Remember that if you are still looking for pointers on what to do if you find yourself out in the world. Do not look for the tension, the red faces and the raised voices. Those people are working themselves up to the violence but are not there yet. Instead, look for the quiet ones, the pale ones and the relaxed ones. They are the people that are comfortable with violence, are ready to do unspeakable things and are even looking forward to them.

Oak-Leaf groaned and stomped over.

I limped after her and Kerrass followed. My leg hurt but it felt like one of those things that would be fine if I just kept moving. It would be really stiff in the morning and I was not looking forward to when the painkillers that the dryads had given me would start wearing off.

“Lower your bows,” Oak-Leaf told them.

“But he…”

“I know what he did.” Oak-Leaf snarled. “And I am as angry as you. But we do not have time. And we cannot carry our burdens and guard him.”

Stefan did not smirk as he reached past for his pack. But you could see it in his body language.

“Ok listen,” Oak-Leaf called out. “We have to go now and go quickly. If you can’t keep up, dump your burdens and move faster. Supplies can be replaced but you can’t. Keep your bows out and your eyes moving. We shoot to kill now.”

There was a moan at this last order.

“I know, I know,” Oak-Leaf said. “And I agree. But that doesn’t change that we have a job to do. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and it won’t be the last. We must reach the moon circle as fast as we can. Let’s move. The forest is angry.”

And so saying, she pushed past all of the watching and listening dryads, past Kerrass and I and picked up her own packs which had increased in size a little bit before she was off and jogging.

Not all that long ago, I had bemoaned the fact that we were moving quite as slowly as we were, but now I would have given anything to return to that slower pace. Hardship is always worse than you remember. I can distinctly remember the horror of Northern Redania and the cold of the Skeleton Ship. But in the here and now of half walking, half jogging, through the Black Forest of Southern Nilfgaard, both of them paled in comparison to the agony that I was now going through.

Pain leeches at you, it robs you of breath, strength and concentration. To make matters even more exciting, the drugs that they had given me to neutralise the poison were conspiring with said poison to make me feel light-headed and euphoric. I was blinking furiously and waving to push aside light blue strings that floated through my vision. There was nothing there of course, but it seemed to me that I was wading through a series of vines or cobwebs that were glowing with a blue light. A blue light that called me to go to sleep.

It is an advantage to know that you are going mad. I could take those feelings and knowing what was happening, I could dismiss them as the ravings of being under the influence of something akin to a strong amount of moonshine.

We stopped a couple of times, both times I was brought water and told to drink as much of it as I could stomach. One time, I vomited and no sooner had I done retching than they were pushing the wooden water cup back into my hands and I was drinking the water again to make up for what I had lost.

I know that the line was attacked three times. I only remember two.

The first was that a swarm of Endrega’s came out of the woods and hurled themselves at us. Kerrass felt and saw them coming and was shouting a warning. He tossed Stefan a cloth covered in the oil required to slay the Endregas and the two leapt into the middle of the oncoming tide of beasts and their swords sang. The dryads saw how the fight was going and backed off. Some shot to thin the tide as it came on and others picked off the monsters that were coming around the flanks of the two swordsmen.

They wept as their bowstrings sang.

I didn’t take part in the fight. I found a tree, put my back to it and propped myself so that I could lunge with relative ease. I didn’t need to worry. Yes, there were a lot of them and yes, I was injured. But at the end of the day, Kerrass knew his work well and say what you like about Stefan, he was a fine swordsman. Even more than one dryad was forced to thank him for saving their lives in the midst of all the ruckus.

The second time we were attacked it was a pair of Leshen. Yes, you read that right. It was a pair. And I know, every academic from my current writing desk to the ends of the earth are currently reaching for their writing quills to tell me that Leshen are solitary creatures that only hunt and claim territories by themselves. I know, believe me, I know. I have literally written the entry on the subject from the Oxenfurt Encyclopedia of Relicts on the subject.

But that’s what happened. A horde of wolves came running towards us. A flight of crows swept out of the trees and the Leshen sprouted from the ground underneath us. We lost a dryad in that fight, impaled on a branch. This time, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was pushed to the ground and by the time I managed to get to my feet, the entire thing was over. Kerrass hacked down one of the two Leshen and the other fell to a pair of dryads that took were levering their woodcutting axes out of the thing with their feet by the time I climbed to my feet. Stefan was covered in the blood of the Wolves and was grim-faced while Kerrass was coming down from all the potions that he had taken.

The third attack… I don’t remember the third attack. Apparently, there were bears. Three of them. Two of them fell to arrow strikes before they got anywhere near the rest of us. The other died, bellowing in pain and anguish. I don’t remember it. According to Kerrass, he just deposited me on the ground and I put my head in my hands.

It didn’t seem to take too long to get to the final camp. But at the same time, it was a march as long as years. I fair collapsed to the ground when we made it into the small wooden wall that marked the entrance to the camp and I didn’t take it all in. I was just pointed at a patch of ground and I collapsed on it. Some people might claim that I slept, other people might say that I passed out. I wouldn’t try and claim that either person was right.

I woke up a little time later to find the healer going over my injury again and she seemed pleased with the results. I nodded and smiled as she talked but there was little to nothing that I could do about that. After it was done, she gave me somehting else to drink and I passed out again.

It was dark when I woke up and not just because of where we were either.

It turned out that the final camp before we came to the heart of the forest was in a cave. It made sense, although I had no idea where the hill or mountain was that could support a cave, but I forced my brain to shut up and just accept what it was being told. There was a hole in the top that was covered with some kind of reed cover to allow ventilation. And there was a wooden palisade at the entrance. I was informed that I would not be needed for guard duty that night and that I should rest up.

It was dark and when Kerrass came over, he was carrying my bowl of stew and a hunk of trail bread and told me to eat it.

“How long was I asleep?” I wondered.

“Not long,” Kerrass told me. “An hour or two.”

I looked towards the entrance of the cave where the shadows were visibly deepening and he smirked. “Yeah, I know.”

He sighed and sat down next to me.

“It’s been like that for a little while now. It started as a small cloud in the sky except that it was rising from the forest like that miasma that you can see over the smithing district of Novigrad. It got thicker and thicker until it became clear that it was spreading and the sky began to darken. It had already started shortly after the Arachas was killed. The dryads are saying that it was Stefan’s fault, that it is The Schattenmann’s wrath made manifest but I’m not so sure. It thickened with an awful speed and we can’t see enough of the sky to make sure.

“Fucking lovely,” I commented. “What’s going on otherwise?”

“Not entirely sure. I’ve asked several of them what’s going on and they just repeat the line that ‘The forest is angry’. And before you comment, I did ask them what the difference between The Schattenmann and the forest was and they won’t answer me. They all seem to have jobs to do and none of them are answering. I’m pretty certain that more than one of the other dryads is trying to get Oak-Leaf to make good on her threat and slit Stefan’s throat and leave them to it. They think that that will appease the Schattenmann.”

“Yeah…. Will it?”

“I have no idea. When we came here, I thought that what we were dealing with was a particularly powerful Leshen. To be fair, it could still be that. Although the prospect of a Leshen having another Leshen working for it is a terrifying prospect in and of itself. In theory, yes. Dragging Stefan off into the woods, slitting his throat and leaving him to it would be a demonstration of contrition and would allow the Schattenmann, the Leshy, to take its rage out on the offender. But will it work here?”

He shrugged.

“If it is a Leshen, then this would prove the long-standing theory that the older and larger the forest, the older and Larger the Leshen. The power of what is happening here is greater than anything I’ve seen before or even heard of before.”

“Other Witchers have been here before though right?”

“They have, and everyone that makes it back, because not all of them do, but everyone that comes back is changed by the experience. I am beginning to see why. I’ve seen some shit while travelling with you Freddie, I really have. Stuff that any other Witcher under any other circumstance would have rode away from. And it has astonished me that we have gotten as far and as high as we have. We know what Jack is for crying out loud and you had an extended conversation with the Unseen Elder.”

“We lifted Sleeping Beauty’s curse.”

“We did and stood up to an angry dragon in the offing. It’s awe-inspiring what we’ve done. This is different though.”

“How so? It doesn’t feel bigger or scarier. We are both fitter than we were when we were running through the woods of Northern Redania. We have food and water for a start.”

“Because this isn’t alien. This isn’t strange to me. I recognise what is happening here. The only reason that I’m not saying that this is a Leshen is because of the sheer scope of the power. That is why it’s different.”

I considered that for a while.

“Are they going to slit Stefan’s throat and leave him to it?”

“I don’t actually think so,” Kerrass told me. “If it were me, I would say that it won’t work anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve killed creatures in these woods as well. More than one Endrega fell to my blade. So did some of the dryads, their arrows were frighteningly accurate. Shedding blood to placate it is not going to work here.”

