“You must be Lord Frederick.” She said, holding her hand out to be shaken.

“I must be.” I stood and shook the offered hand.

“Then if you’ll follow me please.” She tried for a smile, failed, and sighed. I pretended that I didn’t notice and picked up my gear. “I am called Rose.” She told me.

I introduced myself like a proper gentleman.

“It’s not much I’m afraid.” She said as she led me towards the end of the village. “But I have a bed that is often reserved for sick people so that I can keep an eye on them. It’s not being used at the moment.”

“I guarantee that I’ve slept in worse places,” I told her.

I got the laugh that I wanted.

“Tell me.” I said, “you were expecting us?”

“We were. We knew that… Piotr was bringing a new group in.”

“How did you know?” Again, I pretended not to notice that she had paused before saying the name.

“Gossip travels fast in these parts. He likes to keep to the roads when he brings people through and there are other shortcuts that locals use to….” She smiled, “It’s not that exciting I’m afraid. Were you expecting some kind of supernatural messaging service? A magical bond among people in this part of the world.”

“Not really,” I admitted. “But that would have made for a more interesting story.”

I got another laugh for my efforts.

“No.” I went on. “My travels have shown me that the simplest answer to the conundrum is often the easiest and best answer. I still have questions of course.”

“I have no doubt.” Her face stiffened for a moment before relaxing.

“This is where Piotr’s from?”

“Yes, he was born a few houses down the road from mine… Please don’t ask me any more about him?”

There was a hint of pleading in the request that I resolved to respect unless there was no other choice.

“Father… Hugo will tell you the rest. It’s not a secret, it’s just…” She shook her head. “Here we are.” She gestured at the little cottage at the end of the row. Not as far away from the middle of the town as some healing houses have been. But close enough to be included properly.

Again, that’s not always a matter of intentional isolation. The image of the healer’s cottage in the middle of the woods or on the edge of town is a thing. But as well as the herb people wanting to be closer to the herbs that they are gathering, there is also the factor that some people want to be more private when they are being healed. And sometimes, healing is painful and the rest of the community doesn’t want to listen to all the screaming.

The things you learn when you are on the road.

This house was nice, well maintained, and instead of the storage, the barrels and crates of things that take up a lot of the yard and garden space that are taken up in a town like this, here there were rows upon rows of herbs.

“You approve?” She wondered.

I smiled at her as we went inside.

I was shown to a little cot at one side of the main area where I lay my bags down.

“My room is through there.” She said, gesturing at a doorway. “You don’t look the type, but I sleep with a long sharp knife under the pillow.”

I held my hands up to placate her. “I am due to be married in the autumn, to a woman I love, you have nothing to fear from me.”

She looked appalled. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?” She snarled, sudden fury pouring from her. “Get on your horse and ride back the way you came. Go fast, take her to your bed and never let her go. If you…” She snapped her mouth shut, the rage draining from her eyes as fast as it came, leaving her looking tired and too full of sorrow.

“Why?” I asked as gently as I could. “Why so urgent?”

She shook her head and took a deep, shuddering breath. “The Chamberpot is under the bed. As you are neither sick nor injured. I would thank you to take it and empty it in the outhouse round the back of the house when you’ve used it. There is Fresh water in the barrel outside under the eaves that can be used for drinking. Observe the hearth. The pot on the left is kept warm for hot water, the one on the right is kept for a soothing tea which I find cures most ills. Although I warn you that I brew it strong so that it has a more medicinal effect. If that is too bitter for you, there is honey in the earthenware pot with the daisy drawn on the front. Cups are there nearby.”

The hearth had a central gulf that I assumed was for cooking.

“Refill the teapot, or the hot water if you use either,”

“Rainwater, bucket.” I guessed.

“Quite so. For a suicidal man, you’re not that stupid.”

I felt myself bridle a little bit as the bitterness behind what she was saying was easy to see.

“What happened here?” I said. “Why is everyone so sad?”

She took a deep juddering breath before a calm, professional mask settled over her face. “Tea?”

“Yes please, I will be brave and only ask for a single spoonful of honey, I like it on the bitter side.”

“A man after my own heart.”

She bustled with a professional air. I recognized this as well. I’ve seen it on so many hunts now that I could almost tell her what was going to happen next. She was taking solace in chores.

“Father will go into proper detail.” She said as she ladled the liquid into cups. “That is his penance and his punishment.”

I nodded acceptance of that and went to fetch a bucket of water which she accepted with a nod.

“Piotr only comes through here when he’s going to make another attempt to go into the heart of the Black Forest.” She said as she poured some honey into my cup. “Nobody comes back from there. Nobody. Piotr knows this so the only reason is because he is making another attempt to kill himself. He won’t tell you that of course.”

I nodded.

“When was the last time he was here?” I wondered.

“Four years ago.” She said. He went with a group of soldiers, a young noble, not unlike yourself and a group of monks. He came back, they didn’t. He rode off as he always does. It had been so long that we thought he’d died, or that he had decided not to come back at all. We hear news of him of course, no-one knows the lands around here better than him. The roads and the little paths.”

She smiled as she spoke. I had a sudden insight that I promised myself I wouldn’t articulate. Again, not until it was absolutely necessary.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why does he hate this place? Why is he so angry?”

She sighed and stood up. “The town lynched his wife.” She said brutally. “My sister. She was dragged from her bed, beaten, and hung from the tree in the middle of the town. They nearly killed him because he fought them of course. Why are we so sad?”

She shook her head.

“We deserve his anger and his hate.” Her own tears were back. “Don’t go with him.” She said. “Return to your lady and make sure you never leave her.”

I nodded. I was right. This woman loved Piotr.

“Did you see the Witcher?” I wondered.

“It was hard to miss him.” There was a humor in her voice again.

“That man has saved my life more times than I can easily tell you. He is the reason that I am getting married and I love him more than I love my own brothers. He goes to the black forest to make contact with the Schattenmann and I would not desert him in this. We do not intend to attack or destroy him, or it or whatever he is.”

Her face darkened. “Piotr will want to kill him. He hates the Schattenmann where the rest of us have learned to live with him,” She said. “It is the smallest part of why he doesn’t want to stay here.”

“We will bear that in mind,” I told her.

I diverted the conversation around to other things before she begged off as she had some other people to see. As far as I could tell, it was a genuine concern as she packed some of her various medicines into a bag and walked off. I went with her, having arranged my sleeping area to my satisfaction. She frowned when I took my weapons with me.

“There is nothing to worry about here.” She said.

“I have no doubt,” I told her. “But after three years on the road, traveling with a Witcher, experience has told me that the day I leave them behind is the day that I need them.”

“You will not need them.” She insisted.

“I know that,” I answered her insistence with one of my own. “But I would feel naked without them now.” She looked at me for a long time.

“I feel sorry for you.” She declared before leading me out of the house.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “And you are not wrong.”

But that didn’t stop me from slinging my spear over my shoulder and tucking my dagger in my belt.

She left me a bit further down the lane, walking into another one of the houses while I carried on to the tavern where I found Kerrass and Henrik waiting for me. We exchanged a bit of gossip about where we were staying while the innkeeper brought us some more of the excellent beer. I went to make use of the bathhouse and we whiled away the afternoon enjoying ourselves. Kerrass and I trained in a small paddock behind the inn but otherwise, time free from chores and tensions was well spent and that evening, the village started to fill the inn.

It was a grand old time to be had by all. Hugo turned up at one point to tell us that getting our goods together for the journey was going to take a bit longer than expected and we would not be able to leave until the day after. He expressed regret on the grounds that it would mean that we were delayed but that it couldn’t be helped.

We had a grand old time. There was a small group of musicians. I don’t think it was anything formal. Just a group of shepherds that had nothing else to do while they passed the time and watched the sheep. As I have found with that kind of thing, they turned out to actually be quite good. There is more talent in the small villages and towns along the deserted tracks than even Professor Dandelion would care to admit.

They also changed around a bit. There were occasionally, awful periods of embarrassment when the smaller child or young person was pushed onto the stage by overly proud parents in order to play the piece of music that they had clearly been working on for ages. It wasn’t always terrible but you could tell that there was more than one child there that plainly didn’t want to be on stage in front of the entire town, let alone the group of visitors.

