(Warning: Contains some graphic descriptions of torture and some sexist opinions (said by a bad guy).)

I slept and woke in the grey morning mist.

Through some combination of my complaining body and the poisons that were already being pumped out into the air by Cavill's hounds, it took me a long time to wake up. It was one of those times where I was aware that I was dreaming and that I was still asleep but I couldn't pry myself out of it. That sick sense that today was going to be the day that I died meant that I just didn't want to wake up. Kind of the extreme version of not wanting to get up on the day of an exam.

So I stayed in the dream for as long as I could.

It was a nightmare. I don't think that it could have been anything else given what was happening and what had happened but now I can't think of what the nightmare was. It wasn't the kind of “horror” nightmare where there are hooks tearing at your flesh, the walls are oozing with blood and the sky is on fire. It was the kind of nightmare that leaves you feeling sad when you wake up for it. A kind of bitter-sweet taste left in your mouth as though you had been dreaming of old friends and lost loves but the thing that made it a nightmare was the fact that you know that it's a dream and that there's nothing that you can do about it.

So I almost crawled towards wakefulness. There were voices in the distance and from the rhythm of them, I guessed that they were chanting something. It might have had some kind of religious aspect of things or it might have been some kind of intimidation technique that the Hounds were using in an effort to keep us frightened but the truth was that I found it oddly restful. Hypnotic in a way and so, I lay there, eyes closed feeling surprisingly warm and comfortable.

The only concession that I made towards the need to wake up was that I pulled the scarf over my mouth and nose from where it had slipped down during the night. It had been soaking for some time the previous day, so the scent soon came through and began to clear my head. It was almost something to look forward to. A day where I would no longer have to smell that particular combination of smells that threatened to make my eyes tear and my nose bleed.

Not that my nose ever bled from breathing in that stuff but that's what it felt like.

So I just lay there. Putting off the inevitability with every passing moment, trying to guess at what time I had actually lain down. How I had actually fallen asleep. Had Kerrass rolled me in a blanket or, more likely, had he got someone else to do it.

It didn't matter.

Instead I thought about all the people that I would be seeing soon. I thought about Father and wondered what I was going to say to him when I saw him next. I wondered what he would make of my efforts towards sorting things out. I considered whether dying would have an effect on our different perspectives on life and whether he would now be able to see the problems for what they were or would he still be obsessed with those things that he had been consumed by in life?

Or would it be me that would see things in a new light. Without all of the pressing matters, would it be me that saw things differently? Would I see the search for Francesca as the futility that I was beginning to worry that it was? Would my time have been better spent marrying Ariadne, lecturing, writing and managing estates? Was it me that was wrong after all of that consideration?

What would I say to Edmund? I found myself wondering that for a while. Would he be able to see the path way to all his mistakes? Would he see them for the mistakes that they were? Or would he not even be there. Consigned to the heaven or hell that goes with whatever happens to us all after we die. Maybe he was right and I was wrong?

I considered this for a while before shaking my head.

Nah. No way. My revulsion at what his cronies and the cronies of Cousin Raynard Kalayn had been up to in Oxenfurt was soul deep. As were the activities of Cavill and his people. Something fundamental in me was rebelling at what we had found and what was happening here.

But what if there was nothing after we died. What if it was all ultimately futile and that nothing we do actually matters. That secret fear of men all over the world that sneaks up on them in the cold light of morning or at the dead of night. What then?

But that also didn't seem right.

I thought of Ariadne. I knew that she couldn't hear me but I thought about her for a long time. Picturing her in her simple black robes that swirled around her when she moved. For some reasons known only to my own libido and brain, I found her more beautiful in those simple, unadorned black robes or dresses than I do when she's wearing some of the more elaborate dresses that she likes to wear to parties. More than the corsets or any of the other things. Obviously she looks fantastic in them all but I find that I find her most beautiful in those most simple of her clothes. Working at a work bench or sat, reading her book and humming softly with a gentle smile on her face.

“I'm sorry,” I told the image. “I love you.” And then I put her from my mind.

I didn't know how much time I had and it was kind of pressing on my mind so I thought I should do that first. The most important person first.

Then I thought of Emma. I tried to picture her behind her desk but found that I couldn't quite get the texture of the vision right. There was something missing. So instead I found myself imagining her in that small lake, little more than a pond near the castle where she taught me to swim and taught me to dive. I imagined her laughing as she splashed around in the shadows of the water and suddenly it seemed real to me. I spent as long as I dared watching her dance in the water in my mind. I gave my mental image of her the presence of Laurelen diving into the water so that she would have some company when I moved on.

The things that we think about.

I found that I couldn't picture Sam. Something I couldn't put my finger on but I couldn't bring him into focus. I tried to think of him on the walls in his castle, on the training grounds at home and sitting sharing a sandwich as he asked me as to whether or not Ariadne had a sister. I tried to picture his face but I just couldn't quite manage it.

“I'm sorry Sam.” I told him. For all I know I said it aloud.

Mark was much easier. A simple cassock, knelt in the family chapel before the alter. Humming the psalms to himself, painfully out of tune as always. Gentle smile on his face.

Lastly I thought of Francesca. So many dreams of Francesca and again, like Sam, I couldn't seem to nail down one image. I thought of the young warrior maiden that had greeted me when I first got to Toussaint with a hug. I thought of her happy face as she admired Ariadne's engagement ring as she acted as hostess to us all. I thought of her attempts not to laugh at my embarrassment before the Empress. I thought of her tears when I left home to go to University and I thought of the letters that we had written to each other.

But then she disturbed my rest as I started to imagine all the torments that she was going through. All of the small tortures that she must have endured in the time since she had been taken. I found that I couldn't take my mind away from the sight of her beautiful face, tears streaming down her cheeks and mouth open in one long shriek of pain and agony.

I forced my eyes open and groaned as I sat up, still taking care to keep my head just below the barricade. I needn't have worried though. There didn't seem to be anyone shooting at us. There was just that chanting on the edge of hearing. On the edge of consciousness. I was on the opposite side of the hill from how we had approached but I risked a look out over the top of the barricade and I could see groups of horseman riding around as well as many more still inside the tree line. A hope that I hadn't put a name or a thought to, died for a moment as the prospect of being able to break out was crushed. There was absolutely no way that that would happen now. We were well and truly surrounded.

It was still misty. A mist combined with the smoke that was already being pumped out from the huge fire that Rickard had ordered to be built on top of the hill and the smoke that the Riders were doubtlessly pumping out of their fires, full of poison as they undoubtedly were. But there was not enough for us to sneak away and the fires during the night would make it impossible to do then anyway. Making it to the evening from here seemed like a remote and foolish hope.

I propped myself up into a sitting position and did some routine maintenance on my weapons. On my spear which needed a good sharpening, cleaning and oiling. Truth be told, I had been neglecting the poor thing for a while and it probably needed the attentions of a good blacksmith. But for now, I was still confident that it would do the job. The boot dagger was in worse shape having been submerged in swamp water on and off for a while and I thought that I could probably do with a new one. My eating knife was an eating knife and if I had to resort to that one then I was in more trouble than I could easily be extracted from with just an eating knife.

The dagger that Letho had given me was fine. Just a bit of sharpening and oiling needed.

It was during the dealing with this last, that someone came to find me. It was Carys, the Elven woman of all things.

“D'hoine?” She called. She tried to make it sound properly insulting but I got the feeling that she didn't have the time or the energy to put the proper amount of hate and anger into it.

“What?” I asked her with a smile as I examined the edge of the dagger. “No “filth” to go with the “D'hoine” today?”

She shook her head. Looking as though she was caught between a smile and that expression that you get when you bite into a sour piece of fruit. “No,” she said in heavily accented northern. “Not today.” I knew that the accent was an affectation but decided not to pursue it. She beckoned and I followed her.

She led me further round so that we were facing South East ish although it was true that I had become turned around with the smoke and the mist. It was tricky to pick out the landmarks that I would normally use to get location and direction. The sun was little more than a watery shape in the grey and overcast sky and I found Chireadean and Rickard sat on the barricades. The bastards and a good percentage of the other elves were lounging about.

I tell you, here and now, that if Cavill had ordered an attack on the opposite side of where we all were, he could have just walked all over us.

Kerrass wasn't there but I will admit that I had kind of stopped looking for him in these kinds of gatherings.

Chireadean was sat, resting his arms on his knees and staring at his hands. Rickard was the only one who registered my approach.

“What's going on?”

Rickard held up his finger.

“Lord Frederick Coulthard.” A voice called.

“There it is,” Rickard said quietly.

“Lord Frederick Coulthard, I want to talk to you Lord Frederick.” It was Cavill's voice. I was surprised that I recognised it to be honest but then again...

Chireadean hadn't moved. I looked over at Rickard who shrugged before turning away.

I sighed and stepped forward.

“What do you want?” I called out.

“To talk.”

I looked around but no-one was offering any help.

“So talk.” I shouted back.

