn't do that. I don't know who did, not for sure anyway and when I find out who it was then I will end them. But I know it wasn't you. Your attempts to goad me will not work."

Jack snarled. I know that I use that word a lot to describe the way people say things. But this time it is accurate.

Then he turned and ran up the side of a building.

Well, not really, but to my exhausted brain, that was certainly what it looked like for the few seconds that it took for my mind to catch up with what had actually happened and to stop blinking at the place stupidly.

What he had actually done was jump onto a box before leaping onto a windowsill before jumping onto a beam that spanned the alley way that we were fighting in. From there, it was just a short hop onto the nearby roof. But what had caught me off guard was that he had done it so quickly. So quickly that it took me a moment to realise.

"Do you wanna go first?" Kerrass snapped after me between taking some breaths. He was glaring at the potion bottle that he had taken off his belt. "I ask because you seem incapable of taking things calmly when Jack is involved."

"Should you be drinking those." I snapped back. "With your newly regrown intestinal tract."

We glared at each other for a moment longer before the foolishness of the entire moment overcame us both and we started to laugh. The truth was that neither of us should be out here doing this. Both of us should have been in bed a long time ago. I leant against the wall and slid down until I was sitting on the ground.

"He planned that." Kerrass said, gesturing at the box, which now that I looked closely at it, was actually a couple of boxes piled together to almost form a staircase. "That was there before we got here. He knew what he was doing, he knew where he was going."

"Was that girl a plant?" I wondered.

"Maybe." Kerrass said. "But she looked properly terrified to me. She might have been suckered out here."

"Does anyone know where she went?" I asked the only unwounded guard who had bent to check whether or not his colleague with the throat ripped out was alive. The man with the injured shoulder had already left under his own abilities to seek medical aid.

I don't know why we do it, bend to check whether someone is still alive when they are so obviously dead. I have done it myself, rushing to check the pulses of men who were missing a significant chunk of their skulls. Or when I made it to a man who I had literally seen having his lungs torn out by a harpy. But I still went and checked.

Sometimes, if you are really lucky, you get to ensure that the man you are kneeling by is not alone when he passes from this world.

The guard straightened from his dead friend and looked at me with hollow eyes. "She fled." He said. "That way." He gestured back the way we had come."

"The other guards will get her," Kerrass said, climbing to her feet. "And it is a riddle that will wait for now I think." He helped me to my feet and gestured for me to move so that I didn't stiffen up.

"He knew his way around." Kerrass said, looking up at where Jack had vanished over the edge of the guttering on the edge of the roof. "He knew the city and he knew how the guards would respond. He planned this engagement"

"He did." I said. "And he is provoking us. You and me specifically."

There were shouts from further into the maze of alleyways. It wasn't until this point that I properly realised something that I had known for a while, which is that we were in the poorer part of Beauclair.

Kerrass gestured and the golden light started to dance around him again, he grabbed me as I made to move off, and pushed me behind him.

"Not this time Freddie," He told me. "If I have to tie you up and leave you behind me in the street for some guard to sit on so that you don't do something stupid."

He led us down the streets and towards the melee.

"Has that ever worked before?" I wondered as we, both of us, struggled to start running.

Kerrass saved his breath for the coming combat.

We came out into another, much smaller market square, courtyard kind of place. I don't think it was a formal area where people gathered. I struggled to imagine much more than roadside peddlers and tinkerers plying their trade here. Fixing pans and small pieces of pottery for the people that lived locally. Maybe a shoe shiner and a cobbler working next to each other in further efforts to attempt to get a bit more money out of the local populace and the nobility that might think that they could get cheaper services here as they travelled between their business dealings down at the docks and their places of residence in the upper city.

I could imagine the ladies of the night moving through and picking up some street food here on their way to and from work. A cup of clean water to wash the scuz out of a person's mouth, or a smaller cup of wine to fortify you against whatever comes next.

Or to drown whatever had come before.

I like this kind of place. Back during my student days in Oxenfurt, my friends and I would find places like this and sit there for the day, eating and drinking from the stalls and watching the world go by. Making up stories about the people that were passing, discussing this project or that essay that we were working on. Advising someone as to their potential romantic partners and commiserating them when it doesn't work out. There would always be someone working, weighing down papers and things with our used tankards and the like, inevitably being forced to set aside the books in order to have a mug of ale and a sausage bun of dubious quality.