But the food was good, the atmosphere was convivial. I dare say that we would have had our choice of sexual partners if we had wanted to. Kerrass was being cautious and careful. I was back into a mindset that I was saving myself for Ariadne, Henrik turned down a couple of the middle-aged women on the grounds that he was too old for that kind of thing, which I knew to be a lie. It was more that he wanted to keep an eye on his daughter.

For her part, Trayka had as good a time as she could. She danced with anyone who asked including boys that were far too young for her and more than one woman. She also drank freely despite her father’s objections and whenever he challenged her on her behavior, she told him to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

The interesting thing during this bit was when the Novice from the chapel turned up and took delivery of a small steaming pot from the innkeeper and a basket of bread. I watched her leave. There was no hostility between her and the rest of the village. A couple of people made jokes with her while she waited for the innkeeper to fetch the pot out of the back and she clearly knew everyone by name.

But she left before I could ask her any real substantive questions.

As is the way with these rural towns, they work hard and they party hard, but then the fact that they all had to get up again for the dawn started to creep into the middle of everyone’s mind and the place emptied with blinding speed. In Oxenfurt, as with any of the major taverns and inns that I’ve been to in cities and larger towns, there is a build-up to the end of the night. The band will work up to a climax and then there will be an announcement that the bar will be closing soon and that people need to drink up and go home.

That didn’t happen here and it doesn’t happen generally in those places where people make their living according to the sun.

So suddenly, we turned around to find that there was a man playing an ancient harp in the corner, he was old from the look of him and he was head bowed, just plucking at the strings gently, playing along with a song that only he could hear.

The innkeeper topped up our drinks and went through to help his wife in the kitchen to clear up after the evening’s meals. I have seen people break the stereotype of the fat jolly innkeeper with the fat and jolly wife. But this was not one of those places. I don’t think that they were old but they clearly loved each other. I would later enquire and it turned out that they had children that worked in the fields and the vegetable garden. It was two of their many children that had come and taken our horses away to be looked after.

Hugo, the old man that had first come to greet us, stayed with us too. Sipping from a tankard of a spiced cider that seemed to be popular in the local area. It was good and warming enough that Kerrass asked for the recipe which appalled the innkeeper, much to the amusement of the locals. “If I tell you that,” the innkeeper had said, “then why would you ever come back.”

Kerrass was left flabbergasted by this. A fact that I took great delight in teasing him for.

I had not drunk a lot and what I had drunk was nowhere near enough to impact my senses. Living in Toussaint where the finest wines in the world are brewed, is enough to raise your tolerance to anything. So I checked around to make sure that we weren’t going to be overheard.

“So,” I said to Hugo. “The town doesn’t like priests. You don’t have problems with nuns or priestesses, but you don’t like priests. That and I’m told that the reason that Piotr hates you all is that you lynched his wife.”

Hugo set his tankard down and stared at the floor.

“I’m going to guess.” I went on. “That these two factors are not a coincidence. I think that there was a priest here some time ago and he whipped the town into a religious frenzy and as a result, for reasons that I’m sure you will tell me. The town committed that awful, unforgivable act.”

Henrik flinched, looked angry for a second before sighing and rising to his feet.

“I don’t think I want to be here for this part of the conversation.” He rumbled. “I will see you gentlemen in the morning.”

He looked around for his daughter but when not seeing her, he shook his head sadly and left. Trayka had gone off earlier without any of us noticing. She does that quite regularly and there’s no apparent rime or reason to it. It was just as likely that she had chosen a young man and gone off with him as it was that she might have just decided to have an early night.

Hugo took a deep breath and looked up at me. “There is more to it than that.”

“There would have to be,” I answered, possibly a little hotter than I intended it to be. “I have problems with religious fuelled, summary executions. I have lost friends to the fires of the North and I had always hoped that the South would be better than that.”

“People always find excuses, Freddie,” Kerrass told me, pouring into his own cup from the jug that was on the table. “I would have thought that you knew that by now.”

“

I do,” I admitted. “But you always hope for the better.”

We stopped talking then and turned towards Hugo.

“This is all the business of the town.” Kerrass told him, “And normally, I would not get involved in such matters. But this concerns one of my companions and I would like to know if he is going to just lose his temper at somebody.”

“I doubt that,” Hugo said. “He is a man of contained fury.”

“He punched you in the face,” I argued.

“And I deserved it.” The old man said. He rose and went behind the bar to help himself to another tankard.

“Your daughter also said that Piotr only comes here when he’s going to try and kill himself,” I said. “What does that mean?”

Hugo finished his tankard and poured himself another one, returning to the tale.

“It is about the Schattenmann,” he said. “It’s always about the Schattenmann in these parts.”

Kerrass and I looked at each other. “Then I think.” Kerrass began. “We’re going to have to insist on hearing the story.”

Hugo sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Kerrass’ face stiffened. “As you have explained about the goods, it wouldn’t seem as though I have anywhere to go tomorrow.”

Hugo grimaced before he sighed again.

What he told us had the feeling of a story that had been told many times. Not least to himself in the small hours of the morning.

“You have to understand.” He began slowly, “that everything in this part of the world revolves around the Schattenmann.”

“I thought he only lived in The Black Forest,” I commented.

Hugo laughed. “Young man, you have been traveling through the Black Forest for some time to get as far as this village. And the Schattenmann’s influence is all around you, all around us really. I know who you are Lord Frederick and I have read your works on the matter of Amber’s Crossing. You wrote that people try to leave but that they struggle and find themselves drawn back over time.

“Life here is a lot like that but less cruel. We live in the shadow of the Schattenmann. Sometimes he is an angry presence and when he rages, we hide in our homes and pray that the sun will shine again. Sometimes he is a benign presence and we find ourselves being led to caches of wild mushrooms and truffles by forest creatures. What causes the one and not the other? I couldn’t tell you. But that is what life is like in the Black Forest.

“What is the Schattenmann?” He went on, pouring Kerrass and me a drink each. “I don’t know. The closest theories that I have heard were that he is some kind of Leshen or Spriggan. But those people that theorized have also suggested that if this was the case, then he was the oldest and most powerful incarnation of something like that than they, the speaker, had ever seen.

“I tell you this because you need to know that life in these parts is just… like that. It is an important piece of context. So… onto who Piotr is. He never told you anything about himself?”

“No,” Kerrass responded, taking another mouthful of his spiced cider. “I wanted a guide and according to the people that I spoke to, Piotr is the best for this part of the world.”

“He is at that,” Hugo said with some kind of pride. “Does he know where you are going?”

“He does,” Kerrass told him. “He knows that I go to speak to the Schattenmann, to try and make contact with him because there are certain things that we need to know that he might know the answer to.”

Hugo shivered. “That is an awful thought. What could he know that you might need to know the answer to.”

“Many, many things,” I said slowly.

Hugo nodded.

“Piotr was the best woodsman that we had ever produced. That’s not a boast, nor is it too low a boast. He was a prodigy in the woodland. Able to move in apparent silence from the age of four, a crack shot with a bow from the age of eight. He was funny, charming, and good-looking and everyone loved him. Including me, my wife, and my two daughters.

“The village was much the same then as it is now. I think we have managed to put tiles on the rooves of some of our more important buildings and we have pulled down one or two of the more dangerous sheds that needed pulling down. Piotr’s parents were typical, both dead now alas. Not for any sinister reason, it was just that, they were already old when Piotr was born and life out here can be hard on occasion. His mother died in childbirth and his father died in a building accident.

“Piotr grew up around my daughters and there was a firm friendship that grew there. My wife and I, may the light of the sun fall gently on her face, only had the worry as to which of the two Piotr would choose to marry and would it sour the relationship between the two sisters.

“It is important, telling you of my family. You, Lord Frederick, will have met my eldest daughter. The two of them were as opposite as any could be. Rose, my eldest, was always tall, tomboyish, and would run around the woods after Piotr, chasing him down and hitting him with sticks. Then they would come back and my younger daughter would care for their injuries. Tulip was short where Rose is tall, plump, and soft whereas Rose is slim and hard.

“The father in me would say that both were beautiful but in different ways. Rose was handsome rather than pretty and even she would say that it was her shape that attracted the eyes of the other boys in the village. Tulip was pretty and had kind eyes. Of the two, not only was Rose the older but there was little doubt as to which of the two was seen as the most desirable to the younger males of the village.

