(A/N: Warning: The following contains some scenes concerning mental health which some may find upsetting,)

“Bollocks,” I said with a certain amount of feeling. “Giant, hairy, sweaty bollocks.”

I was standing near the walls of the chapel, looking up at the tower. From which hung the body of Father Gardan the axeman.

The silver slayer, the Axeman of Kreve.

Thick rope made a noose around his neck and as he swung from side to side in the breeze, he seemed to look out at the surroundings. In a lot of cases, when people can see the eyes of the dead, they seem to stare out of their faces accusingly. As though they are angry with whoever had found the bodies. In this case though, that wasn't true.

He looked sad. Incredibly old and sad.

It wasn't pretty either. For all of those people that have never seen a hanging body, you should know this, that it's an ugly, unpleasant death. His tongue lolled out of his mouth but it was also red with dried blood where he had bit down in his agony. The rope had cut into his skin as he had thrashed around. The eyes that were open, staring so unhappily at the world, were goggled and you could see, even through the grey film that had begun to cover them, that there were was blood in his eyes.

He'd also shat himself. Excrement and urine had fallen down his leg and stained the walls that he hung against.

There were scuff-marks against the wall where his feet had beaten against the walls. The old stone was unmoved by what must have been some extreme struggling from the dying man but you could see grey scuff marks where some, more recent, repairs had been done to the stone-work.

“No way for a man like that to die.” Sir Rickard was standing next to me looking up at the body.

“No way for anyone to die really.” I said. “If a death must happen, then a clean death in my opinion. An axe or a sword stroke. Or at the very least, a sufficient drop so that the neck is broken rather than this slow strangulation.”

Rickard grunted. “I have to disagree I'm afraid. Kiddie fiddlers, traitors and rapists deserve everything they get. An old man though? Not least of which a man like that. He deserved better.”

Like Sam, Sir Rickard had been excited to meet Gardan of the axe. Both men had heard stories of his soldiering exploits. Sir Rickard had almost insisted on coming down here to meet one of his heroes the previous day but Sam wouldn't allow it, claiming that he wanted to meet the hero that lived on his lands first. He was honestly cross that he had decided to come back to the castle after the visit with the Aunt Kalayn as that would have meant that he would have met him.

We should have let Rickard come. Maybe then we would have known more or been able to protect him from whatever had happened to him.

“Did he jump, or was he pushed?” I mused aloud.

“He's not tied up.” Rickard said. “A man like that, you would need to tie him up to push him off the tower.”

“You didn't meet him Rickard. He was sick, badly so but he plainly had been for years. If he did jump, why now? But likewise, if he didn't jump.... if he was pushed?”

“Why now.” Sir Rickard nodded.

I took a deep breath. “This might be my fault. Our fault I should say. But we don't know enough. Can one of your men get up there and lower him down to the ground?”

“I think that can be managed.”

“Also, get Dan to have a look around, see if he can spot any tracks and tell us if anything happened out here. See if anyone other than us visited him.”

Dan was an old soldier. The oldest soldier in the gang of Bastards. I have spoken about him before but it does bear repeating. He had been a poacher, stealing game from the lands of the local lords. Game birds mostly but also the odd boar or deer. He used the meat to feed his family and any of the other families nearby that might be struggling to make ends meet. One night though, he had been drinking and was caught. The Lord that caught him was sympathetic to the problem, Dan's gathering of meat was not that prolific and had not damaged the stock of animals in the lord's lands and so, instead of jailing or removing a hand from the poacher, Dan had been offered the opportunity to join the army.

An opportunity that he took.

He was the best shot with a bow that I've ever seen. He carried a trio of bows. A short bow for what he described as “Short distance work”. This was for when the longer, more powerful bows would be ungainly. In woods or buildings. That kind of thing. Then he had a Longer, medium length recurved beauty which was his favourite bow. He used that in most situations, for hunting, skirmishing and when proper aiming needed to be done. But he also had a Warb-bow. Fully two meters long when unstrung and when he hadn't strung it, it lay almost straight with hardly any bend in it at all. It was a huge thing and would fire vast distances. He used this bow when standing and shooting into a mass of men. When accuracy was less needed and everything depended on the stopping power of the arrows.

He treated his bows like his children and had even named them.

But as a former poacher, he was also a skilled tracker. Not on Kerrass' level but Kerrass was still working away up at the castle.

Sir Rickard nodded. “I'll see to it.”

I nodded and turned away, moving to go inside the chapel. I was angry. Not the formless and all consuming fiery rage that had come on me previously in the wake of Francesca's disappearance. This was something lesser than that. I was angry, to be sure but I was frustrated with myself. Disappointed was the word. I had that sinking feeling that you sometimes get when you realise that you've made a mistake and I was increasingly certain that that was what I'd done.

I had allowed myself to feel pity for Father Gardan and had allowed myself to be pulled away from him. I had told myself that the old man had needed space after the stress that Danzig and I had put him through by turning up on his doorstep without announcement and out of the blue. I had also wanted to see what was going on up at Castle Kalayn. I had wanted to see the halls of my relatives, to see what had happened there and what I might be able to learn from that.

In doing so.... I was very afraid that I had left the old man to his fate.

I wasn't convinced by the idea that he had killed himself. I think he might have liked to, but at the same time I thought that, if he was going to kill himself as a result of everything that he had been through. Then he would have already done it. His horror had already taken place in the past. Now he lived in, according to Danzig, self-imposed exile in the remotest corner of the world that he could find.

I also didn't want him to have killed himself. I wanted there to be an enemy. Someone I could hit. Even though, that made it even more certain that my ignorance was as responsible for this death as anything else.

He had deserved better than this though and I stomped into the small chapel.

It looked, all but the same. There were still the chairs next to the fire pit. Still the same kettle and stew pot. The smell of burnt meat greeted my nostrils. The fire had burned down and the old man's stew had boiled itself dry and that's what I could smell.

The axe, that he had hated and loved with equal passion, was not on the alter though. I couldn't see it anywhere. I spent a bit of time searching for it before deciding that it was big enough and shiny enough that I would have seen it. The priest had not hidden it from view. He had treated it with reverence, resting it on the alter to his God.

It had been taken then.

I started to feel better. There was an enemy that I could pursue, whether it was just an opportunistic thief or whether it was some lynch mob that had come for Gardan, someone else had been here. Someone else had taken that axe.

I now know better than I had before, that there is no point in leaping to conclusions. So I spent a bit of time, searching the small building thoroughly for the weapon. For the first time, I went into his small, sad little sleeping area. As he had first told us, the pallet that he slept on was surrounded by salt. It seemed a well maintained circle and I could see there was a sack of the stuff next to the door where there was another line of salt, and again next to the wall where the sole window was.

The living area was an addition to the structure of the chapel. Half made from wood and thatch, but thoe other half made from stone that looked as though it had been salvaged from the dry stone wall that surrounded the church and the church-yard. It must have been bitterly cold in winter but I found that I could easily imagine Old Gardan, shivering under his blankets, believing that the cold was a scourge for his back.

A just punishment for his sins.

I thought that he deserved better than this and had resolved to convince Sam to be gentle with him. I don't think I would have struggle to do that persuading.

Kerrass has a lesson that he tries to teach. It's a truism of the life that he leads and it isn't a pleasant lesson but it's a lesson that I needed to bear in mind here. That lesson is that it's impossible to save everyone. You can't do it. Sooner or later, something's going to happen. Someone will make a mistake and it might be you, and someone will die.

For those people who lead relatively safe lives then this philosophy might not be for you.

But for him, he says that it's an important lesson to remember. You can't save everyone. Someone will make a mistake and get themselves killed. You can't beat yourself up about this. You can't give yourself grief or let it get to you. All you can do is work on the best information that you have at the time, move forward and attempt to do better next time.

But you also need to be happy with the fact that you might not do better next time.

If you let it eat at you, then it will kill you. One day, you will be frozen with indecision and try to do too much and try to save everyone and it won't work. More people will die and there will be nothing that you can do about it.

I know that this is true. It's a think that I'd already had to tell myself before but nowadays, since Francesca's disappearance. I was finding it harder and harder to keep that perspective. I was struggling with it now as I looked around the small chapel that would become the final resting place of a hero. A hero who had deserved better than the self-hatred and loathing that he had been left with after suffering injuries that he didn't understand.

