(A/N: You guys have no idea how tempting it was to publish that last chapter and then make you wait for this one. Heh. Thanks for sticking with it folks.)

(Warning: More character death. Also, a discussion on which monsters are affected by steel and silver swords that are taken from book lore rather than videogame lore. So there.)

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It was indeed Kerrass.

I sat in my chair for what felt like a long time, just staring at him. My brain, my poor mind was, and in some ways still is, struggling with that sight. Kerrass. Alive and standing in front of me.

While I stared at him, Sam stared at him, Trystan, Ella, the critics and the guards all stared at him. My mind was working furiously on what I had seen to make sense of it all.

It all happened so fast.

Kerrass had brought that final message in and carried it over to Trystan which had, in turn, sparked up the debate between Sam and Trystan as to what needed to happen. After that, Kerrass sidled over to the point where he had the best possible place that he could make his move and then he struck.

It all happened so fast.

He leapt over the circle of steel, hurling himself forward to reach his target. While he moved, he was drawing a dagger and he lashed out. At first, like everyone, I thought that he was attacking Sam and my mouth was opening to warn him that such an act would have been futile, but it wasn’t. Instead, he was aiming at the fetish of Vampire Control.

I do not know anything about that blade, but it was wickedly sharp. It cut the bag easily, spilling the tiny bones that made up the fetish to the floor and the very second that happened, Ariadne screamed.

It all happened so fast.

Ariadne screamed. It was primal and came from deep in the midst of her soul. There was so much pain in that voice. So much agony that it tore at my heart just as it was tearing at my ears. There was a wetness in my ears which later turned out to be blood.

She screamed and screamed and screamed and it just didn’t seem to stop. Pain and hate and rage so deep and terrible that I do not have the superlatives to describe it. There was also a sorrow there that… Well… There was so much contained within that scream that I wept to hear it.

It all happened so fast.

But Kerrass had not finished moving. He continued the striking movement of the dagger which spun, a dart of steel reflecting the torchlight until it struck my chair, blade first. I have never been able to master the skill of knife throwing and it always struck me that there was a danger that the spin would cause the pommel to strike the target first. But Kerrass, as with so much in life, was a master at it. It struck solidly, severing one of the ropes that bound my right arm to the chair. I felt it slacken off a little as the feeling returned to my hand slowly.

But the shock of the sudden movement, Ariadne’s screaming and everything else that was going on had pinned me to my chair and I couldn’t move. It honestly didn’t occur to me that I could.

Then the figure that I had still not recognised as Kerrass turned and gestured. Hot sparks leapt from his hands. Not in the wave of sparks that he uses more to drive his enemies back. But instead, it was a steady stream of sparks, focused to a point until they struck the circle of pinkish, blue paint that Sam had once claimed contained some of his own blood.

The heat from the sparks burned the blood that soaked the floor and set fire to the clothes of one of the nearby corpses, introducing even more of the horrific smells that there was simply no getting away from in that place. The smell of burning human is one of those smells that never leaves your nostrils.

But the real target of the sparks was the painted circle. It didn’t take long before the circle was marred. The paint blackened and bubbled until eventually it simply seemed to peel away from the stone floor.

The effect was instant and profound.

The hum that was, I assume, the mark of the attention of The God instantly vanished. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was that that occurred. I have… I have no words. I had merely thought that it had left before, but instead, it had deepened to a pitch that just made me uncomfortable. The kind of thing where you only notice that it’s there after it had gone.

It was like this huge weight was lifted from me. Not just the physical sensation of it, although that too was huge. My muscles seemed to relax as though I was coming to the end of some great, physical effort. As though I had climbed into a hot bath after many days of travelling and fighting. But it was more than that. The tension that I had not known was there was suddenly relaxed and I felt myself almost wanting to weep with the sheer relief of it.

But it wasn’t just the physical sensations of it although that was pronounced. There were also the visual effects. The walls that had seemed to have been dyed red, an effect that I had assumed was an effect of the torchlight, became cold, dark and greyish. The torchlight was still there, but the red light, the red… dye that was everywhere just seemed to vanish as though I blinked and it was gone. It didn’t fade, it was just… not there any more.

The edges of my vision cleared. I had not been aware that there was anything wrong there but it was as though my eyes were surrounded by a kind of flickering cloud. As though I was peering through this tunnel made up of storm clouds, lightning dancing in the shadows.

The hum wasn’t there any more and I could hear the silence. It was as though the silence was a physical thing and I could hear it. Even through Ariadne’s screaming.

Which still had not stopped.

But the strangest feeling of the removal of the pain. I was still in a lot of low-grade pain. My legs and hand were still shattered, I hadn’t eaten properly in The Eternal Flame knows how long and I was sick with an infection that had been creeping through my body since those injuries first took place.

But there had been this low-grade pain. Just a background, persistent throb that had always been there. I had assumed that it was something to do with the injuries that I had suffered or some sickness of the heart and mind after seeing so much horror, pain and death.

But it was not. It was that hum. It had gone through my ears, echoed in my chest and then the reverberations of it all had echoed out through my limbs until I was in agony from it all.

I was weeping already and I did not know it.

All of that happened so fast that I cannot easily comprehend it. One of those times when my mind was desperately trying to catch up with what my eyes had seen and my ears had heard. And all the time, there he stood, impossibly still alive.

I watched as Kerrass pulled his tunic, the mockery of the guard uniform over his head and tossed his helmet aside. I saw him bend to pick up his own steel sword from the pile, untying the sword belt that held his guard’s sword and casting it aside before settling his own sword into the scabbard on his back. His Witcher harness had been hidden under his disguise.

I saw him. My body recognised him before my brain did. I saw the lines of his face, his long hair, and the scar that crossed his brow and cut down across his nose. His thin and angular face. I saw him standing there as he took a deep breath and, I think, found his centre a bit, feeling his own weapon sitting on his back. Feeling that familiar weight.

His gaze flickered at me, taking me in, I imagine, the same way that I was taking him in. I thought I saw just the hint of a scowl as he examined me in that moment and took in the state that I was in before he went back to examining Sam and the other things that were happening in that room.

Ariadne had not stopped screaming. It… hurt. It was agony to hear that voice. There was no voice that I recognised. She just went on and on and on in this wail that seemed to shake the foundations of the castle.

Then she stopped and lowered her gaze to look at the rest of the room, the echoes of her screaming were still ringing in my ears and echoing around the room. She looked at Sam with a hatred so pure that I felt it, even though the skin was hanging off her skull. Even though there was relatively little musculature still to see. I could feel the hate radiating off her. It was like an aura of needles that pricked and drew blood from the skin.

Then she looked at Kerrass for just a moment. Some message was passed between them at that moment that I didn’t recognise. Nor did I want to. The woman that I loved was back in the room.

Then she looked at me and a different look appeared in her eyes. One of agony and so much sorrow. She screamed again, lifting her head to scream at the ceiling. This scream was different. The first was something of a release. All of that pent-up emotion and feeling was unleashed from her at that moment. Everything that she had seen, everything that she had done and been forced to do. All of that came out of her in a torrent. She had screamed and screamed and screamed until some, or the very worst of it all had gone.

Now she screamed her sorrow and….

Oh, I don’t know. I want to try and describe it but…

She leapt sideways and as she did so, her body disintegrated into the red, black cloud of smoke that I know Vampires form. That smoke billowed out of the door and up the stairs to wherever she was going from there. She was screaming as she went and the lightning was dancing in her form as she went.

It all happened so fast and finally, now that it was all over, we all stood there in a tableau.

“Kerrass,” I whispered.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE.” Sir Trystan roared, drawing his sword. “KILL HIM.”

Kerrass raised his eyebrow as Sam didn’t move.

The critics exchanged glances with each other before the first moved towards an attack.

The critics have never changed in my time of knowing them. Huge men, heavily muscled, easily seven feet tall or even taller in some cases. Four or five feet broad. They are massively strong and capable of feats that are intimidating in their power.

But because they have worked in these cellars around hot fires, torchlight and torture implements, they tend to go shirtless and wear thin trousers.

They all reached for weapons. One pulled an axe from the circle of steel. Another pair plucked swords. The weapons looked absurdly small in their huge hands. They leapt to the attack.

If one of them had landed a blow on Kerrass then that would have been dangerous. Kerrass saw them coming and acting on instinct, he barely had to move to kill them.

I don’t know if I’m out of practice at watching Kerrass fight, or what was happening but I only figured out what happened later. I would see one of the critics tumbling aside, blood spraying in the air and then my mind and eyes would kind of catch up.

The first darted forwards before one of his legs just kind of gave way. Kerrass’ sword glittered in the torchlight as blood fountained from his groin. People often underestimate that particular artery but the pressure with which the blood will come out is tremendous.

The second stumbled forward and then tripped over his own entrails as they wrapped around his feet. Kerrass stepped backwards to make room for the huge man to fall. I had not seen the movement that Kerrass had used to disembowel the huge man.

A third and a fourth worked together to try and come at Kerrass from multiple angles. As best as I could tell, Kerrass killed them in one stroke. One stroke and two men fell dead. One clutched his neck as the blood spurted between his fingers and the other simply crumpled at Kerrass’ feet.

Kerrass had barely moved before he took a couple of steps and ended the misery of the man that was trying to stuff his entrails back inside his stomach.

Then Kerrass stopped and looked back at Sam and Trystan with an eloquent expression that seemed to say “What’s next?”

Trystan was astonished. I don’t think he had ever seen a Witcher use a sword before and he gaped at Kerrass. I could not see Sam’s expression but it is easy for me to imagine the smirk that he was wearing.

Trystan licked his lips nervously, his gaze flickering between Sam and Kerrass. He drew his sword.

“GUARDS.” He yelled.

Kerrass chuckled quietly. It astonished me to realise that I could hear him, my ears were still ringing from the lack of the hum and Ariadne’s screaming.

“I rather think that the guards that are not in this room have other things to worry about,” he told Trystan.

After a long moment, it became clear that from the open door leading to the upper castle, the same door that Ariadne had fled up, there was the sound of screaming coming.

Trystan almost whimpered with it. He looked in appeal at Sam one last time before his face stilled, and his trembling ceased. He looked at the remaining couple of guards in the room.

“With me,” he ordered them and led them to attack Kerrass.

He was not well served by those guards. There were four of them that were still in the room at that point. Two of them were there to guard me. One of those things that makes no sense but… there you go. And another two that had brought in the latest victim. The girl whose name I never found out.

One of the guards looked at the tableau, dropped his sword and fled out of the nearest door. Another one panicked and attacked Kerrass quickly and recklessly. Even though he was wearing a breastplate, bracers, greaves and helm, he lasted no longer than the critics did. He attacked Kerrass with his sword held high and struck out at Kerrass who attacked the guard’s arm, severing it just below the elbow. Blood spurted as Kerrass sidestepped the attacker giving him a little push to send him on his way. The man missing an arm looked at the blood spurting from his right hand and screamed in horror before simply passing out with the shock of the entire thing.

I believe that he bled to death on the floor.

Trystan led the remaining two as a more unified front.

It surprised me that Sam just wanted to sit there and watch. Yet another sign that the Sam that I knew had died somewhere during… whatever it was that he had been doing. There is no way that Sam would have just stood there and watched. Then again, there was no way that the Sam I knew would have done half of the things that he had provably done.

I still felt immobilised. My mind had just shut down at the impossibility of what I had seen. Ariadne’s scream had not helped but all I could do was sit there and watch. There was a joy in watching Kerrass work, coming from nowhere, unbelievably so, to fight my enemies and here he was, already leaving several men bleeding to death on the floor.

But mostly there was just shock. More shocked than I had felt at sitting there helpless as I watched Sam kill my closest friends and family.

Trystan and the other guards were more of a hindrance to Kerrass than the critics had been. But not much.

Trystan approached the Witcher in the middle with a guard on either side. It was still clear that the three men had not trained together before, let alone fought together and so they separated easily. Kerrass darted forward with a vertical strike that even I could see was never going to strike anything. He was cutting between Trystan and one of the guards. Trystan didn’t flinch but the guard did, shifting to one side.

Kerrass had isolated him with the second guard out of reach and Trystan’s sword was too far away. Kerrass darted forward and shoulder-checked the flinching guard out of the way, rendering him even further out of position and drove him back with a lightning-fast series of strikes, his sword flickering in the torchlight. Trystan was coming after Kerrass though.

Kerrass hurled himself forward, under the sweeping blow of the isolated guard, came to his feet after a roll and gave his first lunge, severing the spine of the guard who had not yet turned. The Witcher’s blade punched through the chain mail with ease.

That guard fell, his legs crumpling underneath him.

Trystan leapt over the falling man but the guard that was now behind him tripped over his fellow.

The Knight was making a mistake. I have seen the mistake before and although it has been made so many times, and I have pointed it out so many times, it keeps being made.

Trystan was a skilled swordsman, there was no doubting that. He knew what he was doing. The observer in me suggested he was far more used to horseback fighting as he was a little too fond of slashing strokes but he was quick, was respectful of Kerrass’ skills, and had a healthy regard for his own safety.

