(A/N: There are some elements regarding naval combat in this chapter that are taken from a history lesson that I attended at the age of ten. Plus some movies that were almost certainly half remembered and adjusted for entertainment rather than the purpose of putting real nautical effects on the screen. So I have joined them. I think it's right but I am probably wrong. Sorry if this is annoying.

A/N2: Warning, there is some conversation that would be considered “real” talk in this chapter.)

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I was unprepared for the sheer size of it.

But how do you prepare for something like that? I have no idea.

It was this huge.... black bulk of a thing bearing down on us. So big it almost seemed to eclipse the sun. I had thought I had been ready for it. I had thought that I had seen some awful things in my time. Things that could pluck out my mind and hurl it into the oblivion of madness. But I was unprepared for this.

I was unprepared for my first sighting of the Skeleton Ship.

The Vodyanoi had been correct. You could see the logic of the thing and the extension of everything that we know about ship building. It was as though some great hand had come down from, Flame know where, and had taken the merchant ships of the world and just increased it in every way. You could see the logic of it too. Why have one mast when two would do the same job only better. If you have two masts then you need a bigger deck to contain them. If you have a bigger deck, then you might as well have a bigger hull in order to carry more crew and more cargo. And if that were true, then why not make this true and so on and so on until it all just grew and grew and grew until it seemed to eclipse my mind.

But it was more than just a ship. More than just a collection of timbers, sail and rope. More even than the men that must have been crewing it. It felt like the ship itself was alive in some way. As though it was some kind of great, slathering beast. Hungry for the kill. Slobber dripping from it's open maw as it raced towards us in an effort to just swallow us up.

I had been thinking of it as a ship. As a vehicle to carry... something or someone to places. But I had been wrong. I hadn't been able to think of it as anything else because it was called a “ship”. But this was.... it was not that. I mean.... it was that but it was also more than that. So much more.

It was...

We came around the islands. Leaving us a straight line of sail south towards Kaer Trolde after the Vodyanoi had left us. There was a need in the men then. A need to get home even if that home was the safety of Kaer Trolde harbour rather than the warmth and companionship of their own harbour and hearth. Speaking personally, that need was for a bath, some hot food that was more than soup and boiled up trail rations. I wanted some kind of roast meat with an onion gravy and a large loaf of freshly baked bread to mop up the juices.

I wanted a hot bath. Clean clothes and although it might sound strange, I wanted to untangle the matted mess of hair that had stuck to the top of my head.

Then I wanted to write down all of the remarkable things that I had seen and heard on this leg of my journey. I wanted to record the many stories that the men of the Wave-Serpent had told me. I wanted to write down the observations that I had made about Skelligan history and society. I wanted to talk about the different and wonderful creatures and races that we had met. I wanted to talk about the Vodyanoi, the Yukki-Onna and the Ice Giants. I wanted to discuss the berserkers with the druids and I wanted to begin a biography that I had been thinking about regarding Lord Helfdan. About how a man might turn what many would consider a weakness into his greatest strength.

I wanted to talk to Ariadne a great deal. I had missed her insights and her strange, slightly mischievous sense of humour. I had missed her and couldn't wait to see her again. Her promised errand that had kept her from contacting me was due to be over soon and she had promised to come and attend the final passage of the Skeleton Ship. So I could not wait to see her face again and to go over everything that I had learned, and to find out what it was that she had planned for Kerrass and I when the winter fell.

But most of all, I wanted to talk to the Queen, to Madame Yennefer if she was still in Kaer Trolde. I wanted to see Lord Ermion and I wanted to ride to the druid's sanctum and pull that druid out by his ear and demand the answers to my questions before he was called on to answer for all the deaths that had happened as a result of his actions.

Even if the Skeleton Ship was already circling the island of Ard Skellig, Helfdan told me that the cold that the ship would bring would not reach the innermost confines of the island. That it would still be possible to ride around inland and finish this task.

It was a physical need as much as anything else. A clawing desperation at the back of my throat that gave my legs a kind of mad energy and made me want to get up and move around. To pace up and down in the small confines of the ship. As it was, I had taken a station towards the front of the ship so that I could stand just below the figure head and watch the promontory that Kaer Trolde stood on get larger and larger against the backdrop of the sea and sky.

But we came round that final island and those remaining men of the Wave-Serpent put their backs into the oars and pulled for all they were worth. The Wave-Serpent fairly sprung forward as though it was an arrow leaping from a bow.

But then we saw it off our left hand side. The mass of the Skeleton Ship and heard the scream of the Albatross flying high overhead.

It was like being punched in the chest. That part of you where, if struck, it causes all of your breath to just explode out of your body. All of it, at once and no matter how hard you try, you cannot take a breath again. It was exactly like that. No similes. No, “it was kind of like”. It was exactly that. There was a presence about it as though it was some kind of unstoppable force that was coming for me. And in the face of that sheer power, there was nothing that I could do. Absolutely nothing that I could do.

I must have groaned and staggered before the sheer force of the thing as I ended up on my backside somehow. But I still couldn't take my eyes off it. I suppose that it was the same urge that causes the deer to freeze when it spots the hunter. Or the game bird to stop and stare just before the horse runs it down. The overwhelming fear of the thing was like a hammer blow.

I have and had used that metaphor before and I will doubtlessly use it again. But never was it truer than how I meant it this time.

The Vodyanoi had spoken of the ship using the fear that it's presence generated, as a weapon and this was how we saw it in action.

And it was coming for us.

It was so big, so impossible and so terrifying that I found my mind struggling to take the entire thing in. Like how, if you drop a handful of small pebbled onto a metal helm, the strike the top and bounce off to the side or run down the front of the thing. It was too much to comprehend and my mind didn't even want to try doing so. And in all fairness, it wasn't that close to us at all.

Awful is not the word for it.

It was like how I imagine it must feel to be a climber in the mountains. When you see the avalanche beginning above you somewhere and the slow realisation that you have nowhere to go. That it's going to take you and that the only thing left to decide is exactly how that tumbling mass of snow, ice and rock is going to kill you. Where the best that you can hope for is that some boulder is going to smash in your skull and that you will die quickly rather than drowning or suffocating in the snow. Or your limbs are smashed leaving you in agony as you wait to die in some crevasse or cave.

The Skeleton Ship was coming for us. Already the water around us was beginning to freeze. I could hear the odd sounds that sounded so similar to glass breaking except this was more like a film, or an extra layer of skin on top of the water that was breaking and shattering with the small movements of the Wave-Serpent.

I was not alone in my reaction. Perrin threw his bow to the ground and buried his head in his hands. Kar wailed in anguish and tried to pull his hair out. Ursa the bear, the indomitable champion of Helfdan the Fatherless was weeping and shaking. Even Svein, Svein the Hard-hand was shaking his head in disbelief at the sight of that awful thing looming on the horizon.

Ciri just stared at it. Hands, formed into fists that were pressed against her temples as though she was trying to stop her brain from exploding outwards. Kerrass was shaking his head. Over and over again he was shaking his head, one hand half reaching for the blades on his back while the other hand held onto his medallion in the same way that a priest might hold onto a hold relic. He was muttering the same words over and over again. “No, not now, not yet.” Then he would shake his head before beginning his phrase again. “No, not now, not yet.”

We were done. Just another statistic. Another ship's crew that had been lost to the Skeleton Ship. Another crew that thought that it could take on the overwhelming power of so mighty a phenomenon. Another group of men that thought that they could stand before the storm and that the storm would get out of the way.

But we had Helfdan.

Helfdan who looked at the Skeleton ship and saw nothing more than another seagoing vessel. One that was not between him and where he wanted to go at that and so he just ignored it. He grabbed at Svein and slapped him across the face. Jolting the much larger man back to his senses. Svein blinked at his master a few times in a haze as his mind seemed to refocus itself and so that he could actually see what was in front of him. Then he nodded and grabbed his brother. Then the two men grabbed and shook two more and the Wave-Serpent shook itself back to sense and wakefulness.

Whichever God or power or whatever that had been looking down on me on that day when I walked through the Skelligan courtroom in order to take my goods through. Whichever thing that caused Helfdan and his men to look up and see one of Dreng's followers trying to bully the funny, skinny little outsider. Whatever impetus there was that caused Helfdan to come over and help me when he could have just stayed at his table. I thank that thing. I thank that God or power because I am not sure that we would have survived if it were not for his iron strong self-control.

We started to move forwards again and if the rowing rhythm was a little off, then no-one thought any the less of any of us for it. The Skeleton Ship moved to intercept us a little but even though we were less than half the normal crew numbers for the Wave-Serpent, we were making fair time. There was a slight wind that was blowing us slightly across but we were making good time.

The cold rushed out from the oncoming Skeleton Ship and you could see the cold and the ice creep across the water towards us and Helfdan switched course, trying to come around the ice, presumably looking for a different beach to land at elsewhere on the island.

It was a race now and suddenly, under the guidance of our Captain, we started to believe that we could win. That our light, quick ship would be able to beat the larger, more ponderous Skeleton Ship to port.

We were going to win.

But it was not that simple. You are probably unsurprised by this. It is never that simple. Some of you may be aware of what happened next as the repercussions on a continental scale are still being felt. But to us at the time, straining against the oars. Tilting the sail to get as much power out of the wind that we could possibly bring forth. It felt as though we were almost home. It felt as though we had all but made it. Which, of course, meant that when it all came crashing down around us, the fall came all that much harder.

It took us a while to realise what was happening as well.

I learnt many things that day. Many many things and one of those things was that warfare on the ocean is a very different beast to warfare on land.

For a start, it's a matter of terrain. In theory, a battlefield is an unchanging patch of ground. There might be hills, streams, bridges, forests and any other elements of strategy that might be there. But once the field has been selected and the armies have lined up and the first trumpets have sounded. Then that is it. What the generals find there is what they find there and then they have to deal with that.

But on water, leaving aside the swells and waves that happen, the ground is constantly moving with the currents and tides. So you can be moving really quickly, billowing sails, oars heaving at the water, but the ship itself will be all but standing still in the water to an outside observer.

