(A/N: Spoilers for the Skelligan section of Witcher 3.)

(A/N2:Yes. Alright, I am aware that the giant only attacked Undvik about a year before the events of Witcher 3. I had been labouring under the impression that the attack was actually from much earlier than that. I have no idea why I thought that. But by the time I realised my mistake, I was too locked into Kunnr's story to go back and change it. If that makes this Elseworld then so be it.)

(A/N3: Warning. Some off colour jokes and scenes of calamity, destruction and described wounds and injury)

“I 'ave the' story from me father.” Kunnr told us in his thick accent. “I were nowt bu' a baby a' t' time and so I remember little of i'. I remember a terror. A terror so bloody fierce that it fair threatened ta strike me dead. A terror an' a cold that seeped through the walls of t' house and set people to screaming.

“Bu' I were just a kid and ma sister were even younger than me.

He paused and stared into the fire for a few moments before grinning at the tides of memory.

“Heh. Me mam tol' me to take care of me sister. To keep 'er from crying too much. To keep her quiet and happy so tha' we wouldn't be 'eard by the thing that was coming for us. I were five. I barely knew how to speak, let alone how to quiet a screaming baby. I were jus' as terrified as the baby was. More so even. Because I was aware of just how scared the family was. Just how scared the village were and the clan were. But I didn't know what were happenin'. I just knew that I needed to be afraid.

“I'll never forget that night. Bu' I couldn't tell you wo' happened. Cos I were nowt bu' a baby a' the time and so I remember little of it. So this is 'ow it 'happened according to my father.

“This is how it happened when the Ice Giant Myrhyff came to Undvik and about 'ow Clan Tordarroch were brought low.”

It had not taken long for the discussion to take place as to what we were going to do next. The night after Rymer's failed ambush, we sat around the entrance to the cave of Freya and discussed the matter. It was one of those situations where everyone knew what was going to happen but that no-one wanted to be the person that said “So we're doing this right?” Time was running short and we all knew it.

The weather was getting colder and before long, sailing would be all but impossible. Helfdan told us that there were ways and means to move a ship through and, in some cases, over ice, but that sooner or later the risk was that the ice would simply swallow the ship. That there would no longer be ways that the ship could be broken free from the jaws of the freezing water and that after that, the only thing that could be done was for the remaining crew to flee for their lives. Especially in the face of the coming Skeleton Ship.

It was generally agreed by Torvald, The High Priestess and Helfdan himself that no man could stand before the Skeleton Ship and survive. That it's presence would freeze the blood of a person that got too close. That it was so cold that the body and flesh of anyone that got near it would behave in the same way as if that limb had been pushed into a fire. That ice burns were a thing that happened.

For his part, Kerrass agreed that the extreme cold would be debilitating and that we should decide our course of action accordingly.

As we saw it there were three options. The first option was that we should search for any record of the ship in the Elven ruins that occupy the North western most islands of the Skelligan Archipelego.

The priestesses had informed us that there no paintings or records of the Skeleton Ship in any of the nearby Elven ruins. That place that they called “The Garden”, saying the title as though it was the only Garden that existed in the world, and for all I know, that might be true. But we all knew that we weren't going to take that option. This fact didn't stop us all from discussing it for hours and hours and hours though.

That might have been an exaggeration. It still felt like hours and hours though.

As well as there being nothing in The Garden, Ciri was determined to point out that, although the rumour of the existence of the Elven laboratory was accurate, that the Elven mage who stayed there had long since moved on taking his skills and knowledge with him. That there would be nothing to find in that place anyway and that we certainly shouldn't plan around it on any level.

So what we were faced with was a long and drawn out search of ruins, where we did not know where many of them were, nor did we know what we would find. All that with the good odds that anything that might have been there would have long since been looted or consumed by the elements rendering any information that we might have recovered long since useless or removed.

Helfdan also added his own particular brand of negativity to this. He argued that an extended expedition to those islands would require some long and complex sailing which would not be easy given the changing weather conditions. He also suggested that we would be in amongst the tight clusters of the islands which would mean that visibility would be reduced meaning that enemies would be able to sneak up on us. That we could round a headland to see the Skeleton Ship itself bearing down on us with no avenue of escape before us.

So we weren't going to go traipsing round the Elven ruins. Helfdan did promise me that he would take me at a later date if my curiosity became over powering but it was generally decided that searching Elven ruins would be a bad idea. The historian in me was a little disappointed but the human part of me chafed at the time that we had spent discussing a point that we all knew we weren't going to be part of in the first place.

The second option was that we would go and try to make contact with the Vodyanoi which was also something that wasn't going to be on our first choice of things to do.

One of the things that I learned upon arriving at the Skelligan islands was that the Skelligans are a warrior race. They are the bravest, strongest and fiercest warriors on the face of the continent and their reputation as a warrior people is well earned and they deserve the fear and the respect that this generates.

But they have one irrational fear. Which is the Vodyanoi.

For those people who live inland, the Vodyanoi are an amphibious race. They live under water in vast cities and although it is only rumoured, it is suggested that their undersea empire is at least as strong and powerful as the Nilfgaardian empire on land. When communication has been possible with the mer-men and mer-women, it is clear that the Vodyanoi are semi-imperialistic and aggressive in their territorial thinking. The truth is, though, that we know very little about them.

They are capable of advanced metalwork as exhibited by the forging of weapons that can withstand the impact of modern continental weapons. They are also able to move around on land with the aid of certain breathing apparatus. There are stories of them around the shores of Lake Vizima where it is said that they can walk around without the aid of such devices but that has never been fully substantiated.

They are also known to have complex religious and cultural influences. The same people that live around Lake Vizima speak of them worshipping the Lady of the Lake as a Goddess and worshipping the dark God Dagon at the same time, which in turn suggests a complex moral structure.

All of this is supposition though so for all I know, I could be making the entire thing up and you should treat my words as being precisely that. There are areas of sea charts that are labelled as being the territory of the Vodyanoi and that no ships, whether fishing, war or mercantile in nature, should go near this outcrop of rocks or that reef. This is because the Vodyanoi consider that area to be part of their territory and are known to react with extreme violence whenever intruders are seen in the area.

They are one of those peoples that it is unlikely that we will get too close to them until we can work up a way to be able to survive underwater for extended periods of time. Or that they can come onto land for extended periods of time without the need to rehydrate.

But the Skelligans have what many, including the priestess of Freya, would call an irrational fear of the Vodyanoi. They call them “Fomori” and to the Skelligan people, the Fomori are the creatures that lurk in the darkness to kidnap unsuspecting or misbehaving children.

According to Skelligan myth and legend, the islands were once the site of a great war, between the Ice giants and the Vodyanoi themselves. That the war between the two people ebbed and flowed with neither race being able to press home the advantage of any short term military victory as the amphibious Vodyanoi could not pursue the ice giants into their halls of stone and ice. But nor could the giants follow the Vodyanoi into the water. So a stalemate was reached until humanity came to ruin that stalemate.

It was harsh fighting on all sides. But there was a significant period where, and again I must stress that I got this information from a story teller rather than actual historical sources, humanity was subjugated and used as a slave race by the Vodyanoi.

The humans of that time would have been extremely primitive by our standards, but according to the information that I have, the Vodyanoi had a puppet King named Bress the Beautiful who ruled over Skellige and forced the primitive humans to fight against the Ice giants on the behalf of the Vodyanoi until the Ice giants were defeated.

After that, the Vodyanoi used those who would become the Skelligan people as slaves on what they considered their islands.

Finally, it was the coming of the God King Hemdall who, along with his children, were able to forge the Skelligan people into the warriors that they are today and lead them into a war that they could finally win.

Yes, I am well aware that this account contradicts many of the other accounts of Hemdall's life. Let alone the lives of his children. I suspect that there were several men, and women, who helped throw off the yoke of Vodyanoi oppression but their names were forgotten. There's the potential for many years of scholarly work to compile these stories into a solid history but I feel that that work can wait for some scholar other than myself.