I should have been here. I should have helped him. But I hadn't thought this was a major problem. I hadn't known that there was a risk. I had thought that I could come back at my leisure. There was no way I could have known that this would happen. But I was blaming myself for it already.

“The Hounds of Kreve?” I had asked him.

He smiled, bitterly. “Believe me, I know how it sounds.”

I could feel my brain rejecting the concept. It's a phenomenon that both the bard and I have commented on when it comes to the work of a Witcher. Commoners, especially farm and village folk are rather subject to superstition. So much so that they often see problems and monsters where none exist. It's one of those things, that if I had more time or more of an inclination to look into, I could probably study at some length but in short. Otherwise perfectly common problems are often blamed on creatures, or monsters that simply don't exist.

Villagers might complain about devils that steer honest men away from their route home. Where the man in question is called out into the nearby fields and woods by the sounds of beautiful singing or the cries of something. The man wakes up the following morning with a thumping headache, several small injuries and an empty coin purse.

The fact that he had stopped off at the tavern, the night before to celebrate payday with his friends is considered unimportant to the case.

A sickness that befalls the children of the village is never something to do with the fact that someone dumped a deer carcase into the river, but is always to do with the fact that the local witch-woman had given her the evil eye.

I've heard stories about giant bat creatures that swoop down and attack farm hands. Spirits and imps that steal tools and belongings. That rip the clothes from people's backs and damage houses so that the elements can sneak through the open windows and holes in the roof to trouble good and decent folk.

The problem is that such things don't exist. There are things that might do those things, but if they were there then there would also be other signs of the creature in question like, for example, the explosively exsanguinated corpse of a cow.

But here's the nub of the matter. The flaw in my argument. The villagers absolutely believe that what they are telling us is true. They are convinced of it. They even spin elaborate tales of sightings of the creatures in question and can produce evidence of the thing's presence.

But it's all nonsense.

Kerrass and I were once sat outside a tavern while Kerrass was talking to a group of villagers. We were just on our way from somewhere to somewhere else and Kerrass had politely enquired as to work. More out of habit than anything else while I saw to provisions for the next couple of days. But I had watched with amusement as the villagers complained earnestly about a man who had gone missing one night after having collected his wages from the quarry. He had gone to the village and had a few jars of the local moonshine before heading home where he had fallen off a cliff to his death.

A tragic story to be sure and it could happen to anyone. Death by misadventure is certainly a valid thing and happens every day. But the village was convinced that the man's death was as the result of some kind of supernatural occurrence. They cajoled and pleaded with Kerrass to investigate the matter but Kerrass was unmoved. In the end another man had been produced who had claimed to have seen something out in the darkness.

They told a story about how the dead man had recently lost his wife to some kind of wasting disease which was why he had been drowning his sorrows but that the ghost of the man's wife had called him off the cliff. They even went on to claim that the dead and departed loved ones of the villagers would often call out to the other villagers in an effort to provoke other such accidents. The people were being called to join the dead, to leave behind their worldly values.

Kerrass had shown remarkable patience, listening to all the stories before telling the people that there was nothing to fear. That they simply needed to be a bit more cautious about their day to day lives and spend some time looking after their neighbours when they had fallen on hard times. He advised them to contact a priest and left directions to the nearest abbey.

I found the experience incredibly sad, that an entire village would prefer to believe in some kind of supernatural interference over the probability that a man had lost his wife, got drunk and wandered off the path.

Early in our association, Kerrass had even spent a day hunting the “Things that lived in the trees” for my benefit. To show that there were some things that just didn't need to be hunted. We spent a day tripping over roots and having our hair and clothes pulled at by brambles before we both agreed that there were no imps in the forest and that the missing tools, damaged homes and lost items were the results of perfectly normal neglect and misadventure.

As I say, I found the entire thing incredibly sad and I was struck by an equal sadness as I sat in the chapel looking at Father Gardan.

“Believe me,” he said after a while. “I know what it sounds like. I do. I didn't just study the blade when I fought for Kreve. I know about monsters and magic and theology and I know that there's so much wrong with the name and so much wrong with the existence of such things.

The very fact that he was shaking and sweating with fear as he told us these things did much to calm me.

“I know,” he went on. “I know that Kreve is a warrior God. I know that he's a soldier and a ruler, so why would he have hounds?”

He shook his head in disgusted bemusement of himself.

“But you haven't seen them.” He said. “You haven't heard them howling in the dawn. You haven't seen their shapes in the distance as they stand on the edge of the hill, looking down over all that they survey and all that they own. You haven't felt your flesh crawl as they move through the mist or the screams as they hunt down their victims throughout the countryside. This land doesn't belong to the Lord Kalayn, whoever that is, nor does it belong to the people that live here. It belongs to them.”

He sobbed.

“I tried. I tried, I tried, I tried, I tried. But I can't help them. These poor people. These poor poor people.”

There is nothing sadder than the tears of a broken man.

“We know you did.” Father Danzig looked as though he was on the edge of tears himself. It can't be easy to see your heros broken down to a shadow of their former selves. But for this man, it was the wrong course of action. He didn't want sympathy. He didn't feel as though he deserved sympathy. He wanted rage, and somewhere, in the depths of his belly I think. He found it.

“No, you don't,” he snarled, throwing off Danzig's hand. “How could you know? I should have done something. I could have done something. I even managed to strap my armour on once. All of it. I had sat up late that night in prayer and as the red sun began to set, I could see the mist slowly falling down the mountainside like water. A tide of mist that crashed over us with the violence of falling into a pillow.

“I have never really examined the way mist spreads before. I had always thought that it rises out of the ground. From the water that stands in the grass and has fallen during the night. I imagine it lying over the land in the morning, in the way that it seems to smother everything into a dead kind of lethargy before the sun comes out to chase it away. Like a blanket that we are reluctant to leave when we wake from our own slumbers.

“But the must here is different. It creeps around the trees and through the lanes. It's more like smoke in that way. You can see it billowing out through the breeze and the air currents. Especially that night.

“I don't know why I did it that night. I still do sometimes. I still try and exercise the way that Kreve taught us to exercise. I go to my armour and place each part on me, carefully strapping it into place before I take up my axe. Ah, my axe. My constant companion throughout so many battles. My truest friend. My oldest friend. I used to be able to make that weapon sing in the morning air as I swung it round. The air whistling as it moved out of the way.”

He shuddered violently.

“Another one of the little pleasures that have been taken from me. I can't even take the pleasure of my craft any more. Just the training for the training's sake. I can't even do that. Martial skill was the only thing that I was ever good at that and then it was taken from me.

“But that night I had intended to go out and do some training. I had little more planned than to run some laps around the chapel walls but something made me pick up my axe that night and I took it outside. I can still touch it, can still do things providing I don't think of violence or ponder on it's use. It's still sharp and oiled to the best of my abilities and should someone take it then it will still work in the hands of a skilled soldier.

“I took it outside and I stood out in the churchyard and I stood to watch the sunset.

“The villagers had told me about the Hounds. Of course they had, they're not bad folk as heathens go. They don't worship the Lionhead or any of the especially evil heresies. Just a slightly watered down version of their old harvest God that they brought with them when they settled here from where they had been before. I stood out in the yard and I felt myself stand ready.

“I was afraid. I cannot tell you what it's like if you don't know it. I was a soldier all my life in one form or another. Soldier first, then knight, then general and I know that a soldier without fear is a soldier without sense. Without wisdom. I knew fear of every hour of every day throughout my career. I've seen the horrors that men do to each other on the battlefield and I've seen the awful things that my own axe have done to people much younger than me. Much weaker than me and I have often wondered what would happen when I was wounded like that.

“That fear though. That fear is manageable. I can do things about that fear. I can, or rather I could, survive it. But that's not the kind of fear that I'm talking about here.

“The kind of fear that turns your bones to jelly. That literally causes the sweat to stand out on your head as though you are forcing your way through ice or fire or both at the same time. When your breath comes in gasps or when you can hear your own heartbeat echoing inside your chest. When you can feel it beating and the blood shooting round your arms and legs to the point where you become honestly concerned that you might explode.

“When every movement is pain. When the light gets too bright and your axe becomes to heavy. When even the slightest sound splits your ears and sears itself into your skull with bolts of fire and thunder.

“That is the kind of fear that I'm talking about. It almost drove me to my knees.

