N: The discussion regarding racism in this chapter is not meant as a comment on modern society or anything that's going on in the world. This chapter is another long planned chapter and is not the result of any real world events other than it being necessary to the continuation of the story Also, what I didn't plan was that this story arc regarding the cult would turn out to be the arc that talks about mental illness. But it is and we go into it a bit more here.)

So we're getting towards the end of my little series on the different parts of being a Witcher that I've been prefacing these articles with, although we haven't quite got to the end of it.

Yet.

So far we've talked about many of the tools of being a Witcher. We've talked about swords, crossbows, magic, alchemy and the many and varied things that these terms can contain. I skipped over bombs and traps because I rather thought that they would be covered in the section talking about Alchemy and there was a running theme at the time that, the things that I was talking about, all fell in the category of “Yeah but the other tools that a Witcher carries with them are just as useful towards doing the tasks required” and I was beginning to feel as though I was talking mysElf round in circles.

Last time we talked about mutations which is a more nebulous term so now we're going to go a little deeper. Today I want to talk about a Witcher's training.

First a short disclaimer. I have the most experience with the Witcher training of the Cat school of the Witchers. Kerrass' methods have been much tempered by his interactions with the Wolf school of Witchers but his thinking and certainly his fighting styles are based on the Cat school of Witchers. I have also spent two, or was it three, memorable days in the company of Letho of Gulet who showed me what it was like to be trained as a Witcher which will have been adjusted by the Viper school. I have no idea what form the training of the Bear school was, or the Gryphon or the Manticore school.

All Witchers have the same framework applied to them. They are taught to fight with one sword at a time in flexible armour. They are taught some small magical tricks that are quick and relatively easy to cast in a combat situation and their fighting style emphasises dodging and movement over blocking and parrying. They are certainly taught not to depend on their armour to save their lives.

As well as this they are given advanced tutoring on the subjects of various monsters. Kerrass himsElf has a depth and breadth of knowledge that would easily qualify him as a Professor of Monster studies and indeed, knows more on the subject than many of the men who claim that same title with the added bonus that he can prove all of the things that he knows through practical experience. This rather than the theoretical arm-chair variety that most professors of the subject have access to.

I sometimes feel that this is an under-represented part of Witcher training. The years that are spent poring over old books written long ago by people long dead. The dissections of monster corpses. The studying and the field trips to go and see monsters in the wild under the guidance of experienced Witchers. I think that this is often overlooked in the discussion of Witchers.

People look at the man, in the dark leather armour with the sword on his back and the scars on his face and they see a ruffian, a scoundrel, a killer and a thief and although Kerrass would be the first person to admit that Witchers can be, and have been, all of these things in various different definitions of the term. That also hides the fact that Witchers are extremely highly educated. Not just in Monster Lore, but also in languages so that they can talk about the monsters that are plaguing the local area, no matter whether they're in the North, South or with Elves, Dwarves, Halflings or even those few Werebubbs that are still around if you know where to look in the non-human districts.

They learn Philosophy and Psychology as well. Does that surprise you? They need to be able to get into the minds of the people that they talk to in order to better help the people around them. They need to be able to differentiate between lies and truths, they need to be able to deal with people, to be able to tell when a person is lying to them and when that person is hiding an important truth.

They learn history. When they come across a ruined manor then they need to know whether it will have been occupied by a Redanian family, a Temerian family or does this even predate the landing of the exiles? Was it built on a site of religious significance? was it built on top of Elven ruins? All of these questions might be important and give insight into the thing that the Witcher is hunting. Meaning that the importance of this knowledge is impossible to understate. They have to know these things. They have to be able to answer these questions because to them, it might be the difference between life and death.

They are taught to exist outside of society, to be the outsider looking in. Not all of it is due to the fact that they are mutants and as a result their status of “outsider” is a thing that they cannot avoid but it's something that is taught to them from a young age. Almost from the moment that they are picked up and taken to the schools. That the only people that they can rely on are other Witchers, and only then if they come from the same school, although that has been reduced over the last few decades as other Witchers on the path are no longer in a position to be quite so choosy when it comes to their friends on the road.

This is the basic framework. The Foundation, if you like, of the way that the Witcher's are trained. After that, the different schools added different things and adjusted their teachings in different ways. The reason for this is lost to time unfortunately. It might be that the locations of the Witcher keeps were chosen tactically to deal with the different factors that were around at the time. Such as monster migration patterns as well as human population centres that needed to be taken into account. There's no way of knowing but this might be the reason why different Witcher schools were taught with different techniques to everyone else.

The differences are slight though. They might sound like an awful lot but it bears remembering that all Witchers had the same Cat's eyes. All Witchers carried two swords, had their swords on their backs, had a row of the same kinds of potions on their belts and were utterly, utterly neutral in the matter of politics.

From where I sit, I can hear all the people who are aware of current international politics, snorting audibly at the ridiculousness of that last statement. And I get it. No single group of people has had a larger impact on the current state of the world than the Witchers. The only group that might challenge that statement would be the mages with the Thanedd coup before the second Nilfgaardian war and the betrayal of the Lodge of Sorceresses that led to the third.

You can take both of those events any way you want and I'm not going to go into too much detail here.

But consider this. The most important and powerful person in the world, the Empress of Nilfgaard, was brought up by Witchers. She refers to the remaining Wolven Witchers as “Uncles” other than the one that she calls “Dad”. That one, the White Wolf of legend was present at the aforementioned Thanedd coup and the summit at Loc Muinne where the Betrayal of the Sorceresses was brought to light.

Geralt of Rivia was also present at several decisive battles during the second war, was there at the destruction of Stygga castle, died during the Pogrom of the non-humans in Rivia, came back in time to get involved in the attempted Coup of the Flaming Rose and save the Life of King Foltest before also being present when Foltest was finally assassinated. He is credited as the man who saved the life of the Empress and brought her back into public life. Rumour has it that he was involved in the death of King Radovid, an instrumental event leading to the end of the third war and also managed to make it south in time to prevent the attacks of the Beast of Toussaint. Events which led to the unearthing of the Duchess' long lost and disinherited sister.

