(Warning: Described scenes of someone being eaten alive by animals. Also of someone being burned to death. Both recounted by a person as memory.)

It is quite something else to actually be hunting a monster, to reading about it in the textbooks.

To actually be there, among the people that have lived with it, worked around it, survived encounters with it and pray, on a daily basis to whichever God they worship, that they will be delivered from the clutches of the beast that Kerrass is being paid to hunt.

It is quite different, reading about the thing in the halls of Oxenfurt university, well lit, smelling faintly of unwashed bodies and tobacco smoke, safe from monsters and harm. Or reading about it in the cozy surrounds of Corvo Bianco, the weight of a good meal in your belly and the gentle buzz of fine wines and laughter at the anecdotes of friends.

It is quite different when you are sat around a campfire, faces flickering in the firelight as someone who you like, or dislike, tells you stories that chill your soul down to the bone. Where the musical accompaniment of creaking branches, wittering horses, and the occasional cry of some distant wildfowl serves only to make you jump in concern.

It is quite different.

It took me a few days to start to mesh in with the group. Henrik was a friendly, genial older man. He had no idea who I was, but he was dimly aware that I was some kind of nobleman. Despite his apparent friendliness, he took care to make sure that he was always sat between myself and his daughter and if, by the accident of traveling and making camp, I found myself riding next to his daughter or working near her…. If I was sitting on the same log or building the fire while she was nearby, he would turn up and loudly push one of us away.

More than once, I heard him chastising his daughter for being anywhere near me on the grounds that she should know what young nobles were like. He warned her, in my presence, that if her belly swelled with some lord’s bastard, then she would never be able to settle down with a nice husband and raise a family. Her response was always short, brutal, and to the point involving her father having to go off and perform a certain impossible obscene anatomical act.

“Men like Virgins when they get married.” Henrik would insist and then his daughter would, inevitably just storm off in an understandable huff.

But other than that, Henrik was friendly enough. A quiet chuckle in his voice. He was the kind of man that is largely self-educated in the ways of the particular parts of the world that he is part of and then doesn’t see the point in knowing anything about anything else. For his part, he was a woodcutter and hunter. He knew more about different kinds of wood and what their uses were for and how they would be applied in different scenarios than any other person that I have ever met. He was also a skilled archer, although not as good as his daughter, and it was he and his daughter that provided enough food for the small group to eat and eat well.

His daughter, Trayka, was of a slightly different cast. She was angry and it seemed that the entire world was responsible for it. She was better with a bow than her father was, better at tracking and hunting and moving through the trees as well. Part of that was due to her relative youth as I would put her somewhere in her late teens or early twenties. My age, or a bit younger. She was not pretty to look at but I would be lying if I said that she wasn’t attractive in some ways. She was a hard woman and she didn’t really warm up to me during our time spent traveling together so I don’t have much to offer other than second-hand information.

Like her father, she was a hunter, but she had made her money by hunting men. She was a Bounty Hunter by trade and from Kerrass’ suggestion, he had actually wanted her to come with him, but her father had insisted on coming with her as well. Her skills with a bow and at tracking were vastly superior to her Father’s, her equipment was clearly home-made. Not for Trayka the impressive curved wooden bows with layered woods of different kinds providing the tension in the spring. She reminded me a little of old Dan the Poacher with his different bows for different jobs. Although she lacked Dan’s huge Warbow on the grounds that she never intended to go to war.

The one moment that she was remotely interested in me, or that I could seem to offer any companionship, was when she heard that I had met and knew “Sun-shot Dan” and she questioned me in detail about how Dan had made that shot in the North of Redania. She also told me that she intended to travel north and take part in Emma’s regular archery competition that is held in honor of Dan and the men that lost their lives. She wanted to see if she could make the SunShot.

I do know that her father was worried about a horse that had already left the stable. I don’t know if she was pregnant but I caught her and the Sword and Buckler fighter in a small clearing near the camp when I went looking for firewood. If you set store by such things and think that there is much psychology involved in how it works, she was on top and she had her hand over his mouth. I hadn’t been looking for them and it was purely by accident that I saw what I did. He was muffled and she was silent with gritted teeth and clenched jaw so…

I left and went the other way. There was no intimacy between the two figures otherwise either before or after so I have no idea if it was a regular thing or what. I certainly didn’t ask as it was none of my business.

The man in question was called Piotr and he didn’t like me very much, which was ok because I didn’t like him very much either. He was dismissive of me and my skills on any level and sneered when he watched me training. I would dearly have liked to show him exactly what I was capable of, but he didn’t take part in any of the training exercises that Kerrass, Stefan, and I did with each other. This, despite his habit of sitting and watching all of our movements like a hawk.

Why didn’t he like me? I didn’t bother asking. Why didn’t I like him? It was one of those self-defeating circles of thought. You just see someone and you know that you don’t like them so what’s the point in trying to get around the matter.

Kerrass would tell me that he was a local guide of sorts. He knew the area that we were heading to and could set our feet on the right paths. When I looked for it, he would certainly lead our small procession of travelers and it would be he that chose which forks in the road we would be taking.

He did his part in camp chores but that is about the best that could be said of him. I got the feeling that he was in a similar line of work to Trayka although, as I say, I had no idea if there was any kind of history between them. If I was being particularly mean and unpleasant, I might suggest that he was an ex-bandit or a military deserter of some kind.

He was very angry and would snap at different people if they tried to engage them in conversation. Mostly that was Henrik who bound the injury that I had given Piotr in our first encounter which was little more than a scratch and Stefan. Both Henrik and Stefan seemed to just let the insults and the snarled comments roll of them.

For his part, Kerrass ignored him while being relatively friendly with the other people.

Stefan was the odd one out. He was a warrior monk. A slightly more pious version of the various Knightly orders that live in the North. He was nearly as good with a sword as Kerrass was although not as acrobatic, he smiled a lot, laughed easily, and was genuinely fun to be around. He would always take the early morning watch on the grounds that he would need to be up early anyway in order to perform his prayers. I know for a fact that he would also get up in the middle of the night in order to perform a small midnight prayer and he would insist on stopping when he saw the sun going down, even if we started again afterward.

He was one of those people that makes you think differently about the religions that you encounter in the world. He was a Nilfgaardian, follower of the Great and Sacred Sun and he laughed when I asked him about it.

“Worshipping the sun just makes sense.” He told me. “Regardless of whether or not you believe in the actual divinity of the sun, or if you believe in only what the Mages and scientists say. That the Sun is just a giant flaming ball of… something that I can’t remember. It provides us with light during the day. It provides us with warmth. It is the sun that allows the crops to grow and for those monsters that I have heard so much about, the vast majority of them that friend Witcher over there tells me about, only come out at night when the Sun has sunk beneath the horizon.”

“The hunter in me,” Trayka argued. “Would point out that for those creatures for whom it is easier to see at night, which is most monsters, then it makes sense to come out at night when the rest of us are disadvantaged.”

She couldn’t resist needling the monk, especially as she couldn’t get him to react to what she was saying with any kind of anger.

“Perfectly possible and logical,” he said. “But that does not deny the point that they only come out at night, that their eyes are the best night and they must turn away from the glare of the sun during the day. And even if all of that was not true, we would still not have daylight, warmth, or life if it were not for the sun.”

Stefan was a good-looking man, again, roughly my age although maybe a bit older. He rarely took his armor off except to sleep and to maintain it. He had the common features of the South in that he was Blonde, pale, and had blue eyes. I didn’t ask him about his history but if I had to guess, then I would say that he was some younger son of a noble or a bastard that needed somewhere to be put out of the way so that he wouldn’t be involved in any kind of dynastic nonsense.

And it was him that gave me my first real account of the Schatenmann.

It was maybe, three days into my joining the group that I finally asked why everyone was along for the road. We had started off, after the brief fight, by retracing our steps to the nearest town with a horse-trader for me to buy a new horse. It was a considerable step down from the one that I had bought in Beauclair and I was sad for that, but I also cannot deny that the giant horse steaks that Henrik cut from the flanks of my dead horse were absolutely delicious with some wild garlic, onions, and mushrooms.

After that, we set off South again and Kerrass gave his first sign that he was pleased to see me on the grounds that he declared to the group that I would be cooking from now on on the grounds that I was better at it than anyone else.

Henrik wordlessly handed me the steaks and after some foraging for the associated wold ingredients, I would admit to being quite proud of the meal that I produced. Even Trayka thanked me gravely for the meal.

Piotr just scowled.

Looking back, I wonder if he was a frustrated cook and was offended that his role had been taken off him.

After that, Kerrass, Stefan, and I trained while Trayka, later joined by her father, spent time sending arrow after arrow into targets that only they could see and understand.