What is known is that the war was terrible and continued for many years after the final victory of the Skelligan people with Vodyanoi warriors sneaking ashore in the middle of the night to murder, burn and pillage.

This has instilled a racial hatred in the Skelligan people. Again, it is impossible for one side to completely and properly destroy the other as they cannot pursue the other in order to properly destroy them.

But it has also resulted in a terror that is difficult for them to articulate. The fear of the bogeyman in the mighty warriors of Skellige.

Believe me when I say that I took great delight in teasing Svein and the rest over this. A thing for which I was not thanked.

So it was obvious what we were going to do. We were going to sail back to Undvik to the place that the Priestesses showed us and we were going to try and talk to the Ice Giants. After we had failed to manage that....

We were not optimistic about our chances.

Apparently it was common knowledge among the men of the Wave-Serpent that the last of the Ice Giants had been killed by Jarl Hjallmar and Witcher Geralt some years previously. When we had told the High Priestess about this known fact she had given us such a look of Feminine disappointment that we were all instantly reduced to the age of two. It was exactly the same look that Emma gives me whenever I try and suggest something to do with the training company, or the look that I remember from my mother whenever it had turned out that I had outgrown and therefore ruined another pair of boots.

But after that effort had been proven successful or had failed outright, we would then go to that place that the Priestess promised us would result in a conversation between us and the Vodyanoi. Another thing that we were far from being entirely optimistic about.

Helfdan told us, that after that, we would need to start thinking seriously about heading for a home port.

Even according to the most hopeful estimates, The Skeleton Ship would be heading for Ard Skellig by that point and the sea would be freezing. He suggested that we would be cutting it tight as it was.

On the other hand, it meant that our competitors would be fleeing for safety as well. But that was not reassuring.

So we sailed South and I made it my business, partly as a way to take my mind off the pending deadline, to get to know this Kunnr the Shining. A man who I had not yet met as he seemed to be fairly quiet in social situations. He freely admitted that he was a morose and unhappy drinker and as such, was not the best company. There were exceptions to this when his humour improved and he would be wax lyrical and laugh and joke with the rest. But those occasions were rare.

He wore a hangdog expression most of the time. Solemn and unhappy eyes looked out from a reddish beard that he had woven into braods. Braids that also contained carved wooden beads and metal charms woven into them. He was thinner than I was expecting. Much smaller than I had received the impression of but when his anger was on him, he seemed to grow in size.

I have already talked about his history and I got the impression that there was more tragedy in his past that he wasn't telling us about. Even though there was already enough tragedy there to fulfil most poetic tragedies.

He was not a sailor. He struggled with the more complex physical demands of life at sea but Svein would boast of Kunnr that he could row like a motherfucker when he put his mind to it. He was a leader of example. He would do the dirty jobs and never complain which would then shame other men into doing those same jobs. He never moaned about taking a watch, was always the first to volunteer for an unpleasant duty and people respected him for that.

His family was originally part of Clan Tordarroch which were the clan that had been expelled from the Island of Undvik when the Ice Giant had attacked them. It had been this incident that had brought his family low and had, in turn, embittered his father and mother who had gone from powerful people to essentially being beggars adrift on the seas of uncertainty. After the giant had been killed, by an outsider and a member of a different clan no less, Clan Tordarroch had resettled on Undvik but the shame of the giant being killed by someone from outside of the clan had not sat well with Kunnr's father.

The other problem being that Kunnr's father and his mother, had expected to return to their former station in life, being powerful and respected. But the clan had remembered their laziness and sense of entitlement. The clan had had to work hard and fight for survival and Kunnr's family had expected to have their lives handed back to them on silver platters. Which had obviously not happened.

So one night, we were taking shelter from the growing cold so that we could build a fire and have something hot to eat and drink...

Something that Helfdan insisted upon.

…. and I asked Kunnr about the Ice Giants and about Undvik. Someone else must have heard me and so it was Kunnr that rose to stand near the fire and to tell the story of the fall of Clan Tordarroch and the flight from the island of Undvik.

The following account is, essentially, translated from Kunnr's words. He was a gifted speaker but not a gifted story teller. That, coupled with his thick accent, occasionally made his words hard to follow so I have made the relevant adjustments.

One of the things that you have to remember about Ice giants is the old joke. That simple is not the same as being stupid.

I have another insight for you. We had planned everything in the defence of Clan Tordarroch. We did everything right. We had watch towers and guard posts. We had light houses for sea invasions and our harbour had been trapped so that only those ships that were our friends and carried our pilots would be able to dock at our harbour. We had a twelve foot high palisade with a stand on it so that our archers could fire over the top and javelin throwers could answer with heavier fire.

The approaches were bare. We had removed all of the boulders, trees and bushes and had insisted that no houses be built until they were well outside our arrow range. There was no cover so that any attacking force would have to charge over open ground to get to us. All the time being peppered with arrows and spears and walking through all of the traps that our imaginations could come up with.

We might not have had the engineering behind us that somewhere like Kaer Trolde had or has access to but we were a formidable fortress anyway.

Giant Crossbows stood on firing platforms around the gates. Our warriors trained diligently and white stones marked the ranges of how far the arrows and bolts would fly.

Our warriors were as highly trained as any that could also be found amongst the isles. And our smiths and smithy were among the best that could be found. Even today, Clan Tordarroch weapon and armour smiths are amongst the most sought after craftsmen in all the lands, and on the continent too, from everything that I hear. The trees on our island made the strongest bows and our archers could out-shoot the best archers found anywhere on the continent.

We were feared. FEARED everywhere we went and when Clan Tordarroch colours were raised above a raiding ship or above our armies, then men knew that they were in for a fight.

But it was all for nothing.

It wasn't just our fighting forces either. We were as prepared as we could be for all kinds of disasters. We had buckets of sand in case of fire. Several wells within our settlements as well as stream water. Every man and woman knew exactly what to do in the face of an encroaching enemy, earthquake, fire, avalanche or tsunami.

And we were proud of our accomplishments. We were never big enough to properly challenge someone like the An Craites, the Drummonds or the Tuirseachs. We did not have the religious significance of Clan Heymaey or the stark reputation of Clan Brokvar. But we were Clan Tordarroch and we were proud. We knew that we were safe from just about all attackers. We knew that if an enemy landed elsewhere on the island and attacked over land, that we could meet them and destroy them. There was nowhere to site siege weaponry, nowhere to put staging areas and any long term campaign would result in the starvation of an attacking force.

We thought of everything. Absolutely everything but the most simple of things. We did not think of a giant who could throw rocks.

It was night time when he came, Freya curse his name. It was full dark and bitterly cold. Cold enough to crack stone or at least, that is what my father told me. The Skeleton Ship had just passed and the world was still covered in snow and ice, there was still more snow on the air and you could see the ice hanging in the twilight, reflecting the flames and the breath of the men and women that clustered around their homes.

But it was night time when he came. My father was commander of the Northern Gate. He told us that the first thing that we knew about the coming of the giant was the sign of flames on the horizon. It was dark and it was cold and the land was covered in snow. So the sound and distance seemed strange but in the far distance, flames could be seen leaping into the sky. Leaping and dancing round like fingers waving.

We thought it was an attack by men. That some raider or something was taking advantage of our weakened state to come and raid our coastline. When everyone was still recovering from the snow and cold, someone had thought that our guard would be down. We laughed and joked and told bitter lies to ourselves. We told each other that those men would regret coming to Undvik and that we would show them their errors. That we would tear our vengeance from their flesh with hooked blades and that they would be reminded of their errors at the points of daggers.

Morning came, cold and grey and warriors were sent out to investigate the flames. Good men all. Strong men. Proud men and they went out to find out what had happened. To ask the questions that you ask. To hunt for survivors and to look for enemies to take our vengeance upon.