Then there is the wind. A constant pressure coming from one direction. But just because it's coming from one direction now, does not meant that it will always be coming from that direction for the entire duration of the battle. So you might have made plans to sail in that direction with the wind at your back and have worked out your battle plan based on that factor.

Then the wind changes.

Suddenly you are sailing straight into the wind and the field, and the air has changed around you.

So, for those soldiers that might be reading this. Imagine having to run, constantly, in order to maintain your place in formation while someone has tied a rope to you and is pulling you in another, completely different location while you try to fight someone who is also being tugged around on a moving landscape.

Suddenly doesn't seem as easy does it.

The other problem is being able to spot an enemy from a friend. On land, there are plenty of ways that this can be done. Armies wear uniforms and march under flags and banners for precisely this purpose. They do it so that friends can spot friends and so that generals can properly monitor their processes and where everyone is. But for the average man on the ground, it is vital to be able to look up, see some knights on the sky line and be able to tell whether that person is friend or foe. Are they here to deliver messages or are they going to tuck their spears and lances under their arms and sound the charge.

It is not to unfair to say that the ability to spot an enemies silhouette and differentiate it from an ally is one of the things that makes a good soldier. Not necessarily a good fighter, but a good soldier.

With ships, this is more difficult. The one exception is that Skelligan ships are different from anything built on the continent. Both ends of the Skelligan ships are tapered off to a point whereas continental ships have a point at the front but then a wider back with the tiller hanging behind. Apparently, it's a point of honour for the Skelligans. They all know that raiding would be much easier if they simply captured some continental ships and used those to attack ports and raid villages but this is seen as somehow... unsporting.

No problem with attacking at night though I notice.

But continental navies have none of these issues. They will quite happily steal other people's ships. So even if you can tell whether or not that ship was built in Novigrad versus Vizima. Whether it's from Cidaris, Kovir & Poviss, Cintra or wherever. That doesn't necessarily matter. That ship on the horizon could just as easily belong to anyone and anything.

What happens most often is that a ship will have some kind of heraldry on it's sail to denote who's ship it is. You see this most commonly in the case of royal ships when this ship or that ship is carrying Kings or Queens. This isn't saying much though. A sail is easily changed if royalty wants to travel incognito or vice versa, if a monarch is travelling openly then they will be escorted by a number of other ships as it is.But then come the matter of a ship's flag. Pirates, or so I'm told, often have their own flag in order to warn merchant ships about the dangers of trying to fight back. They raise their flags and the merchants are supposed to go “Oh no it's Captain Dumdedum the bloody. He hangs sailors by the testicles if they try and fight back,” and surrender on the spot.

Like banditry, piracy is one of those occupations that only works if you don't go overboard. If you put too much work in then merchantmen will simply take different routes, or go over land, in order to avoid you. So it actually pays to not be quite so diligent when it comes to being a pirate.

But military ships are the same. They raise their flag to see where they're from, then another flag to say who is commanding the ship and another flag, often, to say who they are currently working for. Are they a customs boat, a warship, are they escorting or carrying someone important. And on and on it goes.

The problem with that is, flags are really easy to counterfeit. All you need is a certain amount of dye, a piece of cloth that is the correct size and then suddenly, anyone can be Captain Dumdedum the bloody.

The risk being that if the original person hears of you using their colours then their can be problems associated with that. Captain Dumdedum is not going to be amused to find out that there is an imposter who runs away from a fight on a regular basis.

So canny ship's captains look at the way a ship is sailed rather than how it is built. And that will tell them who it is at the helm of this ship or that ship. As they get closer, other clues can begin to show themselves. What are the crew wearing. How are they behaving. Can you hear singing. More subtle clues can be found. Is the sail coloured. White, black or the kind of off reddish grey green of normal sail cloth. How clean is the hull. Also, what marine life is following the ship around. Any sign of Dolphins is good. Steer clear of any ship that is trailing a pack of sharks though. Those things are bad news.

So I hope that we can be forgiven for being a little complacent when we saw a line of ships appear in front of us. Lining up so that we would have to sail through the line to make it to land. We saw them, as we got closer we saw that they were of Nilfgaardian manufacture. Closer still we saw that they were using black sails of Nilfgaardian sailors.

I guess no-one has ever told the Nilfgaardians that Black really is not the most welcoming of colour schemes.We even got close enough to see the flags that said that they were Nilfgaardian ships.

They say that sooner or later, things will catch up with you. That if you assume things for too long then your assumptions are going to turn round and kick you in the teeth and this was the day that that happened for me. We assumed that the ships were Nilfgaardian and that therefore, they presented no danger to us.

It was no secret that the Wave-Serpent sailed with the Empress aboard. She had not announced her presence everywhere we went, but likewise, we had made no secret of her leaving with us when we set sail or departed the main hall in our original departure.

And we were no longer hiding from view. We had the information that we needed now and so what is the point of staying out of sight. We needed to get home. We needed to do the things that we needed to do. The approach of the Skeleton Ship had meant that we couldn't make a straight line run for Kaer Trolde. But we could head for the shore with all the speed that our cold and tired limbs could manage.

It is also true that we had left caution behind. I remember being told by the two youngest members of the bastards. Perkins and Pendleton, Flame rest him, that the most dangerous part of being a thief is the moment where you think you are safe. Where you are out of the building, the score under your arm or in your pack and on your way home. Even worse when the score is off-loaded with a fence that you you think you can trust, only it turns out that they mean to betray you.

And that is what happened. We had what we needed. We had fought, bled and confronted our fears and now we were on our way home. Caution forgotten and it was inconceivable that these blatantly Nilfgaardian ships would be enemies. Inconceivable that they might be traitors to the crown.

So we were standing or sitting there, minding our own business, wind blowing in our hair. We were grinning to each other, clapping ourselves on the back and looking forward to everything we were going to do when we got home.

I was stood with Kerrass and Ciri at the front of the ship. Ciri was a little bit cross and was making her mind up to chastise Lord Voorhis when she got back to court. She was turning back into the Empress and her assumption was that Lord Voorhis had sent out the ships to guide her to safety. She had assumed that he would be worried now that the Skeleton Ship was getting closer and that he would send men out, despite the pending danger of the coming ship, to see her home. So she was preparing some kind of speech about how she was a grown woman and didn't need protecting.

Kerrass and I were amusing ourselves at her expense. There is nothing funnier than a beautiful woman who is in a snit with someone else. Especially when she is being unreasonable and knows that she is being unreasonable. We had given up our oars on the grounds that we were pointless anyway and weren't really making that much of a difference.

But then Kerrass stopped dead. Literally mid sentence I think. In the middle of a joke about the furrow that Ciri gets at the top of her nose, between her brows when she is getting annoyed. Fumbling for his shirt he pulled out the hissing face of the Cat. The Witcher's pendant. He held it out and looked at it with a face of dawning horror as it leapt and danced at the end of it's chain.

Then he was spinning, turning frantically towards the helm.

“Turn.” He bellowed. “Turn away.”

“What?” Svein demanded.

“There is a mage on that ship.” Kerrass bellowed, “and he is about to...”

“Fireball.” Perrin had climbed up the figurehead at the beginning of Kerrass' warning. “Fireball and fire-arrows.”

And yet again. Our lives were saved by Helfdan's abilities and knowledge of his ship. He had already thrown his weight into the tiller as Kerrass had begun to shout.

We were lucky. Ships don't turn just because you want them to. It takes work and wind and the strength of oars.

The Fire arrows had been shot before we were in range. Either because they had seen us beginning to turn and didn't want to lose the shot. Or because their commanders were trying to cause the damage as early as possible. The turn meant that those arrows that did reach us were already spent. One caught in Perrin's armour as he jumped off the prow to return to his oar. He pulled it out and slapped at the smouldering fur that he had wrapped himself in without breaking stride.

The Fireball was another story.

“Hold on.” Helfdan called and the fireball struck the Wave-Serpent in the side towards the back of the ship. Not directly but enough to throw us around. I guessed that the fireball must have exploded somewhere in the water nearby. If it had hit us directly, then the damage would have been more serious. As it was, the waves and impact of that explosion of force struck us in the side, sending icy water and lumps of ice over the rail while the Wave-Serpent herself groaned with the impact and jerked about in the water.

So we turned. The skill of Skelligan sailors and a Skelligan captain saved us again. We sailed out of range of their arrows and their magic. The manoeuvre cost us time though and the Skeleton ship had gained precious time on us.

And that was it. We were still alive, still sailing and still fighting fit. But we were beaten. We were already dead and it was all over. All for nothing. It was an abrupt and punishing change of fortunes. We had gone from being men on the very verge of our victory. On the cusp of it and now that had been snatched away in an instant of fear and violence. No-one had been hurt but now... We had been beaten. We had been beaten before we had even found the information that we were looking for. Beaten before we had seen the Vodyanoi.

Because the other thing that is true about naval warfare, which is the same as land warfare only more so, positioning and deployment mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Between life or death.

And we were beaten. That's not to say that we all realised it straight away though. It took me a long time to work out what was happening. It eventually sunk through to me when people started to take turns off the oars. The same as they had when preparing for the battle against the Ice giants. But this time was different. There was a certain amount of despair to what was happening.

The previous time, there had been rage. Excitement and the strange laughter of men who were facing their fear head on. This time was different. Men were grim and quiet. They would walk to the front of the ship and stand, staring out across the ocean that was becoming thicker and more soup like by the moment.

Kerrass really struggled with it. He was stood near Helfdan, all but yelling at the man, pleading with him almost demanding to know what to do. I wandered closer, still in a little bit of a daze. The shock of the entire situation was still seeping into my brain. I felt a bit numb but I wasn't quite there yet. I was more concerned by the old echoes of madness that I could see in Kerrass' eyes and wondered if he might be about to do something stupid.

Svein was there though and steered Kerrass away. Helfdan had simply ignored all of them. He was looking over his shoulder at where the Nilfgaardian ships were, then again at where the Skeleton ship was. His jaw tightened a little but that was the only betrayal of any kind of emotion that I could see on his face.