Watches were divided and we slept.

That went on for a couple of days and I certainly had begun to feel accepted by Stefan and Henrik. Trayka couldn’t give a damn, although I noticed that she was always near the front of the queue for my cooking, and I resigned myself that Piotr and I would never be friends.

We were sat around the fire, eating the last remains of our horse as well as some rabbit stew that Trayka had caught for us with some carrots and turnips that I finally asked the question.

“So what are the rest of you doing here?”

There was some uncomfortable shifting of weight.

“I mean, I know what I’m doing here. And Kerrass too.” I went on. “But you all know what you’re doing here right?”

“We hunt the Schattenmann,” Henrik said in a low voice.

“Why?” I wondered.

“Well,” Stefan grinned. “The money is good.”

“Really?” I said to him, answering his grin with one of my own. “Really, you’re going to lie to my face like that. A mercenary monk?”

“It’s not so uncommon as you might think.” He retorted. I might need money for a church roof, or to build an orphanage or something.”

There was some laughter.

“Those orphans do need to eat.” Trayka let one of her rare smiles out. “You should teach them how to hunt.”

“I’m not so good at hunting,” Stefan admitted. “It’s a rare rabbit that will stand still for long enough to get to them, draw my sword, and get a good swing in.”

He mimed the surprise of the rabbit, his cautious approach, the sword drawn, and then the rabbit scampering off. It was genuinely funny and we all laughed, including Kerrass and Trayka.

“Tell Freddie,” Kerrass said. “I mean, we all know, but Freddie should know as well as to what we are all dealing with. And it is worth reminding ourselves of the danger we face.”

There was some nodding, although Henrik hung his head.

“Then I shall begin,” Stefan said. “The short version of my tale is that the Schatenmann is an evil creature of darkness and needs to be destroyed in the full light of the sun.” He said it with a smile that slowly faded. “The real reason?”

He sighed and leaned forwards.

(Freddie: As close as I can, this tale is taken straight from Stefan’s words. I was able to note it down as best as I could, but the conditions were far from perfect. He was a talented storyteller. He smiled, laughed, and scowled along with his story. He also talks with his hands quite a lot, waving and clenching his fist theatrically and appropriately as the story carried on.)

You people of the North do not understand the Sun. I mean, I can’t blame you really. Dynastic squabbles between nations mean that you have been taught to fear the appearance of the golden sun painted on black armor. But that is unfair. Those of us that follow the religion closely are anything but the figures that you Northern folk fear.

To my mind, we are what the Northern religion of the Eternal Flame should be. The Northern Eternal Flame is about guidance. It’s like a beacon to draw the people home to it so that they can settle into a place of safety. But beyond that, it does absolutely nothing to guarantee the safety of the people once it gets there. The Eternal Flame stays still, unmoving. It is cruel in its indifference to those people that are stuck out in the darkness, unable to find their way or to proceed further. They have not grasped the simple truth that, in remaining stationary, first in Novigrad and later in the different places that they have carried that flame to, they end up creating more shadows than they dispel.

The sun, however, the sun moves and in doing so, it shines its light into the darkest of places.

.

The Sun is many things to us. Everything I said earlier is true. Everything. It provides quantifiable… sorry for the big words.... Definite benefits. Crops wouldn’t grow without the sun. We would all freeze without the warmth that the sun provides. It is well known that the world will end in the cold and the ice of the Eternal Frost, so in turn, I ask you, how do you banish frost?

I will answer my own question. You banish it in the light of the sun. You would need a lot of flame to do the same thing and that flame would be as destructive, even more so than the frost.

Take that, followers of the Eternal Flame.

.

But I didn’t come here to preach. If you want to, or feel called to the worship of the Great Sun or something else for that matter, then you will come to it and there is nothing that I can do, or anyone else can do to force you one way or another.

I have lost the purpose of this tale. Where was I?

Ah yes. The lighting of places of darkness.

I belong to an order of warrior monks… Sorry… Sorry… I have to point out another way that worshipping the Sun is better than worshipping the flame. You will notice that I did not call myself a Knight. Calling yourself a Knight places you above others, it is a feudal title meant to exert authority and dominance. I am a monk. Therefore, I pray and serve.

Do you see the difference?

But, the places of darkness.

I belong to an order of warrior monks. We believe that, despite our own best efforts, there are still plenty of places in the world that are shrouded in darkness. Creatures hide and skulk in the shadows, shaking their fists and glaring at the Sun as it passes overhead. When that happens, we, as a priesthood and as an order, believe that it is our duty to either bring the hidden thing into the light of the Sun or show the thing that life in sunlight is not so bad.

Examples? Off the top of my head, the Cave Troll that acts as a stonemason in helping construct the city walls. The Powerful Vampire Queen that falls in love with a certain person sitting not very far away from me at the moment and helps her particular corner of society to improve and better itself. I will admit that I would rather she converted to the Worship of the Sun rather than the Eternal Flame but… hey… it could be a lot worse.

And Witchers. I don’t think I would offend our friend Kerrass if I said that they were created through laziness and evil. But they took the shit and the straw that they were given and, in their own way, they strive to make the world a brighter, sunnier place. I will not condemn them, unlike the Eternal Flame, for demanding coin for their services. Even Witchers have to eat and they don’t have a helpful state to pay their way as I do.

But unfortunately, sometimes there are things… people, creatures and beings, that refuse to come into the light. That even… re-emphasize their commitment to darkness and evil.

That is where the warrior monks come in. If it’s races or nations, then the Emperor, the head of our church, has an army to deal with that and I will admit, I will, I will hold my hands up and admit that sometimes, worldly concerns and politics mean that such things have been abused. But when it is a single being or a smaller area, then they send Warrior monks like me.

Which brings us to the Schatenmann.

.

.

We have known about the Schatenmann for years. Or rather, we knew about his rumored existence. There was no, nor has there ever been, any kind of serious scholarly work on the matter. Maybe my new friend Lord Coulthard will be able to provide the first, should we survive the attempt of course. Our religion has been well spread for a long time. Being the state religion of an Empire will do that. But we were a wide cast net with many large holes in it. As we grew, and yes, as the Empire expanded, we would slowly shrink those holes and allow fewer and fewer gaps for these places of darkness to slip through.

It soon became clear that there was a significant hole in the area of the Southern Empire that is now called the Black Forest.

In truth, there were several holes. Some of which were there for knowable and definable reasons. The magical phenomenon of the sleeping sickness of Dorne caused there to be a large area of open Wilderness that we could do nothing about for obvious reasons.

As an aside, that was an interesting case. The way those villagers treated Sleepin Beauty was like they worshipped her as a Goddess. They knew that she was a normal person, but they treated her like a Goddess. But if you tried to suggest that they were treating her like a Goddess, they would get offended. It was my order that was at the root of a number of attempts to wake the princess up and no, not one of us are any of the people that Witcher Kerrass later took his vengeance upon. Our people were better than that.

But I’m getting off-topic again.

There were several holes in the net in the Southern Empire. Sending missionaries was often catastrophic as they would go astray, offend some local cult or piece of pagan worship before getting murdered for their trouble. There were natural problems of course in that time period, as friend Kerrass would say, there are always monsters on the roads of the Empire and that is true today, even if more and more of them are wearing human skin.

But as our net became tighter and tighter, we started to realize that there was one particularly large hole that we knew nothing about and that was the hole that exists where the Black Forest is.

It took us a while to find out what the problem was. We had learned to make polite inquiries of the locals before we blundered in.

Another mistake that the Northern Religions make. It is easier to make headway with a slow and steady approach. People react to kind words and gentle offerings far more than they do to the condemning blaze, torturers, and burning stakes.

So as we started to map the roads and talk to the locals. We eventually, inevitably, found out about the presence of the Schatenmann.

We made a mistake then. Not our last. We assumed that the term “Schattenmann” which, I’m sure you know, translates roughly to “Shadow Man”, although some of the locals have different corruptions, dialects, and translations that are unique to their areas. Things like “Man of scissors” and “Man of blades”. It was this last that led to us making our mistake.

In short, we made an assumption about what we were dealing with. It is always a mistake to make any kind of assumption as I’m sure many of you will appreciate. In this case, we assumed that the Shadowman, the Man of Blades was a bandit warlord, a robber baron, or some other person that was using all the rumors and tales of horror in order to prey on the fears of those more superstitious than himself.

So we sent in an armed force that promptly vanished.

Yes, it is funny when you say it like that. Twenty good and well-equipped soldiers and armored warriors for the time. I have no doubt that they would look quite primitive to our modern eyes but they were well-led, well equipped, well provisioned. They were hardened, experienced fighting men who had been involved in dealing with the many cults that the countryside naturally throw up.