“You have seen this place now. You have seen how beautiful it can be. How wondrous and marvellous. Even in the rain or the depths of the deepest snows of winter, this place is beautiful but no painter or poet would be able to capture the real feeling of living here. The constant fear of what is coming. What you know will one day claim you unless you manage to gather enough strength to break out.

“I had only just arrived. I had been warned but I did not know what I was facing. I had gone out into the yard to see the sun and to give thanks to Kreve for letting me see the end of another day. Anything else seemed a little churlish. I went out and I saw the mist beginning to creep round the trees to the east, towards the mountains. I felt it inside me then, the first flutterings of “The Fear”.

“I tried, I really tried. I knew that I was facing danger. I knew it. You can't spend a lifetime on the battlefields of the continent and not get some kind of instinct about when peril is descending over you. So I knew it, that tonight, the mist was different. That there was something else coming, crawling down from the mountains. Or maybe it was the mist itself that made the land....able to support such monsters.

“I stood, in my armour and with axe in hand. In the same way that I have stood, facing down armies. But it was different this time. This time, my knees were shaking so that I could barely stand. My mouth was dry and I couldn't breathe.

“You hear them first, the Hounds of Kreve. You hear them in the thunder. I heard the thunder echoing out over the landscape. It was a distant thing at first, in the same way that you can sometimes see a storm away at sea but know that you are relatively safe from it even though you can see the shadow that it casts and the forked lightening descending from the clouds.

“Then, after the earth has shaken with their thunder. Then the howling starts. Remember that the mist is still creeping in over the grass and the trees, the stream, a little distance away from the chapel was now more, sound than sight and over coming it all was the howling. First one voice, Lower and deeper than any wolf that I've ever heard. The kind of sound that you hear in your chest. It thrums in your belly like the deeper feeling that makes you want to shit yourself after you've eaten some bad camp food.

“The first howl came from the same kind of distance as the thunder. It sounded for a long time, deep and mournful. I've heard that howling many times since, both real, memory and dream and I have wondered if there are words in those calls. But it sounded for a long time, the echoes never dying away. But then another voice joined the first. Another noise, another howl. Rising, calling and shrieking across the red glow of the evening.

“The red light seemed to infect the mist. Reflecting it and absorbing it until the land itself was tinged with red. As though it was tinged with blood.

“A man came then, well, I say a man, he was actually an elf. I don't know much about elves except when they are attacking me. But this one was dressed like any other villager or wild man of the local area, plain trousers, cheap boots and a woollen shirt. He ran past me, almost without seeing me. He was almost on top of me when he did finally see me and he almost staggered backwards.

“Help me,” he pleaded. He begged. “Help me.” He turned back to look the way he had come and screamed, the primal voice of terror that both our people's share. We both know that same terror and he had it that night and I felt it myself as I saw that the elf was injured. Blood matted the hair on the back of his head and had long since dried on the back of his shirt making it sticky and stiff with the stuff. How he was still standing I don't know, let alone running for his life. As that was what he was doing.

“Running for his life.

“I count myself fortunate for what happened next. If he had pleaded again, I don't know what would have happened. I would like to think that I would have helped him. That I would have tried to defend the poor thing against the evil that was coming for him. For again, there was no doubt in my mind that the thing that was coming for him was evil. I fear that it would be much more likely that I would have fled. That I would have fallen to my knees in terror and wept as he was taken.

“But that wasn't what happened. Because as he looked back. He saw the thing that was chasing him and he carried on with his flight.

“I was frozen to the spot then. Frozen, utterly unable to move. But my eyes moved to look in the direction that the elf had come from, my eyes working to pierce the murky, blood red fog that was still sinking like a blanket over the place.

“At first I saw nothing, but I kept looking. Elven sight is much better than our poor human sight so I waited. I would like to say that I was being patient but the truth is that I just couldn't move I was that scared.

“Then I saw them. Three of them. They stood their horses on the top of a hill nearby.”

“What where they?” I asked. It was the first question that I had asked in some time. I couldn't help but be spellbound by what he was telling us. He had the gift of oratory that you get in the truly great tale-tellers, a skill that is sometimes necessary in educators, priests and soldiers as well as minstrels and bards.

He shrugged. “I don't know.” He said. “I could barely see them, and the truth is that my own fear distorted a lot of what I could see and a lot of what I can remember. Their appearance was vast and demonic to me and I couldn't comprehend them. My mind just refused to allow the sight to be properly taken in.”

“But they were definitely mounted?” I asked, I was reaching for some paper so that I could make notes. I was fairly convinced that Kerrass would be furious with me if I couldn't give him some kind of information.

“Oh yes. What they were mounted on, is anyone's guess. Certainly I couldn't tell you. They looked like horses but I could also see that they seemed to breathe fire and that their eyes glowed red. Trick of the light? Maybe. Sweat and terror misting my eyes so that I didn't know what I was seeing? Even more likely. but I spoke to other peasants that have commented on their appearance that have suggested that they saw the same thing. But the rhythm of the hoof-beats. You can't be an old soldier like me without knowing what cavalry sounds like. It was awful.

“But there they stood. They had the skulls of wolves for heads and it seemed as though their bodies were burning. They seemed to have wings you see, wings from which flame and smoke seemed to come from. As they sat on the hill top. They seemed to sit there for a long moment before their wings came up and one of their number, I don't know which one, leant his head back and howled.” He shuddered again.

“Could that be all there is to it?” I asked. “Could they just be cavalry that have done things to themselves. Could they be trying to instil fear and....?”

“I don't know,” he wailed. “Maybe.”

“It's just....” I tried.

“I don't know.” He yelled and his face sank forward into his hands. Danzig gestured for me to back off a little and I did as I was told. The man was beginning to lose it. We'd already pushed him rather hard but I got the sense that he really wanted to tell us these things.

“They thundered down the hill though. Their wings flapping with the wind of their passing. You could see the smoke billowing from them and the haze of heat that they left behind themselves like....like a cloak billowing in the wind.

“They split out and rode around the chapel walls twice. Still howling. I let the axe fall to my feet but I still couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but shake in terror.

“It was like being visited by evil itself. But then it looked down at me. The evil, it looked at me and it was as though it didn't even deem me worth the effort of killing. It scorned me. It lessened me because I was so worthless. They rode round the chapel twice before riding off in the direction that the Elf had fled. When they were out of sight and that horrible smell that accompanied them began to lessen, I finally felt myself unbend, as though my muscles had been clenched up in a way that kept me from moving. That kept me from acting. I bent down, scooped up my axe and fled inside. I couldn't do anything.

“So I was inside when I heard them catch the elf. I don't know how far away he was. The mist deadens the sound and it meant that his death could have happened next to us or it could have happened miles away. The poor lad had no chance though, injured as he was. He did well though I think. I couldn't have run as far as he did.

“He took a long time to die though. A very long time. I could hear his screams for hours as I lay there, just inside the entrance way.” He pointed with a shaking hand. “I curled up into a ball and tried to block the sounds of his screaming out. Closing my hands over my ears in a desperate effort to block it out. I was even screaming myself by the end of it. I don't know why.”

He laughed at himself.

“Fucking coward that I am.”

“What could you have done?” Danzig asked but Father Gardan was having none of that.

“What could I have done? What could I have done? Anything. That's what I could have done. Anything else. I could have gone after them. I could have stopped them, I could have fought and yes, I probably would have died but I might not. I might have given that elf a chance. I might have delayed them for just a bit of time. I might have given him a chance. That's all he would have needed, just a chance at survival. But no, I stayed in here didn't I. I stayed in the protection of the chapel and waited for the screams to stop.

“It took him all night to die. Poor little fucker.”

We waited for a while. Danzig had been forced to turn away by the pain in his hero's face and voice and was stood a short distance away, staring towards the open door. But I could tell, just from his body language, that both of us wanted to help the poor old man. We wanted to do something, anything that we might be able to alleviate and lessen the anguish that the old man was feeling, desperately thinking of some kind of comfort but I couldn't think of anything and Danzig must have been the same.

“I went to find him in the morning”. Garden carried on his tale, some time later. “I took a shovel with me to bury him. I don't know what his people would have done or what their beliefs are on the subject but I didn't want to leave him there. I thought that he had fought to survive and fought hard, and so, deserved better than to be left for his tormentors and for the wild things that live out in the woods to fight over and desecrate. So I went out to find him with a shovel.