They returned later that day. One man was openly weeping but no-one thought any the less of him. The leader of the band described a scene from the horror stories that our parents tell us to get us to go to sleep. He spoke of bodies torn apart. About heads and limbs crushed like pieces of fruit. About hoses that had been flattened, literally flattened like an egg having been dropped from a great height.

The Jarl asked careful questions. We sent a druid out there to see what could be seen. If there were any signs of magic being used. If there was the residue of the force, or the green fire of a spectre or any of the other things that might have taken place. There was even talk about sending for a Witcher given everything that had been seen, but as far as anyone knew, there wasn't one on the islands at the time after King Bran had made his feelings on the matter quite clear.

(This is a little unfair. King Bran is commonly thought to have had a considerable anti non-human bias. But if I actively look into it it would seem that he didn't have any kinds of prejudices more or less than anyone else on the islands at that time and place. As for his attitudes regarding Witchers? He was of the opinion that such matters that would normally employ a Witcher should always be dealt with by a man. If there was a spectre, then he would send for a druid or a Skald. If there was a monster attack, he expected his warriors to take care of the matter. He would commonly say things along the lines of “Depending on others is a weakness and depending on Witchers is part of that.” But when I looked into it, I could find nothing else that was actually recorded that might suggest differently)

The Skald was consulted as to what it could possibly have been that could cause such a catastrophe. But nothing fit everything. No one solution could be dreamt up as to what could have happened to that small fishing village.

That we were under some kind of attack was not in any doubt though and our people were brought inside the walls of our keep. What else could we do?

But as it turns out, that was the equivalent of putting all the livestock in one place so that the wyvern can take it's pick of an all of it can eat feast. Or putting all the valuables into one box so that the thief can just pick up the box and make their escape easily to open the box at their leisure.

But we were under attack and that was what we did when we were under attack. Our keep had defended us before and we were confident that it would do so again.

Father would tell the story over and over again. I don't remember much of what he was like, back before the giant attacked. I would like to think that he was a happier man, a good and kind man before the giant came.

He was powerful enough, strong enough and well regarded enough that he was given command over an important guard post. He had men that answered to him and his wealth was not small. It was a position of trust and, as can be seen in my armour and axes that I inherited from the man, he was strong enough to gather gifts and well liked enough by our lord to be able to keep them. My mother never had a cause to leave him or take a lover on the side. I remember a happy place, a happy home and much laughter although I suppose that that might be because of the rosy hue of distant memory.

I like to think that though. I like to think that he was a better man before that.

But on the other hand, it meant that he saw something that night that broke him. I have no idea what it was. We were never close enough to be able to talk about such things.

I was just a small boy though and I was afraid because the adults were afraid. That communicated fear where adults are there with the tears of terror running down their faces while they beg all of us to just remain quiet. Just for a bit longer. Just a bit longer until father can get home. Just a bit longer.

But then we heard the bells start to ring.

Father would tell the story when he was trying to get my sister and I to behave. He would tell us about what happened as a warning while he threatened to send us back to Undvik in order to be a snack for the giant.

Or at least, that was what I was threatened with. My sister was threatened with much darker things. I hated him for what he threatened my sister with. I remember the way her face hardened in the face of it and I wonder which of those many threats it was that finally made her mind up to leave.

He told us about how a distant watch tower just exploded. About how the fire had already been lit so that we could see as far out from the keep as we could. He said that it was as though the sword of the Gods had just cut the tower down and that the top of the tower flew off into the night.

Which was when the bells started ringing.

I remember being woken up from my bed. I had that happy skill of the very young. The ability to fall asleep at the worst possible moments and then stay asleep for hours at a time where no sound, no shaking and nothing could rouse me from my slumber. It was a time like that and I could feel the pull of my blankets and my pillows like a physical thing. Like bonds of iron or the arms of a warm woman on a cold day. I remember blinking my fatigue away and seeing, really seeing the fear in my mother's eyes and I remember starting to weep.

“Hush,” she told me, “or you'll scare the baby.”

I remember thinking that the baby was obviously already scared. I remember thinking it as though the thought was coming from a separate part of me. It might even be true that the assumption regarding my sister was only true in hindsight and I am remembering it differently. But I remember looking at the bundle of cloth and blankets that one of the thralls was carrying and hearing the whimpering coming from the bundle and thinking that the warning was foolish.

There was an odd kind of whistling noise coming from a vast distance away followed by the most almighty crash that I had ever heard. It was a thing that you felt in your chest and in your belly more than something that you registered in your ears. I remember yelping in some kind of shocked surprise more than fear.

“Quiet.” my mother half shouted and half whimpered the word. Not just to me but to the thralls, the baby and more than a little bit to herself.

We made our way through the house to the hearth where someone had already pulled back the vast rug in the middle of the floor to show the great shelter. We called it that but in all truth, it was little more than a storage area for extra tables, benches and goods that were needed in case of extra guests and visitors. Another one of those precautions that old Lords had insisted would be part of every dwelling in case of attack from the sea. Places for women, children and old folk to hide from the falling arrows.

But it wasn't arrows that we were hiding from. The missiles being thrown at us were boulders from the mountain side and huge tree trunks hurled like spears from the forests where the Jarl hunted and from which we cut our lumber. We all went into the depths.

I remember the little details of that place. I remember the straw pallets that were quickly pulled out. I remember the smell of stale vomit from where a guest had drunk too much, been sick and no-one had thought that the vomit would seep beneath the floor. I remember the rack of sharp knives next to the door. Or they should have been sharp anyway. I had never seen anyone setting aside the time to maintain them so they might have been dull and rusted to the point of unsuitability.

It was not reassuring. Those knives were the last line of defence. Not so that we could protect ourselves, but so that important people could not be taken alive by raiders and used to extract a ransom. I always hated that. I always wanted to be able to turn around and say that hostages can be rescued.

But I also wonder how many of those knives were used that night and in the days that followed.

Over and over again we heard it. That strange whistling sound followed by a thump, deadened by distance and the travelling of sound through the earth of the floor. Or at least that was the best option. The worst was when the missile hit something and what we heard was the cracking and splintering of wood and the shattering of stone.

I have never heard a sound like it. Not since. The closest I can think of, is that sound that you hear when a ship breaks itself against the rocks in a storm. When the stone punctures through the hull and the ship snaps in two. That sound, the cracking of the keep is the most awful sound that you can imagine?

It was like that. Over and over again as cross beams of houses broke. As the trunks that made up the pallisade wall simply broke in half under the onslaught.

It seems obvious in hindsight. Painfully obvious even. We had planned for everything. Absolutely everything. We had planned for invasions over land and invasion by sea. We had put thought into how to withstand a siege and how to kill encroaching attackers. We had even put plans in place in case it turned out that our attackers were more monstrous than being entirely human. We could, and indeed had, defended ourselves from harpies, Vodyanoi raids, pirates, raids from rival clans and one memorable time where a Nilfgaardian baron, upset at our raiding of his shipping, had sent an expeditionary force in order to “chastise” us for our “cheek”. We had fought off all of those things.

But the one thing we had not prepared for was what we would do if a giant decided to just throw rocks and trees at us from a distance.

We had thought about siege weaponry but we reasoned that there was relatively little flat land to site such things and if a person was able to land enough troops onto the island in order to set up the siege weaponry then we had other problems to deal with.

But a single Giant, wandering backwards and forwards over the island, uprooting trees and setting them alight in the spreading fires, from where he had destroyed our watch towers, before hurling them at us. From picking up the huge boulders and just sending them flying at us.

We had no protection from that.

Some people criticised us for not mounting a counter attack. I cannot answer for that. Father always claimed that the giant was always outside arrow range but with the destruction of the watch towers and the stamping out of the watch fires, it was dark and the rest of the other factors meant that we simply couldn't see him. So where would we send our warriors?

I have no answer to these questions.

There is also the factor that our warriors were already busy. They were running into burning buildings in an effort to save those people that were taking shelter within. They were pulling injured people out of collapsed buildings, clearing debris and trying to warn people away from wherever the next stone was going to come from.

