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

181. Chapter 181

I wish I had seen it as the Skelligans started to move forwards. Observers say that they looked slow as they moved forwards. They had been expecting some kind of screaming mass as they charged but having lived, sailed and fought with the Skeligans I can tell you that such a matter is saved for the closing moments so that they hit their enemy together with as much unity as is reasonably possible in that kind of a situation. If there is one word that you can use to describe the Skelligans, it would be "pragmatic". And I have not asked Svein or any of the others that I might have some kind of claim of loyalty as to why the Skelligans didn't charge forwards recklessly. I know what they would say.

"It's an awful long way to charge, Scribbler," they would tell me before laughing and pouring me a drink.

The Empress told me what it looked like the best.

Having spent a lot of time in Skellige as a child, Cintra is, after all, a naval nation. There was a lot of time spent near the sea and on beaches. We used to entertain ourselves by building Sandcastles and putting little stones and bits of shell as the armies and defenders on our increasingly intricate and ludicrous fortifications. We would imagine the sea as being the invading army and that as it came closer and closer to us it would pour into our outermost fortifications before it would be beaten back and then it would come on again with greater fury. On and on and on until our defences were overwhelmed.

The ramparts of our sand castles would be beaten down by the waves and our little soldiers of driftwood, shells and small pebbles would be drowned under the onslaught.

I remember a moment where it stopped being quite as fun to watch as all our hard work was slowly destroyed and then, as the sea came further and further in, I started to weep for all of those drowned soldiers. I wept for the work that I thought we had wasted in building a fortification against a foe that could not be beaten. I remember the other children looking at me and not comprehending why I was so distraught. "It was just a game" they would tell me and still I would weep.

That game is played on this world and throughout many of the worlds that I have visited during my flight from the Wild Hunt. I wonder if it is one of those universal things, like meatballs served in a creamy gravy.

But as I watched the tide of Skelligan warriors pour into those channels and run up against the fortifications that had been built with the slave labour of Kalayn's captives, I remember thinking about that childhood game that I had not thought about for years.

Strange how the mind works.

Once again, the strategists of the Empire were flummoxed by the lack of initiative shown by the rebellious forces. The fortifications were intricate and well-designed. Whatever else can be said about the rebels, there was a lot of book learning amongst them and one of the few things that you can get a greater idea of when it comes to military matters is how to build fortifications.

"Build a nice deep ditch and put spikes in the bottom and that's as good a start as anything," one scholar had written and I am forced to admit that I have seen many things that would suggest that he was right when he said so.

And so the battle of Coulthard Castle started.

Despite all of this, the Skelligan attackers made good ground. Far faster than they should have done. One of the mistakes that the Imperials made which, admittedly, they had absolutely no way of knowing, was that they were assuming that what they were doing was attacking a castle that was being defended by a military-style group. There were numerous pieces of evidence to the contrary including the defender's refusal to mount a sallying forth or any other kind of breakout action. So they were a little overly cautious when they could have made much more ground in getting through the defences.

The defenders did start raining down death. After all, they had nothing but arrows and crossbow bolts and things that their various people had brought with them. The war engines started as well. Ballistae, catapults and all kinds of things launching clay pots full of burning oil, small buckets of iron balls that had been heated in fires and all the different unpleasantness that the imagination of defenders could concoct.

More than one of the defending war engines shattered as they fired, whether through operator incompetence or the sabotage of the prisoners, we will never know.

The one confusion that we don't have is why the Vampires were not deployed. It is something of a mystery that people are still debating. But for reasons of their own, the Vampires were kept closer to the keep itself. My theory is that they were kept there so that the more terrifying defenders, along with the augmented troops were kept back against the final defences. Or the closer to Ariadne, the easier they were to control? Or maybe… it was easier to give them simple instructions like "defend that bit" rather than "reinforce the second wall above the gate". Just spit-balling.

Would it have made that much of a difference to the defence? I have no idea. It would have added to the chaos and in the depths of the maze of tunnels and trenches, chaos only benefits the defender. The defender knows where all of the tunnels lead and where all the safer places are. They know the signals for taking cover against the arrows and things.

When the Skelligans went first, the Redanian troops followed. The Redanians were more ad hoc. The village militias and the like as well as those regular regiments that had been sent south from the capital as proof of their loyalty. They were the guardsmen and the sailors from Novigrad, volunteers and things who longed to carry their rage for the indignities that they had suffered against the men that had hurt them. Not being as fierce or as skilled in this kind of warfare as the Skelligans, they were there to clean up behind the Skelligan advance and to make the way clear for the Imperial troops that would be advancing into the field behind them.

The Temerians went next, arbalists and crossbowmen. Whatever else can be said about the Temerians, they are good at that kind of thing. Their knights and infantry waited with the Imperial forces and the Knights from Toussaint. They would later bitterly complain that they had not had the time to properly erect their mighty engines of war where they had maintained that they would reduce the castle walls to rubble. But the Empress and the Lodge had told them there was no time for those kinds of efforts.

The morale of the attackers lifted then as the Temerian marksmen and the harriers that Rickard had been so proud to be a member of, started to find their targets on the castle walls and the enemy started to fall.

I cannot imagine how hard it is to advance upon a place under the constant rain of arrows and crossbow bolts and that is only until you get to the walls whereupon you are in the range of all of the other unpleasant things that can be done. Boiling oil and hurling stones and other kinds of horror. So men started to feel better as they started to see men falling back from the walls with arrows in their eyes and their necks.

But still, the Vampires had not attacked.

There was a signal from the attackers near the front which meant that the Skelligans had reached the walls. In turn, this meant that it was time for the Heavy Infantry to move up. Climbing up a ladder is not the work of lighter armoured skirmishers like the Skelligan raiders. It requires discipline and determination.

And so the more heavily armoured troops of the Imperial regiments moved down into the trenches, carrying the ladders that they would need to make it up the walls. As they moved forwards they were met by the Skelligans and the Redanians who pointed the way and led them to those places where there was level enough ground with as much cover as possible to properly site a ladder.

According to people far wiser than I, when siting a siege ladder, it takes more than just leaning the thing against the wall, you have to properly put it in place. Otherwise, the defenders will simply push it over. You have to anchor it and tie it up and the like. And then, as you climb it, you have to be protected from the arrows and bolts from the other defenders on the walls.

Whatever it takes to be the man that goes up the ladder first, I am not sure that I have it and I salute those men that do. Rather you than me.

I am told that it's more about psychology. The first people up the ladder are the people that have done it before. Among soldiers, it is considered an honour to be the first person up the ladder and onto the ramparts of an enemy fortress. You get up there and you are surrounded by enemies and all you can do is swing and hope that you are making enough room for someone else to get up behind you. Then the two of you need to fight until a third can arrive, then a fourth and then…

And once the first group has a hold then, inevitably, another group will find a hold. But if that first breach is destroyed hard and quickly, then all of the other attackers are dismayed and the entire assault might fall.

This is also where the fact that the defenders did not have a proper, experienced General in charge of the defence started to take its toll.

I remember something from my captivity while the ritual was being performed. Over and over again Tristan would beg Sam to go to the walls and take command of the forces there and over and over again Sam would refuse, insisting on at least one more victim or just taking the ritual that one step further. Those magical experts that are forming an opinion on the matter tell me that he was losing his sanity to whatever entity he was attempting to summon. That he was trying to get more of that entity which was giving it more power over him and therefore, he wasn't thinking rationally.

So we don't know who was commanding the outer defences. We don't have many prisoners from the interior of the castle because many chose death and refused to be taken alive. Or they are claiming that they were magically suborned or any number of legal defences that are being used that, frankly, I am relieved that I do not have to parse.

What we do know is that whoever was commanding the outer defences panicked and opened the gates so that he could send out a force of knights to clean the attackers from the wall. Out rode the rebel cavalry, resplendent in the armour and they charged those infantrymen that were still siteing their ladders or were waiting their turn to climb.

Again, we don't know why this happened. There have been several theories offered and I find that I agree with this one. Knowing that the character of these rebels, certainly those rebels that had retreated to the castle, believed themselves to be better than their fellows and had a general desire to look down on the everyday troops.

And on the battlefield, the role of the armoured knight, the Heavy Cavalryman, is just that. They sit on their horses in all of that armour and a good general will know exactly when to unleash those horses at a moment of maximum devastation to their enemy.

But in a siege, their armour makes them ungainly. Climbing the steps to get to the wall is hard work. Their horses are useless and other men, the infantrymen that they have been trained and brought up to believe are beneath their notice, are more useful than they are. They long for the battle, they long for the charge. And so they decided to have one.

But it was this moment that General Voorhis and the Knights of Francesca had been waiting for.

I wish I could have seen it. The first charge of the Knights of the Saint on the field of battle. A trumpet sounded a clear, sweet note that carried across the screams and bellows of all of the fighting and Guillaume's horse leapt forward.

Guillaume and Gregoire had fought together so often now that their horses were well in tune with each other so that when one charged, the other followed. Palmerin with his seniority commanded but those two giants of men were at the front.

The opposite general saw the danger and the order to withdraw was given. What should have happened was that the ropes that held the outer portcullis should have just been cut and the gate could come crashing down. Those rebels that were trapped outside the castle should have been sacrificed. But either the man that could give that order was part of the fighting outside the castle, or they lost their nerve.

And those Knights that were outside the castle were in their favoured ground. They had blood on their weapons and they had released their fear until it had become a fury that swept them up and robbed them of their awareness of their surroundings.

So it was a race. A race between the Knights of Francesca to get to the gatehouse and those gates slamming closed.

I wish I had seen it.

I wish I had seen it as the lances of those knights were levelled and they struck the enemy ranks like a hammer breaking glass. The rebel troops scattered. Those men that had seen the danger and had been running to get back into the castle itself were, at the end of the day, running. And an army panics from much smaller provocations than that.

But this was a siege and those men that retreated and wanted to retreat had nowhere else to go.

The charge of the knights had done their job though. They had broken through the outer walls, and then, because the Knights of Saint Francesca worked towards being just as terrifying on foot as they do on horseback, they started to fight to clear the first courtyard. Lord Palmerin de Launfal was the senior knight and he took command of that battlefield effort. Guillaume and Gregoire were in the front with Gregoire's huge sword cutting through enemy troops like a farmer cutting down the crops with his scythe.

And now it was that part of the battle that Generals hate. Because there is nothing else that they can do. All that there is possible to do is to commit troops, plan for what to do in case your side starts to lose and you need to organise some kind of withdrawal.

There were no more tricks to play. Imperial troops were riding around the countryside in case the rebels had some kind of hidden escape tunnel that no one knew about. But other than that, there were some troops kept in reserve and by now, the wounded were being evacuated from the front to be carried to the surgeon's tents which Dr Shani commanded with a surprisingly iron fist.

And one of the other things that has to be noted is this. So many of the rebels had retreated to Coulthard Castle. So very many of them that the castle was jam-packed with rebel troops. Absolutely stuffed with them. And they knew, absolutely all of them knew, that they had nowhere left to retreat to, nowhere left to go. They had to fight or they would be taken and the Empire is not known for its leniency towards traitors.

So they fought and the sheer press of numbers was what caused a lot of the delays.

And it was around here that Kerrass made his move and freed Ariadne.

With one voice the Vampires that were circling the keep, perched on the keep or flapping around the keep… They all screamed. The Sonic assault must have been awful.

Yes, so-called Lesser Vampires can operate during the daytime, they would just prefer not to, which is why all the rumours that vampires will quail in the face of the sunlight are born in the first place.

Then the Vampires went berserk.

Up until that point, the Vampires had been kept in reserve as a kind of extra shock troop. It seems from what accounts we have of the fighting inside the castle that the augmented troops as well as the Vampires were kept back as a last line of defence against the invading forces. They were kept back as defenders.

Lord Voorhis and others claim that this would not have been a good way to use such troops. They provided a certain amount of shock and awe to the battle line. After all, one of the many reasons that Gregoire de Gorgon is so feared is due to the sheer size of the man. The impossibility of someone like that wielding a sword of that size… part of the brain just shuts down and it seems impossible that such a thing could be comprehensible.

But the opportunity that they might have had to use those Vampires in any kind of meaningful way was lost when Ariadne was free and in the anguish of that freedom, she lost her grip on the lesser Vampires that were swarming around the castle.

And we thought that it was a mess before.

For a while there, the two sides were forced to find common ground in the face of this new enemy. The Vampires were furious. The more feral types just went insane, attacking anything nearby, including each other and the other vampires. That was when they didn't fall to their hands and knees and try to burrow down under the ground, only to find stone where they tore their claws to get further and further down.

The more intelligent Vampires knew that they were angry at the other humans for keeping them in captivity and causing them to become slaves to their whims. But many of them could not tell the difference between a rebel uniform and a Nilfgaardian one. So although they attacked the rebels just as much as they attacked the Nilfgaardian ones, they were still deadly.

The particularly clever Vampires, the ones that are used to blending into society, simply used their gifts to vanish. They took a certain amount of sustenance from all of the dead soldiers that were lying around and then they left by their means.

But now we had a new problem in that humans being humans, they had kind of united in the face of this new threat. The only people that had any kind of experience in fighting Vampires at all were the Knights of Toussaint and they did their best to help everyone. But rebel fought alongside Nilfgaardian and so on. We know for a fact that more than one rebel soldier took that opportunity to literally turn his coat to be on the supposedly winning team.