If I was really waxing poetic then I would say that the world can be found in such places. Not in the salons and the courts, but down there, where life really is for the living. But the only reason I can know that sort of thing is because I had enough money to enjoy that kind of… well… decadence. I remember moaning about lack of money amongst my equally rich and privileged friends. I have since seen the real poverty in the cities of the north, and the south for that matter. And I remember those times with a certain amount of happy embarrassment. And more than one of those times flashed before my eyes as I surveyed the scene.

This courtyard was ruined now.

Jack was in the middle of the fighting and he was picking off the guards and the, now, soldiers that were running in. I could see six men down already. Two of which were definitely dead and one of which would not make it unless we could get them to a proper surgeon soon.

By proper surgeon I mean someone who knows more and has access to more and better equipment than me and my little battlefield medic kit.

Kerrass kept me behind him for a moment as he waited for his moment to dart in.

I blinked.

There was a reason as to why I talked about that courtyard earlier and my now, increasingly, romantic and nostalgia filtered past. I blinked and I was no longer in Beauclair.

I was in Oxenfurt and I was looking at one of the favourite places there that I used to know. The walls were splashed with the same blood. There was the same wreckage of tables and crates everywhere and instead of them being dead soldiers and guards. I could recognise the bodies of my friends. Men and women… boys and girls really, that I had loved and been loved in return by. Friends that I would die for and protect. People that I would do anything for. And I could literally see their corpses on the ground.

I knew that this one was false. I knew that this vision was a conjuration of my exhausted and sick mind. But I could not look away. I furiously scrubbed at my eyes in an effort to try and banish the harsh vision from view but it was tenacious. The first time I managed to change the place back to the architecture and sense of place into being Beauclair. But they were still my friends on the floor.

I tried again and Beauclair seemed to bleed into Oxenfurt.

On the third time I bit my lip to try and get my mind to focus and managed to succeed in banishing the vision back.

And Kerrass and I watched as Jack fought. He saw us and beckoned us in as he fought. Another guard fell but there was no room and if we rushed in, we would just get in the way. Kerrass tried to yell for the guards to fall back. To get away, to defend and to let him, Kerrass, do his job. They were angry, but they listened. But the space was narrow and they struggled to get away. Struggled to escape the precise and clinical strikes of Jack's sword.

That was another difference between this Jack and Laughing Jack.

No, I do not yet have a name for this Jack. He was not a real Jack. Not really. I might have called him "False" Jack, or "Puppet" Jack. But given that he wasn't a real Jack I maintain that he doesn't get a nickname. He was a copy-cat Jack and there have been many Copy-Cat Jack's over the centuries that I have been able to track his appearances.

Laughing Jack had been like a force of nature when he fought. He was like a storm, spinning and leaping and dancing around. The injuries that he caused were not clean. They were brutal and jagged. Bones and limbs and muscles were mangled under his weapons, his club and his blade. He was a… a force rather than a fighter.

This Jack was like a surgeon. Precise, calm and seemingly still. Now that I could watch him fight some others I could see it that little bit easier. It was clear that he really could have killed Kerrass and I any time that he wanted to.

If Kerrass had been on form, properly rested and the rest, then Kerrass would have the edge, but for the right here and now, both of us were stumbling around with fatigue and sickness. There was little to no pretense about it.

I watched as he side stepped someone's lunge and turned another parry into a lunge down into someone's groin. How he did that and missed the main artery I do not know. Either there was some rather extreme luck going on or he had aimed precisely and directly.

Kerrass saw his chance, there was a lull in the fighting. Guillaume had arrived and took command of the guards at the entrance to the courtyard, ordering them back, ordering them to stand still…

He said more but I didn't hear it.

Kerras leapt in, sword whistling out as he moved forward.

Jack grabbed one of the guards that was still in the square. One of the lightly injured ones I think. Jack twisted him round, tripping him and sending him tumbling into Kerrass.

It all happened so fast.