So to any man who might accuse our warriors of cowardice, I would say this. You try running into a burning building to rescue someone. You try running across open ground to get to this person or that person, or to carry a screaming child to safety. Dubious safety at that.

You try standing your ground on a wal,l while an unknown and unseen enemy picks you apart at their leisure. You try doing all of that and not running for shelter yourself, and then I will let you call the warriors of Clan Tordarroch cowards.

You also have to remember that we still didn't know what was happening. It might seem obvious now that we were under attack by a giant but at the time...?

All we knew was that we were being bombarded by these missiles and that those same missiles were being thrown with astonishing accuracy. Not that they needed to be too accurate. When trees and boulders are the things that are being thrown then they don't need to be too accurate to cause untold damage.

There was also the relentlessness of it.

He just never got bored of sending those things at us. Just as we would begin to think that it was all over, just when we would be able to stifle our tears and calm down, just when the young folk, which included me, had just begun to settle down and go back to sleep in those shelters that hadn't been damaged or otherwise ruined. There would come that odd whistling noise followed by a crash. Then would come the screams and the shouts and the sounds of men running around.

It was like....

That moment when you are not on duty so you have every intention and every capability of staying in bed. You have the permission and the desire and everything is set up. A nice warm bed, a willing woman or even an enthusiastic woman and you settle in for the night's sleep. You sleep, but in the early hours of the morning you are woken by something. You don't know what it is though, but then you hear it. Just on the edge of hearing. You hear a dog barking.

Then it will stop and you can feel yourself beginning to sink back into the pleasant land of slumber where dreams come and the worries of the day start to disappear.

Then the dog starts barking again. And again and again. Then, even when it stops barking, you cannot get back to sleep because you lie there, waiting for it to start again. There is nothing that you can do. And then slowly, you begin to feel the hate and the anger beginning to well up inside you. How could the owner of that dog allow it to continue barking like that. Why is the dog not tied up. Why do they not give the dog something to do, something to chase or... well... anything really.

Then you start to want the dog dead. You would never dream of it in real life. You would never be cruel to an animal that guards you while you sleep that might be crying out for something.

Then your imagination gets hold of the thing and you start to wonder what it could be barking about. Are their enemies starting to attack the gates, sneaking through the early morning mists and now...EVERYONE is ignoring the dog and trying to get some sleep.

That got a little bit out of hand there, but that was what it was like. We just stayed in the shelter, huddling together in an effort to stay warm, to help each other with our fear and... heh..... trying to keep the baby calm. All while being unable to stop ourselves from listening for the next falling boulder, the next whoosh of flames and the next cry from a hundred throats of “Incoming.”

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It was relentless. All I can really remember is the smell of my own urine as I unashamedly wet myself in terror and I was by no means alone. I remember the vomit of one of the Thralls and the shaking, cold sweat of my mother. I remember the screaming of my sister and the constant efforts to get her to be quiet on the grounds that the attackers might hear her. Not that they could, over the rest of the screaming and shouting that was going on around the place. But these are the lies that we tell ourselves when the world is ending around us.

Dawn rose slowly that day and the onslaught finally slowed to a crawl when the sun first showed herself over the horizon. There were still the odd boulder thrown, the odd tree launched at us like a spear but... I suppose the giant was getting tired. Or the game was no longer as fun as it had been. I suppose that even mass murder must become tiring after a while.

There are many reasons as to why our family destroyed itself. But I remember that the first time I saw it happening was that morning, when father sent another warrior to see if we were alright. Another warrior rather than coming himself. I remember the tightening of my mother's mouth and the slight narrowing of her eyes. Even as a boy of five summers I knew that this was the herald of my mother's wrath and I remember feeling the relief that that rage would not be directed at me...

This time.

But a warrior came and we were helped out of the shelter into the cold light of the morning. We had been lucky really, The trapdoor under which we were hidden was under the correct side of the house. A tree had fallen on the other side of the building which had punched through the roof and buried itself down into the floor. Another boulder had taken off the corner of the building but that debris had fallen on the outside of the house, crushing another woman that was running... somewhere. I didn't recognise her though. I couldn't have, as all I saw was her legs sticking out from under a huge beam of wood before my mother saw the same thing and ordered one of the thralls to cover my eyes.

I remember tears.

(He spent a bit of time staring into the fire after that. His face had gone kind of still. When you can convince Kunnr to speak he actually becomes fairly animated with expansive facial expressions and gestures but there was a memory on him now. He spoke quietly and I was not the only one who leant forward to catch what he was saying. That he said it with no emotion at all.... spoke to me in a way that I could not have articulated in a normal way.)

I heard the worst noise of my life... of my existence that morning. It was a noise that I can't possibly communicate in any other way. It was a noise of a grief and pain so profound that it reached down my throat and sunk a blade into the depths of my soul.

Worse than a sound that a wounded man makes when the weapon enters his belly and he realises that the rest of his life is going to be filled with almost constant awful pain. Worse than the sound a man makes when you shatter his face with an axe. Worse than the sound of rage that a woman makes when she is betrayed and worse than the howl of a loyal hound who is kicked by their master.

I have never heard this noise since and I pray to all of the Gods that I believe in and all the Gods that I've heard of and even the Gods that I can barely dream of, that I will never hear that noise again.

It was a primal noise. A basic noise that was born from the part of humanity that was made before we emerged from caves and started to build castles and houses. It was the kind of noise that our throats are not really supposed to be able to make any more.

It was an old woman that made that noise. I saw her that morning scrabbling at the still smouldering wreckage of a house. I knew her. She was this formidable old woman, Grandmother to half the town and Great aunt to the rest of us. She was the kind of woman who was always baking cakes for children and who always disapproved of the people that her children and grand children married while, at the same time, lavishing a love on those children and grandchildren that was intimidating in it's power.

I had always been told that she had been a shield-maiden when she was younger and that morning I learnt the truth to that rumour. She had an axe at her side and a shield on her back. Worn over a torn nightdress that was smudged with soot. She was on her knees, digging with her hands, tossing stones and pieces of wood aside and over her shoulder.

Then she stopped, she had found something. She tugged and tugged and pulled and pulled. Then she lifted something and pulled something aside and I saw a small, broken body. Then she made the noise. Part howl, part scream, part groan of pain and grief. She looked around herself with wild eyes as she cradled the broken body of a child that must have been no older than myself. Her eyes were wild with pleading, some state of mind and body that had taken her beyond tears and into some kind of raw horror that existed beyond that.

And she just made that noise, over and over again. As I watched, a younger man ran over to her and tried to pull her away.

She fought him.

She was by no means alone that morning. All over the town there were men and women searching ruins for loved ones. At first, they did so frantically and almost aggressively. Later on, when it became clear that there were not going to be any survivors to be found, they did so slowly, mechanically like those golems and things that you hear about.

I must have been in my own strange state of shock that morning as I remember very little of it after that. I must have slept or something. It seems to me that I can remember every second of the previous night but that morning, indeed for most of the day, I don't remember almost any of it. I must have eaten, the community was pulling together, doing those things that communities do when they are hurt. The best of humanity can be seen in times of crisis.

But also the worst.

(He wiped a tear from his eyes at that point. A number of people looked away from him.)

But that didn't come till later when the other clans started to take advantage of us. But there and then, we rested. I was wrapped in a blanket, handed my baby sister and pushed into a corner. We were both exhausted and I honestly believe that it was this moment where the two of us got over our nonsense and we have been close ever since.

But then and there, The baby and I slept. So what happened that day? I only know from my father's stories.

The Jarl had survived. I could make some kind of comment about him hiding somewhere in order to avoid the bombardment. I could make jokes about him being lucky or something but the truth is that I simply don't know what had happened. It's just as likely that the Jarl's guard knocked him unconscious by virtue of a club to the back of the head before carrying him off to a safe place against his will. I certainly know that we have a similar plan when it comes to dealing with Lord Helfdan if it ever comes to that.