The only troops that managed to hold what passed for discipline were the augmented troops and even though their weapons were not silver, they were brutal enough and strong enough that even those Vampires that were attacking them, were not able to withstand their anger.

The outer Courtyard was all but taken and the Imperial forces were working their way up to get to the walls. There were still rebel archers on the walls that were shooting at the Vampires and shooting down into the Imperial troops with everything they had until they started to run out of arrows and crossbow bolts. So taking those walls was still a priority. Palmerin did his best and as those rebel troops fought and died in the outer courtyard, he could start to organise what was going on and get to grips with what he was looking at.

This would still have been while Kerrass was keeping Sam distracted. The Lodge of Sorceresses and the Council of Mages were frantically keeping the power that had been summoned by Sam in check.

There was a screen formed and another Knight charge was begun to be put together in that area of the outer courtyard that had been taken by Imperial troops ready for when the second gate was taken and the walls started to fall, weakened by the Vampiric assault.

A battering ram had made it up the road up to the castle by now and was pushed forward to get to the second gate. Brave men stood underneath the temporary roof of the ram and started to drive that metal-tipped tree trunk into the ironbound wood of what had once been the Coulthard second gate.

I don't know how long it took. Nor do I know how those men did that either. Again, I could not have done that. Standing there, working in unison as we drove the ram forward, all while the arrows fell and the burning oil dripped between the slats and the planks of the protective shield above our heads.

But the second gate fell and the charge was ordered. It was much smaller than the previous one and this one had been led by the Temerians who had demanded that honour. To be fair, the Knights of Saint Francesca had been helping the infantry clear the walls and to fight off the Vampires but the Temerians had felt a little cheated at not being the first to charge at one of the great strongholds of Redanian power.

Or that was how they saw it anyway.

So they got their charge and the battle started to make its way into the second courtyard.

Seeing this, Padraig and Svein, leading the infiltrating party, made their move and opened the third gate. And then they held it against all comers, even as the full weight of the rebel wrath fell upon them.

It almost makes me weep as I think of the small acts of heroism that were done on my behalf. I know that it was done because it needed to be done. I know that there were political ramifications to it all and I know that there were plenty of other reasons why all of those people were doing it.

I wish I had seen it.

Finally, finally, Kristoff led a countercharge of the augmented troops into the fighting ranks of the Imperial alliance. From where he was, the fighters were mostly Temerian at that point and they fell back from the onslaught of the augmented assault as one blow from the weapons of one of the augmented would send a regular man flying.

I don't know much about those augmented men but what I do know is that they were not very bright. Therefore, it makes a certain amount of sense for Kristoff to have held onto them for as long as he had. I also know that they couldn't fight as close together as they probably should have done to make the most of their abilities. And these were weaknesses that were exploited.

The battle was really just a general melee now. There was no commanding it although Palmerin did his best, rotating the tired troops out and sending in the fresh troops, setting up lines so that the wounded could be pulled out but the Vampires and the Augmented had disrupted anything that might have been classed as "battle lines". He saw where everything was and he ordered a signal flag raised.

Seeing this signal flag, General Voorhis took the message that the battle was now well-joined and he ordered in the reserves, drawing his sword and leading them forward himself.

There are many moments that I wish I had seen. It is all very confusing and with everything that was going on, not all of the accounts can be trusted. There is also some confusion as to what happened in many of these moments. But I hope that they're true and I wish that I had seen all of them.

I wish I had seen Gregoire hold the gate. It is generally accepted that it was the second gate where this occurred after the Temerians had charged through and the rebel forces closed up behind them and started to fall back through the second gate to isolate the Temerian charge so that no reinforcement could reach them. Divide and Conquer is one of those strategies that work in small-scale conflicts just as much as it does in large-scale ones.

Gregoire was nearby and saw the danger. Roaring his battle cry of "Gorgon" he charged the soldiers with his greatsword flashing. I have this story from a couple of different sources and according to them, both sides froze as this giant of a knight charged the gap single-handedly. It can only be imagined what went through those rebels' minds as they saw him coming. Such thoughts as "I thought that the augmented were supposed to be on our side," have been suggested.

But Gregore smashed into them and the rebels ran away before they realised what was happening and started to attack back, telling themselves that "it was only one man" and they came back in. Gregoire himself claims not to be able to remember too much of this and that he was just too busy fighting for his life. But it seems clear that if the rebels had come back in a unified front, the ending would not have been as beneficial as it might have been.

For his side, Guillaume also saw the gap and struggled to reach his friend, but Gregoire needed no help. He stood in the tunnel formed by going under the wall and he just moved in the deceptively slow but deadly dance of his.

Guillaume's fury at his side not moving to reinforce the giant Knight's efforts was colossal and eventually, Imperial soldiers started to move up behind Gregoire and properly reinforce him.

There are so many moments like this.

Palmerin told me a story about how he had been fighting against a particularly angry Vampire, he had felt a presence at his side that was helping to fight off the beast and so the two men had automatically moved to defend each other and work together to fight off the monster. It had been a hard fight and when the beast had been beaten back, the two men had turned to thank each other and congratulate each other on a well-fought fight. Only to realise that the two men were on opposite sides of the conflict.

Palmerin was actually quite upset by the incident. He had called on his temporary comrade to surrender and that he, Palmerin, would see to it that he was treated honourably. But he was halfway through this declaration when the other man screamed and attacked. Palmerin claimed that he only survived because his armour was better quality. He was quite upset by this and bemoaned the quality of Northern honour if this is what their soldiers are taught.

I have many stories like this. Small tales of heroism on both sides. Men who, while dying, grabbed their assailant and hurled themselves off the walls to the ground below. Other tales of heroism are not so commonly lauded. Doctor Shani would have me tell you about the stretcher-bearers. Men whose job it is to run into the battlefield, lightly armoured and unprotected from the random blows and arrows and rocks and things to drag the wounded men away from the fight and back to the waiting surgeons.

Those men will never receive battlefield commissions. There are no medals for that kind of service and there will never be songs sung about the tireless work of the surgeons as they do their best to save as many lives as they possibly can. All the while, the pile of amputated arms and legs starts to grow next to the tents.

Along with the piles of corpses that the surgeons were not able to save.

And just so we're clear. There were six surgeons. I was horrified to learn that there were so few until Shani told me that there had been three of them at Brenna and that she had been barely trained at the time. Indeed, she was pleased that there were as many as there were. The fact that she puts down to our proximity to the medical school of Oxenfurt and people wanting the record of having to have battlefield experience in their transcripts.

I have so many of these stories that I am tempted to pass them off to a scribe to have them transcribed and published. I would do so except I am pretty sure that the book would be buried somewhere.

So many small tales of heroism but if I keep talking about them, you would be drowning in the amount of parchment that I would have filled.

There is one that I will indulge myself with. One story that needs to be told and an event that I wish I had seen. I wish I had seen the fall of Kristoff at the hands of Carys, Chireadean and Padraig.

The raiding party had done their job well. They had put themselves into position so that when the right time came, they could open the third gate and stand ready to defend themselves in some way that they were more likely to survive. Svein led them by that point. He was a raider and a warrior that was experienced in this kind of raiding.

Kerrass had gone into the keep with Carys and Padraig with only Carys and Padraig emerging with the required scouting information and the knowledge that Kerrass had gone into the basement.

Svein had wanted to give command to Padraig but Padraig had refused.

"He had a hungry gaze on him, Scribbler," Svein told me with a shudder that was, as far as I could tell, genuine. "I have seen hatred in the eyes of men before. I have also seen it in the eyes of Elves, but as I looked at those three that came with us over the walls. That woman with a face and a body that men dream of… I mean, I would hold Yngvild as the most beautiful woman in the world and I will admit that even before my marriage, I preferred my girls to have a bit more meat on their bones than that Elf… But as I watched her climb that rope up and over the walls, I saw her as a warrior born.

"The soldier that I would be proud to have fought alongside on the ship, but with a better eye for ground than even I can command. Whichever clan cast him out before he came to Temeria lost a fine warrior and an even finer Warmaster if I'm any judge.

"And the Elf with the hands of a Surgeon, the speech of a scholar and the soul of a poet. As strange a trio as ever I have seen but as I looked at the three of them I saw a hate in their eyes as they looked out over the walls at that huge… brute of a man. I've seen trolls with less weight and muscle on them than that obscene… thing. But those three knew him and they hated him. They hated him, Scribbler."

He shook his head.

"I am Skelligan to my bones and I can recognise a blood feud when I see one. I can see a hate that has festered for a long time and what is a good Skelligan to do when they see something like that? As I watched the three of them stare at that man with a red hunger in their eyes. What is a Skelligan to do but to make sure that hatred has its day? And by Hemdall's balls Scribbler. I would not have that woman, that soldier and that poet angry with me."

Later on, Thorvald composed a saga about that battle between the trio and the giant man of metal. He wouldn't let me write it down though so I will have to do my best to remember it and add it to this record later.

It was now Svein's raiding party really. They had opened the third gate and rendered it so that it could not be closed again. The tide of the battle had washed things away from them and they were looking for a way that they could be useful without losing their own lives. All told, there were maybe a dozen of them, Skelligans and Padraig's trio. They looked around and they saw the platform from which Kristoff was directing the defence after his previous charge, gesturing with the huge sword that he carried. I saw that sword before they took it to be melted down. It was the kind of size that a man could stand on and it would not break. Drawings were taken of it so that it could be recorded even as the original was not going to be preserved.

I didn't want any of the artefacts of the rebellion to be preserved in case they became avenues of some kind of… martyrdom. But when she saw it, The Empress declared that she could have used it as a bed and would later claim that she had slept on shorter and narrower bunks than that sword.

I had it melted down for tools.

But according to many witnesses, including ones that I trust above all others, he wielded it like your average footsoldier would wield a shortsword. And he had a shield in the other hand which was a reinforced door from within the castle itself.

So the raiding party was standing there, waiting and they saw their avenue. They saw Kristoff on his platform as he directed the defence. They watched for a while to make sure that this was the enemy commander because it is true that such decoys are sometimes used and it seemed to the Skelligans that something so obscene should not be real.

Padraig knew it was real and knew exactly what he was looking at. Chireadean also recognised Kristoff. I asked him how he could recognise such a thing given that none of the trio had seen Kristoff in his monstrous state and he shrugged.

"It was in the movement of the shoulders," he said and Carys nodded in agreement next to him.

Padraig told Svein that whatever else the rest of the raiding party did, he, Carys and Chireadean intended to kill that man or die trying.

"There was something in the way they said it," Kar told me later. "I didn't… Hemdall love you Scribbler but I thought you were rare on the continent and I had always heard about the rage of the Elves but… when I saw that Cheerydeen (What he calls Chireadean. Apparently Chireadean likes it and intends to keep it.) draw his sword and examine the edge before looking back at that… thing… Scribbler, I fair shit myself and he didn't even look at me like that.

The Skelligans had a quick conference and decided a couple of things. The first was that the enemy commander was a good target to aim for and secondly, and by far more importantly "a man, or elf, who fights beside us is our brother. And a brother's blood feud is our blood feud."

We did not scream as we charged forward. We were hunting and a hunter does not scream when he is chasing his prey. A warrior may roar, or trumpets may sound when a charge is called. We roar to bolster our own courage and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.

But a hunter remains silent when he is chasing his prey.

Trumpets sound to send signals around the field and across the water. Horns call the men from their beds when their homes are under attack. Men shout warnings and sounds of unification.

But a hunter remains silent when he is chasing his prey.

And we were hunting, and our prey was dangerous. The enemy commander, standing huge on his platform. A platform of roughly hewn wooden logs, tied together with thick, hempen ropes and even then, the small tower groaned under the weight of him. Huge he was, as tall as an ice giant but instead of being made of bone and muscle and skin, he seemed to be made of metal. It scraped against itself with a sound that brought blood from the ears, as though the metal itself screamed with being there and hanging off such a brute of evil.

Huge his sword was, grey and misshapen and ugly. No true warrior would wield such a blade. A true warrior would take pride in his weapon. Even the cheapest, most poorly made lump of iron when hammered into a shape that might resemble a sword, but is little more than a club in reality can be polished until it shines in the sunlight. And a true warrior would see that it did so. A true warrior cares. This thing was not cared for.

A true warrior loves his weapons because he knows that a loved weapon will love you back. A loved weapon will tell you when it needs to be maintained, the same as a good ship will tell you when she is hurt. A loved weapon will tell you when it needs a new handle, a new hilt wrap and a new blade or crossguard.

A true weapon in the hands of a true warrior is a wonder to behold, even if that warrior is on the opposite side of you. Because a true weapon is used for defence as much as it is used for attack. This was not one of those weapons. This weapon was built for murder.

The beast's shield was broad wood, splintered at the edges from where it had already been struck by axe and sword. Pockmarked with arrow strikes with tiny dents in it from Crossbow bolts. It was plain wood with metal rivets and again, a true warrior would be ashamed. A true warrior would know that his shield is a way to announce himself and to tell his enemies "I AM HERE, COME AT ME." This shield was plain, dull, and brutal. It was a thing to cower behind like a coward.