The mistake was that he assumed there were rules in a fight for survival.

There was a short exchange of blows before Kerrass stepped into a stroke, wrapping his arm around Trystan’s sword arm and tugging him off balance, sending him stumbling. Not far. But enough so that Kerrass could get past him, kick the guard over that was struggling to his feet before stabbing down into the fallen guard’s neck.

Trystan had recovered. For a second, my old brain wanted to know why Kerrass hadn’t taken advantage of the stumble, but my more experienced fighting brain answered that although Trystan had stumbled, there was not enough there for Kerrass to take advantage of. Instead, Kerrass had chosen to ensure the removal of another threat.

The two swordsmen faced each other.

“You fight without honour.” Trystan’s scorn was evident. He had someone he could be angry at now and in the same way that Ariadne’s scream had proved an outlet for her, having a target for all of his pent-up feelings seemed to focus him.

Trystan gave his sword a whirl and settled into a firmer sword stance. As intimidation and confidence-building movements go, it was rather textbook.

Kerrass was unimpressed and just stared at Trystan for a long moment without blinking before speaking.

“This from the man that has willingly watched helpless men and women being sacrificed and tortured?” Kerrass replied.

I don’t know why, but that barb struck Trystan more firmly than any time that I had made that self-same argument. I had tried that logic on him before and he had ignored it. Maybe it was the Witcher saying it. Maybe it was the immediacy of the moment, or that he was feeling so sure of his rightness with the recent fight. But it seemed like Kerrass’ words took the wind out of him. He seemed to deflate and as he did so, Kerrass attacked.

The result was a foregone conclusion.

Trystan fought well. The first exchanges were fast, so fast, that they almost blinded me. The light in that cellar was not great and the firelight flickering made it hard to see what was happening. The speed of the movements was so fast that my tired eyes could not track it.

Then Trystan took a step back to make room. Then another step and another. His sword strokes became more hurried and desperate and in the end, it became clear what was happening. Kerrass did nothing but attack, raining slashes, thrusts and all kinds of attacks on the Knight. They were so fast and so strong that Trystan just couldn’t keep up.

He died bravely though, even if I do think he knew it was coming at the last. Kerrass batted one of the strokes aside which left Trystan exposed, before following up with a lunge that entered the front of Trystan’s skull at a slight diagonal.

Trystan died instantly.

I still didn’t move.

Neither did Sam.

Kerrass grimaced as he had to pull the end of his sword out of Trystan’s skull. With a kind of preoccupied air, he examined the edges of his blade for a moment before wiping the blood and gore off the blade with the end of Trystan’s tunic.

Then he sheathed his sword and moved slowly, still facing Sam and came to a rest at a point where he could watch all the exits and exits.

He and Sam looked at each other for a long while.

Distantly, I could hear the sounds of screaming coming out of the entrances. No weapon strikes, no clashes of metal against metal though. Just screaming and the sounds of many running feet. I frowned as the screaming seemed to shift in tone. There was fear in that scream, fear and pain but that was just to be expected.

Now, there was also anger and… joy.

It took me so long to recognise that last that it seemed bizarre to me that it could exist.

Eventually, it was Sam that moved first. I have no idea if there was a victory there for Kerrass or what was happening. I still hadn’t moved, still shaken by Kerrass returning from the grave and destroying that which I had thought to be secure.

When you spend too much time in the darkness, the light can be terrifying. There was no hope in me. Not yet. I did not see how there could be hope. I had seen a brave woman plunge a dagger into my brother’s chest.

Sam moved and as he did so, he took a huge breath before chuckling.

“I ordered her to kill you.” He said, his tone almost conversational. “I shall have to punish her for incompetence.”

Then Kerrass moved as well, taking his own breath.

“No, you didn’t.” He replied. “And actually, she has never been more competent than in that moment.”

I could almost feel Sam frown.

“I am pretty sure I remember ordering her to kill you.”

Kerrass smirked.

“The letter of the order rather than the spirit of the order.” he replied, “Do you not remember?”

Suddenly I remembered and once again, a surging of pride threatened to engulf me. It was almost suffocating.

“She did, in fact, save my life.” Kerrass continued. “You ordered her to break my neck. She did exactly that. But she also knows me well enough to know that I always keep a Swallow potion on my person at all times.”

“Ah,” Sam said. “She forced you to drink it.”

“So fast that no one could see. It was in her hand when she covered my mouth to break my neck. It is not often that I have had cause to be grateful to the speed of Vampires but there is a first time for everything.”

Sam actually laughed before he frowned again.

“Aren’t your potions in glass phials though?” he asked.

“Not all, but that one was. It was in my mouth and then she made me chew the phial to break it. I was picking bits of glass out of my mouth for a while. Not pleasant.”

Sam laughed his infectious laugh and even Kerrass chuckled as well.

“So she broke my neck,” Kerrass replied. “I all but died, but in the same gesture that she broke it, she also set it so that my swallow potion could heal it.”

Sam nodded. “Clever girl. I shall have to remonstrate with her. Still, I have another sister to create another totem if it comes up. In the meantime though. I must confess that I find that I am glad that you survived.”

It was Kerrass’ turn to frown in confusion.

“Oh,” he wondered.

“Yes,” Sam wandered over to the pile of swords and plucked one out, seemingly at random, the metal grinding against stone. He shook his head though and tossed it aside before selecting another one which he seemed more settled with.

“The truth of the matter is that I have always wondered. Always.”

He found some flaw in this second sword as well before he saw something in the glittering mass, his eyes gleamed and he darted forwards, pulling the weapon out with a look of triumph. He held this new sword and slashed around himself making the air whistle as it parted before the sword. The blade spun and like the others before it, the sword glittered in the torchlight. I didn’t recognise the sword but such is the way of things.

Then he stopped and settled himself into a middle swordsman’s stance facing Kerrass.

“What have you wondered about, Samuel?” Kerrass asked, drawing his sword and advancing to meet Sam.

“I have always wondered if I could take you,” Sam answered.

Kerrass smirked again.

Sam stepped backwards. He was still within the, now, ruined circle and beckoned to Kerrass politely, gesturing as though he was inviting Kerrass to join him in a duelling circle.

“Let’s find out,” Kerrass replied, stepping into the circle and facing Sam in a reflection of the stance that Sam was using.

From some distance, it occurred to me that I could move. I looked down at my right hand, the blade that Kerrass had thrown was still there although jammed quite hard into the wood. I looked up to check and neither Kerrass nor Sam had moved.

That was going to be a contest and I had no idea as to which way it was going to go. Before all of this, I would have said that Sam would not have stood a chance. But as had been proven, Sam had hidden so many things from the world and from me that there was no longer any way to know for sure what Sam was capable of. Also, he had been supernaturally augmented to be able to do many other things. Including surviving a direct dagger thrust.

On the other hand, Kerrass was still relatively fresh. He hadn’t used any signs or drunk any potions that I could see. Now that I looked, he had several potions on his harness but he had touched none of them yet. I expected that Kerrass would probe Sam to see if he needed anything extra but otherwise, focus on his defence.

I wanted to watch that contest. I wanted to see Sam destroyed, or if it was true that Kerrass would lose, then I felt that I should be ready to see that in the moment.

But it was also true that Kerrass might need my help… Not that I was thinking about what help I could offer given the state I was in. But the thought was there.

So I twisted myself to see if I could get some more rope towards the edge of the dagger. I couldn’t pull it out, even if I had the strength to do so, I would not have had the leverage. Instead, all I could do was just, rather optimistically, rub the ropes that restrained my hand against the sharpened edge of the dagger. It was working but it was painfully slow, and often, I would have started the movements, only to realise that there was no further movement to be had that would cut deeper into the ropes. Or that the cutting that I had done would mean that I would now have the leverage to move back into something else. It was frustrating and slow.

Another problem was that now that I could do something, I was finding out just how debilitated I was. I would often start before looking around me, only to realise that I had forgotten that I could do something proactive now and would need to remind myself that I could work on cutting the rope. There were literally moments of “Oh yeah, I can free myself now.”

It reads as being quite funny now, but at the time it was immensely frustrating. So frustrating that I wanted to scream. People make jokes about food being “brain fuel” but it is and the lack of proper nutrition can do strange things to your mind.

In the centre of the room though, neither of the duellists had moved. Swords drawn, facing each other. Kerrass hadn’t taken any potions, nor had he prepared any kind of recent signs. Including the fact that he had not prepared any of the protective signs.

They just stood there, facing each other. It got to a point where it was so long that I wondered if the fight was going on on another level. I had seen Kerrass defeated in a duel, but at the time, we had consoled ourselves with the fact that he couldn’t properly defend himself with his signs and potions. While also being ruled by his emotions.

But Sam was physically augmented now.

I didn’t know what was going to happen. I waited for one of them to speak. To take an action or to do anything.

It was Sam that spoke first in the end.

“So are you going to say anything?” he asked Kerrass. “Are you going to try to convince me to redeem myself? Save your breath. Freddie has been trying to do the same for weeks now.”

It took Kerrass a moment to answer.

“No.” He replied. “No, I’m not going to try and convince you to turn yourself in or anything like that. I am going to kill you.”

“So confident.”

“So determined.”

Sam smiled and rolled his shoulders to loosen them up a bit. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this so much,” Sam began. “It’s almost a shame that you destroyed my circle as it would have given me so much power for you to be slaughtered inside it by my hand.”

Then he attacked. Not much of an attack, a probing of Kerrass’ defences but little more than that. Kerrass did the bare minimum to get out of the way. He didn’t try and parry or make an attack. He knew the probing for what it was and simply avoided it. Sam might have been beginning to toy with Kerrass, but Kerrass was…

I could recognise it. I have seen Kerrass work so many times. He was not fighting Sam. This was a test. He was testing Sam’s capabilities. He knew that Sam had been augmented so now he wanted to know what he could do.

Sam chuckled when he saw it too and fell back a little, doing some more loosening movements before he leapt forward and attacked with a little bit more determination.

I saw Kerrass’ eyes narrow a little and this time he rose to the defence.

Sam was fast, very fast, far faster than he had been, and judging by the way Kerrass was determined to dodge and get out of the way of his blade, he was stronger too.

Sam laughed and broke apart from fighting Kerrass with a smile and a shake of his head. “A little disappointing really.” He told Kerrass. “I was kind of expecting more from you.”

“You are welcome to your disappointment,” Kerrass said. “I am quite happy for you to be disappointed, right up until the moment that I kill you.”

“So confident.” Sam crowed again. “Tell me, how does it feel to know that you are about to die?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Kerrass replied. “Why don’t you tell me?”

If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I would have laughed. It is a simple banter between two fighters. I have, myself, been on the receiving end of someone asking me that very question. Kerrass told me to ignore it. It is the question that two people kind of ask. The first is a cruel person. Someone that enjoys having the power of life and death over people. The other is the terrified person. The one that is trying to transfer his fear into the other man.

I wondered which one of the two Sam was being at that moment. The Sam that had been my brother would have done neither of those things. He would have focused on the fight.

This was not my brother.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to be working myself free. This was not some duel upon the field of honour on the plains of Toussaint. This was a fight for survival and I might be able to do something to help Kerrass.

I returned to my labours.

Kerrass backed up a little bit and gestured. Three golden lights started to dance around his person. Sam saw it and laughed.

“Now you must protect yourself from me?” He taunted. “You coward.”

“Says the man hiding behind his rituals,” Kerrass replied. “Says the man that sent his guards and his lackeys to fight first.”

This time Kerrass attacked as only a Witcher can. He moved quickly. Frighteningly fast. I lost track of the fight. The movements dazzled me and I couldn’t see what was happening. Instead, I reminded myself that what I needed to be doing was freeing myself.

I was distracted again by the fighting. There was a flash of golden light and a bang that seemed to echo inside my ears. A shockwave passed through me and sent my ears ringing.

And Sam was laughing again.

They were moving so quickly that it was almost impossible to see. I saw blood spray but it was impossible to see whose blood it was until Sam shoulder-checked Kerrass and pushed him back while Sam backed off as well.

“You see Kerrass?” Sam said, lifting the edge of his shirt and showing the line that had been a sword slice if I am any judge.

It was hard to tell in the torchlight that I was looking in.

“Do you see? You can’t kill me. You sacrificed one of your silly little shields so that you could try for a blow on me and although you struck true, despite my letting you have the blow I might add. The injury is already healing.”

He laughed again.

“Oh, this is so much fun.”

Kerrass backed up. He was frowning in thought and then he nodded before moving forward to attack again.

Kerrass wasn’t fighting Sam. He was hunting him.

I saw it now and I was angry and disappointed with myself that I hadn’t seen it. It even surprised me a little that Sam hadn’t seen it. Sam was treating this as a sword fight between two men. But Kerrass was treating it like a hunt. He wanted to see what was going on. He wanted to test the boundaries and figure things out.

Again, the exchange of blows was furious and lightning-fast. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress in cutting myself free. I twisted and shouted and forced my way through but I just couldn’t make it work. I was also tiring myself out and causing myself pain.