“My wife was the town healer and devoted her time to being that. Tulip took after her in most ways, following her around and asking questions. Tulip was kind-hearted and looked after everyone. She was the kind of girl that brought home injured animals and nursed them back to health whereas Rose wanted to be a hunter. She was a fair woodsman herself and a decent shot. Looking back, I think she enjoyed the solitude of being out in the woods.”

He paused there for a long moment and stared in space at his memories. Then he shook himself.

“Piotr was restless though and resistant to settling down. He was good with his bow, skilled with a quarterstaff and as a result, when the Emperor called for men, Piotr answered and went to fight. He joined the Imperial Scouting Legions and as I understand it, he served with honor until his unit was disgraced at the battle of Brenna. He was nowhere near the place where the mistake happened, but the entire unit took the blame as the officer in charge didn’t survive.

“Piotr told us all the story when he returned and described the man as an imbecile anyway.”

(Freddie’s note: Famously, the Nilfgaardians lost the battle at Brenna because an officer and Knight who was given the responsibility of checking behind a hill for enemy reinforcements got cold feet and chickened out of exposing himself to the enemy. Therefore, the open flank was not checked properly and Marshall Coehoorn made his strategy based on poor information.)

So Piotr came home. He had his sword, his buckler, and his bow. He had a commendation for bravery, a few scars, and the same haunted look in his eyes that my father had when he came home from war. We are not unused to such things in the village. We are all proud followers of the Sun, even as we do not permit priests in the village and that means that we are all proud people of Nilfgaard. When The Emperor calls, we answer and when it becomes clear that whichever person in question is not coming home, then the village takes pride in coming together to look after those people that are left behind.

“No widow, nor child nor any other person has ever been made destitute because someone was a patriot. In harder times, it has even been known for people to go out to the wars in order to ensure that their wives and children are able to be looked after.

“So he had that look in his eyes. That look. I look around the table and I see that both of you have that look yourselves. The look of men that have seen horrible, terrible things. Men that will make jokes in the presence of horror that the rest of us cannot comprehend in order to make it more bearable. Men who know to take their comfort when they can take it and to not complain when things don’t go their way.”

I wanted to make a joke here. Something self-deprecating about how I am more than capable of complaining at all times when things don’t go my way. But I didn’t. It seemed rude somehow.

I think Kerrass had the same thought but he didn’t look at me.

“So Piotr came home. A little older in body, much older in mind and soul and he moved into his Father’s old cottage, found out what gaps needed filling in in the community, and got on with it.”

“Wait.” I held up a hand. “What do you mean by that? Gaps needing filling?”

“What does that have to do with…?” Hugo frowned.

“Context is important in this kind of thing,” I said promptly and Kerrass nodded.

Hugo shrugged.

“The village grows and shrinks according to the needs of the community. If we need a new hunter then we train up one of the children that shows some aptitude for the task. When our Blacksmith starts to show signs that his strength is beginning to fail then we ensure that he finds an apprentice that can take over. If we need a… I don’t know… A Cooper for whatever reason, then we either invite a neighbor to come and join us, making sure that there is a house available, and then that is how it works. Some people leave and when someone vital to the community leaves, then another person is found to take over.”

I nodded. “I see, what happens when you have a surplus of any particular kind of thing?”

“What does Surplus mean?” Hugo asked.

“Too many or too much of something,” Kerrass said. “When you grow too much wheat for the village to consume then you have surplus wheat.”

“I see,” Hugo said, nodding his understanding while Kerrass poured him another drink. “It is rare that we have… Surplus of anything. The land and the woodland around us tend to give us what we need. No more and no less. And if it does give us more than whatever it is that we need, then it inevitably means that there is some greater need elsewhere. If we have more than one Cooper then our neighbors will turn out to need one. Or if we have too much wheat, then we know there will be a famine the next year, or again, the neighbors will have a problem.”

I nodded and exchanged glances with Kerrass.

“So Piotr came back.” Kerrass prompted.

“Yes, he did. We think he was suffering from some kind of injury. My Tulip had taken over from her mother by this stage and was the town healer….”

“What was Rose doing at this point?” I wondered.

Hugo frowned at the interruption. “She had joined the town hunters. She worked with her sister. Helping to gather the herbs and make the potions and things. But primarily, she worked as a hunter and another one of the town guides. There are always people in this part of the world that seem to get lost and need to be guided back to the road. We actually make a surprisingly large amount of money from these people in our town.”

I nodded. Hugo’s point had been well made, although I don’t think he was entirely comfortable with what I was asking.

“Piotr was one of those guides. He resumed a lot of his old relationships and friendships. A couple of his friendships had soured, especially those boys who pretended to military prowess. He had no time for fire-side soldiers or generals and one of our few inter-village arguments happened when Piotr told young Canis that if he had behaved as Canis had suggested then he would be dead. And worse than that, he would have got all his friends killed as well.

“As I recall, Canis didn’t enjoy being told he was stupid. And then he didn’t enjoy being shown the difference between proper military combat experience and training and that gained in the village wrestling ring during festival times.”

Hugo smiled at the memory for a moment.

“So yes, Piotr came back. He was a guide and a hunter, he roamed a little bit further afield than some of the other people in our village but at the same time, he would always find his way home. He resumed his friendship with my two daughters and when he came up the path to my house with his best clothes on, a bottle of spirits, and a bunch of flowers in order to ask for my permission to begin courting one of them. I was unsurprised.

“But you could have knocked me down with a feather when he asked for my permission to begin courting Tulip rather than Rose.

“I loved both my daughters…”

He had to stop and take a moment.

“I still love both my daughters but Tulip would not be angry with me when I say that Rose had grown into the better-looking woman by far. She was not classically beautiful by any means but there was something about the way that she held herself that made her beautiful. Rose had turned down suitor after suitor and was clearly besotted with Piotr so my wife and I thought that the deal was done. That all I had to do was to get out of their way and pay for a suitable party at the inn on the wedding night. That Piotr might choose the shorter, plumper… and let’s be honest with each other here, less intelligent daughter, simply never occurred.”

“Less intelligent?” I wondered.

“She had… bless her… She had a prodigious memory for herbs and things. But she was… slow I suppose. She would eventually turn up at the right answer, but the way that she got there was sometimes painfully slow. As a healer, she made up for this by being kind. My wife, Sun rest easy on her, said that any faults that my daughter had as a healer were countered by the gentle nature and kind heart behind it. That she had a knack for being able to hold up more dangerous symptoms with something simple before being able to realize the exact, specific thing that she needed to make the cure sick. But sometimes, talking with her was a chore. She knew this too and she became shy as a result.

“The entire family was stunned when Piotr asked for my permission to court Tulip instead of Rose. Certainly, Tulip was astonished, overjoyed, but astonished and I was even more overjoyed when the first person to congratulate Tulip after Piotr had left was Rose herself. Who forced a laugh of joy before she fled to have some quiet tears. But never was there a sister happier for the happiness of her rival.

“To this day, I don’t know why Piotr chose Tulip over Rose.”

Hugo shook his head at the memory.

“Love?” I said. “Who can tell the heart what it wants. Not I.”

“I think it’s simpler than that,” Kerrass said. “When returning from horror, men want their mothers. I have been across battlefields when men cry out for many things. Water, the release of a swift, sharp blade. But I am always surprised about how many strong grown men scream out for their mothers at that moment.”

For a moment, I wondered about that relationship between my own mother and Ariadne. I wondered if that was what I had done. My mother, a cold, remote presence only interested in her religion. And just as quickly as that, I dismissed it. My mother wanted to retreat from everything, whereas Ariadne wants to get closer to everything. To get in the middle of things and absorb them.

I nodded, feeling reassured.

“Piotr became the son that I never had.” Hugo went on. “I had heard about how the other women in the village had been courted from my friends who were also the fathers of daughters. Indeed,” he grinned, a little unpleasantly, “I remember how I was when I was courting my wife. But Piotr was never like that. He didn’t treat my daughter mean in order to make her keen. He arrived on time and waited patiently if she was running late. He never complained when she was called away to deal with one of the many healing emergencies that ladies in her profession often have to put up with.

“Both she and my wife would say that stupidity doesn’t know what time it is.”

Kerrass and I both laughed at that. It’s true as well. People can behave stupidly as easily as first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

“Piotr would drop Tulip off promptly at curfew. Not that she needed to, or wanted one. But they were never late and she was home whenever he promised.