And Geralt is far from alone. Never forget that the Kingslayer, the man who assassinated Kings Foltest and Demavend while also implicating the Lodge of Sorceresses in Treason was also a Witcher. I would also be remiss in pointing out that my own friend and companion, Kerrass of Maecht has often been far from entirely neutral in dealings that I have witnessed. For instance, he is heavily involved with the Kingdom of Dorn, The Cuchy of Angraal and up until he left to come and help me with my search for Francesca, he was acting as personal champion and bodyguard to that same. That's leaving aside the obvious times when he jumps to my defence and his association with my family.

Far from neutral.

This is not a recent phenomenon either. Witcher Gerd of the Bear school is known to have taken one side over the other in a civil war before fleeing from the victor to join forces with a Skelligan Jarl whom he worked for for some time. Slaying monsters, raiding and hunting together.

Those people, including me although I shouldn't be viewed as an unbiased source, would claim that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. How many other Witchers were there? or are there still? Versus how many of them that have had significant impact on the world stage.

But another aspect of their training which I sometimes feel is overlooked is the not inconsiderable training that they have on the subjects of philosophy and religion. Kerrass knows considerably more than I do about many of the other religious sects that populate the world. The only area where he would bow to me is in the case of my knowledge with the church of the Holy Fire. But in every other case, he can see a totem, or a shrine and he will be able to tell me how the thing is worshipped, what kind of offerings you are supposed to leave there and so on. But also the philosophical knowledge, not to argue or to teach despite the fact that these are the natural product of such educations, but so that they are well aware of the possible outcomes should they “get involved”. In short, they are trained in what would be the entire point of neutrality in the first place.

I suspect that there is another reason behind this particular branch of the Witcher's curriculum as well which I will go into later.

I feel as though I've gotten off topic again.

There are small differences between each of the schools. The most obvious one is the bear school. The Bears, according to Kerrass, taught their students to fight in heavier armour than their fellows. They pushed their bodies to the extreme lengths of physical conditioning which was helped by their particular forms of mutations. They are, or were, much taller and more heavily muscled than the average Witcher, capable of delivering blows of incredible strength with pinpoint accuracy. I have only met one Bear Witcher and he was challenged by a courtier. The courtier claimed that with a sword the size of the Bear's weapon, it must be huge and ungainly to wield. That a smaller sword, like the courtier's own rapier, would be more manoeuvrable and therefore more suitable.

This was back in Toussaint when I was still enjoying the festivities. Kerrass pointed me in the direction of this particular piece of entertainment.

The Bear Witcher, Uhtred was his name, responded with a proposition towards a Wager. He suggested a challenge to the courtier. Uhtred would set out four items to be thrown into the air before each swordsman. The person who could cut, or destroy the most items would be declared the winner. The courtier agreed and the party was quickly awash with bets as people wagered astonishing sums on the outcome of the contest.

Uhtred wandered off towards the buffet table and selected two apples and two chicken legs. Then he whispered in the ear of a waiting servant who ran off towards the kitchen.

“Very well,” said Uhtred. “Are you ready?”

The courtier had changed into an arming jacket loaned to him by a friend. He drew his sword and nodded. A knight errant was chosen to adjudicate the match and to throw the items. As I recall, he swore on the heron that he would be unbiased.

Heh, the things that you remember.

First was the apple. The rapier flickered and his apple split into two halves. Uhtred's blade flashed and his own appled split down the middle although I may say that the cut was less clean.

Then came the chicken legs. Again, the rapier flickered and the chicken leg was cut in two. I remember being impressed that the rapier had cut through the chicken bone rather than glancing off. To my utter lack of surprise, Uhtred's sword mauled the chicken, also cutting clean through the bone.

Then the third item. The servant handed two small logs of firewood to the waiting knight errant. The courtier frowned and I fancy that he paled a little. But gamely he stood up. I noticed that the blow wasn't as quick this time. He was sweating a little as when he swung he wanted to hit the wood so that the impact would be along the grain to help with splitting the wood. He struck and the sword went in before being caught in the wood. The weight of the wood pulled the rapier out of the man's hand.

The Knight errant declared that this was worth half a point.

Uhtred cut the log clean in two with an almost casual strike. The log had been cut across the grain.

The final object turned out to be a piece of rock. I don't know what it was but I suspect it was some kind of light, porous stuff. The courtier took one look at it and declined to strike, no doubt fearing the loss of his sword or to his reputation if he looked quite that silly.

Uhtred nodded at the Knight Errant who threw the rock. It was only a pebble really, about the size of your fist. Uhtred swung. The rock shattered.

To me, that story sums up the Bear Witchers best. Moreso than the story that Kerrass tells about the Witcher and the training dummy.

Bear Witchers are also the only other Witcher school that are taught the use of the crossbow. Other Witchers have taken up the practice in recent years, or so I'm told, but it was only the Cat and the Bear schools that taught the art from the first days of their training.

The Wolven school focused on their swordplay and I don't know many swordsmen, including Kerrass, that would argue with the claim that the remaining Wolven Witchers are among the foremost swordsmen on the continent. They are still skilled in other areas but their training was focused on the blades.

Apparently, The Griffins focused on the magic although I have never met a Griffin Witcher and as a result I can't really comment. The Vipers focused on their alchemy and crafting with the rest of their training being focused according to the personal and bodily configuration of the Witcher being trained. They also focused on the use of weapons in the off hand. They still have the two swords but they also carried the two shorter daggers that they use in enclosed spaces. I have known two Viper Witchers now. The one, Letho, fought like a bull. He would line up his attack before moving forward in an inexorable and unstoppable charge. The other, whose name I never learned, had a similar charge but he fought much lower to the ground, almost crouching. He seemed to be all about the patterns of movement. I wondered at the time if those patterns could be learned and therefore countered. Kerrass laughed at the suggestion.