“Can you not come out? All this shouting is hard work and I promise that you won't come to any harm until you get back in to see your friends.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I'm hurt Frederick.” I may be crazy but there genuinely seemed to be some kind of remorse there. “I may worship a God that you disagree with and deny as well as rejecting the worship of him. But I am still a man of some honour. Come down. I want to talk to you.”

I pulled back.

“What do you think?” I said aloud.

Chireadean just shrugged. Weariness radiated from him and I wondered if he was living in some kind of waking nightmare.

“It's up to you.” Rickard said.

I sighed. “I thought it might be.” I took a deep breath. “The entire point is to play for time now right?”

“What?” Rickard asked, startled. From the look of him, he hadn't slept the previous night.

“The longer I can delay things, the more smoke gets pumped out which means that it's more likely that it gets seen right?”

“Right.”

“Ok. So, hold the fort. I'll be back.”

“What if he kills you?” Chireadean asked. He didn't look up at me.

“Then he kills me.” I told him. “Do your best to make him regret it would you.”

“I can see him.” Dan said, standing nearby. “He will not survive if you go down.”

“Reassuring.” I said. “At least I will have some measure of vengeance. Is he alone?”

Dan nodded before spitting.

“Good. I'm not sure I could restrain myself from killing that son of his.”

I took a deep breath and stepped over the barricade. “I'm coming out,” I called. “Don't have one of your people shoot me by mistake.”

“You have my promise.”

So I went down to meet my enemy.

I muttered as I went. I still wasn't entirely certain what to make of the day. I was tired, but when had I not been tired recently, as well as being sad, a little angry and overwhelmingly bored.

I was surprised with the last part.

I suppose that when you spend days being tired scared and in fear for your life, even the strange and traumatic can become mundane.

Walking through the fog gave it a little bit of a surreal edge to proceedings too. As though I had not yet woken up from my dreams. Or that I was already dead and just didn't know it yet.

This effect was not helped by the appearance of Cavill. Wearing a long and voluminous black robe that literally billowed with every movement as though it had been designed to make him appear bigger and more dramatic than he ever had before. It was lined with gold thread which seemed to depict patterns and letters that I could not read, although I tried to. It kind of sucked at my eyes and made me feel nauseous at the same time. Nearby, there was a large pair of antlers that seemed to be part of some kind of crown attachment, or a helmet maybe but they looked unfeasibly large for so small a head to perch on. He was sat on a stool and there was a small table next to him which had some cups on it along with another stool. He was pouring a steaming liquid into one of them. His posture was rigid and almost painfully upright.

“Ah there you are.” He said as I approached before frowning when he saw me properly. “I must say, I thought it was rather traditional that you don't bring weapons to a parlay such as this one.”

“What?”

“Your spear and dagger?”

“Huh,” I said in surprise, “You know I had honestly forgotten about them.”

I had too. The things that you get used to when you have no other choice can sometimes be quite surprising.

“Would you prefer for me to leave them behind?”

Cavill considered this before shrugging and shaking his head. “If you were going to attack me with them then I would have thought that you would have done so by now.”

I smiled in response.

“The truth is,” I went on, “traditions around having a parlay vary from place to place. In most military situations it is perfectly acceptable to bring personal arms to a conference such as this one on the grounds that weapons often denote status. And no one who came to one of these things would ever dream of breaking whatever truce had been agreed.”

“Why is that?”

“Honour.” I responded.

He laughed at me. Or with me, I'm not entirely sure.

“Please,” he said gesturing at the other stool. “Would you care for some tea?”

I thought about this for a moment, in a mirror of his earlier gesture, I shrugged and nodded. He poured as I sat and I downed the drink in a swallow enjoying his raised eyebrows of surprise.

“Thirsty?” He asked as he poured me some more.

“A little, to be fair, I haven't really woken up yet and I suspect that I'm coming on with a bit of a cold.”

He watched as I took another drink.

“I must be honest that I'm surprised.” he commented, taking a swallow from his own cup.

“Oh?”

“I was expecting you to demand that I drink from my own cup before you drank from yours.”

I shook my head. “Nah,”

“Why not?”

“Three reasons. The first is that I am experienced enough in the ways of the world now to know that if you wanted to poison me, there are other ways to do it that have nothing to do with poisoning the tea.”

Which reminded me, I tugged the scarf up and over my nose and mouth.

“Contact poison on the cup for example or in the bottom of the cup before you poured. Some kind of poison needle, a blow dart from somewhere in the mist. If you truly wanted me dead you could have just rolled over us with all of your people. You didn't need to bring me out to talk to me.”

“True, and the second reason?”

I grinned. “A saying of my old tutors. I'm not sure it's applicable here but he was teaching me how to be a courtier. He had various little sayings that he made me remember in order to keep the lesson in my head. They include such pieces of wisdom as “The only box that can hold a secret is a coffin,”

He snorted at that,

“and “How dearly we cling to pretty deceit”,” I went on.

He laughed. “I would have liked to meet this tutor of yours.”

“I suspect that he would have hated you.” I told him. “But he was a good man and did his best to teach me etiquette and technique. He despaired of me though. He thought I was too soft of heart for the true calling of a politician. But the saying that I was thinking of was “If you eat poison, don't forget to lick the dish.” I will be honest and say that it took me many years to understand that last one.”

Cavill frowned as he tried to figure out the puzzle himself.

“It's about putting a face on matters.” I told him. “If a person tells you something that is blatantly untrue then you must pretend as though you have believed it which gives you an advantage over them.”

“Ah, I see. The poison is the lie and in in licking the dish you are telling the person that you enjoyed and believed the lie.”

“Yes. But the other meaning is more literal. If you are going to poison me then get it over with.”

“Hmmm,” he nodded. “Did this man teach your other siblings as well?”

“No. I only think Emma and Francesca really took to those lessons. Sam didn't have the head for it as he was too into tactics and military thinking along with heraldry and strategy. Mark was already learning his politics as part of his church training and Edmund was, well, Edmund.”

“I begin to see why your family has attained such a dominant position. But you had a third reason to drink the tea.”

“I did.”

“What was it?”

“Because, “Fuck you.” That's why.”

He stared at me for a moment with a look of shock before a look of utter delight spread across his face and laughter overtook him. Genuine belly laughter and it was infectious. Much more than I would have thought possible actually and I felt my own laughter start somewhere in my gut. I had forgotten how charming this man was when he put his mind to it.

“Oh Frederick.” He said. “Oh, if only you had been one of my sons, or had been born first. What things we could have accomplished together.” He shook his head. “We could have changed the world together you and I.”

“Regretting your lack of choice in an heir?”

He leaned over and spat into the ground. “My son is very good at killing. Very good, better than anyone I've ever known. But his brains are in his backside. If he had more, you know, up here?” He pointed at his skull. “Then we possibly wouldn't even be in this mess in the first place. I truly, truly fear for what is going to happen to my name and holdings when I'm gone. Obviously, the worship of The God is the most important factor there but I still have a certain amount of pride and a desire to see that our primacy over the surrounding countryside is still kept going.”

He sighed.

“Pride,” he went on. “One of the only things that my son and I seem to have in common with each other. Do you know that I do believe that he's planning on killing me?”

“Imagine my surprise. Kill him back, seems like a safer alternative.”

“Tempting. But I have no other true born heir and that is vital in my circles.”

“You have bastards though don't you.”

“I do, but we are not strong enough to withstand what would come of that.” It took me a while to realise that the “we” that he was talking about was about his sick religion. “sooner or later we would have to tell people where he came from and then all kinds of things could go wrong.”

“I still think you should kill him.”

He stared at me sharply. “I do believe you hate him.”

I thought about this and gestured for a refill of tea. “I rather think I do.”

“Why? Why him and not me?”

“Because you have a reason to do what you do. Don't get me wrong. It's a sick and twisted reason and I despise you for it. But you have the sheen of a true fanatic. I've seen the fanaticism of men of the Holy Fire and, in many ways, you remind me of some of those fanatics. You think that your God is telling you one thing and you are ignoring all other thoughts or sayings or laws to the contrary on the grounds that what your God has taught you is the most important thing of them all. To the exclusion of all other factors.”

He said nothing to any of that.

“But your son? Your son takes it one step beyond that. He is cruel with it. You hunt and kill people because the sport is part of your religion.....How can I put this?”

I took another drink. The tea was really quite good.

“I don't think for a moment that your son forgot that I might know what Father Gardan's axe would look like. I think he was rubbing it in my face. I think he knew who Father Gardan was. I think he thought of himself as some kind of equivalent of Father Gardan, like everything that Gardan was for the Church of Kreve, your son wanted to be for your little religion when he was growing up. So he knew what that axe meant and it appealed to him to take that axe and turn it to other purposes. Not because he thought of it as a magic weapon, but because it appealed to his sense of humour.”

I gained another insight.

“I would also make another gamble. You truly believe in this God of yours right? Just a straight question I don't need proof.”

“Of course.”