But the Jarl survived and to be fair to him, he made some good decisions. He ordered that the Warband go out to scout out what was going on. To look for our enemies. To form some kind of counter attack. After all, the only good defence is a good offence right?

Which is when we found out about the giant. He had not been stealthy. His foot prints were everywhere, deep indents in the ground where melted snow from all the fires ran into them, leaving these huge puddles that told so eloquent a story. It was a trail that even a child could have followed and follow him they did. All the way up the mountain where the Warband found him asleep in a cave.

I sometimes wonder as to how the world might be a different place if my father had gone with that party. But he was still in the main town, doing his best to shore up defences. Rebuild the gates and re make the walls. It was an impossible task and to be fair to him. Father almost killed himself in trying to get it done. I have that story from other men, not just himself. But he was a soldier and a guard and he was facing an enemy that he did not know and did not understand.

He was afraid. He was afraid and like so many men, he reacted to that fear with an anger that must have been terrible.

But I am telling of the fall of Clan Tordarroch, not the fall of my family. The Warband snuck into the cave. They levelled their spears at where they thought the most vulnerable parts of the giant should be and attacked.

There is so much criticism of the way things were done. The Jarl of the clan was furious. He maintains that the Warband should have come back to gather reinforcements and yes that might have been a more successful tactic. But it also might have led to even more of our finest warriors being killed in that opening attack.

Other camp fire warriors and men who sit around their hearths and drink mead rather than actually serving their friends and families in some way. Men who always look back on the events are quick to point out all the things that we did wrong. That the Jarl did wrong and what we should have done in that moment. All of them are right and all of them are wrong at the same time. All that can ever be said for certain is that we lost a lot of good people that day.

According to the survivors of the war band, the Giant had formed some kind of alliance with the Siryns that lived on the slopes of the mountain and one of them was watching the approaching warriors as they crept up to the cave with weapons drawn. The scream of the Siryns must have cut through the slumber of the giant and he woke up with a growl and a bellow of rage.

According to the stories I heard later, he had this huge club. He had made it out of the rib of a ruined ship that had crashed into the shore. He simply stood up and swung it, killing three warriors with the opening swing.

As it turns out, no matter how fast you are, no matter how well armoured you are or how well you brace with your shield. If a giant hits you with a club when he swings it at full strength, then you will be sent flying through the air and probably into a wall or tree if you don't hit the ground. Then you not only have to survive the first impact of the club, but also the second one too when you collide with whatever it is you hit.

Even the best armour in the world can't protect you if you land on your head and break your neck.

Likewise, the best armour in the world can't protect you if a giant picks you up and bites your head off at the neck, nor if you are knocked flat and trampled into the dirt.

Father used to claim that he could see the warriors bodies sailing through the air from the impacts of the giants club, or the giants foot.

There were two survivors. The first was carrying the second and had been sent back to us in order to carry word back to the keep in order to let us know what we faced.

The second man had been struck with the club. We couldn't find any injury on him but his body was swelling up and turning dark. He died later that night, vomiting up a black blood.

The Jarl ordered that the alarm smoke was sent up. Designed so that all nearby ships belonging to the clan would be recalled with all possible speed. Another one of those precautions that was put in place in order to help us resist invasion by human forces. For miles around that pillar of black smoke ordered all of our longships back home. Including those men and captains that were still back in Kaer Trolde having witnessed the passing of the Skeleton Ship. Men were climbing aboard ship and stowing oars, the ice of the Skeleton Ship's passing was beginning to melt by this point but it would still be difficult going.

But we knew what we were dealing with now. We knew about the giant and we knew what we were going to be doing next.

It is at this stage of events that nothing can be hidden any more. Things were going wrong and no matter how far the story goes, or how much my father tries to convince us of the fact, or himself of the fact. The simple truth of the mater is that disaster followed disaster followed disaster.

Up until this point, we think that the Giant had been enjoying himself. He had been laughing and chuckling to himself, but the attack on his home had driven him mad with rage. So now he was an angry giant.

The other thing that we learned that night was that giants are actually really powerful and are capable of bending certain lesser creatures to their will. Creatures such as Siryns and other creatures that are better able to function in the cold.

(I saw Kerrass shifting uncomfortably in his seat. I could well imagine him thinking “well if you'd asked a profession, we could have warned you about that but...” To be fair to Clan Tordarroch, it had already been stated that there wasn't a Witcher in the area so, who would they ask. I suppose it was just a remnant of Kerrass' professional pride that made him squirm in his seat. Ciri, in comparison, was wrapped in the story and did not mover or comment.)

We spent the rest of the day setting traps, relighting fires, coming up with all the deadly things that our imaginations could come up with, all the things that might slow down or otherwise inconvenience a giant made of ice.

Again, of course we know now that giants aren't made of ice. That the blue skin colour is just something that they have in the same way that we have a pink skin. But that didn't help us at the time.

But we had fallen into the same trap that had been our downfall in the first-place. We were thinking as though we were facing a human enemy. An enemy that can be confounded and slain.

We were not. We were fighting a force of nature.

When the hurricane comes, you do not stand in the way of the hurricane. You flee from it. You hide and take the best shelter that you can. And so it should have been here.

But the warriors were defending their homes and they had convinced themselves that they could win. The result was inevitable.

Another of the roots of my father's bitterness was that he was ordered to command the rear guard. He was the man who was held back among the other warriors that were protecting the Jarl of Clan Tordarroch, the women and the children. The fact that his own wife and children were among the people that he was protecting seemed immaterial to him.

He was always convinced that the best of Clan Tordarroch died against the Ice giant and he longed to have been with them. He had wanted to die like that, not cast away, a refugee, hiding on Ard Skellig, living off the charity of others. Like all warriors I suppose that his pride was injured. The island was his and to lose it while still being alive...

I think it broke him in the long term.

Because the giant laughed at all of our little precautions. When we had teams of archers out there, peppering him with arrows, he laughed and swung his club sending the men flying high into the sky. He had swapped his former club made out of part of a ship for a small tree. He'd pulled a lot of the branches off and swung away with impunity.

We had soaked parts of the ground with lantern oil and set fire to it as he walked across it. He ignored the flames. When we threw oil at him in small clay pots and then set fire to him. He just slapped at the flames until they went out.

He dodged the ballista bolts and his skin was so tough that our own axes and swords barely pierced his skin. Even our blades, the fabled weapons of Clan Tordarroch, did little to actually hurt him.

(“Steel swords against an Ogroid's skin.” Kerrass muttered. “No wonder they lost. And that'll be why Geralt and Hjallmar succeeded.”

It also bears mentioning that Clan Tordarroch smiths were well known as among the best on the face of the continent. My dwarven friends will want me to say that they are the best human smiths but then they will agree to the assessment. So Kunnr's assessment and protest was deserved.)

All the while, every single swing of his club killed our men by the half a dozen at a time. It was obscene how utterly ineffectual we were being.

The giant played cat and mouse with us. His raining down of rocks and trees on us continued. He would run in, kill some of us and then run off. Anyone who claims that giants and trolls are stupid were not there over those days.

In the end, the Jarl lost his nerve and ordered our evacuation. All of the women and the children were loaded onto ships and ordered to sail off.

My Father? He was the man assigned the task of overseeing that evacuation. He was not pleased with this.

I have wondered as to why he was given that task. Those who were feeling more charitable might suggest that the Jarl was sending his own wife and children away and as such the task was given to one of his most trusted Huscarls.

(Freddie: Huscarl is a term for personal warrior. Literally meaning “House Warrior” which might mean personal guard. It seems certain that Kunnr's father was some kind of standing guard or standing soldier for the clan. In the same capacity that Helfdan employs Svein's wife and fellows)

The less charitable might suggest that my father was useless in any other capacity. According to some of the other people that saw it, my father had lost hope. He was unable to come up with anything useful. He was shooting down other ideas and telling everyone that everything that was being tried was going to fail and that they were all going to die. That Clan Torrdarroch was doomed.