The Cat school is all about movement. Quick, lightening strikes and acrobatic movements designed to overwhelm their opponents coming in at all angles.

But despite all of this. Unless you knew what to look for, The two daggers on the belt of the Viper, the larger build of the Bear, the shape of the medallion if you can see it, there is no way of telling a Witcher from one school apart from another.

So that's it, the training of a Witcher. Aimed to prepare a Witcher for anything that they might come across while they are on the path. They are not always successful in this. This small essay doesn't talk about the students that they kill or that don't make it through the entirety of the process. Nor does it talk about the dehumanising effect that it can have on the students in question. For that I would refer you to those chapters and articles that I discussed my time spent in Kaer Morhen with Letho of Gulet. I think he said those things far more eloquently than I ever could.

So then we come to my question. The question that drives this entire series of essays. Is the training indispensable to the Witcher. Can you be a Witcher without it?

For the answer, I would have said No. I didn't think you could be a Witcher without the training aspect. Because otherwise how would you know how to kill the monsters that you come across. How would you know which oils to smear your blade with in order to destroy the small nest of nekkers? How would you know how to make a spirit turn corporeal so that you can hit it in the face? These are the questions that only a Witcher's training can answer.

But Kerrass, of all peopl,e disagreed.

His argument was that if you separate the term Witcher into “Witcher the race” and “Witcher the profession,” then, theoretically you can be either of those things without having had the formal training of the Witcher schools. Kerrass regards the most important part of his training as being the knowledge that was imparted to him and has expressed gratitude for it many times, but at the same time, he argues that you can be mutated into a Witcher without any of that knowledge being given to you. Without being trained in Alchemy or signs or the use of a sword and you would still be mutated enough for other people, including the other Witchers, to call you a Witcher.

As for the “profession” part of being a Witcher? The definition of the term “Witcher” to the common folk is “someone who makes their living from the slaying of monsters”. The fact that they use this term exclusively to describe mutated Witchers is actually unimportant.

He argues that if you see a monster, realise that that monster needs to be killed, and then follow through on that need to actually destroy the monster, then you are a Witcher. Getting paid for that act is a bonus. That is the beginning and end of a Witcher's task. It is what they are about. What they have to do and what they were created for.

He admits that some of this attitude might be due to his training as a cat Witcher rather than anything else but he regularly sees monsters in human shapes as well as the more magical creatures that people call monster in the countryside.

So he has decided that you can be a Witcher without being trained as a Witcher and if he, a Witcher, can decide that, then who am I to argue?

-

As it turned out. It was the presence of a Witcher that saved my life.

I don't know for sure, I was pretty tired and may have been mildly hallucinating in fear, hunger and exhaustion. But I'm pretty sure that I saw that Elf woman decide that it was time for me to die. There was just a tightening of her fingers, a slight groan from the bow that she was holding and the point of the arrow seemed to glitter in the light.

“Fuck it,” I thought. I had time to think those words. I was going to die on my arse. People say that your life flashes before your eyes, but that I can't answer for. As I looked down the shaft of the arrow that I felt sure was about to kill me, all I could think about was the fact that I was sitting on my arse.

I closed my eyes, feeling that I didn't really want to watch the arrow fly from the bow and hear the whispering sound of the bowstring leaving the woman's fingers.

But then there was another voice and I risked opening one eye. This was actually surprisingly difficult as my eyes wanted to stay closed, they were that tired. In the heat of the moment, sitting before the Elf that clearly hated me, I had forgotten just how tired I was. There was another Elf stood there. Long, flowing black hair, held back from his face with a leather band. He wore a green woollen tunic, leather trousers and surprisingly rich looking leather boots. They were well worn but I could tell that they were much loved. It gave him an air of command and relative wealth over the much more ragged woman beside him. He also carried a bow with one arrow nocked to the bow and another handful of arrows carried in his hand by the nocking points. He had a sword on one side, the long, curved sweeping swords that Elves seem to prefer with the elongated handles. He also had a thick, black furred shoulder guard and a leather hood.

“Va'fail Vatt'ghern,” he said to Kerrass who was equally as exhausted as I was. Maybe even more so. Kerrass made some kind of flicking gesture towards me and lay backwards. For all I know he was asleep before he hit the ground.

“Va'fail Aen Seidhe.” I told him and was absurdly pleased when his eyebrows raised in surprise. The woman's mouth twisted into a sneer.

“You speak the Elven tongue?” The male Elf said in that language.

“I do,” I responded in the same. “Enough to know that you call it the Elder tongue and that it is exceedingly rude to welcome one person and not the other even if you're going to kill them. It would have been more courteous if you had simply not welcomed either of us and shot us on sight.”

He astonished me then by laughing. He had the same easy grace of all of his kind along with the beautiful features and easy charm. Like the woman though, he was thin underneath his clothing which hung loosely off his frame.

“Bluntly spoken,” he said in the Northern common tongue. “For one who criticises the lack of courtesy in another.”

“My fatigue steals my manners from me.”

He nodded and turned and told the woman to “fetch the others.”

“I would like to know more about what is happening here, including questions about why the countryside is boiling with hunters.” He told me, “and I think it better if we discuss such things in hiding.”

“Is it far?” I asked. “I ask because at the moment, this floor seems awfully comfortable to me.”

He laughed again. He seemed to do it easily and frequently. “Not far. We can help your companion and obscure your tracks a little way. A couple of my people will lead a false trail into a nearby stream. That should obscure you from your followers, for a while at least.”

“Grateful to you.”

I didn't feel like speaking for a while after that as I sunk into a fug. That state of mind and body where you just sit, staring ahead and into space for an indeterminate amount of time before someone, or something shakes you out of it. In this case it was the Elven woman who offered me a hand to help me to my feet before prominently and pointedly wiping her hand on her tunic and spitting at my feet.

“Human filth,” she spat.

“Elven lady,” I told her with a bow.

She hissed like a cat and went off to join a couple of others who were clearing the back trail.