Kerrass caught the flailing guard and Jack sent in a small strike to Kerrass' arm. Not very much. I doubt that it even marked the armour. The magic that was protecting Kerrass didn't know that however and the explosion was still just as violent, sending the guard, who was between Kerrass and Jack, flying backwards.

To steady himself, in the initial sprawl, the guard had grabbed hold of Kerrass, so when the magic sent Kerrass flying backwards, the guard's grip tightened automatically and he took Kerrass with him, sending the pair of them sprawling to the ground.

I saw it all as I looked on in horror. Kerrass and the guard were tangled together and as both of them tried to climb to their feet, all that they managed to achieve was to tangle each other up even further.

Jack looked at me, looked at them, looked at me and strode over to the tangle of men and raised his sword for what would surely have been a killing blow.

I had frozen in place. Nothing I could do. And it was the look, I think, that jerked me into movement. He knew what was coming. He knew it. He had escalated the engagement. He was telling me that I had to kill him, or he would kill Kerrass. It was an either/or situation.

I was finally able to move and I leapt forward and for just a brief moment, I was able to think clearly and openly.

I was able to think strategically.

Jack was controlling this engagement. We were tired. He wanted either Kerrass or myself to kill him. He was full of energy, while we were tired, on the edge of exhaustion and illness. I needed to tire him out.

I needed to injure him. Not seriously enough to be nearly fatal. Something to mean that he would have difficulty drawing breath.

I lunged forwards, butt of the spear furst and drove it into his side knocking him off balance. I thought I heard a rib snap as he fell, hissing in pain.

He fell back from me, keeping his feet until he crashed into a wall. He brought his sword down, pommel first on my arm where I was gripping the spear. It hurt. Not badly but enough to make that arm let go of the spear shaft.

He pushed the spear out of the way and kicked me in the chest. I tripped over something. I think he was acting under an automatic response now, not really thinking, but more acting with the long term, trained reflexes of a fighting man.

I fell backwards and he stepped forward, sword raised. A much less flashy version of the killing stroke than he had been going to use on Kerrass. Probably far more effective too.

I closed my eyes. I know you're not supposed to but I couldn't help myself.

I saw a flash of gold and opened my eyes again immediately. Guillaume had decided that he'd had enough and entered the fray.

I blinked.

Sir Thomas was one of the best swordsmen that the Imperial war academy had ever produced. The youngest Knight in the Imperial Guard in this generation. Called back to service because they did not trust anyone else to guard that which needed guarding. I liked the young man. He was the kind of young man that I would have liked my sister to be courted by. He had fought Laughing Jack one on one in that period of the night when Jack had fled the fish market and I had, recklessly, chased after him.

I had come across Sir Thomas who had crossed paths with Jack while he had been looking for me in order to bring me back to safety. Thomas had fought well, he had been calm, remembering his orders and the warnings that people had been giving him. Focusing on defence. Not allowing himself to be drawn out of his stance and into danger.

And then he died.

It was a gut wound. One of those injuries that ends in horror and agony. He had not felt it at first, Jack had left the two of us alone so that I could watch the young Knight die and become even more enraged.

I remember the look of realisation as the awful agony and horror had crossed Thomas' face. And he had died.

He was sixteen.

And now he was fighting Jack again in the streets of Beauclair.

This time there was no mask of sanity. No hint of normalcy or suggestion that I might be losing my mind. There was nothing there that would suggest that I was seeing things or otherwise losing my mind. The fact that we were in the wrong part of the city didn't even remotely cross my mind.

I screamed. It was an animal scream, something primal from the depths of my soul. There was pain in that scream and fury and upset.

I leapt to my feet and hurled myself forwards, my spear reaching forwards to try and get between Jack and his prey.

A blast of air struck me as I moved forward and I hurtled from my feet as though I had been pushed by a giant. I collided with a wall a fraction of a heartbeat after and what little breath that was in my lungs exploded out of my mouth.

I could still see Jack fighting Thomas. I tried to lever myself to my feet, pushing down with the but of my spear as I tried to get up. Tried to save the poor boy that I had not managed to before. I tried to give it everything I had. I couldn't breathe. The edges of my vision were going black.