But we already knew he was a coward. No real warrior changes himself like that. Even Witchers limited themselves to what is absolutely needed for the destruction of the monsters that roam the lands. What kind of a man wants to tower over his fellow man? A true man… A real man will face his foes on an equal footing. A real man will lie in the bed of his lover and hold them. A real man will fight himself rather than have other men fight for him unless some duty calls them otherwise. Real men lead, cowards command.

And he commanded our enemy. Even his troops cowered from him. It is not a tale-teller's invention that his eyes seemed to radiate evil, Blue they seemed to glow to me as I rushed forwards to help our comrades take their vengeance and those that he gazed upon quailed and cowered before him.

No real leader, no real man, commands like that.

We did not scream as we ran forwards. We ran quietly, Kar led us, quick and agile with flashing blades the first man fell beneath his blades. The second fell as one man struck the back of his knee and his legs collapsed under him, but then we were in them.

The guard of that commander was not the best of the best. It was no honour to guard such a commander. It was no privilege for men to compete over. To stand guard over such a man was to fear for your life. When things went badly, there was never any guarantee that yours would not be the life that he would choose to take in a fit of rage. These men were not proud of where they stood.

A warrior needs pride… A man needs pride.

We need it to stand when all other hope is gone. It is pride that makes the farmer start planting again after the rains have washed a crop away. It is pride that carries the fisherman out to sea when the catches are bad. Pride can carry a man through dark times and although pride can indeed poison and lie to a man when it tells you to stand tall when you should bend with the wind. For a soldier, pride is vital. It is pride that makes a man stand up in the face of an enemy and believe that no matter what happens, he can defeat the men coming towards him.

Those men did not have pride in the man that they were guarding. Nor did they have pride in themselves and each other when they needed to stand together in the face of the coming attack. No sooner than they realised they were under attack than they fled.

Foolish men with bright armour and flashy symbols believe jewelled hilts, etched runes and fancy scrollwork can take the place of skill with a sword. Men who think that tales of glory and title will make men fall and flee before them.

They fell before a handful of raiders.

They fled. If they had stood and fought, still they would have been no match for us, but if they had stood, we might have struggled and we might not have escaped as cleanly as we did.

The Man-breaker led us. Svein the Hard-hand, lord of the hidden village. Warmaster of the Black Boar and comrade to Empress, Witcher and Scholar. Friend of ravens they call him now for how many enemies he has fed to those that fly on black wings. He led us and with a huge blow, his axe thundered into one of the pillars that held up that platform. So strong was his wrath that the platform itself shook. But it would take more than one strike to fell so huge a structure.

Another man joined him and saw what the Man-breaker was doing and set to another log.

Padraig the black, the singing warrior, the husband of the cat and the shield of the traveller arrived. With the sword that was plucked from the tomb of his ancestors and that he had carried into battle in their name he stood, stance wide and swung at the ropes that held the entire thing up and again, the platform shook.

Kar the quick, Kar the cunning and the sharpened blade climbed up to saw at another knot and we saw the logs shift. Another blow, and another blow. Even your poor tale-spinner lent his own feeble strength to the effort.

Finally, the commander, that awful brute, felt the ground under his feet shift. He widened his stance to take account of this but the log under his boot rolled with his step and he fell. The platform crashed under his weight and with the strength of the blows from our blades. The noise was awful.

We were no longer silent.

Dust rose from the pile of shattered logs. Dust and splinters flew high in the air and fell around us like rain falling on a starving field. And from the middle of all of that ruin, a figure climbed to its feet. Whatever else I can say about that awful, shameful thing that pretended to be a man, he was a fighter and he climbed to his feet, swatting the fallen logs from his path with a swing of his sword. And as he climbed to his feet. He was met by a single figure. The slim figure of the elf stood before the brute as though he was standing amid a bright and easy summer's day.

The Elf's sword glittered. He held it in one hand, easily and with a relaxed posture. He looked as though he was sniffing the wildflowers of a summer meadow but when he opened his eyes to stare at the brute, there was a hate there that chilled me to the bone. Chireadean his name is, that elf. I have spoken with him and whenever he spoke, he talked about his love for large women. About his fondness for the company of friends around a roaring hearth with good beer, plentiful food and a friendly game of dice. He is a man that has seen many things and has come to the other side and realised that it is the simple things that he enjoys the most.

There is nothing more terrifying than the hatred of a good man.

"Get up," the Elf told the messy mass of logs and dust. Get up from on your knees. I will not have it said that we slaughtered you while you were on your knees."

The brute, whose name had been Kristoff when he was still a man, used his giant sword to lever himself to his feet, looked down upon the relaxed-looking elf from his huge height and even from within that helm, his glowing eyes seemed to gleam.

"I know you," the monster rumbled. "I know your face,"

The Elf nodded.

"I wanted you first," Chireadean told the brute. "Good men and Elves fought and they did so together and then, when we had brought safety with our blood and our lives, you turned us away. And then you attacked the man that had saved me."

"Yes I did," growled the brute. "And I killed him too. Tore his arm from his socket and beat him with it until he begged me for mercy. He is dead now. Dead and whimpering that he should have joined me when he had the chance.

"I doubt that," the Elf nodded to himself. "And now I will humiliate you for tarnishing his name."

The brute attacked with a bellow, trying to force the Elf to his knees with the force of his yell. The Elf ignored him and simply wasn't where the sword struck. I did not have long to watch the fight, but what I did see seemed to take my breath away. The Elf himself barely seemed to move. We speak of dodging and movement to dodge. We speak of turns and half-turns to avoid the massive blows of our enemies' axes.

I have seen Witchers fight and that is how I would have described them moving. This Elf wasn't like that. He would just simply… not be where the giant struck. Huge blows that shattered flagstones and broke the remaining logs. Swings that made the air scream with the passage of that huge lump of metal that he called a sword.

The other two, the elven woman and the man that loved her watched, their enemy hungrily, waiting for their turn

The commander's guard had realised how few we were now and was coming back to fight us and protect their general. Not being the strongest though, my role was to plug gaps when the movements of the fight meant that our line was broken. But we held, our comrades behind us were following through on a blood feud against a thing that they hated and though it might cost us our lives, we would see to it that they would gain their chance at their vengeance.

I watched as the elf mocked the brute. It wasn't a fight, it was…

I don't know what it was. But when the brute finally became tired, which was long after I would have given up, the Elf attacked, just casually moving his sword up and barely even tapping the monster's sword it sent the giant staggering and on the Elf came.

The brute just hid behind his shield while he got his sword back into position before realising that the Elf hadn't even struck the shield. He peeked over the rim of his shield like a child peering around the door to see if the parent is still angry.

The Elf was waiting for him. Some distance away. The Elf nodded and stepped back, turning away. The giant saw the Elf's back and went to move forwards before he realised that something stood in front of him.

The other elf. The woman. The one whose face and body make a man's dreams fill with images of the bedchamber and pray for a smile or a wink from that face. She stood there. Two crude-looking daggers in her hands as she gazed up at the monster, a feral snarl on her beautiful face that was enough to make her ugly. Where the other Elf had been serene and calm, this one was bitter and filled with rage.

"You came for a good man," her voice was twisted and accented with her hate. "I have hated humans all my life and I have killed as many as I could bring my blades towards. I hated and I murdered and sometimes I hate them still. But then one day I met a good man. And he was friends with another good man who led many other good men. Including the one that I would come to love. And everything that I hated in humans was not there in them. They treated me with respect.

"Not kindness. That would come later. But respect. I had never known that from a human. I have barely known it from Elves. They asked and I would answer. I told them what I thought and they took what I said. We fought together and I watched them die to defend me. Not just me, but others like me. I saw a man carrying an elven child on his shoulders before a dart struck him in the leg. He could no longer run so he passed the child to another before turning to face the enemy and dying.

"And just when I had started to believe that there were good people in the world. Good humans amongst the many, many bad. You attacked them and you have killed at least one from your mouth. So now I know that good men are rare and they must be fought for.

"And occasionally, they must be avenged."

I have seen snakes strike out at their targets. I have seen a bird of prey, upon sighting its target, tuck its wings and dive for its target. I have seen the wrath in a woman's eyes change back to affection and love. But this elf was faster than all of them.

She leapt at the brute, blades flashing and suddenly, he didn't know what to do. She was the whirlwind, the storm, the chaos of the wind and the rain and the lightning. Changing direction one way and then the other and always her knives would land. If the brute had landed a strike on her darting form he would have clove her in two or shattered her into tiny pieces. But he did not. She was inside his reach now and he was bewildered as to how he should act.

There was finally blood in the air. Blue, red blood. Not purple. It was red but there was a strange glow about it that suggested the colour blue.

More blood splattered free and the giant dropped his sword and tried to reach for the girl. But like the other Elf before her, she was simply not there when he reached for her.

Like him, she nodded and went to wait beside her predecessor.

And now the Skelligan went to stand in the way of the giant.

"He found me in the gutter." The soldier said as he stood in front of the figure that had once been a knight.

The Skelligan stood tall, his own huge, brutal sword resting on his shoulders. A remnant of Skelligan lords of old. The man once claimed to have rescued it from his family tomb before he left for the continent, driven there by starvation and poverty.

"I was already a soldier then, fighting for a country that I hated but they paid enough for me to fuck a woman every so often with enough leftover to pay for the apothecary to cure the pox in the morning afterwards. They fed me and gave me a uniform and gave me plenty of people to hit.

"I hated them for it and I would get drunk. I nearly got executed three times for hitting a superior officer but the lads around me swore that they had seen nothing and promised everyone that would listen that the Knight in question had simply slipped and fell.

"I was in the gutter and he lifted me up. He took me and showed me how to fight like a soldier. I already knew how to fight, but he taught me how to fight like a soldier. He taught me to protect the common folk and he taught me how to stand up and when he left the army, I went with him.

"I was nothing without him. Nothing. But he gave me rank, responsibility and showed me that a person is a person no matter what shape their ears are or how long their beards are. And I finally knew who my friends were. And funnily enough, when he led me, I made more money.

"Funny that.

"I was nothing without him."

The giant shifted as he picked up his sword again.

"He is dead," the giant growled, his voice seeming to grate along the underside of your skin.

"Then I will avenge him." The Skelligan called Padraig said, his musical voice becoming angry and harsh. "I will carve his name into your skull. His name and all the names of your victims. I am going to kill you and when you die, your screams of agony will be carried to wherever he is and he will know that he is avenged. I do not enjoy killing, but by Hemdall's beard, I am going to enjoy killing you. And I am going to kill you with the woman I love, that I would never have met without him… The woman I love and a good friend will help me."

The Skelligan leapt forward with a huge, overhead blow that swung down and struck the giant's shield in the centre. Such was the power of that swing that we all heard a crack like the sound of thunder tearing through the air. One blow was followed by another and another as blow after blow rained down on that shield that might have passed for a door.

Such was the power of those strikes that the giant started to fall back. You could see him wanting to bring his sword into the fight but he was driven back and back and back. Needing his other hand to help brace the shield until he had his back to the wall and he flailed with his sword. His shield was a tattered mass of a thing that weighed his arm down.

And the Skelligan stepped back.

"And now we kill you." Said Padraig the black.

The elven woman screamed a battle cry of rage and grief while the elf looked serene, the two of them splitting up and dividing the attention of the huge monster.

And the fighting began. I have seen fights, very many of them but it is worth saying that I had never, and nor will I ever see a fight like it. The giant didn't know what to do. He would swing to strike the Elf and then he would be hammered by a blow from the Skelligan soldier. He would spin to drive them back and he would find that the Elf had slid under the blow and was striking out at the backs of his knees, trying to get him to fall. Very regularly it seemed to those of us that had the time to watch the battle, that he would have one or other of the three of them at his mercy and he would lift his sword in the air to split one of them in two. Only to find the Woman, crouching with her legs wrapped around his neck as she tried to work a blade into the gaps in his helmet.

More of his strange blood splattered the courtyard that we were in. Fewer and fewer of his guards tried to reach him to help him. And more and more we could watch that moment when a person's vengeance is achieved.

In the end, it happened quickly. The sustained rain of blows against the backs of his knees proved important and one of his legs buckled so that he fell to his knee. He swung his huge sword to try and drive his attackers back and Chireadean the quick, struck at the inside of his elbow. Whatever else the giant was, his joints still worked like a man's joints and it took him time to recover from that blow.

In the meantime, the woman, Carys the deadly, ran, leapt and planted one of her daggers in through the eye sockets in his helmet.

Black goo ran freely from that hole. With his left hand, he reached up and pulled the dagger out before he laughed and rose to his feet.

"Is that all?" He wondered but we all knew that it was enough. Because now he had a blind spot. The trio had realised that the body of an augmented knight is just as fragile as the body of a normal man. And now he was unable to climb to his feet.

I think it was Padraig that killed him. He charged the huge monster from his new blindside and knocked him over, twisting his injured leg under him. The monster screamed in surprise and agony while Carys jumped on the side of the knee joint to keep the thing flat on his back. Chireadean drove the point of his sword into the sword's arm, first at the wrist and then at the elbow forcing it to drop the sword which he pushed away with his feet.

I will say this for the brute, he did not beg. Not to say that Padraig gave him a chance. He turned his sword into his hand and used the cross-guard of his ancient sword as a war hammer. He struck once at the thing's chest which caused the chest plate to ring like a bell and then he did so again at the helmet. I think it was this blow that ended him. If not that, then definitely the next as the cross piece of the sword hammered through the helmet and into the skull.