“And as far as I know, she was still a virgin on her wedding night. I wish I could take pride in that achievement as a father but that was all Piotr. Tulip had insisted and although I have never met a soldier who was a virgin much after their first fight… According to my wife, Piotr never pushed Tulip further than she was prepared to go. Tulip wanted to save herself for her wedding night, more power to her.”

Piotr looked a little bashful.

“Also according to my wife, Piotr took that responsibility seriously.”

Their wedding was a joyous occasion. Rose stood with her sister as a woman should, and if she was jealous then that jealousy was carefully hidden and I didn’t see it. And the couple settled down to live happily.”

Hugo’s face went still.

“Tulip was pregnant when she died.” He whispered before he hung his head. Both Kerrass and I pretended to look elsewhere. Kerrass went in search of more things to drink and I suddenly took great interest in the tabletop.

“So that’s the context,” Hugo said when he came back to himself. “So… You’ve been traveling through the Black Forest for some time. THe Schattenmann impacts our lives in so many minute ways that it’s impossible to guess as to how much we are actually controlled by him. We do not worship him as a God, unlike some villages I could mention. But it would be foolish to deny that he has a very real presence in our lives. Sometimes he demands a sacrifice. Don’t ask me how we know but suddenly we will know and we all troop into the trees where we leave the sacrifice on an old, flat stone.”

“I would like to see this stone,” Kerrass said. “If someone could guide me tomorrow, while we wait.”

“I will find you, someone,” Hugo said.

“Does he ever demand human sacrifice?” I wondered.

“He used to. He hasn’t in many years. Certainly not in my lifetime, or my father’s. And then, it wasn’t for the firstborn or some lithe young maiden. It was…”

He took a deep breath. “Don’t judge us.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

“Others have done far worse,” Kerrass said.

“Our society is about depending on each other,” Hugo said. “Everyone works, because if we don’t then the entire house of cards falls apart. So… If there is someone in the village that doesn’t pull their weight. If there is a drunkard who makes the women uncomfortable. Trying to force his affections on them by pressure and physical accidents.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“We know what you mean,” I said. I thought of Edmund, my eldest brother.

“And if that person does not work and is just a drain on resources. Someone who gets into fights and injures those people that are actually doing their part. And when we couldn’t pressure them into leaving or exile. Then we would take them for a walk into the woods as a gift for the Schattenmann. And those gifts were always accepted.”

I nodded. Kerrass was right. Others have done far worse.

“So we’ve always lived with the Schattenmann.” Hugo carried on. “We do not worship him like a deity, sometimes he is more forgiving, and sometimes he can be a harsh master. But likewise, we have always been a proper, sun-fearing town. We had a nice little chapel and the priest of the place used to have a nice cottage next to it. Whenever a priest was getting a bit too old to be able to carry on they would either retire and spend out the rest of their days in peace in the village, or they would retire to one of the nearby monasteries.”

Another little suspicion began to form. “Were you one of these priests?” I wondered.

“Great sun no.” He laughed. “No, I’m a shepherd by trade. I went to war, like Piotr, and I fell in with caring for the horses of the Cavalry. People claim that I have a gift with animals and when one gets sick, I can normally figure out what’s wrong with them and otherwise put together something to make them feel better again. No, I’m not a priest. I get a lot of time for quiet contemplation though and it means that I’m a little bit more educated than some of the other folk in the village. The priests make an effort to ensure that we all know our letters and things and being a shepherd and being out at all hours to guard the flocks against the wolves and occasional poachers that come out of the trees, well, it leaves a lot of time for reading and thought.”

“Do you not need to be watching?” I wondered. “I find reading to be quite an intensive…”

Hugo shook his head. “After a while, there’s a feel to it. I would always know that there is a problem, the sheep would let me know and you would be surprised as to how much watching my hound does really.”

I shrugged. It was not all that outlandish to my ears.

“You were talking about the religious needs of the village.” Kerrass prompted.

“Yes, well… So we would often get young priests that needed a bit of seasoning before they went on to bigger and better things. They would be sent here to learn what it’s really like to care for a group of villagers. But mostly, we got old priests. Men who had worked themselves to the bone in the cities and the more populace towns. Men who had served with the regiments or had come to the priesthood relatively late in life. We would get them as something of a quiet retirement. That was, by far, the most commonplace circumstance.

“But then we got a new man. He was not young but he was the kind of old man in which a fire burns that keeps him seeming youthful and energetic. He was very clever, incredibly charming and as older men go, he was also quite handsome, or so I’m told. But he had another quality that previous priests had never had.”

Kerrass drained his cup and smacked his lips. “Let me guess.” He said, frowning at the bottom of his cup as though he expected there to be more there. “He was ambitious.”

Hugo nodded. “Funny that we didn’t see it until it was too late. But then you don’t see the horror until it’s upon you do you. His name was Kwentin. And to all intents and purposes, he was a good priest. He went from house to house, spent time with the dying, his interpretations of the scriptures were not too extreme. It is easy to see now that he was getting into everyone’s confidences so that he could become more extreme later. But at the time, a vigorous priest with the age to, at least appear, wise was seen as a boon.

“He was fascinated with the Schattenmann though. He would ask questions about him and watch for circumstances and manifestations. As I say, to us, the Schattenmann is not a God, but this priest almost wanted to treat him like one. As though it was some great heresy that we had been following for a long time. It wasn’t, it was just a fact of life. He is like the winter storm or summer drought, just something that you have to get used to and plan around.

“But this priest was not having that. He started to complain about the Schattenmann. Just gently, turning folk around to his way of thinking. He would complain about how much time and effort was lost to the care of a creature that we knew nothing about. He would make reasonable-sounding criticisms. He would argue that days lost in order to observe, in his words, ‘the rites that the Schattenmann demand.’ And to be fair, his arguments were not incorrect. We lost several days of labor a year to the care of the Schattenmann. Days when we could be doing something else. It’s just that, to the rest of us, those days are not wasted as, in return, the Schattenmann gives us his blessing to remain here.”

“But in ones and twos, he started to find followers,” I said. It was not a new story.

“As you say,” Hugo said. “He even started to change the language after a while. We were no longer appeasing a powerful entity, we were seeking to worship him and offer him rites. And suddenly, the village really was worshipping the Schattenmann like a God. We didn’t feed the Schattenmann, we left him offerings. We didn’t calm the Schattenmann’s temper with the dances. We performed rites and acts of worship. The language changed and even though the majority of us didn’t think of the Schattenmann as a God, even though we found the antics of this little priest to be quite funny, to an outside observer, we were using the language of worship now. The language of a church.”

I accepted the offer of a refill from Kerrass. I knew where the story was going from here. I imagine you do too. There is also an essay or a book that could be written here about the priest who led the village into heresy by changing the language that was used. But I am unsure that it would be a subject that I would want to pursue. I rather think that it would make me sick.

“How long did this go on for?” I asked instead.

“Longer than… It seemed longer than it was. It increased in pace as well. I seemed to blink and then one day, it was as though we were committing heresy and instead of asking questions about the Schattenmann, we were being screamed at from the pulpit about how we were all heretics, how we were surrounded by heretics, and about how we had fight back the darkness in our own hearts. It all happened so fast, dismayingly fast. Eventually, after the first beating where the priest and a couple of his followers beat a young man for leaving an offering on the edge of the woodland, we learned to keep things quiet. Those of us who knew that the Schattenmann was still out there, learned to keep our thoughts and opinions to ourselves. And suddenly we were a proper, Sun-fearing village, and the offerings to the Schattenmann stopped as the heresy that the priest told us they were.

“Things turned to the worse for the village. We started to see our crops failing more and more. Speaking as a shepherd and a healer of animals, more and more of our livestock began to be sick, small infections in the flocks became widespread. Sheep would start to fight each other. Undoubtedly, the Schattenmann’s influence. Some of us tried to point this out, but the priest, Kwentin, had the village in his hands now. Those of us that complained that we were making our own problems worse were ridiculed, ostracised, and then at the extreme, we were beaten.

“I was one of those people. I knew that the Schattenmann was no God. He is a thing, a powerful being, an entity, a monster… I don’t know.

And when I said all of that, I was clubbed into the ground with bits of fencepost and had to be nursed back to health by my own daughter. That was not a good time for either of us.