“I don't think your son does. I think he goes along with it because it means that he gets to kill, rape and torture to his hearts content. But I think he scorns the worshipping side of things. I think he's the kind of person who goes to church on a holy day, mumbles along with the words while thinking of all the whores they're going to fuck that night and how they're best going to screw over their peasants. Whatever the equivalent to that is in heretic cult circles, your son is that. The person that is there to be seen to be there. Just going through the motions. Saying the words but not believing them.”

“Interesting.” He mused the point. “You have given me much to think about there.”

We sat and drank tea in surprisingly comfortable silence. I could see the smoke pillar from Rickard's fire growing up in a column before melding with the smoke and beginning to get truly quite impressive. The fog was lifting a bit and I could begin to see the sky beyond the misty tendrils. It was quite peaceful really.

“Take me.” I told him suddenly. I am prepared to swear on any number of holy texts that you like that I did not intend to say anything. “I'm the largest threat to you, take me off to wherever you want me to go and do whatever you want with me, but let my people go free.”

Cavill drank his tea carefully.

“Noble of you Frederick. Noble of you.” He said it almost respectfully. “And if you had just lay down and died then that would have been what happened. But then you caught that Rickard idiot up with you and I kind of want to murder him as well. Did he tell you the story of how he got my son killed?”

“He told me the story of how your son died.”

“Yes, well, also your Witcher friend. He's the one who's going around teaching people how to counter-act the poisons and hallucinogens that we use in the local area isn't he. Poisons that I spent far too much time and effort into arranging. So he has to die.”

“How do you...”

“Oh, there's an Elven alchemist on your brothers lands. Your Grandfather on your mothers side caught her trying to sneak through his lands once. Caught her and subjected her to the rites. Father used to tell us the story about how she broke under the strain of what was happening to her. How she promised to use her skills and whatever else we needed from her so that we would stop torturing and raping her. Now she mixes up the poisons in her basement and we collect them. The formula is quite refined by now so that a small scoop can blanket the countryside in the smoke. She also gives us the information that we need about what's going on in that part of the world.”

“Ella,” I said. It made sense now that I said it aloud. She was a herb-woman and the people in that area didn't feel to strongly about Elves, so she turns up, heals the sick, helps with any child-birthing that needs to be done before passing on all the details to Cavill's men. “That's a shame,” I said after another moment. “I liked her.” I admitted.

“She's very likable.” Cavill agreed. “Squeals most adequately when being fucked in the ass.”

“Now you're just trying to piss me off.” I accused. It was working too.

“But I'm afraid that I can't let you go now Frederick. I must kill you. If it's any consolation, the promised torturing to death is not something that I have time for now. Hence the ceremonial robes. Instead I must consecrate your death and the deaths of your followers but, at least it will be quick.”

“Yeahhhhh. Fuck you.” I told him. “What did you bring me out here for then. If I'm not here to discuss terms, why did you ask me to come out here?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to make sure that you were still up there.” He told me. “I would have been dreadfully disappointed if it turned out that you had drowned out in that swamp, or that we had killed you somewhere on the way or that we had missed you some place. But also, I wanted to thank you.”

“Errrr. What?”

“Yes. You have exposed some shockingly lax efforts on the part of some of my people. Some, frankly, horrifying holes in our control of the land and as a result, you were nearly allowed to escape. You came closer to escape than anyone else had ever made it when doing one of the rites.”

“I've been told about people that have made it to local Kalayn villages.”

“Really?” His face darkened. “Ah, if only we had time for me to properly interrogate you about the things that you have found. Only proper hunts, from the caves and back to the caves are supposed to be done. I will find out what has happened and take certain steps.”

“Well,” I told him, “When you find out that it was your own son who was challenging your authority, would you do me a favour?”

“What is it?”

“Tell him that one of those lashes falls from me. Or if you kill him, tell him that I said hello or something suitably vindictive. I'm sure you know the kind of thing I mean.”

He laughed.

“What is it about you people and this obsession with First-born sons anyway?” I asked him.

“Why do you ask?”

“It's one of those things that I've been curious about for a while. The nobility as a whole prefers the inheritance to pass to the Eldest son but that's not what you do. Hell, I know a lot of nobility who have adopted some of their bastards in order to still have a son to inherit, given all the deaths in the various wars that have afflicted the north, and for my money, Arthur is twice the man that your other son is.”

“And if that was the only quality that I was looking for then I would agree with you. You are right of course. Arthur is more intelligent, more cunning and more charming. The only thing that he isn't as good at is the killing of his enemies.”

“And he's older. So why is he still a slave?”

“Because.....” Cavill sighed in exasperation. “It's tricky to explain. We are a cult that supports power. The most powerful people in our cult..... Those that enjoy more of the God's favour are always the first-born sons. Always. Another part of it is that those sons that are born of our sacrifices are born of lesser women. Those slaves are barely even people so to pass our inheritance on to the son of a lesser woman would be repugnant.”

He shuddered at the thought.

“Those women who are married to us in the sight of the God are those that properly gain the grace of the God. My son, neither of my sons will ever achieve that level of grace with the God. The God will turn from them and withhold his greatest mysteries from them. And that cannot be allowed in our service to the God. I am a first-born son. Just as my predecessor in the High-Priests robes was, and his predecessor and his before him.”

“Is it a family thing?”

“No, although it has been in the past. But, as you say, sometimes circumstances, the wars and skirmishes make that kind of thing impossible.”

“Sounds like madness to me.”

“That's because you have never experienced it. You have never felt the power within you as you take a woman. The power that you have when you inflict pain and then again when you give a respite from that same pain. You have never felt the pleasure of a God running through your veins.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“Anything else you wish to ask me Lord Frederick. I am inclined to answer. Even though I despise you for everything you have done to my family and to my people, it is rare that I meet an intellectual equal and I am enjoying our conversation.” He said with such genial matter of factness as well. That was the thing that got me about what he said.

“Where's your tame mage by the way?” I asked him.

“Who, Phineas?”

“Yes, Of everyone who's to blame, I rather thought that he was one of the ones most responsible for my death. Without him, Ariadne or any of the other mages that are probably looking for me right now would have found me days ago.”

“Too true I fear. He doesn't like to come out in the field too often so I left him at the caves so that he could be there when we brought you back. He's going to be dreadfully disappointed.”

“Heh, one victory for me then.”

“Oddly, apparently we were lucky that the two of you, your vampire and you, hadn't had congress yet. If that had been the case, there is no way that he could have hidden you from her. That that bond, especially with a vampiric Sorceress, would have been impossible to hide the closer she got. As it was though...”

He shrugged. There wasn't a great deal to say to that.

“You're saying that if Ariadne and I had slept together, she would have been able to find me?”

“So Phineas tells me.”

I had nothing to say to that. It seemed like to big an idea for my brain to handle.

“Well.” I said climbing to my feet. “If today is the day that I am to die, I would rather spend that time with my friends.”

He rose with me. “It's been a pleasure Lord Frederick.”

“Yeah,” I sniggered. “Go Fuck yourself.” I would have tried for something wittier but I was on my last legs. So much so that I staggered as I walked away.

But then a thought occurred to me and I turned.

He was putting the antler-head dress on. It turned out that there were slots on his back that supported the entire thing that was what was making his posture so rigid. Meaning that it was less a head dress and more like some kind of elaborate back banner.

“One thing.” I called. “You never had anything to do with Francesca's disappearance did you.” It was not a question. I was pretty sure that I knew what the answer was.

He seemed to consider this for a moment before he grinned.

“No.” He admitted. “I wish I had though. The pain that it has caused you has been exquisite and whoever was responsible for it. I owe them a debt of thanks.”

“You just said all of that to goad me then?”

He shrugged again. “It worked.”

I nodded and gave him a little wave.

The tears began to fall as I began to walk back to the little hill that we had chosen for our place to die. I had to stop when a sob wracked my body.

It was never in any doubt. Not really. But another hope died in the mist. I wiped my face then, telling myself that I wouldn't have to carry these burdens for much longer and strode back to where the others were waiting for me.

I came back to the hill and climbed over the barricade. There was some evidence that there had been some small works done to the barricade. The kind of desultory work that is done in order to keep yourself busy and to take your mind of the coming....torment.

Chireadean was sat nearby leaning on his sword along with the rest of the Elves and the Bastards. Kerrass was nearby, but it was Rickard that came to meet me.

“You did it didn't you.” He accused, even though he said it quietly.

“Did what?”

“Offered yourself in exchange for all our lives.”

There was a desperation to his face. A strange kind of tired, pinched look that I didn't recognise at first.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Yes I did. He turned it down though. It seems that he's decided that we all just need to die. He still remembers the episode with you and your son and mentioned you and Kerrass by name as people that he particularly wants to die. I'm sorry.”

His face crumpled a bit as he put his hand on my shoulder. “And I don't know whether to feel angry at you or to be grateful for your efforts to keep us all alive.” He turned away for a moment before turning back to me. I was astonished at the pain that I saw there.