But they knew never to give an enemy a chance to recover. Carys the deadly reasoned that if he had bones like a man then maybe his blood flowed like a man's as well. She pushed a dagger into the beast's groin on both sides and sawed through what she found until the black, reddish-blue blood started to seep forth. She nodded in satisfaction, pulling the blade free and tossing it at the beast's feet.

Chireadean didn't do any of that, instead, he reached into a pouch and produced a hip flask and passed it to Padraig who took a drink before passing it onto Carys who drank and passed it back to Chireadean who finished it before tossing the flask over his shoulder.

"Fucker," Padraig spat at the corpse of the thing and turned to walk away. Carys and Chireadean followed him.

I wish I had seen that.

Even though it had been Sam that had killed Rickard, it is nice to know that the right people got to have a small measure of vengeance. I am glad that Rickard was avenged in some small way and I am also glad that the monster that Kristoff had become did not become a martyr, nor did he die at the hands of some other knight or some other soldier. But at the hands of men and women that deserved and had earned their hatred. Kristoff had it coming.

As I say, I am having his sword melted down. The body was more complicated. According to an assessment provided to me by Lady Eilhart, what was happening was that Kristoff was becoming his armour. His flesh was fusing itself to the insides of his armour, partially because his body just wouldn't stop growing. His muscles were swelling and his blood was flowing. According to our prisoners, his appetite was prodigious before it abruptly just seemed to tail off.

Lady Eilhart's team is theorising that he was gaining some form of sustenance from the magic of the ritual that Sam was creating but fortunately, there is no way to be sure. The people that created that ritual are now dead and the knowledge is destroyed.

Or at least, we are working hard to make sure that it is destroyed.

The body of Kristoff was studied but although the flesh was rotting and his bodily fluids were leaking out of the joints, the armour was not coming apart. We found that there were no straps to the armour so Kristoff was, quite literally, the armour that he wore. There is a metaphor here somewhere about warriors becoming the armour that they wear and weapons that they wield, and how that is not particularly good for you.

In the end, a furnace was built and the body and armour of Kristoff was fed into it until all that was left of it was slag. They made that flame so hot that it should have melted that metal down to its "component atoms" whatever that means but it would seem that this was not possible. Instead, the lump of metal that came out the other end was placed upon a ship which sailed out to sea before it was burned so that the wreckage sank to the bottom of the sea in the deepest gulf that Jarl Helfdan knew about.

The crew of that ship were evacuated onto other ships but I have since received word that they have become sick. Not dangerously so but their health has certainly suffered. The Empress has ordered that they be placed under guard and that tests be carried out. We will see what happens with that.

Kristoff died and with him, any sense of an organised defence seemed to fold in on itself. Isolated pockets of fighting in the outer walls of the keep kept the spark alive as men who belonged to the guard of this treasonous noble or that, had more experience fighting together meant that they could close up their ranks and defend themselves and each other against the attacking Imperial Forces.

It is important to remember. Especially for me when it comes to matters like this, that many of the soldiers that fought for the cause of the rebellion were just there because their feudal masters ordered them to. It is also no small tragedy that many of those men that were taken captive will be marched to the noose for the crime of doing what their lords told them to. Many of them were farmers and castle guards, town watchmen and militia. Men who had come to the South of Redania because the knight that had a home in their village had promised the rebellion that he would raise so many men and then he had to bring them south.

There are very many stories like that. Just as there are stories of our side being heroic there are also stories of men who fought long after they should have succumbed and been beaten down. Men who were just doing what they were told, would have died at the hands of the men to whom they owed fealty. Men who were simply unlucky enough to have been born in the lands of men, and women to be fair as several women who had not come to the south, had also supported the rebellion.

There will be another famine next year. Not just in South Redania but in the entirety of Redania this time as there will be fewer men to work the fields. Fewer supplies and fewer… skilled workers. And this time, we will not be supported by our neighbours as there will be a general sentiment of "The Redanians brought it on themselves. So the prices of Grain from Aedirn will rise, let alone cattle."

The problem is, they are probably not wrong. To the readers that might be concerned, Emma tells me that she has already foreseen this problem and is taking some steps. I do not doubt that, at least, my people will be relatively well fed and I am almost certain that this will mean that another fortune will fall into my coffers. At least now, I am the Duke and I will have some say about what we do with that money.

For their part, the trio of Padraig, Chireadean and Carys have all heard the tale being told regarding the fall of Kristoff the butcher. Yes, that is becoming his name now. It is not the most accurate or best version of his name that I have heard but at least he is not "Sir Kristoff" or "Lord Kristoff" or any other more complimentary titles. Anti-Imperial politicians are trying to turn Sam into a martyr but Kristoff? There are just too many witnesses to the full range of his depravity and perceived cruelty so I am pretty sure that he will be reviled long after I am dead.

The three of them tell me that what is described is fairly accurate. They point out that while all three of them played with the man and wanted to prove themselves, the other two were nearby and more than ready to step in and help should the matter come up. They also remember it being a lot more chaotic than described and not one of them can remember making the big long speeches that are quoted.

They, and I, suspect artistic licence and that those speeches are taken from conversations had with the Skelligans around campfires while waiting for the assault to begin. They certainly said things to Kristoff but Padraig is definitely of the opinion that his speech was more profane than the one recorded. On the other hand, the story is being told in taverns in Novigrad, Oxenfurt and, apparently, Kaer Trolde so Professor Dandelion thinks that the story will spread which means that I have famous warriors in my entourage.

Hooray for me.

So the Imperial Forces only had the keep itself to conquer.

It cannot be guessed at what stage in all of these proceedings, that Sam's ritual was disrupted or that Sam was slain. We know that it took several hours to clear out the last of the resistance from the various courtyards of Coulthard Castle and in that time, a battering ram was brought through the carnage to get to the keep's doors.

This operation is not as easy as it might sound. The castle door was thick and well made and secured. It was rumoured amongst my family that Father had once let go of his banning of magic in the early years of our occupation of the castle and had a mage in to fortify those doors. I don't know if it worked or if indeed, he did that. But I do know that they had rushed a couple of fallen trees up to the keep to try and breach the doors quickly, but the only things that broke were the tree trunks themselves.

All the while, there were still some troops on the parapets of the keep itself.

So the ram was having difficulty, the burning pitch had been tipped on it, there were bodies to be cleared out of the way to get it to the door and all kinds of things were going wrong.

We know that the work of the Lodge had been finished by this point because that was the moment that Maleficent was finally unleashed to find some measure of vengeance for her friend and rival.

I wish I had seen that as well.

There is the famous saying that you must bend before the storm or you will break. But when that black dragon with the green eyes and purple glow of magic dancing around her body came streaking out of the deepening evening sky to strafe the top of the keep with green flame, it must have been like realising that the storm is on your side. The attackers could hear screams and cries of surprise and anguish before Maleficent hovered above the keep and just blew a stream of flame across the parapet.

Then she landed before the doors of the castle looking, and I quote witnesses "smug and angry."

How a dragon can look smug I don't know. I can only assume that it's similar to when a cat looks smug after catching the mouse.

But she faced the door, and took a deep breath, all but doubling her body in size before unleashing a stream of flame directly at the door.

I wish I had seen it. It was so hot that it was white and melted the armour of some of the dead knights that were nearby. The human attackers had to flee back from it, so intense was that heat. The door did well, it stood up to the barrage for several minutes before the hinges melted off the frame and the stone around the door started to melt off too. When the doors fell off, A hail of bolts and arrows flew out of the doorway, most of which bounced off the dragon's scales. One or two found soft bits and black blood came forth.

This time there was no smugness about the dragon as she took another deep breath and unleashed another gout of flames into the now-open door.

I have seen those ruins. I have stroked my hands across the smooth sections of stone where the dragon fire has melted the edges of the stone. I have looked at the melted lumps of slag that were once an armoured man. And I have seen the silhouetted shapes of men who lifted their arms to their faces in some kind of vain attempt to ward off the flames.

When she was done, the dragon moved forwards and seemed to flow like smoke into her more human shape, horns stark with her staff flashing as she moved into the castle, her fury coming off her in waves.

I have heard that there is criticism about the way that this was handled.

Military etiquette states that one of the reasons that defenders protect their walls and their keep so vigorously is to force the attacker to come to terms and discuss the surrender peacefully. So there is criticism that this wasn't discussed before Lady Maleficent made her attack. There was no effort to discuss the surrender of the keep itself before Maleficent made her attack. There was no opportunity for the defenders to allow things to go the other way.

I heard this criticism from Intelligence who was cackling to himself when he told me it. After I had calmed down I formulated a couple of responses to this.

Obviously, as one of the people that are intimately involved in these events, I cannot claim to be completely unbiased in the affair. But there are a couple of points.

Firstly, the Lodge Of Sorceresses had informed the Imperial Generals that a dangerous ritual was being carried out inside the castle and that it was imperative that the ritual be stopped immediately. Not tomorrow, or in several months' time when the Logistics division was able to agree that the food would run out. But immediately. And negotiation would be a good way to delay things so that the ritual could be finished. So this is the logical response. Now people can, and have, argued about trusting mages, in which case I would point out that the Empress trusts them so I would be careful who you say that to. Also, these men were traitors against the Imperial throne, what terms do you think they would receive?

And on a personal level, I am glad that there was no delay to the storming of the keep itself. Who knows what the fanatics inside the castle would have been able to achieve in the destruction and torment of those of us who were not in a position to defend ourselves? I mean… I know the difference now, but at that time and in that place, the attackers had no idea what was happening or what was going to happen and as well as stopping any further rituals from taking place, the Empress' opinions on rescuing the hostages were well known.

The other thing that is worth remembering is that you are talking about an angry dragon. Someone who is, already, not famous for her sense of calm and decorum.

Maleficent and I have spoken and although she is now much calmer than she had been. At the time of the siege, she was furious. "Speechless with rage" is how she described it and that rage and anger was a flame that was banked and fuelled by the fact that she could not do anything about it. Bearing in mind that this was the same dragon that sentenced a Kingdom to death.

She was desperate to join the siege efforts and to seek the freedom of her friend, but it was just as vital that she was present in the ritual circle that the Lodge of Sorceresses had formed to contain whatever forces were unleashed with both the breaching of the ritual circle and then the death of Sam. She was amongst the oldest of the mages that were present. Even Queen Francesca Findabair broke her own rule of never leaving Dol Blathanna to try and keep the potential harm from the bursting ritual to a minimum. But that trio, Queen Francesca, Maleficent and Ariadne were among the oldest of the Lodge and what I had once been told about the magic that was being used against me turned out to be true.

It was ancient and alien.

So the age and experience of the Queen of the Elves and the Black Dragon were vital. But the very moment that it was done. The very heartbeat that the ritual magics were safe and channelled elsewhere safely, Maleficent could not have been prevented or restrained from leaping into the air and assuming her dragon form.

That she didn't reduce the entire keep into slag to exorcise her rage is a small miracle but it was impressed on her the need to rescue the hostages, including me who she is apparently rather fond of for reasons passing my understanding and instead, she enjoyed dealing with the matter in more close quarters.

Until, abruptly, she didn't, but that's another thing.

So, in she strode and the rescue and assault teams went in after her.

There is no way to tell for sure what the closing moments of the siege were like inside the keep. For a while, there was an effort by several of my assistants to coral witnesses and potential witnesses to get the job done, but it soon became clear that the task was impossible.

Why? Confusion largely. Trauma and horror at what had happened is another factor. But what we know for sure happened is that Ariadne's horror and rage at what had taken place equalled and in some way exceeded that of Maleficent.

There was an effort that, as soon as Kerrass freed her, someone from the Lodge would try and communicate with her to get her to help free and protect the hostages and to leave Sam to Kerrass for fear of everyone's safety.

We know that she did that.

We have witness accounts from some of the other captives that, as they waited for death or worse in their cages, a red mist would appear and then they would watch while their guards were pulled apart, screaming horribly as they were torn limb from limb. Then while they were doing that, tiny spiders would arrive and pick the locks of the bonds and the cages that they were kept in. At first, there were efforts to try and stamp the spiders into paste but the realisation of what was happening started to filter through the haze of terror. But even freed, the captives stayed where they were in that same terror.

Those soldiers and augmented both died horribly. Chillingly. Everything I had once feared Ariadne was capable of had been done to those men. I tried to speak to one girl who had been found covered in blood. She had been taken hostage by an imaginative guard, only to have had his throat pulled out. Not torn out, ripped out or cut out, pulled out.

The resulting blood flow had gushed out over the poor girl as the man who had tried to hold her hostage had reached towards her for help.

She would just weep and shake even while she did her best to thank me and thank the "scary spider lady for saving her life."

That story is not unique.

Ariadne continued her rampage and the various men hiding inside the keep and planning how they were going to get out of the, now, seemingly inevitable capture and condemnation for treason, barricaded themselves inside whatever room they could find, cowering and shivering against the vampire's rage.

Luckily for them, although Ariadne seems to have not been completely mindless in that she certainly didn't end up killing the hostages as well, she was not conscious enough to think of opening doors. To be fair to her though, there were plenty of targets for her to choose from in the halls and the corridors and she tore through them.

I did not choose those words by accident.

