(warning: Some crude language used for the purposes of shocking characters. Also, a description of a character's appearance that might be considered racist but is born out of a character's ignorance rather than any malice)

“Please Freddie, I'm begging you here. Please, tell me you found at least one soul in this Goddess forsaken town that is worth saving.”

It's not often that Kerrass pleads with me about anything. Normally it's the other way round where I'm pleading with him to not beat the crap out of me during one of our infrequent training sessions. Or that I can lie in a little longer or have the last morsel to eat. The only time that Kerrass pleads with me is generally when he's trying to ensure that I don't talk about this or that in these journals.

This time though I was feeling a little more sympathetic.

“I found, at least three I think. Maybe as high as four or five.”

Kerrass relaxed a little bit. “As many as that,” some of his humour was returning.

“Yes. I don't think everyone here is worthless. I think that there are a lot of people that are weak, even more people that are stupid and most people that are desperate.”

Kerrass grunted his acknowledgement of the point.

“The Priest and his wife are good folk but feel that they can't do anything that might hurt the town as a whole. He, almost certainly knows what's really going on as he's been told in the confession booth. But, unfortunately for us, he's the kind of priest who actually believes in what he's doing and isn't going to turn that knowledge over just to suit our desires.”

“Damn,” Kerrass mused. “I suppose you would object if I went over there and kicked it out of him.”

“I would a little bit. It's just our luck to finally find a priest of principle, precisely when we could have done with finding a priest that bends the rules a little bit in our favour. But because he's so upright and noble, he's also the kind of man that wouldn't break under torture. He would bite his own tongue off first. Damn him and his stupid moral code. ”

Kerrass smirked. “You liked him didn't you.”

“I really did. I just hope it isn't his lack of telling folk that gets us killed.”

Another grunt from Kerrass.

“And his wife? Are you sure it's his wife and not his lover? I thought Holy Fire priests can't marry.”

“They can't. They've used a loophole in scripture to get it done though. She won't talk because, let's just say that the earlier joke about biting your tongue off was a bit on the nose. And she supports her husband.”

“Stupid couples and their stupid supporting of each other.”

“Exactly.”

“Anyone else?”

“The herb-woman is a good woman, I think. Unhappily in love with the local Cartwright. She knows that the town is dying but feels as though she can't leave yet as she still has a duty to heal and look after the people that are still here. Her set-up is quite advanced though so you could probably top up your supplies if you're running low on everything. She'll talk eventually but my guess would be that she's been kept out of things. My guess would be that she knows roughly what's going on but hasn't been allowed to know too much. Her punishment for being too nice and automatically healing everyone that she comes across. She's the kind of person who takes in injured mice and nurses them back to health.”

Kerrass nodded. “I can see that. The locals seem to have a particular kind of view when it comes to women, in that they are generally too weak to be allowed to do proper jobs.” He snorted at that.

“Did you point out that they are currently all ruled over by an Empress?” I asked slyly.

“I did make a few comments in that direction but they seemed to be of the opinion that she is just some kind of figurehead and that there's someone behind the scenes that is running the entire show.”

“The Empress'll love that.”

“Yes she will. Does the Cartwright return her affections?”

“I don't know. He'd be a fool not to though,”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You'll know when you meet her. There are some other factors though. She thinks he hates her because she was involved during the death of the Cartwright's first wife during childbirth.”

Kerrass winced.

“It would seem that it was a stillbirth and the mother just didn't make it.”

“Even the best midwives struggle with that kind of thing.”

“They do but men, and women for that matter, sometimes struggle to keep their thoughts objective when it comes to wives and children. But in truth, I didn't talk to him about it. The other problem is that to my eyes, she's considerably more intelligent than he is and he might be intimidated by her despite not really knowing why.”

“Mmm,” Kerrass mused as he pulled on his lip in thought. “Is he another person that might be worth saving?”

“He might. He knows what he's doing and is working up the courage to leave town. He's not as invested in this place as he settled here rather than being born here.”

Kerrass nodded at that. “That can make all the difference. And the other person that might be worth saving?”

“That I've met.” I pointed out. “I've hardly met everyone that lives here and there are children here as well Kerrass. It would seem a little harsh to condemn the children because their parents are terminally stupid.”

“Spoiling all my fun. Ok, but who's the last person.”

“I liked the Bowyr. I couldn't tell you why as he took an almost instant dislike to me given that it was plain to us both that I wasn't an archer and was just poking around. But he knew what he was doing and his bows didn't have any of the ornamentation that Rickard would have found funny.”

Kerrass grunted.

We were sat in the corner of the inn while we had this conversation. We were talking quietly but I didn't think we were being overheard. We were sat next to an outside wall which meant that anyone trying to listen in on us would have to be outside and be straining to listen through a thick wall of stone. A lack of draft suggested that there weren't any easy to see spy holes that people would be able to see or hear through and there was no-on around us.

When one of the serving girls came close to us we stopped talking so that Kerrass could continue to flirt with the blonde, who continued to make eyes at him, and so that the brunette sister could flirt with me. I wasn't that receptive if I'm honest. She was obviously younger than her sister, a little too young for my taste and, as has been made perfectly clear, I tend to like older women.

Somewhere a musician is performing a drum roll.

But the sentiment was true. I told her, when her sister was becoming a bit more encouraging and trying to push her onto me a little more, that I was engaged and trying to remain faithful to my intended. I told her that had I not been otherwise spoken for then I would have been happy and privileged to exchange kisses with so beautiful a young lady.

Kerrass later commented, just before he went back upstairs with the blonde, that being engaged has actually made me better with women.

My point being that we weren't being overheard.

We were eating a very fine rabbit and wild mushroom pie along with some roasted potatoes that had been mixed with some garlic and sage as well as some carrots. It was a fine meal, the drink was on the house as well although I wasn't drinking that much. Again, I was reminded that the rule about a thin innkeeper meaning that the food and drink would be terrible is not always correct.

Kerrass was in a foul mood when I had returned though. Being lied to for the majority of a day would do that to anyone. His earlier jocular amusement at the sheer ineptness of the lies had given way to boredom and eventually to a kind of sullen rage. Not that people were lying to him. That happens a lot and sooner or later you just have to learn to live with that. But rather that they were so inept at it. That they genuinely seemed to think that they were getting one over on him. He told me that they could barely restrain themselves from cackling and rubbing their hands together at the prospect of....whatever it was that was actually going on.

He was insulted, that they would think that he wouldn't see through the stupid and pointless lies.

And those lies had been many and varied.

It had started off with Kerrass' attempts to interview the innkeeper's wife. One of the unfortunate “victims” of the demonic possession. Unfortunately it would seem that the poor woman had not been properly briefed by the village council as to what she was supposed to say. She spoke about having been working in the yard in the early hours of the morning when she suddenly felt as though she saw a huge being. All muscle and horns with the face and legs of a goat but the torso, arms and genitals of a man.

Kerrass told me that he had really had to fight to keep from smirking at the woman's description of a demon. It was straight out of a fairy story, the kind of imagined figure that would be conjured up by housewives everywhere who secretly want to be kidnapped by dark, sexual forces without really realising the horror that that sort of thing suggests. Apparently, she had gone on to describe the demon's manhood with increasing and vivid detail until the innkeeper who was present, but under admonishment that he wasn't allowed to speak in case he distracted his wife from the traumatic events that she had been through, had to turn away in embarrassment and disgust.

“You egged her on didn't you.” I accused him.

“I may have.” Kerrass said. “If I'm going to be lied to then fair enough, but you can't expect me not to have a little bit of fun at the same time.”

After meeting the innkeeper's wife, Kerrass had made a huge show of walking round the yard, inspecting the straw and the corners, spending a bit of time in the inn's stables with the horses so that he could have a bit of intelligent conversation for five minutes.

Then he had gone off to make a more detailed inspection of the Livery stable which was where he found out the first piece of real news that hadn't been told to us before.

The stable owner was actually the eldest son of the old owner who had died recently. According to the council members that were escorting Kerrass this way and that, he had been a good man but had then become suddenly ill and died a matter of six weeks ago. Kerrass had enquired as to whether or not he might be allowed to speak to the man's widow as the sudden sickness might be an important clue, or one of the “omens” that might give a clue as to what was going on. But his request was refused on the grounds that “The poor woman should be left to her grief.”

“Did you at least get shown where she lives?” I asked.

“You're thinking of a night time rendezvous?”

“I am.”

“Unfortunately not. But your Herb-woman might know, or the priest if he had to see to funeral rites. It would be useful if we could see the body.”

“Unlikely. The Holy Fire burns the bodies.”

“But didn't you say that there was a graveyard?”

“Yes. It's one of those cases where the Holy Fire takes over belief's and practices from older religions. Kreve, Melitele and a lot of the nature Gods and Goddesses say that the dead need to be buried in order for them to nourish the ground and various more wishy-washy ideas. The truth is that the Holy Fire says to burn the bodies so that they aren't lying around as food for Necrophages. ”

“Which is a good idea.” Kerrass put in.

“But they're just as happy if the family would prefer to bury the bodies like our family crypt or in the mausoleums. A lot of smaller churches still maintain a graveyard in order for the living to have somewhere to go in order to mourn the dead. The more forward thinking priests prefer to call them “Gardens of Remembrance” which I suppose they are but the term hasn't stuck. They're Graveyards in all the same ways that they used to be. The only difference being that the dead aren't underneath the grass as often.”