“I owe you an apology,” he told me. “I also don't know whether or not to be pleased or disappointed that he turned the offer down.” His face crumpled, “I don't want to die either and after I yelled at you for giving up.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Oh hey.” I reached out and embraced him as I wondered how long he had been keeping himself upright and moving forward by sheer willpower. “We can at least give him a bloody nose.”

“I know,” he was pulling himself back with an awesome effort of willpower. “But that's not what I want. I want to see Shani again and sleep in a bed and have a beer and....” He grinned. “And fuck a whore's brains out.”

“That's the spirit.”

“But I'm not sure I've got anything left to deal with this. I will fight and kill but I don't think I can....” I saw him on the edge again and shushed him.

“Time for a speech I think.” I told him.

“I don't think I've got anything.” He muttered unhappily.

I looked around and saw the same expression in a lot of faces. That final moment, that final loss of hope.

Other than Kerrass. Kerrass was sat on a log with his medallion in his hand, frowning slightly in what I had come to think of as being “Deep thought and madness.” He looked up at me as I glanced around and met my gaze. Then he winked.

Bastard still knows how to play me after all this time.

“Listen to me.” I said stepping forward so that all eyes were on me. “Listen to me. I've never had to give a speech like this before so please pay attention.” I told them. Need to start off with honesty.

Keep it short, that's the ticket.

“Thinking about what to say though.” I went on. “It's fair to say that in the stories and the sagas and the songs, this is the point where the leader of the group should make a speech. So what do I say? Something to give you all some cheer and some steel so that when the fuckers start coming towards us we have the energy needed to do what must be done.

“I know what Chireadean would say. He would say something flowery and poetic. Because despite his disdain for using long, grand and flowery words, he's still an Elf and that's the sort of thing that you lot go in for.”

I got the laugh that I was hoping for. Just a small chuckle really but I saw Chireadean feed of it. He laughed a little and shrugged as though admitting that the accusation was perfectly accurate.

“Not unfair,” he commented.

“I also know what Rickard would say. He would puff out his chest, scowl and do his best to look all manly and soldierly.” More laughter, led by the Sergeant who guffawed loudly. “Then he would say something in a gravelly voice that he thinks makes him sound hard. Something simple like “Good hunting” or “Let's go kill the fuckers” or things like that.”

“Aim low,” someone called out as a suggestion.

“Choose your targets,” someone else called.

“Hold your fire.” Three of the bastards sang out in unison.

There was more laughter. Rickard pulled a comical expression of trying to look stern but I could see that his eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter and I suspect that his men knew that too. I held my hands out for silence.

“Me though? I want to do two things in front of you all and so that you can all hear me. The first thing I want to say is that I am beyond grateful to each and every one of you. Everyone that has brought me food, or stepped over me when I was asleep or carried me when I was exhausted. Those of you that have shed blood and sweat and tears to keep me alive. Know that I am grateful for each and every one of you and that I am sorry that I got you into this mess. That I owe you all a huge debt that I would struggle to repay.”

There were some moans of denial and that I shouldn't be sorry.

“But the other thing that I will say is this. There are a lot of them out there. There's no denying that. A whole lot of them. In their silly black robes and their cheap weapons, thinking that they're better than us in every way. They outnumber us twenty, thirty, fifty to one. Maybe even more than that. A hundred to one even although I think that might be a bit much. You know what I say to that?”

I made sure that all eyes were on me and that all of them were quiet.

“Is that all?” I made my voice almost comical as I said it. “After everything that we've been through together. After all the hardships that the Elves have suffered in the wilderness. After the battles and skirmishes of Rickard and the Bastards. After the monsters and demons that I have seen and fought along with Kerrass. A hundred to one odds?”

I sneered.

“Is that all they've got?”

I shook my head.

“You and I.” I told them. “We're gonna show them that they should have brought many, many more people than that.”

They growled in response.

I stepped away from my make-shift podium and walked up a bit towards the top of the hill. A number of people clapped me on the back.

“Good speech,” Chireadean told me, his slight and occasional smile was back. “Could have done with some more flowery language though.” He turned back to Rickard. “Do we have a plan?”

Rickard took a breath. “If we're honest with each other. My lads are the better killers with a bow right?”

Chireadean sucked his teeth a bit before nodding. “Not necessarily the best shots, but the better killers yes.”

“Fair enough. Then I think that the Elves are in the front, the bastards sniping to hit the Sergeants and the like.”

“Are they going to come at us from all sides?” I wondered.

“Nah,” was Rickard's response. “He's not going to want to risk his good troops if the conscripts can get the job done. I reckon that he's going to get all of them into a battering ram and hurl it at us. We need to reduce the people doing the herding and become more terrifying than the people behind them. They'll break. Then we might get some worthwhile troops.”

“If we make it that far of course.” Chireadean commented.

“We'll make it. Freddie's just poured some steel down our back bones. We'll make it.” Rickard said it like it was the truth of the Prophet and somehow, I believed him. Even though it was unlikely and all but certain that we wouldn't survive a second wave. “Get your people to pass their arrows to the Bastards and then we'll see what can be done.

“Right,” Chireadean nodded and moved off, calling something out in Elven that I couldn't quite catch.

“Where do you want me?” I asked Rickard, but he shook his head.

“To the rear I'm afraid. Not because I doubt your desire or ability to fight.” He held his hands up to stop me protesting. “But despite what I said to the Elf, we're still very shaky. You're our flag now and if you fall, we'll either break or go berzerk and neither of those two options is good. I'll get Chireadean to pick out a couple of Elves to stand with you so that if they break through, you can plug the gaps.”

I nodded, I wasn't happy but I nodded.

I moved off to where I was pointed and I found Kerrass crouching there.

“Good speech,” he commented.

“Thank you.” I looked at his arms, still in their slings. “You want a dagger or something?”

He shook his head. “I tried holding one of my own fighting knives earlier. I could barely grip it properly, let alone swing it with any conviction. The most I can do is stamp on the necks of any wounded. I still have some thinking to do anyway so don't worry about me. My sword is not going to win this fight.”

“What thinking is there to do?”

“There is still a curse to lift here.” He told me. “And I nearly have a solution. Nearly, so close. It's all about the “First Born” thing. The cult are obsessed with First born sons. The villagers are supposed to sacrifice their First born. Why? I'm nearly there.”

“It's something about the First-born getting more power from their God. But Kerrass, we're about to fight and die here.”

“Not if I can help it.” He told me. “This is not a fight that can be won by swords and arrows. Leave me to think Freddie. Please.”

I nodded. I decided that if that's how he wanted to die, working at a puzzle, then who was I to argue with him.

“I'm sorry I got you into this Kerrass.” I told him. “May I say that it's been.....”

He chuckled. “If you tell me that it's been an honour then, healing fore-arms or not, I will punch you in the face.”

I reconsidered. I had indeed been about to tell him that it had been an honour .“I was going to say that it's been informative.”

He considered this. “I can live with that.”

“Here they come,” someone called and I returned to the problem at hand.

It was the most frightening sight, but it was also kind of funny. The conscripts which were those villagers that had been gathered together by the Hounds before being addicted to drugs and being forced to victimise their own people, were really reluctant to charge us. I have no idea why. Perhaps they were the ones that had seen our skills with bows and other weapons more closely at hand. But if you have ever heard someone trying to organise a group of people and saying “It's like herding cats....” Then that's exactly what it looked like.

There was no uniformity about them, no proper order of march, their weapons were different and they marched at different speeds.

Some of them ran out in front of the larger mass of men before stopping and turning round to see if anyone had followed them. They hadn't.

Some were obviously trying to stay towards the back of the group to be met by the whips and the herding of those of the Hounds behind them. Others took courage from being on the flanks of the mass.

I call them a mass because there was no way that there was any other kind of unit formation going on. It was certainly not a column or a line or an arrow or any of the other various formations that I have heard about being used.

The thing about them was though, that there was a lot of them and all of their weapons were glittering and sharp.

Someone came round and offered me a fresh scarf to help me ward off the poisons that were still being sent out into the air and I took it gratefully before tying it round my head. I checked that my knife was still in my belt and shook my arms in an effort to banish the ache and the stiffness from my limbs.

But I was already weary.

I shook my head to banish the thought.

A trio of Elven Swordsmen had come to join me and stood nearby looking out over the mass. I kept checking behind me. I knew that there were horsemen roaming the grasslands behind us but they seemed surprisingly uninterested in climbing the hill and overwhelming us.

They had obviously decided that they wanted to test the conscripts.

“Every shot finds it's mark.” The Sergeant was moving among the Bastards who were setting themselves up in their firing positions. Arranging arrows and weapons in the places that they want them to be for easiest access.

“Every shot, kills it's target.” The Sergeant went on. Speaking each word carefully. The Bastards picked out the best areas. Some were stood behind trees which reminded me that the Hounds regularly carry small cross-bows. Some were crouched behind logs. Others knelt in order to make themselves the smallest target's possible.

“Do not waste your arrows.”