They rode into that dead area of the map and just never came out. No sign of them was ever discovered.

The church of the Sun was still spreading itself at that point so we did the same thing we did every time when we came across something that we were not in a position to deal with right there and right then. We put a note in the maps to deal with the area when we had more power and more influence and we moved on to easier targets. We figured that we would be able to build up to dealing with the Schattenmann.

There is some evidence to suggest that we didn’t entirely rest on our ankles. We hired a mage to look into the matter although I haven’t been able to find any record of what happened to the person before or afterward, certainly no record of any reports regarding what the mage found.

We sent some surveyors to look at the borders of the Schattenmann’s influence, which is actually really easy to map. He has a central core of woodland which is impossible to cross. By the maps estimation, it would take you a week to travel across the thinnest point, presuming you didn’t get turned around and that there were no other obstacles in the way. And no one who has ever tried to cross it has ever come back. And those that go in and survive… well… things happen to them. They come out… changed in some way.

So we watched and we waited and in doing so, we made our second mistake.

I have been rather unfair to the churches of the North so far so I will now be nice to them and point out something that they do better than we in the South.

If you give the people, and the religious scholars of the south, enough time. Then sooner or later, they will convince themselves that supernatural creatures don’t exist. They start to believe that magic is a hoax, that curses don’t work and that monsters are inventions of the nobility to keep the lower classes in line.

Partially, this is the fault of the Witchers who did their jobs too well in the South, eradicating the dangerous creatures for us before moving where the work is. The state keeps magic tightly controlled in a stranglehold which, in turn, denies magical progression which, further to that, means that the Northern Mages are, or were, far more advanced in their understandings of how the world works than Southern Mages.

The Eternal Flame and your Radovid the Mad did us a favor there… But I’m digressing again.

So rogue magical phenomenon, rarely occur. Monsters and magical creatures that ARE in some of these areas are dismissed as a hoax, or are intelligent enough to hide, or portrayed as being a normal part of life.

For example, the Kikkimores and centipedes in Toussaint.

I was very interested to read the tales of the Bard Dandelion where a powerful Vampire declared that he would hide in the South where people don’t believe in Vampires anymore. I remember reading that point and laughing before I became serious on the grounds that it is rather more true and accurate than I am entirely comfortable with.

My point being, that eventually, we convinced ourselves that “The Schattenmann” was just a peasant superstition without taking into account the fact that sometimes, as the Witcher will tell you, peasant superstitions exist for a reason.

So this will have been about forty years ago, maybe a little bit more. There was a new priest of the Great Sun. By all accounts, he was a good, if ambitious, man. Everything that you really want to look for in a priest. He was handsome, charming, and personable. According to some records he lived an ascetic life but others claim that if he had a weakness it was that he was hopeless in the face of a beautiful face, male or female, but he loved the Sun with a fierceness that denied earthly ties. He was one of those that believed that the body has needs but that the mind and soul should be free to worship. Make of that what you will.

Certainly, neither I nor any of the people that have looked since could find any evidence of bastard children or anything that might hint of something being covered up which normally accompanies such things.

I can see friend Freddie nodding in agreement.

He was a younger son of a nobleman, left to join the church as he was the most suited to the effort. He was working his way up the ranks and had his eyes on high office within the church hierarchy…

Such as it is….

Anyway.

But he was young and he didn’t have the patience needed to be able to sit still and allow the plaudits to come. He went seeking out opportunities rather than waiting for those opportunities to come to him.

And it… well… It didn’t kill him.

.

.

Before anyone asks, we weren’t related, or at least I don’t think so, so I’m not here for vengeance.

But he wanted to climb higher and faster so that he could institute some real change, or so he thought. Such people rarely think of the fact that things are the way they are for a reason and that change, if it comes at all, needs to come slowly so as not to cause more harm than it creates.

Me and my tangents.

He would spend hours looking for something to do in order to prove himself and eventually, as I’m sure you must have guessed, he found it in the figure of the Schattenmann.

He had convinced himself that the Schattenmann was just a peasant superstition. At best it was a spirit of some kind that could be fought off and destroyed. He was sensible enough to realize that military action was not going to get the job done so instead, he reasoned that a slow and steady approach would be better.

His plan was that he would found a village. He would gather a group of settlers and they would move relatively deep into the Schattenmann’s territory where they would clear the land as they went before establishing a village. They would build a church, at which he would be the priest, and gradually, over time, the religious nature of the settlement would dismiss the fear of the Schattenmann and the fear would be defeated. Therefore, if the Schattenmann existed at all, that would be how he was vanquished.

In theory, it was a good plan and other such areas have been conquered and converted in the same way.

.

I’m sure you know where this is going.

.

The church had convinced itself that the old expeditions into The Black Forest were led by cretins and incompetents. That with modern technologies and knowledge, this later effort would be better achieved. The expedition was co-financed by the church and donations of the nobility and the expedition set out, praising the sun as they went.

.

It must have been a stirring sight. A dozen families loaded up their wagons and followed the marching priest, chanting and singing hymns as they went. Speaking as a religious man, the image conjures something in my soul. Even while I know that such expeditions are often misguided and lead to disaster.

.

.

Their plan was that they would go out and establish their colony. Houses would be built and land would be cleared. That first party was made up of woodcutters, hunters, and builders. Their families went with them before there would be a follow-up group that would join the first. This would be sent when the funding had been completed…

Remember that our boy was ambitious and he wanted to get started as soon as possible rather than wait for everything to be ready.

… And then the farmers, the bakers, and the beer-makers would be sent afterward along with livestock seed and so on.

At first, the news that came back was good. The first messages that came spoke of land being cleared, roads and pathways being established, the second group was put together and set out.

I have read those letters and reports. They are kept in a file at my monastery labeled “The dangers of ignorance”.

.

.

The second group set out. When there weren’t familial bonds between them and the families of the first group, there were certainly bonds of friendship. We have many more records about what happened to the second expedition.

They set off in good spirits. Young adults looking forward to seeing sweethearts. Brothers looking forward to seeing sisters. Mothers looking forward to seeing sons.

They made good time as there is nothing that triggers fast movement quite so much as enthusiasm.

.

.

I’ve never actually talked about this with anyone before. To say that I am a fan of Witchers and the various works regarding Witchers, whether they be from the Bard himself or the Scholar sat over there, cooking my dinner for me, I am not a fan. Not really. I think that there are many flaws in the system that Witchers can’t help but perpetuate. That is not their fault and it is my sincerest hope that those problems are eradicated when the Empress’ new versions of Witchers and Witchering are produced.

But one thing that I do agree on is that studying the thing that you are going to be interacting with is vitally important. Knowing the situation that you are moving towards is one of those things… No one actually teaches you that. People didn’t actually sit me down and say, you need to know what’s going on with the… society that you’re moving towards, the people that you are going to…

But unfortunately, when you go looking for something, there is sometimes a chance that you might find it.

I know a lot of what happened on that second journey because there was a girl in that party who was studying. She had learned her letters which was, and still is, an important skill, and given that the expedition was a religious one, it was not an isolated skill.

Say what you like about religion, but you are forced to admit that the reason for a lot of the education on the continent is because the religions that live here have put it there. Not everyone can go to the Universities and it is only by uplifting EVERYONE that we can find all the talent and the knowledge that is….

Yes, I know. It’s far too easy to go off on these little tangents. This is not a pleasant topic of conversation after all.

But there was a girl in the group, a daughter of a baker and she was in love with the son of one of the carpenters that had gone with the first part of the expedition. It was a sweet little juvenile romance and the parents of the two were just waiting for the pair of them to be a little older before they agreed to allow the two to be married. The girl was… maybe… fourteen and the expeditions were not so backward to believe that marriage that young was beneficial.

How do I know this?

.

My order has her diary.

It was her way of practicing her letters. To make sure that she still had the knowledge and the skills to keep up with her reading and her writing. She had some, silly little thought that if her beau declined her attention then she would run away to the convent. Silly, juvenile stuff. But she was worried that she wasn’t as pretty as some girl called Karella and that “he” was besotted with this redhead and that she would steal him away from her.

But still…

Yes. My mother always warned me about redheads as well.

But we know about this all because of what was written in her diary.

No, I don’t have it with me. The book and the paper itself were relatively cheap and so my order doesn’t lend it out anymore. A few copies were made and sent to some of the Nilfgaardian places of learning but…

The first part of the diary is mostly about parental grievances and about how this boy that she was obsessed with just seemed to be painfully immune to her charms. The entries around the departure of the first group were very flowery and longingly romantic. Purple prose enough that it left me feeling somewhat uncomfortable at reading a young lady’s private thoughts.

