Chapter 1
It started with a yell. On the battlements, Young Aldin, with the lazy eye, noticed them first; dozens of robed figures dotted along the edge of the jagged cliff, wild grey waves smashed against the cliff face below them, and the wind whipped around, sending sprays of salty water splashing against them. They did not move an inch from the impacts. They stood as still as statues, looking down over Kaer Saren. The coastal fortress was surrounded by mountainous peaks on one side and the wild, deep ocean on the other side.
A surge of activity spread through the fortress at the sight of them. Hired men wearing kettle helms and gambesons and wielding heavy crossbows jogged out of the hall. They were red-faced and bloated after indulging themselves in a generous amount of vittles', but still, they lined the walls with buckets of bolts at their feet and crossbows pre-loaded for the fight. Next came the bearded berserkers from Skellige, who were wearing heavy chain shirts and carried sharpened axes to a man. They yelled dedications to clans and holdfasts Arthur didn't know as they took position at the gate. Then came the Witchers.
Grandmaster Eyrrbold led them. A scarred man with a gravelled, strained voice after a lousy encounter with Kikimora venom. Behind him marched the past and the future. Grizzled greybeards that had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms and the newest batch of apprentices that had yet to endure the trials. They had come from everywhere and anywhere, from the sun-kissed lands of Toussaint to the wooded Kaedweni hinterlands. They were the sons of blacksmiths, prostitutes, soldiers and farmers, but none of that mattered now. United by the silver Griffon that hung around their neck and bonded through shared strife and common purpose, they were a brotherhood of heroes to Arthur.
"Johan, Roland and Cyril get to that wall and make sure those drunkards don't run at first sight of the bastards. Jan, get those traps sorted at the portcullis. Apprentices keep in reserve; load crossbows, and I want you and you inside that gatehouse with boiling oil at the ready." Eyrrbold's voice cut through the clatter of arms and torrents of rain. The old griffin was in his element, pointing at sections of the wall with his deadly longsword that glowed with powerful runic enchantments and belting out commands to the couple dozen Witchers around him.
"Arthur and Killian, I need you two inside the keep!" Eyrrbold said. The two were the youngest 'true' Witchers, passing their trials together just two years past. Arthur was a tall, self-assured young man with a mop of straight, dark blonde hair. He had sharp features, an aquiline nose and ice chip blue eyes set into his skull. The unnaturally pale skin of the Witcher was made all the stranger by the pulsing green veins that flowed with substances that would've killed a normal man. The rain had drenched his hair, and fat globs trailed down him, getting beneath his brigandine, chainmail, and green gambeson underneath.
"We aren't to fight on the walls?" Arthur asked with a frown. He was taken older than most other boys, and his voice held a distinct Temerian lilt from his time surviving on the streets of Vizima.
"Nay. A group of mages could breach the wards and teleport themselves behind us; if that happens, cut the bastards down." Arthur opened his mouth to object once more, but Killian cut in.
"We'll get it done" Killian was a shorter man, wiry compared to the barrel-chested Arthur but tough as dragon hide and the wisest man Arthur knew. He came from somewhere in Nilfgaard, born a slave he was, though he didn't remember anything from his childhood. If they had met anywhere else, Arthur would think the man a long-faced bore who spent too much time reading. But after surviving the trials together, there was no one he'd rather have at his back.
"Good, now go!" The old griffin commanded, turning his attention to getting the rest of the defence.
"You heard him, let's go!" Killian yelled, patting Arthur on the back and breaking off in a run. Arthur swiftly followed, storming through the downpour and wet mud with his hand never far from the sword on his back. The two men passed the stable just before they got to the inner bailey; the horses were going mad. Neighing and whining like the world would end and fighting with the poor stable hands instructed to saddle them. Arthur had never seen them so wild, even in a storm; they were trained to fight monsters; a bit of rain shouldn't bother them.
"THERE THERE RANGER!" Arthur hollered on the way past. He saw his great black destrier trying to take bites out of the groom trying to bridle him. The look in the warhorse's eye was one of unrestrained terror that unnerved the Witcher.
The keep was in front of them now. The doors were still flung open from where the raucous feast-goers sprung into action. They had expected the foe to arrive next week, not tonight of all nights.
Two grand oak tables spanned the length of the hall. Stained forest green tablecloths covered both of them and were host to half-drunk cups, ale, and beer, plates of brown stews, hearty bread, wheels of cheese, and roasted chickens. A feast that a king and nobility might sniff at, but it was more than enough for the men and a good way to raise morale before a fight.