The male Elf was laughing again.

“I do believe that that woman hates me.” I told him.

“She does.” He told me.

“Is there a reason for it, beyond my just being a human?”

“Oh yes. She was taken from her mother and used as a mistress for some Lord's pleasure. By human standards her jail cell wasn't uncomfortable, she wasn't particularly mistreated and had servants and luxuries but she saw it as the slavery that it was and cut her master's throat before fleeing to join the Scoia'tael. Unfortunately, Nilfgaard had won by that point and “the cause” is faltering due to the humans being forced to treat Elves more favourably by Nilfgaardian law. It's very hard to be angry when you can walk up to a Nilfgaardian official who will then try your case fairly.”

“But she is still angry.”

“Wouldn't you be?”

I shrugged at the question. I was too tired at the time for such questions but the truth is that I would still have been angry. Of course I would.

“But anyway, she assumes that all male humans want to fuck her and hates them all for it. She is, as I understand it, extremely beautiful to human eyes.” He paused. “Do you want to fuck her?”

He was looking at me oddly. I had the sense that I was being tested in some way s I considered my next words carefully.

“Nah,” I said after a while. “Needs more pie.”

The Elf laughed aloud and seemed startled by it as though it was the first time that he had laughed genuinely in some time. I had made the joke before or something like it when Ariadne had been particularly skinny but it seemed to be relevant here as well.

“Don't get me wrong.” I said. “She is a very a beautiful woman but I am lucky enough to be engaged to marry a woman that I love and now I find that I have relatively little physical desire for someone else.”

“But it is also true that you prefer women with a little more meat on their bones?” he suggested. There was a distinct glint of humour in his eye and I decided that I liked this Elf.

“That is also true, as well as the fact that I prefer my women to want me.” I considered the next part carefully. Weighing up whether or not the Elf would appreciate the joke. “Or at least, want my money enough to pretend.”

He laughed.

“My name is Chireadean.” He told me offering his hand.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Frederick von Coulthard.” I told him, taking his hand.

He raised his eyebrows at the name as though he recognised it. “There is a lot to this story it would seem.” he told me.

We moved off soon after that. There were maybe half a dozen Elves all told including Chireadean and the Elven woman. Another three men and another woman, and I knew that there were a couple of other people who were guarding the back trail. They fashioned a stretcher using Chireadean's cloak and a pair of unstrung bows that Kerrass was made to lie down in. He seemed to sleep but I think that it might have been closer to passing out. He whimpered and moaned as they moved him.

The Elves moved fast and the world soon dissolved into an agony of aching limbs, nausea and my headache getting worse and worse. The edges of my vision started to blur and go grey and I expect that I was getting into pretty bad shape. I have no idea how long it was before we stopped but Chireadean steered me towards a blanket and a pile of leaves where I collapsed and just lost consciousness.

Like Kerrass, sleep was the wrong word for it.

I woke up, it was dark and I must have stirred. I felt a hand across my mouth. A male voice hissing at me to be quiet in Elven. I noticed that I was once again called Human filth but then my ears were straining to listen. I could hear nothing other than the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears and the sounds of my own breathing. The rest of the night was still and calm.

Much to my later astonishment, I fell asleep again.

Only to be woken up by my own stomach rumbling as Chireadean waved a slice of bread under my nose that had been drenched in honey.

“Humans.” He said in Elven with a slight smile. “You will literally sleep through the end of the world if we let you.”

“Not gonna lie,” I told him, groaning at my stiffening muscles. “That actually sounds quite pleasant right now.”

“Eat,” the Elf told me. “You need it.”

It was two slices of bread. Objectively they were quite small but it looked like a feast to me and I had to force myself to eat it slowly.

“Where did you get this?” I said looking around. “I can't see any ovens around here.”

“We were in a thick cluster of trees. I could only really see sunlight above the trees so I assumed that we were in some kind of Forest. Calling it a camp would be ambitious but at the same time I could see, maybe a couple of dozen Elves wandering around. A couple were poking at tiny, smokeless camp-fires. A few more were working, making arrows by tying feathers to the shafts of wood. A few more were asleep.

“No,” The Elf sat next to me and handed me a cup of something hot. It smelled herbal. “We occasionally get given supplies by the local villages. Sometimes it's a bribe to get us to move on. Other times it's a genuine act of sympathy and charity.” He smiled often I noticed. Often and easily. “I'll let you guess which one pisses the others off the most.”

I grinned. “My guess would be that the most annoying one is whichever one of the two that happened most recently.”

“Not far off.” Chireadean agreed.

“So you must be the group of Elves that I've heard about so much?” I asked him, forgetting my manners and talking through a mouthful of bread and honey.

“Yes,” The ever-present smile turned wistful. “That group. Are you disappointed?”

“Nope. To be disappointed you have to have expectations. Back when we were investigating what's going on in these parts, we wanted to talk to you. But for the last few days, all I've been thinking about is surviving if I'm honest. More recently, the question has been about putting one foot in front of the other,”

“It's good to have goals in life.”

“Survival is a simple goal at least.” I looked over at him. As I say, I was finding that I liked him. His attitude was easy going and relaxed and his Elven was informal. “Look, I have to ask. Are you my friend or what?”

He scratched his chin. “I will admit that it's a little early to say.”

“Do you lead round here?”

“Powers no.” His laughter seemed genuine. “There isn't really a formal leader. This isn't a Scoia'Tael Commando with a military format. It's a lot less formal than that. But can I ask you a series of questions before I get too deep into answering your questions?”

I felt a smile creeping across my face.

“You've been sent to talk to me because you hate me the least haven't you?”

“Close.” He said with a smile. “I've found over the years that Hating someone takes up so much energy and I would rather devote my energy to more useful things.”

“Like survival?” I suggested with a smile.

He just grinned for an answer.

He waited courteously for me to finish my meal. I was somewhat dismayed to find that the two small pieces of bread and honey had filled me up to the point that I was concerned that I may burst.