Kerrass grunted again.

“We're just going to have to go off into the woods aren't we?” I asked him.

“It looks that way yes.” Kerrass took another bite of the quite delicious pie.

“Kerrass?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you know what's going on here?”

He looked at me for a long time, his eyes glittering with something which I took to be amusement. “I might know what's going on but I don't know.” He took a drink from his tankard. “I would like to be sure though.”

“Ok, so how do we set about doing that?”

“I want to see a body, or at least talk to the people that might be able to give us an idea of what had happened

to some of these bodies.”

“So you want to talk to the priest,”

“Or the herb-woman. I would imagine that if people came into town injured then she would be the person that they would go to.”

“Probably, but will she tell you?”

“Maybe. I suspect that it will come down to who is with me at the time. Is she afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Anything.... Is she the kind of woman that would be easily intimidated?”

“I don't think so.”

“Would she give you the information?”

“I....”

“Here's my problem. The village council are following me around. The chances of me being able to sneak off in order to actually find something out are....slim. I have visions of turning up to talk to this priest of yours or this herb-woman and trying to talk to them with the Smith, the Thatcher and the Innkeeper hovering over my shoulder and glaring at the person in order to get them to tell me whatever it is that they want me to know.”

“More night time rendezvous'?”

“It might have to be. I think I can drag this out another day but after that I don't think I'm going to be able to put off going into the woods.”

“Do you want me to stay behind when you go?”

“No. If it's what I think it is, or even if it isn't what I think it is, then it's too dangerous for us to split up. In the woods I.... sorry, we, can easily avoid these people. They need us to be able to fight so they won't do a Cavill and injure us in advance.”

I was taking advantage of Kerrass musing and eating as much of the dangerously delicious pie as I could while he was talking. I do love me some pie.

“They want me to kill something. We know this. We know that they're lying about what it is that they want me to kill. What we don't know is why but the fact that they're lying to us about what they want me to kill suggests that this is... They wanted to know if I would defend myself if attacked. That suggests to me that it's some kind of fugitive in those woods who either carries with him a great treasure, or is worth a lot of money to the right people if he's brought in dead. But if I kill him then that bounty belongs to me. It would be much easier for them if they simply kill me on the way out.”

I snorted with laughter. “Easier.”

Kerrass did grin. “Careful of overconfidence Freddie. “Even the mightiest man can be felled by a single arrow”,” he quoted.” But he was sharing my amusement as he said it. “If that is their plan which is the most likely possibility in my opinion, and you're still in town, then they can't let you live. I suspect you would kill many while they underestimate you but at the end of the day, again, you can't deflect arrows.”

“So you think they'll follow us.”

“I would. They get their food through trade and hunting. Vegetables are grown in gardens so the majority of their diet is made up of game meat. They will know the local area and know it well, while any town that can provide enough work for a Bow maker as well as a fletcher, then that will be their weapon of choice.”

“Goody. What if we just left. You've gotten angry and left over less than this. You're refused contracts before when you have realised that people are lying to you.”

“I have.”

“So why don't we just take to our horses and move on?”

“Two reasons. The first is that if we did that then I strongly suspect that we will be ambushed just outside town by the aforementioned Archers and hunters.”

“Why?”

“They won't want news of whatever it is that's going on here getting out.”

“Bleak, but ok. What's the second reason?”

“The second reason is what might be in those woods.”

“And that is?”

He chuckled. “A yellow eyed demon.”

I glared at him for a while. “I fucking hate it when you do this.”

“No you don't you love it. You love the mystery and the suspense and being kept in the dark so that you can find it out as we go.”

I glared at him. As a response it lacked poetry but I couldn't think of anything to say other than a general denial and I didn't think that that really got my point across.

“So, is there a plan?” I settled for.

“Well, we'll start tomorrow by doing some training. I know we don't normally do this sort of thing but let's see if we can put on a bit of a show and put some fear of the Witcher into the minds of the people that will be watching.”

“Isn't that also telling people that they'd better not miss when they shoot at us.”

“Yes. But if their hands are shaking when they do that then it's not too bad. After that then I have another day looking at whatever it is that they want to show me. Apparently they have evidence of “Dark magics” to show me and “signs of evil”. To be honest, I can't wait to see it as the mind boggles at the thought of whatever it is that they've managed to dream up.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come with me. It might even be educational. Take careful notes on whatever they say, pay special attention to the lies for there will be many of them. Sometimes people accidentally allow a little bit of truth to creep into their words when they're lying through their teeth. But there is some possibility that we might see some moderately decent showmanship.”

“I won't hold my breath. Then what?”

“Then I think it's time to meet a couple of your new friends. I think we can sneak out at night and go and talk to the priest, the herb-woman and maybe, if we can find out where she lives and we haven't already found out everything that we need to know, we'll talk to the widow of the old Livery man.”

“For tonight then?”

“You, are going to bed to spend a lonely night all by yourself. I am going to go and have an enjoyable evening listening to that blonde barmaid giggle.”

“You know that denial isn't a good look for you Kerrass. You should just write to the Princess and tell her about how you project her face onto every woman that you meet.”

“Harsh Freddie, very harsh.”

“Unfair?”

It was his turn to just glare at me in lieu of having anything better to say.

Truth be told, I wasn't that lonely. Ariadne and I had a long chat that night about the way we were going to decorate the manor house that she had had built in Angral. She had ordered the thing to start being built shortly after it had been finally confirmed that she would take over the lands. Despite this it had taken all this time to get properly built, well over a year since. At time of writing it's late summer and she was freed from her tower in mid to late spring last year so it's been since then that she's been waiting for the place to be completed. Apparently this is because she keeps ordering the labourers to go off and do something silly like “helping with the harvest” or “maintaining roads” or “carrying on with other projects.” She had a basement for her laboratory and a nice room for the parts of her library that had survived and as far as she was concerned this was enough for her needs.

Just for the record, I absolutely support her desire to not put her own requirements above the needs of her people and the land that she rules but I have to have my fun somewhere.

Then she had had them build a receiving room and a bedroom for those times when she could no longer put off getting some sleep. Apparently she needs an average of a couple of hours of sleep per day-night cycle.

She can go without for several cycles quite easily and if she's in the middle of an extended project then she can go without sleep for weeks at a time before eventually crashing. Then she ordered a bath house to be built. She can cleanse herself with magic but she is fascinated by the ritual of bathing in groups as a pass-time and admitted to me that the luxury of lying, submerged in warm water, is one that she could get used to.

But that night we spent a lot of time talking about furnishings and the colours of cushions. It was not, by some margin, the most boring topic of conversation that we had had when we had talked about our future marital home. In case you're interested it was about the rails that you hang drapes off when you want to cover a window. Not the drapes themselves mark you, the poles that the drapes hang off.

I've also been told that if I don't like it when I get there then it can all be redone anyway, a prospect that fills me with a cold dread that suggests that whatever is up already is whatever I will settle for, not really caring about such things.

I want a comfortable chair and desk to write in. Some shelves to store my scrolls and books in and a comfortable arm-chair to read in. Preferably next to a nice fire and big enough for a husband and wife to snuggle in.

I also told her that she was to hire the best cook that she could lay her hands on and to make sure that the bed was as comfortable as possible.

She made jokes but believe me, a comfortable bed is a luxury that far too many people take for granted.

We rose early the following day and had one of our huge breakfasts, thus signalling that we were going to do some epic things today. Then we went out and “trained”. I use the quotation marks as had I suggested that we train in such a fashion Kerrass would have torn my face off.

I once talked about the differences between a real fight, a show fight and a demonstration fight. Real fights are short, sharp brutal affairs that are over relatively quickly. Show fights, the kind that you see on stage, are designed to simply look flashy with lots of loud clashes of weapons and flashes of light. Demonstration fights are designed to be flashy, well, demonstrations of a person's skills. That's what we did for the village that morning. We went out to the inn yard and went at it. We don't do this kind of thing often. I haven't been able to do enough to provide Kerrass with an adequate partner to provide this kind of demonstration. But when we do, we're getting quite good at it.

It's not choreographed, but it's a lot of fun. The object is to spin, move the weapons but still be able to do flashy things. To turn the weapon aside at the last minute. Nothing like what happens in a real fight. I didn't use my dagger for instance. It was all foot and weapon work. When I got close to Kerrass, he didn't head-butt me in the nose. Nor did I try and trip him up or kick him in the balls which is what I would have done in a real fight. This was meant to impress.

And impress we must have done as I saw more than one look exchanged with concern.

Eventually though we drew it to a close. As we generally do in these kinds of things I started to become desperate and become wilder with my strokes until Kerrass “finished me off” with a series of flashy movements that look brutal and uncomfortable. In truth they don't really hurt. They just look like they do.

Then he “tsk'ed”

“Pick up your training.” He snarled at me in a quiet voice that managed to carry to all the listeners. “You're just not putting your best into it at the moment and you need to pick up the slack if you're going to hope to survive,”

“Yes master.” I said, trying to look and sound ashamed.

“Don't you “Yes master” me.”