The horde of black cloaked hounds seemed to ripple as some among them started to fire their hand bows into an arc in order to get their shots to go further and land amongst us. Someone sniggered.

But still the hounds came on.

More darts fell among us now and the Elves were forced to find some cover. In all truth, it wasn't that dangerous. All we really had to do was to be aware of what was happening and to take our time, but one or two lucky darts hit home.

“Motherfucking, cocksucking, arsetitting bollock headed....” One of the bastards was swearing.

“What is it Baker?” Rickard's voice sounded amused.

“Son of a bitch shot me sir.” The man sounded more indignant than hurt.

“Where?”

“In the leg sir.”

“Serves you right for sticking it out then doesn't it. Keep yourself in cover next time.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir.”

“Nock,” The Sergeant bellowed and arrows were fixed to strings.

The black mass seemed to ripple somehow, as if in the breeze but I was beginning to pick out features.

“Pick your targets.”

There was some muttering from the bastards as they had quick conversations as they made sure that they didn't all kill the same guy.

“Draw,”

That creak of bows as the arrows were pulled back to their cheeks.

“Loose.”

And it began.

The front ranks of the enemies fell and the mass of men that was running towards us seemed to ripple. As though you were watching the surface of a pond when the first drops of rain start to fall. To me it didn't look like too much had happened. There weren't nearly enough arrows fired in that first volley to cause any kind of lasting damage to so many men that were being funnelled towards us.

But they seemed to hesitate.

More darts began to fall among us as the front ranks of the enemy wanted to wait to see if the bolts and missiles would do more damage to us before they would be forced to climb over the barricades. But what this meant was that the Bastards had more room and more time to continue to pour their streams of death into the enemy.

It was no more than a trickle really. No more than that. Between seven or eight arrows every five seconds as they took their time and chose their targets. But it was oh so very deadly. Every arrow dropped a man, whether due to injury or death it was impossible to say. But every arrow found a target and it was awful.

I use that word in it's truest sense in that I was full of awe at the skill of the archers but also horrified by the instruments of death that were being unleashed on an enemy on my behalf.

Different groups of soldiers would claim that they were the “Elite” of any particular armed forces but I believe that I was watching the Elite of the Temerian armed forces at work in those few precious minutes of time between when the orders were given to start shooting and when the first Hounds, screaming with pain, fear and despair, charged towards the barricade and started to climb over. The almost mechanical nature of the arrows being fired. The Sergeant no longer giving out orders or calling out the cadence of the shooting. Instead he strode around the Bastards, ignoring the buzzing bolts and darts of the enemy as they fell around him, seeming almost to scorn them as he moved around. His giant two handed sword slung across his shoulder.

“That one,” he would say to one of the Bastards. “That bastard there, hopping around and making a nuisance of himself. And that one there, the one on the horse whipping them over there on the left. That utter waste of life that's trying to persuade those lot to charge us. Bring the bastard down.”

Every target that he pointed at would die, an arrow in the neck, eye or somewhere deep in his guts where he would fall to his knees or fall on his arse and gaze at what had killed him.

On they came though, more strung out, less organised and in clumps.

I could feel the first man's astonishment as he made it to the top of the barricade and no sword struck him. No arrow either. He turned and called to his companions who were still straggling behind him in effort to encourage them before jumping down into the ditch with his sword raised which was when one of the Elven women found him with a glorified Kitchen knife.

He screamed horribly.

Then more came in ones or twos and the cold hatred of the Elves swept forward out of them like a tide. Years of pent up rage and frustration were expended with every sword blow, every stab of a dagger and every swing of an axe or club.

“Holy Flame,” I muttered in shock and awe. I had never been in a battle before and when I had grown up enough to see past the tales of glory as well as having seen what a sword or a mace can do to the body of a human.....to the body of a person, I became glad that I hadn't. That my father's money and influence had made it so that I would never have to see the war front.

I never got to thank him for that.

There are even some people that would suggest that I still haven't seen a battle. The numbers on our field were too few to be much more than a fight. I am not in a position to argue about that. But the wholesale slaughter that I saw that day made me think of a battle.

Every injustice that they had ever felt, every stifled outburst, every careless wrong that had ever been committed against them was being revenged on that small hill in Northern Redania.

More and more of the Hounds came at us now. More and more of them until the Elves were beginning to be pressed back from the barricades.

I went to dive forwards into the fray but Kerrass stepped into my path.

“Do not worry Freddie,” he told me. He had a distant, almost strangled tone of voice at that moment and I wonder what emotions were going through his mind at the time. Whether he too, wanted to go down there and pay these fuckers back for the loss of his arms and the loss of his skills.

“What if they break through?” I moaned. My heart bleeding for the men and women that were fighting, bleeding and dying while I stood here and watched.

“They won't.” He told me. “You didn't get to see it.” He spoke in so quiet voice that I had to struggle to hear it. “These Elves, these are the survivors. They aren't necessarily the best fighters but these are the ones that made sure that they survived. They made sure that they made it here and that they still had the breath and the capability to fight. Rickard might call his men “The Bastards” but all of the people here are similar in nature and temperament. They will fight until the bitter end and do far more than anyone thought possible because they will simply refuse to die.”

I turned away from him, back to the fight as I tried to imprint as many details as I could so that I could remember them. So that I would be able to stand before whatever power comes next and declare in as loud as possible a voice that these Elven heroes deserve their recognition.

I saw one elf grabbed from behind and stabbed in his lower back by a dagger. He turned, head-butted his assailant before throttling the man to death. Then he picked up his sword again and killed two more Hounds before he eventually succumbed to the blood leaking out of his back.

Another Elf took a sword embedded through the collar bone and into his shoulder. He trapped the blade with his hand and then stabbed his opponent. He then pulled the captured sword out of his own shoulder and continued to wield it against the enemy, a spinning whirlwind of death before I lost track of him.

One woman had found herself impaled by a spear. By some awe inspiring feat of determination and willpower. She pulled the spear from her own body and proceeded to stab the incoming hounds. Every time a Hound climbed the barricade, they would be met by a short, hard thrust from this spear. She went on, even when she couldn't stand any more and had sank to her knees. When she had fallen to sit with her back to another part of the barricades. Still stabbing.

Next to me, the leader of my relief force of Elven swordsmen, was weeping with the sight, seeing those tears standing out on his cheeks I felt that my own face was wet with the awesome spirit that those Elves showed as they killed and killed and killed and killed.

All the time, the screams of the dying being accompanied by the oddly melodic sounds of bowstrings twanging and arrows flying

It was awful. The destruction that they wrought on their fellow living beings.

It was beautiful, the spirit and the determination that they showed in the face of overwhelming odds.

But they couldn't hold. There was no way that they could hold. Each Elf was facing three or four or even more, opponents each with more people coming up behind them and always pushing forward, made worse by the fact that the Elves simply refused to yield.

The Hounds began to scream their calls of triumph as it began to get through to them that there were far fewer defenders than they had feared and they seemed to surge forward.

Which was when the Sergeant and Rickard attacked and I saw the two men fighting together for the first time.

The Sergeant was like a God of War as he hit the enemy ranks. He didn't even seem to pause as he did so, huge two-handed sword swinging as he went. I have never seen a sword used like that. I've seen stabs and swings and chopping motions but he moved more like a dancer. More even than Kerrass does. Kerrass seems to be a fast and acrobatic dancer but the Sergeant moved more like the slow, sedate movement of the courtly dance. But even though he seemed to move slowly and with leisure, his sword moved as an extension of this so that the shining point of metal must have been moving with astonishing speed. And as it did so, it cleaved through the enemy as though he was a farmer cleaving through a field of corn, or a butcher cutting through meat.

But I have cut through meat now and the Sergeant seemed to do so with less effort. Just moving and turning. All the time his sword spun and cut, sending limbs, heads and entrails flying through the air. No-one could get near him and I saw the awful strategy of the fighting style. To get near him enough to be able to stab him or thrust a spear into him, you had to know, to be sure and to be comfortable with the fact that you were not going to survive the experience. And that was how it worked. Every time someone got close to him you could see them almost hesitate to get any closer as they saw that awful weapon coming towards them and then wanting to back off and flee. Our innate sense of survival was the very thing that killed them.

His peripheral vision was astonishing as well. Nothing seemed to escape his notice. When he saw someone drawing a bead on him with a cross-bow he simply moved, not to avoid the shot, but to place another enemy into the line of fire. Or a group of people who were trying to circle him, but he saw them and charged them. Even getting inside his swing was no guarentee of survival as he had that ability to make the pommel of the sword his weapon as well as that part of the blade closer to the grossguard. I swore one man getting brained by the smashing movement of the hilt into the back of his head.

The Sergeant chanted as he killed. A language that I didn't recognise. The language of his people.

But just as deadly was Rickard.

I remember a conversation that I had with Kerrass about Rickard's fighting back at castle Kalayn, where Rickard had been defeated handily by everyone there and he had been getting angry and frustrated with that but Kerrass had told me that Rickard was by far the most dangerous man on the training field.