“I said the prayers for him too. He died hard and even after it took him all that time to die, they had still....spoiled him. Even the animals wouldn't go to him to worry at his face. Even the beasts wouldn't go near those injuries.

“Poor sod. Not even a knife ear deserves that. Not even them.

“Stupid pointy-eared cunt. Poor, stupid bastard.

“So I said my prayers and I buried him. Not much for an elf but it was the best I could do. I came back to the chapel and I read my book and I prayed like a motherfucker but three nights later I heard the sounds of howling in the distance. And again, a week after that.

“Sometimes they stop for a month. Maybe even two months but sooner or later they come back. Sometimes they come every other day. Sometimes even the same day, but it's always the same. Red sky, mist off the mountains. The sound of thunder and the howls of wolves.”

I waited for a bit, to make sure that the old man had finished his story. But then he kind of eased off. My guess was that it had cost him to say so much in so short a period of time. It looked like he had been living in isolation for some time here and I thought that it might be the most that he had said to another human being in some time. When I was sure though, I asked my questions.

“Why are they called “The Hounds of Kreve?””

“I don't even know that that's what they are. The peasants call them that. They scare their kids with it only the thing that they're warning them against will, actually, come for them. But I know it makes no sense.”

He seemed to be coming back to himself now that the conversation was moving a little bit more towards the theology side of things. Stuff that he knew rather than the things that he was afraid of.

“Kreve doesn't have hounds. He's a soldier, a king, a general. He isn't a god of the hunt he's a god of the fight against evil. That's his thing. When you say “hounds” you think of hunting hounds. You think of them as aids in whatever it is that you're doing. Kreve preaches that a man should stand up and do the labour himself.”

He sighed again and got up, he began to pace.

“Personally though, I think it's my fault.” He looked at us, a little slyly and I was glad to see a little humour in his eyes. “Not just my fault you understand, but also any priests that came before me, and the people that built this chapel. I think we have quite a lot to answer for in this regard.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I think that my predecessors were lazy in spreading the good word of Kreve. I am weak, and a coward and exiled from the gaze of the God, but my predecessors? This could have been a bulwark against the encroachment of those Fire worshipping pussies from further south.”

“Careful,” I told him with an answering smile. “I'm one of those fire worshipping pussies.”

He stopped and stared at me for a moment, his mouth hanging open in surprise. “You?”

“Me.”

“But you're a fighter. A killer.”

“So?” I shifted my weight in the chair. I don't mind being described as a fighter but being described as a “Killer” left me feeling a little uncomfortable.

“So? That's everything here. Don't get me wrong, at least you're not a Melitele worshipping woman....” He said that with a kind of affectionate scorn. Priests of Kreve are well known for their disdain of Melitele and that feeling is reciprocated but it's interesting to note that the two churches close ranks against interlopers with astonishing speed. “...or a heretic. Let alone one of those dirty sun worshipping bastards from the south. Talk about worshipping the egg when the chicken is still wandering around after laying the thing. Anyway...

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Flame worshippers are passive. They wait behind their walls, telling everyone the blatant untruth that the flame will keep them safe and protected from the monsters, all the while the monster roam the streets and prey on the less fortunate. Last time I was in those parts they used to torture people for questioning the holiness of the Eternal fire when all the person was doing was bringing attention to the fact that they had seen a drowner wandering about down at the docks.”

He sniffed derisively and I began to see the figure of the man that he must have been. Strong, charismatic and clever. It was a lot easier to imagine him as a leader of men.

“I had hopes for them when I heard about them founding that order of knights, what were they called?” He snapped his fingers as he tried to remember. “Flaming rose that was it. Even that they copied of our order of the white rose. Pompous ass-hats that those bastards used to be. But even then, instead of dealing with the problems that beset the world, they turned on Foltest and tried to lead the world into a brighter future where that brighter future is whatever the knights decided it to be. If they had been proactive, and actually helped people rather than trying to get involved in politics then they would still be around today.

“But no.....

“Then when Nilfgaard invaded....Again.....the flame worshippers turn on their own people. Those people that could have been drawn into their service. Don't get me wrong, I hate the Magic users as much as the next priest of Kreve, but setting aside that advantage on the eve of war? Ludicrous. But They like to stay in their places of power, that's why I'm so surprised to find out that you're a silly fire worshipper. You're a fighter, you're here in the middle of nowhere and you're fighting the source of an evil.”

He gestured to Danzig. “You should convert him to our side.”

I hid a smile with a cough. “I thought that Kreve and the Eternal Fire got on.” I commented.

“As I say, you could be worse. But I was talking about our faults in this area and why we're at fault here.” He got up and started to prepare some food. To my mind it looked astonishingly basic, some hard bread and harder cheese along with a hunk of salted meat that looked as though, if you gave it to a cobbler, some perfectly good shoes could be made out of it.

“I would offer,” he told us, “but I'm an old soldier and you're probably used to much.....nicer fare.”

“Oh you might be surprised.” I said. “After some of the things I've eaten by the side of the road.”

“See,” he exclaimed with glee. “You should be a Kreve worshipper.”

“But you were saying.”

“Yes, I was saying. Kreve came here and built this place. A small chapel in an effort to try and convert the local folk from their little heresy. They worship a harvest God in these parts. They believed that they had to sacrifice their first born in return for a decent harvest. Pleased to say that the practice has been somewhat diluted since those earlier years so that now, it's more about sacrificing the first fruits of the harvest. So the first lamb to be born, a portion of the first crop gets burnt that kind of thing. Better, still not ideal but better.”

He sniffed, biting off a huge chunk of cheese. The cheeses crunched audibly.

“So then we came here. Built a church and started wandering round telling everyone about the good word of Kreve. But for whatever reason they gave up. I spoke to a couple of the elders and it would seem that those early missionaries were quite lazy about it. They would wander into a villager, all proud and upstanding like, where they would tell the people there about Kreve. The villagers would listen politely before calmly stating that they were ok for Gods thanks and politely told them to piss off.”

He snorted in derision of those historical priests.

“The missionaries came back, built this chapel and spent their time “praying for Kreve to intercede.” I think, that whatever happened, happened and these things came these, “Hounds of Kreve” came and started terrorising the countryside and some idiot said words to the effect of “Well, we told those priests of Kreve to piss off. They told us that there would be consequences and now they are here”.”

The old man made the voice sound comical. As I sit here, looking back over my notes I find it surprising that he was able to go from terror, shame, bitterness and sadness to being a happy, humorous and charming man in the space of minutes, but at the time, it seemed to be quite natural. As though this was just how it worked.

“So, I think that that's why. That's why they call them the hounds of Kreve. That and the wolf-skull heads.”

“Do you think that they're human under there.”

He winced and a shadow crossed his face.

“I don't know. I really don't. I've only seen them the once. I've tried to go out many times. I might not be able to fight but maybe I could help the locals defend themselves. Maybe I could show them that Kreve is not some arch-punisher of the ignorant. We punish the Wicked, yes, but the ignorant? They need to be taught the error of their ways, not hounded like this. So maybe I could help them get into shape. Help them defend themselves. But I can't. I just can't. I stand at the gate into the church-yard and I try to step over the threshold. When I start to see the sky turn red and the beginnings of the mist on the mountainside, I try. I've tried so many times but before I know what I've done, I've turned and I am hurrying back inside, pouring salt over the threshold.”

“You say that the village folk are ignorant rather than being wicked, rather than being evil.”

“Yes, they're good folk really.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They care for each other. They care for me. Do you see the goats in the yard that gave me this cheese? Where is the oven in which I baked this bread? They bring me the food and the blankets. When I get really sick, they bring me herbs and medicines to help me get better. They've even come and helped to rebuild the old chapel.”

He looked down at his plate full of food as though he was surprised to see it there and set it aside.

“When I first came here, I was weak. I had just left the church and I was struggling to stay on the straight and narrow. I couldn't stay with the other soldiers and the other priests. They would tell me that I was injured but I knew the cowardice for what it was. I couldn't bare the pity of the men that I had worked with. I used to hate and berate those men that I had thought suffered from cowardice. I used to loathe them with every fibre of my being, loathe them for the weakness that I was now suffering from and I couldn't bear it.

“So I ran. Proof enough of my cowardice.

“I was still strong then. Much stronger than I am now....”

“And you are far from weak.” Danzig put in.