“Let’s say that it is a Leshen,” I said. “What do we do?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” He said, scratching his chin. “It’s the scale of the problem that is the issue. Leshen have gathered followers before. Druids and the like who have, themselves, the charisma and the skills to draw more followers. Piotr’s story suggests that it is more than likely that it has marked people, probably several people in the surrounding villages. If this was another Leshen, I would say we have two choices. We run or we fight.”

“They are the most traditional of choices.” I said, trying for a smile.

“We advance to the thing, destroy the thing and then flee. It will take time for it to rebuild itself from one of the marked people in the area. In that time it’s followers will be confused and disoriented. Then we make our escape. Or we cut out the fight and flee anyway.”

“But the followers will be coordinated.”

“They will. And in this case, the followers know the ground. We are several days in and we don’t know the way out. At best they catch us in three, maybe four days.”

Stefan joined us, sitting down with a bowl of soup and a small chunk of bread. He looked calm, happy even.

“Are we discussing strategy?” He wondered.

I took a deep breath to let him have it but Kerrass held up his hand. “We are.” He told the armoured warrior.

“Fight or flee?” Stefan asked.

“Pretty much.”

I would have got up to leave but I needed to rest my leg.

“Are you ready for some stupid ideas?” Stefan smiled. “One of my teachers once said that to find the right answer, you must first set aside all of the wrong ones.”

I sighed and settled down to think things through. It was a good saying.

“The forest is long and thin,” Stefan said. “Maps tell us that. Yes, it’s weeks travel from Northern tip to Southern tip, but at most it’s a couple of weeks across. And if we’re in the middle, why not make a dash East, or West.”

“Which way is either?” Kerrass asked. “East is… I think… that way but the forest canopy makes that difficult and in this shadow? We couldn’t strike out now.”

“Also there is the ridge to navigate,” I said. “Before we came down to the dryad’s settlement, we came over a ridgeline and we had to come over the lip carefully. We don’t know about that line, and there could be passes that only take us over and through that ridge in specific areas. We could lose them easily or find ourselves trapped against the ridge wall.”

“And then the monsters could come and trap us.” Stefan nodded. “Could we follow the back trail?”

“We could try?” Kerrass said. “But the terrain moves and they took us by a circuitous route. Even if they were not doing that to distract us, it would mean that they could get ahead of us easily and if we took short-cuts, then who’s to say that they weren’t avoiding legitimate obstacles.”

“Like Monster nests.” I said. “And then we would have to sneak through the dryad village.”

“Which is, even more, their terrain than the heart of the Forest is. Not to mention the surrounding forest from there where they found us within two days of us entering.” Kerrass agreed.

Stefan nodded unperturbed and scooped out his stew bowl with a chunk of his bread.

“I suppose that neither of you wants to fight our way free of the dryads.”

“I had considered that.” Kerrass admitted to my surprise. I will admit that I would not have been ok with that particular plan. “But we will lose. I can parry an arrow, two or three from unskilled opponents. But there’s…” He checked around, “over a dozen highly skilled archers here plus an unknown number of lookouts. Any one of them is good enough to find the gaps in your armour, Stefan. And even if Freddie was uninjured. He is neither equipped nor skilled enough to stand up to sustained arrow fire.”

He turned to me. “That’s not a criticism Freddie. There are not many that I would rather have at my side than you, but you would need the skills of a Witcher or the full Segmented armour of the Imperial Guard to stand up to the arrows of these dryads. That plan is not going to work.”

Stefan nodded. He didn’t look surprised and I don’t think that Kerrass had said anything that he hadn’t expected himself.

“Then I think that the answer is simple.” He said. “We do not have enough time or enough knowledge. We must play along for a while yet until the situation changes. In the meantime, we look for opportunities to take advantage of. But I think that the next time we will be able to act is when we get to the “heart of the forest’ whatever that means.”

I couldn’t help myself.

“You know that we would have a lot more options if you had just followed their instructions and not killed that beast,” I said, regretting the words almost as soon as they were out of my mouth.

“Maybe,” He admitted, not taking my anger badly. “Maybe not. Maybe if I had not acted, you would now be dead.” He shrugged. “That is the way of things. It is done now and I cannot bring myself to regret it.”

“Why not?” I wondered. “That could prove to have been disastrous.” I tried to keep the disgust and the anger out of my voice but I was clearly not entirely successful. Stefan sighed and carefully set his bowl aside.

“I apologise Lord Frederick.” He spoke formally. “I was wrong back in the dryad’s village when I said that you were damned. That was wrong and cruel of me. You took a great burden from my shoulders and in my haste and in my fear, I applied the same rules that bind me to you. That was wrong of me and I’m sorry. Chastity is not the only route to purity and I hope, in the long term, that you will be able to forgive me.

“Witcher, I also owe you an apology as well. I understated your expertise in many things. Specifically in the status of monsters and what makes a monster. I have no excuse for that. These people are not monsters.” He gestured at the other dryads that were milling around in that mid-morning rest period. “They are not and I see that now. But I also see something else that you are possibly missing out on.

“You, both of you, are being seduced whether you realise it or not.”

Kerrass opened his mouth to protest and I will admit that I was not so far behind him. Stefan raised his hands and for the first time, there was some heat in his voice.

“No, no, let me finish. The two of you have been lecturing me now for some time and it’s time that you understood where I am coming from. There is a reason for an oath of chastity and it’s because it gives you clarity. You are both being seduced by pretty faces. I just want to remind you both of a pair of things. These people killed Henrik, they forced Trayka to become like them and they forced you, Freddie, to betray the woman you love.

“And you, Witcher, to perform a job.

“They are not monsters. I agree with that point. They are people and both of you are, bafflingly alright with being manipulated in such a way. Henrik was murdered. A good man was killed. Now I know all the arguments and justifications, he was the oldest of us, the least useful and I have heard that he was sick anyway, but still. That doesn’t change the fact that he was murdered. Brutally.

“No, Kerrass. I am speaking now.

“If this was any other situation and a group of people captured you, forced you to do a job for them or they would kill you. You would resent it wouldn’t you. I have read the tales of the bard and the works of our friend scholar here. Both of those works bemoan the times when a local noble has been offended that a Witcher won’t work for free, they think up a trumped-up charge in order to force you to do some form of work for them and expect you to be grateful to be allowed to leave with your life. If this were any other circumstance, you would be steaming with rage, but because you slept with one of them and have empathy, have been shown some affection. You forgive them.

“Trayka was forced to do what she did. She might be happy, it might be better for her in the long run. But she was forced to do it. It was that or die. If, as you say, being a dryad is a religion. Then forcing people to a new religion at knifepoint is one of the worst evils that we can commit. My religion says that the more traditionalist aspects of your religion agree, Lord Frederick. It’s only recently that forced conversion has become a thing in the Eternal Flame. Other religions of the North couldn’t give a damn who you worship. Trayka was forced. I hope it works out for the best for her but never lose sight of the fact that Trayka was forced.

“And you Freddie. You were forced to break your own morals in order to survive. I’ve seen you turn aside pretty village girls on several occasions out of loyalty to that Vampiric Sorceress of yours. You are gentle and kind but when some have been forceful or insistent. You shut them down dead. But here… I mean, I understand. No one will blame you for it. Survival is a thing. But they forced you to that. I have no doubt that the women that you were with were wonderful and kind and obviously beautiful. But they forced you to do that and in doing so you saved my life. I could even make an argument to say that they took advantage of your kindness and noble soul, your desire to keep me safe.

“You say, both of you now, you say that being a dryad is a religion. I can see why you might think that but you are wrong. They do all of these things in service to another. They do these things in service to the Schattenmann. I don’t know if he’s a God or not. There are signs in either direction but you are, both of you, forgetting a number of stories.

“On the approach to the Black Forest, the Schattenmann was a figure of fear, of awe, of terror. Remember Piotr’s story. The priests that caused the lynching of Piotr’s wife were wrong. Obviously, they were wrong. Evil even. But to then be murdered themselves? All of those people could have been guided back into the proper light of the sun. What happened to those people wasn’t Justice. It was vengeance.

“Think of Trayka’s story. An old village tradition. Not a law. It was a taboo. You cannot tell me that people hadn’t crossed her line of ash before then. I won’t believe you. Games like the one she described of young people tormenting each other by standing on a post with their back to real or imagined threats are common all through the continent. How far into the field with the Bull do you dare to go. How far into the house of the scary old man at the end of town. Do you dare throw a stone at the noble, the mage? How long can you stand on the edge of the cliff in high wind? There are loads of examples. Even exactly like the one that she describes. Don’t cross that line or the Witch will get you.

“People always cross the line and then one day, the Schattenmann attacks. People are injured, even killed and then others are taken. The dryads tell us that some of those people taken wind up with them. Get turned into dryads themselves or Father new dryads. Some make the pilgrimage that we ourselves are on now. Apparently, some of these people are released, and some of them carry on. My question is, why do you believe this? Because the dryads don’t have a reason to lie? Of course, they do. The Schattenmann told them too. Because those other victims died horrible deaths. And if they were released, why have none of them returned home?