But I went to help Svein with Kerrass, thinking that I was of more use there. Helfdan didn't need me. I was more of a hindrance to the oars than I would be a benefit at them moment. So I went to help calm Kerrass down.

“We can't give up.” Kerrass was saying to Svein. “Why does it feel like we've given up.”

“It's over lad.” Svein was trying to be soothing. I couldn't get past him to Kerrass, so there was no way that I could tell him that trying to soothe Kerrass when he was in this mood was pointless. He just had to ride it out. “There's nothing that we can do.” Svein told him.

“Why not? Why the fuck not? We still breathe, we still have strength in our arms don't we?” Kerrass demanded.

Svein was tired and his own beginning's of despair were beginning to creep into him now.

“Foolish landsmen thinking that they know everything.” He snarled. “This is not like some land based fight where we can move wherever we want. We're at sea. We're at the mercy of the wind and the waves and there is nothing we can do against that.”

“I don't...” Kerrass does not do well with confusion. He is used to being the master of everything. To know what to do and when to do it and now that the world wasn't obeying his own special laws about how it should behave, he was threatening to come apart. Like him though, I felt helpless to stop it.

“We can't go back.” Svein explained. “By the time we've turned around, the Skeleton Ship will be on us. If we go to the right and try to find shelter on one of those islands to the west of where we are now, possibly Spikeroog or that old abandoned castle. Then that would put the Skeleton Ship directly behind us with the wind at our, and his, backs.”

Apparently, the worst place to have an enemy in a naval battle is to have him behind you. For reasons that he has all the options to attack and can react to whatever you do with ease.

Apparently.

“We are small and fast though.” Kerrass argued.

“But he has more sail.” Svein told him. “Much more sail. If it was any other ship then yes. We would probably do that and we would probably beat him to shore. But that is not any other ship. We might beat him, but we wouldn't beat the ice. Can't you hear it?”

I had no idea what Svein was talking about and Kerrass clearly shared my confusion.

“We are already breaking the ice on the water. The sea is slowly being covered in that same ice. Sooner or later we will stop and be stuck fast. All while the Skeleton Ship comes down on us.

“If we attack the Nilfgaardians. Four ships with fire arrows and a mage. We would be throwing our lives away. It would be brave but foolish and doomed. We would never make it through to land.”

“And if we continue as we are.” Kerrass said. “Then the Skeleton Ship catches us while the Nilfgaardians run to land.”

“Exactly.”

“But we can't do nothing.” Kerrass pleaded. There was panic in his voice and I turned away so I didn't have to see it in his face. A man who has faced down things that would challenge the sanity of lesser people was terrified at the prospect of giving up.

“We're not doing nothing.” Svein snapped. “We will look for an opening. Maybe the Nilfgaardians will run for land. Maybe they will chicken out. Maybe the Skeleton Ship turns aside. It has done so before. We're not giving up. We will fight until the end. But we must also be realistic. Something needs to change for us to survive. If it doesn't...” Svein shrugged.

Kerrass stared into Svein's face for a while before his face twisted in rage and me made a start towards Helfdan. Svein's hand settled on the Witcher's shoulder. “Leave him lad.” Kerrass was told. “He has work to do.”

Kerrass threw the hand off his shoulder and stalked past me to the prow where he just stood and stared into space. I saw his fists clench and he began to tremble.

The clincher for me, the moment of realisation that we were all going to die, was when Thorvald started to pray and I found that there were tears in my eyes. He was standing at the prow of the ship, his seaman's legs spread wide to brace against the slow rolling of the ship and he held out his arms to his sides in the strangely universal attitude of a man communing with his Gods. It's the same kind of posture that the priests of the Eternal Fire and the Priests of Kreve use. The priestesses of Melitele lift their arms up a bit so that their arms are a little bit further up than the absolute horizontal.

But Thorvald was there and he was chanting his prayers quietly. It was another one of those moments. A moment where I found myself wishing that I could paint. Or that I had the skill of a poet so that I could, otherwise, immortalise this image of a man, standing before the sea and praying for the sake of his soul.

And I wept. I wept for several reasons. I wept because it was a beautiful sight, noble and utterly despairing. The kind of sight that you see when you imagine the sights and sounds of a story. The Image goes there with the sight of an Empress being crowned. The Witcher on the hill over the village. The Vampire caught as she laughs.

Now I had a new one to add to that collection. The warrior priest on the prow of his ship.

So I wept for that. I also wept for the feeling that was creeping over the ship. That slow, steady sense of despair and grief. But most of all, I wept because I knew that Thorvald was right. I had no idea what the prayer was that he was saying. It was in a language that was strange to me and I could not understand it. But I could sense the despair of it. The quiet determination of it. But also the resignation.

We were all going to die and Thorvald, the priest of the ship, was praying for us that our passing might be easy. That we would fight it would not be in doubt. But that we would go, that our places would be held for us in the next life and that those left behind would remember us with honour.

So I wept for that.

And I wept because I knew that he was right. I wept because we were going to die. I wept for all that I was going to lose. I wept for all the people that I would not see again. For Emma, Sammy and Mark. My mind avoided what they would all think. I didn't want to imagine how it would hit Mark especially given that he would be joining me in death soon but at the same time, he would have expected to, at least, have his brother next to him on his death bed. I wept for Emma, I rather fancied that my death would hit her quite hard as she would now be left with Sam as her sole remaining brother. A brother who she had little in common with. I regretted that I would not be there to help the pair of them come to terms. I wept for Sam. He would struggle with this. He was going to be the only person left who could carry on the family name now. He would not react to that pressure well.

I wept for my friends that I would never see again. I would never see my friend's children and be able to buy them gifts and spoil them rotten to my friend's dismay. I would not be able to buy the children a drum each and teach them how to hit it with a stick in order to wind their parents up.

I thought of Father Jerome, sitting in his chapel somewhere, probably.... hopefully.... carrying on his torrid affair with the local village witch.

I thought of the Alchmist and her Cartwright husband and whether they were still going to Angral or if they had found employment elsewhere. I thought of the priest and his wife and the other people of that village where I had met the unicorn.

I thought of Lord Voorhis. I rather thought that the two of us would never be friends but that we would at least come to an understanding. I thought about the things that he would do when he realised what had happened.

I thought of Letho and the lessons that he had taught me. I thought of the other Witchers that I had met and I wondered whether they would ever hear how this latest of fates would come over their brother Witcher. The Witcher and his scholar.

I thought about the council that the Empress had assembled and what they would decide regarding the creation of new Witchers.

I wept for the Princess of Angral and wondered whether she would weep when word of our passing would reach her. For a while I imagined her and Marion comforting each other.

I wept for the world that I would never see. The literal world and all the places that I had yet to see and the roads that I had yet to walk down. Also the figurative world, the future that Ciri's reforms would bring forth. The extent of the Coulthard trade and all the good that we would be able to do. At home and in Angral.

I wept for Ariadne. It took me a long time to get there. I had tried to think of her earlier in the whole process but it had been too much in my mind. I would never run my fingers down her cheek and trace the line of her jaw with my fingertips. I would never be able to put my hand on her shoulder, that part of a woman's upper body that always fascinated me, the shoulder where it meets the neck and you can feel the collar bone. Even though many fashions leave that part of a lady bare, it had always struck me as being one of the most intimate parts of a woman's anatomy.

I suppose that my brain just couldn't cope with the idea of anything else and that a neck or a shoulder was as much as I could manage.

I wept because I would never again make her laugh when she wasn't expecting it. I would never make her blush or turn her face away in embarrassment. I would never make her groan at my puns, nor would I hear her gasp with pleasure. I would never meet the children that we had hoped to have.

That was the thought that finally finished me off and I sat with my head in my hands and wept for all that I was going to lose.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up. It was Svein who looked down at me with kind eyes. “Let it go lad.” He said as I tried to hide my face in shame. “There is no shame in tears. You deserve them. We all do. Just let it all go. All we can do now is to decide how we're going to spend our last moments. To think what else we can do to make our deaths have meaning.”

I watched him walk past me, stopping at each man and speak to them for a moment. Kerrass was still stood at the prow, head bowed and even from here I could see that his fists were clenched and that he was trembling with emotion.

I wept a little more but I could feel that the worst was past me now. The emotion had been burned out of me, leaving me with a strange kind of peace that I cannot describe.

I climbed to my feet and went looking for Ciri.

I found her in the middle of the ship. Slumped up against the hull, staring at her hands.

I sat down next to her and kind of copied her pose. Except I'm not as flexible as she is and I have always found sitting with my legs crossed to be incredibly uncomfortable.

“So.” She began.

“So,” I replied when it became obvious that she wasn't going to say anything.

She looked up at me. “I'm not going Freddie. I'm not. I'm staying here with you.”

I could see the tears in her eyes. They weren't quite going to fall just yet. But there was a shine to her gaze that was unmistakable. She just needed me to talk her into it. I suddenly had a flash of sympathy for Lord Voorhis. How often was it his job to talk the Empress into doing something that she knew she had to do but that she didn't want to. I felt myself smiling a little at this thought.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I told her. “You have to go Ciri. You have to. Otherwise, all of this is going to have been for nothing.”

“Fuck that.” She told me. It never ceases to surprise me when the Empress swears like a soldier. “Ciri. I have seen you and gotten to know you more and better over this last.... what.... couple of weeks?”

She nodded.

“.... Than I ever would have thought possible. But it is time to stop now. We don't need Ciri to come and die with us. We need the Empress to make sure that our deaths are not going to be in vain. You can teleport. You can go back to Kaer Trolde and you can spank those Captains when they turn up to report of those losses. You can do all the unpleasant things that the Nilfgaardian Secret Service does to traitors. And then you can smack Finnvald around for deserting us on the beach.”

She had already turned away from me.

“After you've done that...” I carried on. “You can go to the druids and demand access to that fucker.... whatever his name really is. And you can tell them that the druids have been harbouring a man who is either directly responsible, or indirectly responsible for the deaths of every man, woman and child that the Skeleton Ship has ever frozen to death. Then you can advise the Queen on what to do from there.”