“Kind of you to say,” the humour was back in Gardan's voice then. “But I can feel the difference in my own body.

“I came here, a small chapel out in the middle of nowhere and I thought I would do it up. Some peace and quiet would do me good. I could live here amongst the, objectively, beautiful and wild countryside. The untamed lands that I had always idolised when I was younger. I still had a bow, arrows and things so I reasoned that I could live fairly well.

“At first that was the way it was. I would hunt, gather food and meet the locals. I took the option of general reminders when it came to my preaching. I would do some odd chores for the farmers, advise people and offer blessings. The heresy in these parts is so entrenched that to come in with ice and savagery wouldn't work, indeed it hadn't worked before. So I just worked and lived as best as I could and when people asked me about Kreve, I would explain to them how it all worked.

“We lived together well.”

“Were “The Hounds” attacking at that point?”

“Oh yes. You could often hear them. It was a good six months before I saw them for the first time. The locals tell me that “The Hounds” have been plaguing these parts for many years and I've been here for the last....” his eyes went vacant as he counted “ten years. Kreve but it's been so long.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“I'm dying. I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with my lungs, my heart beats fine and I'm as strong as I can be given that I can't exercise as much as I used to.

“When I first got here I was weak to be sure but I had plans. I wanted to do things and get involved in the lives of the villagers. I wanted to save them from their little and relatively harmless heresy. I wanted to be part of their community.

“But my cowardice got worse and worse. Soon, I could only travel to the nearest village and spend time there. Then I had to make it back to the chapel every night. Not too much time passed from there and I was only going to the village to stock up on supplies before coming back here as fast as I can. Then I started asking the villagers to bring the supplies straight here. Now, I can barely even leave the enclosure around the church yard. It takes me all day, sometimes, to be able to go and get water from the stream. I go there, with every intention of refilling all my water skins, only to be able to refill one at a time and have to go back.

“How long before I won't even leave the enclosure and I'm begging for my visitors to refill the water for me? How long after that before I can't leave the chapel? How long before I can't leave my room? or my bed?

“Kreve but that's all I want to do sometimes, is to lie in bed and let the world pass me by. Or I'll hear something out in the woods and I spend the rest of the day hiding under a blanket, shivering and shaking.

“I hate this. If I had the balls to do it, I would end my life and stand before Kreve to be judged.

“But I'm even afraid of that. Not least because Self-slaughter is the ultimate act of cowardice and how could I be forgiven if I went even remotely close to actions like that.

“But this is going to kill me. I know it. Maybe not today, maybe not even this year or next but I am not long for this world. I recognise the symptoms you see. I've seen this before in other men and it shames me now that I used to look down on such men. Indeed I would still look down on such men. I hate myself for it as it is.”

“It's not cowardice.” I told him. “It's a sickness. I know you've probably been told this kind of thing before, by people that you know and respect more than a...” I let my mouth turn up into the first semblance of a smile, “...a flame worshipping pussy. But I too recognise your symptoms. Something happened to you. I don't know what it is and I'm not going to try and delve into it. But something happened to you and it made you this way. This is not your fault.”

“It's kind of you to say that my friend. It is, but you are young, what twenty one? Twenty two?”

“Twenty one.”

“I am well into my sixties, so far in that I no longer bother counting. I can accept that this is something that was done to me. I can. I can accept that it is alien to me and unnatural. But what I cannot come to grips with, the thing that I cannot abide, is that I can't overcome this obstacle. I've been afraid before but now my mind simply won't overcome. I can't.....I can't overcome and that is galling and hateful of me.”

I nodded.

“A wise man once told me that a man cannot be brave without knowing fear.” I told him, “When we approached and you didn't know who we were or what we were there for, you got your armour and picked up your axe. You stood in the doorway and challenged us. Given everything that you tell us about how you feel about this, that was incredibly brave.”

He chuckled sadly, and bitterly.

“Did I?” he asked sceptically. “I can't remember. It is a nice thought though.”

“I won't argue with you.” I told him. “But I will visit you if I may. I have been injured in similar ways before now and I would talk to you if I would.”

“You can't possibly know what it's like to feel the way I feel.”

“No,” I admitted, “No I can't. No-one can because no-one is in the exact same place. Maybe I would roll off what you have been through and maybe you would ignore what I've been through but it's equally as likely that what you've been through would have broken me and what I've been through would have broken you.”

I took a deep breath.

“But I have fought darkness. I had my soul ripped from my body and tortured in the dark. I wake up some nights and worry that what I'm doing now, what I'm feeling and seeing now is no the real world. I worry that this is all just a demented figment of that things imagination to be used against me and that at some point, he will pull the curtain aside and show me that it isn't real.

“I resisted, and still resist the fact that I love my fiancée because I am afraid that she is some kind of torment designed by the creature that held me. I still struggle with believing that she is real, or that she isn't some temptation towards evil despite the fact that....as we speak....she is taking instruction to be baptised and confirmed into the faith of the Eternal Fire so that we can be married in a proper ceremony of that same.

“I still wake up having woken myself up with my own screaming. I still shiver in the woods, afraid at the incoming darkness. Not always but sometimes I huddle under my blankets and pray that this is all a dream. I still, I still want some kind of proof that I am not in some kind of hell of that creatures devising. But I am all alone on my path and I don't know where it ends or what will happen when I get there. I'm on entirely new ground for me, any of my friends or my family. There is no-one to tell me that it's ok.

“I am sorry for what was done to you. I am sorry ffor the way it makes you feel. If my brother, the new Lord Kalayn, can do anything for you then you have only to ask and we will do our best to make sure that you have the best care that we can provide. But likewise, if you want to be left alone to your retirement and hermitage then we will do that as well. Simply seeing to it that you have what supplies you need.

“Of all people, sir, if only half of what I have heard about you is true, you have earned your retirement and deserve to be let off the hook for a bit of weakness.”

He stopped looking at me about half way through that speech.

“In the meantime, may I ask a couple more questions and then we will leave you be. I would leave now but this might be important.”

He waved his hand, “Ask your questions.” His voice was small and quiet. If a voice can be distilled into an animal form this was the small and starving mouse that is hiding in it's warren. It can see the cheese but knows that the cat is still out there somewhere.

“You say that the heresy of the locals is harmless?”

“Yes, just some harvest God. It might have been dangerous a few centuries ago or when it was first brought to these parts but nowadays it is a harmless thing.”

“What is the heresy? What is it called?”

Gardan sighed, staring into the fire. “They call the thing they worship “Crom Cruarch”,”

It's an interesting thing to feel your brain switch to a different level of thinking. My mouth went dry and I leant forward.

“Crom Cruarch?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

“Course. You know the heresy?”

“I've heard of it. My cousin, cousin Raynard Kalayn told me about it. Do you know what form of the heresy they used? Was it the crooked man of the mound or was it the....other version of that heresy that they used up at the castle.”

“The other version of the heresy?” The old man asked.

“The inverted ankh.” Danzig whispered.

For those people who need catching up....

When we were investigating the matters surrounding my Father's death we discovered the presence of a cult in the local area. That cult liked to capture young and pretty individuals and feed off them in an effort to take on their youth, vitality and beauty onto themselves. They did this through acts of the worst kind of degradation as they believed that those actions were also sacrifices to another power. That power was signified by the symbols of an inverted ankh symbol atop the sign of the Lion-headed spider.

The idea was that the two symbols, representing life and death, cancelled each other out thus denying the natural order of things. The church believes that this is the representation of a new, or a previously undiscovered, power in the world. They thought that it was the God of Magic or Magic itself. The fact that every mage that we spoke to on the subject is equally as horrified at the thing goes some ways to dispel that theory.

When we had interrogated my Cousin, the de facto leader of the heresy in the Oxenfurt area, he referred to this new/old entity as being Crom Cruarch.

However. Mark had done some research into the matter and had discovered that Crom Cruarch was originally a harvest God but we knew little else about him. So we didn't know if this was the same thing or if it was something else. That was part of the reason that we were here in the first place. If you would like to know more, I refer you to my earlier essays on the subject of my father's death.

The old man shuddered and touched the holy symbol hanging round his neck.

“No,” he said after a short while. “No, that's not what they do. I've seen it. They get everyone together and burn the first fruits of harvest. I've seen them do it. It's an excuse for a party, one of the few excuses that people have round here. It's harmless if a little wasteful. They tried killing the first lamb a couple of years ago although I told them not to on the grounds that it was sinful. They still did it though as they were trying to invoke the protection of their God.