I had to take a break from my efforts to get my breath back. There was another flash of dazzling light, a spray of blood and another dazzling flash, another spray and Kerrass fell back. He was frowning still but there was a definite feeling about what he was doing. Confidence was the wrong word for it. He wasn’t confident, but he had an idea.

“I can do this for hours,” Sam said. “See… Still, no injuries to speak of. One more cut and this time, I marked you didn’t I.”

It was a rhetorical question.

“You did.” Admitted Kerrass. “But just as you have your ways to heal, so do I.”

“Ah, the famed Witcher potions. But you have a limited amount of those, and I have read Freddie’s journals myself. Sooner or later, those signs will tire you out. Whereas I have all the time in the world.”

It was Kerrass’ turn to chuckle.

“Not all of the time. Even if I fail, others will come after me. You have pissed off a lot of people Samuel.”

Sam should attack. I realised it at possibly the same moment that Sam did. Kerrass was using the breaks to conserve his strength.

As Sam came at Kerrass, Kerrass had enough time to gesture at himself and the three dancing lights returned. This time it was Sam that was attacking and Kerrass that was defending. Sam was just raining blows down on Kerrass who pivoted, jumped, dodged and twirled. Occasionally, he would parry the strikes, knocking them aside and one time, he was forced to block. But that was all that I could see. He made no effort to try and mount a counterattack. I had no idea what Kerrass’ tactic was in this case. If the contest was about humanity then I might have guessed that Kerrass was trying to tire the other man out.

But Sam appeared to be breathing easily. He was so strong and so fast.

I began to see the shape of the contest then. Kerrass was more skilled with a blade. He knew a greater amount of techniques. He was quick and strong and experienced.

But technique was all he had going for him. In every other instance, it looked to my eyes as though he was outclassed. Sam was stronger, Sam was faster and where Kerrass would eventually get tired. Sam was still breathing easily despite the pace of his attack.

Kerrass leapt back and made a bit of room. I could see that he was trying something else. A wave of sparks leapt out from Kerrass but Sam charged through them, his clothes smouldering, even catching fire in a couple of places.

It didn’t do much else. The clothing was soaked in blood and as such, was not that flammable. Sam just grinned through it, even if he did cover his face with his left forearm out of a reflex desire not to get his face burned.

And Sam was back on the offensive again.

There was another spray of blood. This time it was Sam that had found his mark and Kerrass that staggered a bit, grimacing. Not much of an injury but it is these small, strength and confidence-sapping injuries that start to mount up and become too much eventually.

They were not stopping now. It was a solid mass of fighting. They did not stop. Kerrass could not pull away and make room even though I could see that this was what he was trying to do. He wanted to try some other signs.

The sudden thought occurred that if someone had been caught in the middle of the two combatants, they would have been cut into ribbons by the flashing blades.

Sam was just too fast, too strong.

Kerrass was still fighting. Still fighting well and I nearly cheered when he succeeded in getting Sam to overextend himself meaning that Kerrass could turn and leap away. Kerrass came up and made a complicated gesture in Sam’s direction.

And just as I nearly cheered, I nearly groaned when I saw Sam blink before he laughed.

“Is that the best you can do? Little mind tricks?” And he leapt forward again. Kerrass gestured at himself and the three dancing lights returned.

Kerrass was beginning to tire. Using signs wears you out after a while and Sam, quite rightly, was not letting Kerrass get a break. He was relentless. Kerrass spent a bit of time focusing on his own defence, letting Sam wear himself out and waiting until a gap would form.

Not that Sam would get tired. That had been established now, but there was a chance that he might become frustrated. Even the most physically capable body is still attached to a human mind and I was wondering if that was what Kerrass was waiting for. I have no idea whether or not it was a good tactic.

I took several deep breaths and looked around the room. Watching Kerrass and Sam was exhausting. Hoping that one of them would prevail, but it seemed as though it was just going to drag on. I was hoping, praying even, that someone would arrive to help. My mind invented new and interesting scenarios. Ariadne would come back having done whatever it was that she was doing.

Judging by the occasional screams that were still echoing down from the passageway that had led to the area, there was less going on in the castle itself, so I found myself hoping that she would come back. Or one of the other Sorceresses would appear to try and contain Sam. Or Laurelen might appear.

For an entertaining few minutes, I imagined Ciri arriving in a flash of green spectral light to help Kerrass fight in the same way that they had on the Skelligan isles.

But I would have taken anyone. Not a soldier. Sam was fast, faster than Kerrass and there aren’t many people that would be able to stand up to that. Maybe a Skelligan with one of their huge shields. I prayed for Svein to arrive. Or Helfdan’s logical thought as he would see the gaps that neither Kerrass nor I would be able to see and would therefore be able to insert his sword, or his axe, into the thing that we hadn’t thought of.

Fantasies all and I realised that, again, my mind was shying away from what was happening. I was losing my grip on what I was seeing and what I was hearing.

I desperately looked around for something in the room that I could use. Something that I could take hold of or influence. The only other person in the room was Ella, the much-abused elven alchemist with her flimsy grip on her own sanity. I had no idea what she would do if she would get involved in what was happening between my brother and the Witcher. Her chemical and abuse-driven loyalty would just as surely mean that she would fight on Sam’s side as she would be to help Kerrass or myself.

I couldn’t get her attention though. She was watching the fight with just as much concentration as I had been. More even. I didn’t dare shout for fear that I might distract Kerrass at a crucial moment. Yes, it might distract Sam but that was a gamble that I wasn’t prepared to gamble everything on.

The doors nearest to me were open but no sounds were echoing down and again, I didn’t want to shout. I tried to tug my ropes towards the sharp edges of the blade again but I couldn’t manage it. I had weakened the rope but I didn’t have the strength to capitalise on that weakness.

There was another flash from the combatants, and another one of Kerrass’ little shields vanished under the hail of blows from Sam’s sword.

Sam laughed as he fought.

“I don’t even have to hit you particularly hard to trigger one of those shields do I,” it was not a question. Kerrass still looked fairly serene. He didn’t have the fear in his face that he had had when losing against an opponent in Toussaint. There was no fear or frustration. His face was a mask as he concentrated on the person he was facing. Sam was chasing him around the room now.

I do not doubt that the swordsmen that might be reading this are frustrated. They want to know what I might have seen. What were the plays and the exchanges? I couldn’t tell you. The light in the room along with the flickering of that light on the sword blades was oddly hypnotic and in the state that I was in, I was more susceptible to that kind of flashing light.

I tore my eyes away. I wondered again, that if I rocked the chair, would I be able to tip it over, shatter the frame and then I might be able to exercise my will on what was happening.

My mind when through the same exhausted logical process. The problem was that the chair was fairly well made and pretty stable. The second problem was that I might have been able to tip it over if I could use my legs and feet as leverage. Not to mention hold onto it with my left hand. I tried. I really tried but the agony from my feet and what remained of my lower legs left me feeling faint with the pain.

I may have passed out at one point from all of that. I don’t remember it but I also don’t remember Kerrass losing another one of his shields and as such. There was a flash and a bang whenever that happened and I have no memory of a second or third crash and it seems inconceivable to me that I might have missed it.

But the best I could manage was to slide around in my bonds. An image that might have been comical if it had been acted out with the context missing. But as it was. It left me feeling frustrated, useless and in huge amounts of pain.

So I returned to my oldest purpose. That of a witness.

I watched as the fatigue in Kerrass started to make its presence felt. I could see it, his blows were starting to become slower, the attacks from Sam started to get that little bit closer before Kerrass was able to parry them and it all became clear that it was coming to an end.

I have seen Kerrass in worse states. I have. Fighting monsters and in other situations. The way for a Witcher to deal with these things is to take a potion. But Sam was not letting him get at the potions. He wasn’t letting up, not even for a second.

There was nothing more that I could do. I was now convinced that Sam was going to win and I was going to watch my friend die. Again. I had been given hope, only to have that hope dashed. Again.

I didn’t know if I could bear that again.

A new thought began to cross my mind. What if I had finally gone mad? What if I was finally losing my grip on reality and what I was looking at was not Kerrass? What if I was only imagining, fantasising about Kerrass returning from wherever we go after we die to come back and rescue me?

In which case, wouldn’t he be winning?

I shook my head. Trying to force myself to think logically. Forcing myself to watch, and play the same game that Kerrass was playing. I needed to watch for an opportunity.

The fight continued and Sam was laughing more and more now. It almost reminded me of Jack in the way that he was howling with a manic kind of glee at what was happening.

I saw it happen. Finally. The thing that Kerrass was waiting for and he didn’t waste the opportunity, he didn’t come away unbloody though.

It happened fairly fast though so I can’t entirely answer whether or not this is an accurate account of what happened.

Sam’s laughter meant that one of his blows struck a little wide leaving his body open. Kerrass was too busy parrying to take advantage with his sword, but he could use his signs. He pushed with the Aard.

I sometimes wonder if that is the easiest sign to form with an offhand,

He pushed Sam back with Air and Sam staggered. Another wave of air pushed him back further. Then Kerrass crouched and painted a sign on the floor. The purple glow of the magical trap called Yrden sprung up.

Although Sam had not fallen from the blast of air, he was already leaping forwards to the attack and he was snared by the Yrden sign and it was clear that he was not immune. He was still fast and his blows would fall with all of the strength of the mountain, but he was slower.

Kerrass was not stupid, he did not become overconfident and step in for some grand, sweeping death blow. Sam was still fast. But Kerrass got his strikes in.

A slash at the groin and bright, crimson blood spurted into the darkness. Another slash at the wrist caused more blood to fountain before Kerrass was finally forced to parry an oncoming stroke before returning with a lunge. A large flat lunch through the belly, a twist and then a withdrawal before stepping back and back again.

He was watching what happened.

I saw Kerrass quickly drink off a couple of potions from his harness before tossing the bottles away to shatter against the wall. He was breathing heavily.

I wasn’t watching Kerrass though. I knew what would happen. He would wince, his body would spasm a bit and the veins on his neck would stand out, stark and dark against his papery skin. I didn’t know what he had taken but I guessed at one of the healing potions called swallow…

And then I chuckled. Swallow potions are red. I remembered seeing red liquid coming out of Kerrass’ mouth after Ariadne snapped his neck. That must have been the swallow potion that he had been given. I had assumed it was blood.

I needed to focus.

The other potion was possibly a thunderbolt or a Tawny Owl. I always get the two mixed up but it was something to do with maintaining his ability to cast sign after sign. It occurred to me that this thing might be won with Magic.

Because Sam was not dead yet.

Sam came to a halt and bent to watch his belly wound heal up. There were still fluids on the floor but there was no injury after a matter of heartbeats. The blood stopped pumping from his groin and his wrist and Sam watched it happen as he kept his eye on Kerrass.

“Interesting,” Sam said. “So that’s what it feels like to be stabbed in the gut. Can’t say that I care for it.”

Then he laughed.

“Doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it was going to though. That might be the presence of The God though.”

He laughed again as though he was laughing at his own joke.

He knew that he was standing in the Witcher’s trap and looked around himself.

“I will resume the attack when this stupid magic runs out. It’s very well done by the way. Utterly pointless as you can see. You can’t kill me. The God has made me immortal. Swords, arrows, axes and knives. None of them will work as Freddie would have told you if you had had a chance to ask him. I am immortal and I am going to destroy everything that you hold dear.”

He frowned as though he had heard what he had said.

“I mean, I will liberate the North from the bootheel of the tyrant.”

He seemed happier, not giving me time to retort and then he leapt to the attack again.

The feeling of the fight was different now. Sam was still attacking but now there was a feeling of him toying with Kerrass. To my eyes, he was deliberately leaving himself open to attack. It was almost as though he was inviting Kerrass to injure him. Kerrass didn’t always rise to it. He would have had a quite sensible fear that Sam was luring him into a trap.

But sometimes, Kerrass used those openings. I saw Kerrass step forward and stamp on the inside of Sam’s left knee. I heard a wet crunching noise as Sam’s leg bent at the wrong angle for a moment. Sam leant backwards on his other leg and seemed to shake his left leg a minute and as Kerrass and I watched, the knee seemed to be kicked back into shape and then Sam came on again.

I saw another instance where Kerrass reversed the sword, holding it by the blade in his gloved hands. A more common technique than you might think. Sam had offered his head to be struck and Kerrass obliged, driving the heavy crossguard of his sword into Sam’s skull.

For a moment, it looked like Sam only had half a skull and his left eye popped out, dangling by some muscle. But then, just as quickly, the eye was pulled back into the socket and his head reinflated. As though someone had blown into the pig’s bladder that children kick around a village in the evening.

They fought on for a moment, move was met by move, sword form was met by sword form. Parry, thrust, slash, cut, block, dodge… On and on it went. Kerrass was still tiring despite the potions that he had taken and Sam seemed as though he was getting overconfident.

I couldn’t tell which way it was going to go. I rather thought that Kerrass still had things to try. There was a feeling that he was holding something back but I could not tell what it was. But on the other hand, He had marked Sam several times now and Sam was not appearing to be too concerned. Indeed, Sam was almost toying with Kerrass. Playing with him, leaving himself open.