“I should have gone elsewhere. I should have taken the exile and walked away. But I looked at the animals and I heard the words of my neighbors who told me that the flocks needed me, that no one had my skills with animals and that they needed me. They pleaded with me to stay and to just say the words, even if I didn’t mean them. And Great Sun forgive me, I listened and did as I was told.

“We were months like that. The priest had his little corner of the world cowed. He tried to spread his poison into nearby villages, other places that are aware of the Schattenmann’s existence and who follow him or worship him to varying degrees. Most of them were like how we had been. Who saw the Schattenmann as just something else to live with. They saw what was happening to us and remembered the lesson of other places where similar things had happened. Including the village with the priest that is subject to eternal torment…

“Yes… I know where you are going. I have been to that awful place myself and have seen what the Schattenmann left of those that tried to challenge him.

“So the priest changed direction. He let it be known that he wanted to hire a Witcher.”

Kerrass was appalled. “Did any come?”

“A couple did actually. I never learned their names. They heard about the job, read the notices and things, listened to the priest and what he was saying. Of the two, one of them just laughed in the priest’s face, told him to fuck off, and rode on. The other, a darker-skinned man asked a few questions around the town and was a bit more polite about telling the priest to fuck off before he too went on his way.

“So the priest hired a mage and this is where things get bleak.”

“It sounds like things were already a little bleak,” I commented.

Hugo grunted and got out of his chair. The innkeeper had come back and was working behind the bar, just cleaning things up, wiping cups and glasses. TO be truthful he was keeping an eye on us to make sure we weren’t hurting his friend or anything else as deeply stupid. The two men spoke and a clay bottle was produced which turned out to be some kind of liquor that I didn’t recognize. A berry cordial, a little sharp for me, but it grew on me as I became used to it. Kerrass took a cup to be polite but it wasn’t to his taste, which I found surprising.

“I have heard many things about mages in the North,” Hugo said. “Do you know how mages work in Nilfgaard?”

“Assume that we don’t,” Kerrass said.

“Well, Mages here work for the state. The added wrinkle is that the state is also the church. So mages are often highly religious as they get educated that way. So unlike how I hear things are done in the North, the Mages and priests in the South actually get on quite well. Our priest sent the request through the proper channels and after a while, this mage turned up. He rode this big black horse that looked far dopier than it should have been, leading a mule that was laden down with scrolls and the like.

“If Kwentin the new priest was a fire-breathing fanatic, then I have no idea what this mage was. He cursed us all for heathens and heretics and strode out into the woods to confront the Schattenmann head-on. He can’t have been very successful because although we saw explosions of fire and lightning rip through the night sky, he would come back to town, time after time, in a worse temper than that which he had left. He claimed to have destroyed the Schattenmann multiple times but that no matter what he tried, the thing kept coming back.”

I saw Kerrass’ eyes glitter in the growing darkness.

“The mage and the priest locked themselves away in the chapel along with those that were most in deep with the new way of thinking and they decided that there was someone in the village, someone that refused to submit to the light of the Great Sun. A person that still worshipped the Man of Shadows. And that all of our problems would go away if this person was destroyed. That they were evil and a source of darkness. That the land would not heal without their destruction.

“And the person that they chose to fixate on was Tulip.”

Hugo sat there for a long moment as tears slid from his eyes. He got angry after a short while and scrubbed the tears from his own face.

“Apparently, the Schattenmann was anchored to this place. That he had his claws in someone, that that someone would be one who often went out into the trees for whatever reason. Why did they pick Tulip for their anger?”

Hugo shrugged.

“I doubt that we will ever know. There are various reasons that have been suggested. One of which was that Tulip really was an anchor of some kind. We have since spoken to various knowledgeable and wise people that have said that such things do exist. Do they not, Witcher?”

“They do,” Kerrass told him. “And the people in question who have been chosen as anchors are almost always ignorant of the fact that they have been chosen. It is possible that this was the case.”

Hugo nodded miserably.

“There are other, darker reasons. It was suggested that Tulip and, or, Rose had caught the eye of the mage, and, or, the priest. Rose was never going to fall for that kind of nonsense and she was stronger than her sister. Physically I mean. Piotr and Rose were among the minority that didn’t have much time for the priest, the mage, or their opinions on the problems with the Schattenmann. The trio spent a lot of time working in the woods and as such, had more immediate opinions.

“The priest and his followers had tried to bully Piotr but it takes quite a lot to bully an ex-soldier who has fought and killed on real battlefields. Rose simply laughed in their faces and the one time someone tried to get physical with her, she produced her hunting knife and threatened to cut the man’s balls off.

“Tulip was a good girl. She was a healer and she healed everyone, regardless of how she felt about the matter. The three of them were not standing in the middle of the square you understand. They were not decrying and yelling at people and calling us all foolish. They just refused to acknowledge the priest and the mage’s authority and carried on regardless.

“Rose would later say that Piotr had tried to get his wife to move away with him to a nearby village. There are always needs for healers and hunters and Piotr argued that they could have made a good life for themselves elsewhere. I wish to The Sun that she had listened. Tulip insisted that their place was in this village and that these people, her people needed her. To be fair, she wasn’t wrong.

“They came for her one night. I remember it was Summer. I have no idea why they wanted a summer day.”

“Because it was dry,” I said, a little bitterly. “It helps that the kindling is dry and can take the flame properly.”

Hugo nodded miserably.

“They came for them at night. They barricaded Rose into her house, then they surrounded Piotr’s and Tulip’s marital home and set fire to it. I remember the flames as though it was yesterday, even though it has been, Great Sun… Nine years ago now?

“The rest of the village had no idea what was going on. There was a central core of anger and sullen resentment. Some of us hated what was happening to the spirit of our community. Others were resentful of those of us that were keeping it back. I remember stumbling out into the night to see the flames already licking at the sides of the building. I remember being surprised at the way the village watched. Some people were shouting protests and some were just shouting. People were trying to get bucket chains organized from the river but the priest and the Mage were there, scowling.

“I’m sure you can imagine what happened.”

“They came out,” I said. “They came out of the house that was on fire, blinded by smoke and fear.”

“Straight into the arms of the mob.” Kerrass finished.

“You have seen this kind of thing before,” Hugo said, he sounded almost reassured. Misery loves company.

“Too often,” I said.

“Similar fires have taken friends of mine, and his for that matter,” Kerrass said, gesturing at me. “Why didn’t you do anything?” There was a note of anger in Kerrass’ voice as he spoke and I wondered who he was remembering in that moment.

“Later, Piotr would ask me that,” Hugo said. “I have asked myself that many times. As has Rose. I tried, I tried to shout and argue but they pushed me back.

“I could have done more. I should have done more. Even if it meant my death. But in the end, I stood and watched as they took my daughter and the man that I thought of as my son away. Clubbing him to the floor and the point of death before using his life as a guarantee of her good behavior.

“I remember it being strange, as though I didn’t believe what was happening. They were taking my daughter away and they were going to burn her at the stake. I remember thinking, over and over that it was some kind of mistake. That it wouldn’t happen, that it couldn’t happen. We were not some group of Northern heathens that like to torture people to death. The rite of execution is a civil matter for crimes beyond the pale of society. But this? They were going to kill my daughter because of what she might be.”

I cannot condemn Hugo here although I will admit to understanding Piotr a bit better. I don’t know for sure but I suspect that, at the time, Hugo was frozen in fear and shock. As he himself said, he was unable to comprehend why this was happening and that it would be his village that was doing it. He would have been terrified that he was the next for the bonfire as well as appalled to see people who he respected, admired, and liked being involved in the lynching.

There are records of this kind of thing all over the North. Of families watching while children, spouses, parents, and siblings have been led to the flames and later, when the horror began to die down and the blame started to fly around, people would say that they had no idea why they didn’t do anything.

But I can also understand Piotr’s anger.

Tears flowed freely down the old man’s cheeks then as he described his daughter’s death.

“They dragged her from the front of her house. She would have gone willingly but for no other reason than someone had a butcher’s blade at her husband’s throat. But they insisted on dragging her anyway. They dragged her to where they had erected their stake in the village green, just over there.”

He gestured.