“So,” he began. “What is Professor Frederick von Coulthard of the Oxenfurt academy doing out here being chased by a significant group of cunts?”

“You know my name?”

“Of course I know your name. Which means that I also know who that Witcher of yours is. He's fine by the way.”

“I had been meaning to ask.”

“But you haven't answered my question.”

Something about the way he said that made me look at him sharply. He had a jovial face and manner, easy to smile, easy to laugh but somewhere in the depths of his eyes I could see a flinty hardness that glittered in the shimmering sunlight.

“Exactly how many archers are there in the trees pointing arrows at me right now?” I asked him.

“None,” he said. The absence of a smile was eloquent. “But your spear and dagger are over there which is considerably further from you than my dagger is from me.” He gave me a moment to let the words sink in. “I know what I look like, I know what I sound like and I will admit to not liking violence. But I am a veteran of three wars as well as continued anti-human bias and I will kill you without mercy if I think you are a threat to these people.”

I nodded and took a long drink from the cup. It was refreshing. Neither tea or coffee or any of the various varieties of either that you can find on the road. I guessed that it was some kind of Elven variety.

“Well, that's my name. If you know who I am then you know of the circumstances surrounding my Father's death and the murder of my elder brother?”

“I do. I read about the episode with interest.”

“Then you will also know that one of the conspirators was the son of the nearby Count Kalayn and my cousin?”

He nodded.

“As it turns out, because of legal shenanigans, the nearest heir for Kalayn lands after Count Kalayn killed himself, was my brother Sam.”

The Elf's eye glittered.

“But there was some, justifiable, concern that Castle Kalayn might be haunted and so Sam asked Kerrass and I to help him in that matter. I also hoped to find some more remnants of the cult that Cousin Kalayn had belonged to in case they had anything to do with the disappearance of my sister, which I also assume you know about.”

He nodded again.

I began fairly easily, skipping over the details about what we had done since leaving Toussaint. I began by telling him about the hunting for details of the cult. Of the efforts to purge Castle Kalayn of spirits and the identification of the Hounds of “Kreve”. I spoke about the villager religion of “Crom Cruarch” which was the only time that he smiled, rather sadly I thought, before I described our battle against the Hounds followed by our defence of the villages in Kalayn lands.

He was mostly motionless during the entirety of the narrative but I got the impression that he was being particularly attentive during the description of that fight. I don't know, I was still tired, edgy and exhausted so my brain was far from operating at peak efficiency but I thought that it was something about his eyes. They seemed to sharpen in some way. Then I talked about the journey north and our talking to the various Lords of the area before meeting with Lord Cavill and what happened afterwards.

He seemed to have made his mind up by the time that I had finished.

“Fascinating,” he said and he started as I laughed.

“Are you teasing me?” I asked him.

“What?”

“My fiancée says the same thing after I've told her a lot of things.”

“I would like to think that my reaction is a statement of how I feel following your....I truly hate using grand words when something simple would do but I feel that, in this case, the word “remarkable” is most fitting.”

“So,” I began after a moment where his eyes seemed almost lidded as he considered the story. “Am I going to make a dash for my spear, you go for your dagger and we try to kill each other like civilised people?”

His eyes snapped open.

“No,” He said, “No I don't think so. I think that you need a bit of help. After that though?” He shrugged.

“Who are you people?” I asked. “When I was first told that there was a group of Elves in the countryside I have imagined everyone and everything from a paramilitary group of Scoia'Tael commandos to a croup of runaway servants.”

Chireadean mused at the question for a moment.

“You know how offensive that question is don't you?” He asked after a long moment.

“No,” I admitted after a moment.

He smiled a little sadly. He truly had a repertoire of smiles that could be as expressive and eloquent as a dozen words.

“That all Elves fall into those two categories? Either human hating commandos or human hating runaway servants and slaves. I notice that you're leaving out the acclimatized Elves that try to join human society and contribute in our own small way.”

“True, but in my defence I would argue that those acclimatised Elves would not be hiding out in the woods. I apologise for any offence that I may have given though. That was not my intention.”

“I know,” he said. “But men like you. Good men who work hard to improve themselves, as I know that you do still make the little mistakes. You think that we are all the stereotypes when the truth is that we are people, same as you and that if we are Elves then we must be one thing without room for being more than one thing.

“For instance. I was a city Elf. I tried to make the peace with humans by helping my cousin run an inn over in Rinde until Good King Radovid stirred up the anti-human sentiment and men came to burn our inn down. Couldn't stand that we had some prime real estate next to the city gates. The first place that travellers would come to for a pint and a bed as they came through the door. My cousin sunk a fortune into that place. Not only the initial investment but also the insurance settlement when a Sorceress and a Witcher destroyed the first building that we had.”

He was staring at his feet.

“We had friends on the council, we had friends in the townsfolk. I was even courting a woman for her hand in marriage, being one of those few Elven men lucky enough to find human women attractive. And I was considered a catch at the time as well. But not one of our friends came to help us when the mob came. Not my fiancée's father, nor our friends on the council or our friends in the church. They sat by and watched as the strung my cousin up from the rafters and stretched his neck. They turned their backs when I fled with the clothes that I had on my back.”

There was an old and well worn quality to his anger. As though it had been worn out and gone over until the sharp edge had been blunted, until there was only a rough feeling there now. Just a well worn groove in his emotions that his brain couldn't help but go down.

“I joined the Scoia'Tael after that. Because where else do I go? To another town where I start the entire process again? Only to be knocked down when some human decides that I am making too much money. Getting too successful for their comfort and wants to make sure that “I know my proper place.” I fought with the commandos during the second war and long after until all that business with the Flaming Rose down in Temeria. I fought hard but I was never one of them. They saw me as tainted you see? I spent time working with humans. I had human friends and a human lover. I had a human job and a human social life. I had contributed to the human economy and added to human society. I was not an Elf to them. I was....something else. All of it wrong.”

The sadness was in the smile again.