What? No. She survived. She’s a townswoman now. Married a candlemaker in Angren. She has three grandchildren of her own but refuses to talk to anyone about this particular part of her history. To the point that she gets quite angry and has been known to call the watch on anyone that tries to talk to her about it.

I didn’t want to read those early parts. But as I’m sure my new friend, Scholar Frederick will tell you, clues and knowledge can be found in the strangest places and my tutors would have been disgusted with me if I had avoided looking.

The second group departed several months after the first, driving livestock and things to help establish the farms and things that would be needed in the first year of the colony.

Why were there so many settlers?

Remember, this was before even the first intercontinental war, the time of the usurper. The church and people, in general, had fallen on hard times as the noble houses were full of the delinquents and impious scions of various houses. There were plenty of settlers that wanted to get away from the more populace places and so, a patch of wilderness, among friends, where they could worship what and who they liked without being accosted and attacked by entitled… I’m sure you get the idea.

But they departed and they made good time. The girl wrote about looking forward to seeing her love and to destroying her rivals. She wrote to him on a regular basis and at first, the news was good.

The ground had been broken, the first trees had been cut down and the church had been built. Personally speaking, I would have made sure there was enough shelter to survive the rains of spring, but that’s just me. As I say, the priest that led the expedition was an ambitious man and wanted to stamp his authority on what was going on.

So they had built the church, other houses had been built and there were promises of a good little settlement going on. People worked hard, worshipped harder, and still had some little time left over to have some fun.

We even know what the sermons were about in the little community. It was about banishing fear from the hearts and minds. About carrying the light of the Sun into the dark places and about how people should not, ever, allow that fear to overcome them.

The colony had seen no sight or sound of The Schattenmann and as such, they were becoming more and more confident. Despite the fact that their nearest neighbors would warn them to be careful and wouldn’t go near them as soon as they discovered what the colony was actually about. They didn’t want to change and they resented the priest’s efforts to try and forcibly educate them.

The colony was not concerned though. They knew that if they just continued as they were, living the best lives that they could as an example as to how life could work without the fear of the Schattenmann. Then the locals would eventually come around and the fear of the local superstitions would gradually recede.

.

It would seem that the Schattenmann objected to this intrusion.

He waited a little while according to the diary. You might even suggest that he gave the colony plenty of warning about what was going to happen to them. Rumors of people going missing in the woods, strange noises and the like didn’t disturb the colony. They were confident that there were always going to be people that allowed their fears to rule them and as a result, would flee, or imagine things that weren’t there. They weren’t worried.

But then the letters stopped. Nothing came of it. The girl’s beau was just not writing to her anymore. You might think that this would cause more alarm than it should have done. Unfortunately not. Why? It’s tricky to say. Certainly, the girl’s parents thought that her beau had simply lost interest in her. They were disappointed on her behalf, certainly, but they weren’t too distraught about it. There were plenty of other reasons as to why the letters might not be getting through. Mail carrying is a rare thing and sometimes letters go astray. This was still before the Emperor had returned and the Imperial postal service was not yet set in stone.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There were any number of people trying to rebel against tyrannical feudal Lords and the countryside was forever changing with raiding between noble houses and the rest. So there was no reason for anyone to be concerned.

And the colony believed that the most basic explanation was probably the truth. The chances were good that people were just too tired, working too hard in order to found a new colony in the depths of the, let’s face it, wooded wilderness to be doing something so boring as to answer the letters of a lovesick young woman.

What?

No, we don’t know the answer to that.

Whether there were any other letters traveling to and fro from one party to the next, we just don’t know. I can see the argument in either direction if I’m honest. The simple fact of the matter is that the argument that people were too busy is a good one. The two colonies absolutely believed that they would be seeing each other shortly, so why write when you could be building houses or making preparations for the journey.

Then the second expedition set out and it wasn’t long before it was clear that something was very wrong.

The first sign that the girl recorded was that the locals shunned the wagon train as it moved. Other friendly travellers would politely enquire as to where the wagon train was going before they would find out and the people would be left. The merchants that tried to repair pots and pans to the train for a few small coins, would just pack up their belongings and walk away. Specifically, the girl remembered a wagon losing a wheel, a nearby set of farm-hands stopped to try and help the stricken wagon and lift the wheel back into place before they found out where the wagon was going and literally dropped the wheel and the wagon and left, warning off the other nearby people for fear of getting their stink all over each other.

The wagon train still didn’t think anything of this because there is no willful ignorance like religious willful ignorance. And I say that as an extremely religious man. They had faith that the sun would see them safe and so they ignored all of these warnings.

They had been given detailed maps and I can remember some of these passages by heart.

‘We left the road at midmorning and we traveled along a pleasant track. The path is not well-traveled but we can see where the wagons are meant to go. Father is complaining. He says that we will need to put some effort into these roads or what are currently small ruts will become vast holes and pools of mud that nothing can travel through.

‘Mother tried to calm him by saying that we wanted to be self-sufficient anyway, so why would we worry about the travel.

‘Father grunted something about Grandchildren while making sure that he didn’t look at me. I tried not to choke with laughter.

‘The line came to a stop in the early part of the afternoon without warning and we began to cluster up. Father is furious and left to see what the matter is. He wasn’t gone long before he came back and fetched our wood ax and hatchet, telling my mother that there was a problem in the road and that we should expect to camp here for the night.

‘Mother is worried. I can see why, this is not a place to camp, we are all stretched out, and although I fear no nightly noises and am secure in the knowledge that the sun will come in the morning. There are still bandits to contend with and we will not be able to form a proper watch.

‘Father frowned before shrugging and setting off towards the front again.

‘Father has come back. He is frightened. I can always tell as he becomes angry easily but the anger blows out of him like the wind blowing out a candle. He told Mother that the path was overgrown and impassible, that work parties were working to clear it.

‘Mother got confused. She said that the paths were going to be well maintained that this was part of the plan. Father snapped that he knew. Mother shrank back from him but Father was already sorry. He looked at me and told me to go to bed as he took mother outside to speak privately.

‘I am afraid.’

‘I cannot sleep, the trees are too quiet. I am normally lulled to sleep by the sound of swaying branches. But now it feels frightening. As though the branches hate me.’

‘Mother has just come through the wagon waking me. She has seen that I have my diary out and snapped at me that I should be getting some rest. I don’t think she’s really angry. She was getting our crossbow out. I don’t know why. But we were warned that bandits could see our procession as a target for loot. We’ve never needed it before.

‘We are moving again. The sun came up, grey and cold, obscured by cloud, leaving just a circle of brighter grey. It is very cold. But we are moving again. The fear of last night has not left me. Father is not in sight but the word has come down that we are to move again. Mother steers the wagon and her eyes are hollow.

‘I don’t think she slept last night.

‘We are moving slowly. Very slowly, painfully slowly. I can hear some of the wagon leaders muttering and complaining. The horses and the oxen that are pulling the wagons are restless and weary. There are hands now at the head of every team, keeping them calm.

‘There is the sound of ax blows on the air. I don’t understand. It will stop for a while and then it will start up again. Every time it stops, I can feel it as though my ears are in a tunnel, trying to find the sound, hoping that there will be no more, but there is always more.’

‘We have just passed the line where the lead wagon stopped. The bushes and the undergrowth by the side of the road look as though it’s been freshly cut. There’s a lot of wood debris, broken branches, and things. I went to go and get some as we always need firewood. Mother told me not to and shouted at me to come back to the wagon.

‘Father still hasn’t returned.’

‘We have stopped again. This time we made a proper camp and everyone feels better for it. We stopped in the middle of the afternoon, hours before we would normally stop. Mother says that we have traveled less than two miles. She is scared.

‘Father has come back. He looks old, older than he has in a while. He spent some time hugging me and Mother before he went out. He has blisters on his hands and Mother had to put some ointment on them. He looked at the crossbow that Mother is carrying with her everywhere now. He didn’t say anything. Normally, he gets upset when she carries it because she is a better shot with it than he is.

‘This time he said nothing.

‘There is to be a proper watch set tonight. Proper and doubled.

‘Father is stupid. He tells me that I don’t need to be afraid. He never understands that this is precisely the thing that makes me afraid.

‘I am sleeping beneath the wagon tonight in my proper place. Every man and more than a few women are on the sides of wagons and watching out into the trees. We have more than one veteran in our group and although we were told that we would be a peaceful colony, I can see the torchlight glinting off spears, swords, and armor. No one has said anything. I can see to write with all the torchlight.