I couldn't tell whether the words were going in or not. Or whether Ciri had just chosen to ignore me. Whatever the case may be. I still had the feeling that she wanted, she needed, me to convince her to do this thing. She might fight me but she knew that I was right. Had probably already made the decision and the part of her that wanted to be travelling on the road with a sword on her back and an enemy to fight was warring with the woman that needed to be making a real difference in the world from a courtroom. With fancy silks rather than rough worn leathers.

“Without you, no-one will know that the Ice Giants have changed leadership. Without you, no-one will know of the Yukki-Onna and their increasing influence on the other creatures that came through the rift. Skellige will not know about the change in politics of the Vodyanoi and will be unable to capitalise on that for the benefit of all Skelligans.”

I tried a different tactic.

“Without you, people will assume that these men died because they were foolish. People will assume that Helfdan went too far in his loyalty to the Queen. His determination to be seen as worthy of her will have lead him to taking stupid risks and as a result, he was swallowed up by the Skeleton Ship and his men went with him.

“It will prove that Helfdan with all his strangeness and unorthodox behaviour, is wrong. And that others were wrong to follow someone who thinks and behaves differently to the rest of us. Only the people on this ship know that he would have made it back, having done the impossible, having done things that no Skelligan has had the courage to do for centuries and finally having an answer to how to dismiss the Skeleton Ship. A thing that no-one has managed to think up since the founding of the Skelligan Kingdom.

“All of that will be lost and he will be talked about with a sneer. People will laugh and ridicule his memory and it will be held up as proof that an upstart bastard should never have been given command of a Longship or Lordship over a village. Despite all he has accomplished.”

I tried another tactic.

“We've had a lot of fun on this trip. You and I. As I say, I've gotten to know you now better than I ever had any hope to know you before. You spoke about the two of us becoming like siblings. That you wanted to treat me like a brother because you never had a brother of your own. Only Uncles and parents. That you were desperate for friends. It has been a lot of fun. But now it's time to stop. It's time to go back. It's time to be the Empress again.

“This has been fun. You've had a taste of what the life is like again and you have seen where that sort of thing can lead. Again. But we need you in that court-room. On that throne to make the world a better place. Not just a village or an individual. But a country. An Empire. You can do that. I can't.”

She shifted at that. Just a little.

“I hated those silks.” She said. “The crown is large, heavy and uncomfortable. I never feel more alone, isolated and vulnerable than when I'm sitting on the throne and I can trust no-one. Even my closest advisers have agendas and things that are different from each other. So who am I to trust? I hate that. There is a simplicity to all of this that I have missed. I have missed this so much.”

She wiped the first tear from her cheek. The movement was abrupt and felt a little forced. As though she was frustrated by it. As though she felt that a tear was a sign of weakness, an acknowledgement of it.

“Simple friendship. Where the objective is clear and simple. Where the repercussions of achieving that objective are easily predicted. Where I don't have to look into a man's eyes and try to see what he is thinking.”

“Is there nothing about that other life. The life of an Empress that you miss?”

She laughed. “I miss being able to do things. Power is seductive and I can see why. I see a problem and I can have it dealt with. A report comes in and I can act on it. Bureaucracy moves slowly but Imperial power moves quickly. There is never a sense of a wasted day.”

She shifted in her seated position.

“You remember when we were heading to see the Vodyanoi, there were days where nothing happened. Where we were just sitting in the Wave-Serpent while the ship was sailed. We didn't train, you didn't write, we did nothing.”

“I remember.”

“That never happens when you're the Empress. There is always something going on. There is never a moment where I can't reach out my hand and find something to do. I miss that. I have made it sound worse than it is. I do have friends and I can see mother and father when I wish.”

She laughed, half in amusement and half with bitterness. “Either set of parents, I can see them, or summon them whenever I want.”

She shifted again as she subsided.

“And the ability to have a bath whenever I want, rather than when we can find an inn with a bath or I am offered one. I swear that I have never smelt this bad.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“That will be the seal blubber.”

“And don't I know it.” She giggled with me before gently subsiding. “This is going to bring you down, and I'm sorry for that. But it needs to be said. I miss Francesca. She was a friend and she had no motives beyond being my friend.”

“She was like that.” I put in.

“I know and that was why I loved her. I knew that your parents had sent her to the south to be seen to be sending one of their offspring to court and in an effort to make some contacts in the Imperial court. A mission for which Francesca was ultimately suited for. But she had a talent that I miss. Something that I need in my life that I have lacked since she has gone. She knew when I was disappearing into a mountain of scrolls, edicts, messages, laws, reports and whatever and she knew when to take me hunting. Or when to take me to the practice yards so that I could train or go for a ride or any of the other things that I used to do to take my mind off things. Then she would be the one that would remind me that this or that still needed seeing to back in my study, so I should really stop mucking around and get back to work.

“She was my balance point. She was the one who kept me from going too far from one to the other. It is true that when I was in my silks, then I longed for my old travel boots and sword. But when I am like this I remember all of the luxuries and the things that I could be doing with my time. It was Francesca that gave me the balance in that.”

“You once told me that you didn't love her. Is that still true?”

“I did love her as a friend and a surrogate sister.” She thought about it a bit more. “I might have loved her romantically if I ever got even a hint of a possibility that she would have returned my affections. It is also true that I miss her now, and love her more now that I realise all of the things that she did for me.”

I nodded my acceptance of that. “We often miss things only when they are gone.”

Ciri tugged my arm towards her and hugged it. Resting her head on my shoulder.

“You are right.” She said. “I will go. If only so that I can make sure that whoever is responsible for taking her from us pays the price.”

“Only that?” I prompted.

“No.” She admitted with a sigh. “I have been negligent for too long. I need to be the Empress again.”

“Then goodbye.”

She looked at me strangely. “I'm not going yet.” She told me indignantly. “I will teleport away at the last possible moment. I am still here and I am not going anywhere yet.”

I stared at her for a while. All the arguments that said she should go now were on the tip of my tongue. Arguments about when the last possible moment might be. Who gets to decide when the last possible moment is because my idea, and her idea, are likely to be two different things. Also, what if she is waiting for the last possible moment and something unexpected happens. What if the presence of the Skeleton Ship has altered her powers in some small and imperceptible way and that interference only gets worse the closer it gets.

But I looked at her then and her eyes hardened. I didn't know if it was Ciri the Witcher woman or Ciri the Empress that looked out of those eyes at me, but I knew that neither of them had any intention of moving.I nodded my acceptance of that fact.

“Tell Ariadne that I am sorry.” I told her. “Tell her that I love her. And be her friend for me would you? She will need one.”

“I will Freddie.”

“She will be angry. She will want to tear the world apart looking for the people responsible for all of this...”

“I will beat her to it and she will sit next to me as we watch them executed.”

“She could do with a friend as well.” I told her.

Ciri nodded. This time she didn't brush her tears away.

But now I wanted to go and talk to Kerrass.

He was.... He was not doing well.

I think that I have seen Kerrass at his worst on several occasions. The time involving the Hag and the fleeing from the Cult of the First-Born are two examples that I have written about. This was close to that. Not quite there but it was close to that. He was not incoherent or raving or losing himself to madness. But I rather thought that if the situation continued much further then I would begin to see the first signs of those kinds of problems.

He was stood near the front of the Wave-Serpent. Stood in place, head bowed, staring at nothing with his fists clenched at his sides.

Trembling is the wrong word for it. He wasn't trembling. He was shaking with suppressed emotion. Anger probably, frustration definitely, along with an uncomfortable amount of fear.

As I say, this was not the first time that I had seen Kerrass in this state. Normally, if he feels himself getting to this state, it is normally in the middle of a hunt when he can't quite figure out the puzzle. We've all been there. When we can see the answer to whatever problem that we are facing, approaching us but can't quite see our way through to it. We all, including Kerrass, know that the solution to this situation is to take a good step back from the problem. Take a break. Have an ale, read a book, go for a walk, find a willing sexual partner, look at a different problem. Whatever you need to do to reset your brain so that you can come at the problem from a different angle.

But normally, whenever Kerrass feels himself getting like this, he might go off for a bit and meditate the problem away. Or he will do some form of training with me or whoever is around. Or he will indulge in his love of fermented apple drinks for a night. He's normally really good at spotting the mood approaching and you can often see him realise if you know what you're looking for. He will be sitting or standing, staring into space while his brows slowly draw together and his eyes start to move this way and that.

Then he realises, shakes himself and stalks off to do.... something.

But this time, there was no room for that. He couldn't train. Meditation was impossible and he was becoming upset. I rather thought that there might be something else going on as well as he had gone from being relaxed and active to shaking and upset with remarkable speed. But I couldn't tell what that problem was.

What I did know was that if I walked up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder, or got too close to him for his own sense of personal comfort, then things would go badly for me.

Instead, I walked round him and sat down in his eyeline. There was no way that he would miss my movements, no way that he wouldn't see me. I just needed to provide the distraction, I needed to shake him out of his current line of thought.

As it has before, he saw the movement. It took him a moment to recognise me. It's one of the few times where I can easily read his thoughts and emotions on his face. He recognised me and then he realised what was happening and he shook his head, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Have you tried speaking to Ariadne?” He demanded curtly.

“I have.” I told him. “She is either not answering, or she is in a place where our link does not work.”

He nodded in disappointment. “Just when a Vampiric Sorceress would be most useful too.”

“As I feel I keep saying, she did warn me. Setting things up for over the winter and things.”

“What about Ciri? Why doesn't she teleport back and get help?”

“Because she doesn't want to. She will not. I have already talked to her about that.”

“Then I will talk to her. Apart from anything else she shouldn't be on a ship that is about to be destroyed. And she could send druids or Sorceresses to come and save us.”

I felt a small spark of anger at his dismissal of my own efforts. As though he just assumed that he would succeed with Ciri where I failed. But I squashed it ruthlessly. Kerrass was not thinking clearly and this was not about me.