“And that is the root of the problem here. We have two hardcore Elven commandos with us here. Proper, hardcore, refusing to speak anything other than ancient Elven. They would kill you if you spoke it or even tried to learn it.”

“Good to know,” I commented. “I had to learn ancient Elven so that I could study some of the older texts.”

“Yes,” another slight smile. “I imagine that you would.” He sighed and rubbed at a spot on the side of his head. “They were born in the valley of the flowers and left to fight against the human filth during the second continental war.”

For the first time, he gave an expression of revulsion. It too was a kind of smile crossed with a frown and a shudder.

“You may be aware that Queen Francesca of Dol Blathanna was forced to condemn the actions of the Scoia'Tael as part of the peace process and the second treaty of Cintra.”

“I had heard.”

“So there own nation sold them out at the insistence of their only allies against their enemies. They can't hate Dol Blathanna but they are unspeakably angry at them and at the Queen.”

“To be honest? I can kind of see why.”

“Yes, especially as they were ordered to support the Nilfgaardian advance at the time in order for Dol Blathanna to be names a separate entity. At the time, that seemed impossible after the second peace. Both Henselt and Demavend eyed that valley greedily.”

“Further Irony now that that land has been declared a Duchy of Nilfgaard with all the military support that they might want. It paid out in the long run.”

“Yes, but all that those two Elves can see is that they were sold out, by their Queen, for political expediency and they rage at the entire situation. So they can't go home. But where do they go?”

He shrugged.

“So they stay with us. But they hate us too as the rest of us are mostly runaway servants, slaves or concubines from the north.”

“Slavery is illegal in the North.” I commented. I knew that it was pointless to say it just as I knew what his answer was going to be.

“Yes, I know.” He commented with a sly smile. “Funny that, isn't it. I looked into it once. The statutes actually say about how the term “slave” is defined as a man who works for no wages and has no choice in the matter being considered the “property” of their owner rather than a worker for their employer. Those people that want to, have been side-stepping the law with that clause for years.”

I nodded, “Only some people though.”

“But those people do fuck all to help. It only takes some people and with respect, neither your father, nor yourself, your sister or your lover have gone out of their way to employ Elves or to free them from their servitude. You say things like “You hire the best people for the job” and local to you, that is always a human.”

“It is also because the employment of an Elf would leave us vulnerable to enemies who would use that as an excuse to destroy us.”

“Poor little Rich boy,” he sneered, “making excuses about not doing the right thing.” For a moment, a spasm of what I took to be rage crossed his face before his face went blank and he sighed before standing up. “You will have to excuse me Lord Frederick. I am furious with you at the moment. It will pass and then I will return to continue our conversation.”

He gave me a little half bow before walking off. I heard him joke about something with another Elf as they passed each other.

I dozed for a little while, sitting with my back to a tree trunk, head resting backwards. There's no sleep aid quite like the sleep aid of being utterly exhausted and then being fed after you are hungry. Yes, even if you have just had some of your own hypocrisy thrown into your face.

I was woken by the simple virtue of being kicked in the leg. “Here,” Chireadean stood over me with another cup. “Drink up. I spat in it as a way to cement our new found friendship.”

I sat up and accepted the drink.

“Look.” I began. “I just wanted to say that you're right. But....”

He waved the explanations off though. “Don't worry about it.” He said. He was smiling again. “I am self-aware enough to know that you are not in charge of your household and that you were taught to look after the people that you could look after over and above those people for whom it's a lost cause. You were taught this from a very young age. I don't hate you, I even quite like you. But it sometimes hurts to hear someone say it, or to be confronted with it you know?”

“I don't.” I told him. “I really don't. And I suppose that that's part of the problem.”

“That it is.”

I drank some of my drink.

“What is this stuff?” I asked him.

“It's herbal.”

“I know that but what is it.”

“It's a mixture that one of the others knows. We don't have much in the way of supplies but one of the few things that we do have are herbs. Lots of them. They grow in abundance in this corner of the world. If your brother really wants to make some money off the land around here, he doesn't want to mine or farm or any of that kind of nonsense. He wants to hire a bunch of herbalists and a bunch more alchemists and work the land looking for new ingredients for potions. If he goes about it carefully, he could be a major distributor for medicines and other potions.”

“I'll tell him if I ever see him again. What does it do?”

“It repairs a body that's suffering from malnutrition. It doesn't do everything, it doesn't give you protein or carbohydrates or any of that kind of thing.”

“Huh?”

“Meat and potatoes to ignorant savages like you.” He said it with a smile although, to be fair, there weren't many things that he didn't say with a smile.

I decided not to pursue this and to drink my medicine like a good little boy.

“We were talking about the make-up of your people.” I told him.

“That's true, we were, although I can't for the life of me think why,”

“I had commented that I had heard there was a group of Elves in the area and I was wondering who you were.” I told him.

He snapped his fingers. “That's right, of course you were. You were being an arse as I recall.”

“Maybe, but to be fair, are there many things that I can say about Elves which wouldn't make me seem like an arse?”

“Not many I suppose. You also wanted to know if I'm the leader here. I was in the process of explaining to you, in a long, convoluted and roundabout way that I am not. The quality that I have over everyone else here is that I possibly hate you the least.”

I laughed, assuming that he was making a joke but this was one of the first times that he seemed to be being deadly serious.

“I understand humans better it is true. I know more of your human languages....”

“Again, I am aware that this is probably a mistake but I thought all the northern Kingdoms speak the same language.”

“Really? Do the Skelligans speak the same language as the Temerians then? Also, I point out that Dol Blathanna is now part of the Northern Kingdoms and the Nilfgaardians that now live here all speak the elder tongue.”

“I'm a historian,” I told him. “Not a linguist.”

“True, so I suppose that I'll forgive you that mistake. I also suppose that instead of saying that I know more human language than the next Elf I should say that I know more slang, idiom and dialects than some of my fellows. I used to help run an inn after all.”

“You see how easy it is if we all just use the right words?”