‘I can’t sleep again. The trees are still now but somehow this seems worse. There is a feeling of menace in the air.

‘I want to go home.

‘We made worse time today. I am driving the horses now as Mother rides with the crossbow at the ready. There was a commotion in the early hours of the morning. The adults found something in the cold light of day but I have no idea what it was. They won’t tell me. I don’t know if that makes it worse.

‘There was another proper camp tonight. It’s getting to mother. I can tell because she didn’t argue when I made her give me the crossbow and get some sleep. It feels heavy and ugly in my hands. Father tried to be angry that I was carrying it but he wasn’t really. He is scared.’

‘Night has fallen I am not the only “child” that has volunteered to stand a bit of the watch. I am oddly grateful that I am watching the back trail.’

‘I have been sent to bed. That was awful. I could feel something watching me. Every movement, every small sound, every cough from the people near me made me jump. I had to put the crossbow down in case my jumping made me fire it by accident. Makin did fire his crossbow, luckily he was aiming into the woods when he fired.

‘I could hear something too. I don’t know what it was. I would think it was the wind, or that I might be going mad from everything that has happened, but Karis and Enaya both heard it too. It sounded like a man’s voice. A man, screaming in pain.

‘We are getting ready to move again. I asked Mother about the voice. I’m pretty sure she could hear it. She went all pale. She didn’t tell me I was imagining things this time although I could tell she wanted to. I want to go home. I finally plucked up the courage to tell her that and I think she agrees with me. Apparently, I missed father last night, he came back when I was on watch from a meeting of the Elders.’

(Freddie’s note: I checked and this seems to be the equivalent of a town council. Stefan tells me that it’s occasionally used in certain parts of Nilfgaard as a religious thing where there are elders that run the bureaucratic side of the church leaving the priests to get on with the spiritual side of things. Given the context, this could have gone either way I think.)

‘I wonder if they were talking about turning around and going home. I want to see “him” again but this whole thing feels cursed somehow. Enaya whispered the thing that I know we’re all thinking. She did it in the porridge line and her mother slapped her hard enough to knock her over.

‘“What if the Schattenmann is real?” she said. Great Sun but I hope not.

‘We are moving again. Mother says we should get to the village today, even at our slower pace. I hope so. I want to see “him” again. I want to hear him laugh, even if he has run off with that red-headed slut.’

‘I am scared’

(Freddie’s note: As he recounted what was written in the diary that I would dearly love to read, Stefan had shrunk in on himself, staring into the fire. It was a long time before he spoke again. He was torn from his reverie by the sound of a pheasant crying in the distance.)

The diaries end there. That is the last entry. We know she survived, as did the rest of her wagon train barring a couple of incidents of sickness and accident which, I understand, is usual for such an undertaking. They were found by a cavalry patrol and their leaders were taken to the nearby temples to the sun in order to recount what they found.

That day, the day that the girl…

(Freddie: Of course, Stefan knew her name, and he used it as well. But I am obscuring it here to protect her identity. As has been pointed out, she is still alive.)

… That day, they reached the village.

‘The term “Ghost Town” is often misused. Same as anyone, we all know about towns and villages that have been abandoned due to various reasons. Economic reasons, nearby wars and bandits, loads of reasons. But this was different. It was as though the settlers had simply put down everything that they had been using and walked away. I have never been there myself. But people who have been there since, tell tales of stews that are still bubbling away, logs that are in the process of being split, houses half-built, books and toys left where they had been set. There is no disturbance, no sign that they were attacked. It was just as though the people had gotten up and walked away. And no one has ever seen any of them since.

‘

With one exception.

‘The priest is still there

‘Church-funded scholars have been there, Witchers have been hired and mages have been sent to investigate and no-one can figure out what happened. But they have been able to figure out a couple of things. They know that the first thing that was done was that logs were cut in order to build a church. Not unusual with this kind of Colony that goes off into the wilds to worship the way that they want to worship. They take care of the soul first and trust that the body will come after. Personally speaking, I think that the soul will be fine to wait while the body eats and sleeps. A person can’t worship or take care of their soul if they’re starving to death.

‘But we know that the church was built first and the priest hangs from it. I have not seen it myself, but it looks as though vines have grown from the split logs that make up the church. And the priest hangs from these vines by his wrists.’

(Stefan sighed)

He is still alive if you call it living. He doesn’t appear to have aged, looking like a man in his late twenties early thirties. The last expedition there described him as being emaciated and skeletally thin now. And I know, I know all the things that should have happened. The weight of his body should have pulled the arms out of their sockets. But he is still there, still swinging. He begs to be killed, for his pain to be lessened. He is quite mad. He tells people that he was wrong, he weeps and tells people that he killed all of those people but won’t explain what that means. My order believes that it was his wailing voice that the girl heard floating on the wind.

‘The only thing that he will say is that “The Schattenmann came for us.”

‘And he can’t die. Or rather he can, but he always comes back. There are accounts of him being shot, stabbed, disemboweled, poisoned, strangled, burnt, frozen. They burnt the church down once, covered it in oil, and set fire to it with him included. That seemed to do the trick for a while but then they found him the following morning, hanging from the burnt ruins and screaming in agony from his melted face.

‘The vines around his wrist cannot be cut or harmed. Not with blade, saw, acid or fire. The priest can be fed and watered although more than one person who has tried to look after the priest has gone mad or has vanished themselves.

A carpenter built a platform once to take the priest’s weight and the vines shrunk, pulling the priest up and stretching his arms…

‘As far as I know, he’s still there along with the village.’

-

“He is still there,” Piotr said after a moment. “He is still there, as is the village.”

“What does it mean,” I asked. “What happened there?”

Piotr shrugged. “Who knows what the Schattenmann is thinking. Not I.”

“I think it’s a warning,” Stefan said. “It is a warning to others, an example. The Schattenmann is saying “Do not fuck with me, see what happens to those who challenge me, or words to that effect.”

“We will find out.” Kerrass said the first words he had said in a while, “as that is where we are going and from where we will strike out into the Black Forest itself. Get some rest everyone. We will need it. Freddie? Yours is the first watch.”

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

I was not alone in that, Trayka looked pale the following morning and her father watched her carefully throughout the course of the day. Piotr was subdued but soon returned to being a condescending asshole so I didn’t worry too much about him. I did collar Kerrass for a chat the following night.

“What was that about?” I demanded.

“What was what?”

“The thing with Stefan. What was that about? You trying to scare me off?”

Kerrass frowned. He had his alchemy set out again and was mixing up some more potions, I didn’t recognise these though. “Freddie, I don’t know…”

“Stefan’s little horror story. Are you trying to get me to chicken out and go home?”

Kerrass carefully put his mortar and pestle aside and took a deep breath before checking to see where the others were. Stefan was building a fire, Henrik was preparing a pair of rabbits for my cooking pot later while his daughter was off hunting. Piotr was doing some weapons maintenance on his sword and buckler with the obsessive care and concentration of a man who knows that his life depends on his equipment. I well know what that feels like.

“Nothing,” Kerrass said quietly. “Freddie, nothing in this continent would make me happier than if you turned around and headed north. If I wake up one morning to find that your stuff is gone, that your horse has vanished, and that you’ve left me a note, I will whoop for joy. I mean that.”

He took a deep breath.

“But I’m glad you’re here.” He admitted. “Piotr’s a man of rage that I do not comprehend. I have not seen it’s like and I worry that I might have to kill him. Or that you might have to or that he is going to lose his temper with one of us. But he’s the best guide for that bit of the world that we are going to, no one knows these woods as he does and if we are going to make it out alive, then we do so at his guidance. Henrik and Trayka will cheerfully sacrifice both of us in order to make sure that the other survives. And Stefan?”

“I like Stefan,” I said.

“So do I, he’s very likable. But make no mistake. He too is here for his own reasons. He is a warrior but he is driven by holy orders. And although Compassion is a part of those orders, make no mistake, it is low down on the list and there are other priorities that come first. Men like him? They are big-picture men. He would sacrifice anyone for what he sees as being the greater good and he will not hesitate to act on that. He will smile at you one moment and then slit your throat the next if he thinks it will serve his ‘greater good.”

Kerrass grimaced.

“When I saw that it was you that was following us, I was angry. But the reason that I was angry was that I was angry with myself for being so pleased to see you. You can be a rock that I can rely on. I have come to depend on that far too much but the closer and closer we get to the Black Forest and this particular thing that we are hunting. The more and more concerned I get.

“He is old, this Schattenmann. Old, powerful, and angry.”