I could hear voices.

I swear. I swear on my own life, on the sacred flame of the Eternal Fire that guides us all home to our enduring rest. I swear on the grave of my father and by the love that I have for Ariadne. I swear I saw Jack kill Thomas that night.

"Come on Freddie," The voice materialised and I realised that I was being shaken. "Come on Freddie snap out of it."

Hands were placed on the side of my head and my gaze was wrenched from staring at the bleeding corpse of the young Knight of the Imperial Guard and I was staring into the eyes of a Cat.

I saw fangs.

"The next thing I can try is to slap you across the face again." Kerrass said, "I don't have any water and that is the only thing that I can use to shock you. Come back Freddie, it's ok."

I blinked.

Kerrass was holding my head and staring into my eyes.

"Fuck Freddie." He said.

I howled. There is no other word for what was happening. Saying that I wept would be cheapening what I actually did. People say "He wept" and that infers that some gentle tears and maybe some placing of the head in the hands. Maybe some gentle sobbing and rocking of the body back and forwards. That was not what was happening here. I howled in the same way that I had once howled as a four year old boy when I saw someone putting a horse out of their misery. The same way I howled when Edmund broke one of my favourite toys and I could not understand why he was not being punished for it.

Kerrass held onto me. Pushing my spear out of reach and making sure that I could not reach any of my weapons.

I was not in that state for long. Just as suddenly as the fit was on me, it stopped and was instead replaced by sweating and violent shaking.

"He can't keep going like this." Guillaume said.

"No," Kerrass said. "He can't. But Jack is not going to let anyone else end it. You saw what was happening."

"I did." Guillaume admitted.

"W..w… Where is...jjjj." I grit my teeth as a violent spasm shook me. "Fuck."

"He fled from me." Guillaume told me. The big Knight wasn't even breathing hard. "You hurt him Freddie, he was struggling to keep his breath."

"What happened Freddie?" Kerrass asked.

"I don't know." I said. "I just… suddenly I was in the past, I saw Jack kill Thomas… And there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do…"

Kerrass nodded."It's Ok Freddie. It's alright." He pulled a small green bottle from his pouch. "I want you to drink this." He told me. "If you tell Ariadne that I gave it to you, I will deny it. But it will help."

"What is it?" I wondered, taking the bottle automatically.

"Best not to ask." Guillaume's face twisted in resignation and disgust.

"It's herbal." Kerrass told me.

It actually tasted quite nice, little more than a mouthful. I calmed after a few moments. A few moments after that my breathing started to come normally. A few moments after that, I stopped shaking.

After that, someone handed me a small piece of cloth and I wiped my face from the sweat that had been pouring off me.

"What happened?" I asked, I was really proud that my voice only trembled a little bit.

"Guillaume was fighting Jack and driving him back." Kerrass said. "You went mad and screamed, You were going to get in Guillaume's way so I hurled a blast of Aard at you and knocked you from your feet. Jack fought Guillaume for a moment until he had an open avenue of retreat before he took something from his cloak and threw it at the floor."

"What was it?"

"Just a smoke bomb of some kind." Guillaume said. "It stung the eyes a bit and made my nose run. No worse than some of the excretions that some of the monsters have used that I have fought. Or the latrine area of a bandit camp. I would have fought through it but I wanted to make sure that we were taking him alive and there was no way that I could be precise enough in that poison, so I fell back."

"You did the right thing." Kerrass said, still watching me as though I was a toddler who was struggling to keep his balance on a carpet of knives.

"You did." I agreed. "I'm sorry Guillaume. For a moment there I thought that he really was Jack and that you were Thomas."

"It's quite alright my friend." he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "But let's finish this before you fall over and hurt yourself."

"There have been worse ideas." Kerrass agreed.

"Where is he?" Guillaume demanded of one of the nearby guards. "He wants to be chased, even I can see that so where is he?"

"We're just getting reports sir." The guard said.

"I know where he's going." I told them all.

"Where?" Guillaume said.

"Where do you think?"

It took us longer than I thought it would, to get to the Graveyard. I had long since lost track of where the horses were and there was no other real way to get there. So we walked, picking up more and more guards as we went.