“No master,”

“Your lunge is still to weak. You've been neglecting your thigh strength again which is going to leave you off balance when it comes down to it. How often do I have to tell you.”

“Don't lose sight of balance in all things Master.”

“That's right. Sort your shit out.”

“Yes Master.”

He shook his head in disgust, “Go and clean yourself up. We've got work to do.”

“Yes Master.” I scurried off with body language that I hoped looked ashamed and frightened.

“Frederick.” Kerrass almost shrieked. “What have I told you about caring for your weapon?”

“Sorry Master.” I ran back and scooped up the spear that I had deliberately left where I had “dropped” it earlier and ran back the way I came back up to our room. As I ran I could hear Kerrass apologising to the innkeeper and commiserating with the Smith, who had also come to watch, at the state of Apprentices in the modern world.

I was still sat in the room after splashing some water on my face and making sure some of my clothes were a bit damp in order to suggest that I had rushed “cleaning myself up” despite not having really exerted myself at all when Kerrass arrived.

He laughed at me quietly when he saw me cleaning the dust of the ground from the spear.

“Too much?” I asked.

“No, I did think it was going to be but it seems that that leaving your weapon behind in the dirt is just the kind of thing that they all thought that an apprentice Witcher might do. The fact that you're an apprentice Witcher also explains your relative age to other things in their eyes.”

I snorted to show what I thought of that. I finished oiling the blade of the spear before re-covering the head with the leather sleeve that I had had a craftsman make for me some time ago.

“So what's the scheme?”

“We're going off now to inspect the site of some of the “deaths” and “massacres” that the Demon supposedly committed.”

“Goody.”

“I suspect it will be fairly boring all things considered. Try to conserve your strength though as we're likely going to have a long night and will have to set off early in the morning.”

“To go into the woods.”

“Yes.”

“I'm looking forward to it already.”

We went and had breakfast before being led out to a small clearing, just inside the woodland. Calling it a clearing might even have been considered an overstatement. When you say clearing, people tend to imagine a wide open space with grass and flowers and maybe a little hillock or something but this was far from the case. It was more an area, maybe twenty food wide where there were no trees. The ground was covered in a strange combination of wild grass, Puffball and white myrtle flowers but only lightly as the ground was crisscrossed with the root systems of nearby trees.

According to our escorts, there had been a ritualised murder committed here. A young woman from the village had been killed here, Her skin flayed from her, layer by layer and inch by inch before she had been hung from the tree, her arms and legs spread-eagled between the branches. The tale that was spun for us was lurid and sickening in it's detail making me a little concerned for the sanity of the tale tellers.

Kerrass and I exchanged glances. I saw him shrug minutely before he went back into the trees and found a stout stick before he began scratching patterns in the ground.

I gestured and herded the escorts which consisted of the innkeeper, the smith and the thatcher. The Livery barn owner had clearly been informed that he wasn't old enough, or experienced enough, to be hanging around with them and that he must have some work to do. I made a mental note to talk to Kerrass about that before we went anywhere and whether or not it might have been worthwhile to talk to the much put upon young man.

Kerrass spent some time scratching out the design. A circle in the ground which seemed to contain a pentagram as well as many other shapes and curls to the edges of them.”

“What is that?” The Thatcher asked.

“Mmm?” I asked, pretending to pay attention to what my “master” was doing. As far as I could see, Kerrass was making the design up off the top of his head. “Oh, it's called a “Devil's trap”. It's a protection circle really. What Kerrass is doing is seeing if some part of the demon, if not the entire demon can be brought back to this place in order to be identified.”

“Part of the demon?” The Innkeeper asked, looking a little nervous.

“Mmmhmm. I mean, obviously the demon is possessing someone at the moment so I personally think it's unlikely that we will get the entire demon to come here. But we might get part of it and then we can trap it inside the trap before questioning it.”

“Will it work?”

I smiled at the poor man. “We'll have to see.”

“How will we know?”

“The best case scenario is that we see the black mist that you talked about coalesce inside the circle until it looks almost solid.”

“And the worst case?” The smith asked. I guessed that he didn't believe a word of it but he was caught up in it all despite himself.

“The worst case is that it realises that we're trying to trap it and kills us all.”

“Oh,” The innkeeper paled a bit and made the warding sign of the flame.

“I wouldn't worry about it though.” I told him.

“Really? Why is that?”

“My master is highly skilled and wouldn't let anything happen to us.”

“Oh that's a relief.”

“That would mean that he has to do his own damn laundry instead of having me do it.”

I left the innkeeper to ponder that for a moment so that I could go and poke around in the treeline and the bushes, ostensibly so that I could check for “signs of the demon's passing” but mostly so that I could hide my own boredom and curtail my temptation to be overly and inappropriately funny.

In the end though, after confirming that there was no signs in the undergrowth other than some left over food items (apple cores and chicken bones, that kind of thing) and some cloth fibres in the bushes that surrounded some of the clearing, there was no sign that anything other than human visitors had come to this clearing. It was not an unattractive place and I guessed that it was the kind of place where young lovers went to escape the prying gaze of parents and guardians. I could easily imagine the Priest and his wife coming here to do some very....unreligious but very loving things here.

Kerrass continued his chanting for a long time. Much longer than I would have had the patience to continue on given that it was all nonsense but eventually he lowered his arms and took out his medallion and peered at it closely. He shook his head sadly.

“The demon is well planted, wherever it is.” He told them. “He hasn't come forth at all.” He stood, shaking his head with worry and thought before looking up and fixing the innkeeper with a gaze. “This is getting serious. If the demon is so powerful that it can resist that ritual then it is strong indeed and very possibly stronger than my apprentice and I can handle.”

“What does that mean?” The Thatcher asked but I was quick enough to see the Smith and the Innkeeper exchange glances.

“I'm saying that it might be necessary for you and the other villagers to make preparations to evacuate after all.”

“You're giving up?” The Smith asked, incredulous. “You haven't even been in the woods yet.”

“No, and I'm not sure I want to given everything that you've told me and that I've seen here.”

“You must help us. Please Witcher.” The innkeeper begged.

“As I say,” Kerrass held his hands up in a soothing gesture. “As I say, I'm not giving up yet. But it has to be considered a possibility. There are still some things to look at yet.”

The trio calmed down a little.

“What's done with the bodies of the victims after you find them?” Kerrass asked.

“They're burned Master Witcher.” The Thatcher told him. “In order to prevent the spread of their evil.”

“Of course they are. Who told you to do that?”

“Everyone knows that what you have to do is....”

“I see. Are all the bodies burned?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone examine the bodies before you burned them?”

“Well no. We asked for volunteers to build the fires and to throw the unholy carcasses onto the flames.”

“Good. That's good.” Looking at Kerrass' face though, I was unconvinced that there was anything good about any of this. “What about them, the people that throw the bodies onto the fire? Anything going on with them?”

“No Master Witcher?”

“Who are they, I might be a better judge of that than you. Knowing what to look for and all.”

The three men looked at each other.

“I volunteered.” The Smith told us. “It seemed only fair that the members of the council should take on some of the risk.”

“I would have done.” The Innkeeper piped up in order to not seem cowardly. After having to figure out what people like Lord Cavill were thinking as well as other members of the various royal courts around the land were thinking, three village council members were relatively easy to understand. “But... the village depends on the inn for a lot of it's income.”

Kerrass nodded as though he understood completely when I personally think it was much more likely that he couldn't care less what the innkeeper thought about his own importance.

“Anyone else?” He asked. “Did the village priest not try to help?”

There were more exchanged looks. “Well, you know priests,” The Thatcher ventured, licking his lips. “He didn't want to possibly stain his own holiness did he.”

“Ah,” Kerrass nodded in sage sympathy at the incompetence of the modern priesthood. I turned away again. Both in amusement but a little bit of disgust at the brazen nature of the lies that were being told. The man that I had met would want to care for the souls of the departed, no matter what their condition was.

“What about the herb-woman or healer? Surely they would have helped?”

“The men were already dead though weren't they. You can't heal that.” The innkeeper tried to laugh as if he was telling an amazing joke.

“Plus,” The Smith eyed him sidelong. “The simple fact of the matter is that we didn't want to risk our only real healer and midwife. We depend on the inn for our income but without the healer, we would literally all be dead.”

“I see,” Kerrass deflated before a thought occurred. “If you burned them, what did you do with the ashes?”

“Errr.” They looked at each other a bit more in confusion. “We scattered them.”

“Where.”

“Over the stream so that the water could wash them down stream.”

“Thus contaminating the water supply and everything else that lives in the marshes.” Kerrass thundered. “Even if, by some miracle, I manage to drive the demon off. You might want to consider relocating anyway before demon tainted wolves, deer and boar start attacking you out of the trees.” He shook his head in disgust. “You'd better show me where you tipped the ashes in so I can see if there is anything I can salvage.”

The day went like that really. Kerrass allowed himself to be led to the stream in the middle of the village where he spent a bit of time prowling up and down the stream bank, inspecting the water in the minutest detail for any signs of “demonic taint”. He made quite a good show of it too although personally I think that some of his showmanship could do with a bit of work but he played the part of a grumpy man, trying to save people who are too stupid to live, quite well.

Of course the real point of the excursion was in order for him to see where the Herb-woman's cottage was and where the church was located. He made note of both things before sighing.