He gave me a sidelong look as if he was trying to figure out if I was joking. Fortunately, I was.

“Yes, now define “The right words” for me and we'll all be good.”

““A touch,” as my old fencing master would say.”

Chireadean smiled. The sadness had crept back into it again. “As did mine.” He seemed to turn reflective for a moment. If he was entirely human I would have thought that he was lost in old memories.

“So what are you then?” I prompted. “You are neither a group of run-aways, not refugees, not a commando. Who are you?”

“We are Elves.” He told me. “That might seem like a simplistic answer to you and you would be right. We are Elves. It's almost as if you told a painter to make a picture of a couple of dozen people that represented the entire Elven race. That is what we are and that is what we look like. We are refugees and runaways and commandos and travellers and poets.”

“So why here?” I asked. “Look. I will admit that I know next to nothing about Elven culture other than the stuff that I needed to learn to learn the language and a rough impression of what had happened in history.”

I saw his mouth quirk up and his mouth open.

“You can school me later Chireadean and I will be glad to listen but, much though I've enjoyed our conversation and getting my ass handed to me on a verbal battleground rather than the physical one. I have enemies snapping at my heels. I can't just escape from them....”

“But you need to do that too.”

“I do. I need to get away really badly. But I can't just do that. I need to destroy these bastards.”

His smile, just a slight upturning of his lips, was becoming maddening. “Why?”

“Are you trying to decide whether to help me?” I asked suddenly as the query crossed my mind.

“Yes.” He said simply.

So I thought about my answer for a moment.

“If there's one thing that I have learned while on my travels it's that the world is not what I thought it was.” I told him. “It's bigger and smaller, darker and more horrible, while at the same time having moments of light and beauty that I couldn't have imagined before I set out. I've learned how utterly wrong I have been and,” I gestured at him, “how wrong I continue to be. I've learned that the term “Monster” is just a word and can be applied to humanity as often as it can be applied to other races. Sometimes more so even. I have learned that I am in fact very small compared to the world and that, although I might make a small difference in a few lives, in a few centuries, no-one will even remember my name.”

Chireadean said nothing.

“But if there's one other thing that I have learned while on my travels with Kerrass it is that evil doesn't exist. Not real evil. I always knew the words in order to parrot them at my Philosophy professor, that Evil is in the eye of the beholder but until I actually got out here, I didn't know that to be true. It was just words to me. Out here, I learned that bandits are often starving desperate men who do this because going home to the farm is a fate worse than they can imagine. I learned that what society deems as “monsters” are often creatures that society hasn't taken the time to try and learn to understand. I learned that, at the root of the vast majority of crime you will normally find money and jealousy. And for the rest of the crime, the big stuff like wars, the root is politics and economics.”

I stopped there for a while.

“The very worst things that I've seen and the very best thing's I've seen were done in the name of religion, my religion at that. You don't know me, even if you've read my journals and my book, you don't know how much it took out of me to admit that. My faith has been a great solace to me in the past but I look at what the church has become and I no longer.....” I shook my head. The words escaping me for a moment. They weren't important to what I was trying to say anyway.

“When I was young, like many in my social class, I had a nanny. I had no choice in the matter so please don't hold it against me.”

“I don't.”

“But she used to tell me story's when I was little. Mostly to distract me, I suspect, and those stories were always about heroes doing the right thing, saving the peasants,” I felt my lips curl into a sneer, “saving the Princess and upholding truth and justice. As if both truth and justice were not subjective but that's a digression for another day. The enemy in these stories was always some kind if “evil” thing. A “monster” or a “Mage” which says a lot about my nanny's politics I suppose, but they were always Evil with the appropriate capital letters.

“I was taught that those that might work against Truth and Justice and threaten the lives of my subjects were evil, baby-eating monsters and that good and noble men should hunt them down and destroy them.”

I frowned as I realised that my throat was dry.

“Now I realise that evil, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It was one of the first things that I learned on the road, one of the very first things. I still don't believe in evil.”

“But.” Chireadean prompted. “I know human speech patterns well enough to know that there's a “but” coming.”

There was a brief pause as I considered the challenge that he was making. For some reason though I felt an edge of hilarity scrabbling at my throat

“hehe, you said butt.” I giggled like a child suddenly. I suppose it was a form of exhaustion fuelled hysteria that caused the childish outburst

“Do not be childish,” he scolded but I saw that he was laughing as well.

“You're right though.” I told him after we calmed down. “The closest that I've ever been to seeing true evil was when I looked into the eyes of Lord Cavill and saw the things that he has done and continues to do to the people in this part of the world. My cousin was a sick, entitled fucker, there was something wrong with him. My brother was weak and fell in with the wrong crowd. This bastard though? He has chosen this. He likes this. And now I need to kill him for it.”

Chireadean nodded. “Other people could do it instead.” He suggested.

“Yes, I admitted. Yes they could, and when it comes down to it, the chances that it will be my spear or dagger that takes his life are remote. It would be much better if he could be tried, openly and prominently, followed by a nice, public execution. But the only way that that happens is if I can get through and let the right people know.”

Saying it again reminded me of how....impossible the task ahead of me was and how vitally important it was.

My exhaustion came back in a rush as though I had been hit by a tidal wave. I rested my head on the log behind me.

“We're going to need a fucking army to get him out of the mountains.” I carried on. “We're then going to need another army of Inquisitors and investigators to go through the countryside to make sure that this cult of his is dead.” I slapped my hand down on my knee for emphasis. I wasn't being theatrical. I was tired, angry, upset and very very frightened. “It has to be dead. We need to pull this thing out by the roots and make sure that this.....this “evil”, and I do not use the word lightly, can never sprout up again. Whether it was born out of Human privilege as an excuse for a powerful group of people to do whatever the hell they want to people that they saw as beneath them. Or if it was a genuine religion or cult worshipping some power or God that we've never heard of.”

I found myself grinning at him sidelong as another sense of odd amusement bubbled up inside me.