Kerrass walked next to me, he kept reminding me to breathe deeply and to work through everything that was going on. I felt… obviously I felt tired and obviously, I felt sick and nauseous and everything. I had a headache and my eyes were burning. I just wanted this to be over now. The fight had not been… as intense as the last time we had faced Jack. Something that I was grateful for as far too many people had lost their lives that night.

That's not to say that there weren't casualties, but the night of Laughing Jack dwarfed what had happened here.

And very soon it was all going to be over.

I was almost surprised when we actually got to the gates of the graveyard. The second time that I was here today. It felt strange, smaller somehow. There was a lot more activity somehow. We were met at the entrance by one of the other Knights that I did not know.

"Is he in there?" Guillaume wondered.

"Yes." The Knight replied. "He's down at the bottom, pacing."

Guillaume nodded.

"We've deployed crossbowmen around the edges of the place and we also have guardeposts on all the entrances and exits to the square. Unless he knows something we don't, he won't get out of this place. It's like he's walked into a trap."

"He knew exactly what he was doing." I said. "He came here knowing what was going to happen."

Kerrass grunted his agreement.

"I don't suppose you will let anyone come with you." Guillaume wondered plaintively.

"No." Kerrass said.

"He will only try to use anyone that comes with us in an effort to goad us into killing him."

"I kind of want to kill him," said a nearby guard.

Guillaume spun and scanned the line of armoured men, a stony expression on his face.

Kerrass took a deep breath.

"Ok Freddie. One last effort."

I found something in the sentence really funny. "You know what." I said, sniggering. "If I had a crown for all the times that I had been told that there was only one more effort, one last fight or one more… whatever, then I would be…"

"You would have about seventy two crowns." Kerrass told me with a smirk before his face stilled. "But you were assuming that I was talking to you. I was not looking forward to coming back to this place."

"The last Jack was beaten here." I said. "It's only fitting that this Jack is beaten here too."

"That older Jack let us take him." Kerrass said.

"And so is this one." I said.

"The coincidences keep piling up don't they." Kerrass sighed.

"It was you that taught me not to believe in coincidences." I admonished him.

"I did, didn't I. '' He smirked. "Well, let's be fair with each other. This is not a coincidence is it."

"It is not." I replied.

"You ready?"

"If I don't do this now, I'm not sure I can do it later."

We moved down into the graveyard. It was still well lit, the normal people that were here had been rousted out by the guard in preparation for what might be happening tonight. There were no homeless people looking for shelter, nor late night mourners or revellers that were looking for a warm, cheap place to spend the night after spending their rent on another bottle of delicious Toussaint wine. There was just Kerrass, myself and Jack.

We found him at the bottom, he had sat on one of the stone crypts and was moving his arm experimentally to see how hurt he was. His sword was propped up next to him.

His leg was jittering up and down.

At some point, he had lost his hat, his coat was torn, he held his arm awkwardly and he seemed to be breathing in short, relatively sharp breaths.

"Finally." He said when he saw us coming. "I have been waiting for you." His voice was warm, a little tired I thought although I might have been projecting my own feelings onto that. It was a friendly voice, a calm voice, the kind of voice that you could imagine tucking you in at night. It surrounded us like a warm blanket as though it was being spoken into our ears.

We said nothing, just moving down into the bowl where, only this morning, Kerrass had fought Alain and nearly died doing it.

"Well," Jack said, leaping off the crypt and taking up his sword which he slashed from side to side, making the air whistle. "It has been a good chase, a fine chase. Something to tell the grandchildren. But it is time for this to end now."

Kerrass and I exchanged one last look.

"You are right." I said as clearly as I could manage. "It is over. It was over earlier today. In fact, I think it was over some time ago."

I took hold of my spear and twisted until the two halves unlocked and separated. I leant them up against a nearby crypt.

"Bold of you." Jack commented.

Kerrass moved slightly off to one side a bit. He did not throw his sword down. It was held in a low stance but I knew from previous experience that he could bring it up and have it ready at a moment's notice.