I had asked why and indeed, I think I recorded that conversation. Kerrass told me that Rickard had learned his fighting on the streets and in the gutters of Temeria. He didn't fence, he fought and when he fought, he killed.

It was the first time I saw him in action. Not the quiet man with the sly sense of humour that I had known on the road. Nor the calm and calculating mind that had been in evidence when we were still fleeing for our lives.

This was something else.

In every way that the Sergeant was graceful in his killing, Rickard was brutal and savage. He fought with his broadsword in one hand and a long knife in the other. Far from the quiet and collected man, he snarled and spat and swore and screamed at the enemy. Pulling one man in close and stabbing him over and over and over again before kicking his victim into the paths of his attackers. Who then stumbled as Rickard leaped at them, sword swinging. The onslaught so ferocious that they quailed before him. Which meant that he could kill them.

When he had, he caught a spear head that was heading towards his gut. Apparently without looking before chopping his sword down on the head of the man who wielded the spear, splitting the head apart like some kind of gruesome melon. Then he tugged the spear out of the dead man's hands and drove it into the body of the next man that came at him before pushing him forward and using him as a battering ram to hammer into the enemy.

Kerrass had been right. If Rickard had decided to stop fencing and star fighting on those practice fields all that time ago, he would have torn those well dressed and uppity high-born idiots apart.

The two men had an instinctual way of working together. Two more different styles of fighting would be impossible to find. One born in the gutter and the other born on the harsh islands of Skellige.

But there was a third person with them. One that I hadn't seen at first. A terribly thin form, almost frail but no less deadly. Carys had found a pair of short-swords from somewhere and she moved in behind the other two men. There was no finesse about her. Little skill at all but there was a cold and calculating rage. Every person that she moved towards she would simply move towards them and kill them, whether by ripping their throats or bowels out, the men died as she screamed at them.

The three of them pushed forwards and actually stepped over the barricade in their pursuit of more people to kill.

Into the gap stepped Chireadean. With his long handled Elven blade. I had seen echoes of other fights in Rickard and the Sergeant but Chireadean fought like nothing I had ever seen. He seemed to calmly place his feet, precisely and carefully, shuffling and moving until he was in exactly the right place, holding his sword out in front of him. I could only see him from the back but I could well imagine that his eyes were closed at the time. Then people would run at him and they would die.

While looking for the movements that Chireadean had made, I had missed them, but people were dead or dying around him. Then he would take another step forwards and another step and another step. More people stepped towards him and more of them died.

There was a feeling about the battlefield then. A feeling of change as though something had shifted, both in our hearts and in the hearts and minds of the enemy.

“Fuck this,” I said aloud before taking up my spear and screaming in fear and anger. I charged in after them.

They say that when you are under pressure, you fall back on the first things that you learn and that certainly is true for how I fought that day. There was certainly no finesse about it. I knocked the incoming blows aside and stabbed forward before taking another step to my front. There is nothing more to say about it than that. Parry, thrust, step, parry, thrust, step over and over and over again until my arms and legs ached and my lungs burned.

Parry, thrust, step.

I have no doubt that the three Elves assigned to me did their best to protect me but there was no shortage of people to kill. I remembered what someone had once said about my being a berzerker and reached for the anger but the truth was that I was too tired for that to work. Instead I just fell back on what Kerrass had first taught me all that time ago.

Parry, thrust, step.

Then there was no-one to stab.

“Back,” someone shouted and I felt someone tugging at my clothes as I was hauled back to the hill and the lines.

I bled from a few shallow cuts and my twisted ankle from the previous day ached while sending pain lancing through my buttocks and into my spine leaving me wondering if I had done something more serious to myself.

But the Hounds were fleeing. A ,still huge, black tide fleeing from our blades and our arrows. I wished that I had the breath left for a scream of triumph.

Chireadean and Rickard joined me. Kerrass was nowhere to be seen. The Sergeant had bent to clean his huge sword on the cloak of one of his victims, wincing at something that he saw on the edge of the blade which I assume was some kind of nick or scar on the metal. He slung it back on his shoulder and strode off towards where the Bastards were waiting with a call of “Count your arrows. Come on, let's have an arrow count.”

“Can't we have a break Sarge?” I'm guessing it was a joke as the men were already turning out the quivers and going through them.

“Oh, sorry. Did you want a beer bringing to you? Along with a comely maiden to shove her tits in your face as well?”

“That'd be nice Sarge,”

There was some small laughter.

“Come on now my lads.” The Sergeants tone almost softened. “You fought well and I'm proud of you. Yes, even the Elves too. Not bad for the pointy eared soft foots that you are. But that's not all they have for us today. So it's time to get back to work.” He roared that last. The change in tone was lightening fast. But people smiled and got down to it.

Chireadean was smiling as well. “Well bugger me.” Like me he was also out of breath. “I didn't think we would survive that.”

“We nearly didn't,” Rickard commented as he stared out at what the enemy were doing. “But that assault cost us and cost us hard. By my judgement, we wouldn't survive another attack like that. Not that I think it'll come to that. Now we're in for something else instead looking at what they're doing now.”

The Sergeant came over and Rickard turned to him with a raised eyebrow and the Sergeant shook his head. Rickard swore and spat. “How bad?”

“Eight arrows each. I'm sending the lads out to see what they can pull out of the bodies but....”

“Belay that.” Rickard told him. “Get everyone to cover.” He swore again and started to shout the order. “Get down, everyone get down.”

The Sergeant was running around continuing the order. “Get to cover, get to cover.”

Chireadean was shouting the same in Elven.

The Elves and the bastards started hunkering down behind logs and corpses, some people even pulling the dead on top of them in order to find some kind of shelter.

I was still recovering from combat reaction so it took me a moment to realise what was happening. A new group of enemy was forming up. This time in solid military discipline and were marching towards us. They carried cross-bows.

The chanting that had been a continuing background noise since the early part of the morning seemed to increase in volume slightly. That might have been my imagination though. I was pulled to the top of the hill where Rickard, Chireadean and even Kerrass had also taken refuge behind the small group of large trees that were still standing on top of the hill.

Then the first cross-bow bolts started to strike. Much more powerful than the small darts of the hand-held cross-bows that had been used before and they swept the hill like a storm, or like the sea will lap at and destroy a sand-castle when the tide came in.

The noise was extraordinary. Different from the sounds of arrows flying through the air. This was more solid. Where the Arrow has finesse and art to it, the Cross-bow bolt bullies it's way through the air with no mercy for whatever it passes through in the meantime. Whether that be tree, wood or flesh.

Seeing it from the top of the hill next to the beacon fire, I saw what Rickard had commented about. For whatever reason, there was now a bare handful of Bastard's left to face an enemy. I had lost track of the count at some point and I felt intense guilt about that. Five solid archers plus Rickard and the Sergeant. Down from the sixteen men that had set out to join us here. And the Elven ranks were decimated in that attack. Most of them now hiding so I couldn't tell how many there were and I felt guilty about that too. One of them screamed as a cross-bow bolt found flesh.

“Can we do anything about that?” Chireadean asked, almost conversationally.

“Do anything about what?” Rickard asked. He seemed to be counting under his breath.

“Those crossbows.”

“No,” Rickard shook his head. “They're firing by lines, that's why their volleys are so close together. They're well outside bow range but the thing about Crossbows is that they take so long to reload that good archers can run inside range and get a couple of volleys off before running back outside of range and being safe.

“But I've only got five archers and they're down to less than ten arrows apiece. Even if we risked it, which we don't have time to do given the frequency of the volleys, we won't make a difference in the number of bolts coming our way.”

“Can we escape somehow?” I asked. “Is there a gap for us to make a break for it? I should point out that I know that there isn't, that even if there was we can't move fast enough to avoid the cavalry that would inevitably sweep over us and that even if there was a gap, we're all far to tired to get very far.”

Rickard and Chireadean just looked at me.

“For the record,” Rickard said. “I think you just answered your own question there Freddie.” He said it kindly though so that was ok.

“But no, there is no escape route.” Chireadean added. “Believe me when I say, I looked.” He sighed and smiled, somewhat sadly. “So what do we do now?” he asked no-one in particular.

“We do what we have to.” Rickard told him. “We fight until we can't any more. And make sure that we don't get taken alive. I don't fancy dying on the torture rack or being raped to death by some cultist or another.”

There was another exchange of looks.

“I still hate using grand words.” Chireadean said. I wondered if I was imagining the tear in his eye. “But I think that now is as good a time as any for grand words. It's been an honour gentlemen.”

“You too, knife-ear.” Rickard told him with a smile that faded after he said it. “you too.”

I couldn't speak for the emotion and took refuge in humour.

“I should have killed that First-born bastard Cavill when I had the chance.” I grinned. “Of all people that I know, and I've known some prize bastards in my time, that one deserves to....”

But the breath left me as Kerrass grabbed my shoulders.

“What did you say Freddie?” He was pale and sweating, his tongue licking his lips, his arms trembling.

His eyes shone.

“Kerrass I....”