“They had piled up wood and doused it in oil. Then they held Piotr, broken and bleeding so that he would be forced to watch while they tied his wife to the stake and set the fires. Piotr screamed the entire time. I even think, right to the end, Tulip didn’t believe what was happening to her. The only thing I can say to that is that she died quickly. Whatever expertise is needed to prolong the death of someone when they are burning at the stake, we didn’t have it. I don’t know if it was the smoke, or the heat or what. But it was intense and she passed out and died quickly. She screamed once and I still hear that scream in my nightmares.

“She only screamed once.”

There was a long pause here. The flames in the hearth crackled.

“They had to club Piotr unconscious. He tried to get to the priest in order to strangle him. I had fallen at some point and I don’t remember much of what was happening, but they tied Piotr up and left him somewhere. The priest wanted to hang him for trying to kill him, but that would have to be done properly, no summary execution there. For whatever reason, that seemed to be one step too far. I have no idea why.”

“It’s treason,” I answered. “It is the right of the Lord, whoever that might be, to administer justice. If someone takes it into their own hands then they are depriving the lord of their… right… to choose. And an execution for treason is far less dainty than being burnt at the stake.”

Hugo had plainly not considered this and he stared into space for a while.

“That’s not the end of the story though is it.” Kerrass prompted.

“Alas, no it’s not,” Hugo said.

“The following day, the village was dazed, the remains of Piotr’s and my daughter’s house were still smoldering gently despite the buckets of water that was thrown over it. Part of the problem was that it was the healer’s cottage and therefore, all of her healing herbs and potions had either burnt, evaporated, or melted. So the air around it was… pungent. For a while there, anyone that went close to that place would become dizzy, would see things that weren’t there, or would otherwise… go a bit strange for a while. So there were bits of the house that were still smoldering.

“People went about their daily trials. Working in the fields, but there was a strange… feel about the place. It was as though we were all cold and half asleep. Rose was finally let out of her home and had to be restrained from murdering people, including me and I can’t say she was wrong. There was no talk in the town, a place that prides itself on being nice to our neighbors and coming together as a community. But we had shattered in the night like a hammer breaking glass.

“The priest, the Mage, and their cronies got drunk. Whether that was with wine, ale, or mead I don’t know. There could even be an argument to say that they could have been drunk on their own power. Or dazed because they had been so successful with what they had accomplished. I would later find out that there was talk about them heading on to pass news of their victory in the local area.

“I remember little of that day. I remember going over the events in my mind, over and over and over again, seeing if I could find a way to… something that I could have done to fix it, could have prevented it. Good friends came and informed me that the only way I could have done differently and still been alive would be if I had known what was going to happen in advance. Which was obviously impossible. I tried to argue on Piotr’s behalf but I was summarily dismissed. Your argument, Lord Frederick, strikes true to me there.

“There was no dancing that night. No music or drinking. No sense of the community coming together. We were just… There are no words for what had happened. Again, later, it would turn out that many people were already making plans to leave and I can’t say that I blame them.

“But we had forgotten one of the most important factors in the entire situation. We had forgotten to take into account what the Schattenmann would think about what had happened.

“That night, he came and he told us what he thought of what had happened. And he was displeased.”

Kerrass and I leaned forward as the firelight shone in the old man’s eyes. There was a strange feeling in that small room as the sound seemed to leech away slowly and I started to feel as though I could feel it. This was the important part of the story. The one that Hugo tells to strangers who ask about the Schattenmann. When idiots come in from all over the continent and want to know more about the enigmatic creature at the heart of the Black Forest, this is what he tells them.

At that moment, he reminded me of a Skelligan Skald. Telling long rehearsed and practiced lines from a time long past, even if, to him, it was less than a decade. This was the important bit, the rest was just context.

It started with the storm clouds rising to our East. It was the heat of Summer and summer storms are not entirely unknown. The farmers even look forward to the extra watering that the fields get in times like these. But we could see the clouds growing to the East, from the direction of the heart of the Black Forest. Shepherds and cattle keepers looked at each other in confusion. There had been none of the signs of a storm. Nothing going on that might suggest that the storm was coming. They sniffed the air and shook their heads with confusion as they looked at the towering clouds that darkened with every moment.

Herds and flocks were driven towards shelter. Covers were put over loose crops that would not be strong enough to stand up to a proper downfall. The wind picked up and people started to realize that this wasn’t just going to be a little summer downpour. This was going to be a proper storm. This was going to do some damage.

People went out into the wind, tying things down, pushing things into shelter. Old folk were taken in and looked after, we put supplies of food aside against the possibility that the storm would last for several days.

And still, those of us with noses for weather would look up at the sky and sniff. There shouldn’t be a storm like this. It was the wrong time of year and it was coming from the wrong direction. Storms come from the west, not the east. Storms blow themselves out over the forest, what was it doing coming from there.

But still, it came, the towers of the storm grew ever higher, grew ever blacker. It was still early in the day for the summer but the sky grew dark and people were covering their eyes against the flying dust, the flicking bits of old leaves and twigs. The cries of Ravens could be heard on the wind and those that had the time or the courage to look up towards the heavens would be able to see the blackbirds flying around in huge flocks as they circled around the storm clouds getting closer and closer.

The mage came out and screamed that this was not a normal storm. He and the priest tried to argue that there must be another servant of the Man of Shadows in the area and that they too must be hunted out and slain so that then we would be safe. But in times like this, the people of a community band together in the name of survival. And this time was no different. We ignored them. We were too busy protecting the village from the storm that we knew was coming.

The Blacksmith even physically picked up the mage, a slender, bony man, and moved him aside.

They fled back inside the chapel when they heard the first wolf howling.

They were right of course. Not in saying that there was another hidden servant in the village for them to sacrifice to the flames, but more in the case that this was not a normal storm. I don’t know when we all realized it. I don’t remember a moment when I suddenly looked up and knew that it wasn’t normal. The village just knew. We knew. I don’t know how. There is a feeling to a storm. There is a smell in the air, a feeling of the wind echoing in your ears and that was missing. This was more like pressure.

A couple of brave shepherds took up their longbows and headed out to try and protect the flocks from the wolves but the driving wind was gathering up the small bits of dust and twig that are leftover from living near a forest, making their task all but impossible. The wind blew the debris into the eyes of the people that were out there and the wind would blow any arrow that we even attempted to fire, hopelessly off course.

We retreated.

We hid.

And just like that, the wind stopped. We waited, hiding in our houses and in our cottages. Some men, as I say, braver than me, were still with the flocks and the herds, trying to prevent a stampede. But the rest of us were indoors. Mothers cradled weeping children as the fear crept in through the cracks and the gaps in the shutters. It crept beneath doors and slunk down the chimneys. Men snapped at families before shuddering as they rushed to pile furniture in front of doors and barricaded the windows.

The wind stopped and with it, we all stopped with it. Instead, we turned our ears to the roofs and ceilings of our huts as we waited for what was to inevitably come next.

It was the quiet before the storm. Sometimes people say these things and we don’t know what they mean. For me, I had always wondered at that particular saying. A storm is a storm what does it even mean to say that there is calm beforehand. Storms build slowly and steadily.

But now I know.

The wind died down, everything went silent and then the rain came like a hammer. And like the wind before it, it was not normal rain. Rain comes in flurries and gusts. It swells and dies down before swelling again. This was constant. A constant fall of raindrops that beat upon our roofs and against our walls and our shutters, causing them to clatter and crash as though struck by hammers.

I remember it being so loud. So loud that it was painful upon the ears. I remember that a child screamed. She screamed and screamed against the rain as though she could push the rain away by virtue of her voice.

As the rain fell, the wolves came.

The wolves, and the birds, and the small forest creatures.

As I say, there were people out with the flocks. Men who were huddling with the draft horses in an effort to keep them calm and keep them from rampaging through the fields and the little pathways of the village. They would tell us what they saw.

A vast cloud rose up from the treetops. A cloud as though a cloud of insects, but these were far larger than insects. Blackbirds, crows, and ravens, the kinds of birds that follow armies to take their fill of the dead when the fighting is done. They rose up and with a scream like the said army, they swept down onto the village with fluttering wings and tearing beaks and talons.

With them ran the wolves of the forest. But not just wolves. Foxes were seen alongside them. Deer came tearing through, squirrels, field mice, and ferrets came down and into the town. Peaceful creatures, prey animals running alongside predators they came, shrieking and screaming as they came.

I didn’t see that. I was with my wife and daughter, huddling in fear behind them while they weaved their female magic in order to protect us from whatever was happening.