"Not really." I said. "You're not going to kill me. You want me to kill you. Me or Kerrass, I don't think it really matters which. That way, the critics of the Knights and the guard can argue that it was outside visitors that stopped Jack, not the Knights. They can argue that dependence on outsiders has weakened the state and blah blah blah bleaurgh."

I sighed again and rubbed at my forehead.

"Fuck I'm tired." I said. "It's over Colonel, we're not going to kill you. You don't need to do this."

Jack stared at us both for a long moment before he tore the mask from his head with a cry of anguish. I had always thought that saying that a person cried out in anguish was a bit melodramatic, but there are only a few words that can properly encompass what was happening there.

Colonel Duberton of the 4th Alba division. The Peacekeepers and Bridge Builders are what that particular division is called. Lightly armoured cavalry for patrolling, heavily armed foot soldiers for the guarding and escorting. They are the regiments that the Empress and the Emperor before her, send in when they want the countryside to be policed and occupied, while also wanting to bring the people onto the side of the Empire. They are sent in when there is going to be a long term investment in the land rather than a more aggressive occupation force that takes everything of value.

They are good men, honourable men, encouraged to follow the laws of chivalry in order to make friends amongst the nobility and the populace of the lands that they police. They are famous for it. And here was the Colonel of one of those regiments wearing the clothing of a killer.

We had seen him only that morning, a man who had been ambushed in the house of someone that he had thought of as his friend. His wife had been killed there and her body mangled beyond all recognition.

And that was the point that we had missed.

He looked tired. He was pale and drawn. Large black shadows under his eyes with small points of colour in his cheeks, typical signs of hysteria.

I rather think I had similar colouring about myself at that point in time.

His hair was plastered to his head with sweat and from this distance, his skin appeared shiny and clammy in the torchlight. His eyes were bloodshot and danced this way and that way. They were the eyes of a madman. A desperate man.

A rush of relief swept through me to the point that I felt like I was staggering in the breeze. I literally wobbled on my feet and closed my eyes as a wave of dizziness went through me and I could feel tears at the back of my throat. I had known I was right. But it is always a relief to have that… rightness proven.

I opened my eyes and started to look around. I could feel my knees wanting to buckle and I wanted to sit down while it was still my choice.

"So you know." The Colonel's voice came to us. Now that the mask was off and tossed aside, his voice came to us clearly and from the proper distance. Lacking in magical volume and modulation. I would later find out that it is a common enchantment that is placed in armour and clothing of those in command in order to pass orders on the battlefield. It's only short range and has so many limitations to it. Just one of those innovations that helped mean that the North had absolutely no chance against the Invading Nilfgaardians when they came.

"Yes." I told him. "We know." I had spotted a likely looking grave, shaped like a large stone coffin with a stylised statue of the person it contained lying on top of it. There was a decent flat bit next to the statue's head that looked as though I could perch on it quite comfortably.

"Although in all fairness." I went on. "I only figured it out a little while ago. And only then because there were relatively few people left who it could actually be."

The Colonel chuckled bitterly. "Raoul always said there was a danger that you would figure it out in advance."

"He would say something like that." I replied.

Kerrass was fading into the background, keeping himself ready. His sword was held in his left hand, ready to be brought into play, his right hand was poised for the casting of a sign, he moved so that he could intercept the Colonel if he attacked me, but otherwise he stood in the shadows, letting them wrap around him and keep him from view.

I did my best to ignore him. The thought did, briefly, occur that I would actually be quite happy to die here and that I could hope that Kerrass missed the interception.

I squashed the thought as brutally as I could. I told myself that if I died here then Ariadne would never forgive me. In truth though, I didn't think that it was going to come up.

I waited for as long as I could. You could see the thoughts crossing the Colonel's face and mind with the rapidity of the fencing sword strokes that we had seen earlier. If he had not been under as much stress as he was, I imagine that he would have come to terms a lot quicker.

In the end though, I could feel the weakness coming across me and I moved to the statue to sit down. The movement startled the Colonel and his sword came up. "This changes nothing." He told us. "And don't think I will miss you there, Witcher, as you crawl into the shadows. You will not sneak up on me." he brandished his sword. "It is time to end this."

"I quite agree," I told him. "But we're not going to kill you."