“Dammit Freddie, say that again. About Cavill.”

“I, uh, I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“That's not what you said.”

“He said that he should have killed that First-born bastard Cavill when he had the chance.” Chireadean was leaning forward as he spoke.

Kerrass laughed.

“Flame Kerrass what?”

But Kerrass had grabbed me again. “Why was being First-born important to him? Knowing you, you would have asked him why it was important wouldn't you?”

“Kerrass I don't....”

“It doesn't matter. It's the only thing that fits. That's what the villagers were doing wrong.

Rickard leant forward as well. “How does this help us?”

Kerrass shook his head. “Can we see Cavill?”

Rickard spun around so that he was still in cover but looking out across the fields. “What will he look like?”

“Black robes, huge antlers on his head. Ceremonial head-dress.” I told him, “Kerrass what's going on?”

“No time Freddie, I need you to bring me my pack.”

“Why?”

Kerrass' rage was sudden and overwhelming. “Goddess damn you Freddie, go and get me my pack and do it quickly. For the sake of your soul and your life and everything you hold dear, go and get my fucking pack.”

I fled. I had thought I had seen fangs in his mouth. One day, I really must ask him as to whether or not he does have them. I'm going to get him to open his mouth so that I can have a good look around and see what's going on. But somehow, I always forget as I get distracted by other things.

I found his pack, propped against a tree. It took me a few minutes to find it, during which time one of the bastards had to bundle me to the ground so that the latest volley of Crossbow bolts could fly over my head. I have no idea who it was.

I ran back to where Kerrass was waiting. He had a rock in his hand and was gouging a circle into the ground on top of the hill next to the beacon fire that was beginning to die down with the lack of people to feed it.

“Are we sure that Cavill is even still here?” Rickard asked no-one in particular. Shouting to be heard over the noise of another volley of Cross-bow bolts hammering into the trees around us.

“He'll be here.” I told him as I put the pack down next to Kerrass.

“Help me Freddie,” he told me. “Don't ask questions, just draw the circle.”

“What with?”

“I don't fucking know,” Kerrass snarled. “Your flaccid cock that will never be sucked again, for all I care, unless you damn well draw the circle.”

“All right, keep your fur on.” I drew my dagger, the better to cut through the turf with. “How exact do I need to be?”

“At this stage,” Kerrass was rooting through his pack, throwing small packets of dried herbs over his shoulder. The stuff that we had been collecting so that he could brew more potions when we managed to find something to brew them with. “If the size and shape and exact geometric shape of the circle is what's important then we're fucked anyway. Where is it?”

He had started talking to the pack.

“Please don't let me have imagined it. Please let it....” He reminded me of a man who was praying.

“Why would Cavill still be here?” Rickard asked. “We're still close to Kalayn lands. Someone's going to see the smoke and word will be sent. Even if we don't survive, your brother is going to come here and the longer Cavill remains then the longer that he's in danger?”

“He will.” I paused as I tugged the blade through the grass and earth, pulling worms, pebbles and twigs free. “Fuck it. He will want to see it happen. This is a religious thing for him. I also think that he hates us rather a lot and will want to witness our final doom.”

“Cheerful sort isn't he. Is this going to take much longer. Only I can see them getting another attack ready?”

“Found it.” Kerrass pulled out a small clay bottle and crowed with delight. “Thank the Goddess that Elves don't like things to be too sweet and that I didn't completely imagine it.”

“What is it?” I demanded. This time though Kerrass just ignored me because Chireadean was peering through the gently lifting fog and mist.

“There's the fucker.” Chireadean said with quiet relish. “There, just beyond that outstretch of trees. Behind the cross-bows. There's five other men with him stood in a circle with their hands raised up.” He pointed. I couldn't see a thing, the fog, smoke and mist mingling to make my eyes water.

“I see him.” Kerrass said before he grinned nastily. “Rickard?”

“I can't see him.” I commented to no-one in particular.

“Yes, just about.” Rickard responded.

“Can one of your men shoot him from here?”

Rickard laughed before his face went still. “Fucking hell, you're serious.”

“Goddess preserve me from fools and simpletons, do I look like I'm fucking joking?” Kerrass raged.

“Kerrass, you need to calm down.” I told him, putting my hand on his shoulder in what I hoped was a placating manner but he shook it off angrily.

“That man needs to die and he needs to die precisely when I say so. It will save us all, and will mean that all of those people did not die in vain.” Kerrass told us.

The crossbow men were getting closer to us. They were directing their fire now rather than just indiscriminately firing onto the hill. Behind them marched lines of Hounds who moved in good military order.

“Why?” I wanted to know, “Why will one death help us?”

“Not one death.” Kerrass said. “One death at the right moment.”

Rickard had been sucking his teeth. “It's a hell of shot.” He muttered as he thought.

“Can it be done though?”

“Not by me.” Rickard spat before calling down the hill. “Dan?”

The old poacher slithered up the hill like a man half his age, keeping under the bolts that crashed into the hillside and crouched next to Rickard who told him what we needed to do.

The old poacher paled and seemed to age before my eyes.

“I'm sorry Dan.” Rickard told him. “I would do it but there's no way that I can make that shot and no-one else is anywhere near as good as you. We need that shot to happen.”

Dan nodded and hung his head. “Will you....” He cleared his throat. “Will you take care of my wife sir?”

“I will. And your kids too.”

“And this will save folks?”

“The Witcher says so.”

Dan looked at Kerrass who was almost dancing from foot to food in his eagerness. Dan hung his head for a moment and nodded. Then the years fell off him.

“Call them in please sir?”

“Bastard's to me?” Rickard called and the men came running, scurrying from cover to cover.

“What was all that about?” I wondered to Chireadean who was stood nearby. I was surprised to see tears in the Elf's eyes.

“It's a long shot.” Chireadean told me. “I've heard of it done but it's a hell of a long shot. Your man there isn't going to be able to shoot straight. He's going to have to do it in an arc. For that he's going to need a powerful bow and he's going to have to stand in the open to do it. You would need to brace yourself for a shot like that and stand properly.”

“So he can't do it without standing out in the open and....”

“The crossbows are going to kill him.”

Kerrass watched things with impatience. “Freddie, come here. Sit, crouch, crawl or lie at that point.” He pointed at a particular part of the circle. To me it was indistinguishable from any other part of the circle. I opened my mouth to ask why but Kerrass had moved on.

“Chireadean here.” He pointed to another point on the circle. “And Rickard here.”

“I should be with my man.” Rickard objected.

“Come here, stand here and do what I tell you or his sacrifice will be pointless.” Kerrass mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve. He was sweating profusely.

Rickard seemed sceptical but he did as he was told.

We all had to duck as another volley of Cross-bow bolts crashed into the hill.

“Don't fire until I give you the signal.” Kerrass told Dan, although I'm not sure that Dan even noticed. Dan was focused on his target that he didn't seem to seeing much. “Give me a nod when you're ready though.”

Dan said nothing as the Bastards assembled round him. “Bring me Matilda,” Dan told them. I had to strain to hear him, he said it so quietly. One of them rushed off. I didn't see who it was as I was concentrating on Dan. I remembered meeting him for the first time on the way south after Rickard and the crew had brought me news of my Father's accident. He had a habit of singing quietly to himself. Soft and sad songs of home, of lost love or of some nameless pain that you could only hear from the music itself. He did all of this with a purity of voice that I found astonishing in so old and weatherbeaten a man. He could be roused into singing a marching song when Rickard wanted one, as well as comedic and bawdy tunes that the lads would request around a camp fire.

The man came back and handed Dan his huge Warbow. Easily seven foot in length, if not longer. Dan had been using his shorter recurved bow for the short range power and accuracy that it commanded during our fighting on that hill and during our escape. But now it seemed he wanted the extra power. Dan took it from the man's hands and stroked it lovingly, in the same way that a minstrel might stroke their harp or lute.

Or in the same way that a person might stroke a lover. He was muttering quietly to it, whispering and when he was done, he kissed it. It was not a joke that he gave his bows women's names.

“Arrows,” he told the men. While they all lay out their few remaining arrows for his inspection. Dan strung the bow. Straining and pulling as he got the noose of the bowstring over the notch on the end of the bow. Then he bent over the arrows that had been left out for him. There weren't many and he scowled as he examined each one before discarding it due to some flaw. But then his eyes and face seemed to shine as he chose one arrow out of the rest.

“This one,” he said. It looked no different to me but Dan saw something in it. Some quality that he had been looking for.

“Thanks lads.” He told them as they divided up the remaining arrows between them.

“Back to your posts,” the Sergeant said. “Time to give the Hounds a good thumping.”

The men left, a couple of them clapped the old poacher on the shoulder as they left. “Good luck Dan,” one of them said. I couldn't tell you whether or not Dan heard them. He was fitting the arrow to the bow-string. Carefully making sure that it was at the right point before he took a deep breath and nodded at Kerrass.

Another crash of crossbow bolts. They weren't coming in waves any more, more like showers which suggested that they were close enough to be able to pick out targets.