“Or at least, that humanity has never heard of. I would like to think that if humanity had heard of it then I would have heard of it. I am, at least that arrogant about my education.”

Chireadean said nothing.

“But regardless of that, this needs to be destroyed. Why me and not someone else? Because I know the name of the bastard. I know what he looks like and where his civilian power comes from. No-one else does. It's the first mistake that the cult has made and we need to capitalise on it. We need to make sure that my friend Taylor didn't die in vain. That all the people's deaths that have led us to this point haven't died in vain.”

“What was his mistake?” Chireadean asked gently. There was something in his eyes that I didn't recognise.

“That he let me go and take part in his stupid hunting ritual. He should have just cut my throat and left me to bleed out, but instead he lets me run off. Kerrass, Taylor, any of the other humans that he might have hunted through the lands, or, with respect, any of the other Elves that he might have hunted and I would guess that there's a couple of those Elves in your number, am I right?”

Chreadean said nothing but something glimmered in his eyes which told me that my guess was fairly accurate.

“If any of those people got to the authorities. Found the church of the Eternal Flame, or Kreve or whoever the fuck else there might be. Then they won't be believed. But I will be. I just need to get there and I want to get there as quick as possible to save any of the other poor fuckers that that bastard has in his cave that might be tortured in my place to quench his sick thirst. That was his mistake. He doesn't like me, fair enough, maybe he even hates me, but he should have just killed me when he had the chance. Not kept me prisoner because then I could escape or be rescued. Just a nice quick slit throat in a way that would suggest that I was robbed on the road. But instead, he made me angry and left me my weapons.”

I sighed, the brief spurt of energy had left me again and I felt drained.

“So that's why it has to be me. I'm the man, because I'm the one here, with the skills, and the knowledge and the status to bring this fucker down. It might not be the first time that that has happened, that all of those factors have come together in the right order to make that happen but they clearly failed. So I must succeed. I must. Because otherwise, more innocent farmers and villagers will be hunted down and killed at best or tortured at worst and yes..... I include the other Elves that live here, or hide in the other villages amongst the people that I have to save. Because no-one else can.”

Chireadean looked at me for a long time. “You should rest. You are still tired and not entirely healthy and you need to spend a bit of time recovering at the least.” He told me before another pause. “I try never to rush into a decision based on emotional impact or prejudice so I need to think about what you've told me. I will have someone bring you some food, in a little while.”

I nodded and lay back down. He was right. I was, again, asleep shortly after my head was pillowed on the log.

Isn't it odd how soft the ground can be if you haven't slept for a while or when your body doesn't want to wake up in the morning?

This time, it was Kerrass that was kicking me awake before sitting opposite me with his legs crossed. He looked better than I had seen him in ages. He had some colour back, his breathing was steady and he even wore a slight smile. He seemed, comfortable in the world again. A quality of his that I hadn't missed until it had suddenly been taken away. I had become used to the long, almost languid grace of Kerrass which he had lost over our time on the run. But now he had that quality back. The sardonic and occasionally puerile sense of humour was back in his eyes.

“You look better,” I commented as I levered myself up into a sitting position.

“I feel better too.” He said with a happy little sigh. He still had his arms crossed in a sling in front of his chest. “Goddess Freddie but I do feel better. It's like....” He stared off into the trees for a moment as he thought. “It's like that moment when your hangover begins to recede. There is still pain and discomfort but it is, at the same time, somehow less than it was a moment earlier and you begin to know that it will all be ok soon.”

I looked at him for a while. “Not gonna lie Kerrass, but you worried me for a while there.”

He nodded. “I know and I'm sorry. I owe you another one.

“Give over,” I told him. “How many times have you saved my life?”

I didn't give him time to recover.

“We're friends now aren't we?” I demanded.

Kerrass nodded.

“Then stop acting as though that quality is in jeopardy. I would give my life for you Kerrass, that's how this works. You owe me nothing. You would have done the same for me wouldn't you?”

“Yes.” He admitted, “But I am a Witcher. It's my job to do that kind of thing. I'm used to it. Trained to it. If it had been you that had been crippled, however temporary that this will hopefully turn out to be, then I would have carried you away because that's what Witchers do. It's our duty as well as being a factor of friendship. But, you're not a Witcher Freddie. You're a fighter, yes, but the best thing for you to do would have been to leave me there and run for it.”

I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a finger to prevent me from speaking. “And before you start, no. Just, our being friends, is not a reason that would motivate the vast majority of people in the world. There is a significant truth to be admitted that if you had left me behind, that you would already be safe in Ariadne's arms and the armies of Nilfgaard and the church would be tearing the countryside apart even now.”

“You're assuming that I wouldn't be crippled by guilt or regret.”

“Which is the thing that makes you rare Freddie, even now. I am grateful, don't get me wrong but I cannot lie. I think you made the wrong choice.” He stared at me for a long time. “That saddens me a little, that I would think that you made the wrong choice and it is something that I need to think about.”

I shifted a little in discomfort.

“How're your arms?” I asked, more for something to say rather than anything else.

He brightened instantly. Slowly, he raised his right arm and lifted both arms out of the sling and waved them about for emphasis.

“Better.” He said. “Not better, but better.” He slid the arms back into the sling. “The Elves had some strong alcohol sitting around the place and they were good enough to let me tell them what to do to brew some potions and elixirs out of it which means that I'm on the mend. Don't get me wrong, The bones are still very weak....”

“Well, that's what happens when you let someone shatter them with a Warhammer. Careless of you Kerrass, very careless.”

For a moment, I was worried that I had gone too far and that he wouldn't appreciate the teasing nature of the joke but he chuckled.

“You are not wrong. I should have seen that coming really but still. I've had broken bones before. Just not in such a time of crisis. It's still going to be weeks before I can pick up one of my swords, let alone before I can get my arms back to where they need to be in order to function in the way that I want them to be. But at least I can feed myself and wipe my own arse now.”

“Good. Not a memory that I'm going to cherish,”

“No,” he shuddered theatrically.