"You are quite correct. When this is done, your blood will be staining my blade, not the other way round." He lied. It was actually quite blatant. There was determination in his voice, but also despair and fear.

He took a slow and deliberate step forward. "You will fight me, or I will kill you where you sit."

"I do not believe you." I said as clearly as I could manage. My teeth were beginning to chatter. I was cold.

"Are you calling me a liar?" He demanded with a shrill edge to his voice as he tried to find a way to provoke something.

"Yes." I told him, tugging my coat around myself a bit tighter. "I have laid down my arms. I will not fight you. You are a Knight. I think that if we get the reports back from the night's actions, it is going to turn out that the only people that you have killed were men with weapons. Those men that are wounded will only have been wounded enough to take them out of the fight. And that they will be back to work relatively quickly. Are you really going to kill an unarmed man as he sits down for fear that he could not stand?"

For a moment, the real Colonel Duberton peered out of the face of a madman. "A… Are you well?"

I laughed at him.

The Colonel turned to look at Kerrass.

"Freddie was already exhausted and sick in mind and in body when we brought him to Toussaint." Kerrass told him. "This was supposed to be a relaxing holiday for him where people would wait on him hand and foot so that he could recover towards being the Freddie that we all need him to be. Instead, a killer out of his nightmares came to stalk the streets of Beauclair. The killer that took his sister from him. And the authorities that should have been able to handle the matter, came to him for help as they had been unable to catch the killer. Not least because the man that had trained them was involved in the killing. No Colonel, he is not well."

The Colonel looked back at me for a long moment before he shook his head and his face hardened.

"It doesn't matter." He shouted. "It doesn't matter. You must fight, you must fight and you must…"

"Must what?" I demanded. I wanted it to come out defiant but I rather suspect that it came out more as a whimper rather than anything else. "We must kill you? Why I wonder? It's alright, you don't need to answer that. I know the answer."

"Please…" He begged, interrupting my monologue. "Please. I'm begging you. You have to." he seemed to fold in on himself. "You must…"

"Colonel." I told him as carefully as I could. I was about to rip out this man's soul and when you have to do that sort of thing, you owe it to them, and to yourself, to pay the moment the respect that it deserves. "We have come here from the Manor house of Raoul Leblanc. In the basement of his house, we found your wife's body. Easily recognisable…"

"Then you had…" He protested, getting angry.

"Easily recognisable." I overrode him. "And it was clear that she had been dead for several days."

There is a process of grief. I have seen it over and over again on the road. There are occasionally small variations in it, but sooner or later it all comes back to the same thing. There are whole books on the subject, so many that I'm not going to recommend one. Kerrass has to give this kind of news regularly and over and over again he is forced to say the same things. That the dead person's pain is already over. That they cannot suffer any more. And because he is a Witcher, the thing responsible for the loved one's death will never hurt anyone else ever again.

I tried to go from that angle.

"They took her from you." I told him. "I don't know when. It's even possible that I never met the real Madame Duberton. She was a Lady of the Nildgaardian court of the old school. Eyes down, demure, deferring to her husband in every way and so no-one noticed the fact that she wasn't the same woman any more. Anywhere else and I might not believe that, but in Toussaint? Where women are expected to be loud, beautiful and colourful. Your wife, or the woman who was there in place of your wife, just faded into the background."

At first, Colonel Duberton fell back from me as though I had hit him, the back of his legs hit the crypt that he had been sitting on and he fell, sliding down until he was sat on the floor, his sword slipped from his fingers.

"At first, all that Raoul and his friends wanted from you were patrol routes, methods, ways that they could get around the training and the expertise that you had passed on to the Knights of Saint Francesca. And given that they had a literal blade at the throat of the woman that you love, because you do love your wife don't you, you agreed. You passed on the information.

"Later, they told you that you would be the one to bring everything to a close. That in order for your wife to go free, you would have to die. Again, you are a Knight and a husband who loves your wife. You were quite happy making that trade. You didn't care about the damage it would do to the reputation of the Empire, the Empress or the Knights and guards that you trained when your reputation got destroyed. If it meant that your wife went free then so be it.