“And lastly, the priest hanging from the church. A being that could do all of that. All of the things that he could do. He could have driven those people away. He could have caused storms to make the colony unlivable and unviable. He could have only punished the priest. Instead, all of those innocents vanished. Not just the priest. What happened to them and why do we believe that they aren’t dead or dying somewhere in torment in the middle of the forest somewhere. People have learned their lesson. He could let that priest go.

“You have both said, many times that this is a religion. It’s not. It’s a cult. The Schattenmann is the head of it. He is cruel and… and … terrifying and arbitrary and otherworldly. If he has morals at all, they are not the kind of morals that we can comprehend. His priorities are so utterly different and alien that… they are quite possibly beyond our understanding. He is insanely powerful to an awe-inspiring level. And we are going to meet him. And earlier today it was suggested that he might have chosen Freddie. For what? And what will happen to the rest of us that he hasn’t chosen?”

He shook his head.

“The dryads are people. I agree. They are not monsters. They are people. And like all people, they want some of the most basic things that a person can want. They want somewhere to belong. They want togetherness and freedom and expression and they want that feeling that they serve something greater than themselves. That is how cults are born. By people or things that take advantage of that. Who offers meaning where there is not necessarily any.

“The dryads are not the Schattenmann’s servants, not his guards or his… priestesses. They are his victims. I have seen this sort of thing many times. Many times. And I have read your accounts of the cult of the First-Born in the North Lord Frederick. I would like to think that if you had had a proper arm of your church that was properly devoted to hunting out heretics and cults rather than people who did it for the pursuit of their own political ends, then that cult might have been spotted by proper servants of the church.

“But sometimes, cultists cannot be saved. I am sorry for the dryads. I can only wish that we had found out about their plight sooner. I hope, I really do, that in the long run something can be done to help them. I even hope that the Schattenmann can be reasoned with in some way. If what he has done is about survival, then maybe he can be convinced that survival is not as problematic as it was before and that maybe he can let go of some of his… more restrictive policies.

“But experience tells me differently.

“Cultists do not react rationally and you cannot argue with them. They rarely even accept the evidence of their eyes or their ears and they will hate you for trying to change their viewpoint. They believe in… whatever it is that they worship. In this case, they believe in The Schattenmann. They cannot, they will not accept that he would harm them and it does not occur to them that something in that process might go wrong.

“We have to assume, in fact, that everything they tell us is a lie in order to protect ourselves from indoctrination. Even if that indoctrination seems sensible to us at the time. Later, when separate from the circumstances in a place of safety and comfort. With the freedom to think and so on. Then, by all means, join a nice benevolent cult of peace, love and understanding. I understand northerners are a polytheistic society and that it is easier for northerners to think like that anyway.

“But here and now. We are surrounded by danger. Subject to a power and a leader that does not necessarily have our best interests at heart. We must think independently and we must think of our own safety first.

“Think on this. If there were any other circumstances. Let’s say…. You were travelling through a Lord’s lands. You are warned that the wife of the Lord keeps unusual pets. You take care, but despite your precautions, an Arachas jumps out at one of your companions. It bites him, poisons him and looks bound to eat or otherwise damage him. Would you stay your hand when your guide tells you ‘Oh don’t worry. It’s just a sign of affection?’ Or would you trust your own two eyes and experience with Arachas?”

“I would make a judgement on the circumstance,” Kerrass said. “It had not killed Freddie yet and he was clear.”

“Arachas move damned fast.” Stefan was unperturbed. “And not all of us have Witcher reflexes in order to make the change accordingly. My companion, even if he is no longer my friend, which saddens me by the way, was in danger. I only had the word of those who I have no reason to trust, and every reason to distrust, that Freddie was safe. I acted. I cannot say that I am sorry.

“But remember that gentlemen. This is not a religion as they claim. It is a cult. If you take on no other piece of my thinking, then remember that and use it when you are choosing your next course of action.”

He gathered up Kerrass and my food bowl and moved off.

“Well.” Kerrass admitted. “That was a perspective that I didn’t want.”

“Is he wrong?”

“There is no way of telling,” Kerrass said. “He might be, but he might be right on the money. Either way, I don’t think there’s any harm in us being a bit more careful with our thinking.”

“Fuck.” I said. “We are still here to talk to The Schattenmann though,” I said. “That’s the aim here. That’s the mission.”

“Yeah.” Kerrass said. “Yes, it is. I think, that we passed the point of no return now. All we can do really is play the game and hope that our luck holds. Not gonna like it though Freddie. I don’t think we have a great deal of luck left.”

“Something to pray for,” I told him.

We slept.

I dreamed. And they were not nice dreams. I was in the clearing again but far from the sense of peace and tranquillity that had defined those dreams in the past. Instead, I was afraid.

I was in the centre of a firestorm. The trees all around me were on fire and their heat scorched my skin and burnt my lungs as I tried to breathe. The smoke ticked my throat and made me cough which, in turn, made me try to breathe deeply.

I was low down to the ground which is where the cleaner air was. I could not see Kerrass, nor could I much of anything. I knew that I was surrounded by fire and that there was no way out. I could hear animals screaming in the trees on either side as the flames reached their own hiding holes. I looked for our water bottles in an effort to douse my own blankets and pull them over my head in a, probably vain, effort to keep myself alive as the fire would inevitably wash over me. It was a vain hope. I could not find them. I was lost, disoriented and I had no idea where the water was or even if it was remotely reachable.

And I was bound. Ropes of thorny vines tied my hands behind my back and my ankles and knees together. I was trussed as if I was some kind of animal being prepared for the roasting pit. There was a gag in my mouth and I could not breathe. I was so very scared and I looked up and I saw my captor and my tormentor.

I was, after all, not alone in the clearing.

He was immense, tall and heavily muscled. He was naked and wreathed in a fire that seemed to be fuelled by the hate and the rage in his eyes. He moved through the smoke and the fire as though it did not bother him and was not painful. He stood there and looked down at me as his form was wrapped around in the smoke and the flame. In the dream, I recognised him and I called out his name although now, I have no idea who’s name it was that I called out.

I pleaded with him. I begged him to release me and to let me go. I told him that I was afraid and that I was sorry and that I had made an awful mistake. Over and over again I begged him and I promised that I would not transgress again. I told him that I would be good and that he would not need to punish me. That I had learned my lesson.

He just stared down at me, the smoke and the fire wrapping around him, obscuring his face and his form. But I maintain that I knew who he was.

The flame finally passed over me and burned the clothing from my body but did not seem to touch the vines that kept my limbs confined. Still, I could not move and as the agony washed over me I sobbed. Still pleading for mercy but the flames were uncompromising in their disdain for anything so normal and boring as pity.

And I just wept with the pain of it as I burned front he inside out. I should have died. From the flames and the heat and the horror, I should have died. But I did not. Instead, I sobbed and I pleaded as my eyes melted and my hair burned. As my insides baked and before my nose blistered, I could smell my own flesh burning.

I woke in the middle of the night. I knew that it was nighttime because it was dark and Kerrass was shaking me.

“Come on Freddie, It is time to go.”

“But it’s still dark out… side.”

“I know Freddie. But it is morning and it is time that we were on our way.”

I just looked at him. The dream was still strong in my mind and in my reflexes. I wanted to sleep, I wanted some real rest and my mind was teetering on the edge of madness and I sobbed.

I could no longer remember the name of the figure that I had seen in my dream even though the memory of him standing tall and muscled over me as he looked down and judged me.

I felt the flames on my body still and I opened my mouth to scream and no sound came out.

Kerrass swore and held onto me tightly. I have what happened next from his words as I spent a bit of time not being entirely in control of my senses.

Stefan came to see what was keeping us and saw Kerrass doing his best to comfort me. Stefan was compassionate about it, even though he was not entirely understanding. He had known about my period of sickness after all but had been unaware of just how badly I was affected by it. He had kind of assumed that it was just something that I could throw off or otherwise ignore or move past. He said something stupid like “it was just a nightmare, everyone gets nightmares before Kerrass essentially told him that I, Freddie, didn’t have nightmares like other people.

To be fair to Stefan, it would seem that he took the point almost immediately and apologised, realising that he did not understand and went off to tell the dryads about the problem.

Oak-Leaf was more understanding, but not by a great deal. She wondered why I couldn’t just snap out of things and told Kerrass that it was just a bad dream. Kerrass recounted this particular piece of conversation.

“Freddie has bad dreams as you or I do.” He told her. “Then he has nightmares, again like you or I do where he gets up and has to spend some time reasserting where he is and what is going on in the world. But then he has these kinds of nightmares. And if you haven’t had one… I don’t know what to tell you. They are like nothing you have ever experienced or will again. Yes, I have them. But it’s not just a nightmare. When you wake up from a nightmare, you might need to take a bit of time to wake up and properly make sure that it was just a dream. You relieve yourself and have something to drink before climbing back to bed.