Sam wanted to humiliate Kerrass. He wanted Kerrass defeated and on his knees. The ritual that he had been performing was done. But I think he had enjoyed tormenting me with the people that he had killed and I thought he wanted to do it again.

Something decisive needed to happen. I hadn’t seen Kerrass fight in a while so I was out of practice reading him. But he was contained. There was no desperation there. Nothing really to suggest he was worried. He was testing Sam, seeing what was going on.

Kerrass switched tactics again. Going back on the defensive. He was just backing off. Backing off and backing off. Kept his sword ready and in a high position ready to bring it flashing down. Sam went after him quickly but Kerrass’ footwork was better, fairly skipping backwards, always out of reach of Sam’s blade.

At first, Sam found this funny, he threw names and insults and catcalls against Kerrass. He called him a coward, pussy and all kinds of other things. It became boring enough that I had another go at freeing myself but to no kind of new result other than to leave myself in pain.

I told myself that one of the definitions of madness is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

So I promised myself that I would wait until something changed.

I was too tired, too hurt and too… heartbroken to do much else.

Kerrass was still backing away, drawing Sam after him. They came within arms reach of me twice. Both times I entertained myself with the thought of what I could do if I was free. If I had both working hands and both working feet. If I had a weapon in my hands and strength in my limbs.

It happened so suddenly that in my heightened state, I nearly missed it.

Sam’s mocking started to drop out to be replaced by hissed and furious insults. His blows became wilder with more flailing. I couldn’t catch the cue but suddenly Kerrass wasn’t retreating any more. He leapt forward with a lightning strike and Sam’s sword hand went sailing through the air, the sword that he had chosen went with it.

Blood splashed.

For the first time, Sam fell back in a panic but Kerrass was on him. His steel sword flashed in lightning-fast patterns. I didn’t see it all but I could only see the effect it had on Sam. Sam’s throat was slashed, he was disembowelled, both groin arteries were severed and Sam lost his other hand as he held up his forearm to ward Kerrass off.

I saw bits of Sam’s entrails skitter and roll across the floor, I saw the ropes of his muscles collapse and hang loosely out of the gaps. I saw blood, so much blood and gore.

I saw the fingers of his left hand rolling around, the rings that were on those fingers falling off limply with a forlorn little tinkle as they hit the ground.

Sam was panicking and backed off in fear of the oncoming whirlwind of steel and hope soared in my chest.

Kerrass didn’t stop. He has often expressed scorn in those stage shows where the hero walks away from what should be the villain’s corpse only for the villain to climb to their feet again to carry on the fight. ‘Confirm the kill’ he would say and I have seen it in action when he has felled a monster before he returns to the monster and ensures that the head and heart are removed. So he went after Sam.

Sam’s eyes flared suddenly and a blue light formed a shell around Sam’s body. It acted like armour and Kerras’ blows bounced off that shell in the same way that they would bounce off armour.

Kerrass fell back, frowning in thought as he drank another potion.

Sam had started laughing again as he watched his injuries reform.

I watched too as his injuries closed up in the glare of the blue light. His fingers were just there. They didn’t regrow out of his hands. Nor were they formed out of blood or some other equally disgusting or macabre way. The light flared and the injuries knitted themselves. The light flared and Sam had a new hand again. The blue light protected him until he was reformed and then it faded.

I was surprised at the colour choice. I rather thought that his protecting God would cast him a red light. That had been the colour that had suffused the air when the hum had been sounding.

Sam laughed.

“You see Kerrass? Freddie? Do you see? I cannot be killed. You cannot hurt me.”

“You fell back in fear.” Kerrass pointed out, not taking his eyes from his opponent, he had taken one of his poison vials out from his pouch and was applying it to his blade.

“A matter of reflex,” Sam said, moving over to the pile of steel. He selected a sword from it before deciding that it wasn’t for him and tossed it aside.

“No matter how much I try,” he began before selecting another sword. “I just can’t seem to get rid of that human instinct. That’s the thing that they never tell you. I am powerful now beyond the realms of a normal man. But in the end, I am still human.”

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Kerrass nodded, he had taken a cloth and was rubbing the poison into his blade properly.

“Interesting.” Kerrass mused. “Still human. Let us see.”

Again, Kerrass didn’t seem as though he was using his full strength. He was fighting well but there was still the sense of him holding something back. Trying different things out until he found something that worked.

Sam had found a sword that he liked the feel of and simply walked forward to meet Kerrass. He looked unhurried as he moved but with an unstoppable force. Like a tidal wave coming in.

Kerrass met him with his blade flashing. Sam was more confident now. He was leaving more gaps in his defences but his attacking was relentless. Constantly pushing Kerrass’ guard out and away with the sheer force of his strikes. Kerrass did well to defend as readily as he could, but I kept waiting to see if something would change in Kerrass; he was still there, plugging away. Focusing on his defence and making sure that Sam wasn’t getting through. His face was calm, collected, almost withdrawn. As though he was watching himself fight.

The fight became static. Kerrass wasn’t moving backwards but had chosen to stand his ground. Sam kept trying to move towards Kerrass but Kerrass was not letting him do that, spinning in place. So the fight had centred on a small area. Sam was like a solid rock, occasionally trying to move before Kerrass would dance around him, sword flashing. I saw another flash as one of Sam’s blows hit a little too near to his body. But I also saw Kerrass open up another wound on Sam’s body.

Sam’s shirt and tunic were hanging in tatters now. The injury from Bronwen as well as the multiple attacks from Kerrass had all but cut it from his frame. I could see his musculature now, standing stark against his skin. Whatever else could be said about Sam, he was still a beautiful example of the human male. Kerrass’ blow landed, a bit of a gash up the back but I would have guessed that the gash would have been fairly shallow. The edges of the injury seemed to fizz for a little while before the injury close up.

Sam backed off for a moment while Kerrass watched carefully.

“I have to admit.” Sam began. He had this whole… magnanimous attitude about him that made my fist itch. As though he was doing Kerrass a favour. “It is incredibly interesting to see a Witcher work. I have seen you try everything that there is to try to try and find my weakness. I should say that there are none.”

“Oh?” Kerrass was cleaning one oil off his blade with a different cloth.

“You have tried to inflict bleeding injuries on me to see if the blood loss will weaken me. You reason that the blood comes free when you strike me and as a result, even though my wounds close, the blood is still outside my body.”

“It is a good theory,” Kerrass admitted.

“As theories go.” Sam retorted. “You also tried to break limbs to see if they would stay broken. You tried impacting my brain to see if that would have an effect. You even tried removing my limbs which I will admit, caused me to panic there for a little while. But when it comes down to it. I am more powerful than that now. I have taken on the power of The God. You cannot defeat me like this. You have even tried venom on your blade and I will admit, the part of me that is human could feel my shoulder blades itching. But the greater part of me. The part that dwarfs the other. Laughs at your puny efforts.”

Kerrass smirked at that.

“While we’re chatting,” Kerrass said. “Is it worth me pointing out that pride goes before a fall? Everyone has a weakness.”

“You should flee, you know,” Sam told him. “Flee while you still can.”

“And I would,” Kerrass admitted. “But for two reasons. The first is that I am a Witcher, and my job is to kill you.”

Sam laughed. “As though you were hired to kill a monster. I am no monster.”

Kerrass winced.

“If you had been reading Freddie’s journals, you would know that whether or not a person is a monster, comes down to the perspective of the observer. I would argue, as he suggested, that looking around, this place looks more like the lair of a monster than anything else.”

Sam sneered.

“What was the second reason you are doing this?” Sam hissed.

“The second reason?” Kerrass mused as he stretched his limbs a little bit, shaking his arms out. “I just don’t like you.”

Kerrass grinned nastily, his teeth were stained black with potion residue. I would have been afraid. It even affected Sam I think.

Sam leapt forward with a huge, overhand strike which Kerrass parried before returning with his downward strike and side stop. The two men spun in place trading blow for blow. I always hated the description of a fight to say that it was like a dance. Fighting is not dancing and there should be no mistakes made in that direction.

But that is the closest that it looked like. They circled each other.

Sam heard it first I think. Kerrass might have heard it but he didn’t react and so I couldn’t guess what the difference was. He just ignored it, but Sam heard it first. He parried one of Kerrass’ blows and leapt backwards before tilting his head to one side to listen. Kerrass backed away from him for a long moment. I couldn’t see his face as at that moment, he had his back to me.

I didn’t understand what was going on and kept looking from one of them to the other. I imagine that I looked in a right state. But then I heard it too.

A horn was sounding. It echoed down the corridors that led to that cellar place. It got louder too as another horn joined it and then another horn.

“What’s that?” Sam wondered, rather stupidly.

“That…” Kerrass waved towards the door. “Is the signal.”

“What signal?” Sam wondered.

“The signal that I can stop holding back any more.”

With an easy movement, Kerrass slid his steel sword into the scabbard on his back. He moved round the circle until he came to a part that I had forgotten about. He reached into the pile and pulled out his silver sword with a look of satisfaction.

The blade, made by the elven smith of the bits. Forged from the silver alloys and with the crest of the Wave-Serpent in its pommel. It had been blessed by Mark, Cardinal of the Eternal Flame, in jest from Kerrass but Mark had been serious. Ariadne had placed enchantments on it and there had been runes etched onto the blade under her careful eye.

Those runes glowed in the dim light of the cellar.

The blade sang as Kerrass flourished it and I saw him relax. It was not a tension that I had noticed before. But now it was there and I could see it. There was a joy in him that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was almost like watching a reunion between two old friends. Kerrass’ face shone as he lifted the sword up and spun the sword around until it sank into his hands.

“This blade was made for me by Eibhear Hattori,” Kerrass said, conversationally in his way of thinking. He gazed at the blade fondly. “He made it for me after the cold and the salt water of Skellige, as well as several years of wear and tear had got into my last sword and it was finally beginning to need re-forging. When he took my requirements for the blade off me and took this…”

He stroked the silver pendant that Helfdan had given him.

“... that I had wanted to be embedded into the pommel of the sword. He told me that he would make a sword for me such that if the Gods themselves came after me, then I would be able to cut them with this blade. My silver sword. And it is true.”

He looked at Sam.

“I have never wielded a finer blade than this one. And you and your people tossed it into the pile with the rest as though it was nothing. As though it was a piece of tin. Some… mass-produced blades that the Empire handed out to its frontline troops in the last war. The kind of thing where any village blacksmith can hammer a piece of metal into roughly the right shape before grinding an edge on it.

“This sword was made by a master and then you cast it aside.

“There are many reasons for me to hate you. Many reasons. You have killed, tortured, humiliated, poisoned and… Goddess but you have done so much. And I am confident I only know a fraction of your crimes. Not least of which is what you have done to my friend in the corner. A friend so broken that I barely recognise him, the friend that I love. I am going to kill you for all of those things. But for the way that you treated this sword… for that alone, I would kill you.”

Sam took that in without blinking. I even think he was enjoying Kerrass’ rage.

Then Sam grunted.

“Leaving aside…” he began, stretching his arms as he did so. “Leaving aside the fact that everything that I have done, I did for the good of Redania and the North. Leaving aside the fact that I am a nobleman and as such, it is my duty to sacrifice everything that I have and everything that I am for the good of Redania. Leaving all of that aside… I am still a man. It won’t work any more than the last thing did. I am a man with power, except my power comes from a God rather than the chaos that the mages worship.”

“Really?” Kerrass teased, a little mockingly, gesturing to himself so that his three glowing lights started to dance across his skin. “Then you won’t parry when I go to cut your balls off.”

I saw Sam’s fear then. Kerrass moved forward, mirroring Sam’s earlier attitude where he just moved towards his opponent, inexorable and terrifying as he went. He just moved forward and then when he was in reach he just started attacking.

I must have been out of practice from watching Kerrass fight. There was a new focus to Kerrass' attacks. When I was struggling with that emotion, he told me that anger and hate can be useful. It is not the emotion that destroys us, it is what we do with that anger that makes us good or evil. He told me that, properly used, anger could give a man energy when everything else is lost. He told me that hatred could focus you better than anything else that had ever been invented.

I could see that now. He was holding himself back last time. He was trying things out, potions, oils and signs, but I think he had always known what the solution to the problem was. And now that it was in his grasp he was not holding back.

He attacked Sam and he attacked him properly this time. Kerrass did not like to be brutal when wielding the silver sword. He liked to be gentle so that the blade would survive and not be too damaged. But those past swords had not been made by Eibhear Hattori and there was not an opponent like this one.

Sam fought desperately and I could see the fear that Kerrass had placed in the depths of him. There was a nervousness in him, a sense of panic. His movements were not smooth and leisurely, instead, he parried and blocked with a sense of jerking to his movements.

He didn’t know what was going to happen.

Kerrass did, and my own confidence grew in the glow of Kerrass’ actions.

We did not have to wait long.

Sam made a mistake. I was struggling to catch the blow-by-blow of what was happening. I could not read the parry, thrust, strike of it all. But I saw Sam’s mistake. He blocked Kerrass’ attack early and too far away from his own body. So as Sam tried to get his sword back across to guard his main torso, Kerrass was able to wrap the silver blade around Sam’s weapon and push it aside.