Did it work? I have no idea. Does that kind of magic ever work? I believe so but in this case, I felt as though they were spitting into the wind. But that is what I think now. At the time, it made me feel better.

I have never been more scared than I was at that moment. Listening to the bears lumbering past my door, roaring and barking as they came. Like Piotr, I have served in the armed forces. Not to the extent that he did but I have stood in the line of spears as the cavalry charged home and I have carried my sword into the breached walls of the castle. I have felt that terrible fear that becomes a terrible anger and felt that equally terrible joy that comes after all of these things.

It was the helplessness as well. I could not have put it into words at the time, but we were helpless then. We were done for, whatever it was that was controlling what was happening was far more powerful than we could conceive and if it wanted us dead, there would have been nothing we could have done to stop it.

The name of the Schattenmann had still not been said.

But I huddled and as these things happened, I saw a dormouse emerge from the corner of the cottage. We knew it was there, a tiny little thing that would long have been eaten by a cat except that Tulip had taken a liking to the small face that the creature had.

It emerged and headed for the door. Rose tried to stop it out of some leftover fondness from her sister I think and the mouse bit her. Hard. And then it scratched drawing blood until she dropped it so that the mouse could scurry out of the door.

When I looked, I could see other insects following it. Earwigs, beetles, and moths that had been nesting in the rafters. Spiders that have kept their webs in the eaves of our home against whatever else might have happened. Webs that have been there since the moment that the house was built. Webs that have kept the biting insects from coming for me in the middle of the night. I saw that spider scurrying across the floor at a speed that I would not have thought possible.

We were not alone in that. Our neighbor’s daughter’s pet cat, a huge ginger tom cat that we used to make jokes about the ground shaking when he moved. A cat, so spoiled that he didn’t need to hunt and the girl’s father had been forced to find another cat in order to keep the mouse population down. For the first time ever, the ginger cat became a feral monster, clawed at the weeping child that was clutching her cat for comfort until he could escape, and repeatedly threw himself at a weakened part of the door until it could break free, hissing, growling, red eyed and terrifying.

We huddled closer together in the cacophony as all of these creatures roared, barked, chittered, and shrieked.

And the rain fell and the wind picked up and we thought that it was the end of the world.

It was not.

There was a crash. I don’t know if you have ever heard a roof beam shatter before. I had not until that day. I have heard one fall from an imperfect housing. I have heard them break as something larger and heavier falls on them. The first snaps start to tear at the thing as it proceeds to splinter. But the log that is chosen for a central roof beam is chosen very carefully. Chosen to be strong with just the right amount of give in it to prevent it from just breaking under the strain of keeping the rest of the house in one piece. And they never just break either.

I have now heard one shatter as though it burst apart from the inside. It is an awful sound and one that I hope to never hear again.

It happened once, an almighty crash that was utterly unlike a crash of thunder but I have no other way of describing what it sounded like. A wall was knocked in of a different building.

Someone screamed horribly.

Those of us that could see claim to have seen lightning in two colors. Red lightning rose from the ground and shot up into the sky and normal white lightning struck the ground. Golden glows spread up from near the church.

One of our shepherds was another soldier. As I say, many of us have a certain amount of national pride and the call to service is not entirely uncommon in our community. He described it as though an army had invaded our town. He didn’t see all of what had happened, but he described things in that way. He described huge flocks of birds sweeping up and down the main road and pathways. Wolves and bears prowling between the houses and through yards, rabbits, foxes, and squirrels went this way and that like scouts, as though they were looking for something. They would stop, rear up on their hind legs and seem to sniff the air to find whatever it was that they were looking for.

Did they find it? Of course, they found it.

After the crashing noises of homes and structures that had lasted for years. Houses that had sheltered multiple generations of families were destroyed like they were so much kindling. After those sounds came the sounds of screaming.

At first, the screams were coherent, people calling for help, screaming for mercy, promising vengeance on the tormentors. We know that one of those people doing the screaming was the priest because he bellowed his prayers into the face of whatever it was that tormented him. But then the screams changed. They were no longer human sounds even as they came from human throats. They became screams of fear, of agony and sheer, desperate need for survival from the terror that was surrounding them.

And when the last scream died, it seemed that the entire thing was over. According to that shepherd that I mentioned earlier, it was as though all the birds and the animals shook themselves and woke up from a horrible dream. He laughed as he told us this story, it was horrible laughter, bitter laughter. The laughter of a man that has seen things and knows that he must either laugh or he must weep and go mad.

He described a rabbit looking over and realizing that it was standing next to a fox before fleeing with all the speed it could muster into the wreckage of a nearby house. The fox was a bit slower on the uptake and chased after the rabbit too late and spent a bit of time chasing after the rabbit before it wandered off somewhere else.

The shepherd said that the fox wasn’t hungry.

The flocks of birds broke up and flew off towards the forest. The animals split up in ones and twos. Some burrowed underground and vanished, others fled for their lives, some left in herds.

The ginger cat never came home.

The rain died down and stopped. The wind fell and then all was stillness.

I was not the first person out of the door. I am not ashamed of this. And I do not know if you can guess what they found

He seemed to be waiting for a response. Kerrass and I looked at each other before Kerrass leaned forwards.

“They found the remains of the priest and the Mage. Eaten by all the wild creatures, or torn apart, trampled underfoot, or suffering some other horrific death that would involve all those animals.”

“Not just those two,” Hugo told us. But every single member of the lynch mob. Every man and woman that had been part of the crowd that had forced Tulip from her home in order to kill her had been torn from theirs. Pulled from the ruins of their houses by the jaws of wolves and the paws of bears. Then they were arranged in rows on the village green before they were eaten. Rose would later say that there were signs that every animal was involved. Some injuries were from beaks, some from small mouthfuls and… well… I’m sure you can imagine.”

I could, all too easily. But Hugo told us anyway.

“Rose examined the bodies. She was not yet our healer, that would come later, but she had studied alongside her sister at her mother’s skirts and knew more than many. Their eyes were pecked out by birds, their genitals were nibbled into mincemeat by small mouths. Insects crawled inside their rectum and started to eat. When the larger animals would eviscerate them, then the smaller animals, squirrels and the like, would crawl inside the cavities that were left and eat what they found. The lucky ones were a man who had his throat ripped out by a wolf and a woman that was trampled by deer.

“We know that some of them were alive when the feast started. Some of our hunters even claimed that a couple managed to tear themselves free from the horror before the wolves and the bears brought them down and hauled them back. I do not have to imagine the screams. I heard them. We all did. I hear them still in the darkness when I cannot sleep. Or in the depths of the storm.”

None of this seemed new to Kerrass, or unexpected.

“Were there any survivors?” Kerrass asked after a moment. “Anyone that was taken from their home but not killed?”

Hugo took a breath. “THere was one.” He admitted. “A young woman. I would invite you to speak to her, but she doesn’t live in the village anymore. She moved away and joined an abbey as a novice, last we heard.”

Kerrass nodded. “She was married and her husband was killed.” It was not a question.

Hugo frowned. “He was, how did you know that she was…”

“She was pregnant, wasn’t she?” Kerrass went on.

“She was.” Hugo perked up. “You have seen this kind of thing before?”

“I have,” Kerrass admitted. “Not on this scale or quite so many people slain, but I have seen it. What happened then? What did she say?”

Hugo took a deep breath.

“She said that ‘The Schattenmann had claimed his vengeance’.”

“She used those words specifically?” I wondered.

Hugo chuckled, a little bitterly. “Oh yes. To be truthful, I don’t entirely think that she knew what “vengeance” meant.”

“And what happened then?” Kerrass prompted.

Hugo shrugged.

“We are a farming community. Work continues if the community is going to survive. We buried the dead and surveyed the damage. The chapel was unsalvageable and we tore it down. It seemed the right thing to do. The more damaged buildings were likewise torn down so that the site could be used again. Those that were not quite as damaged were rebuilt. We got back to work.

“To her dismay, Rose discovered that she was the most qualified person to act as the village healer and took up that role. She hates it I think but she also sees it as her punishment, her penance for letting her sister, and the man she loved, down.”

“She still loves him?” I wondered, checking my earlier thought.

“Probably,” Hugo admitted after a while. “I certainly do. He uhh…. He made my daughter so happy.”