That is not someone you want on the front line. I have heard both stories and in all honesty, I could even believe that both stories are true. Having seen the bitter and angry man that he became, I can well believe that my father was broken by what he saw and what he did that day.

What do I remember? I remember the fear. It has a smell to it. A cold and bitter smell, a mixture of sweat, puke and piss that makes for a heady aroma. I remember the roared cadence of the oarsmen as they pulled at their oars to get us away.

I remember the splashing waves and the spray against my face. Then I remember the whistling as the giant saw that we were getting away and hurled his stones after us.

I remember the broken rhythm of the oars as men rowed together who did not know each other. I remember the smashing sound as one of the hurled boulders clipped the back of one of the other fleeing longships. I remember the people on that ship hitting the water and freezing to death before they could drown.

I remember the screaming match between my father and the Captain about going back to rescue the dying people on that ship.

I remember the steady thumps of leftover ice from the skeleton Ship's passing bouncing against the hull as we didn't have enough time to steer round them. I remember the groans from the people aboard ship as they heard these things and the scraping of the ice, the splintering of wood and the grunts of the men that were baling out the water that came in through those cracks.

I remember the desperation. The awful need to survive that was on the adults. The children were afraid, of course we were, how could we avoid being scared given how the adults were playing up. But we didn't understand, not really. We were afraid because the adults were afraid and we didn't understand that desperation. We did not understand the things that were happening to us. For some reason, that makes things worse.

I remember the moment that we landed on Ard Skellig and turned to wait for all the other men who had remained behind to see off the giant and cover our retreat. And they never came.

I understand that there were a few survivors though. But they didn't arrive until later. But I do remember the despair that we all felt.

And that was it. The fall of Clan Tordarroch to the ice Giant. And yes, we should have hired a Witcher, or one of the mages that come through the islands occasionally. Hjallmar was not the first Captain who tried to take on the Ice Giant but he was the first that succeeded. It is not lost on me that he had a Witcher with him.

We set up a life in exile on the shores of Ard Skellig by the grace of Clan An Craite and also....yes... by the grace of Clan Drummond. I know that after the death of Madman Lugos, it is fashionable to hate that clan, but they were good to us over the years of our exile.

We returned to Undvik when the giant was killed and are in the process of rebuilding our homes and our lives. Our clan Jarl is now the youngest son of the man who ordered the evacuation of the island. He treated me fairly and I like him. But he is a young man and I think he struggles with the fact that our independence is bought by the actions of another clan.

I don't think he likes that.

It's going to take generations before we are able to bring the clan up to the strength that we used to command. And it was the giant that took it from us. If they come again, we will be ready for them.

-

Kerrass came over to sit next to me on the bench that I was sat on and handed me a bowl of soup. Kerrass and his sign of Igni was being used more and more to provide the heat that we all needed to survive. He moaned about it, but he knew the need as much as anyone and as a result, we could make sure that we could have something hot to eat at the important times.

And now was one of those important times.

“Are you alright?” He asked me.

“I'm fine Kerrass,” I snapped. Thus proving that I wasn't. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“I keep asking you that,” he told me, dipping a lump of hardened trail bread into his own bowl of soup. “In the same way that you once kept asking me the same question. And I will continue to ask you the question until I get an answer that I believe. So...” He spoke so calmly. I hope that, when our situation had been reversed, I had been as calm. “Are you alright?” He used some of the bread to scoop some of the barley that was being used to thicken the soup into his mouth before biting into the bread.

I wanted to respond with my normal answer. To tell him that I was fine. That I was alright. That I was sleeping fine and that I was getting by on life. But I wasn't doing any of those things.

“I'm scared.” I told him. “I know every reason why we're doing the things that we're doing and going to the places that we are. Fuck, I even made some of those arguments myself. But it's taken us four days to get even this far back towards Undvik and all I can think about is that we could have used that time to be searching Elven ruins for signs of the Skeleton Ship's passing and what the Elves thought about that.”

“Excellent.” Kerrass said happily. “Now we're getting somewhere. Go on.”

“My fingers itch with the need to be scrabbling around in the dirt and climbing through ruins. But instead I can feel a stiffness in my limbs and a panic scrabbling at the back of my throat.”

“Why?” Kerrass' tone of voice spoke volumes. It was almost eloquent. He knew the answer as much as I did. But he was prompting me with it. He wanted me to say it.

“Because we're nowhere.” I told him. “Absolutely nowhere. That's the other thing that my fingers itch to do. I want to go back to that encampment of druids and I want to choke the answers that I want out of that stupid ass-hat of a Druid. He knows where my sister is, or at least he can point is in the right direction. He can set our feet on the next step and he's holding it back from us. Just as he's holding back everything he knows about the Skeleton Ship.”

“Yes he is.” Kerrass agreed.

“So, in the meantime we're running around, trying to solve this problem that Skelligans have been trying to solve since they settled on this part of the continent. And I know that's how it works. I know that that's how it works. That we have to do something for him before he will do something for us. But we're absolutely nowhere on it. We questioned that druid and he told us nothing that we didn't already know. We went out and spoke to the men who's job it is to look out for the Skeleton Ship and collect news of it and sightings of it and they told us sweet fuck all. Not really. They told us some cryptic bullshit and deepened the mystery for us....”

“That's hardly their fault.” Kerrass interrupted gently.

“I know that Kerrass but I still want to take that same cryptic bullshit and put it together with all of the other cryptic bullshit that they tried to feed me while I was there and jam it down Ragnvald's stupid smug throat until it chokes him.”

“Surprisingly vivid coming from you Freddie but ok.” He smiled as he said it, cleaning the last of his soup out of the bottom of his bowl with the remains of his bread.

“So then we go off to the other side of the islands to consult with the priestesses, which is where we discover that there's a faction of Skelligans that don't want us to stop the Skeleton Ship. An attitude that I cannot understand even though I've been trying ever since it all happened.”

“Is it really so hard to understand?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Fucking. Yes.” I told him flatly. “This is a thing that has been killing Skelligans since they came here. Even if there are relatively few deaths when the ship actually passes through the islands, then the knock on effects are awful. Harvests are ruined, winter stores are decimated, the entire culture comes to a halt for.... what a month? Why do people want this to carry on?”

“You're not stupid Freddie, you kno....”

“Of course I bloody know the blood answer to that too. It's because it's always happened. It's a part of the culture. Because change is scary, even when it will probably be for the better. But what if the change is for the worse? Because sometimes the terrifying darkness is more familiar and comfortable than the harsh and unfamiliar light. And sometimes, the light is a flame. I know all of those things Kerrass. But I don't understand it. And I am far from entirely objective here.

“But I've left the point. The point is that learning that there were factions of people in the islands that have, not only learned what we intend, but have also decided that they would rather kill us than allow it to happen. Now no-one would notice the loss of a Witcher or a minor Lord of the North....”

“I think you might be surprised there.” Kerrass sniffed derisively.

I ignored him.

“But in killing Ciri they would bring the wrath of the Continent down on their heads.”

“It's actually worse than that.” Kerrass smirked. “We're actually not tied to getting rid of the Skeleton Ship. The Queen still wants the final decision on that regard. So that same faction is trying to subvert the Queen's will in this. How much are you willing to bet me that the people that are doing that are a grumpy group of bitter men who are still pissed off that the new Queen of Skellige is both female and successful?”

I considered this for a minute or two. “That's going to come up in the future isn't it.”

“More than likely.” Kerrass smiled at that.

We sat in silence for a while. Kerrass gestured at my soup. “You should eat.”

He wasn't wrong, my stomach growled at the suggestion and I finished it without really noticing.

“My problem is this.” I told him after carefully setting my bowl aside. “We are still no closer to actually solving this, getting the answers that I want, or that we need and time is getting short. And all the time, I'm sat here on the Wave-Serpent, just waiting for time to pass, on the way to another place where we're going to try and talk to someone who has no inclination to help us, will probably want to fight us and might not know anything in the first place.”