“It didn't work though.

“Kreve, the inverted Ankh.” he breathed in disbelief.

“You've heard of it then.”

“Of course. It's possibly the only power that's worse that The Lionhead.”

At the name of the spider he shuddered violently despite the fact that he said it himself, and again, scrunched up his eyes in pain but this time the spasm passed quickly.

“The Inverted Ankh. If I had known that that was what was going on up at the castle I might have taken more of a notice.”

“You didn't know?” I did my best to keep my tone from being too accusing.

“No, I swear. If I did I would have sent word. They're dealt with now though?”

“The Kalayn branch is, as far as we know. We're here to see if the cult has any more branches in the local area.”

Father Gardan mused for a bit before shaking his head. “If there are, then it's amongst the nobles. The villagers are too desperate, too.....they depend on each other too much for survival to do that to each other.”

I looked at Danzig who was frowning in concentration. We needed to know more.

“What can you tell me about Crom Cruarch?” I asked.

“Not much.” Gardan responded, “I know that the villagers brought him with them when they first settled in the area. Harvest God, God of farmers, someone for them to get angry at and pray to when the harvest goes wrong. In the same way that women worship Melitele because they can scream and call to her when giving birth gets too painful. They need someone to pray to when the planting happens, over the summer that there is the correct amount of rain and again in Autumn to make sure that the harvest is properly bountiful. It's entirely possible that it was once some kind of spirit or creature that had some kind of control over magic and could legitimately affect the harvest but if it was, the spirit is either no longer strong enough to act properly or it has moved on.”

I nodded. I had taken out some paper to make some notes. The old man was looking tired though.

“Who would I ask if I needed to know more.”

Gardan's hands were beginning to tremble again.

“Local village alderman is probably your best bet. Called Edward. The village is about a mile west of here.”

I made a note and nodded.

“Then I will enquire of Edward, although I should probably head back to the castle tonight. Will you be ok?”

He smirked. “I was fine before you showed up. I'll be fine after you've gone. This thing'll get me sooner or later. But not today and not tomorrow.”

“We're going to be busy up at the castle tomorrow. But we'll be back the day after. We'll just pop our heads round the door to pay our respects and drop off some supplies.”

He nodded and waved us off.

“Thank you.” He said before climbing to his feet and leaving through the door to his bed with quick steps.

Danzig and I stood together as we watched him go. “He never liked charity.” Danzig said. “Hated it.”

We left moving towards the horses.

“What happened to him?” I asked as we started climbing into the saddle.

Danzig sighed.

“It's exactly as you said. He got hurt and we don't know what from and we don't know how to help him. Or people like him for that matter. Are we going to try and get to the village tonight?”

I looked at the sky, the sun was beginning to set and the sky was beginning to turn into it's more interesting shades of red and orange. I had a little giggle to myself as I felt a thread of fear running through me before I turned and examined the mountains to see if there was any mist forming.

There wasn't.

“No,” I decided. “It's getting late. We'll save the village for another day I think. I want to know what Kerrass found and get involved with the search up at the castle.”

Danzig grunted his acceptance of the decision before turning his horses head towards the castle.

“Don't think you've avoided the topic of conversation though.” I told him. “What happened?”

Danzig stared into space for a moment.

“Gardan was a priest of Kreve according to the old school.” he said, it sounded reluctant as though the words came from a great distance away. “I say that with all of the possible nuances and problems that come with that. There's no getting away from the fact that that comes with a certain amount of darkness, the persecution of elves, Vran and magic users are all part of that and Gardan would be the first to admit that he took part in some dark deeds. But that's not what I mean.”

He sighed again, twisting his mouth this way and that. I decided to throw him a bone.

“Hey look. You're talking to the man who follows a cult that likes to burn magic users to death, even if they're only roughly heading down the direction of magic or have a passing acquaintence with it. We define people as being evil if they come from outside of Novigrad and literally have, or had as is probably a better phrase, an arm of the church called “Witch-hunters,” and we still have an Inquisition to hunt out heretics, were we define heresy as being anything that we disagree with. Believe me when I say, that I know what it's like to have a religion with a sordid history.”

Danzig smirked.

“It's not that.” He said, “It's more about our attitudes towards what happened. As I say, Gardan was a priest of the old school. This meant that when he wasn't preaching or training up subordinates like myself he was liberally smiting evil.”

“This evil being defined as whatever the church of Kreve disapproved of.” I commented slyly.

“Pretty much. We, the church I mean, said that there was no greater cause than the fight against evil. We still do but now we have a greater and more nuanced take on the matter despite a few hard-line fundamentalists. But therein lies the issue. If he was still active, Gardan would be considered a hard-line fundamentalist. The old Gardan would still agree that the heresy of the villagers version of Crom Cruarch is relatively harmless but at the same time, he would be in the village, axe swinging, converting the heretic to Kreve whether they like it or not. I would like to believe that he would go against the cult that you describe first as there are degrees of heresy here. The one being much more dangerous than the other.

“But that wouldn't make his condemnation any the less........ intense.

“So he was his normal self. Through both wars with the Nilfgaard which we fought on the belief that the deification of the Emperor of Nilfgaard as the physical embodiment of the sun was a dangerous heresy, notice how politics adjusts what constitutes heresy by the way.”

“I had noticed,” I told him.

“He was the veteran of two wars, he only had that one scar across his eye to show for it. I mean yes, there were cuts and bruises but nothing that would leave a worthwhile scar such as that one. He had sacked and desecrated numerous heretical temples, fought against the Scoia'tael in Kaedwen and had hunted down the cult of the Lionheaded spider to the point of extinction in Kaedwen. There are still odd shrines, and I should say that I have read your account of your brothers description of the Lionhead and his assessment of how she works as part of existence. But the cult that attaches itself to her is often dangerous and evil and we want no part of it.

“But then one day, He goes out to investigate rumours that there was a shrine to the Lionhead in some nearby countryside. He's a priest, he travels there with a pair of his squires but decides, correctly, that the danger to the squires was too extreme and he goes in alone.

“I should stress that all of this is quite correct, he'd done exactly this hundreds of times before and emerged unscathed. But this time? This time, something was different.

“As had been arranged, after a day of his not being found, one of the squires rode back to fetch another priest while the remaining squire remained behind at the camp-site. The remaining squire was checking his traps to see if he had caught any game when he found his former master in the undergrowth. He was shaking with terror, he couldn't see, had soiled himself, was sweating and bleeding from a thousand little injuries that he had done to himself because of his armour's sharp edges.

“The thing with his eye? We later figured out that he had put one of his fingers in his own eyes to try and stop himself from seeing what he had seen. It didn't burst the eye but it damaged it beyond repair and the only reason he didn't lose his other eye was because that hand still had his gauntlet on.

“The squire got his master out of his armour and back to camp, he recovered as much of the armour as he could and did his best to see to the comfort of his master.

“The next priest arrived, investigated the area, found the shrine to the Lionhead and desecrated it. It showed no signs of being attended so it was one of those dangerous shrines that need to be looked out for. They found Gardan's axe and brought it back but Gardan who was still weeping, screaming and shaking, shrunk away from the weapon as though it was going to bite him.”

“Were you that second priest?” I asked.

Danzig shook his head. “No,” I was away at the time. Kaedwen was getting ready for another go at the Pontar valley. This will have been just before King Demanvend was killed. But anyway...

“The party got Gardan back to the local church and saw to his injuries but he was only recovering his wits slowly. It was several days before his tremors and anxiety began to drift away but there was a new problem which was that he could no longer fight. I spoke to the people that were involved later and they said that it was really strange. That he would put his armour on, pick his axe up and then, just as he was about to step up to face an opponent, even a training dummy, he would start to shake, scream and soil himself.

“Now the church of Kreve is more enlightened than it once was. But we still don't have a name for what had happened to Gardan other than what we used to call it. Which is “cowardice”. He was suffering from an extreme fear reaction. We recognise it as the same thing that happens to anyone when they're facing the enemy or facing death at the hands of.....something but his reactions were more....extreme. Now, and at the time of Gardan's injury, we recognise it for what it is, an injury. But we still don't have a better name for it.