"Then someone, probably Alain as his vendetta would have been personal, argued that the Witcher would have made a far better scapegoat. That way, the estate of Corvo Bianco could have been reclaimed as well on the pretext that Witchers cannot be trusted. You were given false and fake arguments about what would happen then. They probably lied and said that you would be given your freedom in return for some evidence that they would be able to hold over you. Which is how they kept you quiet.

"The truth was that although Alain might have believed that Kerrass was going to be a scapegoat and the person held responsible for the killings, Raoul and the other leaders never acknowledged that. It was always going to be you. Kerrass' framing was never going to hold up and they probably knew it too.

"But they had given you hope, so you started to needle them and needle them, so they decided to remind you of their power while also making sure that the rest of us didn't suspect you. So we would be looking elsewhere when the final "Jack" attacks would take place. They staged that scene for us in the early hours of this morning, or was it yesterday morning. I've lost track."

"It was yesterday morning." Kerrass told me.

I nodded. There was a small part of me that was actually surprised that it had only been two days. It felt like months, years even, since we had all thought that the Colonel was a victim of the plot. I mean he was, just not the way that we had been thinking.

"So they staged that attack," I tried desperately to get my mind back on track. "We were filled with concern for you and looked elsewhere. You were given your disguise and told to cause havoc and to allow Kerrass and, or, I to kill you and your wife would be released. You die, so people will turn on Nilfgaard, the Empress and her decrees. Your teachings helped shape the Knights of Saint Francesca which, along with all of the other things that are wrong with them in the eyes of the court and the Nobility of Toussaint, will mean that the Knights of Francesca will be disbanded and the old order will rise again.

"I flatter you that you knew that this was nonsense. That the Duchess is not going to be stupid enough to disobey and Imperial edict and that Damien and Syanna are clever enough to rearrange everything when they hear that you betrayed them. But you didn't care, your wife would be safe."

At some point I had stopped looking at him and was staring at the floor, I was sliding off now. I was so tired. I forced myself to look at the Colonel.

"They were never going to let her go." I told him. "They preyed on your desperate hope. She was already dead."

"No." He shook his head finally saying something. "No, you're lying. They promised me." He climbed to his feet and picked up his sword

Ah yes, anger. Right on time.

"Come on Colonel." I don't know whether Kerrass was being angry and scornful because he lacked sympathy for the Colonel, or because he was playing the roll of "Bad Watchman".

"Think it through." Kerrass told him. "On the one hand, you have men who are willing to rape, murder and kill to get their own ends and satisfy their own lusts. Men who kidnapped your own wife and have forced you to commit evil acts in their name. Men who are breaking their own oaths of fealty. On the other hand is Freddie who has never willingly broken a promise in his life. Who is the most trustworthy?"

He stared at Kerrass open mouthed. "You…" He began, opening and closing his mouth. "You attacked the manor, she was killed as part of a hostage ploy, YOU FORCED THEIR HANDS TO…"

"She was hidden behind a bunch of boxes and barrels." I said calmly. "And in another lifetime, I was training as a Doctor and have spent the last two years following a Witcher around. I know enough about corpses to know that she was killed several days ago at least."

I saw the tears in his eyes, even from this distance and decided it was my time to strike.

"Help us." I said. "We think we have them all in custody but we cannot be sure. Help us, tell us names and testify to the Duchess and we can put these bastards…"

The Colonel screamed in horror and despair. He took up his sword and placed the point at his own chest.

"Fuck," said Kerrass.

I dove forward.

Kerrass was quicker.

A blast of air shot towards the Colonel, not a lot at that distance, but enough to make him stagger.

I got to the Colonel next, grabbing his arms and trying to force his blade away from his body. He punched me in an effort to get me to let go, twice in the face and once in the gut.

I let go under that onslaught and fell.

Kerrass was there, I felt another blast of air knock me flat and I heard the Colonel fall.

Kerrass shouted and I heard running feet.

Skittering of metal and the sound of someone moaning in horror and pain.

"We've got him, Freddie." Kerrass told me. He took hold of my head and pinched my ear, the sharp pain keeping me awake. "We've got him and he's alive. It's over."

The nausea and the dizziness from the punches overcame me then and I passed out.

It was oddly restful.