Spherical stone pillars held up the hall; on each one were sconces with torches that cast the hall in a warm glow and illuminated the large tapestry hung high upon the wall. They showed scenes of great hunts against savage monsters, of Witchers received by kings and commemorated fallen brethren. Every winter, those who returned to Kaer Saren would share deeds around the hearth fire, and the one judged the greatest would be honoured with their tale added to the tapestry. Arthur and Killian had yet to receive the honour, so Arthur was eager to be in the thick of the fighting; he wanted more than anything to be added to that tapestry. The world hated them, and the only recognition they could hope for was the recognition of fellow Witchers.
"To the Library then?" Arthur asked, shaking his hair like a dog to get the rainwater out.
"Aye, if those bastards do crack the wards, that's the first place they're going," Killian replied with a nod. The two went deeper into the keep, down a long hallway lit by flickering torchlight, at the end of which was their goal.
The library of Kaer Saren was famed for its collection of ancient tomes and rare knowledge, specifically those of a magical nature. It gave the school an edge; the Witchers it produced became famed for their skills with the signs. It also attracted jealousy from those arrogant arses in the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, they long ached to get their hands on the tomes within, and now that the peasantry decided they didn't need Witchers anymore, the vultures could make their move with impunity.
"How many angry peasants d'ya think those cunts rounded up to throw at our walls?" Arthur asked, leaning against the wall just beside the door to the library with his arms crossed. Killian poked his head into the library to give it a quick check, but there was nothing but darkness and shelves piled high.
"It could be the whole of the North at our gates. They don't much like us no more," Killian said, taking up position on the other side of the door to Arthur. Instead of leaning back, he remained as alert as a watchdog, his hand never far from the hilt of his sword.
"True enough, I experienced that first hand. I ever finish telling you what happened to me down in Redania?" Arthur asked.
"Your foolish arse almost got lynched, as I recall," Killian said, a wry smile playing out on his lips.
"It wasn't even my fault, those yokels thought I was a bloody vampire." Arthur laughed.
"You never did say why they made that assumption."
"Because that Bullvore was a vicious bastard. There I was, covered in blood and Bullvore shit, my jaw was broken, and I sounded like the village idiot."
"Nothing new there then", Killian cut in with a grin.
"Shut it", Arthur replied, but he was smiling.
"I stumble into this village, dead of night it was, and I knock on the first door I see, wanting to ask for help. There I am knocking at this door, yelling 'elppp. '" Arthur put on the voice of an imbecile and mimed knocking at a door.
"Then this little girl opens the door and sees me, she scre- "he was interrupted again, not by his friend, but by screams coming from the yard and dozens of echoing booms coming fast one after the other like the beating of a drum. Strangely, it didn't sound like they were directed at the fortress or battering at the thick stone walls, but why were men screaming?
"Siege weapons?" Arthur guessed before shaking his head. No siege weapon he knew could be firing that fast, and if it was, why were they not aiming at the fortress? Killian was just as taken aback, straining his superhuman hearing to figure out what the men outside were yelling about.
The terrible realisation struck the both of them at the introducing of another sound to the cacophony outside the thick keep walls. A rumbling hum that grew into a yell and further into a roar. It iced the veins of the two Witchers, flashes in their mind of an experience they had the misfortune of sharing during their training. They both remembered it like it was yesterday, hiking through the snow-capped peaks on rugged terrain with the wind slicing through their layers like a knife through butter. Freezing them to their core and numbing their extremities. The air was so thin every breath never felt enough to fill their lungs.
Then all hell broke loose. Disjointed snow tumbled down right at the top of one of the highest peaks, gathering more and more of the white powder as it sped down faster than any horse or man could hope to run, smashing through trees and rocks, adding them to the wave of rolling death.
"Avalanche" the words left Arthur's lips as a whisper.
"The bastards want to bury us!" Killian roared, the two sprinting towards the doors of the great hall down the corridor. They were still open, and no doubt everyone would scramble to get inside before the impact hit.
"What about the books?! If they destroy the fortress, they'll be ruined!" Arthur yelled to Killian. The sounds outside were deafening now.
"They want us dead more than they want those books!"
The two made it to the hall doors and were frozen solid by what they saw. It was the most enormous avalanche either of them had seen and, no doubt, the biggest anyone in the fortress had seen. The fury of nature amplified by the unnatural magics of man was the stuff of nightmares. It was so dark they couldn't make out much, but it seemed like the entire mountain range was called to war by angry gods, and its howl was a terrible thing, deafening and promising utter destruction for the comparatively humble fortress that dared stand in its way.
Pure panic had consumed the defenders, shattering any organisation. It was every man for himself. They were barrelling towards the inner bailey and the keep. The mercenary crossbowmen had thrown down their arms. The Skellige raiders, who owed the Grandmaster a favour, punched and wrestled their way past anyone in front of them, and the Witchers weren't much better.
The gate leading to the inner bailey acted as a brutal bottleneck. The short stairway up to it was iced and slippy. Only three men abreast could fit through the gate itself. Men tripped and stumbled over one another. The ones that fell were trampled upon, making it even more difficult for those who remained standing to keep on going. It would be comical if the stakes weren't so high.