“In the more....academic branches of Kreve, a part of worship where we still lag behind the Eternal Fire I think as we still spend far too much time looking for evil where there is none, but that's a conversation for another day, they have begun calling this kind of injury “induced cowardice,” or “Manufactured Cowardice”,”

“Still not great names.” I commented.

“I agree but that's what happened to him.”

Another sigh. I flattered him that this talk was a little distressing to Danzig but all of this sighing was a little grating.

“Unfortunately for Gardan, his fall was quite high. From being lauded as one of our bravest warrior-priests he falls to having this done to him. But that's not the difficulty. The difficulty is that our more enlightened approach to treating people with this kind of problem is relatively recent. Indeed it had only been spotted amongst the troops of the, then, most recent war with Nilfgaard. Before that, they would execute people for cowardice.

“To hear Gardan tell it. He himself had summarily executed many people for cowardice and, being a priest of the old school, he couldn't understand why we were trying to help him when we should have been executing him. He just couldn't comprehend that difference. He hated himself for his own weakness. Self-slaughter was a greater sin though as that was, and often still is unfortunately, seen as the ultimate act of cowardice but he didn't want to live like that. He begged us to end his life even as he came to hate himself for his own perceived weakness.

“We tried to help him, we really did but it became clear that out “help” was, in fact, making a bad problem worse. Our care and solicitation was distressing him rather than helping him get better. He wouldn't suffer magic users, and may I say that it would seem that in the intervening time his attitude towards magic has mellowed somewhat, so we couldn't see if what had happened to him was of a magical nature.

“He couldn't stay with us and we couldn't keep him there. It was killing him to be surrounded by combat so we let him go. We found an old church law that said that when a knight is injured then they could “retire.” They would go off, find some old shrine that no-one looks after and live there as best they can so that they can spread the word of Kreve and live out their lives in prayer and contemplation.

“So that's what he did and this is where he ended up. We thought he would recover or emerge from the woodwork when Nilfgaard invaded again as that had made him so, incredibly angry the first couple of times that it had happened but when he didn't appear or make himself known?” Danzig shrugged. “Even as a camp priest he would have been a boon to our troops, but when he didn't appear, we believed that he must have died out here somewhere.”

The narrative petered out there and I let my mind wander, thinking on the castle and what we would find on the morrow but it seemed that Danzig wasn't quite ready to stop the conversation yet.

“You know, I wonder if it wouldn't have been a kindness to let the poor man die there. If we didn't do him a disservice by letting him go.”

“No,” I told him. “No you didn't do him a disservice at all. You and your fellows gave him a chance. Not much of a chance, I'll grant you that much if you want to flagellate yourself a bit but you gave him a chance. More than your predecessors would have given him. More than he would have given himself.”

Danzig grunted but I could tell that he wasn't convinced.

“Loot at it this way.” I told him. “He came here and has been part of the community. He might not have made an impact but he knows people, he's talked to people and when these people have made Kreve into something that, in their eyes is an object of fear and terror that would, in theory, drive them even further away from Kreve into deeper and darker heresy, he worked against that. He presented them with a flawed, human perspective on Kreve. It might not have made much of a difference but on the other hand, that might have saved these people.”

“We'll have to see won't we. Thank you, though, for being understanding and kind to him. It broke my heart to see him like that. He's much worse now than when he left. Much much worse and it's hard not to blame ourselves for leaving him in that state. He deserved better at out hands. Much much better.”

I remembered Danzig saying that as I stood looking at the alter inside the small chapel.

He deserved much better.

I turned and strode outside. The same rage that I had felt before was churning in my gut as I rounded the corner to look up at where one of the bastards was on top of the tower.

“Wait,” I called.

Sir Rickard looked at me strangely as I came closer to him.

“He didn't kill himself.” I said.

Rickard shook his head, “I don't know Lord Frederick. He's not tied up, he could have climbed up there and jumped off. I don't want to believe it either but...”

“But he didn't did he.” I said. “Look at him, tongue lolling out, soiled himself. I can't remember how long it takes a body to soil itself after death but I know that it isn't straight away. Something like that.....” I pointed to the caked on dirt. “Happened during the struggling for his breath. I think we;'' find other injuries. I think we'll find he was tied up or knocked unconscious or that he was drugged or something. If he jumped off the tower he would have broken his neck wouldn't he?”

“I don't know, maybe.”

“He's old but he's not light. Still got a lot of muscle mass on there so that extra weight would have surely added to it. If he jumped off the tower his neck would have broken but if he jumped off a lower thing to strangle himself then where's the thing he jumped off. He would have either kicked it aside or something when he leapt or it would have been leaning up against the side of the tower from how he got up there.”

“My man climbed the tower.” Sir Rickard wanted to be convinced.

“Yes, but your men climb trees and all kinds of things. But this older man. Strong? Yes, nimble enough to climb to a roof without aid?”

“The rope that was already there would make for a good climbing aid.”

“Same difference but there was no rope here the other day. Also, where's his axe? He was the axeman of Kreve. Surely it would be somewhere around here?”

Rickard nodded. Finally letting himself be convinced. “Jenkins? Pendleton?”

The two youngest members of the bastards came running up and saluted. Street thieves both of them but it didn't matter if they were moving through city streets or through the forest, they were quick and could move through terrain that I would struggle with.

“Up to the castle.” Rickard ordered, I was only half listening. “Compliments to Father Danzig and he's needed down here.”

“Sir,” The lads answered in unison before pelting off.

“Castleton, Barnsley.”

“Sir,” two men called.

“Dig a grave in the church yard. I would say that the old man earned it.”

I nodded my approval.

“What next?” He asked.

“I've honestly no idea. We need more information. Has Dan found anything yet?”

Dan was summoned. “Well?” I asked him.

Dan was chewing on a chunk of tobacco. Same as he always was.

“No way the old man killed himself.” He decided with finality. “There was a fight here. Quite a large one.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, there's relatively fresh blood on that grave stone,” he pointed.” Also, someone went through the fire inside. I think that several people died here, not just the old man. Poor bugger died hard. They tried to hide it and, to be fair, I can't find any other tracks. So much so that this place was cleaned. I haven't finished looking yet though but that would take some effort.”

Rickard nodded and Dan went back to work.

“So, someone went out of their way to obscure the tracks or,”

“Something supernatural happened here.”

“Not reassuring, either way.”

“We should have told the boys to fetch Master Kerrass down here as well.”

“He wouldn't have come.” I told him. “Kerrass is busy with things that are definitely Witcher's work. He's in the middle of a contract, that being to help clear out the castle. He won't leave it half done.”

“So what next?”

I looked up to gauge the progress of the day. I also checked to see if there was any mist on the side of the mountainside.

“It's still early. Let's.....Let's finish the grave and bury the priest. I'll do a quick examination but nothing to invasive. We'll wait for a bit for Father Danzig to see if he can perform last rites or something else to help put the old man's spirit to rest. Regardless, at midday we'll carry on our way and head to that local village. I understand it's more of one of those places where they could build a group of houses together but there will be people there. We need to know more.”

Rickard nodded and strode off

We waited for an hour. As I had expected we found sign that someone had hit Father Gardan on the side of the head until he fell unconscious.

Danzig arrived looking stricken and we performed a quick funeral over the body of the old man before laying him to rest. Danzig remained behind to tidy up and do a few things but I suspect that he wanted to be alone with his grief and who can blame him. We told him that we were on our way to the local village and that he should send any stragglers that turned up to follow us.

I couldn't help but find myself grateful, as we rode away. But by the grace of a Witcher, a priest named Jerome and the care of some fine women, that might as well have been me that we tipped into the hole. It might still be me yet.

I don't talk about my injuries very often. I now have a small collection of them and although many of them have been healed so that, theoretically there will be no lasting damage from those injuries, they have still left scars.

I don't talk about them because I still feel it in myself, a learned disgust at a perceived weakness. Every single person that caused me harm is dead and my physical injuries have been healed through magical means, but that doesn't mean that I am not scarred.

I find it difficult to trust knights in full armour. Men like Lord Dorme who poisoned me to the point of death in return to coerce us into performing him a service. I like to pretend that I can't remember his name on the grounds that saying his name gives him some kind of power over me. But, every so often, I see someone with dark, dyed hair, wearing their full plate mail and I get an overwhelming urge to smack them in their stupid smug mouths. It's that or to run away screaming. I didn't write about it at the time but I actually really struggled with some of the time spent in Toussaint for this exact reason. Even though many of the men in question were coming to me to offer their condolences on the loss of Francesca or their congratulations on the engagement to Ariadne. Good men all, but something about them made my fists itch.