“Well, I guess there's nothing else for it.” He told me, speaking loudly so that everyone could hear us quite well. “We're just going to have to go into the woods tomorrow and see if we can't have a look at the thing and find out what's going on.”

The innkeeper and the Thatcher couldn't contain their excitement, stifling grins and all but jigging with glee.

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“Why not today?” The Smith asked.

He's a cheerless fucker, he really is.

“Because we're heading towards evening.” Kerrass told him with just a hint of condescension as though it should be obvious.

“Why's that important?”

Kerrass sighed and took a deep breath before staring off into space for a moment, as if he was gathering his thoughts.

“Have you ever raced horses?” He suddenly turned to ask the Smith.

“Well, I....”

Horse racing is actually a fairly common practice in the North. Not as uncommon as you might think and it's certainly not to only be considered as “The sport of Kings”. Precisely because it started to be called that, anyone with a horse decided that they would enjoy taking part in “The sport of Kings” and decided to have a little race. It's a long way from the carefully trimmed grass or sand with the carefully marked tracks though. It's more a headlong flight along country lanes where the unwary racer can find themselves being ambushed by a rival's friends.

Father hated the practice because of the danger to the horses and tried to regulate it on his lands. He was moderately successful too but anyone who really wanted to make some quick money in one of these “Outlaw races” then they could easily go elsewhere where the power of the Coulthard races was lessened.

“I sometimes struggle when I talk to people who don't race horses.” Kerrass said, ignoring any possible response. “When I was first learning to race horses. This was about twenty years ago when the monster population of the world was beginning to decline and it was becoming clear that Witchers were beginning to become redundant. I decided that one of the ways that I would be able to make a living would be to race horses. I've always enjoyed riding and riding with speed so it seemed like a natural fit.”

Not unlike the other villagers, I was fascinated. I had not heard this about Kerrass before and I wondered if he was making it up. It could go either way of course.

“But I kept losing, over and over again I kept losing. I did everything that I could think of. I bought a racing horse rather than a riding horse, cart horse or war horse. I was wearing a light shirt. I'd left my weapons and my armour behind, I'd done everything that I could think of. After losing for, I don't know how many times I had lost I went to a friend who was with me. He made a lot of money off racing, apparently he had been a rider when he was younger but had fallen off and injured himself. But he could see a good racer and would bet on them accordingly.

“He told me a thousand and one little details. He told me that I should tie my hair closer to my head so that it wouldn't flap around in the wind. He told me that I rode like a fighter, upright so that I could see all around me but that this was a mistake, that I should crouch low to the horses neck to avoid wind resistance. He told me to change my saddle to one more suited for racing rather than for travel and to shorten my stirrups. I changed my horses diet and wore tighter clothing, also to cut down wind resistance. I felt like a fool. All these little details. He dished them out in small chunks as well. The change of saddle was first, then it was the change of posture and so on.

“Every tip he gave me, every little improvement meant that I was going just that little bit faster. Just a little bit faster every time. But when I put it all together, I won my first race. Then I could refine what I was doing and I could eke out just a little bit more speed. Just a little bit of speed could, and did, make all the difference.”

He smiled as he was lost in the memory for a bit longer but then he fixed the Smith with a glare.

“Being a Witcher is a lot like that. It's not just a case of keeping my sword sharp, or my potions to hand. It's not just the magic or the knowledge about what I'm dealing with. It's all of these things put together and if I can increase an advantage, go a little bit faster, kill it quicker or otherwise ensure that my apprentice and I make it out alive then I'm going to take that advantage.

“And if you believe, for one second, that I'm going to give up even the slightest opportunity to be that little bit better prepared. If you think I'm going to sacrifice a bit of time during my preparations so that you can feel that bit safer that bit quicker. Then you are out of your Goddess damned mind.”

He turned and made to storm off.

“Besides,” He told them. “I haven't even begun to discuss how much this is going to cost you yet have I.”

Then he did walk off and I scurried after him.

I checked around us carefully to make sure that there was no-one around us that could listen in on us before I asked the question that was most on my mind.

“I didn't know you used to race horses.” I told him.

“Yeah, twenty or so years ago. I was spectacularly bad at it.”

“But all the....”

“I was indeed told to do all those things but at the end of the day, I decided that I couldn't be fucked.”

“Fair enough.”

“We've got a lot to do tonight.” Kerrass told me after we'd gone a little bit further, “so pace yourself. Pack your gear as though we're leaving tomorrow and then get some rest. I'll tell them all that you're resting up for tomorrow's ordeal,”

“Which is partly true anyway.”

“I'm pretty sure that the only ordeal is going to be when we have to lose those people that are tracking us into the woods in the morning.”

“Confident that that's going to happen?”

“Oh yes. I'm not worried but....”

“Never give up an advantage.”

“As you say. There are some other things that I want to get done tonight as well.”

“Such as.”

“I want to make some preparations and I want to see if I can speak to the Herb-woman and the Priest. You notice how they didn't want me talking to them?”

“They let me talk to them.”

“I suspect, in the way of craft and tradespeople everywhere, that they think you're unimportant and unskilled on the grounds that you're an apprentice. They automatically think that you're too stupid to live for that reason.”

“Nice to be so well thought of.”

I did as I was told. Had another bath as there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that it might be a while before I got one again and went to bed. I was a lot better at falling asleep under enforced circumstances now since coming out of the north. A skill that I hoped that I would be able to keep into the future but for now... Speaking as someone who has struggled to get to sleep in the past due to my brain's inability to stop thinking, it is beyond pleasant to be able to lie down and just go to sleep.

Long may it continue.

I also sleep a lot lighter though which is something that I could do without as I wake up in the middle of the night and it's sometimes impossible to tell what has woken me.

Kerrass woke me up for dinner which we ate. He'd ordered the customary large breakfast to be ready for a couple of hours after dawn and had asked for some lunch supplies to be made up. I asked for the supplies to be made up in the form of a couple of slices of pie.

I do like me some pie.

But we ate and went to bed early so that we could be “fully rested up for the morning.”

In all truth, Kerrass was shaking me back to fully awake a couple of hours later when darkness had just gotten to the stages of being completely full.

Apparently our first task was to take our equipment out and hide it somewhere.

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“Because these people intend to kill us.”

I looked at him in askance. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“As sure as I can be. Even if I wasn't pretty sure, which I am, it doesn't hurt anyone to take a few precautions.”

“We've never had to do this before.” I commented as Kerrass climbed out the window onto the rooftop.

He grinned at me suddenly. “Welcome back Scholar Freddie. I've missed these questions.”

“It's been a while.” I answered with a grin of my own as I started passing over our saddles and horse gear. “But now I have questions. So why have we not done this before?”

“It's because.” He grimaced as I passed his saddle-bags over which he slung over his shoulders. “We've never really been in serious danger of this kind of thing before.”

“People have tried to swindle us before when I've been with you.” I passed my own packs over which Kerrass took.

“Yes but, you've been stood guard over our belongings. Actively killing the Witcher to avoid payment has become rarer in this part of the world. Mostly because the common folk take the attitude that they can't pay us what they don't have. Which is true.”

I slung Gardan's axe over my back and Kerrass helped me out of the window. We had put pillows and rolled up blankets under the bed so that if anyone had come into the room then we hoped that the subterfuge would last a bit longer.

“So,” Kerrass continued, “They don't feel the need to. Such acts are fuelled by greed rather than desperation I find. It's not that I don't get attacked at the height of desperation but it's more....it's a spur of the moment kind of thing. I go back to where I expect to get paid. They say they can't afford it. I tell them to pay up. They get angry, make threats and such like. I get angry and demand the agreed upon payment. Then someone might try something but, if you're careful, you can normally see it coming. It's in the eyes. You remember Gaetan?”

“The Cat Witcher that got injured in Toussaint. The sad man that got headaches a lot.”

“That's him. He struggles around lots of people. It happened to him once, relatively recently down in Velen and he didn't see it coming because he was injured and still in the grip of heavy duty potion withdrawal. It does happen but, as I say, it's more often than not a spur of the moment thing.”

We tied the packs to a bit of rope and lowered them down to the ground off the corner of the inn.

“As I say, it used to happen more often when people thought they could get away with it. Which they could to be fair.” Kerrass sniffed to show what he thought of that. “Another piece of wisdom for you Freddie, the more you have, the more you are frightened of losing and the lower you will sink to keep it.”

Not that we needed to be worried about being that quiet as we snuck out. From the sounds of things people were beginning to party a little harder. There was a kind of anticipatory air to things, as though they were torn between partying against the coming darkness but also being excited about something.

I couldn't tell what that thing was though.

But despite all of that, we played it safe rather than sorry and kept to the shadows.

“Kerrass?”

“Yes Freddie?”

“What's in the woods Kerrass?”

He sighed. “Haven't you figured it out yet?”

“Well, no.”

We dodged a man who was vomiting in a ditch.

Kerrass laughed. “I am surprised.”

“But you know don't you.”

“I don't know. I'm pretty sure though.”

“So what is it?”

“A demon with yellow eyes.” Kerrass answered promptly.

“I really fucking hate it when you do this.”