“And what's she going to do when she gets there Kerrass?” I deliberately kept my voice as calm as possible. “Tell the druids where we are? We're on a ship. We'll have moved. Same difference with the Sorceresses. Also, what Sorceress is going to risk herself when the Skeleton Ship is so close. Even Yennefer will sigh and then sit on Ciri to prevent her from coming back. Ciri can't get a Nilfgaardian Mage to do it because she can't possibly know who else is in on the plot to stop us from making it back. If she managed to convince anyone to set sail to come to our rescue, then the ice flows and the presence of the Skeleton Ship will make rescue impossible.”

“I notice you haven't mentioned why the druids wouldn't help us.”

“That's because the druids are in on it. You can't tell me that the druids don't know who they have in their basement. Even if they don't, which is unlikely, you can bet your swords that there will be some serious questions asked about their integrity, intelligence and the amount of power that they wield in Skelligan society. I don't know where Skelligan law stands on men who have withheld information that could have been used to prevent hundreds, if not thousands of deaths over the centuries since the founding of the Kingdom. But it's not going to be pretty. It's going to be made worse by the fact that you can also bet, quite safely, that the Traditionalists will take the Druid's side on this.

“All of this goes to mean that the instant that Ciri lands in Kaer Trolde, she is going to be surrounded by politics, bureaucracy, arguments and infighting. I doubt that they will get to civil war because even the Traditionalists will blanche at the thought of a man who has lied to save his own skin over the lives of others. But there will be all kinds of things happening that prevent direct action. All the while, we float further and further away, getting colder by the second.”

Kerrass sighed and slumped a little. “You're not wrong are you.”

He came over and sat on the vacant rowers bench near me. He adjusted his swords a little for comfort.

“I don't know what to do Freddie.” He told me after a long while. “I just don't know what to do.” He looked as though he wanted to weep. As though he needed a good catharsis of emotion in some way.

“I thought that nothing could get worse than what we faced when we fled the Cult of the First-Born.” I told him. “That's what this reminds me of. We've got an unstoppable force behind us. We can't go left, we can't go right and if we continue to go straight forward then we're going to be overtaken. But in that instance, everyone was telling me that we could make it. You, Chireadean and Rickard all telling me that we could make it. That we would make it. I sunk into despair but everyone around me was telling me that we would make it. That there was a solution. But this time, everyone seems resigned to death.”

“That's because there was a solution that time Freddie. You couldn't see it and you were close to death, all the way through that chase. You possibly don't understand how sick you were back then. So sick that you are still feeling the repercussions of it now. You cannot tell me that the crossing from Novigrad to Kaer Trolde should have affected you that much. And I am worried about what the cold has done to your strength now.”

I shrugged. I had nothing to say to that.

“Here though....” He continued on. “We have the solution. We know what to do. I've done my job. Back then there was still the riddle of the common-folk ritual to unravel. The curse to undo. Here, I know how to unravel the curse. Our obstacles are simple numbers and in this instance. I am just one sword.”

“A pretty impressive sword though.” I told him with a small attempt at humour.

“You been looking at me in the bath again Freddie?” Luckily for us both, he had caught the humour and was responding.

“Hey, I won't judge.” I told him. “It was fucking cold that day.”

He smirked before sighing. “Yes,” he said. “I am as skilled as anyone. But I feel.... I feel superfluous. This is not my arena. My job was actually really simple here. Really simple. I even knew the answer before we set out, I just needed the confirmation before I acted. But now it all seems as though its over and I just...”He sighed again. “I don't like giving up and it feels as though that's what we're doing. It goes against everything that I believe in. It's almost literally true that it goes against my religion.”

“Are you going to tell me about your Goddess now then Kerrass?” I teased him.

“No.” He told me. “No I'm not. Now is not the right time for that. She would hate this ship and it's crew right now anyway and would refuse to help us.”

“Wow, seems a bit harsh.”

“As I say. Giving up is kind of against my religion. No, I will wait until the ice is thick enough to walk on. Then I will run for it. Ice forms away from land first so that will make life difficult.”

“The Skeleton Ship will catch you.”

“Or I slip and kill myself, running on ice is not easy. Or the Nilfgaardians will shoot me down. It is not in me to give up. You wanna come with me?”

“I don't know. I hope so.”

He peered at me. “Are you alright Freddie. You came over here because you were worried about me but are you alright?”

I felt myself smirk with humour and thought about it.

“Yeah, yeah I think I am.” I told him.

Kerrass fidgeted. “Not gonna lie Freddie, I kind of expected you to be as angry as I am. Fighting all of this off until your last possible breath. Trying to come up with solutions and ways out of it. Desperately trying to come round it. Begging me for new ideas. Or Ciri or Helfdan or anyone. Instead, you seem like them. Except...”

I cut him off by chuckling. “Don't get me wrong Kerrass. There were tears and I....” I felt a lump in my throat. “I can't bear to think about how this is going to affect...” I shook my head and forced my mind to not think of a certain dark haired Vampire. I used the breathing exercises and found my calm. “But at the same time I fell kind of peaceful. I feel relieved.”

“Relieved?”

I sighed and rested my head back against the wooden hull.

“Oh Kerrass, I am so very tired.” I didn't say anything for a while but the silence seemed to suck at me. And like all the people who have answered my questions and Kerrass' questions before, I sought to fill the silence.

“I'm tired of all of it. Of the fighting, of the running but mostly, I'm tired of worrying about it all. When we started out together, all I had to worry about was which of your adventures I was going to write about and compartmentalise. This all used to be about learning what life was like as a Witcher. So when did writing about your adventures turn into writing about our adventures? And if you say that it was when Francesca disappeared I swear that I will tip you over the side into the ice. I can do it too because I'm crafty.”

I thought I heard Kerrass chuckle a little.

“It was before that.” I decided. “I don't know when but at some point I wasn't writing about you anymore, I was writing about us and I'm tired. I'm tired of worrying about my wedding day and worrying about whether or not I'm going to be able to make Ariadne happy. I'm tired of wondering how long things will last before she gets bored of me and moves on. When I will age and she will stay the same, immortal and beautiful. When will I push her away because I do not feel worthy of her. When will I want something normal and human instead of inhuman and anything but normal?”

“I can't answer all of that Freddie,” Kerrass began. “But I know that she loves you and will love you....” He stopped in the face of my waving him off.

“It's not just that. I'm worried about my family. About what will happen to us when Mark is no longer around to help protect us from politics. An unmarried woman and her female, Sorceress lover. In charge of one of, if not the biggest merchant company in the Northern continent. How long will that stand before some, Sansum alike decides to declare a crusade against us. Not just Emma either, against Sam for using the title formerly used by heretics and a scholar who prefers scientific thought to church dogma and is marrying a monster.

“I worry about Sam and Emma and the growing gulf between them. I worry that that gap is only going to get wider when Mark dies and I marry. I already worry that it is so wide now that it will never be bridged.

“I worry about Sam and his growing discontent with life and the things that he feels he has to do in order to proverbially keep his head above water.

“I worry about political enemies of the family and I'm not just worrying about the family. I worry about you. I worry about Princess Dorn and what's going to happen to her and I'm not talking about the fact that the two of you love each other. Don't deny it Kerrass I know you too well for that. For the record, you are not wrong in your points but neither is she and all you are doing is hurting each other.

“But I'm so....so very tired of worrying about Francesca. About what happened that night in Toussaint and why she was taken, or why she went. I'm so sick of it. I hate myself for not saving her, I hate myself for not finding her and I hate myself for not being able to avenge her. I feel as though I have given up. As though I'm going through the motions in that search and I hate that part of me that just wants to give up and head for home. And I am tired of hating myself for that as well.”

I ran out of words then as I stared up at the sky.

“It's all like this big weight that I feel as though I have to carry around with me, every single minute of every single day and I am so very sick of it. It doesn't even feel as though that's any kind of exhaustive list. So now. Now that there is an ending in sight I feel....”

I shook my head.

“It is not the ending that I would have chosen. Nor will it be a pleasant ending and that ending represents failure. But I find that I am relieved that in an hour, maybe two or at most three hours. Certainly by the end of the day. It's all going to be over. I will be dead and I won't have to worry about any of that ever again.”

I looked at him and I thought I could sense the sadness behind those yellow cat's eyes.

“I don't want to die.” I told him. “But I find that I am quite looking forward to not having to live anymore.”

He stared at me.

“I'm so sorry Freddie.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Me too.”

The two of us sat there in silence for a long time.

It was peaceful. The rhythm of the oars dipping into the water, the sounds of the splashing as those oars broke the surface, the slowly deepening cracking sounds of the ice breaking in front of us, along with the gentle rocking of the boat. That was the thing. It was peaceful. I even checked to make sure that I was warm enough on the grounds that one of the things that I had been warned about freezing to death was that it can feel warm and peaceful. But as Kerrass and I sat there, I could feel a bubble forming.

A bubble of warmth and peace that I was reluctant to break. I've tried to talk about this effect with other people and the uncomfortable truth of the matter is that not many people have a common frame of reference.

I've had the same feeling in the Spring and Autumn on the road with Kerrass. Often, it happens when there has been some form of exertion recently, either the culmination of one of Kerrass' hunts or after some significant training or whatever and there comes a moment. The wind might be howling, it might be raining and we're huddling in a cave, under a tarpaulin or just in some dubious shelter from whatever trees that we might have been able to find. My limbs will be aching, not unpleasantly, I might have just eaten and despite the cold and the wet all around me, I find that I am quite warm. I draw myself into a ball, cloak wrapped round myself and I feel a sense of peace settle around me.

The trees might be shaking in the storm, or it might be a calm night where I can sit there and look at the storm. I might be outside while waiting for Kerrass to perform some form of business with the village and I'm sat on a nearby bench, taking care of the horses when this feeling of peace washes over me.

But most commonly, it happens first thing in the morning while I'm wrapped in a blanket and I'm waiting for the world to wake up with me. Or last thing at night, putting off getting up and going to my bedroll that little bit longer. Just a little bit more time awake. Just a little more.

That was the feeling that washed over me.

More words to try and say what it feels like. I have felt the same thing while in certain places of worship. In churches, smelling the burning wax of the candles or the burning oil. Some monks might be singing softly somewhere. You don't even have to be a follower of that particular religion to feel it. I have felt the same in Temples of Kreve, Melitele and in Druid's Groves. Nor does it matter how large the place of worship is. I have felt that same peace in my family's chapel and the cathedral in Novigrad.