This came to a head when she saw Maleficent and the appearance of her friend of old seems to have acted like a splash of freezing water over Ariadne's rage.

"You would not have recognised her Fred," Maleficent told me before she flew off. I don't know why but she's the only person ever, in my entire life that calls me Fred. "She had lost complete control over her being in her rage. She was half spider, half woman as though the woman was growing out of the spider and the spider was growing out of the woman. Her mouth had lips and mandibles and above her very human nose were six eyes, two of which were human and all six of them were weeping. Human hair mixed with Spider hair and skin moulded with chitinous armour. I have never seen her like that.

"Four legs and two arms that she used to pull herself towards her prey as though she could make herself move faster by physically pulling herself through the air.

"She saw me suddenly and I had to prepare myself to defend myself. Physically, she was no match for me. I am a dragon and she is a spider. Our battle would have destroyed what remained of your castle and keep but I would have been victorious in the end. But I didn't want to fight her.

"I felt… pity. Do you know how rare it is for a dragon like me to feel pity?"

"She shook her head in denial and realised who I was. Then she looked at herself, her arms and her body that was covered in blood and far far worse. I called her name, and when she didn't respond to that, I tried the other names that I know but she didn't respond.

"She just screamed in horror at all the blood and then she was smoke, flowing past me and through the air with a speed that I would struggle to catch up to, even if I had wings.

"What it must be to be enslaved and forced to unleash your power on those that you would save. It is not something that I think you can comprehend, nor can anyone comprehend. I am a dragon. I am power incarnate. If I wanted to I could raze the cities of your small nations to dust and your small armies would not inspire fear. Only your magic users are a threat to me and I can see them coming. They would need to catch me unawares to take me without potentially catastrophic loss. Your spider is not far from me in power level and is far more skilled. To have that and then be forced to use it for so petty a goal as ambition.

"For love? For vengeance? I could understand that but for ambition? Sometimes your species is beyond me and for that I am glad. I hope you find her Fred, I do. She deserves better than what was done to her."

So Ariadne fled and the Imperial army went into the castle. The extraction of the prisoners began of which I was one. Kerrass told the attackers where to find me before leaving to help the other Witchers deal with the increasingly confused and angry spiders and Vampires that were around the place.

Lord Voorhis had decided that it was safe for The Empress and he to advance and so it was that he was at Sir Palmerin's command post at the outer gates when the questions came down as to the nature of terms to be offered to those that wished to surrender.

He turned to the Empress and raised an eyebrow.

This is the moment. This is the moment that soldiers and knights and warriors all around the continent dread. This is the moment that happened after Radovid was slain. This is the moment where warfare stops and the politics begin. Some people say that warfare is just an extension of politics and this is true but I think it's a simplification. Warfare? Yes, but battle?

I don't think so. The battle was won. There was still going to be some fighting happening, but the battle was won and all that had to be done was to decide what was going to happen next. And according to everyone that has ever been in this position, including me by the way as I now govern the land that the warfare took place over, it is the time immediately after the warfare that is the most difficult bit.

If you have conquered another nation then that is the time of occupation. Small rebellions spring up as well as all of the problems of disease and famine and other logistics.

If you have driven off an attacker, then there is the weakness that is left of the reduction of supplies and soldiers which means that your neighbours think you are weak and that they can take advantage of you.

So as I lay in a surgeon's tent and Dr Shani laboured to save my life, even as she mourned the news that Sir Rickard, the man that she loved, was confirmed to be dead, The Empress began the next stage of the politics.

She told the messenger that those men in the castle could surrender on the understanding that they would stand trial for treason.

Or they could die upon the swords of the Imperial army.

To my mind, a surprising number of people chose the "trial" option. I mean, knowing what the Empire does to traitors and all… I would have taken the swift death option.

That was a joke. I am dismayed to realise that my sense of humour is becoming darker and darker at the moment and I need to take some action to correct that. I have no idea how one sets about changing their sense of humour though. I'm going to take a break.

I need to write this before I lose my nerve. I know some of you only read this to find out what is happening between Ariadne and me, what happened, what did Kerrass find and so on. I know that and, I will be honest, I am a little saddened by that.

I am tired of this project now. I feel as though it has run its course and because there is less and less that I can talk about from my real life, I feel increasingly that…

Oh, I don't know. But the Empress has issued her orders and this means that I must follow them. She has told me that I must record what happened during the Kalayn rebellion, the aftermath and why I was elevated to my current position. I know that she wants me to do that. I know it and I know why she wants me to do it. But this is becoming a burden that I no longer want. The governing, that I will do but this?

Some of the things that I must talk about are too painful. I no longer want this. I no longer enjoy it, I want…

I don't know what I want. I am surrounded by people that will fall over themselves to find me whatever it is that I might wish for and I don't know what to tell them. Neither food nor drink satisfies me. I struggle to sleep until I get to the point where I sleep so deeply that people struggle to wake me. I promise myself that I will sleep better next time and then I don't. But maybe next time.

I am tired and I look around and I wonder where my friends have gone. Emma is broken. Kerrass is… being Kerrass. Rickard is dead. Mark is dead. Sam is… not who I thought he was. Guillaume and Gregoire have their duties elsewhere and do not understand why I cannot just will myself towards happiness and well-being. Those two men are men happy at their work and so…

My university friends are now either dead in the fighting or are so bewildered by my elevation that they struggle to speak in my presence. The Skelligans? They too have other things that they must do and Ariadne?

Kerrass led us East. We followed the road for some time.

I would have gone with him alone if I had been allowed, but it is clear to me now that I am not the one that gets to make those kinds of decisions. I am the most powerful single man in the Pontar delta and arguably the North as well. But whenever I have to take a horse to go down the road, I must run it past dozens of people. I cannot accept a gift without people checking it and by the time the food reaches my table, it is often cold and a fraction of what it once was after all the people have to test it and taste it first.

So instead I went with twenty guards. Ten Elves that Carys selected and another ten humans that she had decided that she could tolerate. Carys herself led the party. With us came Samantha who was there to be in charge of my health. Which is another way that I am no longer in control of my destiny. The medical people still tell me that I have a long way to go before I attain proper recovery and as such, I must guard my strength carefully. So regularly, I get instructed that I must drink the drinks and do the things that they demand, when they demand.

Some servants see to my needs. A thing that I thought would infuriate Kerrass, but it seems that the Duke of the Pontar cannot make his own bed. Nor can he prepare his own food or guard his own pavilion when it comes time to sleep

I found the entire journey an intensely frustrating experience. I don't know if I have lost the knack of travelling or what is going on there. But it takes me a frustrating amount of time to get up in the morning, a frustrating amount of time to get on my horse and a frustrating amount of time to do anything. I don't feel as though we are physically moving any slower than we used to but there is a level of frustration to it that I don't…. I cannot detect where it is coming from and I don't like it.

I cannot sleep. My blankets are too heavy or they are too light. Sometimes I desperately need a pillow and other times I feel as though I could desperately do without one and would rather pillow my head on my saddle as I used to. The food is never quite right. I don't… I don't know what's happening and it's so frustrating.

Part of it was where we were going to be sure and desperation to go faster and travel further. I know that this was the case but…

I don't like the fact that I am trusting my safety to other people. I have done this before. I used to trust Kerrass implicitly when it came to the matter of my safety. He would tell me when it was safe to just sleep or when we needed to set a watch. He would set up bells and traps and all kinds of things around our campsite when he felt the need to and I didn't blame him or get angry. And when I've travelled with other men, the bastards or the Wave-Serpent crew, I have done the same. Men have told me that I didn't need to worry about this or that or the other and I surrendered control to them without a second thought.

But now I worry and I don't know why.

I used to find the wind in the light forests restful. Not the heavy forests as the shade of Amber's crossing still haunts those forests. Especially around winter. But the open air and the rustling of crops having just been planted. Wild woodland frightens me but farmland or Riverland? I would be fine. I should be fine.

WHY AM I NOT FINE?

I have wept myself to sleep on the road and I did during that journey. But who do I talk to about that? Who do I confide in? Carys? Carys looks afraid when I try to treat her as a friend. She doesn't understand it and asks me not to worry about her. She is too busy worrying about my physical well-being to apply too much in those levels.

Samantha just tells me to give it time. I am coming to almost missing her teasing.

She doesn't tease me any more.

On the road, once upon a time, I would have used the things that I had been given to contact Ariadne. But Ariadne…

And Kerrass. For the first few days of the journey, I would try and speak to Kerrass. I would walk over to him and try to catch his attention. Even if my guards and my… I don't like calling them servants, tell me that I can't sleep at his fire, I wanted to spend some of my evening with Kerrass.

He wouldn't have it. He was not angry as he was the first time he came back when I asked him to go and find Ariadne for me. He was just staring into the fire as I approached and calmly told me… "Go away, Lord."

The first night I made a joke of it but he would just repeat that phrase over and over again until I simply…. Did as I was told. The habit of obedience runs deep and Flame knows that Kerras has forced that understanding into me over the years.

The next night I was more insistent. I told him that I missed him and that I wanted my friend back. He sighed and just repeated the phrase.

I fled from him then and I don't think that he noticed, or cared.

I fled into my tent and that was not a good night for me. The tears flowed freely.

The following night I went and I got angry. I ranted and I raved at him about how he was letting me down. About how he had promised to be my friend and how he had promised that he would not lead me into darkness or into places that I could not follow. I really got angry with him and insisted to him that he come out of… wherever it was that he had gone and that he would face me. That he talked to me and said that we worked to recover a friendship that we had left somewhere. I wanted him back. I wanted Kerrass back.

That time, he got up and walked into the thickest part of the undergrowth where he knew that my wooden legs would prevent me from following him.

The following day, as I moved to try again, determined and stubborn to regain some measure of friendship between Kerrass and me, Carys frowned. I have learned that… when she is on duty, or when she considers herself on duty, Carys' expression barely moves. She can look angry when it suits her and when she has decided that she needs to make a point or otherwise act on my behalf such as intimidating an idiot.

But she rarely comments or behaves differently. This time she frowned. After my rebuffing from Kerrass that night, which I took much better given that I was kind of expecting by this point, she seemed to nod in satisfaction. As though a point had been made about the world and she was satisfied with the way that things had gone.

I watched carefully as I learned that sometimes she can see things that I would miss. The Elven, female outsider's perspective and I have tried to surround myself with people that would offer me different perspectives. I know that she, in particular, has enjoyed giving me her point of view and is pleased that I ask her opinion on a professional basis. Not as a friend, but as a professional.

Even though she would never admit that and does her best to follow her husband's example of acting as though nothing surprises her.

But the following day, I made sure that she was riding next to me and I asked her what she was thinking. She shook her head and told me that I was not ready to hear what she had to say on the subject.

She was probably right.

I tried again for the following few days with Carys and Kerrass both. And then Carys finally told me what she was thinking.

"That is not the same man." She told me, gesturing off and away from where everyone else was camping. We could see Kerrass there, staring into the fire leaning on his swords. The very poetic image of a Witcher alone on the path.

"He moves the same," she went on, "he dresses the same and he behaves the same. He sounds the same and he fights the same. But that is not the same man. I do not like this man. You deserve better from him than this shell of a man, this… mockery of a friendship that only you are working on. It breaks my heart more than it breaks my heart to see you separated from the woman that you love. That is a matter of something beyond your and her control. She fled in a madness and now, hopefully, you will be able to bring her out of that madness but this?"

She gestured at Kerrass.

"I asked another Witcher, the white-haired one that waited until his woman was not looking, to check out my backside when he thought I wasn't looking. But I asked if Kerrass was a skin-changer a… what is it?"

"A doppler." I supplied.

"Yes, that's the fucker." She occasionally copies her husband's turn of phrase.

"But that one?" she hissed as she gestured at Kerrass. Her accent still becomes stilted when she becomes angry. The pretence of the overtly Elven accent when she became angry has become true and now she must work at it to get it to go the other way.

"I saw you carry that man… that Witcher out of the forest. You were dying yourself of fear, hunger and sickness that we didn't know. You were weak, terrified and I could see how much it had cost you to save that man but you did it. And when I heard what you had gone through to save him I was jealous of you both. No one has ever had that kind of friendship for me and I thought no one ever would. I was so pleased to be proven wrong. But I thought I would never know that level of love and friendship. I thought… I thought that you and he would share a bond that would never be broken. I thought that you and he would be friends for life. You SHOULD be friends for life and that is true on your end. You are his friend for life.

"But it was as though he would set it aside. As though he no longer cares."

She spat in his direction, still her ultimate expression of anger and disdain.

"No real man or woman… elf, human or dwarf, would treat a friend like that. Fuck not even a cold-blooded Vran would do that. No real man would turn aside from a friend that had gone through what you went through to save him."

"He has saved my life many times," I replied, a little colder than I meant to say it. "I am sorry."

She smiled, one of the rare true smiles that she only bestows when she means it. She was telling me that I was forgiven.

"How many times," she began, obviously prepared for this declaration of mine. "How many times have you told yourself that when you think that your life would be so much easier if you stopped trying to be his friend?" She wondered. "How many times have you said that as a counter to people that wonder why you tolerate his treatment of you?"

I didn't have to say anything. It was a lot and she, of all people, knew it.

"Was it not you that once wrote, and told him, that true friends, real friends don't keep count of how often they save each other?"

It is always surprising when someone throws your own words back into your face.