“Are you telling me to go home?” I wondered.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But I don’t want you to. You and I have done impossible things in the past. We rescued her, we stopped the Skeleton Ship and no one is going to claim that cult of the First-Born was easy. Fuck, we took on the kind of beast that Witcher are taught to ride away from at Amber’s Crossing.”

He sighed.

“You make me feel invincible Freddie. And that frightens me.”

“Then I will stay,” I told him.

He nodded a little sadly.

That night I asked Henrik as to why he had joined this expedition to go and speak to the Schattenmann. He looked at me through bushy eyebrows and I felt as though I was being weighed in some way. He was asking himself how much he could trust me.

Then he took a slow rumbling breath and looked over at his daughter who was staring into the flame, the firelight making the shadows on her face dance unpleasantly.

“That is not my story to tell.” he rumbled as he went back to work.

I turned away and wondered if I was imagining the tears in his eyes.

Something happened that night. Nothing sinister, spooky or terrifying. But an argument was had between father and daughter, causing a distance to grow between them. It was sad to see and painful to watch. But pointedly, she turned her back on him and would walk away whenever the two of them would drift together as part of camp and travelling life. Henrik seemed to take it in his stride but the old man would get a mournful look about himself whenever he was watching his daughter.

This didn’t stop him fruitlessly chaperoning his daughter though. He would still ask for my advice or call me over on some pretext when Trayka and I were physically near each other.

One time that he did this, I am pretty sure that Trayka took Kerrass off into the woods judging by Piotr’s black looks when I returned to my equipment from checking the seasoning in the stew pot and telling Henrik that the Wild onions that he had provided would, of course, be welcome.

We traveled like this for a couple of weeks. I knew from looking at the maps that we were moving around the Black Forest itself while maintaining a good distance from it. Kerrass had warned us all that the locals may become hostile if they found out that we meant to contact or hunt the Schattenmann.

So we took the long way around telling people that I had hired the Witcher to help me dismiss the curse on my newly rewarded lands that I had been given in return for some service to the court. After that, the other things fell into place. Piotr was still my guide as I had never been to my new estates and Henrik and Trayka were traveling with me to help me settle the place. We chose an area far enough away and the locals accepted it with a few weary chuckles and comments of “Well, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Kerrass was right about our companions and I started to see it more as we traveled together. Trayka’s relationship with her father improved a little over time but there was history there. History and a lot of pain. History that had taken root in Trayka’s soul and soured her. I had thought that when we got into a town, that it would be Piotr that would make trouble for us but in the end, it was Trayka.

With our being in town rather than on the trail, she found it much easier to avoid her father’s gaze and her choice for bed partner was a young man. I have no idea what her criteria for choosing were and it is more than likely that he was there, pleasant to her eye, and was faintly polite.

As we found out later, the town braggart had decided that he was going to have his way with the traveling huntress and was most annoyed when Trayka passed him over in favor of someone who, the braggart, decided, was considered inferior. When Trayka was leading her choice for partner away and into the spring night, the Braggart called her a whore and asked how much her partner had paid.

Trayka hit the braggart with all the force that her practiced bow arm could muster. Which is a lot. Anyone who shoots at things for a living will have broad shoulders and strong arms with a punch that will hit you like a catapult. She broke Braggart’s jaw in three places and caused him to bite the end of his tongue off.

Personally speaking, I think he had it coming.

Trayka turned and took the now slightly terrified object of her affections into the stable hayloft where she had her way with him. I know this because that was where the village watch found her and dragged her out to be tried and sentenced for assaulting the eldest son of the town mayor.

Henrik flew into a rage at having his daughter called out in such a way, tried to assault the watchman who had refused to allow Trayka to dress, a thing that Trayka herself didn’t seem to care about, and had to be pulled away by Kerrass and Stefan.

We got the story out of the, now, utterly terrified younger bed partner and I pointed out that the young man should consider himself lucky that he only had his jaw broken.

“My friend, Warrior Monk Stefan here,” I began, gesturing to the armed and armored warrior monk.

Stefan flexed on cue,

“Would normally be more than happy to defend the honor of his friend and companion, wouldn’t you Stefan?”

Stefan proceeded to go off on a long and flowery rant about how a man should not question a lady’s honor when his own is in question.

In the end, I had to pay for the treatment and the herbs that the local healer lady required as well as a sum of money that I negotiated in advance… I was not going to leave it open-ended… that would pay for the injured young man to stay at the local church hospital in order to heal.

We were a sullen and angry party that rode away from the village. Trayka was furious about the accusation as she, correctly, thought that she had just been defending herself from the intended insult. Henrik was furious at the fact that his daughter had been paraded through the village naked and when he had attempted to defend his daughter’s honor, he had been accused of further crime. He seemed to have a blind spot about his daughter’s promiscuity. He literally refused or was unable, to see it.

Piotr was jealous of the fact that Trayka clearly preferred variety in her diet and was sullen, even though he had spent the evening staring into his ale cup.

Stefan was angry at the village’s concept of justice and keeping law and order. He had wanted to pursue the matter legally on the grounds that he agreed with me that Trayka had been quite correct in punching the little shit’s jaw into pieces and that we should have stood our ground. Despite the fact that it would have taken days.

Kerrass and I had to sneak off to train so that we could both confess that we found the entire thing more than a little bit funny.

To be clear on my stance on the matter. Being a whore is not something to be ashamed of. It is a profession like any other although I would agree that there are better names for that particular line of work. However, intent and context are kings here. The lad had meant it as an insult and Trayka responded correctly. I will admit that my life might have been easier if she had just ignored the young fool, but all told…

Some people might be wondering if Trayka ever propositioned me. I would say that such an answer is none of your business but for two reasons. The first is that Ariadne asked and the second was about what came later. The truth is that Trayka never got the chance. She kept her thoughts to herself and displayed little emotion in that regard. For whatever reason, Henrik’s paternal… whatever it was that kept him from seeing his daughter’s preferences regarding physical satisfaction, also meant that he would go out of his way to keep Trayka and me from being remotely close to each other geographically speaking. So even if she was interested, then it never had the chance to come up.

For my part, I have no regrets about that score. I liked Trayka in that she was the truest version of herself that she could be without compromise in any way. She was a good-looking woman in the way that people, in general, are good-looking if they are young, fit, and healthy. But there was no attraction there for me.

Make of that what you will.

We traveled in that way. It was not a fun journey but I would be lying if I tried to claim that there weren’t moments of enjoyment.

I enjoyed the simple living and time on the road considerably more than I was expecting. The reaffirming of my relationship with Kerrass was also well spent and I enjoyed debating Stefan more than I thought I would. Henrik was a good man and I liked Trayka as well despite her otherwise ignoring me.

The sour point in the matter was Piotr. As I say, I simply didn’t like him. Nor he, me.

Sometimes, it is worth saying, people are just like that. They can’t help themselves. They are nasty, angry, unpleasant people that resent the people around them whenever they smile or laugh or otherwise have a good time. I dismissed Piotr as being one of those people for the longest time.

Was I right? Maybe

But sometimes, people are made that way.

After Stefan’s story, I did my best to ask the others why they were coming with Kerrass and me. It was obviously a dangerous journey. It wasn’t just superstition that meant that people were afraid of the Schattenmann, there was definitely something there. And more as a matter of something to talk about than anything else, I wondered what people’s motivation was for coming with us.

Henrik maintained that the matter was his daughter’s story to tell and she would just ignore the question. Piotr would just claim that he was in it for the money before finding some excuse to leave the conversation. In the end, I didn’t find out his story from him.

We were traveling well and making a relatively good time. Although the camp was never as relaxed as I might have liked, we were eating well and traveling easily. But I missed the camaraderie that had been there when traveling with Rickard’s bastards and the crew of the Wave-Serpent.

The roads that Piotr was choosing were leading us through heavy woodland. We would be traveling through thick, dense woodland when suddenly, the trees would vanish on either side and we would find ourselves traveling through a small area of farmland. Often idyllic, idealized farmland. Not Toussaint storybook, but still. The people were friendly enough, there was no end of small, minor monsters that Kerrass could hunt that would keep us in stores and supplies, to the point that he probably didn’t need to hunt, but the atmosphere in the camp was not ideal and he seemed to relish the opportunity to go off by himself, or with me.

We were still traveling generally south, southeast and it gradually became clear that Piotr was known in these villages.

And in turn, that meant that it was known as to what we were all there for.

We were staying in a village at one point, I can’t remember the name of it, and I had wandered off to have a chat with Ariadne. We were doing this almost nightly, me because I missed her and her because she wanted to make sure that I was ok. And that she missed me of course.

But we had finished and I was on my way back to the inn when a woman in middle years came towards me.

“Don’t go.” She said. “Whatever you’re hoping to get out of it, it’s not worth it. Return to the woman that you love and don’t let go of her, instead.”