Whatever else Sam might have been. Whatever else he had done to himself to improve his body and its capabilities. His elbows and knees still bent in all the normal directions, his reach was still limited by the lengths of his arms and blade and his vision was still limited by his very human eyes.

So once the sword was out of the way, Kerrass put his body into Sam’s chest, causing Sam to lose his sense of balance and stagger backwards. It is an old move, a standard move and I wonder if it’s the kind of move that they train young Witchers to do early on.

What it gave Kerrass, was time. The silver blade of Eibhear Hattori came around in a strong arc. Sam saw it coming. He was too far off balance and there was no way that he could properly get his blade up in time. He couldn’t dodge and so all he could do to avoid the blade was to allow himself to continue to fall backwards and roll to his feet.

Bright red blood flashed in the torchlight and as Sam came to his feet, he looked down and saw the gash that had cut into his chest. Blood continued to run down his body. He even pressed his hand to his wound to examine the blood on his hand.

“Ow,” he said in wonderment.

It can’t have been a deep cut. Sam was still fast and had seen the blow coming in time to get out of the way so the blow grazed along the rib cage before it could do anything serious. It was long, it would be bloody and it would need stitching.

But I waited, as did Sam, to see if it was going to heal. It never did.

“So it would seem that The God can bleed,” Kerrass told him.

Sam screamed and leapt to the attack. Now it was Kerrass’ turn to laugh and enjoy the fight. I must admit that I was enjoying it too. Now that he was properly fighting I could see it. He was relaxed, enjoying himself even. It was so good to see.

It was not long before Kerrass got through Sam’s guard and cut Sam on the upper arm across the bicep. I have had that injury myself and I can tell you that it is not a fun injury to have. Every time you have to move your arm or your arm gets jarred by having to block or parry a limb sends a shockwave through your arm. And when the injury is over your bicep which is constantly flexing in combat, then the wound just refuses to stay closed and stop bleeding. You don’t even need to get deep into the muscle for that one to hurt.

Sam fell back, pressing against the injury a bit.

“I don’t understand.” Sam whimpered. “I was supposed to be immune to all weapons. Why…”

“You were not listening to your brother,” Kerrass told him. “People misinterpret a Witcher’s craft all the time. They say things like ‘steel sword for men and silver sword for monsters’. But whenever a Witcher is challenged on that kind of thing, we always always always say that both swords are for monsters.”

He turned and gestured at me.

“Your brother would have taught you this if you had listened. But it would seem that you listened long enough to hear that I would be a threat to your slave, even though you should have known that I would have worked to free her before I would have destroyed her. And then you ignored everything that he has to say about Witchers.

“Both swords are for monsters, Sam.

“Some monsters don’t mind. Most commonly Wyverns don’t particularly care about the difference between silver and Steel. Forktails as well can be smacked around by both although in some cases, steel is better. Insectoids as well. A giant Centipede’s carapace will take the blow of a good hard hammer as well as it would from a silver sword. In those cases, it is a Witcher’s task to know where to strike as well. And when the hire is for a particularly monstrous and rabid beast that turns out to be a fucking bear. A silver sword would literally bounce off that hide and you would be better off with a good sharp steel sword. Like this one.”

He patted the steel hilt on his back.

“The difference is magic, Sam. When the person or creature is held together by magic, that is when they are vulnerable to silver. It is the purity of the silver that means that it works. Silver is one of the few, magically inert metals and the combination of that and the fact that it is so hard to alloy with anything that makes it a worthwhile weapon is what makes these things so rare.

“But that is why the silver works. If a creature is born of magic, is made with magic, or has that magic flowing through them.”

His words changed from the friendly lecturing kind to words of hissed fury.

“Or if a person has the evil, fucked up, corrupted magic that was given to him from some demon that lives in another plane. Because make no mistake… Samuel. That is all that God of yours is. It’s just a little demon pretending to be Godhood because it thinks that it’s funny. Every dream, every power, everything that you have done. It’s just a game to it and…”

Sam roared. His eyes had started to glow blue in the middle of Kerrass’ little, dismissive speech, his face seemed to turn almost purple and as his mouth opened a blue wave of force erupted out of Sam and slashed across the basement, sending Kerrass hurtling backwards.

Then Sam reached back with his hands, his sword clattered as he dropped it. Sam clapped his hands together and pointed his palms towards Kerrass. It was a lot like the gesture that Kerrass uses when he wants to direct a stream of sparks towards an enemy rather than a wave of them. A rushing burst of that same blue energy seemed to crackle out of his palms and rushed in a solid stream towards Kerrass.

It was not blue fire, but it had billows and smoke like fire does. It was not like lightning but I fancied that I could see lightning dancing within that energy. It was not water although it flowed outwards like a kind of horizontal waterfall. There was also something solid that hurtled after Kerrass.

Sam’s mouth opened again and that same blue power came from his mouth and his eyes, all sent in a torrent towards where Kerrass was.

Kerrass had tumbled away, still holding his sword before he came back to his feet in the pause between the wave and the stream. He gestured and a golden bubble formed around him. The initial wave blast had hurt Kerrass but as Sam’s power impacted the shield, Kerrass seemed to recover, going so far as to feed himself a potion with his offhand.

The blue energy from Sam caused a ripple in the surface of the gold bubble and for a moment, I reflexively braced myself for the coming explosion of sound and light when the bubble would burst. But it didn’t, it held and I could see Sam becoming enraged.

I couldn’t see Kerrass. The golden glow of the bubble as well as the white light from where Sam’s blue energy was striking conspired to blind me. The blue seemed to be striking the bubble-like water. There was a splashing feeling to the energy. Some of it even seemed to fall free of the energy beam to strike against the floor where it vanished. It also tried to wrap around the bubble, looking for a way in.

As I watched, it seemed as though the energy flying from Sam’s hands was alive. As though it was an extension of Sam, looking for the weaknesses in Kerrass’ bubble in the same way that Sam would look for weaknesses in Kerrass’ sword defence.

There was another possibility that I found far more frightening which was that the energy was alive in some way, by itself. And that it was looking for a way through the shield of the Witcher.

The truth is that the play of the two lights, the blue and the gold was beautiful. Sometimes the magical energies would combine and give off a green glow. Rainbow sparks seemed to dance in the depths of the light and even though that light was blinding I would sometimes find that I resented the need to look away. It was genuinely beautiful and hypnotic.

After a couple of moments, that energy started to seem to come back against Sam. The flow was not able to find a way through Kerrass’ shield and it seemed to me that the flow kind of reversed itself and started to flow back against Sam. At first, his face was a grimace of fury and offence that Kerrass had found a way to confound him. Then his expression shifted to one of frustration as well as anger before, again, it changed. He started to tremble as though the effort to maintain the attack was taking its toll on him. Then he started to grimace in pain as all of that energy started to spill out. I wondered if it was my imagination that was making the room shake.

I remember thinking that it was fitting if Sam and Kerrass between them pulled the castle down on top of our heads. We would all be buried down here, Sam, Kerrass and I along with all of Sam’s victims. That would be fitting for me. And if Sam did manage to survive and dig himself free, then he would be detected long before he actually came to the surface and would be faced with a firing squad of angry Sorceresses and mages. Not to mention the views of an angry Empress.

I was content with that as I watched more and more of Sam’s energy flow back towards him. His frustration and sense of pain grew.

The attack stopped and Sam stood there panting for a long moment.

“I wanted to fight you like a man.” His voice echoed strangely. “I wanted to fight you, sword to sword, but now it seems…” He groaned as his muscles rippled and started to expand. His clothing split as that same musculature was now too big for his clothing to contain. It was grotesque. White flesh with blue liquid that I guessed must be whatever Sam has that passes for blood nowadays, ran underneath the surface of the skin. The bones of the body also started to expand, standing out against the increasingly huge frame.

Kerrass saw the vulnerability and leapt to attack. He didn’t wait for the transformation to complete itself. He just attacked while he perceived Sam as being vulnerable. His time in the bubble under the attack from Sam had healed him. A piece of the sign’s effects that Kerrass didn’t like to use too much. He leapt forward with a huge blow, aiming for Sam’s head to split it like a melon.

But the blue shield that had crept in before seemed to spring up and Kerrass’ sword bounced off. He tried again and frowned before pulling back and watching. I guessed that he was taking in the transformation so that he could format a plan of attack around the new physical configuration of the new form of Sam that faced him. \

The figure climbed to its feet.

“And you claim that you are not a monster,” Kerrass told it.

The creature had a head. It had a mouth, nose, eyes and even hair. But the skull was pronounced in the middle of it. A huge sloping brow ending in a strong, pronounced chin. When it opened its mouth to speak, Sam’s voice came from it. A bit deeper, a bit rougher and a bit raspier than it had been. It seemed to come from within the creature’s chest. From deep within the creature that stood in front of us.

“Is the mage a monster when they make themselves more beautiful? Is the Sorceress a monster when she erects a shield around herself? Is that dragon that you know a monster when she takes on her draconic form? I am just using the power that I have been taught to wield.”

As Sam spoke, because it was Sam and there is no way that I can kid myself into pretending that it wasn’t, I took in his new form. He was maybe eight… maybe nine feet tall. Hugely muscled as well. Not the same grotesque musculature that the ice giants had or the misshapen musculature that your average ogre or cyclops might have. The shape was humanoid. I could see the abdominal muscles, the biceps and the pectoral muscles heavily pronounced. The bone structure had expanded to support this new musculature as well so I could see the collar bones sticking out and when he had his back to me, I could see the spine standing out in particular, enough so that the separate sections were easy to pick out.

Where it was different was that blood underneath the skin was now blue rather than red which gave the flesh and the skin an odd, purplish shade. Some of the flesh looked green and yellow as well. I wondered if the transformation had caused some beneath-the-skin bleeding and bruising. His hands ended in long blades that seemed to extend out of his hands. The blades glowed with the same blue light that Sam had previously directed at Kerrass. They seemed to drip that light off the ends of the blade so that it splattered onto the floor before dissipating.

I found myself wondering about the colour blue. The aura that had suffused the lower parts of the castle before had been red but the power manifested itself as being blue.

“I don’t know,” Kerrass responded, flourishing his blade and replacing his shield. “You’re looking pretty monstrous to me.” He grinned, horribly and beckoned towards the figure that Sam had become.

Who roared and leapt to attack Kerrass.

Hope had flared in my chest when I had seen the silver blade of Kerrass carve into the body of my brother. I had watched as Sam had been injured on a couple of occasions and I had all but cheered when Kerrass had had a counter to the attacks that Sam was levelling at him. The beam of power had been an especially nice touch.

But now Sam had really started to fight. I felt that hope begin to flutter and die in my chest.

The large, spectral blades that had spouted from Sam’s arms seemed to scar the very air with their passage. As though the air screamed in torment at being cut. Where Sam overcut and struck something else…

The dead bodies of Sam’s victims were torn apart and I could smell burning flesh. The floor and the stone walls were scorched as if by some immense fire. The stone even seemed to glow, hiss and pop with the rapid cooling. The circle of metal… the scars left by the passage of Sam’s blades seemed to glow red and I could see the misshapen hunks of metal seem to melt and flow together. And that was nothing compared to the new, awful strength that lay within the muscled arms of the beast that had been my brother.

Kerrass still had several ideas as to how to counter these things and I watched as he worked through them. He tried to see if he could block the blades with his silver blade. He could, he definitely could but even then the sheer power behind the blows had driven Kerrass to his knees and all but driven Kerrass’ blows aside and apart. He had also tried to parry with his signs. Another golden bubble sprung up at his gesture but the sheer force of Sam’s blow meant that the bubble burst almost instantly under the first attack.

Kerrass even tried to see if the smaller shield of the dancing lights would protect him, deliberately exposing himself to the end of Sam’s weapon arc. Again, there was some protection there but the practicality of that protection was lacking as even from that relatively small impact, Kerrass was sent backwards, impacting against the wall so that another of his protective lights flashed and went out.

Not a great economy.

He even tried to hide behind one of the pillars that were holding up the ceiling but not only did the blade all but strike through the pillar, but the force of the blow knocked several of the bricks out of position. Once again leaving me wondering and fantasising about what would happen if the ceiling came free.

So now, Sam’s already impressive reach had been amplified and there was no way for Kerrass to get near him. Not without compromising his safety and although I think that Kerrass would have made that gambit had it become necessary, he knew that if he failed to kill Sam with one strike, then it was all over.

Kerrass started backing off under the onslaught of the two spectral blades. Over and over they spun and just hammered at Kerrass over and over and over again. Nothing would stand up to Sam’s strength and there seemed to be nothing that Kerrass could do to stop him.

Kerrass fell back, dancing out of the way of strikes by the hairs on his chin. I could even see that some of his clothing was beginning to smoulder gently from the passage of those blades. I had no idea what to do and there was nothing I could do.

I went through it all again. I couldn’t get free. I tried again briefly but I had even less strength and energy than I had had beforehand and I soon collapsed against the ropes in exhaustion and pain. I couldn’t shout in case I distracted Kerrass just as much as I distracted Sam. I couldn’t tip myself over as I lacked the strength and the leverage and that would create the same problems that shouting would cause.