"And I will save him this time as well," I told her.

She shook her head.

"He does not wish to be saved," she told me. "That is not the same man that you dragged out of the forest with shattered arms. That is not even the same Witcher that was desperate to break into the castle to save you from what he was sure was a fate worse than death. That is not the same Witcher that wanted to stand next to you on your wedding day. That is a man that is in love with his misery and image. I do not like this man. I do not like the way he treats you and I despise him for allowing you to hurt yourself by trying to keep him as his friend. He knows what you are doing and instead of telling you the truth, he is allowing you to dash yourself against him."

She looked at me sharply.

"When this is done and your woman is in your arms again. You should stop trying to be his friend. You should cut him loose. He needs to realise what he has lost, before he comes back to you and when he does, you should honestly consider whether it is worth taking him back."

"Of course, it is worth it." I was appalled.

"Is he?" Again, she was immune and prepared to my wrath. "How many times has this happened, where he has abandoned you to his own…. Fucking nonsense? And always it is you or one of your other friends that drags him back. That is not a friend to you. One day, he will leave and you will not be able to bring him back. Even if you get through to him this time."

She looked over at Kerrass again.

"If you can this time," she mused. "I think he is too determined to push you away this time."

She rose and brushed the dirt of her place from her trousers.

"Forgive me, Lord Duke, I must check the sentries and I miss my husband. My sadness makes me speak out of turn."

And she was gone.

I did not try to talk to Kerrass that night. It nearly broke my heart but underneath some of her bitterness, I could hear some sense in what she was telling me.

For his part, Kerrass did not react to my new determination not to go running back to him. He seemed neither relieved nor saddened by it. Instead, he led us on.

The following day was a miserable one for me. I did not sleep well and I had strange dreams filled with fire that kept waking me up, convinced that the fire was about to overtake me. As I rode, I remember being in silence and not paying attention to where we were going or what I was doing. I seem to have a memory of trees but my journal of that time is confused and not followed through on.

That night, I found that I wanted to pace. I had been warned about this when I had first lost my legs. It's called "Ghost leg." where you can feel the leg that is no longer there. So you have to be careful about involuntary urges and the desire to follow through on instinctive needs must be guarded against. A leap to your feet can be catastrophic and send you tumbling ass over tit.

But I was restless and I wanted to pace. It was the same urge that gets me to move when I need to work out a problem during my student studies. Sometimes movement jerks the mind into attentiveness and makes you realise that there is a solution to the problem. I have no idea why and it has never seemed important enough when I am speaking to people that might know the answer.

But that night I wanted to pace. I wanted to move and jump about. Of course, I can do none of those things. Looking back, it seems obvious to me that what I wanted to do was to train. I had not brought my spear with me. I no longer have as many knives as I used to but I still have my belly dagger. It is alarmingly comforting to feel that familiar weight in my hands and on my belt and I can no longer sleep without it under my pillow.

I decided what I was going to do that night so I rose from my bed and blankets and dressed. I left my pavilion, telling my guards that I needed some air, which was true as far as it went, and one of them fell in behind me.

Another thing that I have been forced to become used to is that privacy is a luxury that I no longer have.

I went to where I knew Kerrass would be as his habits have not adjusted that much. I could easily see the shining of his campfire and the shape of the man who was sitting there, staring into the flames. He did not look up as I approached.

"I have decided something," I told him as I walked up, not expecting him to react.

He didn't.

"I have decided that I am not going to give up on you. You are my friend above all other things. I am aware that you can withdraw into yourself and your tendency for self-hatred is a thing that you live and breathe. But I am not going to give up on you."

It might have been my imagination but in that moment, as I said those words, it seemed to me that the flames of his small campfire seemed to flare that little bit brighter. One of the logs settled separately or something but a flare of sparks shot up into the night sky.

"I will never give up on you Kerrass. Even when you give up on yourself. You can try and drive me away, you can try and fight me and you can yell at me and call me names. But you will always have a friend in me. Even if you kill me, I will be forgiving you as you strike. I mean… I hope that you don't."

My attempt at levity fell on deaf ears. Kerrass did not even blink.

"But I will not give up on you Kerrass. Eventually, that part of you that knows that you need people, the part of you that needs friendship and love and fellowship will reach through the part of you that is comfortable in the darkness. I know it will happen because it has happened before. And we will talk then as we always did. I love you Kerrass. Ariadne would laugh and wonder which kind of love given that she always calls our human language so… inappropriate and she always uses the example of Love as the word that covers the most meaning. But I love you like a brother.

"I have no other brothers now and it turns out that even when I did have brothers, I did not have brothers. But I love you as my brother and it hurts my soul to see you so unhappy.

"There will always be a place for you with me Kerrass and one day in the future, although I do not know when that will be, I will travel the path with you again. I swear it."

"I will not give up on you. I will be here when you need me, but in the future, you will not be able to tell anyone that you have nowhere to go. You will not be able to say that no one loves you. You will not be able to say that you will starve because that is a Witcher's lot. You will not be able to say that a Witcher's life is a lonely one. You will be forced to accept that you were the one that turned away and that you must also accept that you have friends that love you, even when you did not love us back."

I stopped for a moment to think.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm getting to the point where I'm talking myself around in circles. I have said the things that I wanted to say and I have mentioned the things that you need to hear. I am not going to give up on you Kerrass. Not until the day I die. And if you mean to die in the meantime, I will find out about it, I will recover your body and I will have you carried to my family's tomb. I know that it is the Witcher's way for your body to be burned and I will do that, but after that, your ashes will be placed there where my brother should have been placed and you will rest there, beside where I am to be laid.

"I am not giving up on you Kerrass."

Once again, the fire seemed to flare up as I turned and moved away.

That night, and for the rest of my journey, I slept well. For all of the troubles and thoughts that beset me during the day and for all the aches and pains and sicknesses that crawled over my skin while I did these things and hauled myself into the saddle and fairly fell out of it at the end of the day. I could climb into my bed miserable and in pain but then I would sleep restfully and well.

There were dreams. That first night after I spoke to Kerrass I remember a dream of fire and it seemed to me that I heard a woman's voice. I am pretty sure I know whose voice I heard and those people that have read my other works will probably also think they know whose voice they heard. But I know enough about her now not to mention her name as I do not think I would cope with her gaze upon me now.

But I heard her voice that night.

"Well done," she said. "It is well done." And then I felt her smile. "Are you sure you do not want to follow me instead of that insipid flame nonsense?" Then I heard her laugh although it was a kinder laugh. "There is still much struggle ahead of you but know that I am on your side in this one, for what it's worth. Remember what we have all told you and remember what we told you that you have to do."

It took me a while to remember but in the morning the answer was clear and this time we rode on with a new determination.

We rode East at first, as I say. East, at first following the line of the river before we started to shift north up to the mountains. Kerrass was always in front and although Carys insisted on putting scouts out, we saw very little. As we got into the forests above the river we started to see the first signs of a few monsters. Nothing more than some Endrega nests but even I know enough as to how to avoid those.

There was a brief period where Kerrass needed to find the trail. Carys chafed at this and wondered why we needed to wait but one of the few times that Kerrass spoke to us at all was to tell us that when he had found what he had been sent to search for, it took him some time to find the best way to come back. And this was not the route that he had taken.

We waited a few days and some messages caught up with me but then Kerrass found the path again and started to lead us up into the mountains between Kaedwen and Redania.

It was slow going but Kerrass led us comfortably now. We passed several points where it was clear that we might have made better speed if we were all on foot but Kerrass chose our paths with care. I began to wonder and hope that this might be the old Kerrass emerging from whatever and wherever he was in his head to return to see us.

I might have had grounds for hope, but he didn't show us that. Instead, he just led us, just as silently.

We went single file and we had to take longer rests as we went higher and higher. The air became thinner and there was a conversation about whether or not we would need to leave the horses behind but Kerrass would tell us that there was not far to go now and that we just needed to be patient.

Carys would wait until he had left before she would mutter something about patience wearing thin. If Kerrass heard it, he gave no sign.

Eventually, though, we came to a large plateau.

"Make camp here," Kerrass told them all. "The Duke and I will continue by ourselves."

"Out of the question," was Carys' instant response. "You cannot…"

"Wait." I jumped in, dismounting. I was getting better at the basic manoeuvres with the horse and was no longer getting as frustrated. "I know Witchers and I know this one in particular. We will get nowhere by arguing with him. I will go with Kerrass. We will not be hard to track if I am any judge." I turned to Kerrass.

I had recognised the set of his shoulders. He was in that mode of being a Witcher which is the point where they have decided how the task will be completed and no amount of arguing will persuade them to change their mind.

"We will not." Kerrass agreed, unable to keep from glancing at my wooden feet. "We will also be leading our horses, but the way gets narrow and the spiders are jumpy. They know me and they know the Duke so we are probably safe. And I will protect him and bring him back if I am wrong."

That was enough for Carys.

"If he is not back within the day, then I am coming for him." She told the Witcher.

He nodded.

Kerrass led me surely. I guessed that he had known where this place was and had planned the plateau as a place for everyone to wait. He led and I followed, it was almost like old times except I was exceptionally slow. Kerrass did not become frustrated or angry, he would just get to a point where he could wait and then turn and wait for me to catch up.

There was a way for the horses to follow. It was not so narrow that they would struggle, but it would have taken hours for the entire troop to make it up here and eventually, we came to another flat space. There was shrubbery around and I thought I could hear water. Kerrass stopped and gestured for me to join him.

It was an old gesture and again, I felt the flutterings of hope that my friend might be coming back to me from wherever it was that he had gone.

"She is up there," he pointed at a small cave a short distance up the rocky slope. "There is a cave that goes further than it looks from the outside. There are shafts of natural light and glowing fungi so you will not need a torch."

"Are you not coming with me?" It did not occur to me not to go. It would be tough, but the thought of giving up was not going to be one I would, or could entertain.

"No," he told me with a ghost of his old smile. "It was made very clear to me that if I came back, I would not survive."

There was just a hint that he was hiding something there which I should probably have listened to. But at the time, the prospect of finding Ariadne was overwhelming my reasoning.

"Thank you Kerrass," I told him. "When this is done. We will talk and I will find a way to make this up to you. I cannot…"

He held his hand up.

"The deed must be done first." He told me. "She is in pain, Freddie, and not thinking clearly. Go easy."

I nodded and remembered my instructions from Life in Death, the Goddess and so many others as I moved towards the slope. "All I had to do was love her" they said and so…

I reached behind the saddle of my horse and pulled down one of the bags that I had ordered to be packed for the journey. It reminded me of another bag that we, Kerrass and I, had taken to another sleeping princess. There were more laden bags with the rest of the party as guarded by Carys, but I rather thought that this one was important. I fastened it around myself nice and securely so that I could make sure it wouldn't fall off during what I was sure would be the coming hardships and I stepped forward to do what needed to be done.

I walked up the slope. I did not look back. I thought that I could hear Kerrass leading the horses off a short distance…

I guessed that they would go off to tie them up and find some water or something. Perfectly acceptable and the kind of thing that I would have done in his place, nothing to be concerned about there.

It was tough going. I cannot deny that. I have done a lot of things now that I have wooden legs. I am getting better and I am pleased with my progress. Not as pleased as my doctors who tell me that my progress is good and that I should be easier on myself but I am pleased enough to not worry about it as much. But climbing up a path with no obvious pathways and lots of loose stones was something that I had not faced. At least, not yet.

So there were a few times when I had to stop and relearn how to climb a slope. I had to change the direction that I was heading and choose a different route a couple of times. It might sound like a cliche but in this case, it was true, I was so focused on making sure that I didn't slip and fall that I looked up and found myself at the mouth of the cave. The slope levelled off a little so the last stages were easier than the rest so I was able to peer into the cave.

It was dark.

At first, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to turn back to Kerrass and yell at him. Something about "not all of us have Witcher eyes and potions that help us see in the dark," but I didn't do that. I did turn around to check where he was and as I had expected, he had led both his horse and mine to where the water was and was tying them up.

He was not looking at me.

I took a deep breath and walked forwards and promptly discovered why the entrance was dark. Just inside spider webs were covering the entrance. Nothing could easily be seen from the entrance, just far enough back that they were in the shadows so that I couldn't see them. People must know the distinction though. These were spider webs. Not the stuff that you brush out of your face when you ride through thick woodland up near the mountains. Nor is it the stuff that you sweep out of corners when you move something that has been in that corner for far longer than it should have been.

This stuff was like rope. Easily as wide across as my wrist and there were layers of it. Not just that thickness either as it was also wrapped around and woven together with lots of smaller strands as made by smaller spiders. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I could see those same smaller spiders running around among the layers of webbing. I say small spiders, these were still field spiders with legs as wide across as my palm.

I leant back for a moment, giving my eyes a few more moments to adjust to the gloom.

Then I took a deep breath.

"Ariadne once told me," I addressed the webs. "That the real intelligence of the Spiders is not in the spiders themselves, but in the webs that they weave. She spun a fantastical account of how it's all tied together and about how the vibrations in one web vibrate onto the next. She said that the only thing that was more intelligent than the spider's web was the network of mushrooms that lies underneath the soil.

"I did not like that idea, call me old fashioned.

"But she said that the web was potentially infinite and that what was happening was that the spiders were spreading that web, in service of the web and gaining information from that web the same way that I would get information from a book.