Then we had to back track a bit as a couple were going at it in a haystack. Again, if I had to bet, we could have ridden past them, blowing a horn and the pair of them wouldn't have noticed us but....as always, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Kerrass sighed when the sounds of his grunting and her moaning began to fade into the background. “Think about it Freddie. How many things are there in the world that have yellow eyes.”

I mused on this for a while. “Quite a few I would imagine. Trolls for a start.”

“Yes, but if it was a troll, they would just hire me to get rid of a troll. There wouldn't be all this nonsense about a demon. The same kind of thing would be said about a Griffin or any of the other significant beasts. Also, we would have seen signs of the depredations of such an animal on the town. So what has yellow eyes? That they would want dead but would want to lie to us about.”

I strained for an answer.

“I may be being uncommonly stupid here Kerrass but I really can't think of anything.”

“That's because you're over thinking it. Looking for a complicated solution when you really don't need one. The answer is actually right in front of you but you want it to be something else, something new, something complicated.”

I saw his teeth shining in the darkness as he grinned.

We moved a little way out of town, heading South. The moon was only a crescent hanging in the sky but the night was clear and it was not hard to see. We headed along the road out of the village for a bit until we came to a large oak tree that had been split by lightening at some point. It was mostly dead but there were still some leaves sprouting from the lower branches. Kerrass kind of nodded to himself and turned into the trees on the Western side of the road. It was tough going as these trees were wild, many fallen logs that had been pushed over in one of the various storms that occasionally attack this part of the world, branches, bushes and all kinds of crawling moss, grass and plants conspired to make movement treacherous. I am ten times the woodsman that I used to be when I first set out with Kerrass but that's not saying a great deal and I still struggled to move a bit.

Kerrass was counting. When he got to a large tree with a hollow against the side, he put our packs into the shelter of the tree before we spent a bit of time covering them with forest detritus to camouflage them. It was some time before Kerrass nodded in satisfaction though.

“Why aren't we taking our horses out with us?” I asked as the thought occurred.

“Horses can be replaced.” He replied with a short smile.

“I paid quite a lot for those horses,” I complained.

“True, and I am found of Baby. But... People like this. Clothing, saddles and other gear can be re-purposed, disguised and burnt so that anyone that comes after us will not know what's happened to us. But horses? People out here would never get rid of good horseflesh. That can be sold on, put to work, disguised, dyed or at the ultimate end of the extreme. It can be butchered for meat and boiled down for glue.”

“I paid a lot of money for those horses.” I complained again.

“They won't do that immediately. They will weigh the options and see if the horses can be sold on first. All the while, we can sneak back into town and steal them back. But if we leave our belongings behind then I would guess that they will be on fire by the end of tomorrow.”

I sighed. “I paid a lot of money for those horses.”

Kerrass chuckled quietly in the darkness.

It still took us a little time to retrace our steps. This time, as we moved through the village, we did so on the side of the village that we had been told that the demon lived in the woods. Kerrass crouched in the shadow of a storage shed and watched the town. We must have watched for a while before he grunted to himself.

“They haven't set a watch, or a guard.” He commented to me.

“What does that mean?”

“If there was a dangerous fugitive, a monster or....heh.... a demon in the trees. Wouldn't you set a watch?”

“I suppose so. I would certainly not be drinking heavily or running off with a lover into the haystack.”

“Neither would I.”

He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “So, let's go and see this herb-woman of yours then.”

We crept along the treeline. Still keeping to the shadows. It was actually a little nerve-racking. Not gonna lie here. Yes, Kerrass had told me that there was no demon in the woods but there was still someone or something in there and we were now closer to the trees than we were to the town and that made me nervous.

We came to the stream that ran through the middle of the village and jumped over a narrow bit. We could see where some of the children of the village had started to build some kind of dam which they had floated bits of twig into. I fought an almost overwhelming urge to kick it into destruction like some of the local bullies had done to my dams when I had built them at home. I didn't though. I also remember the tears that had flowed freely after the destruction of all my hard work.

Then it was my turn to lead. I took Kerrass over to where the Herb-woman's cottage was and he spent a bit of time all but salivating as he looked at the herb-garden.

“Lady's got some skills.” I told him.

“She must. Oh, I could spend a fortune here.”

“Then why don't you.”

“Don't tempt me.”

I knocked on the door.

“Go away.” Came an angry response.

I knocked on the door again.

“I said, Fuck off.” She yelled louder.

“I suppose it would kind of give the game away if I yelled back,” I mutter to Kerrass.

“We're trying to be stealthy here Freddie.”

I nodded, knocking again.

“Look, for the final time, I'm busy.”

I sighed and knocked again. A little longer and a little louder.

There was a pause. “All right I'm coming but you'd better be fucking dying out there, I shit you not.”

There was some clattering from inside the cottage and the sound of things moving before she answered the door in her nightdress and wrapped in a large, heavy, woollen robe.

“WHAT?” She thundered as she opened the door before realising who we were. “Oh.”

She had also let the dreadlocks down from the top of her head so that they spilled down her back. The longer ones managed to reach down to the back of her knees. If she actually brushed them out then the flame only knows how long they would be.

“Are they not, really really heavy?” I asked as she pushed a thinner one behind her ear. Now that I could see them all I could see that some of them had wooden beads and carven shapes in them. I could see more than one piece of simple silver jewellery wrapped round them. I had forgotten how attractive she was in the meantime.

“Sometimes,” she told me indignantly. “But on the other hand, it all keeps me warm in winter. Like an extra fuzzy blanket.”

“Isn't keeping it clean difficult?”

“Not really. Hair doesn't dreadlock through lack of cleaning. It's lack of conditioning and grooming that causes that.”

“Conditioning?”

“Cleaning it with largely expensive and pointless shite. Look, is there a point to this? Otherwise I kind of want to go back to bed to continue crying myself to sleep if that's ok with you.” It was hard to see, but her eyes really were red.

“May we come in?” Kerrass asked finally. “I want to talk shop and that is sometimes difficult with some of the other folk hanging around.”

She sniffed and examined him up and down, her mouth twitching from one side to the other as she considered. I couldn't decide whether she was angry or being charming.

“Come in,” she decided eventually. “But I warn you that I've been drinking. Not enough to want to sleep with you though if that's the idea.” She glared at me. “Maybe the Witcher,” she decided after a while but definitely not you.” Then she span on Kerrass. “But only because I'm curious about what a mutant looks like under the clothes.”

“You would be disappointed,” Kerrass told her. The ceiling was too low for him to stand up in and keep his swords on his back and he was taking the harness off. I had already propped my spear in the corner. “I look astonishingly human other than the eyes. Disappointingly so, or so I'm told.”

“So, no large mutated dick then.”

“Alas no. I will also say that any attempts to drive me off with crude language or behaviour is not going to work.”

“Really? How about fucking anger and hatred then?”

“What have we done to earn your anger, or your hate?” Kerrass asked, not unreasonably.

“To be fair, not you. And as for him.” She gestured at me. “He asked some damned rude questions and opened some old wounds.”

“He does that sometimes.” Kerrass admitted. “It's a skill of his that I value as often, I find, it helps in the long term. More than once I have had the chance to look back on what has happened in his company and realise that the events that have transpired have turned out to my benefit and it started by answering an uncomfortable question.”

She didn't look convinced. Kerrass was in a mode where he was talking to someone of slightly higher social standing. Which we were I suppose. Not the same voice or speech patterns that he used when talking to the other villagers but a bit closer to the kinds of things that he said when talking to my professors.

“May we sit?” Kerrass asked her politely.

“Can I stop you?”

“Any time you like.” He replied.

She jigged from one foot to the other in nervous energy. “Oh fuck it.” Then she sort of collapsed into her arm chair that showed some signs of much use. “I suppose you'll want some tea as well.” She spat it out as though we had asked her to sacrifice her life for a cause that she didn't believe in.

“Only if you're making it anyway.” Kerrass said.

“I was actually in the process of drinking myself into oblivion.” She told him.

“That works too.”

She sighed and went into that area of the cottage with a stove and came back with two more small cups. Then she reached down next to her chair and produced a bottle that she offered to us both. Pouring a generous measure into her own cup, a smaller one into Kerrass' cup and a tiny measure into mine.

“You don't deserve that much of it.” She told me.

“What is it?” Kerrass asked. “And your attempts at humour are not distracting me either.”

“I don't think it has a name. I brew it from forest berries and apples. I used to get in trouble with the innkeeper for brewing and selling it as apparently I took custom away from him. Stupid fool. If he even knew a fraction of what he thought he did about brewing then he would be a famous brewer rather than an innkeeper in a backwater town.”

“The food and ale there is quite good.” I ventured cautiously.

She snorted. “It's his wife that does that. My mother taught us both everything we knew. She took it into her marriage to the innkeeper and uses her herb lore to make better food and better beer. I use it to make this stuff and to make medicine. I think I got the better end of the deal as she ended up with that stupid prick of a husband.”

She was not quick enough, nor was it dark enough in the cottage to hide the fact that she was wiping the tears from her face.

“What's your name?” Kerrass asked softly.

She sniffed hugely and expressively. “Samantha.” She admitted after a while as though it was the world's greatest secret. “Are you going to tell me that it's a pretty name?” She demanded.

“No.” He told her.

“Although it is.” I put in.

“Shut up.” She told me.

“What's going on here Samantha?” Kerrass asked me after sending me a little glare.