“What?”

She looked sad. “I saw you, standing next to the hog pen, staring into space. No one does that who isn’t in love with someone who is far away. Go to her. It is better to do that than to go where you are going.”

“And where am I going?” I asked, I think I was faintly bemused. She must have seen it because I saw her frown.

“You big noble types, thinking that the rest of us weren’t born with the sense that the Sun gave the common dog. You are traveling with Piotr in that direction. People don’t travel with Piotr in these parts unless they’re going…”

She stopped speaking suddenly and sighed sadly.

“I don’t know why I bother.” She turned and left.

I told Kerrass the following morning when he surfaced from wherever he had been the previous night. He had not come back to the room that we had shared but that was not unusual for him. It seemed that he was in a promiscuous mood as well.

“He is the best,” Kerrass said. “I asked around for a guide to take us towards the Black Forest and into the heart of the lair of the Schattenmann. Every person that I asked said that Piotr was the man I wanted. This isn’t his first trip and he had a better, more honest reputation than some of the others.”

“There were others?” I wondered. I had not heard this part of the story. Kerrass is a little more private around the other members of our group but he would speak more in private.

“Oh yes. It would seem that there is a certain amount of Schattenmann tourism. The same way that there are guides and things to the battlefields at Brenna and Sodden and the rest. There are guides about the Schattenmann. Most were obviously charlatans and hoaxes though. I wanted the real deal and when it became clear that I was willing to pay properly and not fuck about, Piotr approached me.”

“I’m still intrigued by these Charlatans though,” I said.

Kerrass grinned. “They work their hoaxes well outside of the Schattenmann’s area of influence. But people have taken over formerly deserted villages and decorated them in false fetishes and totems, claiming that the Schattenmann took them away. It’s apparently clear to everyone that has an ounce of sense that there are groups of people that maintain the properly haunted look of the place.”

“I think I’d like to see one of them.” I declared. “It might be informative.”

“You would.” Kerrass grinned and sneered at the same time. I don’t know how he does it. One of those Witcher secrets I suspect.

This happened a couple more times. One of the villages had a friendly friar of some kind. He blessed me in the name of the Sun and told me that he would pray for my soul. He was reassuring me that the Schattenmann might have my body but that the Sun would shine on my soul.

I don’t think he was aware that he was not as reassuring as he wanted to be.

Another man who I was engaged in buying some horse feed from saw Piotr walking nearby and shook his head sadly. A woman warned me that the Man of Shadows was not one to be trifled with and that I needed to return home.

Stefan also commented on things about people warning him off. His responses to such things were rather more brutal and religion-oriented. If anyone talked to Trayka and her father then I didn’t see it although I suspect that Trayka, being Trayka, would have simply ignored the matter.

Piotr was becoming more and more withdrawn and angrier and angrier. It was increasingly clear that it wasn’t just jealousy at Trayka’s lack of attention that was getting to him, it was something else.

He started to give instructions. They seemed strange to me but long years on the road with Kerrass had trained me that when you travel with an experienced person that knows the area and knows the road, then you listen to what they have to say and don’t ask too many questions.

He ordered us to buy firewood at the villages that we passed through. He forbade Henrik and Trayka from hunting, fishing, or setting traps. We carried drinking water with us in the huge skins and bags that he had previously insisted that Kerrass buy for the group and when it came down to it, he was choosing very specific campsites. Often we were camping right in the middle of the road.

Trayka did not take the instructions well and it almost came to blows between the two of them. Any hope that Piotr might have had about returning to her bed vanished that day. All he would say in his own defence was that if he had hired her as his guide through territory that she knew well, then he would expect to be instructed on matters of safety.

She demanded as to how, not living off the land, made her safer and he wouldn’t respond. Saying that he wasn’t being paid to answer questions.

She went to hit him, he jumped back, daggers were drawn before Kerrass, Stefan and Henrik stepped in. Henrik tried to appeal to sense as he saw it and Piotr refused. Kerrass took Piotr’s side on the grounds that Piotr was the guide and he would expect nothing less.

The night camps started to become sullen, uncomfortable times.

The only benefit was that Kerrass’ rock heating trick meant that we didn’t need that much firewood and the nights were far from cold.

Piotr’s mood darkened, almost visibly before our eyes as we watched the miles roll away under our feet. He stopped speaking except to occasionally say please and thank you when we passed him food or drink. He would gesture when he wanted us to leave the road and take a different path. And when it came time to rest, he would just dismount and start about the camp chores.

The solution to the riddle came suddenly, out of the blue. We were riding along, minding our own business when there was a horse in the road. An older man was sitting nearby, smoking a pipe and when he saw us, he smiled unhappily, in the way that it becomes quite clear that he is forcing that smile to his face. He knocked the ash from his pipe aside on the palm of his hand and turned to face us.

“Greetings.” He called. “Hello and Welcome.” There was a brittle sense to the words although I sensed that the welcome itself was well-meant.

Kerrass would later tell me that Piotr had gotten really pale.

We dismounted and approached the older man. He was not that old as things go, certainly still powerful in his movements. He had white hair that was cut in the manner of a man who does it with a knife in order to keep the hair out of his eyes which gave it an odd bowl like look. His beard was closely cut but well maintained. He was obviously a man that worked outside with the colour of his skin but he looked good despite it. His clothing was well made and hard-wearing.

When we had all dismounted, he stepped forwards.

“Greetings my son.” He said to Piotr, holding his hands wide as if to embrace the younger man. “Welcome home.”

Piotr took two quick steps forward and punched the man in the jaw, hard enough to send the older man sprawling.

“Don’t call me that.” Piotr hissed, “You don’t… You never.” He grimaced and turned his head to spit before turning back to the older man, his face a rictus of hate and loathing. “You don’t get to call me that. You try every time, but you don’t get to call me that.”

The old man rolled over from where he had fallen and stared up at Piotr sadly. The rest of us were frozen in shock.

“Come home, Piotr.” He said. “There are people here that love you.”

Piotr shook his head and spun on the rest of us.

“Buy as many supplies as you can.” He snarled at us. “Food, water, the usual stuff. There is no guarantee that we can get travelling goods after this. Come and find me afterwards.” He stalked past us as he talked and climbed back on his horse which he rode past the older man and his horse, at a gallop. Only just missing the older man.

There was a long moment before Kerrass moved to help the old man back to his feet.

“I have to try,” the old man said, rubbing at his eyes. “I know what he will do, but I have to try.” He rubbed his jaw a bit before smiling at the rest of us sadly although I noticed that his face stiffened when he saw Stefan’s holy symbol.

“You are not welcome here priest.” He growled before his face softened in resignation. “Not that I can stop you I suppose. Come on.” He took his horse’s reins from where they had been wrapped around a branch and led us along the road.

“I have so many questions.” I moaned.

Of all people, Trayka laughed.

We were led into the small town. Too big for a village but the word “town” sits a little uneasily on my tongue. Several nice houses of varying sizes, whitewashed walls that looked to be a mixture of stone and wood. Thatched roofs with tiled outhouses. The fields were small and there were small patches of trees that I could see in the small to middle distance. One of them clearly had pigs roaming around in it.

I could hear a woman weeping gently.

As we moved into the village, more of the character of the place seemed to reveal itself. I could hear the sounds of a stream and as we turned a corner a bridge came into view along with the signs of a watermill. The sound I could hear was the more exaggerated sound of water falling on wood. One of those homely sounds. The bridge itself was ancient and I suspected that it might once have been Elven or Dwarven in nature.

The village was formed in a cross, just off the straight ninety degrees. One arm of the cross was formed around the bridge and the other was formed as part of the road. It was a nice place, not as hectic as some of the towns that I have been through, this was an old place, an old town where the same families had lived here for decades, centuries even.

The same families who had intermarried and knew each other. My imagination flowered at the thought, this network of old towns that only communicated with each other. Occasional people would wander out into the world for news or to try and make their way in the world, inevitably to be called back by some tie of longing. Longing for familiar buildings and fields, family maybe.

They would come back with wives and husbands, maybe a child or two in the saddle as well and they would take over an old cottage, near enough to the grandparents of the children so that there could be some help with raising the children to the tasks that needed doing around the place. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else.

Everyone knew the chores that needed doing and therefore, everyone helped. There was no time for long-lasting grudges in a place like this. The person that you might be angry with might be the person that you needed to help you fix your roof or help you to look after the children when they were sick.

We walked into the town, leading our horses.

The fences turned into loose stone walls of ancient, grey stone that was covered in lichens and moss. Neat rows of flowers were placed in carefully tended beds at the foot of the walls. I recognised some of them and as well as being pretty to look at, more than one of them would have uses in various types of medicine.