“And who will probably want something in return for helping us, even if they do help us.” Kerrass agreed.

I suddenly found the entire thing funny. Kerrass had planted a needle into my bad mood, the same as he always did.

“We're no closer to finding out what the answer is.” I told him after a few minutes of chuckling with each other. “And we are running out of time.”

Kerrass sighed. “I know what the answer is.” He told me. “I know how to fix it.”

I stared at him.

“The answer.” Kerrass said. “Is that druid. There are two possibilities. We know that that ship comes from a different world. Ciri's story proves that. So I think that that ship was coming through the islands. For reasons of it's own. Maybe it fell through a crack or a gate or a hole or whatever you want to call it, which meant that the ship came here all that time ago. Then one of two things happened. The first is that that druid stole something from the ship. That that item that he stole is what is responsible for his longevity and immortality. The other option is that he is a crew-member of that ship. That he saw land and leapt over the side, swimming to shore. Then he survives because of his connection to the ship, frozen in time.... or something. I haven't entirely figured out that bit but it's unimportant really.”

He scrubbed his hand across his mouth.

“So...” I started speaking a lot more loudly than I had intended and took a moment to calm the fuck down. “So what the fuck are we doing here Kerrass?” I demanded. “Let's tell Helfdan to turn for Kaer Trolde right now. We can be back over there and safely in dock with the Wave-Serpent out of the water and out of the way of the coming ice while we ride over to the Druid's enclave and get some answers.”

“And that is precisely why we aren't doing that.” He told me.

“What?” This time, I didn't try and keep the words quiet.

Kerrass sighed. “Slipping again Freddie.”

I took a deep breath. “Then explain it to me.” I bit the words off carefully. Desperately scrabbling for the calm that I was also well aware that I was losing.

Kerrass scratched his chin.

“You remember when we were investigating your Father's murder?”

I stared at him a bit more. “No Kerrass. That's just the sort of thing that I am likely to forget.”

“Yeah I know. But you smiled.”

“Fuck you Kerrass.”

“But you remember that your brother refused to talk to me?”

“I do.”

“So it was obvious that he knew something. It was the most suspicious thing that we had going for us. One of the first real leads that we had. I could easily have kicked the door in and demanded that he answer my questions. But we had nothing to go on, other than that he knew some important things and we knew that.”

“We did.”

“But if I'd assaulted his guards to get in with just my hunch, your family would, quite rightly, have kicked me out of the castle. I knew that your brother had some information for me. But I didn't know what. I didn't move on him until I knew, until I had something to properly confront him with. The same thing is happening here. That druid is the key to this. I know that. He could solve everything, I know that too. But I can't prove it. I have no corroborating evidence or testimony. So, to get to him I would need to kick down his door and probably end up killing a few people that don't need killing. Which, in turn, would mean that I would be kicked out of the islands at best and hanged at worst. A thing that I would deserve. But it's for things like that that Witchers, Feline Witchers especially, have a bad name and are ostracised.”

“One of the reasons anyway.” I commented.

“Now don't get me wrong.” Kerrass ignored my comment. “I will do that if it comes to it. But the other factor is, that if I kick his door in and kill a bunch of people, any enticement that he has to tell us what he knows about your sister's disappearance is also gone.”

He was right. Of course he was right. He was always right and sometimes I hated him for that.

“So the other thing that you're telling me.” I said carefully. “Is that I should start coming to terms with the fact that events are conspiring to make sure that I'm not going to find out anything here. That in dealing with the Skeleton Ship, the druid is involved and may just refuse to tell us anything.”

“Or that he knew nothing in the first place and was lying to you in order to get what he wanted out of the deal. In this case, a Witcher to get rid of the Skeleton Ship for him. Even though, I strongly suspect that if we did get rid of the Skeleton Ship, that he would grow old and die on the spot.”

“That might be what he wants.”

“It might.” Kerrass agreed. “But you need to start getting ready for that Freddie.”

I nodded. I wasn't happy but it was a thought that had occurred some time ago, although I hadn't articulated it.

“I'm sick of waiting Kerrass.” I told him. “I want answers and I am sick of waiting for them. I've already come to terms with the fact that my sister is dead. I hated that realisation and I hate myself for coming to terms with that fact and now believing it. I'm becoming deathly afraid that one day, sooner than I want to, I am going to stop caring about looking for answers.”

“You won't stop caring Freddie. It's not in your nature.”

“Maybe not. But how long before I care about something else more.” I shook my head. “Either way. No matter whether we're talking about searching for what happened with Francesca, getting the information from the Druid, or finding the solution to the situation with the Skeleton Ship. Time is running short.”

We both looked up, almost at the same time at the huge pillar of red smoke that towered into the sky.

“Yes.” Kerrass said after a moment. “It does rather play on the mind doesn't it.”

A lot had happened since we had fought off Captain Rymer's ambush.

We had sailed back for Undvik as soon as we got back to the Wave-Serpent and were heading back south to come back round the shores of Ard Skellige. The journey was becoming routine now, almost boring. I was getting used to the shoreline now, the standard feeling of it all. As we had before, we sailed into Helfdan's home village and spent the night.

It was a bleak moment. There was none of the greetings that we had been met with before, none of the good wishes and best thoughts. Instead, there were a lot of admonishments that we should stay home, that the Skeleton Ship was coming and that we would all be better off if we stayed in the warm and the safety. At the time, I was thinking that it was all a little bit much as the lovers of the men that we journeyed with were quite.... fervent in their efforts to get the men of the Wave-Serpent to stay behind.

I was aware that these thoughts were being born out of my own impatience and desperation to get something done. A feeling that had been growing since the ambush at the temple of Freya. And the fact that I knew this made me feel like the ass-hat that I was. But it was not a feeling that was going away.

In the end, I took to Svein who was understanding.

“You have not seen it yet.” He told me. “You have to remember that the last thing that the ship does before it turns for Kaer Trolde is to sail around Ard Skellige in a circuit. The villagers here see the ship at it's worst and at it's most terrifying. They huddle together for warmth in the great hall and watch the frost climb the walls and make the earthen parts of the floor begin to glisten with frost, despite the huge fire in the middle of the room. You cannot blame them for their fear. I feel the same fear myself.”

The efforts of the villagers to get us to remain behind were so strong that Helfdan had to announce an amnesty. He told his men that any man who wished to remain behind to care for his family during the coming catastrophe would be able to do so without being thought any the worse of. He told the village and his crew that he was aware that we were sailing into danger and that his doing so was, for him, a matter of duty and therefore unavoidable. But he would go alone if he had to. That he would ask no man to come with him who would rather be at home caring for his family. That that was duty enough.

One man remained behind. At first he wanted to come with us, the same as the rest of the sailors and warriors that were coming with us aboard the ship. But the other men pointed out that his wife was due to give birth within the next couple of weeks and that a man should be there when his wife gives birth. They pointed out that raiders would take a season off when a baby was born so that they could properly care for the infant in question. It took a lot of work but eventually he was persuaded although he fought it every step of the way.

We made up for the lost numbers though. Both from the wounded men who were left behind on Hindersfjall and the man who stayed behind.

We slept but were woken early by an alarm call as the warriors and guards were tumbled out of bed by a horn winding inn the cold, misty light of the early morning.

The light of day still came early in the day itself. Technically it was still the back end of summer but the cold created the illusion of winter which meant that dawn was still early in the day. So the cold light of morning, as well as a creeping mist greeted us that morning as a longship came round the villages head-land. It was a small ship, smaller than the Wave-Serpent and to my eye it was built for speed. It's small size meaning that it could come into the fishing parts of the dock. It had a large red and green sail and it looked fairly new to my eyes. As it tied on a man in armour moved to the prow of the ship and stood there in full armour with a helm on and a large shield that was similarly painted in quarters of red and Green.

He looked like the story book definition of a Skelligan warrior.