“I can't tell you.”

As always when this happens, Kerrass did not ask the obvious question of why not. Instead he asked a different question. I once asked him about this. Apparently it's because if you ask a continued question that a person cannot, or will not, answer then it compounds the refusal and the person is even less likely to answer questions. Instead, you ask a different question, one that is more likely to be answered, and get the person that you're talking to back towards the habit of answering. You talk around the question, change the topic, anything. Ask if you can use the rest room or for a refill of a drink or something. Then you can bring them back round to what you want to know.

Kerrass nodded and took a sip from his cup of spirits.

“This is good stuff,” he commented.

“Thank you. Not going to ask me why I won't answer your questions?” Easy to forget sometimes that in order to be healer, midwife, herbalist and whatever else Samantha was and women like her are. They have to be intelligent as well.

“Would it help?”

“Not really.”

See how it works?

“Why wouldn't it work?” I know Kerrass well enough to know that he was smiling.

“Because I'm still not going to tell you what's going on.”

“Which is why I didn't ask the question.” Kerrass told her. “So instead, I will ask a different question if I may?”

She considered and I noticed that her eyes had dried up. Then, after some time, she nodded.

“You will know, because you're not a fool and you know a little bit about things that I am a Witcher.”

“I also know that he's as much your apprentice as I am.” She commented gesturing at me.

Kerrass ignored the question “Do you know what Witcher's do?”

“You kill monsters.”

“We do. We also lift curses quite a lot as well as lifting enchantments but that's not the root of the situation. The root of what a Witcher is, is that we're problem solvers. Everything else is just the fruit of what that root produces.”

Notice Kerrass' use of plant based metaphors while talking to a herb-woman.

“Freddie here is a scholar. So he tends to look at the big things like he's a man wanting to record everything. He wants to see it for what it is and record it so that the situation is recorded for posterity.”

Not quite true but I let Kerrass get on with whatever it was that he was saying.

“Me? I look for problems to solve. Often, people know what problem they want me to solve, a rogue Grave hag or a nest of Arachnomorphs. But sometimes they don't know.”

He'd drawn her in. Kerrass didn't really fish but it kind of looks that way sometimes. If he did, I would guess that he would say something like “Got her,” or words to that effect. She stared at him with rapt attention.

“Here,” he went on. “I come to a village. A quiet village and, as far as I can see, many people think that the village is dying. I think that they are right. But instead of going off quietly, with grace and humour, leaving a couple of people here to keep the memory alive who prefer to live in the wilds anyway. They decide to do something else. What that thing is?”

He shook his head.

“I don't know. This place reminds me of a knot. The entire village has come together to form this knot and now the knot hangs over their heads like the waiting blade of an axeman. When things first started to develop, people thought of the blade to be the thing that would break their chains, the ones that hold them to the block. But as time goes past, more and more of you are beginning to see the blade as a thing that is going to strike down at you, to kill you but in the meantime, the bonds and the ropes are being tightened. Drawing them closer and closer until none of you can breathe.”

She said nothing.

“I know how it started. A desperate town meeting. Someone spotted the possibility for making some money and then you all gathered together. At first it sounded like a good idea and you were all desperate weren't you. Nothing wring with that. You just needed the money. To get back on your feet, to get you where you needed to be.”

I knew that his eyes would be searching her face, for any clue that he was heading in the right direction.

“And if that was all it was. I would have thought that it was fine. But people among you are not alright with it. Not all of you know what's actually going on. Some of you are excluded. Some of you are kept in the dark. You get told “Don't worry about it. Leave it to us and we'll take care of it.” You should be nervous of such people.”

He stared at her for a long while.

“May I have a refill?” He asked suddenly, holding his cup out to her. Startled, she almost jumped. Reached down and picked up the bottle that was next to her chair and poured him some. I didn't bother holding out my own cup. I ran the risk of being rejected and I might have distracted or otherwise broken the spell that Kerrass was weaving over her.

“Let me tell you what I know.” Kerrass said after another appreciative sip. “I know that someone is in those woods. Note that I do not say something. It is definitely someone. Someone who is skilled enough that they can't pick him off with a bow. And skilled enough of a fighter that they would rather hire a Witcher than get the deed done themselves. This person is either carrying enough wealth on him or has enough value to nearby rich people to justify this.”

Again, I could well imagine Kerrass searching her face for any clues that she might give away during being questioned.

“In the morning, Freddie and I are going to go into the woods and Try to find this person. The village council expects him, or her I suppose, to attack us. When Freddie and I have defended ourselves, the villagers will attack the survivors from a distance in order to hush up takes of whatever had happened.”

She swallowed. Even I could see that.

“So there are going to be at least two, probably three deaths on the entire village's conscience tomorrow. If there aren't other deaths already.”

I thought that her rate of breathing increased just a little.

“I think some of the other villagers have already been killed here.” Kerrass continued after a moment. “I think that they would have tried to send some of their own in against this person because it takes a lot to summon a Witcher and that method of procuring a skilled fighter is neither quick, nor guaranteed.”

Notice that Kerrass was starting to talk about the other members of the village as “They” rather than including her in the questioning. Separating her from them so that she might think of herself as an individual rather than as someone being coerced or entrapped.

“So let's say that they do get their hands on whatever it is that they're after. Let's say it's a large sack of money. Just so we're not being distracted by the problems involved in receiving any kind of reward money or collecting bounties, fencing stolen goods, that kind of thing. So they have their bag of money. In my experience, and I'm sure in your experience too, greed is a growing disease. Once a person has it then it gets worse and worse and worse. It can eat a person alive if they let it. They are already getting pretty dangerous in their greed in that they are already plotting people's deaths to get what they want. So that leads me to my question. Finally, yes I know. Freddie is not the only person who can get long winded if he's not careful. Are you ready for my question?”

“Yes. Unless that was the question?”

“It was not. If they are willing to go to such lengths to get the money, what makes you think that they will split it up equally among everyone else. Or is it more likely that they will go to equally considerable lengths to keep the money to themselves?”

She said nothing.

“So I'm not going to ask you what is happening here again. I'm assuming that you have given your word to various people and I'm not going to ask you to break it.”

She nodded, as though pleased but I wondered if I saw a small amount of disappointment in her face.

“Tell me though,” Kerrass began. “On a completely separate matter. If someone were to get injured in the woods. Do they bring the poor souls to you or do they take them elsewhere?”

“They generally bring them here, or I go and see them in whichever house they have been taken to.”

“I see. What if someone has been killed in the trees. Do you see the bodies?”

“Yes. But that's very rare if I'm honest.”

I thought I could see the first hints of mischief growing in her eyes.

“What kind of injuries have people been coming back with. You know, recently.”

“Well,” She said. “Long straight cuts. A little tearing but mostly...I know about slicing wounds. You can't work around hunters without knowing what happens when a blade hits flesh. This was the same as those injuries only on a much greater scale.”

“What kind of blades?”

“I don't know about that kind of thing.”

“Are the cuts clean?”

“There are two kinds of cuts. The first is a clean cash or, you might say, a flat, clean puncture wound.”

“I see.” Kerrass leant forward. “And the other.”

“Those injuries look like puncture wounds. Like if the person got shot by an arrow only if the arrow was an inch or two wide.”

Kerrass leaned forward. “Tell me, does the puncture wound taper off. As though it gets thicker the further into the wound that it goes?”

“How do you know that?”

Kerrass laughed. He laughed for a long time. “I will venture further guesses. Do some of the people that you have been examining show signs of having been set on fire? Or that they have been struck by large heavy objects. Or injuries that might show that the person has been run over by a horse?”

“You've tricked me,” She glared at Kerrass. “You knew all these things already.”

“Not a trick.” He told her, still laughing. “It just means that I know what's going on now.”

“I don't,” I said to no-one in particular.

“One last question.” Kerrass said, ignoring me, “before we leave you to whatever it was you were unhappy about. Does anyone go into the woods on a regular basis and come back uninjured?”

“The priest's wife does. Tulip. She often goes in looking for herbs and the like. Not a bad healer herself.”

“Excellent. Thank you for your time. Come on Freddie, time to go.”

He got up to leave and I went to follow him before stopped and turned back to her.

“Look.” He began. “It's none of my business but....Talk to the man. What's the worst that could happen?”

“He could tell me that he hates me. He could blame me for everything that's wrong with his life and the world in general.” She answered promptly. “He could tell me that he hates me, that he's too old for me, that he's leaving town and not coming back. He could rip my heart out of my chest, throw it on the table and hammer at it with his mallet until it's flat and lifeless and the last vestiges of my soul dribble out.”

Kerrass and I looked at each other.

“That was......vivid.” I commented.

“He might.” Kerrass said. “But has he ever actually told you that he hates you?”

She didn't answer but the way she looked up at Kerrass told us that he hadn't.

“Then let me suggest another possibility.” Kerrass went on. “He's still in the village rather than going off and finding work elsewhere, because he's in love with you.”

She snorted.

“Men are stupid creatures.” Kerrass told her. “You need to write your message on the side of a hammer and clobber us over the head with it before we take notice. But I will say this. You are an intelligent, funny, charming and beautiful young woman. He would be a fool not to see that and even if he doesn't then you should move on. The world is a bleak, dark and unpleasant place and if we have a chance of happiness, even for a moment, then you should grab it with both hands and hold on with everything you have.”