I didn’t know what to do and I watched helplessly as Kerrass fought frantically for his life. While I was distracted, he had tried the signs again but every time he did so it seemed as though Sam would lift a blue shield in front of him. I had no idea what Kerrass’ plan was or even if he had one. He still looked calm but I wondered if it was my imagination that gave him just a hint of desperation around the edges.

I didn’t know what to do.

I was beginning to panic and draw myself back again so that I could, again, watch my friend die in front of me when I felt the lightest of feathery touches on my arm.

I jerked back, startled to see Ella put her hand on my arm. She looked awful, vomit stained her dress and her face. She was shaking and sweating as she looked at me. As I stared at her in amazement, her face crumpled in agony as she tried to speak.

She turned aside and vomited again.

“They still have a hold of me.” She whispered. Somehow the words travelled over the sounds of combat. “It still causes me pain to go against him, but this time… I might be free.”

She vomited again before she took hold of the knife that Kerrass had thrown so that it embedded itself in the wooden arm of the chair that I was sitting in. With a heave and using her foot as a lever, she pulled the blade free. She nearly tumbled backwards as she did so.

“I will be free.” She said, I think she wanted it to be a cry of defiance but yellow bile leaked from her mouth as she spoke. She turned and spat before bending to work, cutting the ropes that held me.

“Now is our time,” she told me.

Kerrass’ knife was razor sharp and she made short work of the ropes.

“Now is my time,” she said again before she turned and charged at Sam.

There was no finesse at her attack. The dagger was held high, her body was wide open for attack and she was far too vulnerable to reprisals. But she charged, and at the last moment, she could not contain a scream.

Sam heard her, turned and caught her by the throat. The blade that was part of his left hand vanished instantly as he held her and lifted her off the ground.

I do not know that if she had kept silent, she might have survived. There is no way that I can tell that for certain. Sam was on things as it was. It was just as likely that Sam would barely be affected by the dagger. There is no way of knowing.

Kerrass was winded and forced another potion into his mouth. He was looking awful now. White-faced the black veins standing out against his skin from the potion use. He climbed to his feet. Sam checked on him before turning to Ella.

“Ah well,” he said. “I was going to have to kill you anyway. It might as well be now.”

Then he squeezed and the wet popping of her neck carried.

I like to think that at least she died free.

I was having a different crisis. As it turned out, the ropes were doing more than just restraining me and preventing me from doing more damage to myself, my jailors or my captors. They were also keeping me from falling out of the chair in the first place.

I was tired, I struggled with my balance now that I was favouring those limbs that sent pain jarring up and down my entire body which, in turn, was causing my body to spasm uncontrollably occasionally. That same pain as well as the atrophy that comes with being forced to sit in the same chair and swap to the same bed for days or weeks or however long it has been.

I was also sick. The fever was raging inside me as the infection from the damaged limbs had been spreading for some time, only occasionally driven back by small bouts of healing administered by my captors. I was so sick that I had limited control of my bowels and if I moved too fast, my head would start to spin.

I was sick enough with the fever that there was a small part of the back of my brain that still hoped that all of this was some kind of fever dream. That I would wake up to discover my friends and family were all around me and that Sam and I would laugh about everything that I had seen and that he had done in the middle of my hallucination. I hoped that it was all a dream brought on by the extreme alcohol poisoning that my friends and family had inflicted on me with the pre-celebrations of the wedding.

I knew that this wasn’t the case but I still hoped. That small, remote part of the brain prays that what is in front of it cannot be true.

I also only had limited control of my bowels. The shitty gruel that I had been fed, along with the sickness and all of the other horrors that I had been through meant that I had soiled myself. It was not an irregular occasion now but it was not helping, either with my illness or my mental and physical state.

What I’m trying to say is that the ropes had been there to keep me from falling out of my chair. Which I did with a slow sense of inevitability. I did not exactly fall out of the chair, I slid out of the chair. Lubricated by the blood from where the skin had torn from my attempts to get free earlier. I was slippery with sweat from both the heat and the terror and there were other fluids in the midst of all of that that I shudder to think about. But it was not the first time that I had discovered that bodily waste is actually rather slippery.

So I slid out of the chair, landing on my tailbone. That particular type of pain is one that you always forget about as the agony shoots up your spine and sends bright lights flashing in the depths of your skull. But then, as I landed and flopped around as parts of me were numb, the back of my head struck the seat of the chair and knocked me into a daze.

All of this was happening during that break in the combat that Ella had opened up with her sacrifice. Kerrass was drinking potions and re-erecting his shield. Should he have been attacking? Maybe. I cannot analyse these kinds of things. But I do know that he was out of defences and again, if he struck and it didn’t work, then he would not have had the capability to defend himself. So he was drinking potions, reapplying oils and re-erecting shields.

I landed on my ass, I had not been able to use either my legs or my arms to cushion the blow and my right arm did nothing to help. I remember falling onto one side and my left hand got trapped underneath my bulk, causing what little weight I had left to fall on my mangled hand.

I screamed. I didn't mean to. I was barely conscious at the time. The blow to the back of my head from falling off the chair had sent me into a daze and I could feel the urge to lie down and sleep while also knowing in the logical part of my mind that to lie down and go to sleep was to lie down and die.

The pain helped keep me awake although I wish it had not come at quite that acute a cost. Triumph soared in me though. I was free of that damn chair. I hated that chair and I resolved whatever happened. Even if I would turn traitor at the hands of Sam’s magic, then I would see to it that that chair would burn on some bonfire of my vengeance.

But first, I had to concentrate on getting past the flashing lights that were still going off in the middle of my skull. The urge to vomit was in me and it occurred to me that now, not only was I sick and had injuries that might never heal. There was the concern that the blow to the back of my head was rather serious.

The urge to nod off was still strong and I forced myself to move my right arm so that I could squeeze the bandaged mass that had once been my left hand.

I had deliberately kept from looking at it since it was clear that the injury was persistent. I knew that the bindings would need changing and I knew that a lot more needed to be done to heal it. The bandages were holding all of the shattered bones in one place as much as anything else. None of the proper care had been done and I didn’t want to be confronted with an injury that was so permanently crippling. But now, I touched it for the first time. I was dismayed by how tacky the bandages were and how… Wet, and jelly like the mass felt to my right hand. But the pain did its job and I was able to stay awake while I focused on breathing in and out.

I didn’t want to die here. I didn’t want to die like this. If I was going to die, then I wanted to die in a way that meant something. That… contributed in some way.

I tried to focus. I couldn’t see Kerrass. My vision kept creeping in and out of focus and Kerrass was little more than a dark blob with smaller white blobs on the top and an occasional glow. I could see Sam. He was increasingly lit by the blue light.

Sam was laughing.

“Pathetic.” He was talking to the corpse of Ella. “Is that your effort? Is that it? Is that all you could manage? The attack of a broken woman?” He laughed. “How foolish, how… insignificant.”

And then he looked at me and he dismissed me as being equally as insignificant. More so even. Ella was worth killing whereas I could wait where I was, dazed, bleeding, sick and injured. I was not even worth killing. Even more so as I rather think that he had given up and moved on from the idea of trying to make me bend to his will and do as I was told. That was never going to happen now and I had a distinct feeling that he knew it.

But I wasn’t even worth killing. And the thing that made it worse… this is going to make you laugh, the thing that made it worse was that in dismissing me from his mind. He looked like Father.

Sam was now eight feet tall. Hugely muscled, massively bones and with the power of his God glowing from his eyes. He had spectral blades at the ends of his arms and he moved as though he was light as a cat whereas his blows were enough to drive Kerrass to his knees and shatter the stone bricks that made up the columns of the room.

But at that moment, as he stood, towering over me, he reminded me of Father. The tilt of the chin, the rise of an eyebrow and just enough of a sneer, just the curling up of the corner of the mouth. Just the attitude of disappointment and disgust at this thing that slouched before him.

Then, he visibly decided that I was unimportant, turned his back on me and resumed the combat with Kerrass. It was so… dismissive. It was as though I was nothing, little more than a stain of a smear of mud that needs to be brushed off from the hem of the cloak or picked out from the treads of your boots the way you would scrape off some dog shit with a piece of stick, or pick out a small stone that was scraping against the floor as you walk.

But I wasn’t even that important. Not even that powerful. Because I wasn’t even worth scraping off.

I do not know why Sam said and did those things. I do not know what was going through his mind and I suppose that if I was being charitable, I would say that he was in the middle of combat and didn’t really have the time to pay attention to an utter, non-threat.

Because I wasn’t a threat. Not really and I suppose that he can be forgiven for that. To dismiss me, the broken, crippled, sick piece of flesh that couldn’t even keep himself in a chair without falling out.

But finally, finally I felt anger kindle in the depths of my chest.

My rage. My oldest friend. My oldest colleague and my greatest ally. It was my rage that carried me through so many dark instances. So many times that I would not have survived had it not been for the anger in the depths of my belly.

From the greater instances such as the time that I took up a simple sailor’s axe and charged the Nilfgaardians that were at the back of the Wave-Serpent in the time of the Skeleton Ship and the time that the anger had driven me from the torture chair of the Knights of the Flaming Sword.

My anger had given me the courage to face down Ariadne when she still thought of herself as a Queen. It was my anger that had finally had me beginning to fight back against the all-consuming despair that I had begun to feel after Kerrass’ goddess had had her way with me. It was anger that has given me speed in so many fights. Anger, like knowledge, banishes fear. It is the outrage that this, or that or the other thing would DARE to make me afraid.

It was anger that made me hunt down the cult that had conspired to kill my Father and brother. It was anger that carried me into the fortress of the Spider-Queen. It was anger that drove me into the house with the foxgloves in that first village with Kerrass. Anger has always been my friend and ally in those long darknesses of the night.

It was my anger that made me become a scholar in the first place.

I have been afraid of that anger in the past. Afraid since I first noticed that it was there. Like many of us, I have been taught that anger is not a good thing, but I would be a fool if I had not recognized its worth in the past.

My oldest friend had been beaten down by the despair of the situation. The despair and the horror. My anger had been useless, pointless and stymied. It had been a wild and terrifying thing, the anger of the child that knows that what he is seeing is unjust but that there is nothing that they can do about it.

I had thought my anger had been lost to me. I thought it had been beaten and tortured out of me. Not least by my own efforts as I worked to get rid of it or find another suitable outlet for it. I thought that anger had left me.

I was relieved to find that anger burning in my heart again. I welcomed it back to me like an old friend. The anger tore threw my body. It looked at the infection that was rushing through me and was, very probably, killing me. It told the infection that it would have its time but now was not it. My anger took in the pain and laughed as it used that same pain to fuel itself. It took on that pain in the same way that the furnace accepts the wood to become hotter.

My vision cleared, the lights and the pounding in my head vanished, and my arms and legs could move again as the blood rushed into my muscles and that same strength flooded through them.

Flame but I had missed this. This feeling of strength that my anger had given me. It was not lost on me that I always thought of anger as having been a hot thing and wondered why I was so afraid of it given the heat that the eternal Fire represented.

Using my arms as a lever, I turned myself over from where I was on my back and rolled to my front. I looked up, flicking my head so that the long, greasy, lice-ridden and putrid strands of my hair were out of my eyes. I saw Sam, pushing Kerrass around the room with his huge, sweeping, glowing extensions of his arms and my anger… and yes, my hatred crystallised and formed a point.

And I started to crawl forwards.

Crawling is even too nice a thing for it. I pulled myself along with my one working arm leaving my slime trail of blood, sweat and filth along the ground behind me. Like a flash of inspiration, it occurred to me that I could still use the elbow of my left arm to lever myself along. It hurt like the scream of a banshee but my anger took the pain along with the rest and pulled me along with it.

First… I needed a weapon.

I looked around.

It is always interesting to me how the mind works in moments of crisis. I was in a crisis now, maybe the worst of crises, but my brain was detached and working through the mess. I was near the circle of steel and tried to pick out something that would be useful. Most of the weapons could be dismissed out of hand, being made of boring, hum-drum and basic steel and iron. I was angry and determined, but I was still rational enough to know that I would have one chance to make Sam feel my wrath. Because if I missed, or if I didn’t achieve anything, he was still going to kill me.

I knew that the future held my death but I no longer cared, I even looked forward to it a little bit. But by the Eternal Flame, I was going to make Sam feel it first.

Sam and Kerrass were still fighting around the room. Sometimes they were close to me and sometimes they were far away. I could see the flashes of blue light on the edges of my vision as they flared against the darkening edges of my sight. I could hear the occasional grunt of effort from Kerrass and I was all but deafened by the sound of metal striking stone as well as the hammering, echoing impacts of the silver blade parrying and blocking the spectral things that grew out of the ends of Sam’s arms.

But I didn’t have time to worry about any of that. If I stopped to worry, then there was the chance that Kerrass would succumb and I would lose my chance.

But that wasn’t quite right either. The thought that Kerrass was going to lose simply didn’t enter my mind. Not because I had some kind of all-consuming belief in the invulnerability of my friend. But more because I just didn’t care any more.