“Freddie has one of these nightmares and then he is incoherent. Life is a nightmare to him and he is convinced that the dream was real. He is scared, to this day, that his day to day life is a dream and that the nightmare is real. And sometimes, if his brain is really trying to kill him. He wonders if he is yet to wake up.”

She didn’t take that well. Come to think of it, it’s entirely possible that Stefan handled all of this better than she did.

“We need to move.” She told him. “We need to get back underway because if we don’t then we won’t make it and if we don’t make it then the consequences could be catastrophic. Can you… I don’t know… slap him awake or something.”

Kerrass claimed that he ignored that suggestion and ignored her until she came back with a different suggestion. Which turned out to be a sedative of some kind. Apparently, the healer was a lot more sympathetic and understanding than she was.

It took me longer than I would like to come back to my senses. But I got there in the end. I climbed to my feet and pulled my pack onto my shoulders. I took my spear in hand and marched towards the entrance to the cave before someone stopped me. Kerrass joined me and Stefan wasn’t far behind him.

Stefan clapped me on the shoulder.

Oak-Leaf was saying goodbye. There were three women coming with the three of us. Oak-Leaf and two others whose names I either never knew or have forgotten with all the problems that come with trying to learn the names of the dryads of the Black Forest.

To my eye, Oak-Leaf was the youngest of the trio. The other two were older women that, if they were human, I would have put somewhere in their late forties or beginning of their fifties. They were still strong, hale, hearty and beautiful in the ways that dryads are always beautiful. They were younger than the old Attendant that Chestnut-Shell introduced me to. They had grey and silver streaks in their hair and there was a certain added leanness to their limbs and muscles that comes with age. The pair of them joined the three of us at the gates while the other, eight or so dryads were pleading with Oak-Leaf that she didn’t need to go.

She embraced one of them before she spoke at a certain amount of length. I didn’t catch all of it because I was… essentially… a little bit high. Arachas poison, plus antidote, plus whatever sedative they had given me conspired in my bloodstream to make that kind of thing happen. But I remember this.

Full disclaimer. It is entirely possible, thinking of my mental state at the time, that I only heard snippets and that later events left me plugging in things that make sense.

“I have to go.” She said. “I knew that this was my time when I departed from the village and recent events have confirmed it. Yes, I am young to make this final journey but I feel called to it and I am not afraid. I will submit myself to The Schattenmann’s judgement and if he is displeased with me then I will bear his wrath as best as I am able. I will tell him that the fault is not yours, nor any other dryads. I shall tell him that the fault was mine and that I could have done better to protect the people of his forest.

“If I should die, then another will be chosen. I trust that, if only in my memory. You will treat this new leader with the respect and the love that you have treated me. Welcome her for she will be very afraid. Do not let her rush to her end. The Schattenmann will have chosen her for a reason and she must take the time to understand that reason and get used to it.

“Do not be angry with the men. They do not know what they do. They too are lost and afraid. Farewell.”

She picked up her belongings and led us out into the darkness.

The three dryads, including her, carried no packs, no burdens. No blankets and only a few little supplies. They had a water bottle each and a few snacks but other than their weapons. There was nothing else that they had on them. Oak-Leaf looked a little beaten down but the other two, who both hugged her when she joined us, seemed to lose their age as they left the cave. As though all of the cares of the world had been lifted from their shoulders.

Oak-Leaf led with, I guessed, the oldest of the three dryads following. Then came Stefan before I followed with Kerrass walking near me or as close as he could given the terrain in case I faltered. The last dryad followed behind.

I felt oddly peaceful. The way I sometimes do after I’ve been ill for a while. My mind was calm and determined. I was tired, I don’t think there was a way that I could get around that. I was tired and in no small amount of pain. But I was determined and as I set out, I grit my teeth together to force one foot in front of another.

“I don’t think we have much choice here. If attacked, defend yourselves and each other. We’re going to need to work as a team.” Oak-Leaf told us.

The three humans nodded.

“I am Cherry-Blossom.” One of the other dryads introduced herself with the smile of a warrior that is going to relish the coming fight. She was a big woman, muscled and hard. She had an easy feeling and confidence in movement that I found reassuring. She carried a spear and a shield along with a large bow, several large canvas, reinforced boxes of arrows and another quiver of arrows that was strapped for ease of access. The arrow boxes reminded me again of the bastards and their arrow bags. Even more parallels to journeys in the North. “And yes that is my name and don’t mock me for it. It does not make me any sweeter.” She grinned as she said it.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I offered my hand and she shook it firmly.

“Looking forward to working with you Witcher.” She told Kerrass when they shook hands. “I was only young the last time a Witcher came through.”

She shook Stefan’s hand and if there was any leftover animosity there, I couldn’t tell.

“I am Willow-Root.” The other dryad said. She was tall and graceful. Of the two other dryads, she was the oldest and had the most grey in her hair. Her limbs were lean rather than built with the veins standing clear under the skin. She had nothing more to say as she shook our hands and although determined, her eyes seemed calm and serene.

“How do the three of you fight?” Cherry-Blossom asked.

“Against monsters?” Kerrass wondered.

“To you and your thinking?” Oak-Leaf said. “That is what we will be fighting.”

“Then I am the anchor but I move fast and acrobatically. I would suggest that we use my silver and I as the centre of a formation. Freddie knows how to watch my back and he should be with me.”

“Will he be up to it?” Willow-Root wondered. “No offence human but you look tired and not much like a warrior.”

“You would be surprised,” Oak-Leaf said. “He defeated Sun-Flower in single combat.”

The two older dryads looked at me in surprise.

“Freddie has fought against bigger threats while feeling worse,” Kerrass told them. “He will be fine. Stefan picks off stragglers while the three of you find shooting situations and pick off stragglers, drive them off or towards my silver.”

The three exchanged glances before nodding.

“How far do we have to go today?” Kerrass wondered.

“Depending on other factors, it’s a four to six-hour careful march. Not far, but not a small distance either.”

Kerrass nodded and looked at me. I shrugged and Stefan nodded in turn. Oak-Leaf turned and led us out of the cave.

We moved past the gate and into the false darkness that was outside.

And it was a false darkness. It was like an eclipse. It was as though there was something in front of the light that was just keeping us from being able to see properly. I didn’t get to confer on this with Kerrass or ther others. But that was what it felt like to me. When I was outside and staring up through the trees, I could see that there was sunlight above me, trying to get through the cracks in the canopy overhead.

But every time that I thought I should be walking through a sunbeam, it was as though something obscured the light and a shadow covered my sight. I have no idea what that shadow was, or what cast that shadow. But it was a shadow. Very early on in this, final stage of the journey to see the Schattenmann, I remember stopping to look up and try and catch some sight of the sun. To try and see what was actually happening up there. I saw where the light should be and then I saw the shadow covering it and I remember laughing. Stefan looked back at me as he realised I was laughing and that we had fallen behind. A look of concern and worry crossed his eyes and I grinned at him.

“The man of shadows.” I said, gritting my teeth and jogging to catch up.

I realise that I am not really describing this properly. The effect is really easier in describing what things were not like. It was not like smoke obscuring the sun. When smoke covers light, it can lend a haziness quality to the light but that wasn’t what was happening here. There was more solid quality. It faded in and out. It was like someone was moving a hand in front of the light source, waving it backwards and forwards so that the light seemed to wink in and out.

I should also be clear that I could still see. There was enough light to see. But the shadows would lengthen and move in strange and off-putting ways that were hard to follow.

It was also as though the light itself was moving. I remembered that someone, probably Chestnut-Shell, had made the point that the Schattenmann actually loved the light as he was made out of Shadow. And that the shadow cannot exist without the light. As we jogged through the undergrowth, I remember suddenly wondering if the Schattenmann had any control over the light as well.

Then I laughed again. Of course he did. Shadow has power over light by being able to obscure it. I laughed again at my own stupidity and we ran on.

Kerrass and I were working together well. It really was like running through the forests of Northern Redania again only this time, I was the weaker of the two of us. Kerrass knew what he was doing, regularly stopping to make sure I was alright, giving a word of encouragement or hurling a small, needling insult in order to get me going again.

Stefan was openly enjoying himself. This was the kind of thing he had expected and he said so. There was darkness on either side of us. Monsters attacking, enemies in front of us, behind us and on either side. He was with strong companions and there were people to protect.

I could relate to how he felt. There were no ambiguities here. A simple task for the six of us to get to the heart of the Forest. Nothing more to it and nothing less to it.

It was tough going but go we went.

I remembered a sense that the world was out to get me. It was oddly familiar. I remember the headlong rush of Northern Redania and gritted my teeth. But that wasn’t what was happening today.

We moved quickly and carefully. Oak-Leaf led us while Cherry-Blossom was with her. The two would advance. One led while the other covered with a bow. It reminded me of how the bastards had worked together. The parallels between this and the time in the North continued.