I am a religious man. I started to become so after my run in with the beast of Amber's crossing as I was confronted with the existence of my immortal soul and the proof of powers greater than I was used to. It was a sobering realisation that there were greater powers in the world that I couldn't run away from if it got it's teeth into me. That couldn't be stabbed with my spear or struck with Kerrass' sword but even though my faith has grown, along with my need to believe in something greater than myself. I no longer trust priests. I can thank “Arch-bishop” Sansum for that. I know he wasn't an Arch-bishop and that his name wasn't Sansum but that's who he was to me. I know that not all priests are bad. I like many priests and there are many good and holy men who do their best to help the people of the continent with their spiritual needs. I like individual priests. Jerome, Mark, Danzig is a good man, Father's Trent and Inquisitor Dempsey are both reasonable human beings even though I don't know them very well. Father Hacha is not a person that I like but I can see that he has his uses. But I struggle to trust priests. A random holy man met in the streets or on the roads of the Continent. I distrust them, I withdraw from them.

I really struggle to be alone in the woods at night. Caves? Fine. Mines? No problem. But amongst the trees? Fuck that. Often I can manage it and overcome my fear. It's not so bad if there's a fire, or if Kerrass is there. Warm food in my belly after some hard training will often send me to sleep easily. But when I am alone for some reason and I can hear the wind blowing in the branches?

Especially in winter.

I check my horse equipment obsessively now. I always, always know where my spear is. Always. I also always have at least two knives on me. My eating knife which is now much sharper, better balanced and pointier than an eating knife ever should be, and my boot knife. My fighting dagger is often taken off me in polite gatherings but the other two are always on me.

I started keeping my dagger in my hand while I slept. At first Kerrass tried to tease me about it to try and diffuse my fears but he stopped when I exploded in rage and terror at him. It took him a while to calm me down and he looked incredibly sad as he did so. He looked at me with pity in his eyes. It is hard to accept that but it was there.

I've already talked about how my feelings towards Ariadne have been tempered by these problems so I won't go into those things again here.

These feelings have even tainted my home. I don't talk about this either, but I even struggle with being at home now. Castle Coulthard is home to me and, I hope, it always will be a home despite the home that Ariadne and I will build in, presumably, Angral. But after discovering our family secret and knowing that such things were going on behind my back for all that time? I occasionally find myself looking around at those people closest to me and wondering if there's anything else that I don't know. Any other secrets that I might have missed or might have....not been looking for.

As I said to Gardan, I still wake up screaming and sweating after nightmares. Sometimes Kerrass wakes me up if we're by the side of the road or I am woken up by a servant or the innkeeper of whatever tavern or inn that I am staying in.

I recognised Gardan's struggle. I have not walked down his road, but I might have. If not for, as I say, the care of some good people, that might have been me that was tipping over the edge into madness.

So why am I saying this. It might seem a little heavy-handed but the reason is this.

A little while ago, Kerrass called me out for no longer writing these journals and sending them off to the Oxenfurt papers. He said that I had lost sight of my most important duty which was to educate others and to use the insights that I have gained on the road to help others learn from my experience. So that's why I'm talking about this now. To hopefully spread a bit of understanding. My doing this might only be a small drop in the ocean, or rather a small drop falling in the desert but every little helps.

So here's my preaching. My “moral” if you prefer.

Like many people I was brought up and told, over and over that I need to “be a man,” that displays of emotion are signs of weakness. That self-slaughter was the ultimate act of cowardice and shame.

I no longer agree.

I feel as though I don't have the correct words to talk about this properly. Ariadne would call it “a lack in the modern languages of the continent” but I look at someone like Knight-Father Gardan. Yes, I use his full title and rank as I feel he earned it. I look at him and some people, including him, would see weakness and cowardice. I see astonishing bravery.

Bravery cannot exist without fear and his fear was colossal. So large that it caused him physical pain. But when he felt threatened he managed to find something inside him that made him pick up his axe and stand before Father Danzig and I. He stood before us and challenged us to face him.

He later had no memory of doing that but I think that that was astonishing.

He fought when they came to kill him.

I will never forget Knight-Father Gardan and I will remember him in my prayers. I hope you will join me.

(A/N: I'm going to talk about mental health here for a bit. You don't need to read it and if such a discussion makes you uncomfortable then so be it. Feel free to move on with no hard feelings from me and I will see you in the next chapter.

Ok, still with me? Good.

I debated writing my thoughts on this down. I know I'm exposing myself as a target for trolls and fools to shoot at me here, but I figured that if one person reads this and gets something from it then I will have done my job.

Neither Freddie, or Father Danzig have the language or the knowledge to talk about what's going on in this chapter. When I first sat down to write this bit, Father Gardan was an incidental character. We all know the kind of character I mean, he was there to give Freddie some information so that Freddie could move on with his investigation of the local area but then the question of “Why” started to come up.

Why would a priest find himself out here and have done nothing to work on the heresy that surrounded him? Given that many of the “good” religions in the Witcher universe are quite proactive in their combat against evil, real or perceived, then surely a priest would have done more to investigate. So I needed someone to give Freddie the info while still leaving the situation available for Freddie, Kerrass and their companions to solve.

As I was asking these questions, Father Gardan got some more flesh on his bones.

I hope it is clear to the reader that poor Father Gardan is quite seriously ill. To my mind he's suffering from rather severe PTSD as well as crippling anxiety, depression and self-loathing. Those symptoms might have been amplified by his contact with malicious magic but that doesn't change the fact that they are there.

Just for the record, His experiences are not based on mine. I have had similar experiences in that I was diagnosed with PTSD and depression but nowhere near what Gardan suffered from.

However they are based on a number of stories that I have close contact with. I recognise Father Gardan in a number of my friends and family members. Many have since, with the help of modern medicine and care, been able to recover to a point of a relatively normal life.

But many have not.

I know of more than one person who spends their days shaking in their rooms because they can't summon the strength or the enormous energy that they need to get themselves out of the door. This is not cowardice. The very thought of doing this causes the them physical pain.

Mental health is a subject that is close to my heart. Although I do not suffer from these problems nearly as much as someone like Father Gardan does, or any of the friends that I have mentioned as I am one of the success stories where the treatment worked and I was able to get on with my life.

That's not the point of this little speech.

Many of my characters suffer from mental health difficulties in one form or another. Certainly both Freddie and Kerrass do to varying degrees and one of the reasons that they do this is because I think it's more realistic that someone like Freddie would be affected by his history, long and short term. And Kerrass went through a lot during his training and I wanted to illustrate that fact.

The point of this little speech is that, although Freddie didn't and doesn't have the language or the knowledge to address these issues.....I do.

If you recognise any of these symptoms then there is no shame in it at all. No shame. Nor is there any shame in getting some help if you need it.

Do not suffer in silence. Tell someone. If they mock you for it then you deserve better. If you cannot think of anything then go and see a proffessional. My GP used to say that “If it's nothing? I will tell you that it's nothing. But if it's something, then we need to know so that I can help you.”

Another piece of advice is this, if you struggle with medical proffessionals or you know someone who does. Then write the problems down in the comfort and security of your own home. Be exhaustive in your notes and take them into the GP. Take your diary if it will help.

A paragraph for the men. I was taught, like many, that you shouldn't feel these things. That “real men” don't show, or don't feel these things. That it's not a “manly” thing to do. I was told that it was our job to care for those weaker than us and that we need to be strong at all times otherwise we have failed. This is incorrect. Your friends and family need you, yes, but they also need you to be healthy. You can't help them if you are sick so let them help you for a while. To those men that might be reading this.....It takes balls to ask for help. More balls than it does to keep it quiet. But there is no shame in asking for help. No shame at all.

Lastly, for those people who are fully healthy but might be worried about a friend, colleague or loved one. Speaking about my own experiences for a moment. I had to be told that I was sick. A GP listened to me speak for five minutes before telling me that I was sick. There were referrals and appts that came after that but I had to be told that I was sick. I just thought that I was “in a slump” and “needed to pull myself together,” and “that it would all come right in the end.” Sometimes, we need to be told that the way we are feeling is not ok, it's not normal and that there are people out there that can help us.

That's all I have to say on the matter. Thank you for listening.)