I was going to find a weapon and then I was going to use that weapon to hurt Sam. I was going to use it to show him that I would not be cowed. I was not beaten and he would have to kill me before I was going to be done being his enemy.

So I looked.

First and reflexively, I looked to make sure I knew where my spear was. But it was a long way away. The thought that I would need two hands to wield it properly did not even enter my mind. Whatever weapon I used, I would find a way to hurt Sam with it. The spear was a good contender in my mind. I had used that spear to impact even magical creatures. I might not do as much damage as a silver weapon and it would have been useless against spirits, but I had shattered Gargoyles with that thing and Sam was very, very substantial. Therefore, it was a good candidate.

I also took a moment to be pleased that my mind was still working on some level.

The problem with the spear was that it was too far away. The quickest route to get to it would involve me getting over one mound of metal with all of the weapons, armour and whatnot that the mound contained. Then I would have to crawl through the inner circle of the ritual where I would have to pull myself over and around all of the dead bodies that circle contained. Then I would get to the spear. Pull it out and then climb over another mound of metal to get to Sam as the fight was raging on the outside of the circle now. That was if I survived all of the little wounds that I would take in climbing over all of that sharp-edged metal

If I tried to go around, the route would either take me close to where the combatants were at the time or would take me far too long. And the chances of me being seen grew. So I was forced, reluctantly, to decide that I didn’t have enough time to get my spear and attack Sam accordingly.

Sam would be immune to the average steel dagger or guardsman’s sword. So the immediate response of just taking the nearest piece of sharpened metal and inserting it into Sam’s thigh could be dismissed. There was something about it that left me feeling dissatisfied anyway.

So I looked for something that I could use that might make a proper dent in my foe. The choice seemed obvious when I thought about it by then and I even took a bit of time to berate myself for my foolishness. After all, Father Gardan’s axe was right there. I had even noted how it didn’t seem to be as affected by the magic in the air as some of the other weapons.

I took a deep breath and started to move.

As I say, I wasn’t crawling, not really. I was pulling myself along with my one good remaining limb. I automatically tried for purpose with my injured feet and hand, but the pain was just too much and my vision went white for a moment. I remember spitting blood and hoping that it was because I had bitten my tongue during the fall, or from biting down to keep from crying out in pain.

So instead, I pulled myself along, leaving a stain of awfulness behind me in the same way that a slug leaves a trail of slime.

The agony was awful and my body was utterly unused to the effort. My muscles howled and my stomach cramped. It took an age as well as not only was I making scant progress, but I was having to stop every few movements to get my breath back and renew my determination. So I pushed and I pushed.

I set my course to where I knew the axe to be and I just went for it. Forcing myself forward. Pushing myself, cursing my weakness, insulting myself for the fool that I knew myself to be.

I am pretty sure that an ant could make more progress than me.

But I made progress. I did make progress.

I nearly lost heart the first time I looked up from my efforts and saw the axe so far away. But I pushed on and the next time I looked, when I was sure that it must be in close reach, I was closer still.

So I pushed on.

The sound of the fight in the room was overwhelming as Kerrass and Sam fought to the death. I got the dim sense that Kerrass was waning a bit.

I turned inwards now, all I could do was move forward. I fuelled myself with rage over everything that had happened. I thought of everything. I thought of every bully that I had ever had. I thought of every enemy that Kerrass and I had killed.

While resting at one point, I tried to summon the dream of the cave from Skellige. The dream of the bear and I tried to summon him to me to my strength. But I remembered in despair that the bear had told me that he would only help me once. I even sent a little prayer to Kerrass’ Goddess in the hope that she would lend me the strength to do this one thing. But nothing came.

It took an age of agony, blood and fury but I felt my fingertips catch on the cold metal and I reared up. I took a risk and looked for Sam who was pushing Kerrass back. I had no way of knowing if either of them had seen me but they weren’t looking.

I moved aside a couple of swords, a mace and an axe. I figured that the butter knives wouldn’t make that much of a difference in what was going on and that if I died from the cut given to me by a butter knife then I deserved to die.

There it was, the axe of Father Gardan and I finally put my hand on the haft and dragged it towards myself.

It was immensely heavy and again, despair tried to crawl into my soul but almost immediately I took to heart as I got a sight of the full weapon.

It looked beautiful to my eyes. A long pole of black steel with an extended, leather-wrapped hilt. The pole ended in the long curved blades in the shape of a butterfly which extended to points off the ends of the pole which I knew were to be used for thrusting towards an enemy while also trapping the blades of attackers.

I thought of the man who had once carried it in the woodland of Redania and Kaedwen. How he had taken up this axe to face unknown enemies, even while he trembled with fear. I sent a prayer to that old man to lend me what strength that he could.

It took me a moment to figure out how to move with the weapon and in doing so, I realised what I was going to do. I rested the pole of the axe in my elbows which, by necessity, meant that I had to crawl with my elbows. The blades went beyond my arm on my left. My right hand would grasp the hilt and I would hold the axe in the crook of my left elbow.

The thought occurred that if my elbows still worked and the pain was less than it was when I used my hand, maybe my knees still did the same.

I nearly crowed with triumph when this proved to be the case. The pain was still extreme and I had to keep from whimpering as I moved. But I knew then, I knew that I was going to do this. This was going to work.

I started to crawl to where Kerrass and Sam were fighting. I made a much better time this time. It still hurt, but by the Eternal Flame, I was going to get this done.

They say that the first step is the hardest but that was not the case for me. All of the steps were awful and although the pain was indeed getting worse, that was a low, deep throbbing thing in the depths of my soul.

I wanted to vomit but there was nothing in my belly left to give. I wanted to sob, but my tear ducts had dried in the face of the fury that I needed to keep going. I wanted to piss and shit myself in terror, but then it was clear that this wasn’t going to get done. Besides, I had no faith at all that I wouldn’t shit my lungs out.

Instead, I pushed on.

The crawl to get the weapon had been harder as I pulled myself along with my right hand. It was as though the feeling of Gardan’s axe in my hand had given me strength and had banked my fury up into the focused flame of the forge rather than the all-consuming forest fire that it had been.

As I moved, slowly, faster than before but still painfully slow, I must admit that I started to see things. But rather than being afraid of these things, I used them. They were there, with me. Part memory, part hallucination.

Father Jerome, my companion through pain, was there. He stood next to me, cheering me on.

“Pain is the body’s way of telling you that you are injured.” He told me, the same as he had done all that time ago. “You must keep your mind separate from the way the body feels. Let the body do what it needs to do to fight the pain. Use the pain if you can. And do not give up.”

I remember looking up at him from where I lay on the cold stone floor. If I turned my head, I could see his vacant-eyed corpse on the floor behind me with a slight smile on his face. I looked back up at my vision of him crouching next to me and he smiled, the injury on his neck stood dark and crimson although he was stronger in body and strength than he had been when he died.

“Do not hate,” his apparition told me. “Hate can be a focus, yes, but it can also be dangerous if left to overwhelm you. Instead, focus on it and then cast it aside when it becomes pointless… And… just for me…” His apparition winked at me. “Go get the fucker.”

I growled my affirmative. I didn’t have the words for it. I didn’t have the spare energy to form words with my mouth. But I felt the growling into the pit of my belly and I hoped that Jerome’s shade was satisfied.

I crawled on. Something cut me but I have no idea what it was. But I felt a new wetness on my belly as I slowly dragged myself across the floor.

I blinked.

I was sitting across from my Mother. She was wearing a nice dress and it looked as though she was getting younger before my eyes. I have seen the portraits that were sent to Father and she looked close to that.

“I am sorry.” She said as I watched the slow process of her age lines fade and the grey retreat from her hair. “I owe you more apology than I can begin to say. Take heart, my son. I am proud of you. I am waiting for your Father and then I will see you in whatever comes next. But in the meantime, stay strong and do what you have to do. Finish what I could not. I killed one of the blemishes on our family. But I killed the wrong one. Finish him for me Freddie. Finish him and then you can rest.”

I blinked and I was back in the cellar. I was maybe a bit closer to the fighting now but the fighting had shifted and I went with it. The pain was extraordinary and I felt fear that I would not have the strength to do this. I took two more shuffled crawls forward. There was a dead guard in front of me, one of those that Kerrass had killed and I had a brief debate as to what I could do. I would not have the strength to move him but to go over him would… He was a danger to me. His metal armour would cut me and hurt me. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.

“Do what you have to.” Father told me. It was like I could see him at the campfire again. Same as he had been back in the south and the Black Forest. “Do what you have to son. Whatever it is that you have to. You can do it. I am sorry. I did not… Do what you have to. I will see your Mother and then…”

He smiled at me. “I am so very proud of you Freddie. Now get the job done.”

It was like the image of Father and that Campsite was there in front of me. An image that hovered in front of my face while I could almost see the cellar room through the image.

I grabbed hold of the dead guard’s body and pulled myself over it. It was hard and I did cut myself further as I slid over his body. That effort alone was more than everything put together.

I felt myself give up. I was done, my muscles screamed at me and I could do nothing other than breathe in and out, gasping for air which hissed and whistled as it came through my teeth. For a moment, I despaired and my anger flailed around with nothing to hold onto.

“Is that it?” A woman’s voice asked mockingly. “Is that all you’ve got?” I have no idea who it was but I did realise that I was on my back, looking at the ceiling.

“No.” I didn’t say it aloud, I do not think I had the strength. Instead, I looked around for the axe which was lying next to me, levered myself back onto my belly, took a deep breath and forced myself forward again.

“That’s my boy.” Said the woman’s voice. “I knew there was a reason that I liked you.”

The pain was beginning to leach my anger now. As well as everything else, I was bleeding, the tumble over the guard’s body had cut me deeper and I was bleeding. It might not be much, but there wasn’t much left in me. Sam and Kerrass were closer now but still far away.

I took a deep breath and started crawling again. Pushing on with my right knee. Flame but it hurt. I was sobbing now, sobbing and growling at the same time. I did not have the strength to form words.

I was dimly aware that Sam was taunting Kerrass. My entire world was the small patch of floor in front of me and the thing that Sam had become. I pushed on again.

“The hardest part…” Rickard told me. His voice flew to me from somewhere, I have no idea where. It sounded like a tavern. There were other voices with him. I recognised some of them. I thought I recognised the high shrill voice of Pendleton and the strange singsong accents of Skelligan storytelling that might have belonged to Ivar.

“I understand that Pendleton told you this.” Rickard went on. “The hardest part is the last bit. The last five yards or so when you are about to engage with the enemy. The last second before the shot lines up and the last moments as the girl turns towards you to say yes or no. The last bit of waiting is the hardest.”

Someone tried to call him back to the company. I thought it might be the slightly cultured tones of Taylor, his subordinate.

“The last bit is the hardest.” He said to me again. But the truth is, that there is nothing new for you to do. No decisions to be made, no choices, debates or moral quandaries. You are the arrow fired from the bow. There is your woman… Love her. There is your enemy… Kill him. After that…?”

I felt him shrug

“The worst that he can do is kill you. A woman…? Well, a woman can be far crueller.”

He laughed at his own joke.

“I wish I could have loved Shani. I wish I could have shown her what she means to me. Kill him, Freddie. Kill him for taking that away from me… No. Kill him for taking that away from her.”

I pushed on. I was dimly aware that Kerrass had seen me. He had moved, coming around Sam to turn Sam’s back to me. It was an easy move. A simple move. The kind of move that basic soldiers and new rank and file are trained not to fall for.

But it seemed that Sam had fallen for it.

The realisation gave me strength. I was getting closer now.

Another voice came to me in the closing moments.

“I lied to you before.” Said Jack. “I told you that the greatest fear is the fear before death. But you came to that conclusion yourself and I just let you think it.”

I pulled myself on.

“The greatest fear.” He told me. “Is the last fear, the most recent fear. The last fear before you realise that you are dying. The fear when you realise that all hope is lost. After that fear, all else is easy.”

Like with Rickard, I couldn’t see him, although I could not help but look. But I felt him grin.

“Make him afraid, Freddie.” He told me.

Finally, I was there. Finally, I was close to his back. But now I was there, I had no idea what to do. I could barely lift the axe as it was, let alone now. I didn’t know what else I could do. I had made it this far and now I was done at the last hurdle.

“Only one thing left to do,” Mark told me. But this wasn’t Mark. Not as he had become. This was the Mark that possibly should have been. This Mark was tall, powerful and robbed. He was smiling and looked freer than I had seen him in years. He shook his head.

“I know you hate him, Freddie. I would tell you not to but I am flawed enough that I hate him too. But when you have struck, do not allow that hate to turn inwards. I love you, my Brother. Now… on your feet.”

“But I have no feet,” I wailed. Not aloud, I don’t think I had the strength for that.

Mark smiled.

“Then you have knees.” He told me. “Get on your knees and pray. After all, that axe was once a holy weapon and if you are going to use it, then you kneel before a God. Stand before a man, but kneel before a God. You do not lie on your belly like that.”

I lifted the axe up so that it rested on its pommel and it seemed to me that I climbed up the axe. Right hand on the crossbar and using my left elbow as a hook, I got up and I pulled myself up.