They would advance to a place of safety and then signal, the three humans would jog up to the new place of safety before Willow-Root would run to catch up after she had guarded our backs. I found it a very stop-start kind of movement. At the same time slower but also much faster than the previous march. Having said that, far easier to keep my breath.

The first attack happened a little time into the journey. It was impossible to tell how far we had come given the nature of the movement. But the scouts were in their position and the three of us were moving forwards.

“Beware right,” Willow-Root called.

I heard a Bow-String sing and something shrieked as an arrow hit home. I spun, spear up. I saw movement in the undergrowth and I fell into a spear crouch. It was not my cleanest ever monster kill but I have done worse as the Endrega leapt at me, intending to wrap me up in its legs and bring me to the ground. In doing so it all but impaled itself on the spear. I reacted automatically, twisting the spear to ensure the kill and free the blade before using my foot to push the beast off the end.

Another bow sang and something else chittered in the insectoid version of agony. Kerrass had his blade out and it was swinging. One Endrega leapt and an upright stroke cut the legs ff the right-hand side of its body away, sending them spinning through the air. He turned in place to avoid the onrushing charge of a second, larger Endrega and used the turn to add momentum to a downward strike that cut a third Endrega down through the tail.

The larger Endrega landed and was looking for a new target. Stefan was engaging another pair and his back was unprotected. I leapt forward just as an arrow struck the soldier caste Endrega in the side, it staggered and I thrust my spear in near the arrow. The force of my strike and the beast shrinking from the agony of my blow tipped the beast over onto its side.

“Down,” Kerrass yelled. When he does that, training tells me that I need to pay attention and I dropped. An Endrega leapt over me. I rolled and found myself next to Stefan who swung with his own blade, all but batting the attacker away from us. I saw another target beyond him and lunged. Kerrass joined us before turning and sending a wave of sparks back the way that we had come, driving the insects back.

Willow Root was coming now, Oak-Leaf and Cherry-Blossom were shooting the insects that were running towards her but even the best archers can only shoot so quickly and she was going to be overwhelmed.

“Freddie,” Kerrass called and leapt to meet the insects attacking her, his sword spinning.

I leapt after him automatically, an arrow shot over me, close enough that I felt the wind of its passage.

Kerrass and I have fought together for a long time now and I know what he wants me to do without him having to say. He moved into the tide of smaller insects, spinning like a small whirlwind, blade flashing. There was a bigger one lumbering up behind Willow-Root where I ran in and drove the blade of my spear into the join between it’s legs. I struck, twisted and lifted.

Willow-Root stopped to help me but I waved her towards where the other two dryads were still shooting into the swarm.

“We need your bow, not your spear,” I screamed as I tore my own spear free and crouched to meet the next big bug that was charging toward us.

She went, I killed and I was clear. Stefan was below a huge root that was elevated off the ground. He had plunged his sword into the ground and was lifting Willow-Root up onto the root to join Oak-Leaf and CHerry-Blossom that were already up there and shooting, before he turned, pulled the sword from the ground and shouted. “We’re clear.”

I looked to Kerrass who was still swinging. I saw an Endrega coming found him and stabbed it in the back. I didn’t think there was much honour to be gained in fighting Endrega fair.

As there is sometimes in these things, there was a lull, Kerrass caught my eye and nodded to me. I fell back to where Stefan waited while Kerrass retreated a bit more cautiously.

An Endrega leapt at me, only to be snatched out of the air by an arrow. Another came and I swung blindly, I felt my blade connect and bite. I reached Stefan who stepped past me and hacked down a chasing beast.

I leapt, Cherry-Blossom caught my hand and pulled me to safety. An Endrega tried to climb the branch and I stabbed down, shearing a few legs off the side of the thing before it fell, only to be impaled on Stefan’s sword.

“KERRASS,” I bellowed, he heard and sending a wave of flame behind him, he sprinted back towards us and joined Stefan, fighting at the base of our safety. I stabbed those trying to climb up the root while the dryads continued to shoot with their frightening accuracy.

And then it was over. Stefan and Kerrass joined us on the root while we took it in. The fight had not lasted much more than a few minutes and we had killed an uncounted number of Endregas.

We waited until the undergrowth stopped rustling. Kerrass took hold of his amulet for a moment and nodded.

“We’re clear.” He said.

Oak-Leaf nodded. “Let’s recover as many arrows as we can,” she said, it looks like we will need them. Well fought everyone and scholar?”

“Hmm?” I straightened from where I had been breathing heavily.

“Well fought. Better fought than I expected.” She took a breath, “I apologise for underestimating you.”

I shrugged. “Happens all the time,” I told her, “often to my benefit as well.” She saw the joke before she grinned and jumped down and got to work next to Cherry-Blossom.

“Thank you,” Willow-Root said to me. “You saved my life I think.”

I grinned at her and took the offered hand while I massaged my aching and still injured leg with the other. “I have no doubt that you will be able to repay the favour before we get where we’re going.”

She laughed at that.

“Stand lookout.” She told Kerrass who nodded before she leapt down to do her own arrow collections.

They could not recover many, hard insect shells will do that.

“Good job I brought plenty,” Cherry-Blossom said grimly as she passed out some of the spare arrows from the arrow bags she carried.

That was the way that it went. Some of the fighting was less interesting. We were charged by a pair of werewolves that I was not expecting to have to face in the middle of the forest. I had kind of always assumed that such things would be more centred in the outskirts with the villagers and the rest. But no…

We were alerted by their howling and Kerrass audibly sighed. He pulled a bottle from his pack and soaked a rag in it before thoroughly wiping his silver blade with it before tossing the rag to me and I did the same, then I passed it onto Stefan and warned him to clean his blade thoroughly afterwards. We didn’t even need to discuss how we were going to deal with the attack.

Werewolves are still people after all, somewhere deep down and to varying standards of consciousness and capabilities. Some are more animal than man it is true and some others are more human. But even the most animal beasts that I have come across take some time to psyche themselves up to it.

The dryads moved up into some nearby trees. Kerrass placed himself to the right of the three of us while Stefan was on my right. The werewolves charged, the dryads fired and caused them to dodge around. Kerrass attacked the first to reach us while Stefan and I delayed the second. It became frustrated and howled which resonated in Stefan’s helmet a bit to make him uncomfortable. The werewolf saw the weakness and attacked, giving me a prime shot at the beast’s back and I took advantage of it.

All Kerrass had to do was to come and finish it off.

We were also attacked by a pack of wolves led by a bear of all things. That was an odd experience. Contrary to what you might have heard, Wolves tend not to attack people unless starving and the human is weakened. This is not because they won’t attack humans but because more often than not, there is easier prey out there. Humans do things like shoot and fight back rather than flee.

The dryads mostly dealt with that one. The three melee fighters formed the points of a triangle to fend the wolves off while the dryads stood in the middle and just shot the wolves down until they fled. The formation broke once when the bear charged but he was so full of arrows when our formation broke that Stefan, who was closest, barely had to swing his sword to put the poor beast out of his misery.

That fight was actually quite unpleasant. Not because we were hurt or because it was difficult. But because it was so mundane. You don’t think about beasts attacking you and the dryads wept as they fired. Their arrows were no less accurate for their pain though.

We took a break mid-morning. Oak-Leaf led us to another tree platform where we took some time to take stock. Honestly speaking, I would rather have kept going as climbing up to the platform was harder work than running and fighting through the undergrowth. But we had to drink some water and have a small snack to keep our energy up.

“I have a question.” Stefan wondered as he tightened a strap on his armour that had come loose.

I stifled a groan as I was expecting Stefan to shatter the careful Camaraderie that we had been building together under combat. But I was wrong and Stefan deserved better than my automatic condemnation and suspicion.

“The Schattenmann wants us to get to the heart of the Forest, right? I mean that’s the point of this entire thing.”

“That’s right,” Oak-Leaf said. She was straightening some arrows in order to make them more useful. Apparently, you can do that and it is one of the ways that you can salvage broken arrows. It seems strange that that might be a thing to me but… there you go. It works, it must do because the dryads continued to be frighteningly accurate.

“Also,” Stefan went on. “The Schattenmann controls these monsters right?”

Oak-Leaf shrugged and gestured to Cherry-Blossom who was working on another set of arrows. The three women seemed to have some kind of assembly line system going on.

“Kind of,” Cherry Blossom said as she took the thread that she was using to tighten the fletchings onto an arrow, out of her teeth. “He exerts some element of control certainly. But how much control he has, or how much influence he exerts, are a matter for some debate.”

“Huh,” Stefan said. “So here’s my question. If he wants us there, even if it’s to chastise me for being a stupid human and killing his Arachas. If he wants us there, why is he sending all these monsters after us? Surely the best and most efficient way of dealing with this is to part the sea so to speak and let us get on with it?”

Kerrass and I looked at each other. It was not a bad question after all.