"I don't know that that is true although I will admit that it's a nice idea. I hope that one day I will be able to access that information or maybe even if I want to talk about the dreams of the future, I want Ariadne to be able to tell me what wisdom you have.

"But for now, I am just a simple human and I need to get through here to save the woman I love. Possibly from herself. Please don't take this the wrong way if I pull out my knife and start cutting."

So saying, I did precisely that. It was slow going, first I had to almost cut around the thicker webs to get the blade deep enough to then saw at the thicker, more rope-like webs. I did not enjoy doing that. I could not help but think what Letho might make of me using the knife that he had given me for this purpose and I dreaded to think just how much work it was going to take for me to be able to get the blade clean and sharp again afterwards.

But all I had to do was love her and everything was going to be alright.

So that was what I did.

It was work and although I saw no outward sign of my passage being blessed by the spiders, nor did I see any spiders trying to rebuild the web in any way so I took that for blessing. I wondered if this had all been here when Kerrass had come to this place and decided that it wasn't really important.

It was difficult. I could use my wooden left hand as a club to beat aside some strands or to force a hole and my right hand could cut. My feet were less than useless and I soon learned that I had to cut from the ground up to make any kind of movement forwards. There was far too much of what I was doing that boiled down to brute force and ignorance. And although Svein had once joked that if you can't solve a problem with violence, then you're not using enough violence, that was not what I wanted to do here.

In the end, though, I staggered through and fell onto the cold stone. It was remarkably sudden as it all happened only through a combination of luck and a certain amount of leftover training from Kerrass that meant that I didn't just land on my blade. I realised how close it might have come later and had a bit of a cackle at myself before pulling myself to a sitting position and examining myself for any injuries. It took a minute, again, I only had one working hand but I was fairly confident that I could put my blade away.

I pushed myself to what passes for my feet, another manoeuvre that is harder than you think it is going to be when you don't have any feet and took stock.

I should have brought some water with me.

I took a deep breath and continued into the cave. As it turns out, Kerrass was right. After a moment of adjustment, I could see quite well here inside the cave itself.

And one of the things that I could see was that the walls were moving. Not literally, but as I got used to the darkness, I could see individual little things moving across the wall. Climbing over each other as though they were rippling in the darkness.

I took another deep breath.

"ARIADNE," I called. "I LOVE YOU. I AM HERE FOR YOU AND I AM NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU."

With a bit more time, it became clear that I could see a path that I could follow. I waited a bit longer to make sure that I was not imagining things and that there were limited things on the floor that were going to trip up my wooden legs and otherwise cause me issues.

And I took a step forward and another step and found that I was more confident in my footing. I had to work at it a bit to not worry about the small crawling things that I could feel underneath my trousers. If one of them was poisonous and was poisonous enough to render me unconscious or dead then there was nothing that I could do about that.

For a moment, a vision of being wrapped up in webbing and deposited at Kerrass' feet by a pair of large spiders crossed my mind. It was not a pleasant thought.

I walked forwards, trying to feel more confident. All I had to do was to love the girl.

A nine-hundred-year-old Vampire, but still the girl that I loved.

After a moment, I could feel the ground starting to shake. It reminded me of the onrushing horses, but it sounded different. It didn't take me long to figure out what that difference was as two giant spiders started thundering towards me.

I must make those distinctions. I say giant but what I mean by that is that they were huge. Don't think of them as being the size of buildings or anything, but even a spider the size of a rabbit or a dog is more than enough to be described as being giant from a certain point of view. The bodies of these things were about the same size as cart horses. But when you factor in the reality that their legs had to support all that weight and size. And that their mouths and the mandibles that surrounded those mandibles were equally as proportioned then you might have some idea of the things that were hurtling towards me.

The differences in the sounds were down to the fact that the things rushing towards me had eight legs rather than the standard four. Such a slight difference but it changed the entire profile of that sound.

I picked a patch of the stone that I felt I could stand on moderately solidly as I waited for these huge things to get to me.

It did not take long, they reared up before me, forelegs thrashing around, mandibles working. They were huge things, towering over me. Ichor and slime were dripping from their limbs. Their arms seemed to be armour-plated and they positively exuded menace.

Except in the eyes. I don't know what it is about the eyes but there was nothing there.

And they chittered. I don't know how I can describe something as "chittering menacingly" but that was exactly what was happening as these huge things loomed over me.

I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths to calm my heart which was racing.

"I…" I had to take a moment to get my voice under control. "I cannot deny that your display is very frightening," I told both the spiders and the person that I was certain was listening. "But it is not going to work."

I risked opening my eyes and regretted it instantly. One of the spider's maws was inches away from my face and I could see the mandibles working. I closed my eyes again and needed to use some of Kerrass' old breathing techniques to calm myself down.

"You can frighten me." I told the open air, doing my best to ignore the audible sounds of mandibles clacking and the feeling of venom and ichor dropping to the floor and on my clothes. "You can drug me and have me carried out of the cave. You can do your best to intimidate me. But you will not drive me away. You can tell me that you don't love me but I will not believe you because if you wanted to hurt me or drive me away, I would be dead already."

I took another breath to steady my nerves. I knew what I was going to say next and it was moderately terrifying.

"The only thing you can do to stop me coming to get you is to kill me. I hope that you won't because I have a lot of duties now. But most important is that I love you and I cannot love you if I am dead."

I tried for levity but my voice broke at the end. I took another deep breath.

"I LOVE YOU." I told the empty air before listening to the echoes die away.

As I did so, it occurred to me that I could no longer feel the slime and the ichor dropping on my body. I could no longer hear the clicking of mandibles. I took a risk and opened my eyes.

The two giant spiders were standing a little way off, bracketing a path onward.

"Sorry boys," I told them. "Lovers tiff." And I took another step forward.

I looked again at one of them and I swear that it looked sheepish. I don't know how I can ascribe body language or facial expressions to a Spider. I used to be pretty good at telling what Fluffy was thinking, but as Ariadne would often tell me, Fluffy was an uncommonly clever Spider.

I walked on.

I got the feeling that I was beginning to climb. I was going to have to slap the shit out of Kerrass when Ariadne and I came back out of all of this. Yes, I could see, but only just. I passed a glowing pile of… I want to call them eggs. I didn't want to look at them too closely in case they were more disgusting than I wanted to think about. But they glowed and it was enough. There were indeed shafts of light high up that could give me the small glow of daylight.

At one point, when the light was brighter. I bent and tried to see if I could tell whether or not anyone had been past this way. Had Kerrass come this way to see what could be seen but I could still see a webway of silk, glittering in the light. Have you ever noticed that? How Spider webs can glitter in the light.

It was oddly beautiful and delicate. I shook my head at the paradox between the thick and tough webs that had covered the entranceway to the cave and this fine lattice work that was covering the ground. There were no signs of breakages though and although I knew that Spiders can repair their webs quickly there was other dust and things across the floor.

It had been a long while since anyone had come this way.

I mean… I am no Kerrass, but I felt comfortable in saying that he had not come this far in.

Maybe I wouldn't yell at him that much after all. What I could see was that everywhere that I had trodden I had torn those webs that were there. The layers of the webs didn't go very deep either. If I was any judge, the spiders had not been here that long at all.

I looked back and it was easy to read where I had trodden from the tears in the web.

I looked for a lump of one of the spiders that might be following me. It was not hard to find one above me which was a little intimidating. I have taught myself in the past to look at the body, not the legs when it comes to thinking about the size of the spider. Fluffy had been about the size of a cat with his legs as well but I have found that if you try and take in the size of the spider's legs as well then the entire thing can be a bit overwhelming.

This one had the same size body as a small dog with additional legs spread out, clinging to the rock face. It was a little intimidating but it seemed to be still which, again experience with these bigger spiders, is an effort to remain hidden.

"I'm sorry for all the damage," I said. "But I love her and I am determined."

The spider didn't move. It was spread out anyway so I'm not entirely sure what kind of body language it could have given me.

I walked on. The path continued to climb. Not needing hands and not so steep a slope that I felt as though I was struggling, but enough so that I could feel the incline. The kind of thing where you would climb a slope by the side of the road to see what was beyond it.

The cave did not narrow so it was still easy going, no need to turn sideways. I had the oddest feeling that I was inside a church of some kind.

The cave seemed to widen out onto a small plateau. The ceiling vanished upwards and I could no longer see daylight in the area above me. I felt as though I was on one of those outcroppings and it would have been easy for me to imagine some kind of Wyvern or a gryphon nesting here before flying off outside of a mountain through a hole that I couldn't see. The plateau seemed to have been carved into a small bowl and there was further evidence that would support my feeling of a large winged beast of some kind as there were bones and bits of detritus in the plateau. I could see a patch of fur and I thought I could see some arrowheads and things.

There was also a dead spider in the middle of it. And this one earned the title of huge. I know something about Spiders but not enough to guess as to the build or species of the spider. But this one earned the title of huge. Large, bulbous back that was covered in hairs that were, I presume, meant for the channelling of dirt and dust away from the body as it tunnelled through this or that. The legs were large and wanting other descriptions I would have said that they were heavily muscled and there were some markings on the body.

I didn't see all of the design at first glance but as I looked at it, it was dead. I guessed that, given the size of it, this was the Queen of the Nest although I have no way of knowing if Spiders have Queens, it has always seemed rude to ask. It was lying on its back with its legs curled up into itself in that pose that you see dead Spiders get into when they are definitely, definitively dead.

I stared at it for a long moment.

I don't know if anyone else does this but this was one of those moments where I could feel my body and mind at war with themselves. There was the part of me that was illogical and the instinctive part of me that makes me laugh when I hear a joke and cry when I am sad. I felt my heart wanting to burst and beat faster. I could feel the tears burning in my eyes as I stood there and I saw the dead body of the woman I loved before me. I was suddenly so sure that this was it. This was the moment. It had all been for this and now here she was and she was dead.

I have no way of telling you what that felt like but I have rarely been so sure of something in my life. It was as though some huge, cold hand had taken hold of my heart and was squeezing it until all the unshed grief that I had contained over the recent weeks and months just… needed to come out.

I could feel the grief in me but even as I felt my knees wanting to buckle and the tears starting to fall from my eyes. My logical brain was rebelling.

"Over and over again," it was telling me. "Over and over again, powerful beings have been telling you that if you just love her, then everything will be alright." I levered myself back to my feet and forced myself to look at the dead spider in front of me.

Then I took a deep breath.

"I might not know a lot about Spiders," I told the corpse. "I don't even know if spiders breathe. And if I was any other man, then this ruse might have worked. I don't even know if this is an illusion or if a spider is lying here in front of me.

"But I am not any other man, I am Frederick the Scholar. And when I fell in love with an Elder Vampire… In the same way that you studied humans and found out how humans worked. I studied Elder Vampires.

"You sometimes like to think you are a Spider. And for all I know there is more to that than I am entirely comfortable with. But you are not a Spider. You are a Higher Vampire. It is just that where some Elder Vampires are affiliated with bats, most famously Detlaff and some others are affiliated with Wolves, you are affiliated with Spiders. That is the difference between you and a spider.

"And I have studied you. Therefore I know several things. I know that Elder Vampires don't just curl up and die. They must be actively killed by another Elder Vampire. It requires an act of will from the killer although I have no idea what that is. And further to that, I know that there isn't an Elder Vampire for Miles around. As soon as they heard what had happened to you, meaning your enslavement they fled the local area. And then kept going. Your people are not very brave. They feared what happened to you, happening to them. I have that via Lord Geralt who had it via Regis.

Also, just thinking logically, you used to tell me that Spiders could be relatively intelligent, but not really capable of complex mental reasoning. It would not be within a spider to try and intimidate me. They would chase me off, maybe attack me to try and drive me off. But they wouldn't charge up to me and wave their arms around to try and intimidate me. Before backing off when it became clear that I wasn't going to be intimidated.

"So that was you. And therefore, I think this is another trick. I can see no signs that the… back bit of the spider is leaking venom or… web juice or however it is that that stuff is made. Nor can I see anything leaking from any part of the spider. This is another illusion."

I took a deep breath and stepped forward so that I could reach out with my hand and pat the spider on the side, the hair under my hand was thick and bristly.

"Sorry, you had to get caught between us," I told it.

I stepped back and raised my voice again.

"I am not giving up. Whether you are up, or down, I will find a way to get to you and when I get to you I will take you in my arms and I will keep telling you that I love you until you come back with me. Or, I will stay here with you but I am not leaving you. Never again. NEVER AGAIN."

I shouted that last but it seemed to not be enough somehow. I closed my eyes.

"I LOVE YOU," I howled into the void with all of the force that I could muster, putting all of my pain and longing into that howl that I could, or so it seemed to me.

I should have been less surprised when the spider rolled to its feet.

Even despite its bulk, it moved surprisingly quickly. It's one of those things that people, including me, forget just how quickly spiders can move when they put their minds to it.

The giant spider climbed to its feet and seemed to stretch its legs. It did so four at a time. I had to stand back to give it space before it seemed to shake itself and I could see some dust shake itself free as well as an old bone.

"Sorry," I told it. I have no idea why.

I swear. I SWEAR that it shrugged at me.

"I might need to speak to Ariadne about reevaluating her assessment as to a Spider's intelligence," I told it.