And, as always, the same on the Wave-Serpent as well as in the chapel at home. One of the reasons that this feeling is so special is because I know that it will come to an end. Sooner or later, the world will intrude back on me. I will have to get up, do some chores, go to sleep ready for the journey in the morning. Sooner or later, I must return to the real world with everything that that implies and then.....

and then....

It was going to get colder. Before too much longer there would be pain, and then there would be death and there was not a thing that I could do to stop it.

But for the moment, I was warm, comfortable and with my best friend in the entire world and it struck me that life could be a lot worse than it was right now.

One of the interesting things about that sense of peace though, is that you find that you resent any kind of interruption. I have spoken about this sense of peace with several people, Kerrass didn't have any kind of frame of reference for it. But Ariadne once told me that there is a name for it that didn't translate very well to common language from the original Elder Vampire. It's that state of being that exists when you have no other input. When your mind is focused on nothing at all and you exist entirely in the moment.

For her, she claims, that she finds that state of being in her laboratory, when she is just in the process of finishing an experiment or has done a long series of very precise movements. As part of her training, remembering that she was largely self-taught in the laboratory form of magic, she had to learn to achieve that state of mind at will so as to avoid distraction from whatever it was that she was working on.

Sir Rickard claims that he hits that state after a battle, although for him, it is not a pleasant experience. He suggested that it's the mind's slow process of realising that it is alive. Where it is overwhelmed by other things, the noise, the fear, the anger and then all of that is purged from the system in some way. Often through tears or by getting drunk or whatever. Then there comes a moment when you are just sat, processing the fact that you are alive.

That seemed a bit grand for me. I prefer Mark's assertion that it is a state of “Brain resting.” Where the mind is just resting after a particularly stressful time. Or when the brain has been working particularly hard and then it just wants to settle down and take some time to process everything.

What everyone agrees on though, is that when someone comes in to interrupt that state of being, that person becomes the enemy.

Which is why, when Helfdan called Ciri to the back of the ship. For just the briefest of moments, I hated him for that.

I remember blinking, sitting up and scowling for a moment as Ciri went to the tiller, her face a picture of confusion.

For all this time, since we had turned away from a head on confrontation with the Nilfgaardian ships, Helfdan had been at the tiller. He had been alternating his gaze between several points. The Skeleton Ship behind us, the Nilfgaadian sails to our left, our own sails and occasional glances over the side. All of these things were not unusual in Helfdan's body-language. They made sense. Our two greatest threats and the things that he needed to keep an eye on with regards to steering the ship.

But there were differences to his attitude now. Just small things. I had spent a long time aboard the Wave-Serpent now and one of the few things to do aboard ship was to watch Helfdan sail. And there was something different about what was happening now. He was straining at the tiller. It was not unusual to see him having to fight the tiller to push it or pull it one way or another. It has possibly not been mentioned that Helfdan is actually really strong given that he spends his days working against the sea.

But I had not seen him with these regular grimaces of physical strain on his face. He would also, occasionally, just let go of the tiller. Just for a few seconds before he would catch hold of it again. He would run his hands up and down the wood and his lips were moving as he did so.

Then Kerrass and I were startled from our thoughts by his voice calling out.

“Swallow, could you join me at the tiller please?”

Ciri hauled herself to her feet and trudged towards the back of the ship as I watched, trying to shake off the sullen anger that I was feeling. I had been enjoying my moment of peace and now the feeling was ruined. I know myself well enough to say that I was not going to recover that feeling easily.

Ciri and Helfdan spoke for a little while before Ciri took the tiller at Helfdan's insistence. Helfdan pointed the heading that he needed Ciri to steer for and she nodded, leaning into the tiller while Helfdan walked slowly towards the front of the ship. His head was bowed, his brow furrowed in thought. Then he looked up, again at the Nilfgaardian ships and his face seemed to tighten a little. Then he turned to look over to the South East of our position.

We were moving past a large bay in the formation of Ard Skellig. The shoreline takes a sharp turning to the east before coming south and then moving back out in the form of a large spur of land with a lighthouse on top. The Nilfgaardians had kept between us and the bay though as that might have been a way through if we could have made land but the Captain of the Nilfgaardian Ships knew his stuff and kept his ships between us and the bay.

Helfdan moved towards the front of the ship and stepped up to the Figurehead where he rested his hand on the figurehead and looked out to see.

Skelligans like to put monstrous shapes on the prow of their ships. I couldn't tell you why. Continental ships like to use female shapes..... Exaggerated female shapes. This is because, according to superstition, the appearance of a naked woman can calm a stormy sea.

Skelligans though put the heads of monsters on the prows of their ships. Often dragons or serpents of some kind. I had seen a carved likeness of a troll's head when we had made harbour in Kaer Trolde. The Wave-Serpent though, had a stylised likeness of a siryn. The artistry in the carving was really quite extraordinary in that it still held it's shape after the years at sea. I had checked with Svein once and he told me that the figurehead had never been replaced as long as he had been on the crew but you could still pick out the sharp teeth and the snarling face of the, again, undeniably female shape of the serpent.

Helfdan rested his hand on the wooden carving and bowed his head for a long moment. He looked like a man at prayer and for all I know he was.

Then he straightened his head and walked back to stand in front of us all.

“Listen to me.” he said simply. “All of you, yes, even you Witcher and you Scribbler. Leave the rowing, the wind will carry us where we want to go for a bit longer.”

We all shuffled into place like children before a priest or tutor.

Helfdan took a deep breath. He was obviously uncomfortable.

“I'm sorry.” He began. “I sometimes wish that I was one of those Lords that could express himself better. Sometimes, not always, not even that often. But sometimes I wish I could speak to you all a little easier.

“I know that you all have preparations that you want to make, whether that is to clean your weapons and armour, get the scribbler to write messages to loved ones or.... whatever.”

He stopped for a long moment, his head bowed.

“But I think.... I feel as though I owe you all an explanation.”

He was not a good public speaker. He knew that too which seemed to make it a little more awkward.

“I.... ummmm..... I'm going to fight.” His voice tightened towards the end. When he got to the statement his eyes tightened and I saw some fire there. A ripple ran through the crew.

“Don't get me wrong.” Helfdan warned. “There is little, to no hope. We should not delude ourselves in what we are doing here. This will be our final voyage and if any of us survive, not only will it be some kind of miraculous feat of luck, then our lives will not be the same afterwards.”

There was some scattered nodding.

“But I refuse. I. Will. Not. Go out with out a fight.”

“As I say though, I feel as though I owe you an explanation. No, no.” He held his hands up to forestall those men who were opening their mouths to offer denials that Helfdan could possibly owe us anything. “This is not about duty or who owes fealty or loyalty to whom. I am the captain here and this is how I am choosing how I, and therefore how we, will die.

“Why this way and not continuing South, trying to play stare down the Nilfgaardians as to when they will turn for port. Continuing the balance between the ice that chases us and the ships that keep pace with us. Why do I not turn West, towards Spikeroog. Towards cold and an uncertain welcome. Why do I choose this way for us all to die?

“I want you to know. I want you to understand so that when you are carried to your place at the table you will be able to tell those around you why your lord chose this way.”

We listened. There was nothing much else to do but we were drawn in despite ourselves.

“There are two reasons as to why we are doing it this way. Two reasons. The first reason is that I hate those Nilfgaardians and I will tell you why.

“It's because they're laughing at us. Even now, they're pointing and laughing at us. Laughing at me. Laughing at you. I can hear them. All's well with them eh? Nice warm food on their hot stoves and the knowledge that they can drive their ships onto the shores and head off to safety while better men and women freeze.

“They laugh at you. Stupid fucking Skelligans following a bastard to sea. A bastard with no nobility in his veins, no wife and no children. How stupid can you be to follow so ill-omened a Captain as that? They laugh at the Scribbler. Why did he go to sea? Why did he choose that Captain out of all of the Captains that he could have chosen. Why that ship? Stupid fucking spoiled Northern Lord, brother to a heathen woman. What does he fucking know. Deserve what's coming to him doesn't he. Stupid bastard.

“They are probably even laughing at the Swallow, those who know who she is anyway. Stupid fucking bitch. Why couldn't she keep her nose out. What's she doing in this sun forsaken place, running around with her sword on her back rather than being at home where she's supposed to be running the Empire. How dare she interfere in honest workings of Merchantmen? Fucking Cunt.

“They laugh at the Witcher. Because everyone laughs at a Witcher if they think that they can get away with it. Why did he throw his lot in with so stupid a crew? You know what they say about Cats. Crazy bastards the lot of them.

“And they laugh at me. A Captain who rushes out in an effort to try and find a mission, to achieve the impossible so that he can be noticed by a Queen who will never love him. Because he's strange and weird and doesn't think like anyone else ever does. Stupid foolish man.”

His voice cracked at that last.

“So they laugh at us. All's well with them isn't it? Can you hear them? I can hear them. And I'm not standing for that. I'm going to take their laughter and I'm going to jam it down their throats. I'm going to push it down and push it down until they choke on it. Even as I die I'm going to choke them on that laughter.”

There was a brief silence as we absorbed the depths of Helfdan's rage.

It was Kunnr who broke the silence. He had been silent since the Ice giants. A morose solitary figure who did not speak. He stood and went over to pull his pack out of the pile, he produced his armour and started to put it on, a grim expression on his face. “Bastards.” He said aloud so that we could all hear him. “They are laughing.”

The crew snarled. It was as though she ship itself gave a growl of anger and hate.

Helfdan looked over his shoulder, looking at or looking for something that none of the rest of us could see before slowly turning back and there was a tear in his eye then. The rest of his face didn't move, it was still a mask that seemed a little off-putting.

“That might not have been enough.” He said after a while. “It very nearly wasn't. I very nearly decided that we were going to continue to sail South as best we can. I meant to die at the tiller of the Wave-Serpent, holding onto her in the same way that a man would want to hold the hand of a lover, or hold on to his weapon at the moment of death so that those things that were most dear to him might be carried with him as he travels on to Valhalla or wherever death takes us.