He choked then and cleared his throat. “Would anyone like another drink?” He asked.

“Yes please,” I said, giving him the excuse that he wanted to retreat from the table.

Kerrass and I exchanged glances as we carefully didn’t look at the man that went behind the bar of the tavern as though he owned it, turned his back on the pair of us, and allowed his shoulders to stoop and shake for a little while.

This was not a new situation for either Kerrass or myself. Watching a person relive old memories so that we could figure out the roots of a curse. It never got easier, but it was almost nostalgic in feel.

This was interesting. The man, indeed the whole town, was acting out a punishment for an act of just a few individuals. The situation that Hugo had described was not unusual. A small and powerful group of people taking the opportunity to get rid of a few people that they disagree with. Whether for real or pretend reasons. It almost always destroys the community. The fact that it hadn’t here actually spoke really well of these people.

The fear of stepping up and saying something to people that might hurt you, or throw you on the sacrificial fire along with the people that you are trying to protect.

Hugo returned to the table with a tray of tankards and reddened eyes.

“So where was I?” He wondered.

“You were explaining about how the village had changed after these events,” Kerrass said.

“Ah yes. We sent a small delegation to the High Priest to explain what had happened to the priest that he had sent us. He didn’t seem too unhappy at the loss if we are being truthful. Instead of a priest, we asked for a priestess instead. Despite everything, we are still proper, Sun fearing servants of Nilfgaard. But the prospect of another ambitious man trying to put his stamp on the village was more than I, at least, could bear.

“The High Priest didn’t like that. The Priestesses of the Great Sun are more of the healing persuasion rather than missionary in nature. Not really there to protect the souls of the people under their care. We insisted and took our case to the nearby abbey. The Abbess was sympathetic and sent us a the older lady that resides in her chapel that we built for her out of a much older building. She is just showing her age now and a novice was sent to see to her needs and perhaps to act as her successor.”

“Why did you prevent Stefan from…?” I began.

“Which one was Stefan?” Hugo asked.

“The warrior monk,” Kerrass told him.

Hugo grimaced. “We have seen his like before. Men who come here and try to insist that we should have a priest. It’s funny. The church argues that all folk are equal under the light of the sun but it would seem that some folk want men to catch more of the sun’s light than women and…”

“It is not an uncommon argument,” I said. “Even if it is wrong.”

Hugo smirked at something. “Rose still out shoots every man in the village come festival time. She doesn’t hunt any more, except for the herbs that are part of her trade. She thinks it’s important that as the village healer, she should only heal.”

“Admirable,” Kerrass said. “But she doesn’t have any qualms about the lives of wooden targets?”

“No.” Hugo agreed. “Although they are straw, made in the shapes of men and animals. She takes great delight in shooting the men shapes between the legs.”

Kerrass winced, I was not surprised and just laughed at the obvious attempt to lighten the tone.

Hugo stared into space for a while after the laughter died down. “We don’t let priests into the village for fear of what happened to Tulip happening again.” He told us. “It is a statement.”

“To whom I wonder,” I said.

“To everyone,” Hugo responded. “And yes, that includes the Schattenmann and ourselves. Since that night, our weather has been good, with the right amount of rain and the right amount of sun. Our hunters do not find the hunt easy, but they manage to come in with enough food to satisfy those who need it and we live accordingly.”

“And for Piotr?” I wondered.

Hugo took a deep breath. “We owe him. He lost his life when they came for Tulip. He is not the man that he was. He is lonely, angry, and bitter. He blames all of us and I do not think he is wrong to do so. We hear stories of the man he has become, the killer, the guide, and the mercenary. I do not recognize the man that I still call my son and his face twists with hatred whenever he sees me.

“He guides people to the Schattenmann. I don’t know why. He takes them to that village that you will have heard about. The one with the priest that cannot die. He takes them there and he tries to go into the darkness, but then he stops and turns away in tears. It is the last remnant of the man that I recognize.

“He has a place here should he want it, we keep an empty cottage on the edge of town. There are women here that would care for him, even love him. Rose not least. But he comes, with a new group of people. We feed them, house them and supply them. Then he takes them onward. He is the only one that ever comes back.”

Kerrass nodded. “Where will he be when we have to go and look for him?”

“That was the other thing we found,” Hugo told us. “After the storm had left, we got back to work. It seemed churlish to do anything else. One of the hunters found a new tree on the edge of the forest boundary. Huge it was, towering above the rest of the forest canopy. The leaves are always red and although leaves fall and new leaves form, the leaves are always there throughout the seasons. To look at it, you would think that it was hundreds of years old. The bark is white and the leaves are red while the shapes of the leaves are strange. Occasionally, it blossoms with the blooms of those blossoms being blue with red centers. There is no tree like it for miles around. I have never seen another one, nor do we know what it is called.”

“I have.” Said Kerrass to my utter lack of surprise. “It is an Elven tree of remembrance.”

Hugo nodded, looking unsurprised.

“Underneath that tree is a small garden made up of all the flowers that Tulip liked best of all. Roses, Lilies, and Tulips among them. There is a stone there, huge comes up to my chest.”

Hugo gestured with his hand.

“Again,” He went on. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there is no stone like it for miles around.” Piotr decided that it was a memorial to his wife. There was no body left after the flames were done with her but… He is probably not wrong. He goes there when he comes through the village. I think that Rose takes him food although I have never caught her.”

We were coming to the end of the interview. I could feel it and so could Kerrass.

“I am sorry,” Kerrass said. “Your village has suffered a great deal.”

“There are worse off than us,” the older man declared with some pride. “We walk in the light of the sun, just as anyone does. And if we also live with a being that can control the weather, then so be it.”

We spoke for some more time after that but it was clear that we had been told everything that there was to hear. I retired earlier and left Kerrass and Hugo talking for some time.

The following day was a pleasant one. The village threw us a party. There was dancing and music and good food. I visited with Stefan in the chapel and he was not having as good a time of it. Holy men are sometimes funny. They talk dreamily of being able to spend days in quiet contemplation and prayer but when they get forced to do precisely that, they resent the entire thing. He raged against the injustice and swore that he would not do anything so foolish as to break the rules of the village. He had gotten a version of the story from the priestess and was as appalled as I had been.

But the priestess was implacable.

I tried to visit with Piotr. It was true that the tree of remembrance was easy to find and I soon found Piotr, camping under the leaves as he finished a meal of something that smelled familiar to me. He carefully and calmly set his bowl and spoon aside before he, just as carefully and calmly, told me to fuck off.

The following morning we all rose and departed. Trayka had not been up to her usual tricks and so departure went easily. A small mule had been provided to carry our goods and off we went. Piotr met us at the edge of town, just before we entered the trees and we journeyed on.

Two days later, I had my chance and cornered Kerrass while he was gathering herbs.

“So why is Piotr traveling with us?” I wondered.

Kerrass smiled. “I should have known that you weren’t going to let that go.”

“Freddie and his questions.” We said at the same time.

“There are three reasons,” Kerrass said. “I chose him because he is regarded as the best local guide and knows more about the local area than most of the others did and his rates were not exorbitantly expensive. His reasons. The first of the three is money. What Hugo said of him is true, he is a mercenary at heart and mercenaries need to eat. After that… the reason he told me is the reason he probably believes himself. He wants to meet the Schattenmann and ask why his wife was not protected if she was so important as to warrant that level of vengeance.”

“Not an unreasonable question,” I said.

“It’s not.” Kerrass agreed. “But the Schattenmann would not think like that. Piotr knows it too which leads us onto the third reason.”

The bastard made me wait.

“The third reason?” I prompted.

“He means to die. He wants the Black Forest to kill him and the reason he turns aside every time he visits is because he knows his wife would disapprove.”

I felt my jaw tighten.

“Do not talk to him about this Freddie,” Kerrass warned. “He told me in confidence, we still need him and if he gets angry and punches you out or forces you to kill him, then we are without a guide.”

“I could kill him?”

“Oh yes. He is a scout. A good one, but deep down, he is not really a killer. And… He wants to die. He just doesn’t know that yet.”

“I still don’t like him,” I admitted after a moment.

“Nor do I.” Kerrass agreed. “He reminds me of an arrogant, self-righteous twit I used to know.”

I glared at him but otherwise managed to keep from rising to the bait.

It was five days and another village later before disaster struck and we walked into the field of Echinopsae.