“There are three things,” Cherry-Blossom began. “The first is that this is almost a religious thing for us. The trial of the journey is part of the point.”

“Ok?” Stefan prompted.

“The second thing is that ‘monsters’ as you call them, are here for a reason. They are the defences that defend the heart of the Forest more than we do and more than anything else does. We don’t know why he doesn’t entirely trust us but we do know that the last path, of course, is the monsters. They are protecting him and there is more than a small possibility that they are simply obeying their primal instinct.”

“Right,” Stefan agreed. “And what’s the third thing?”

“You are assuming that the Schattenmann thinks the same way you or I do.”

Stefan stared at her for a long moment before he laughed. I got the feeling that there had been a watershed moment passed there. And every so often after we had descended from the platform, he would stop and chuckle to himself for a moment.

There was a long break between attacks after that. I don’t know who was in charge of the tactics of the monsters and I don’t know if they were trying to tempt us into making a headlong dash of it and lose our caution. I certainly felt that temptation but am experienced enough now to know just how foolish that temptation is. Certainly, no one tried to suggest that we try to make up some lost ground and we kept working as we did.

Which was when we were swamped by some arachnomorphs.

I hate Arachnomorphs. I might have said before that I struggle with no small amount of Arachnophobia. It is a source of much amusement by Kerrass that I am marrying someone who once held the nickname of “Spider-Queen.” Being around Fluffy and some of the other more domesticated giant Spiders that Ariadne makes use of in her estates has robbed me of some of these fears. (Tom, Dick and Harry are their names. They have been trained to behave as footmen, it’s quite funny to watch other people, especially critics of Ariadne, go kind of pale when served wine by a giant spider wearing a hat and a cravat. She had to draw the line at making them wear an apron or maid’s outfit though.)

But for all of my lessening Arachnophobia, I still hate Arachnomorphs. There is a difference, it is about the segmentation of the bodies and somehow that makes them more sinewy and I hate that. I hate the way they can jump and ball up their webs and throw them at you in order to catch you.

You don’t know it reader but I have just shuddered.

It was not a particularly difficult fight. All I really had to do was to swing my spear and I would hit something in the seething mass. But I hate Arachnomorphs. In the end, Kerrass drove them back by just sending wave after wave of Sparks into them which burnt all their webs thus removing their advantage.

It’s a good strategy in general. If you do find yourself being attacked by Arachnopmorphs, then remember a few things. Arachnomorphs are cowards and will run away from you if they find you too scary. But if one leaps backwards and it’s facing you, it is drawing you in so that others can attack you. When you know that you are in Arachnomorph territory. Make a point of checking your campsite for a silvery sheen to the ground. These webs are telltale signs. Burn them. And the smell of burning webs leaves an acrid, unpleasant taste in the air. Like hot metal.

And my last piece of advice about fighting Arachnomorphs or going into an area where you know that Arachnomorphs are present? Keep a very sharp knife close to your hand so that you can reach it with your hands, even if your hands are bound. Then get comfortable with the thought of slitting your own arteries at your wrists or your groin. Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be taken alive by an Arachnomorph. When the phrase ‘a fate worse than death’ was invented. They were talking about death by Arachnomorph.

Another fight was against another mass of Endregas. This time it was easier as they didn’t quite catch us in quite as disadvantageous position. This time, Oak-Leaf had just set down from our place of safety to begin our next series of movements and Kerrass’ head jerked up.

“BACK,” He shouted. By this point, the other dryads had learned to listen to Kerrass when he shouts warnings. An Endrega warrior leapt at Oak-Leaf as she fled, two arrows flashed into the leaping beast and it fell backwards, its legs curling up underneath it.

We did not fare so well against a pair of Vampires. We had enough time for Kerrass to shout a warning as these two immense… things dropped down from on high. They were tall, monstrously muscled and had semi-batlike wings. I’ve since learned that they are not as skilled at flying but that they can use them for gliding. They leap with powerful leg muscles and then glide huge distances.

They landed and we were warned by Kerrass so that we scattered, and then they screamed. It was an assault on our ears that left us staggering and dizzy but also robbed us of our ability to communicate with each other. So instead, as well as staggering around, rubbery limbed and stumbling, we were unable to shout warnings and look out for one another. Despite their huge mass, the Fleders were fast. Very fast indeed. Fortunately, Fleders are not the most intelligent of the Vampire breeds. Kerrass who had some experience in these matters was able to distract them, scatter them and take them down. But we were not without injury. None of us emerged unscathed from that one. I came out of it quite well with a gash down my arm and another on my face. Neither was deep as I was aware of just how fast the Fleders could be.

Stefan was hurt and his armour was damaged. He had taken a big blow which his armour saved him from feeling the bite of the beast’s claws. But the sheer impact alone had meant that he had been sent flying through the air to impact a tree. So his breast plate was ruined and he had a cracked rib.

Kerrass was the worst with multiple gashes all over his body although he had the benefit of being able to take a Witcher’s potion which healed him almost straight away. The damage to his armour was telling though.

Oak-Leaf had an incidental injury where she had pulled a muscle to get out of the way, but both Cherry-Blossom and Willow-Root had bad gashes.

So for the first time in a while, I became the group surgeon.

The hardest part was pulling Stefan’s armour off. The denting meant that the hinges and things were all mangled together so that Kerrass and I between us had to pull it off him. It was not easy and the process looked… rather painful all things considered. Then it was just a case of strapping him up and putting his chainmail back on. The plate was useless and we just left it there.

The dryads needed some stitching up. They had a herbal wash to clean the injuries which stung before leaving the cuts feeling warm then cold, then hot again before settling down, leaving me with the oldest injury heal in the world of stitching people back up. Oak-Leaf and Willow-Root took it all in silence but Cherry-Blossom joked with me.

“Have you done much in the way of field surgery?” She wondered.

“More than I would like?” I told her.

“Did you never consider a career in it?”

“I did at one point?” I admitted, “but the girl broke my heart and I had to leave.”

She laughed. “You do it well. It always seemed a bit complicated to me.”

“There’s not much to it in all truth,” I told her. “The long and short of it is that the Blood has to stay on the inside.”

She laughed again.

After what passed for our attempt at lunch. I say attempt because, what with all of the adrenaline and things that were flushing through our systems, it was nearly impossible to keep any actual food down.

Oh and by the way, when people tell you that they find it difficult to eat after a fight, this is why. It is also why you put the sustenance in them and stand over them until they start to actually eat the stuff. The body needs fuel after a fight on, oh so many levels.

But we choked some stuff down and drank some of the pure water that was left. The dryads told us that there was no need to preserve supplies. It was, at the same time, kind of reassuring, but also deeply sinister and Stefan was not the only person to wonder what would need to happen for the return journey.

But we pulled ourselves to our feet, adjusted some of the straps on the packs and put our best foot forward. The afternoon was not as tough. I don’t know why and I don’t know if it just seemed to be not as tough. After the morning's trials, we moved and worked together like a practised unit. I suppose that in that kind of a situation, it is the same thing as throwing someone into the deep part of a pond, they either sink or learn to swim. We had a rhythm now and we became really really good at it.

We were attacked by enough beasties that I stopped counting. I know that we killed two Arachas, uncountable numbers of Endrega and Arachnomorph. Some Kikkimores turned up at one point which the dryads seemed surprised about on the grounds that, apparently, Kikkimores are not too fond of burrowing through root structures. Kerrass agreed but also shrugged at the debate on the grounds that there was so much going on at the Black Forest that didn’t make sense from a traditional standpoint and he had stopped worrying about it.

There were also several bears although, after that first attack, we were not attacked by any Wolves. They seemed to be content to keep pace with us, keeping an eye on us and running alongside us. Presumably acting as scouts for some kind of unknown force.

The fights seemed easier somehow. The monsters were less content to press the attack or to really go out of their way to see us dead. They would attack and then when it became clear that they were going to lose, they would flee. There was less… hate about it all now. Almost as if things were resigned to the thought of the fact that we were going to make it through.

After the headlong dash so far, I wondered of Kerrass as to whether we were being herded towards anything.

“Thinking of Redania Freddie?” He wondered.

“You have to agree that there are some startling similarities,” I told him. “Woodland, being chased and flanked on either side.”

“There are some.” He said. “There is a lot that is different though. We are being followed and tracked it is true, but have you noticed that when we stop for a break, they don’t attack? They wait for us to start again before following on behind.”

“I had not noticed that.”

“Also, we are still moving to avoid certain sites. We have passed two Large Endrega nests.”

“I had not noticed that either.”

“You wouldn’t. I have never knowingly taken you into an Endrega nest and if I accidentally realised that I had, I would immediately take you back out of one. The forest is calming down.”

“Kerrass, it’s been a long time since you got overly cryptic at me. I thought we had gotten out of the habit of doing that kind of thing.”

He grinned.

“What do you mean by ‘the forest is calming down’?” I demanded when it became clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate.