“I very nearly decided that. I don't want to stop. I never want to stop sailing. I never want to stop.” He took a deep and shuddering breath. “But there is something else at work here. Something that I did not expect.

“We call our ships “she”, we refer to them as women. Sailors make jokes telling ourselves that our mistresses are the sea, although we leave our wives at the shore, our true loves are the sea. That is true. I love the sea, even when it wants me to die screaming in torment. But my mother? My mother is the Wave-Serpent.

“Some men prefer to think of the ships that they sail on to be young, lithe, beautiful women but the Wave-Serpent was old when I was but a child and I have never been able to think about her as that. So instead, I have thought of her as my mother. She has kept me warm on cold nights. Kept me safe in the face of storms and has kept me company in the dead of calm. It is no lie, or exaggeration to say that she speaks to me. My earliest lessons on how to sail was about how to listen to the ship that I sailed. About how, if I listen carefully, she will tell me everything that I need to know. She will tell me when she is hurt, tell me when she needs help and she will tell me when she is happy.

“You have to know what you are listening for. It's in the shudder of the tiller, the creak of the rope and the gentle stretching and movements of the wood. The sails flapping and the dull echo of the waves against the hull. These things are more eloquent to me than the moans of one or two lovers that I could name.

“So we were sailing south, I absolutely intended to keep on sailing until death came for me or until I saw a way to salvage the situation but then something seemed to happen. It was as though the ship itself was fighting me. The Wave-Serpent was unhappy with going south. Nor does she want to turn so that the wind fills her sails. I've been fighting at the tiller since this whole thing started and the Witcher warned us about the mage with the Black ones.

“The only time that the Wave-Serpent has been happy is when we have been sailing towards the ships.”He walked back to the figurehead and gaze on that monstrous feminine shape with an expression that was hard to see.

“The Wave-Serpent wants to fight. I can feel it in her. I can feel it in her decks, I can see it in her ropes and in the sail. She wants to fight. She is done with all of this and she wants to show what she can do. She wants to throw this back into the faces of our enemies.

“Sailing requires love. We have to love our ships so that we can be attuned to everything that happens on our ships. Well that love has been reciprocated and now that our ship wants to fight, wants to die in battle rather than to be take ashore to rot, or to be trapped and crushed to death in the ice. Then who am I to say no to her. We will fight and the Wave-Serpent shall have her battle.”

We nodded. There was a raw emotion on Helfdan's face now. Something that he didn't really seem to have that often and it seemed as though we were intruding on something private. Then I blinked and he was back to being Helfdan again.

“So here's what's going to happen. In a short while, we will see the lighthouse to the south. That will lead into a line of cliffs and rocky protrusions. I am angling our line so that we will be a little closer to the shore when that spur of rock starts to come out of the sea. When we pass it, the Black ones will keep their ships between us and the shore. But we know those waters, and they do not.”

His face turned savage for a moment,

“Thus, the sea and the shore become our allies. Then I mean to turn us towards the shore and send us in with all of our speed and strength. I mean to hurl us, like a spear and be damned to anyone that gets in our way. Do not shout. Do not roar your approval. We will need that when it comes down to it. In the mean time. Everything goes over the side. If it's not a weapon or useful in getting us to shore then we don't need it. Speed is the only thing that is going to get us close enough to be able to swing a blow. But do it gently. No splashes in the water for the Black Ones to see or hear. Lower the things into the water. Let them slip beneath the waves and keep your helms off until the last minute. No signs as to what we intend.”

The men growled their assent.

“Witcher? Scribbler? Join me at the tiller.”

Svein took charge, ordering people around, directing them into which areas he wanted them to move. I saw food being eaten, water being drunk and other things being passed around as I moved towards the back.

The Skeleton Ship was closer now and I could feel my own fear threatening to close my throat in a panic. It was an effort wrench my gaze away from that awful black mass.

In the meantime, Helfdan had taken back the tiller.

“It would be a mistake.” He told the three of us, Ciri, Kerrass and myself. “To give in to hope. There is no hope here. We are going to die. But if any are going to live then we need to use every advantage we have. Swallow?”

“Yes,” Ciri had been staring at the deck but she raised her gaze to meet Helfdan. Then she flinched a little and I realised that he was looking her in the eye.

“You should go.” Helfdan told her. “Very soon now, there will be death and fire and pain and you should not be here for that. The wind can blow arrows into the strangest areas and you cannot be lost. If you die, the truth of what happened here and what has happened since we left port will be lost. I must demand that you leave.”

“Demand Helfy?” She said a little mockingly with a certain amount of edge in her voice. “Since when have your demands ever worked on me?”

“Never,” he smirked. “They never have. But if you are staying, then you are under my command.”

“I am.” Her face softened.

“I am grateful.” He told her before a violent spasm shook him. “I am grateful Ciri.” He said through gritted teeth as the spasm passed. “Grateful that I got to make peace with you, at least you. You have grown, I think, since I knew you. You could hardly avoid it given all that you have been through, but there it is.”

“As have you. Helfdan.” There was a tear in her eye.

Helfdan nodded and looked away for a moment, I guessed he was uncomfortable with the emotion.

“So,” he said eventually. “You can teleport.” It was as rhetorical a question as I have ever heard.

“I can.”

“How far?”

“Just myself, pretty far. But I'm not going just yet.”

“Can you take other people with you?”

Ciri considered this.

“I have tried before. I would say that I could only do it over short distances accurately. I have tried twice. The second time resulted in injury. Severe injury.”

Helfdan nodded.

“We need to neutralise that mage.” He said. “We will all die. But no-one ever achieved anything planning to lose. So if we're going to get to shore, we cannot have the mage still alive. If he, or she, is then they can pick us off on the coast. As we will struggle to make it ashore and then struggle to make it to safety. They could gate twenty armed men to our position who would have little difficulty picking us off.”“That means a boarding party.” Kerrass was grinning, enjoying the image.

“Yes. A boarding party of the three of you. I propose to sail as close as I can to the mages ship and then when you get close enough, you can jump aboard. Ramming will be pointless as we will not have the speed or the weight to do much damage with only six ranks of oars.”

“I have to say this,” I spoke up. “But three of us against a ship's compliment. Not good odds.”

“As I say,” Helfdan gave his subdued smile to me. “We are all going to die here. Do not assume otherwise. I can only order Ciri,” he shuddered again. “to leave when all is lost. But that's on her head.”

“They will not expect to be attacked.” Ciri said. “They are merchantmen, interested in profit, not serving out of duty or love.”

“Come on Freddie.” Kerrass told me. “It will be fun.” He turned back to Helfdan. “Which ship is the mage's ship.”

“That one.” Helfdan pointed without looking. “The richest looking one. No mage would sail on anything smaller.”

Kerrass nodded. “I will make some preparations.”

“I have some more orders for you Witcher.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I would like to know more about the Heliotrope sign.”

Kerrass shifted uncomfortably. For those readers that might be new to these accounts, Kerrass is not fond of the Heliotrope sign. Nor is it one of the more famous of the signs but it is often held up as the example that says that we actually know relatively little about Witchers.

For example. When someone claims that there are only five signs that the Witcher uses, people like me tend to clear their throats and say “But what about the Heliotrope sign?”

Then we get glared at. It's one of the reasons that I never get invited to any of the really interesting parties.

It's designed to block magical attacks in the same way that the Yrdn sign puts up a shield that blocks physical attacks. The major difference between the two, is that the Yrdn sign can be cast upon the self whereas the Heliotrope sign needs to be cast at the incoming spell itself in order to divert, dispel or otherwise soften the blow received.

Kerrass doesn't like it though. He argues that a Witcher that has to resort to the Heliotrope sign should have realised that they were out of their depth some time beforehand and already taken to their heels in order to demand more money, decline the contract or make alternative arrangements for dealing with the creature or person in question. He also argues that there is nothing that the Heliotrope sign can do that can't also be covered by stealth or being fast with a blade.

So it was not a surprise to me that he was uncomfortable with the question.

“What would you like to know?” He asked after an awkward moment.

Helfdan craned his neck a little to stare over Kerrass' shoulder and made a gesture to Svein. The men were gradually lowering things into the water which meant that the speed of the ship was picking up and so Svein walked among the men telling them to ease up on the rowing a little so as to keep our speed constant. I suppose that there was also some wisdom in conserving our strength.

“The Heliotrope sign is designed to parry spells, in the same way that a blade might parry a blow. Is that correct?”

“It is, as far as it goes.”

“I see. I suppose that you want to follow up with some kind of comment that says that it's actually much more complicated than that.”

“You would be right.” Kerrass' slight smile was answered in Helfdan's face despite the lack of eye contact. Helfdan was watching the Nilfgaardian ships. It seemed that he had stopped caring about where the Skeleton Ship was. I wish I could do the same but it seemed to draw the eye. It was mesmerising in the terror that it generated.

“So my question, Witcher, is this. Could you use the Heliotrope sign in order to parry spells that are not necessarily aimed at yourself?”

Kerrass made a considering head nod as his eyes went vacant in thought.

“I've never tried it and it's not something that's ever come up. Being a Witcher is a solitary life. You want to put me on the prow and fend off fireballs don't you?”

“Yes.” Helfdan said simply.

“I would need to see the spell coming and I will need to concentrate. I will be unable to protect myself from arrows as they come in.”

“Freddie can crouch in front of you with Ursa's shield.”

“Can I?” I heard myself wonder.

Kerrass nodded before shrugging. “I have never heard about it being done. But I will try.”

“Good. Because we might survive one fireball but we won't survive another. And I have no idea what we will do if the mage gets creative.”

“No pressure then.” Kerrass smirked.

“Oh no,” Helfdan frowned in a little confusion. “There is a lot of pressure.”

“Figure of speech Helfy.” Ciri told him putting her hand on his shoulder.

He flinched. Either at the gesture or at the nickname that I guessed was from their childhood. He recovered quickly though. “Could I ask that you call me Helfdan?” He told her, shifting away from her hand. “That name has more than a few... unpleasant memories attached to it and I need to think clearly.”