Arthur and Killian could do nothing but watch as the speeding death outpaced their comrades. By the time it reached the walls of Kaer Saren, it towered over them, huge boulders and mighty trees felled by the tide of snow crashed into and over the whole fortress simultaneously, the crescendo to the magicians' schemes. The walls collapsed like they were made of paper mâché, barely slowing down the destructive tide. The first few men had finally passed the gate to the inner bailey and were so close to the keep, but it didn't matter.
The whole lot of them were swallowed up in the blink of an eye. The last thing Arthur saw before he slammed the doors shut was Grandmaster Eyrrbold crushed by a falling tower, the snow around him turning a hot steaming crimson before the legendary Witcher was washed away.
They didn't have the time to think about what just happened. This magically induced disaster would only stop when the mages were sure everyone in the castle was suffocated under snow or swept into the ocean and dashed upon the rocks below. The power just a group of them held was equally frightening and spectacular.
The two Witchers had a few seconds of safety before the doors to the hall burst open. A torrent of snow and debris and bodies flooded the room with targeted, murderous intent. The keep started to collapse from the attack, bricks falling from above them, followed by splintered support beams as the entire structure became a deathtrap.
Arthur felt himself swept up in the carnage, the snow ignoring his futile attempt at struggle and engulfing him in its freezing embrace. He was thrown around in the whirlwind. He didn't know where he was or if he was up or down. All he could do was pray he wouldn't be swept into the sea with the rest of the keep or impaled on the varied debris that swam with him.
This terrifying state of being didn't last long, though. A sharp pain radiated from the top of his skull before blackness engulfed his vision. The last thought before his consciousness failed him was the image of a woman with kind eyes and chestnut hair in a blue dress. The woman he remembered his mother to be. Then, oblivion engulfed him.
Arthur was surprised when he opened his eyes. His vision was swimming; he could only make out a few fuzzy shapes and a light high in the sky. He tried to move to no avail; a thick blanket of snow still engulfed most of him. His battered body was frozen, every part of him painfully numbed by the snow that held him in its grip. A sticky substance leaked from his forehead, trailing into his hung-open mouth. Blood, the sickly metallic substance, was unmistakable. It was mixed with the rainwater that was still pouring down in buckets.
"Arthur!" The broken Witcher had to hear his name repeated a few more times before he realised it wasn't his imagination. Blinking a few times, the image in front of his eyes became clearer: his brother… what was his name?
"Arthur, you're ok!" Arthur saw his brother struggle with the debris on top of his chest, his other arm hung limply. It looked like it had been stepped on by a giant, so twisted and bloody was it. The sight broke through the nasty concussion, allowing Arthur to orient himself, if only slightly. He twisted his stiff fingers around in a sloppy attempt at a sign that would've been outmatched by even the youngest Witcher's apprentice. It did the job; a fire erupted from his hand, melting through the piled-up snow around his arm and bathing it in a delightfully warm soak of lukewarm water. The relief lasted nought but a few seconds before he was gifted an even worse chill.
Arthur used his free arm to dig out his other, and with both free, he pushed off the splintered beam across his chest with the help of Killian. Every movement pained him; if it wasn't for the Swallow he had gulped down just before the action, then the internal bleeding would have killed him in a few minutes.
Killian looked even worse. His head was free of harm, but his arm was shattered, and he was missing two fingers on that hand. Arthur could see every breath, and every word pained his brother like something had pierced his lung. Both their respective weapons were missing from their back. Arthur managed to hang onto the red leather scabbard of his steel sword, but Killian lost everything.
"We're alive," the words came out slow. Looking around them, Arthur saw they were surrounded by what used to be the mighty Kaer Seren. It looked like a meteor had struck; the rubble was strewn about everywhere. Mixed in were tree trunks, large rocks, and bodies, both human and horse. Most of the rubble and snow had been cast off the cliff Kaer Seren was perched upon and into the murky depths below—a fate the both of them had only just avoided.
"Barely", Killian grunted, clutching his shattered arm with a wince. Arthur was taking steady breaths through his nose and out through his mouth, the taste of the salty sea air, the sickly metallic blood and the concussion making it a battle to not throw up.
Arthur was so engrossed in trying not to vomit over his comrades' grave that he didn't notice when his medallion began to shake. The silver griffin had a nasty crack running along its length, but it was still hanging there.
"Medallion" Killian croaked through clenched teeth. Pointing at Arthur with a finger missing a nail.
Arthur grabbed his medallion, missing it at first, so clumsy were his movements. It hummed in his grip, a warning that their tribulations were not yet complete.