She nodded, still not looking entirely convinced.

“Good night.” Kerrass led me out into the night.

“That was kind of you.” I told him.

“I liked her. I haven't met the object of her affections yet but he could do a lot worse.”

“That was good advice you know.” I told him. “About finding happiness and holding onto it.”

“I know.” He said, smugly, not seeing where I was going with this yet.

“There's a certain princess.” I went on. “and what she represents that could be grabbed hold of, by a Witcher who stands not a million miles from where I am right now.”

“Shut up Freddie.”

“She's an intelligent, funny, charming and beautiful young woman who's head over heels in love with him.”

“I said shut up Freddie.”

“Any man would be a fool not to see it”

“Freddie, I'm warning you.”

“After all, the world is a bleak, dark and unpleasant place and if we have a chance of happiness, even for a moment, then you should grab her with both hands and hold on with everything you have.”

“Hah, you misquoted. I said you should grab “it” with both hands, not “her”.”

“Did I say that?” I asked innocently. “Can't think why.”

I skipped out of the way of a swung blow. I was going to pay for that later but he totally had it coming.

I was surprised though. I thought that we would be heading over towards the church, but instead, Kerrass was leading us back towards the inn.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Back to the inn.”

“Do we not have more people to talk to?”

“No. I know what's happening now.”

“For certain?”

“For certain.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“After that crack about grabbing life with both hands. I don't think you deserve to know the truth.”

“Don't lie to me Kerrass.” I said, chuckling. “You would have hidden this from me anyway for your own amusement.”

Kerrass considered this. “True. But this time it means that you can't really complain about it in the long run. This time you deserve being kept in the dark and whatever it is that happens to you.”

“Oh good. Something to look forward to then. Where do you think that Tulip was going then?”

“Work it out for yourself. You know how I do things, what do you think she's doing?”

“Kerrass.” I warned.

“Stop being so lazy Freddie.” He chided.

“I'm not being lazy. I've told you before that I want to hear things in your words. It's no good if I figure it all out when what I want to do is to study a Witcher at work.”

“But in this case, you actually don't know what's happening do you.”

“No, I don't.” I admitted.

“There you go then.”

“But this time it's unfair. You knew what was going on before we got here.”

“I didn't, not really.”

“Liar.”

“Ok, I had a good idea. Further borne out by the behaviour of the other villagers.”

“So you're operating at an advantage to me. You know what's in the woods don't you?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“You know because you knew which questions to ask. To hone in on existing suspicions and knowledge that no-one else could have.”

“Not that no-one could have, but that you couldn't have.”

“That seems unfair to me.”

“Life isn't fair Freddie. Anyone who claims differently is selling something.”

“Very funny. Where is Tulip going at night?”

“Where would you think she was going? Leaving aside the attitude of the village. Leaving aside the thing that lives in the trees. If you heard about a woman sneaking off in the middle of the night....”

“I would say she was meeting a lover but she's not like that.” I interrupted. “You haven't seen her together with her husband. The two of them love each other in that hopeless kind of puppy dog way that makes people sick.”

“You mean in the way that you and Ariadne do when the two of you are together.”

“Fuck off.”

“If you'd let me finish I would have said that if you met a good woman, as good as the one that you've described to me. As holy a woman as that is and she was sneaking off in the middle of the night. Where would you think she was going.”

“I would still think that she's meeting someone.”

“There you go then.”

“She would do what she feels is right.”

“Precisely.”

“So why aren't we going to ask her what's going on then?”

“Because it would force her into a compromising situation. She has, undoubtedly been sworn to secrecy. By her husband if by no-one else. Her husband who has promised to help the village in any way that he can, and by whoever, or whatever, she is meeting. So she would have to compromise one of those promises. There is also the probability that her husband is in on it. Her husband, the good and holy man that you describe is trying to help both sides of the problem. That's tricky of course and he's charted a difficult course. But all we would do if we went there would be to put good people under pressure to compromise their ideals.”

“Are you going soft in your old age?” I asked him after that little speech.

“Maybe,” he said. “But it's also pointless. I know what's in the woods now. So all that we would be doing is asking good people to compromise their principles in return for information that I already have.”

“Information that you're not going to give to me.”

“No.”

Try as I might, I couldn't get him to tell me what was going on in the woods. I asked about going to see the widow of the dead Livery man but Kerrass denied that idea as well. Pointing out that if the priest, his wife and the Herb-woman had been put under pressure not to say anything, then the widow would be doubly certain to be under the same amount of pressure. And, it was a given weakness in their story and if we were compromised then she would possibly pay the price.

We made it back to the inn and went to bed for a few more hours sleep.

We woke, as we had asked to be woken, at dawn.

As I say, since everything that has happened, I have developed a slightly unwelcome habit of sleeping relatively lightly, except when I know that I am safe, either in my families castle, my rooms in Oxenfurt or if I'm surrounded by other guards.

Also, when Ariadne is watching over me but that's a conversation for a different day.

So I woke easily, cleaned myself up a bit and we went down for our breakfast which Kerrass had ordered in advance. This was another occasion where we were putting on a show and we both knew it. So we sat, ate the ridiculously huge breakfasts that Kerrass always, and I do mean always, consumes before we set out on one of these expeditions.

I keep meaning to ask him about the breakfasts but I always get distracted by other factors and forget to ask. Several reasons occur, the first is that he's just not sure when he's next going to get the chance to eat. The next possibility is that it buffers him against the possibility of taking any potions. The third possibility is that he just likes breakfasts. The sausages, bacon, tomatoes, Fried potatoes and mushrooms along with fresh bread and butter when he can get it.

To be honest, that's probably the most likely option and he consumes it all with relish. No matter the quality of the food that is presented to him. Even when I've turned the food away on the grounds that it's too greasy or woefully undercooked. Kerrass has consumed it all with obvious and unfeigned enjoyment. Even stealing leftovers from my plate.

So we ate, with the attitudes of two men who felt that we were about to go out and die which meant that we ate in silence, exchanging significant looks with each other.

I made a show of handing a packet over to the innkeeper that was supposedly full of letters that I wanted posted off to my family. It wasn't the real packet. The real one is in my pack, back where we'd secreted it in the woods. Kerrass had promised me that we were in no real danger and as such I hadn't made any provision for getting those letters sent out.

Then we packed our provisions. The food that we were taking for the trip in case we would be out all day. We filled the water skins and made extra care to ensure that they were all settled around our bodies properly. And by extra care, I mean that we redid it over and over again until we were both bored. For the record. Kerrass can go from inactivity to a position where he can move in a little under a minute. Nowadays, I'm not far behind him in that regard. It's all about setting things up in advance so that you know where everything is and don't need to think about where it all is.

Kerrass likes to tell a story where we were camping out in the woods one time while we he was hunting a feral vampire who was eating the locals. My job was that when contact had been made with the beast, that I was to mount back on my horse and head back to let the authorities know so that they could cordon off the area and evacuate those people that might be at risk in case the beast escaped Kerrass' blade. He claims that the beast had found us and was attacking. Kerrass was unprepared so he shouted and I was up, on my horse, gear stowed and riding away. All before I had actually woken up. I don't remember the incident as there are many such episodes in our past but it sounds as though it was likely.

Then, with an attitude of sombre men going to our deaths we made our way out of the village and into the trees.

I had considered asking to go and pray for a bit in order to properly prepare myself for death but I thought that that might have been a touch too far.

We entered the forest slowly and cautiously. Doing our best to look as though we were walking into fire and that we were afraid. Not too far from the truth in my case but Kerrass was hamming it up to his great delight.

The outskirts of the woods were obviously well travelled by local hunters and we could see many tracks heading off into the trees. Kerrass spent a bit of time look at the tracks before shrugging and picked one, as far as I could see, at random. Then we started walking. The path gradually and obviously became a wildlife path that led us down to a small pond of natural water. The ground softened as we went but it was easy to imagine the various animals making their way down to the water in order to get something to drink and the hunters lying in wait for them.

Kerrass was muttering to himself about the kinds of tracks that he was seeing. He saw boar, human, both male and female. He saw rabbit, deer and some signs of other swamp creatures. Nothing too big, nothing too dangerous and nothing that would actively be a threat or wouldn't taste good if you caught it.

We went carefully, advancing as though we were being cautious and keeping our eyes out. Kerrass went first and I followed, occasionally turning to walk backwards as though I was guarding our rear.

“How far behind us do you think they are?” I asked quietly.

“Not that far.” he replied. “They know these woods which is more than we do. They can track us easily which might be a problem but I think we can shake them off. They are used to animals who don't really think. Not humans who have their own...way of thinking. These are no Cultists of the First-born.”

“I know. But you'll forgive me if I'm not really enjoying being hunted through the trees again.”

“This is different though.”

“In what way? Other than the obvious that we're being hunted by different people.”

He grinned at me. “This time it's fun.”

I made some comment about the rumoured insanity of Feline Witchers.