As well as the Watermill, I could hear the sounds of a hammer striking metal, someone was sawing some wood and there were some light sounds of children playing, although a little quieter than I expected.

We came into the town square, such as it was. As was typical of places like this, a huge, ancient oak tree sat in the middle of the square, festooned with ribbons, charms, and small pieces of decoration. There is sometimes a risk that such extra weights can damage the tree, but this seemed to be a little more subdued than most. The offerings, because that’s what they are, were carefully curated.

Next to the green was a building that I expected and one that I did not. The building that I expected was referred to as an inn although really it was more of a tavern. There were wooden tables and chairs out on the green where men and women would stop and have something to eat and drink. The tables were served by a large, fat man who wore an apron and a permanent smile. His nose was large and florid which spoke well of the quality of his beer, and his voice was booming. He had the lines around the corners of his eyes that spoke of loud, regular laughter.

When he saw us coming he took a handbell from his bell and rang it before redundantly bellowing a pair of names which turned out to belong to two children in their early teenage years, certainly no older than fourteen.

Their gender was indeterminate as they both had long hair, were slender, lightning-quick, and worked with quick smiles. I thought that the older of the pair was a boy and that the younger was a girl but I would not have been surprised if it turned out to be the other way round.

The two children took our horses, handling them expertly and in exchange for a couple of coins, promised to take care of them properly. The old man that had led us into town seemed to trust them so it seemed rude to do anything else.

The building that I did not expect was the church. Like the bridge before it, it was clearly an ancient building and what its original purpose might have been, it had been repurposed to being a church. There are ways that you can tell these things after you get to know the signs. In this care, the wooden symbol that was wedged into place on the front of the building gave it away. Churches built for the purpose of being a church would have had the symbol built into it rather than tied on or propped in some way.

It looked friendly enough, the doors were open which is always a good sign for a village place of worship. It was also in the middle of town which suggested that it was a part of the community and remained in good repair which says that the people respected what was happening there.

There was an old nun sitting in the doorway on a carved rocking chair. She was knitting something smoothly and easily which spoke of much practice as she watched the comings and goings of the town. A younger woman that was dressed similarly to the older nun but without the headdress brought the old woman a cup of something steaming.

They both looked up as we came into the square. The older woman grimaced when she had done searching our faces and said something to the younger who approached us and stepped in front of Stefan.

“Welcome Brother.” She said. “You will stay with us in the chapel. Bring your goods while your horse is being looked after.”

“Of course but…” Stefan began.

“Best to go with her son.” Said the old man that had led us in. “Male priests aren’t welcome here.”

“Why?” Stefan demanded, the first signs of anger in his face.

“Survival.” The old man said.

“I would never…”

“We’re not concerned about our survival.” The old man said and something in his attitude shifted. Kerrass saw it too. I no longer need to look at his hands to see whether he was getting ready for a fight.

Henrik defused the situation, placing his large hand on the warrior monk’s arm. “Let it go lad,” he rumbled. “There is a history here, I don’t think they’re insulting you.”

“We are not.” Our guide told us.

Stefan sighed and nodded, pulling his gear up from the floor and following the young apprentice nun into the chapel. The nun followed him and closed the doors.

“There is a story there,” I said, turning back to our guide.

“There is.” The older man agreed. “But now is not the time for it. You will want some cold beer I expect, to wash the road from your throat, baths maybe, and something to eat.”

“That would be pleasant,” Kerrass said, reaching for his coin pouch.

“No need for that Witcher.” The old man said. “Your money is no good here. Companions of Piotr can stay, eat and drink until they are ready to go. We do need you to pay for the supplies though, certain things cannot simply be thrown away, I hope you understand.”

“We do.” I jumped in before anyone else could say anything.

“My name is Hugo,” The older man said. “Eat, drink and be merry with our hospitality. You are all welcome here. This is Jan.” He gestured at the innkeeper who was coming out with a tray of tankards.

I took one, as did Kerrass and Trayka. Henrik went to take one but his daughter cleared her throat, the older man sighed.

“Do you have any milk?” He asked, “or fruit juice of some kind?”

The innkeeper and Hugo exchanged glances before Jan, the innkeeper shrugged and drank the tankard that had been meant for Henrik himself. “I will see what I can do.” He said, returning into the building.

“My suggestion is that we get the four of you settled and then see where the day takes us,” Hugo told us. The inn only has one room so Miss? When you have finished your drink, go inside and we can get you settled. In the meantime gentlemen, enjoy the air and the beer while I fetch the people that you will be lodging with.”

He bowed and left.

Kerrass palmed his Witcher’s symbol into his hand and examined it. Then he sniffed the beer and took a sip before nodding to me.

He didn’t think it was poisoned.

Which was a good thing because it really was excellent.

We sat in wooden chairs that felt far too comfortable to not be enchanted in some way. The sun was shining, the breeze was gentle and I could hear birdsong mixing in with the distant sounds of children playing.

A wiry, middle-aged man who I took to be the smith from his scorched and pitted heavy leather apron. He greeted the innkeeper and accepted a mug of beer. Hugo walked up with a boy of about eight and smiled at us.

“Forgive me, my friend,” he said to me, “but the person putting you up is delayed and will be along shortly.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Why do I feel like I’m being fattened up?”

“Why would we do that?” Hugo looked at me curiously.

“For sacrifice,” Trayka said, she had drunk her ale a little slower than the rest of us and she smacked her lips. “You hear stories.”

Hugo stared at us, then he laughed. “No. No that’s not it.” Then he sighed, the melancholy had returned to his face. “It is true that we owe some of our good fortunes to him that you fear. The man of shadows, the one who waits. But that agreement has been in balance for as long as the town has been here and it has been here for a long time. We buy it with a certain amount of reverence and a lot of hard work. Our lives are simple and we follow the rules, there is nothing more complicated to the… nature of our home than that. As to how we treat you…”

His gaze took on a vacant look. “There we do owe a debt.”

“To Piotr,” I guessed.”And to another.”

I opened my mouth for more questions and he held his hands up with a smile. “You are the kind of man who wants to know the full story and I completely respect that. I will tell you all when we eat this evening as I trust that the four of you will be my guests here at the inn this evening?”

We all exchanged glances and Kerrass nodded. “That would be pleasant.” He said again. I don’t know where he gets that phrase from but it seems to be a new favorite saying of his.

“In which case Master Witcher, this is Halros our village smith and he has agreed to put you up in his apprentice’s quarters while his apprentice is off getting his guild accreditation.”

Kerrass picked up his bags, shook the Smith’s hand and the two strode off. Kerrass was already unslinging his sword for the Smith to examine.

“And you, sir…?”

“Henrik,” The older man introduced himself.

“This is Nikolas. He will take you to his mother’s farm where you will be staying.”

Henrik heaved himself to his feet and followed the chattering young man. Trayka ignored the exit, leaning back in her chair, cradling her beer in her hand, and enjoying the sun. I was reminded of a cat, stretching after a nap.

“The person looking after you will be along shortly,” Hugo told me, turning to leave.

I wasn’t waiting for very long. A tall woman approached, coming from further down the lane. She had long, dark hair with a few streaks of silver at the temples. The hair was curly, heading towards frizzy, and tied back at the nape of the neck, presumably to keep it out of the way.

After a while, you can tell who the village healer or herbwoman is. It’s more than the grass-stained boots and skirts. It’s more than the sharp knife that is used to cut the herbs and the large, misshapen bags full of glass phials to contain those herb samples. It is slightly more than the odd smells that accompany them everywhere and the stained, callused fingers that come from holding heating equipment and dealing with caustic things that shouldn’t really be applied to skin.

There is an upright posture to these women and occasional men who perform these tasks. As a matter of fact, it is common to a lot of people in the medical profession. Dr Shani is another prime example of this. The fact is that medical people know how to look after themselves. They know what food to eat and what herbs to take. They know that being out in the sun for too long is harmful and that the proper application of creams can protect the skin. They know that proper cleanliness can maintain a healthy body. There is a bloom of health about them that makes them more attractive than the next person.

This is another reason why such people often find themselves being accused of Witchcraft. People know about the connection between attractiveness and magic and therefore, they assume that the reason that the local herbwoman is magical in nature. The fact that all the stories seem to agree with that, meaning that they feed into that prejudice.

This one was a handsome woman. I would have put her in her early to mid-thirties, a little older than Emma. She moved easily with the gait that comes with spending a lot of time in the forest. There is a lift to it that is otherwise missing in a normal person’s walking.

And when she got closer, it was clear that she had been crying.