It was a warning they were helpless to prepare for. Two broken men who would have trouble just lifting a sword. Still, they weren't about to give up without a struggle. Arthur leant down, getting an unsteady grip on a splintered bit of wood poking out from a collection of piled-up bricks. It slid from its resting place easily, a table leg. For his part, Killian had dug out the blade of a kitchen knife that had lost its handle. Arthur staggered towards his brother, taking care not to trip over the myriad hazards beneath his feet and stood shoulder to shoulder with him, ready for whatever was coming, the edge of the cliff at their backs.
A swirling vortex sparked to life in front of them, the height of a man with spiralling tendrils of glowing orange around its edge and the darkest black either Witcher had ever seen placed at the centre of this oval-shaped anomaly, this portal.
A tall, well-built figure stepped out of the portal; a fur-lined blue cloak hung from their shoulders. It was held in place by a silver brooch in the shape of an eagle and covered their torso, trailing behind them in the snow. The cloak's hood was pulled up tight, and only a well-defined chin and a smug, thick-lipped grin were visible to them.
The Mage didn't seem alarmed by the two remaining defenders. The smirk on his face grew wider at the sight of them.
He was not alone. More came out of the portal, clad in the warmest and most fashionable clothes money could buy and bringing the scent of a dozen different perfumes from lands as far away as Zerrikania. The colours on display were just as overwhelming as the scents, vibrant blues, deep reds, royal purples and every other combination considered 'in' in the royal courts and palaces. Of course, this was matched with excessive jewellery of silver and gold, most carrying a gemstone of some kind, from rubies to sapphires to diamonds.
Arthur's heart had never burned with so much hatred as it did then. He and Killian sunk into half-baked combat stances, silent as the grave and their cat eyes flitted between the dozen or so mages, who spread out to form a semi-circle around the pair. A few were amused at their choice of weaponry; some were impressed they were still standing, and a few seemed like they just wanted to get this over with.
"Brave Witchers, I believe this fight, if you can even call it that, is over." The tall Mage in the blue cloak spoke in a courtly, soft voice, like a page but dripping with condescension.
"I implore you to put down your…" He paused, his wormy smirk growing wider as he looked between the kitchen knife and table leg pointed in his direction.
"Kitchen utensils and we shall allow you to leave peacefully." A round of laughter erupted at his words.
"I implore you to go plough yourself!" Arthur growled, spitting a frothy glob of blood into the snow.
"This is your only chance boy. Unless you want to be harvested for parts. Do you know how much gold a Witcher's eyes go for?" A fat mage shot back quickly, a scowl on his piggy face.
"Now, now, Seb, no need for all that. I'm sure the Witcher isn't willing to die for his pride." The cloaked Mage responded.
Seb. Arthur made sure to remember that name. Repeating it over and over in his mind
"Come over here and we'll see who does the dying you posh twa-" Arthur wanted to say more but was forced quiet when he had to swallow a rising tide of burning vomit in his throat and steady himself against the wave of nausea that accompanied it.
His words and the abrupt stop prompted more laughter.
"Hurry up and kill them. It's bloody freezing," a willowy pouting sorceress sniffed. She had an enchanted umbrella floating beside her, shielding her from the rain, and she looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.
"Cecilia's right. Duke Kasamir is expecting me back afore he leaves for court." A nasal-voiced mage added.
Seb. Cecilia. Arthur added the name to his internal chant.
The Mage in blue seemed annoyed that his companions didn't want to continue this back-and-forth and sighed, disappointed.
"Very well. If the good lady insists." Taking a few steps closer to the pair of Witchers
"We jump." Arthur heard Killian whisper softly as he staggered back away from the Mage. "Off the cliff," he struggled with every word. The blood loss and pain were on the verge of rendering him unconscious. It went against everything Arthur stood for to run away, especially since the chances of them surviving the fall were slim, and if they did, they would be drowned like rats instead of falling like heroes.
"I'm not running", he responded resolutely. Raised his weapon and stepped forward to meet the leader of this group of bastards head-on.
"I'll make it quick, though; the pain will be quite excruciating." The Mage said, sliding off a leather glove. The palm of his hand formed a brilliant ball of red fire that cracked and sparked with barely restrained energy. The Mage was undoubtedly quick, launching the ball of death toward the Witcher with a deadly speed behind it.
Killian was quicker.
Arthur felt his brother's good hand pull him back while he launched forward with the last energy he had. Arthur was taken off guard and stumbled on his arse; instead of staring at the red-hot death launching its way towards him, he saw a shimmering orange barrier that covered Killian's body in a protective bubble.
Then, in a second, that same bubble was shattered into nothing. The impact sent a powerful shockwave that deafened the mages and launched Arthur back even further, this time off the cliff's edge entirely. The last thing he saw before gravity had its due was a charred smoking body where his brother once stood.
He didn't even hear himself screaming over the ringing in his ears as he fell, then black.
hope u enjoyed.