“That's ok.” She said, carefully removing her hand. “And if it helps.... I have no objection to being called “Swallow” until this is all over.” Then she grinned suddenly. “I have had much worse nicknames after all.”

Helfdan said nothing, staring at her collarbone if I tracked his line of sight properly. Then he swallowed and nodded. “Very well.” If the three of you position yourself to the front of the Wave-Serpent and make your preparations for removing that mage from the fight. I would prefer him, or her, alive so that I can show the world what happens when sailors rely on magic to make up for their other weaknesses. I would also like a figure of vengeance for all the men of mine that are about to be killed. I will get you as close as I can but the chances are that you will have to jump and climb. If we try to ram, we are likely to bounce off and we would then be dead in the water. Speed. We need all the speed that we can get.”

We nodded. Kerrass moved off muttering something about “Preparations to make” which was Kerrass speak for saying that he had an ungodly amount of potions to drink. Ciri went with him.

“You really don't think that this is going to go well?” I asked him. “You really think that there is no hope.”

He turned his head to look at me without meeting my eyes. “There is no hope Scribbler. None at all. It will be a mistake to rely on hope and I would be lying if I tried to give my people any. It is possible, even likely that the mage's first spell will split the Wave-Serpent in two, sending us all into the water where we will freeze to death before we have time to drown. If we fight with hope in our hearts then we will hesitate, we will strive for survival and hesitate when we should go forward. If any of us are lucky enough to make it to shore. It's going to be grit, drive and sheer bloody-mindedness that gets us there.”

He gave one of those rare movements, where his eyes lifted to mine before his eyes sank again. “But it would be a mistake to assume that we will be among those people that are going to make it.”

I nodded. There didn't seem to be that much more to say after that.

I found Kerrass and Ciri in the bowls of the ship. They had Kerrass' Alchemy kit laid out onto the benches and were mixing things, Ciri heating a small glass phial over a rock that Kerrass had heated up with a gesture. Kerrass had his bandolier of glass tubing out and was pouring liquids and measuring things out. I felt out of place there as there was nothing I could do to help. I would just be in the way and that would be aaggravating to them and I would feel guilty.

So instead, I did something that I felt was important. I went round each of the surviving men and made a point of shaking them by the hand and thanking them for coming with me. They made faces, cracked jokes and told me that “of course they had come with me. What kind of men would they be if they had not?”

But I answered them by saying that they would have been ordinary men and I was grateful that they were anything but ordinary. I like to think that those words struck home with more than one or two of them. So that they would remember that at least one Northern Lord knew and understood quality when he saw it. Even if I was not going to survive. And I felt as though I owed them that, at least, thanks would be the least I could offer. Then another thought occurred to me and I gathered paper and charcoal so that I could record any messages that they might have for friends, family and loved ones.

I also wrote a note for Ariadne, Emma, Sam and Mark. Then I put all of them into one of the remaining Satchels and secularly tied it to Ciri's belt, making her promise faithfully that she would get those messages out. Ciri tried to protest and told me that I could get those messages out myself. But I remembered what Helfdan said and I held her to it.

Then I put my armour on, kept my spear next to me and sat on an empty bench with my hand over the thing that Ariadne and I now use to communicate with each other.

She wasn't there. The truth was that I hadn't expected her to be there but it was a comfort to do so. As I did, I tried to push what I was thinking out to her. What I was thinking and feeling and seeing. Skellige is a beautiful place. Especially when the cold of the Skeleton Ship has brought the ice and the snow with it. If I could just block out the sounds of the ice bouncing off the hull I could honestly believe that I was on a kind of holiday.

The beauty of Skellige is a kind of remote, stark beauty. You can travel for miles and miles and not see another living person or, more importantly, you won't see any sign of human habitation. No flocks of sheep or herds of cows. No fences or plumes of smoke. Just islands, trees, bushes, undergrowth and.... well.... wilderness. It made me feel small and alone as I looked out over the increasingly freezing water. It was not an unpleasant feeling by any stretch. I just wished that I could share it with Ariadne really.

The word passed carefully from Helfdan at the back of the ship on down the rest of us. Men carefully put their armour on and propped their weapons next to them. Helmets resting on the benches next to them so that the weak sunlight couldn't reflect off any metal surfaces and give away what was happening to the watching Nilfgaardians. Svein was having to work really hard in order to keep everyone calm and to prevent the ship leaping forward to the attack with the enthusiasm and hunger that the men felt.

I was passed Ursa's shield, a giant heavy thing. I was reassured that all I would need to do is to crouch behind it, propping it up from behind the rail so that Kerrass could stand and, hopefully, deflect the spells. Ciri came with us ready for our, probably, suicidal leap onto the enemy ship.

Then that was it. All there was left to do was to wait for Helfdan to give the order.

We sat in silence for a while, waiting for things to happen. Which they refused to do of course. So we had a small chat about a plan. The idea was going to be that Kerrass would climb up first, followed by Ciri. We then reasoned that the enemy would see that we were being attacked and counter our attack with a charge of their own. The urge of soldiers and fighters is to run towards the fight after all. Even if these people were merchantmen. This would give Ciri the opportunity to look at the mage and teleport to where he or she was standing at the back of the ship in order to take them out of commission.

I was left with the feeling that the plan was a little pointless. That in the heat of the moment, the plan was probably going to turn out to be superfluous and that we would end up improvising anyway. But it gave us something to think about while we waited for Helfdan to make his turn and attack.

It seemed to come with agonising slowness. Which was the last emotion that I remember feeling during this whole horrible affair while we waited for Helfdan to decide that the time was right. When we had been heading back to Kaer Trolde, I had felt elation that the job was done and that I would soon be warm and dry. I can also admit that I felt more than a little bit of pride.

No fuck that. I am supposed to be recording what I was feeling and thinking at the time without bias. So I should say what was happening without trying to distort people's view of me.

I was fucking proud. I was so proud that my head felt as though it was going to explode. Kerrass and Freddie. Once again lifting the unliftable curse. With an Empress on one side and one of the strangest men I've ever known on the other. That crew of men and I had done the thing that people had been saying was impossible for centuries, since the foundation of the country of Skellige people have tried to destroy or otherwise get rid of the Skeleton Ship. And we had done it. Kerrass' wits and training. Ciri's knowledge of the islands and the sheer strength of the men of the Wave-Serpent. We had done it. Our names were going to be names of legend and I was looking forward to being there when our victory was declared in open court before the hard and beautiful Queen of Skellige and the skeptical men of the islands.

I had allowed flights of fancy to take hold of my imagination. I had allowed the thought that this action might give Helfdan the courage and the fame to be able to declare his love for that great lady so that they might be together and to share each other's burdens. I had looked forward to Ciri being able to return to the fire and the energy that I had seen when she was first crowned and that she had since lost. I had looked forward to standing before Dreng and those sailors that had thought less of me because I was a scholar and an Outlander. I was going to stand there and throw my victory in their faces and tell them that I was the better man.

I was aware that most of that was nonsense and just the flights of fancy. But sometimes, it is no bad thing to let the imagination flow like that.

Then had come the treachery and the slow realisation of pending doom. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to live so badly that I struggled against it. I fought and I fought against the inevitable conclusion until the tears of pain, anger and frustration had run down my cheeks. My heart had ached with the beauty of the world and I loved it all. I loved the white snow drifts on the distant, rocky mountains. I had loved the gentle sound of water against the hull along with the dull thump of ice bouncing away. I had even loved the pain that came with the sucking down of cold air and my lungs complaining about that cold. I had loved it all and I had refused to give up on that. I wanted to feel all of it and I never wanted to stop. Ever.

Then the tears stopped and the panic left me. Then came a time of calm and quiet where I began to accept what was happening to me as I waited for the inevitable to happen. I spent my time in thought for a while before I went and tried to talk to a fractious Empress and an Angry Witcher. I was calm. I still loved the world around me and didn't want to leave it for one moment. I wanted to stay but at the same time, the slow creeping realisation that maybe death wouldn't be so bad after all. For all the good things that happen to the living, there was a lot that was bad and unpleasant. And I found that I was alright with that. That I looked forward to it even. The final adventure of the Scholar and the learner. Finding out what happens next is the ultimate adventure after all.

But then, Helfdan spoke. There was a brief flare of hope that he, and I, ruthlessly squashed lest it over come me and render me useless. It would seem that he was determined to give our deaths meaning in some way.

Even if that meaning was that we would take a few Nilfgaardians with us. I, like many on the ship, distracted myself with preparations for a while but then came the waiting. And I found another longing. Not the longing to live which, in all fairness, I might have expected. This was a longing for it to be over. I wanted us to turn now. To get it over with. I was absolutely determined to fight as hard as I could but at the same time, I wanted to be done with this now. I was sick of it.

I dreaded the coming blood, pain and noise and I just wanted it to be over. I longed for Helfdan to nod to Svein before he threw his weight into the tiller and the oars would start as the sail came down and we would be powered forwards by the strength of the men. I longed for it. I wanted it so badly that I could almost taste it on the tip of my tongue. Like a pressure behind my eyes.

“What would happen?” Kerrass wondered aloud to Ciri after a long period of silence. The syllables were elongated a little and separated out, betraying that he had already taken a number of potions and his speech was being affected. “If you just teleported over there, pointed out that you were the Empress and ordered them to let us through?”

Ciri chuckled in response. “Come on Kitten.” She told him, white teeth shining in her grimy, filthy face and greasy hair. “Do I really look like the Empress?”

We chuckled together. A chuckle turned into laughter and Ciri hugged me. Then she reached out and pulled Kerrass into the hug. We crouched there together for a long moment.

“Thank you.” Ciri said. “Thank you both. I am more grateful than I can say.”

We hugged her back. What else was there to be said?

(A/N: Sorry, not sorry about the cliffhanger. I very rarely make artistic choices about cutting off chapters. Mostly I do it when it seems like the right time to do it. But this time, I thought that the introspection of what happens here would jar with what is going to happen next.As always. Thank you for reading)