“Come on Freddie, you can do it.” Jerome’s voice called.

I got my right knee under me. It hurt so much and I could no longer hold back the sobs.

“Make me proud, my son.” Father’s voice.

It seemed impossible to me that Sam wasn’t turning around, Kerrass was keeping Sam’s focus on him.

“Make us proud.” There was a gentle rebuke in Mother’s voice. But I could tell that she was smiling.

I got my other knee under me and nearly fell backwards with the pain and the weight of the axe pushing me back from my kneeling position.

“Now make him pay,” Rickard told me.

I picked up the axe, all but picking it up by the middle as my left arm was useless.

“Make him afraid,” Jack told me.

“FIGHT.” A woman’s voice screamed.

I lifted the axe with my left elbow, cutting my upper arm as I did and I got it seated, right hand at the base, left holding it in the crook of my elbow. I was going to have to all but hurl myself forward with my knees and what passed for my thigh strength, at Sam as swinging the axe was just not going to happen.

I took a couple of deep breaths to prepare myself. There was a good chance that I would land on the axe heads as I fell and I had no doubt that this was it.

A light shone on me and as I looked, I saw Francesca. She stood there, just as I remembered her. Long dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She wore a simple shirt and a small jacket that was buckled at the waist, similar to how the Empress sometimes wears it. Then long skirts. She looked so beautiful to me there in that light that it hurt me in my soul.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I tried to find you. I should have known. I should have seen it. There’s even an argument to be made that I did know but I kept it from myself. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

She smiled gently and reached for me. “It’s ok.” She told me. “We are supposed to trust our family. Mother and Father drove that into us. ‘Trust family’ they would say but then it turned out that they trusted us all the least.”

Her smile turned a little teasing.

“I mean, look at what you made of yourself and they barely lifted a finger to help you.”

Her mile turned gentle again. “I’m the one that should apologise to you. I am sorry that this has to be you, Freddie. Not some soldier, hero or Sorcerer. It has to be you. I am so… very proud of you. So very proud.”

“I miss you,” I told her. “I miss you so much.”

“I know. I will see you again but this is goodbye for now,” she told me. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then she stood up, I had not realised that she was kneeling with me. Her gaze turned hard and she stood in the same manner that The Empress does when she has decided to kill someone.

“Now Freddie.” She hissed. “Kill that rat-fucking, cowardly, weasel of a snot-nosed, shitty pile of ghoul dung that once dared to call himself our brother and may his soul freeze in the torment that he absolutely fucking deserves.”

Her words caught at the spark that was left of my own anger and I screamed with it as I hurled myself forward, blade first into Sam’s lower back.

I don’t know where I managed to strike him. I don’t know because all I could do at that moment was launch myself forward. There was no swing to my attack, just a rage, sorrow and pain-filled drive from my upper legs with whatever strength that I had left. All I could do was aim those Razor-sharp butterfly wings at Sam, and hold the axe as firmly as I could manage so that the weapon didn’t shift in my grip. I may even have committed that cardinal sin of shutting my eyes to strike him.

But I screamed and through that last desperate effort, I launched forwards with everything I had left.

The axe definitely struck something and it was hard, but not so hard that I had missed and struck the floor. The impact jarred my arms as I struggled to keep the axe stiff in my grip but it inevitably twisted and gouged my side as I fell down to the surprisingly warm stone floor.

What was left of my self-control managed to twist and I fell away from the axe and rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.

I was spent now. Darkness called to my eyes and I just wanted to sleep. It seemed to me that the stone floor was soft, warm and welcoming. I had struck out at Sam and I was done after that moment.

I saw Sam himself. I had hurt him and he gazed down at me with rage and more than a little hurt. My blade had not gone as deep as the silver had in Kerrass’ hands. But it had hurt him more than steel had. I had enough time to decide that I had chosen my weapon well. My last victory and I was happy with that as a victory.

Sam stared down at me and his lips drew back to show his fangs in his huge mouth which was in his even huger head.

“Ow,” he rumbled. “I will kill you for that.”

As he said so he lifted his great feet to stamp down and I shut my eyes.

I was content. I had struck my enemy and caused him pain. Even if I didn’t kill him.

A woman’s voice came to me.

“Open your eyes.” She ordered but not unkindly and as I did, I saw the great, huge, monstrous form that Sam had become staring down at a point on his chest.

The point of Kerrass’ silver blade had exploded out of his chest. Gore and whatever passed for blood dripped down from the wound before Kerrass drew the blade back out when the blood really came. Splattering my face and my body.

It was hot and it burned where it landed.

I did not have the breath to scream, either in pain or in triumph.

Sam turned on his feet but found that his legs weren’t working properly and his body started to collapse. As he did, I saw the injury on his back. The enlarged spine meant that Kerrass had seen the enlarged gaps between the bones of his spine and had driven his lunge into one of those gaps.

I saw Kerrass then, standing. He looked awful. Small injuries, bruises and the paper-white skin that he has when he’s taken too many potions. His eyes were black to look at and impossibly black blood leaked from his ears, eyes and from the corner of his mouth.

Kerrass screamed and leapt in a huge, spinning blow. Both hands were on the hilt of his sword which drove that sword down and across into Sam’s shoulder. The blow struck the great collar bone which snapped like that first crack of the tree falling but the sword kept moving. Every ounce of Kerrass’ strength, real and potion driven, was in his arm. He drove that sword further and further into Sam’s body. Sam’s trunk seemed to split apart as the sword moved, the injury widened as blood and gore started to pour out of that crack that was still widening into a chasm in his chest.

Kerrass was still screaming as the blade could not go further. Blood dripped down his chin and onto his tunic as he screamed.

I thought I could see fangs in his mouth.

Still screaming, Kerrass pulled the blade from Sam’s body and kicked it.

Sam fell with a crash and Kerrass stabbed it. He had already hacked through where the heart should have been but Kerrass was making sure. He stabbed in the heart, slashed across the belly spilling the insides out and slit the femoral arteries but the blood that came from those points was slow and sluggish.

Then Kerrass collapsed, turning and slumping against the fallen form that had once been my brother.

He closed his eyes and I watched as he started to come back from all of the potions that he had taken to defeat this monster.

Slowly, very slowly, he drew his Witcher’s pendant from his tunic and held it tightly in his fist before he pulled out a last potion from his belt and visibly forced himself to drink it. Then he reached for the silver sword that was close to his hand and pulled it towards himself.

His eyes were closed and he moaned as he started to shake, before the trembling started to take hold. For a brief moment, he let go of his sword and pulled a dagger from his belt, forcing the leather-wrapped hilt between his teeth as the trembling got more severe. He held onto the sword now with everything he could, whimpering as his body convulsed, his heels banging against the floor.

I watched as his skin turned back towards pink and the blackness of the veins faded.

He dropped the sword and pulled the dagger out of his mouth. I could see him breathing deeply for a couple of moments before he turned his head and vomited hard. A couple more breaths and he opened his eyes.

“Freddie,” he moaned and he was coming towards me, using his hands as well as he scampered in his haste. “Goddess Freddie but what did they do to you?”

I was starting to shake myself as I could feel him checking me over.

“Kerrass,” I moaned.

“It’s ok Freddie. Don’t try to speak. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He moaned that last.

He reached into another pouch.

“It’s not a Witcher potion,” he told me. “But this is going to fucking hurt.”

He didn’t give me much time as he just tore what was left of my shirt away from the injuries, the scratches on my chest and the gash in my side.

I shook in his grip.

“I’m sorry Freddie, I couldn’t get here sooner. I’m sorry.” He whimpered as he worked.

“Kerrass.” I got through the pain.

I screamed again as he started to peel the bandages away from my left hand. I turned away from Kerrass’ face. I did not want to see his horror at the injury. I could hear it in his voice.”

“Goddess.” He swore and then he moved.

“Freddie?” He began looking down at me. “Drink this, it’s still not a Witcher potion but it will help. Just drink it, Freddie.” He gripped me by the back of the neck and lifted my head up so that he could pour the liquid down my throat. It burned as it went.

“I have to go.” He told me. “There are still monsters in the castle and on the wall and my silver is still needed.”

“Kerrass.” I don’t know what I was trying to say. Express gratitude, maybe, forgiveness. But Kerrass didn’t hear that.

“I have to go.” He told me, standing. “It’s a war out there and you need a proper medic, or a Sorceress or something. I have to go. Stay alive Freddie, breathe. Just focus on breathing. You’re safe now.

“Kerrass,” I called but he was gone. I was still drifting in and out of consciousness so I did as I was ordered and I just lay there, staring at the ceiling. I have no idea how long I lay there doing that.

I so desperately wanted to sleep.

“Freddie?” A small voice came to me. “Freddie?”

At first, I dismissed it as another hallucination or whatever it was that I had seen as I crawled up behind Sam. It took me a moment to realise that I was hearing that call with my ears rather than with my soul and I turned my head.

“Freddie?”

Whatever potion it was that Kerrass poured down my throat had helped and I found that I still had some strength. I lifted myself onto my right elbow and looked around.

“Freddie?”

It was Sam’s voice, his real voice, un distorted by whatever passed for the power of his God. I searched around for a dagger and pulled myself over towards the body where I saw…

Sam.

His head was shrunken and it seemed to me that the great monstrous form that he had been was like a shell, or a great suit of armour that Kerrass had cut into. Sam was there, his head and upper shoulders sticking out.

The silver sword of Kerrass had still driven deeply into Sam’s body and it was clear to me that he could not live. As I watched, blood, proper red blood this time, leaked from the corner of his mouth.

I let the blade fall. Sam was done.

“Freddie?” He called again. “Are you there?”

I pulled myself around and pulled his head into my lap.

“I think I’m dying Freddie.” He told me.

“I think you’re dying too,” I told him. I stretched my legs out and sat sideways on to his body. Most of it was gone and the same gash that had gone deep into his monstrous form's chest was still there and I didn’t want to look at it. Truth be told, it was kind of impossible that he was still alive.

“If it’s any consolation, Sammy…” I went on. “I don’t think I will be that far behind you.”

Sam’s left hand reached for me and not seeing a reason not to, I took it in my still-working right hand.

“No,” he said. “No, you’re going to live.”

His breath was bubbling.

“You betrayed me.” He told me, his voice accusing.

“Fuck off Sam,” I replied. “You can’t put that on me. I was never on your side.”

“You struck me from behind.”

“Are you trying to tell me I was being dishonourable?” I wondered, unable to keep the bitterness from my laughter. “You crippled me, enslaved the woman I love and… oh what’s the point. You’re still a fanatic.”

“I am at that,” Sam admitted.

He coughed.

“A request?” He said weakly.

I didn’t have the words to answer that.

“Whatever happens, do not bury me in our stupid little family crypt. I will not be surrounded by people that I hate.”

“Oh, Sam.” I told him, “Even if I’m not going to… I don’t know… be tried for heresy myself. Your body is going to be burnt. I don’t think I will have control over that. They’re going to burn you before they do… Fucking magic to it to make sure you don’t come back.”

“I suppose that’s true.” He said.

He looked around.

“What a fucking mess.” He chuckled.

“Mother and Father would be furious.” I agreed and we both chuckled.

“Not going to apologise on your deathbed?” I wondered.

He thought about it.

“No.” He said. “No, I don't think so. Everything I did, I did for a reason. I might change a few things. I might tell Ariadne to properly fucking kill that Witcher of yours and I might have worked to ensure your loyalty sooner.”

“Or you could have told me about the problem so that you and I could have come up with a better way,” I told him. “A way that didn’t involve treason and heresy but… I could have helped you with the cult. I could have got you the help that you needed and I could have kept you from Phineas’ evil.”

“Maybe.” He said. “Maybe…”

“I could certainly have prevented you from listening to That God of yours. It’s not a God, it was never a God. Just some being from another plane.”

“How does that make him any different from any other God?” Sam wondered before he chuckled. “Oh, what’s the point? You’re just as much a fanatic as I am.”

“I probably am at that,” I admitted.

“Will you think well of me?” He wondered.

I thought about it for a moment. Not to come up with the answer but more to decide how I wanted to put it.

“No,” I told him. “You… Even those memories of you that I had that are good, they were all based on lies. You were not my brother, not the man that I loved. It was all a pretence.”

“Some of it was true.”

“Oh, Sam.” I moaned, feeling the tears of hurt and betrayal at the back of my throat. “How can I possibly trust anything that you say?”

“Even now?”

“Especially now.”

Tears started to fall from my face.

“I am sorry Freddie.” He told me, wheezing now. “I would not have changed anything. I would do it all again, I would. But I am sorry that I hurt you. Forgive me.”

I sobbed then.

“I can’t,” I told him. “I can’t forgive you. I can’t”

“Oh God Freddie.” Whatever had kept him alive was leaving him. “Freddie. FREDDIE?”

“I’m here Sam.” I held his hand and squeezed until it hurt.

“I can see him, Freddie, I can see… Oh, God. Oh, Flame… FREDDIE?”

“I’m here Sam. I’m sorry. I forgive you… Sam… SAM?”

But Sam was dead and this time, he did not answer.