“Can’t you feel it? There is not as much darkness. The air has lost its metallic edge to it. The fights are less… angry. The entire feeling of the thing has changed. This is no longer a fight. This is a… This is a test.”

“And we are passing it,” Oak-Leaf said as she stood up. “Come on, it is time for us to be back under way.”

As we had travelled, the ground had been flat for quite some time. Or at least, it had been as flat as the ground gets in ancient and primaeval forest land.

By which I mean, large, interlocking, huge root systems that weave and wrap over each other. Fallen logs, twisted vines and bushes were everywhere. Tumbling rocks and things that have been torn out of the ground and sent rolling down slopes and the like by whatever movement the spilling of the earth caused.

That and, as it turns out, there were burrowing insectoids around the palace that, by their very nature, move the ground around and make it more difficult to walk in a straight line from point A to point B.

For all of that though, the ground had been relatively flat as we had travelled over that last day. Immediately after descending from the dryad village, the ground had been sloping downwards for that first day but over the course of that day and into the second day, the slope had been lessening until we had gotten to the stage where we were essentially walking along the flat. And on that last day, the ground had been much flatter even to the point that I had almost forgotten the slope. But now, it felt as though we were beginning to climb up again.

The last attack was by a Leshen. It had been big and impressive and we had cut chunks off it between us. It was accompanied by a small pack of wolves but its favourite tactic was to turn into a large flock of crows before flying around us, trying to peck at exposed bits of flesh. This had been a mistake as then the archers could pick off particularly big targets.

Now that Kerrass had told me about it, I could more easily see that the attackers didn’t really have their hearts in it. They were still attacking and if we hadn’t been paying attention, they would still have torn strips from us. But by the same virtue, they were not pressing home the attack. There were a couple of instances where one or other of us were exposed and the minions of the Leshen could have done some serious damage to us but they didn’t really press the advantage home. We kind of danced around each other a bit. A few birds fell, a few wolves were injured with one of them dying and the Leshen had some bits of itself cut off. But then it just seemed to spontaneously decide that we weren’t worth the effort, transformed itself into a flock of birds and flew off.

We pulled ourselves back together and then moved off a little way until Kerrass declared that we were safe.

To this day, I have no idea what goes into the decision-making process that states whether or not we are safe, but in short, Kerrass has never been wrong on that score.

We gathered in a small circle and took a deep breath. Willow Root passed out the last of the water and handed out the last of the sweet bread that seemed to take the place of trail rations. She just dumped the ration bag and the now-empty waterskin into the undergrowth. Out of curiosity, I had a look around to see if there were any other remnants of other expeditions nearby and I couldn’t find any of them.

We drank our water and ate our cake before I realised that Oak-Leaf had tears streaming down her face. I was about to approach her when Cherry-Blossom beat me to it and took the younger woman in her arms.

It looked like a private moment between the two and I didn’t want to intrude so I turned to move away.

“I’m scared.” I heard Oak-Leaf sob while Cherry-Blossom made soothing noises.

I went to Willow-root who was watching the other two dryads with a certain haunted expression.

“I take it that we are approaching the end of the journey?” I wondered, deliberately not looking at the two upset dryads.

Willow-Root just nodded.

When I walked up to Willow-Root, I had a thousand questions in my mind about what was going to happen, when and what for. But for the right there and right then of the thing. All of those thoughts just left my mind and I stood, staring out into the trees.

“Right,” Oak-Leaf said. “This is it, let's not keep the Schattenmann waiting. Let's finish this off.”

“Is there far to go?” Stefan wanted to know. “And are we likely to get attacked between here and there?”

“No, and let’s find out.” She told him before leading us back onto the path.

Kerrass came up next to me. “Are you ok Freddie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. And I know what you look like when you’ve seen a ghost so… Have you seen a ghost?”

I considered his comment for a long moment. “Something dark is about to happen here Kerrass. I don’t know what it is but something unpleasant is going to happen.”

Kerrass nodded and moved ahead of me. I spent the last… mile or so focused on watching his swords swinging from side to side and paying attention to any sounds coming from the undergrowth. But all truth be told, I was no longer that worried. Not about that anyway.

We didn’t have long to wait in all honesty. The ground seemed to slope up again for a long while before we came over another small ridge line and went back down into a bowl.

I stood on that ridgeline for far too long. Long enough that Stefan had to prompt me into moving again.

At the base of the bowl was a huge boulder that had been sunk deep into the ground. I could still see the curve of some of the under parts of the rock. It was not round but it was kind of bulbous and, well, rocky. It seemed to glitter in what light there was that was spilling through the canopy above us and in the reflection of all of the bowls of white light that had been placed around the rock. When I looked closer, it looked as though the boulder was veined through with something and it was this that seemed to shine and reflect the light. It was as though this reflective stuff was covered in a shell of whiteish, grey stone that was crumbling away.

And when I say that the rock was a boulder, I don’t think you quite get the sheer scope of the thing. Saying that it was huge was an understatement. I don’t think It would have taken a full day to walk around it, but it would have been the kind of walk where you would have needed to stop for a rest in the middle of it.

And it was not the rock that drew the eye.

Out of the top of the boulder had sprouted a tree. Huge and black of bark. It seemed to have grown out of the top of the boulder but then its roots had spilled down the sides of the rock until they had found the ground and buried their way through the top layers of soil and into the earth beneath them. The base of the tree was easily as wide as the rock itself before the base tapered into the main trunk of the tree which was large and gnarled. It was twisted and shaped like those oldest trees that villages do not dare cut down for fear that the village spirits would be displeased if the tree was disturbed.

Never mock those traditions. They are traditions for a reason.

The tree grew huge after that, towering above us as we descended into the bowl. Someone had told me that we were already walking under the eaves of the heart of the forest when we were inside the dryad village and I had felt a little disdainful of the matter at the time. But now that I was here and looking up at it. I found that I was no longer as sceptical.

The trunk of the tree was black and the leaves were various shades of red, making them stand out against the otherwise green leaves of the forest.

It was so big that it literally took my breath away. I wanted to weep. I wanted to fall to my knees. It was so big that my mind was struggling to comprehend it. It was so big that I wanted to look away. It was unfeasible that a tree, a simple tree, could be as big as this one was.

There are times in your life when something happens that makes you realise how utterly insignificant you are. When you stand and look at a mountain while you are still at the foot of it, is one of them. You can stand there and realise that that mountain was there long before you arrived in the world and will be there long after you are dead.

I get the same kind of feeling when I stand in old ruins, some of whom are less than a hundred years old and will have been active in my Grandfather’s time if not my Father’s time. It is sobering, it is terrifying that everything we build can be gone so that our children or even our Grandchildren will have forgotten about it after we have died.

I have wandered the halls of Coulthard castle and thought about what it will look like in the time of my children. It was already falling into ruin when Father bought it and moved us all in there and it is only because he invested a huge sum of money in it that it is in the state that it’s in now. What will happen when Sam or Sam’s children decide that they want comfort instead of military outpost style austerity. What will happen if the family moves into the residence in Novigrad on a more permanent basis? What will happen if Sam decides that he doesn’t want to live in Coulthard castle at all and prefers the remote, wilder place of Kalayn castle because it is his rather than our Fathers?

What happens when it is decided that the military fortifications of Coulthard castle become obsolete. There are already innovations that suggest that high castle walls are not going to be as beneficial for much longer as siege weapons are becoming more and more powerful?

These are the questions that plague me sometimes and it was the same as I looked up at this huge tree before me. I looked at it and I wondered how long it had taken to grow, how long it had been here. It had certainly been here since long before the Conjunction of the spheres. Long before humans had arrived in this part of the world. I felt impossibly young, stupid and insignificant when I stood there, staring up at the immensity of it.

Kerrass had to shake me free of those thoughts. He is not as sentimental about such things. He has the ability to set such things aside in his mind and not pay attention to them. They are there if he feels as though he wants to take them out and look at them, but otherwise, he can just roll through life. I have wondered if he is this way because of his lifestyle or because of his age.

But he shook me free of those thoughts and we started to climb down the slope. Looking at the circle formed by the ridge surrounding the base of the tree was almost as bad as looking up at the tree itself. There were huge bowls of light that surrounded the base of the tree. Not just at the compass points but all around the place. The bowls themselves were huge and the blue-white light that they gave off was immense.

I knew that they were huge because I could see small humanoid figures walking around them and throwing things up into the bowl. As we descended, I saw one of the figures place a ladder up against the lip of the bowl and climb it to pour a skin of something into the bowl.

There were other figures around the place. They wore robes, similar in cut and appearance to the robes of the dryad attendants except these robes were all black. Some of the figures were hooded while others walked around with their hair loose and flowing around their shoulders. This hair was also silver in the light and reflected the light of the bowls, giving them an ethereal look as they moved about, working and praying.

