A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

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.

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