Chireadean, Rickard and I were crouched on three of the points of a compass and Kerrass at the fourth point.

“Rickard Freddie and I know how this works.” Kerrass told us. “It's the same ritual as we did in the village cave remember?”

“I remember.” Rickard said. “I just don't see how that will help us....”

“We don't have time.” Kerrass snapped. “Your lads are starting to shoot their last few arrows. The point is that we offer something. Then we ask for something. I would suggest that you offer blood in exchange for help at this stage. Cut your palms or something. Then take a drink and pass the bottle on.”

“What's the drink.”

“Apple and honey brandy. Something that one of the villagers gave to the Elves who gave it to me for brewing. I kept it because I like it. Now do as you're told.”

He passed the bottle to me.

I just did as I was told.

“I offer you my blood.” I said, bottle clutched between my knees as I cut into my palm and squeezed some drops onto the ground. “And I ask that we be saved from the enemies that beset us.”

The drink tasted sour in my mouth. Still the beautiful apple brandy that we had tasted before but it cloyed at my throat. I passed it over to Chireadean.

We ducked again and Chireadean had to make his offer from his crouch.

“Rwy'n cynnig fy gwaed i chi.” He said in Elven. “Arbedwch ni.”

Rickard took the bottle. “I offer you this blood.” He said. “I ask for vengeance on the people that come to kill us.”

Kerrass took the bottle and nodded to Dan. Kerrass seemed very calm suddenly.

Dan waited until another hail of crossbow bolts hit the hill before rising to his feet and stepping into the open. Men's voices from the hill shouting, along the lines of “Good luck Dan,” and “Get 'im Dan.” I saw the old poacher raise his bow, adjust the angle, and again. He drew the arrow back to his cheek, arms quivering with the strain. Then he adusted again minutely. His face carrying not a mark of the concentration on it. He was aiming only slightly off, vertical. Then I saw him take a deep breath. Another adjustment and then he let the breath blow out.

The bow sang and the arrow flew. Just a split second before a cross-bow bolt slammed into the old poachers hip, shattering his pelvis. Another into his shoulder. He fell.

“Daję ci tę ofiarę pierworodnego wroga.” Kerrass intoned. His voice had a ring of power to it that made me shiver. “Dostarcz nas od wroga.” He almost breathed this last.

Then he ran over to cover and peered out into the mist. Rickard and I ran over to Dan. Chireadean joined Kerrass at the tree.

We waited. I tried to see through the mist but I could see nothing.

“Did I get him sir?” Dan begged, his fave pale and sweating. His hands scrabbling at Rickard's arm. “Did I get the bastard?” He turned his head and he spat blood. His face contorted with pain.

Rickard turned pleading eyes on me and I turned to Kerrass and Chireadean.

And we waited.

It felt like we were waiting for ever until Chireadean's face lit up. Then he screamed in victory.

Kerrass collapsed against the tree. Plainly exhausted.

“You got him Dan,” I told the dying poacher. “You got him.”

“Did it work? Did I save...?”

“Best shot I ever saw,” Rickard whispered.

Dan grinned. “It was a hell of a....” and then he died. His face almost seemed surprised by it. His eyes widening suddenly

My eyes were so full of tears that I didn't notice the mist falling again, until it had already settled around us. Nor did I realise that the crossbows had stopped firing.

Slowly, I stood up and looked out between the trees.

“So,” I said to no-one in particular. “What happens now?”

I could see nothing. Just a dark grey haze of smoke and tendrils of something else that I couldn't identify. The mist seemed to remind me of some kind of living thing. A beast of some kind but I may have been imagining things. I felt weighed down, as though I had fallen into deep water and was struggling to breathe.

“We find out what I have just done.” Kerrass levered himself to his feet and came to stand next to me. He seemed calmer, calmer than he had in days. There was still a wildness in his eyes that left me feelinsg a little uncomfortable but it felt, more than a little, as though I had got my friend back in some small but essential way.

“Thank you Kerrass.”

“Don't thank me yet. We don't know what the price is.”

“We're still alive though,” Rickard said coming to join us.

“Sometimes there are prices that are too much for even that.” Kerrass resonded.

“But there is a chance now.” Rickard insisted.

“A chance for what?” Chireadean countered. “What is happening out there?”

We stood together, the four of us on that hill top for a long moment. There was a feeling that was threatening to engulf me. It was oddly frightening and I began to feel the first stirrings of panic in the bottom of my chest.

It was peaceful. Silence had fallen and I had begun to feel safe. I had spent so long over the most recent weeks resisting that feeling. As it was dangerous to feel that. That moment where safety was a risk and the desire to lie down in a quiet place and just sleep.

But the silence that had fallen seemed almost absolute. The only sounds seemed to be in our breathing, the occasional russtle of clothing as one of us moved and the crackling embers of the fire that had all but died out.

There was another absence as well. A noise that I had been used to since when I had first woken up early in the morning. The sound of people chanting had stopped.

But there was a new sound. I tilted my head to one side in an effort to hear more or hear better. I don't know why, but it made me feel better.

I could hear the sounds of screaming but it came from a long way away. It was a distant sound, muffled and cold. There were words there but I could not hear them. Nor was I entirely certain that a human throat could make those sounds. But there was a lot of it. Lots of people screaming.

I could also feel an echo through the ground beneath my feet. Of Horses hooves hammering.

“I think,” Kerrass began, his voice sounding lound and almost overwhelming in my ears. “I think that we should get our people up here.”

“Yeah,” Rickard agreed. “Yeah, I think you're right.” He turned and startsed shouting orders. Chireadean wandered over to the fire and started kicking it and poking it back to life, throwing some of the waiting wood onto the guttering flame.

“What was that last thing you called?” I asked Kerrass. “When you were making your sacrifice I mean.”

Kerrass sighed as he lowered himself back to a sitting position. “I offered this sacrifice.” He told me. “And I asked that our enemies be destroyed.”

I sat next to him. “What is happening?”

“Freddie, I love you but could you just leave your questions until I've slept please. This has kept me awake for far too long and now I know the answer to the riddle I can finally get some sleep.”

There was such an exasperated humour to his voice that I almost laughed. My friend had come back. From wherever dark recesses of his own mind and psyche that he had ventured to. He had returned.

The remaining Elves and surviving Bastards came to the top of the hill. Many of the Elves were weeping openly and the four remaining Bastards stood around looking sullen and angry. Rickard was pacing backwards and forwards while we waited for something to happen.

When it did, it was almost underwhelming. In truth, I didn't see it until it was pointed out to me. Kerrass tapped me on the arm and was pointing.

Figures seemed to be coalescing out of the mist as though they were coming out of a thick bush or thicket. They were tall, maybe seven of them with angular features and the upswept ears of the Elves. Their armour seemed to quiver and shake in a non-existent breeze. We could only see the shapes of their faces rather than what they actually looked like but their weapons looked all too real.

The leader was misshapen, as though his head was too large for a frail body and huge gangling arms seemed to reach down further than they should have. As though they were out of proportion with the rest of his body. He looked.....So help me, he looked crooked.

His cold gaze seemed to sweep across us all. I saw, or thought I could see a faint sneer as he looked over at Chireadean, he looked over Rickard and the rest without even seeming to move. He bowed twice, once to where Dan's body seemed to lie on the grass and then again to were Kerrass still sat, unable to climb to his feet.

He bowed particularly deeply to Kerrass.

Then the figure looked around again.

“I remember you.” A voice said, seemingly a whisper in my ear. “You asked for a way forward. A guiding light and a route to follow that would lead you to the answers that you seek. I may say that you already have all the answers that you need if only you had the wit to see it but I understand how things can be obscured by sentiment.”

It was like the wind in my ear had started to speak to me.

“The magic that was used to take your sister and obscure her tracks was old. Very old and not of this world. That is the route forward that I give to you.”

“Who are you?” I asked him.

I heard echoing laughter. “Can't you guess?” said the voice.

He looked around again before turning around and walking out into the mist which, in turn, started to lift and we saw what had happened to our enemies.

“Holy Flame,” I whispered. “Sweet remains of the prophet.”

Someone had started to vomit. It might even have been me.

Our foes had been torn to pieces. Not even by weapons. Just torn to pieces. All of them were dead. I stood there for a long time trying to look for some sign of life. Some sign that there was some kind of movement. I was looking for breathing or....I don't know.....Something. But there was nothing there. It was so still, so very still and there was nothing that I could see. Absolutely no signs of life.

I could see a horse had had it's head torn off. Not removed by an axe but physically torn off with bits of skin flapping free.

Someone had seen fit to stack limbs.

They were all dead. Everyone was dead. We had been saved. It was over, just like that. In some way, Kerrass had snapped his fingers and then everyone had died. It felt....it was too much and I sank to my knees.

It was not a feeling of triumph. There was too much for that. Nor did it feel like a victory. It felt like.....I don't know what it felt like.

“There is always a price.” said Kerrass sadly.