It shrugged again before turning until it's back to me. It took a leisurely little run up and it leaped until it was against the opposite wall. It shuffled around a bit before it turned up to face the ceiling and what I thought of as up. Then a strange glow came from its back end and a thick rope started to come out of the back. I felt a gentle nudge at the back of my knees to find that I was now surrounded by spiders. Most roughly the size of hunting hounds. One had just tried to nudge me towards the rope.

"Really?" I wondered about the horde of spiders. The nudging one had backed off when I had spun towards it. Once it was agreed that I wasn't going to immediately try and kill it it came on again, gently stepping forwards.

"You want me to climb the rope?"

The spiders came forwards again.

Somewhere in the back of my head, that instinctual part of my mind, the part that was still a little afraid of spiders, was screaming and gibbering in a foetal ball.

I walked over to the rope to see that I was standing over the edge of a precipice. I looked up at the spider that was lowering the… well… web rope.

"Ummm." I began. "I might have been able to hold on when I was fit and healthy. But I only have one hand and limited control over my feet. Which are made of wood. I am not sure that I am secure on your… er…. Rope.

There were some generalised chittering noises. One of the bigger spiders, it might even have been one of the ones that had fake charged me, moved to the edge and leapt out until it hung just below the rope, it rotated itself and faced downwards.

"Wait, What?"

One of the smaller spiders nudged me in the back of the legs again.

"Hold on," I said, turning on them all again. "Let me get this right. You want me to stand on the back of that spider?"

The chittering intensified.

"Sorry, AND hold onto the rope and then he… sorry, I presumed a he, is going to walk down the wall while I hold steady onto the rope?"

The brave little spider… As I say, size is relative. Took another step forward and waved its arms and mandibles furiously at me in a way that reminded me of a washerwoman chasing away a bunch of children that were pranking her.

I turned back to where the rope… it was easier to think of it as rope, dangled and seemed to shake. I could almost feel the words of the giant spider above me. "Come on," she said to me. "We don't have all day."

As it does in these instances, my brain shut down.

"Fuck it," I said.

I took the rope and wrapped it around my middle before wrapping it around my wrist as best as I could. It was oddly tacky to the touch but as I pulled my hands away, I felt no residue being left on my palms. I had no idea if that would accomplish anything in any kind of effort to prevent my sudden and catastrophic downward tumble. Indeed, I rather thought that if the spiders wanted me to fall, then I was done for, but if they wanted me to stay then I could hurl myself from their backs and I would not fall downward a solitary inch.

Despite the logical brain telling me that, the instinctive brain forced me to take a couple of deep breaths before I stepped out over the gulf and onto the back of the other spider. It can bend your mind if you try to think of it in three dimensions. But it felt like I was standing on the arse-end of a horse. But at the same time, it was remarkably stable.

The spider started to move downwards and I could feel the movements in the body. There was an odd feeling in my stomach as we descended. The rope glowed but I found that I was oddly grateful for the fact that I couldn't see far enough to see how fast or how far we were going.

My ears did pop though. I don't know when that's supposed to be but I guess that this must mean that we went pretty far down. There's a science to all of that that I can't pretend to understand so… Who knows.

I do know that the spider playing out the rope that I was holding onto kept it taut so that I had something to hang onto. Which I was glad for as the spider that I was standing on would occasionally change direction and go this way and that way.

There were a couple of times that I ended up smashing into the wall and I had more than a few scrapes and bruises by the time that I was done. I did not count or try to measure time or anything else that might have happened. Instead, I just did my best to hold on and try not to think about whatever it was that I was going to find when I got to the bottom of the chasm.

Eventually, though, that time came and the spider slowed and shifted. It gave a little hop and I was jerked into the air, hanging by the rope which made my heart leap into my throat, I can tell you. But then I was lowered down to a solid floor.

It took me a moment to catch my breath after that small bout of excitement. In the meantime, the spiders were busy. Other spiders had joined us. Some more of the rope had been lowered in the meantime and I could see the dark shapes, illuminated in the soft glow of the rope as they moved around and worked. I did see a few of them doing things that I didn't want to see again.

They would spit stuff onto the rope which increased the amount that the glow emanated.

More and more of the rope came down and was spread around by the helpful spiders. I was brought a particularly long stretch of rope that the spider lay before me as though it was making some kind of offer before a shrine.

It felt thinner than the stuff that I had held onto before. I guessed that this was something that I was going to use as a personal… Torch I suppose. I wrapped it around myself a bit before rapping considerably more around my useless wooden left hand.

When I looked up from this task I found that the Spiders had illuminated the area and a gap in the rock face. For just a moment, I would have given anything that I could give to not have to crawl through that gap. Because it would have to be a crawl.

"All you have to do is love her," I told myself and marched towards the gap purposefully.

The spiders illuminated that area and the next. I got the feeling that they were trying to help light the place that I was going to go but what I couldn't tell them was that as they did so, all I could see were strange shapes in the darkness and hear their skittering and chittering as they spoke to each other and presumably to me.

But telling them to stop would feel like kicking children so I swallowed my fear and moved forwards with them. One small cave led to a larger one but I was still pulling myself along on my body, sometimes pushing myself along with wooden stumps and knees.

Through another cave and another gap and I suddenly realised that there weren't any spiders around any more. I turned and I could see a mass of them waiting in the previous cave. Not entirely unlike a group of villagers that were watching Kerrass and me going off to face the monster that they were all terrified of. If one of the spiders had had a hat, they would be twisting it nervously in their hands.

"Not coming with me?" I wondered.

They chittered at me.

"Afraid?" I asked.

They answered me by vanishing from sight.

"Fair enough," I said aloud.

This was it. And the spiders were afraid. They had either delivered me to some God or greater monster to be eaten, or something else was going to happen.

I took the latest in a long line of deep breaths.

"ARIADNE?" I called.

My voice echoed emptily.

"ARIADNE," I called again. "I AM NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU. ARIADNE. I LOVE YOU ARIADNE."

Flame don't let all of this be for nothing.

"ARIADNE." My voice broke at that end. "Ariadne please."

I had been keeping my fear and pain at bay with humour and by humanising the terrifying, horrifying creatures that surrounded me and I was finally losing my grip.

"ARIADNE," I called again. "I LOVE YOU."

"Go away," came a small voice from a small distance away.

I literally sobbed with relief.

"Ariadne?" I begged. I scrabbled around looking for the next hole.

"Go away Freddie," her voice was small and broken.

I found the hole and pulled myself through that as well.

I found myself in a dead end. I could not stand up or straighten. It was only just large enough for a person to lie on one side. I had to fight down panic and a dizzying bout of claustrophobia. But there was already a figure there and there was barely enough for that one alone.

I was weeping now, I couldn't help it.

"Ariadne," Flame but…"

She spoke at the same time. Her voice was small and muffled.

"Freddie," she pleaded. "Please don't…"

She was so small. I had forgotten how small she was. She was also wrapped in a cocoon of webbing turned on her side away from me, her knees pulled up to her chest.

"I took a breath and scooted along so I could lay with my belly to her back. I understand the position is described as spooning. She tried to scoot away from me but the movement was weak and apart from anything else, there was not a lot of room.

"It's ok," I told her. "I'm here now."

"You shouldn't," she babbled from within the cocoon. "You should go, I didn't want this."

I didn't say anything. I wrapped her around with my right arm.

"Freddie, I came here to die, or sleep." She told me. "I don't want you here."

But she didn't try to wriggle any more.

"It's ok," I told her. "I came anyway."

"Why?" She wailed,

All I have to do is love her.

"Because I love you," I told her. "I have never stopped. I will never stop."

"Why?" She begged again.

"I don't know," I told her. "Because…" I shook my head. "Does it have to be logical?"

"Yes," She wailed, shifting more towards me in my arms. I took the opportunity to sneak my left arm under her form. I had to force it as the webbing had stuck to the floor. "Yes, it has to be logical. Freddie, after everything I've done… How can you love me? I… Powers but after I've…"

I wrapped my hands around her to where I thought her head was to try and stroke her head or something. I could feel her arms pressed against my chest. She felt so frail and fragile.

"I've killed and killed," she sobbed. "I'm still covered in their blood. I tried to come down here clean but the blood won't come off. All of that blood and bile and stomach acid. Goddess Freddie but how could you love me? I killed them. I tortured them. I hunted them down like animals. I chased them through fields and pounced on them at the end. I stood over him and next to him as he used me to strike fear into his followers. I helped him, Freddie. I monitored the chemicals that they put into his body so that he could perform his sick rituals. Goddess but I tortured… I tortured you and I tortured Emma and Laurelen and so many other people."

She was trembling violently. I guessed that she had moved beyond tears to something else and I pushed my own emotions down until I could just help her through her pain.

"I made my arms and hands into blades that I used to shear through the bodies of men, women, and children. CHILDREN FREDDIE. I killed children. I grasped hold of heads and pulled until I could feel the skin and bone and cartilage tear. He once made me pull a man's arms and legs off before I killed him. He wanted the man to feel what it was like to be the fly that had its wings and legs pulled off.

"And the spiders, those poor spiders that he forced me to work for him. The spiders that I forced were under my control. Spiders and other Vampires. I made them slaves again Freddie. I had sworn that I would not do that again. I never wanted to be a slavemaster again. I didn't want to do it Freddie but there I was. Summoning them and forcing them to fight. They didn't deserve that Freddie. They didn't deserve that.

"I felt your pain and you looked at me with your eyes and I knew, I knew that if that man told me to pluck out your eyes then I would do so. That knowledge. God Freddie…"

She moved into tears for a while and I felt relief for a moment. I just held her as best as I could.

"I have starved and I have soiled myself and others," she went on. "I saw you being pushed around on a chair. I saw the horror that they made of those men in the cellars when they took soldiers whose greatest crime was a desire to serve the country and the flag that they loved. And they lied to them. They told them that this was the only way to serve and then they did those things to them. They corrupted them, Freddie and I helped them do that. How can you love me? How can you love someone that did all of that?

"Their screams, Freddie. I can still hear them. I came here to the pit of the world to sleep and hope that the world ends before I wake. I can still hear them as their muscles and bones tore themselves open, only to be regrown. They went mad Freddie and then we gave them new memories and new minds and we told them that it was for the benefit of Redania. A place that's barely two hundred and fifty years old. And I did that. I lied to those men.

"I killed and killed and killed. I dragged them out of their hiding holes by arms and legs. I dragged them out and threw them to the friends of that man so that they could satisfy themselves with the PEOPLE THAT I CAUGHT FOR THEM. And when I tried to kill the victims before they could be abused, they would force me to torture more, or they would force me to watch while THEY did the torture. Goddess Freddie but how could you love me… How could you love that? I did that. I did that over and over again. How can you love that? TELL ME FREDDIE. HOW COULD YOU LOVE ME?"

She was angry through her pain now and I judged that it was time for me to intervene.

"I want to see your eyes," I told her. "I want to see your eyes so that you can see mine. I want you to see how much I mean this when I tell you."

I reached up and started to pull the webs away from her face. There were layers to the webbing and it took some work. In the end, I found her eyes and gently pulled the webs away. I also took the time to expose more of her face. She was skeletally thin, her nose all but a bone and her lips were so far recessed that I could see her fangs. Her eyes were likewise recessed into the sockets of her skull. She was scared and her face was still streaked with blood and filth and tears.

I took her head in my hand and bitterly regretted the loss of my left hand so that I couldn't cup her face.

"Because it was not your choice," I told her. "You did not do those things by choice. You were forced. You were compelled. You were not even a slave and the Imperial courts agree with me by the way. You had less choice in the matter than a slave would. You loved and you fought. We saw you. All of us, including the people that you killed. I have a line of people that circle the castle, every day begging me to find you and bring you back so that they can thank you for what you did manage to do. You fought. And I love you for that. And in the end, when you were free, you did not dismiss what you did. You felt that pain, even though you had all the choice of the smith hammer as it strikes the horse-shoe. I love you for the pain that you feel and I will not let you carry it alone. You deserve better."

Her arms pushed free of the webbing, tearing it easily I noticed. She gripped the side of my head for a moment as she stared into my face. I felt a sharp stabbing pain behind my eyes which I know is the telltale sign of someone reading your mind. I had once asked her never to do that but I forgave her instantly. I just told her that I loved her.

She howled and she was the woman again. Skeletally thin and corpselike. She buried her face in my chest and just howled.

"I'm sorry Freddie," she wailed. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry."

"Shhh," I told her. "It's ok."

We were like that for a while, her begging me that she was sorry and me telling her that it was ok. Then she seemed to calm down for a while.

Then abruptly she pulled me tight against her.

"THEY KILLED FLUFFY," she howled into my chest.

I remembered the small cat-like Spider. I remembered how he had had the habit of getting up and stretching at those moments when Ariadne's visitors were being uppity.

I remembered how, at my lowest point, he had slept next to me to keep me grounded.

A memory came of how, at my lowest point, I had been working my body too hard to recover before it was ready and the little spider had climbed onto my chest. His normally flat feet elongated into claws so that I could feel the pinpricks and then he bent to look me in the eyes to tell me that I needed to rest. I remember telling him that I would do as he told me and that he had all but nodded before climbing onto a pillow by the fire, turning around like a cat making itself comfortable and then going to sleep.

I pulled Ariadne close to me and we just held each other as we wept for everything and everyone that we had lost.