I could see one, largish group standing before the boulder and therefore the tree with their arms reaching up towards it in supplication. Others were sitting on rocks in the centre of what looked to be intricate, twisting patterns that had been drawn in the ground. They were sitting cross-legged with their hands placed in their laps, unmoving and seemingly staring off into space.

It reminded me of a monastery. I have been in a couple now. Every so often, monasteries might provide contracts for Kerrass. Being a central place for the locals to communicate and being at least relatively neutral and trustworthy, if a monster needs killing and all of the locals need to chip in to get it done, then the monastery collects the funds and pays the Witcher.

By this, I mean those kinds of countryside monasteries which have a few dozen monks in them or abbeys that have a similar number of nuns in them. Rather than the larger monasteries in the cities or nearby which is where the really ambitious churchmen live.

I have always found the idea of staying in such places rather appealing although I am forced to admit that I would only last a couple of weeks or so before I would get bored. Then I would want to travel, to see something or spend some time with friends.

But that’s what it reminded me of. We climbed down the path and the slope began to flatten out again into a kind of bowl shape.

Cherry-Blossom was walking next to Oak-Leaf now, holding her hand and my sense of foreboding began to grow again after the shock of seeing the huge tree.

We walked down, occasionally having to stop and watch where we were going as we descended but it wouldn’t be long before my gaze would, inevitably, once again be drawn by the huge tree that was at the base of the bowl. But then I saw what else was waiting for us at the foot of the slope.

Or rather who.

The Schattenmann was there and to finally see him was to take my breath away.

He was, at the same time. Far larger and more impressive than I could have imagined. But at the same time, he was kind of underwhelming.

He was still tall and those people that had described him as looking a little like Lesehn were not too far off the mark. If you saw him from a distance then you would certainly be forgiven for thinking that that was the case. He certainly had all the hallmarks of a Leshen. He had a large Stag skull with an equally huge rack of antlers that grew out of the top of the skull. I couldn’t count the number of points on the skull due to movement but it was enough that I had to give up. Suffice to say that if Father had brought down a stag like that, he would have been nervous about having it stuffed and mounted for fear that people would claim that he faked it.

Another similarity that was between him and the average Leshen was that his limbs seemed to be made out of vines, branches and roots. They seemed to twist together and ripple over his limbs, sprouting up and over his head and down his back. It was this that made counting the horns of the deer skull difficult.

Where he started to look different to a Leshen was that there was more… I want to say “substance” to him. When Leshen present themselves, they look like a cluster of branches and roots. Killing them is a matter of hacking away at the wood until eventually, he just splinters and collapses to the ground. But as I said earlier, if a Leshen stood still and allowed you to do it, you could push your sword through the gaps in the thing’s body. You would not be able to do that with the Schattenmann. There was something there, even if I couldn’t see what it was.

He also gave the impression of a bulky, heavily muscled man. There was a deliberation to his movements, a heaviness to him that you only get out of people that are hugely strong. He reminded me of a Blacksmith or a Woodcutter in that way.

And he was clothed in darkness. Literally, it was as though he was wearing a robe of it. The surrounding area had lots of flickering shadows moving around the place. The light from the bowls was not a steady glow, it did give off a feeling of flickering flame so a lot of the ground was shadowed. And although I could see the ground clearly, there was also a feeling that he had kind of grown out of that shadow.

The thing that most shocked me about it all was… He just wasn’t that scary.

Kerrass has a saying that he occasionally uses to explain this kind of thing. There’s a series of them which boil down to, ‘if we can see it, we can hit it. If we can hit it, we can make it bleed, and if we can make it bleed, we can make it bleed more. And if we can make it bleed a lot, then we can kill it.’

And yes, I know that there is a simpler version of that, but Kerrass has found that the simplification is simply not true. If it bleeds, it does not mean that you can kill it, there might even be a lot more work that needs to be done before something can be killed.

But now that we could see it, it was not actually that scary anymore. There was something that we could hit and exert ourselves against.

When she saw him, Oak-Leaf seemed to square her shoulders a bit, lift her chin up and increased our pace until we were standing before him. Some of the other Black-Robed women started to walk up and surrounded us in a loose ring as the Schattenmann seemed to look down on us from his height of maybe around eight feet.

Ok, he was a bit more frightening now that we were standing there looking up at him.

The Schattenmann said nothing.

We all stood there for a long moment. There was a weight to his gaze that seemed to push down on us for a long while. It was like a physical thing and an effect that is shared by some Kings and priests.

Oak-Leaf stepped forward.

“I am here. It is my fault. I should have been more careful and I should have made sure that they…”

The Schattenmann raised his hand and Oak-Leaf ground to a halt.

The hand was long and formed into gnarled claws at the end of long fingers. The claws seemed to have sharp edges in them and the points of those claws seemed to glitter.

After a long moment, Oak-Leaf seemed to fall in on herself, whatever pride or anger or determination that she was fuelling herself with seemed to leech out of her and she hung her head.

“I’m sorry.” She sobbed. “I am so so sorry.”

The Scahttenmann seemed to nod with his entire body and held his hands out wide. Oak-Leaf let her weapons fall to the ground and ran into the Schattenmann’s embrace as she wept in shame and bitterness. The Schattenmann slowly wrapped his arms around her in an embrace that actually looked quite warm.

Cloaked figures came towards those of us that remained. One picked up Oak-Leaf’s weapons and took them off somewhere. Others went to Willow-Root and Cherry-Blossom. Some took away our two companion's weapons while others offered them large, voluminous black robes which they put on.

“Good luck,” Willow-Branch told us as she disappeared into the huge hood that the robe had.

Cherry-Blossom said nothing as she vanished into the robe.

Now that I could see better in the gloom, I could see that the robed figures were all dryads of the older variety and as they approached us, they fell into place around the circle.

A couple pushed us back gently but firmly, leaving Oak-Leaf and the Schattenmann together.

Oak-Leaf finally pulled away and nodded before standing alone, looking up into the face of the Schattenmann.

“I am ready.” She said.

He put his hand on her shoulder, huge, gnarled and twisted.

She nodded again. “Best to get it done, I am only becoming more afraid otherwise.”

The Schattenmann nodded again and let her go.

Then his hand ripped forward and tore Oak-Leaf’s belly open spilling her entrails on the ground.

Oak-Leaf groaned. She collapsed onto her knees and almost reflexively tried to keep her guts inside her body.

Kerrass, Stefan and I instinctively jerked forwards but strong dryad hands held us back.

Two cloaked figures ran into the circle and watched Oak-Leaf carefully. At first, I thought they were there to help her. But instead, they watched her as in her agony, she forced her hands to let go of her belly. How she did it with an awful wound like that I will never know. She forced herself to her feet and she began to walk. Tears of pain that I can only imagine spilt from her eyes as she staggered forwards, leaving the entrails in a trail behind her.

I wanted to vomit at the sight, the sounds, the smell and the shock of the injury, but that woman had fought beside me and had probably saved my life. I owed it to her to watch her last moments.

One of the two robed figures examined the ground where the entrails fell while the other watched Oak-Leaf closely. At first, Oak-Leaf walked with a determined stride. She was moving towards the rock and the tree as the crowd parted for her.

Gradually though, her steps turned into staggering, uneven steps. One of her legs stopped working and she was dragging it behind her before eventually, the other gave out too. Black blood splashed dripped on the ground and a smell escaped from her that was utterly horrific. She fell to her knees, unable to keep her legs walking. She looked up at the tree although I could no longer see her face. She leant forward and started to drag herself along the ground. She didn’t get very far.

At the last, she rolled over onto her back and just stared up into the canopy of the forest as she died.

It looked, agonizing.

The two robed figures stood together and seemed to have a whispered conversation with each other before going back to the Schattenmann and saying something to him. He nodded and the dryads seemed to start to wander off.

A pair of them bent and carried the dead body away.

I can’t speak for Kerrass or Stefan, but I was frozen. I had no idea what to do with myself. Part of me wanted to attack after that brutal, horrible display.

Instead, though I watched as the robed figures, Willow-Root and Cherry Blossom among them, departed leaving us with the Schattenmann. He reached up to the Skull's head and pulled it away from his body.

The shadows started to shrink around him, flowing into the ground. The roots, branches and thorns seemed to dissolve like… well… shadow before candlelight. He seemed to shrink in stature although it was not as though he physically shrunk. It was as though I was looking at him from another angle and I realised that he wasn’t as tall as I thought he was.

I finally looked at his face. Straight into the eyes of Henrik who I had last seen having two spears thrust into his guts. He stared at the three of us for a long moment, eyes scanning our features before he nodded, tucking the deer skull under one arm before turning his back to us.

“Follow.” He said.

Such was our shock at everything that had happened, that we did precisely that.

(A/N: Thankyou for your patience, the last few weeks have been tough and I have not been very well with the brain weasels. THis chapter was tough and although I think it’s pretty good, if a bit patchy, I am glad it’s over. I hope you like it. Thanks for reading guys, have as good a time as you can and stay safe out there.)