He just stood there for a long while, one foot on the rail of his ship and resting his other hand on a rope that hung just over his head.

I found myself next to Ivar. Svein was assembling guards and warriors along with his wife who was shouting at the others.

“What's going on?” I asked. “Do we not need to get moving?”

“We do,” Ivar agreed, “But first, we need to find out what's going on.”

“Who is that?”

“That is Finnvald Borstisson.”

“Is that important?”

“It might be. That isn't his normal ship.”

“What's he doing?”

“I thought you knew this. He's letting us know that he is real.”

Helfdan had emerged from wherever he had been. Wiping his face with a cloth. He was still in his shirtsleeves and despite his breath steaming in the cold air, he was ignoring the cold. He buckled on his sword belt and glared down at the harbour and the ship that waited there. I saw Svein moving to join his lord and I went to be there as well. I wanted to stick my oar in and argue that we didn't really have time to fuck around.

By the time that I had got there, it looked like Svein had just finished talking. Indeed, it looked as though Helfdan had just cut Svein off with a gesture. I looked around and found Ursa moving towards the group as well as Ciri and Kerrass.

Helfdan settled his sword on to the point at which it was comfortable and folded his arms.

The entire tableau was frozen for a long minute.

Then Helfdan shook his head violently. “Fuck this.” He muttered audibly before stomping down towards the harbour, Svein and the rest of us trailing after him.

He stomped along the quay before he stood, almost beneath the waiting man.

“WHAT?” He bellowed up at the waiting warrior. “You come in peace and to talk. So what do you want?”

The waiting man was plainly startled by the... up front approach and the presumably broken tradition. But I was firmly on Helfdan's side in this. It was absolutely true. We didn't have time for any of this bullshit. Finnvald, for that was indeed his name nodded and made a calming gesture before turning back into his ship and climbing round so that he could get out onto the jetty properly.

“Greetings Helfdan.” He held his arms out and the two men embraced. I got the feeling that there was a certain formality to the gesture though. As though it was something that both men just wanted to get out of the way as fast as possible. For such a short gesture, it was oddly like watching a dance.

“What do you want Finnvald?” Helfdan asked abruptly and more than a little rudely. “I need to sail with the next tide and I don't have a lot of time for the normal song and dance. Is it just you? That's not the Sea Sword that you've just sailed in on.”

“It isn't...”

“Then what...?”

“Helfdan, Gods dammit.” Finnvald was laughing. “Let me just talk for a second will you.”

I saw a flash of anger in Helfdan's eyes but he squashed it quickly. I have no idea if Finnvald saw it but Svein and Ciri certainly did. I saw Ciri widen her stance slightly.

“The Queen sent me.” Finnvald told us. “We had heard about what Rymer was doing and the Queen sent me to come and support you.”

“Since when were you a Royalist?”

“I'm not. But the Jarl is and where the Jarl orders...”

“You follow.” Helfdan finished.

“As you say.” Finnvald bowed slightly. “We knew that we would cross your path if we came South and if we didn't find you here then we would sail West until we found you or until we were running into some serious ice.”

“Well you found me, so now what?”

“Helfdan...”

“Now what, Finnvald.” Helfdan insisted.

“I have Sixty men. Twenty with me here on the Storm Blade and another forty following behind me on the Sea Sword. We are here to help you with your mission.”

Helfdan nodded, staring at the other man's face for a long moment. “There are factions arranged against us.” It came across as a warning.

“Yes. There are also merchant ships that are hunting for the Wave-Serpent. Nothing that you would worry about of course but if they found you while you were camping in a cover somewhere?”

“Hmmm.” Helfdan stared at the sky. “How long before the Sea Sword catches up with you?”

“A few hours. They should be coming round the head land now.”

Helfdan nodded. “Then we camp at the Shell cover tonight.”

“We will follow you.” Finnvald told him. The two men grasped wrists before Finnvald turned to climb back aboard his ship.

Helfdan turned back. “I want to sail as soon as we can.” He told Svein. “Day light's wasting.”

Svein signalled and we all scurried back to the hall. I saw Helfdan shiver, finally showing signs that the cold was beginning to get to him.

“It's been a long time since I saw Finnvald.” Ciri said to no-one in particular.

“He has not changed a great deal.” Helfdan told her. “He is still sometimes a bully and hides it with humour. He is still looking for the quick way to become famous and rich rather than being willing to put the time in to the work and he is still never satisfied with anything. He wants bigger, more, prettier and better.”Ciri did not comment on that as a Thrall handed Helfdan a leather over shirt and his dark blue tunic. He handed his sword belt to Svein who was waiting and started putting the warmer clothes on.

“I am being unfair though.” Helfdan went on, “I have difficulties with all the people that I knew from back there and back then.” Something flickered in Ciri's eyes although I could not tell what it was and I was watching closely. “He is a good raider, an excellent warrior and a fine ship's captain. If the Queen sent him then she must have had a good reason. But he will be unhappy in trying to work with me.”

Helfdan turned to me as Svein handed him his sword belt back.

“He will almost certainly try and convince you that you would be better off sailing with him rather than me.”

Helfdan wasn't looking at me as he said that He was staring off to one side and a little down. I chose my next words carefully. “Would I be better off?” I did my best to keep my tone neutral.

“As I say, he is a fine sailor and a fine warrior.” Helfdan told me after a small amount of thinking. He didn't seem uncomfortable by the question and I was watching carefully I thought Ciri might have been surprised but Kerrass didn't react. Just watching the the surroundings.

“He has more men” Helfdan hadn't finished his assessment of Finnvald. “And he has an extra ship which is faster than the Wave-Serpent but not by much I would guess as that crew will have killed itself to get down here so fast against the Sea Sword and they will be tired.” He thought a bit more after making sure that his sword belt was tied properly and sitting in a comfortable position. “I am the better sailor.” He decided after a while. “But he is a better fighter. More men and the extra ship are not advantages that could just be tossed aside though.”

I nodded at that. I had not really been serious about the question. But something had compelled me to ask it. I thought that I might have just wanted to hear the words, or an honest assessment of what we were dealing with. I suppose that most of all, I wanted to know whether we could trust this new Ship Captain and the men that came with them. I had struggled with the sudden cessation of hostilities between the men of the Wave Serpent and Captain Rymer's men. The way that, the moment the fighting was over, they were treating each other like long lost friends and family when a moment earlier they had been trying to kill each other. I was struggling with that.

Again, there are logical reasons as to why that would be the case. The first reason is that they really were, probably, friends and family. Distant cousins and the like. I had discovered that there were lots of inter marrying between the clans as well as families that had moved and gone elsewhere in search of work and a better life. There was also the factor that Queen Cery's changes had meant that the old clan lines were not as hard as they used to be. People didn't hold onto them quite as much as they once had.

There is also that factor that Sir Rickard had once told me about. About how fighters on opposite sides of a conflict can often discover that they have more in common with each other than they do with the people leading the battles on either side. That if you put soldiers from opposite sides of a war in a small space and it won't be long before someone offers a hand to shake and then someone else offers a drink of water from a skin or a canteen and before too much longer, people are dancing, singing and trying on each other's helmets.

Only to go back to killing each other in the morning.

But I hadn't got a real answer to the question that I had most wanted to ask. That being as to whether or not we could trust the new man and his crew. I didn't feel as though I could just ask such a thing outright as Skelligans get touchy about that sort of thing. Although Helfdan probably wouldn't care about the question or even think of the impact on his or the other's honour. I suspected that Svein, at the least, would hear it as well as others.

I nodded and pretended to consider the question. “I think,” I began slowly. As though I was still making my mind up. The solution was obvious to my mind but I felt the need to drag the entire thing out for, I dunno, drama or something.

“I think. That I am better off finishing the job with the men who set my feet on the path. With men who have already shed blood on my behalf.”

Helfdan nodded and turned to stomp over to the Wave-Serpent. Svein clapped me on the shoulder and moved to follow his master.