The difficulty here was going to be getting away and turning the tide on our pursuers. The possibility that we weren't being followed hadn't even entered into our minds. The problem was that the ground was soft and marshy meaning that we were leaving easy tracks to follow. If we moved into the vegetation in order to hider our tracks by moving across root systems then we would damage the plants which would be just as obvious as leaving huge foot prints everywhere. And, of course, they knew the land and we did not. We were looking for some kind of running water. If we could find the stream that ran through the village itself then that would be idea. We hadn't seen any hunting dogs in the town but running water would hide our tracks better. A body of water, like a pond or something wouldn't work as people could just walk round it and find where we had emerged from the water.

In the end, we escaped from our pursuers with the oldest trick in the book. It's so old that you've even heard of it. We laid a false trail and doubled back. Literally the oldest trick in the book when it comes to evading capture or ducking pursuit. If there are ever books written on the subject of “How to avoid pursuing enemies” then this would be the first chapter with a later follow up chapter about how to spot someone else when they're doing it.

We did have one advantage though which was that our pursuers didn't think we knew about them. They still believed that they had got one over on us and as a result, they weren't expecting any kind of subterfuge. That and they were primarily experienced in tracking animals and game which meant that they were used to tracking things that used instinct rather than intelligence in order to evade capture. We did our best to subtly support this conclusion as we went by making no effort to conceal our tracks and to make large, obvious to follow trails. As I say, I am a much better woodsman now than I had been before all of this began and I will admit to being outright embarrassed at the size of the trail that we were leaving.

But we found our stream. We walked along it for a while before climbing out and walking plum into a patch of brambles. We used the pole of my spear to force a bit of a path into the bramble bush so that they would think that we had gone into it before we doubled back. Carefully putting our boots back into the old tracks. Yes, that meant that the impressions that we left would be odd. More pronounced and differently... I suppose the correct term is “scuffed” but again, people that were used to tracking animals rather than humans.

After that we were back in the stream and went a bit back in order to find the low hanging branch that we had marked out for the purpose earlier. I went first with a boost from Kerrass, pulled up what gear we had with us and then pulled Kerrass up behind me before we made our way a little higher so that we could be more covered by the undergrowth. So that we could, hopefully, see while remaining unseen.

We didn't have to wait long. I couldn't decide whether that was a sign of incompetence or whether that proved that they were better at this than I gave them credit for. Regardless, Half a dozen men with bows came after us. Travelling with Rickard, I have learnt quite a lot about this kind of thing. I know, for instance that a hunting bow is not the same as the kind of bow that you need for “man-killing” which is thicker and more powerful.

Mostly, these men were carrying hunting bows. Hunting bows would still fucking hurt but they would struggle to puncture proper leather. They would need to be good shots and hit us somewhere deadly like in the throat or in the face. Maybe the arm-pit or the groin which are those places that all armour struggles to cover because the wearers also need to be able to move around. I would have scoffed but the reason that these people were still alive and able to survive in their environment was because they hunted and practice something often enough and then sooner or later you become good at it.

And if you're going to hunt for your food then you need to be a good shot to hit an animal in the head, throat or heart to kill it instantly. Otherwise you get tough, inedible meat.

There you are. Every day's a school day with Professor Freddie.

So we waited in our hiding spot and waited. They took the false trail and then we waited. We ate a bit of jerky before they started to call to each other in frustration. Kerrass grinned, signalled and we moved off along the tree so that when we did start to make tracks again, we would be a suitably large distance away from the stream, making it difficult for our opponents to begin tracking us again.

I felt good. There seemed to be a lack of stakes to the entire thing. Here, it was just Kerrass and I against a group of people and we outclassed them. We had the drop on them and there weren't any higher stakes other than our own survival. This was not the same as when we were being pursued by the Cult. There were no villager lives at stake. We didn't have any comrades that depended on us for their lives. We were not carrying vital information that was necessary for the destruction of evil. There was just them, and us. They had weapons, we had weapons and they had no idea where we were.

I cannot tell you how amazing that felt. No mysteries, no riddles. Just an enemy to be defeated. And defeat them we had.

We went a little carefully, there was still someone or something out in the greenery and as we got further and further away we spent more and more time looking for it. The countryside was well spread and we hadn't really needed to worry about provisions given that we could have lived off the land fairly easily. Plenty of berries and if we did need to camp we would be able to set snares and all kinds of wildlife would fall into our traps. We could even fish in the ponds or the streams or anything else that we came across. It was good land and I wondered aloud to Kerrass as to why they were so desperate for other things.

“People are always desperate for that thing they cannot have. You have seen this yourself many times.”

“Any number of these people could make better livings anywhere else in Redania, fuck, anywhere else in the Empire.”

“But they were born here. You are not a good example in that you moved when you were young into your families castle and you have travelled from a young age. These people think a morning's ride in either direction is a long way. The village over the hill are foreigners. You've never had experience of that. They are terrified of the change and desperate because they know that this place cannot support them.”

I nodded.

“I could be happy here.” I commented. “It's beautiful and peaceful and...”

I was interrupted by Kerrass snorting his amusement. “You would be bored inside a few days, restless inside a week and snapping at people inside a fortnight. You need stimulation Freddie. You crave new experiences, new learning and experiences.”

I said nothing.

We stopped and had something to eat for lunch where I teased Kerrass about his avoidance of the topic of the Princess Dorn and Kerrass teased me about my pending nuptials.

I felt...alive I suppose is the best term for it.

We went a little further where Kerrass bent down and pointed out some tracks.

“What do you think?” He asked with a slight smile.

“A horse.” I suggested. “Unshod though. Elves?”

Kerrass shook his head. “Elves only ride horses when they're about to attack or when they are desperate for speed. They would move through woodland much more stealthily than that and these tracks are recent. Look at that.”

He bent down and dipped his gloved hand into the tracks. When he held his hand up to the light his finger had some strange kind of sparkle on the edge. The light refracted through it and shone in the colours of the rainbow.

“Do we follow?” I asked.

“We do.” Kerrass said. “But carefully and....quietly.”

“Because we do it differently so often.”

He glared at me.

We moved on a bit further. We seemed to come over a ridge and descend into a small bowl shaped valley. The ground was soft under foot, Kerrass was leading when he suddenly stopped still. Then he gestured off to one side and I moved off in that direction as instructed. Depositing the supplies against a tree. I checked with Kerrass and he made signals to carry on round to the side before he turned and seemed to continue descending into the valley.

I crept along, as carefully as I could, walking with my legs bent, making sure of every step as the mud shifted and moved underfoot. It was slow going and I was having to be extra careful so that my boots didn't make too much of a sucking noise when I pulled them from the mire.

I came out of the bushes into a clear space where the ground seemed a bit firmer. I waited and scanned the bush line carefully before advancing.

I saw movement and spun round, ducking as I went.

Kerrass had me well trained. Sudden movement might be a blade moving towards your head, or it might be an arrow leaving the bowstring in your direction. Don't turn and look to see what the “sudden movement” was. Instead, duck. Preferably with a duck, tuck and a roll.

As a result the whistling of a weapon sped through the air over my head. I climbed to my feet as the shape leapt at me. I had the sense of blackness. I thought that there were limbs, legs, arms but there was also flashing metal and proper examination of my opponent would have to wait.

But I was already on the back foot as my dodge had been followed up on. He charged me, his sword cutting hard towards my thigh. I parried desperately but our weapons made no contact. He had changed direction at the last moment and I was forced to take another step back. He, for it was a man although I had never seen anyone like it, drew back and gestured at me. I felt the impact and was thrown from my feet. It was like the air in front of me had become solid before pushing forwards. It didn't hurt but I would be lying if I said that the impact with the ground didn't hurt.

I managed to keep hold of my spear and tried to bring it to bear but the breath had been knocked from my lungs with the impact and I could barely move. He knocked my feeble lunge aside with his sword and I got my first good look at him.

He was dressed like any other light fighter. Like Kerrass, like I was or like the bastard's had been. Light, leather armour but after that, he was completely different. His skin was black, not the light browns of the Ifieri or the deeper darkness of the Zerrikanians. This man was black. So black he was almost blue. His hair was cut short and was a similarly dark shade with a slight edge of brown, meaning that his hair was actually a lighter shade than his skin. His teeth which were bared in a snarl were startlingly white in the face of this black man but the thing that caught my attention were his eyes.

They were indeed yellow. They were the yellow cat's eyes of a Witcher.

The punchline settled into my brain so that I barely had time to register that he had knocked my spear aside so that he could draw back for the killing blow.

I thought I saw fangs in his teeth as he snarled.

The blade came up, my limbs felt heavy. I tried to roll but I was trapped.

“Please don't kill my scholar.” Came Kerrass' quiet voice.

I opened my eyes although I didn't remember having closed them.

“Kerrass?” The man spoke, his accent sounded odd. As though the vowels had somehow been emphasised or moved towards their most basic form. The consonants were sharper as well. “Kerrass it is you.”

The two Witchers laughed and embraced each other fiercely, swords drawn and all.

I lay back and focused on getting my breath back.

A demon with yellow eyes. A Witcher.

I really should have seen that coming.

Kerrass' face swam into view. “You alright Freddie?” He asked innocently.

“You sent me off to distract him so that you could sneak up on him didn't you.” I wasn't asking a question.

“Well,” He said with a smile. “You deserved it after that crack in the village about the Princess.”

A thousand and one questions clamoured for attention in my brain. But one fact floated to the top.

“I fucking hate it when you do this.”