(A/N: The medical details contained in this chapter are taken from precisely 2 minutes and twenty three seconds of research on the internet. It is probably wrong but if there is anyone with medical training reading this. I ask you to just let me get away with it.

Pretty please.

Pretty please with a cherry on top)

(Warning: Graphic description of physical injury)

Things proceeded fairly simply from that point. After they had finished doing what they were doing, the newlyweds called us back into the church with bashful smiles and gleaming eyes. We discussed what our plans were and ironed a few things out as to who would be playing what role in my intended piece of street theatre.

There were two problems to this but they were both disposed of relatively quickly. The first problem was that Tulip wanted a larger role. The problem with this was that she couldn't speak, so she couldn't really warn the rest of the village that the demon was coming for them, nor could she advise them to run. These roles were divided up by the two men accordingly. Then was the discussion as to who was going to be the “possessed person” or who could play the demon itself. Again, Tulip ran up against the problem that she couldn't speak enough to be able to be truly terrifying.

She was upset by this and did demonstrate that she could, at least, scream horribly but that was not quite what was needed for the coming situation. Fortunately she was found a job in that she was far faster on her feet than the rest of us. We would need someone to run quickly and surely to set off all of the alchemical devices that we would be putting around the village. She wasn't happy with that as she so desperately wanted to take part in what we were doing.

It was almost as though she needed to take part.

“I will play the demon.” The Herbalist said. “I can wear the make-up required, I can dye my eyes and look suitable supernatural and terrifying so I think that I will really be able to put the shits up everyone there.”

“You can do that?” Father Anchor wanted to know.

“Not only can I, I think I'm the best one for the job. The power of this place, this village, is very male centric. The women stay at home, mind the children and do what they're told so a female coming at them in all their feminine power will be terrifying to all of them.”

She rubbed her hands with glee.

“It also fits the narrative of the situation. I have just been beaten up by the powerful men in charge and therefore it's entirely believable that I would succumb to dark powers in order to wreak my bloody vengeance on the people that wronged me.”

She theatrically pressed the back of her hand to her fore-head and pretended to faint. Conveniently into the arms of her husband who she then snared for a quick kiss.

“It sounds like we might need to keep our marriage secret as well then.” The Cartwright sighed theatrically.

“For the time being at least,” his new wife agreed. “You can always sneak over though, in the middle of the night.”

“Can't you come over to me? I do have the bigger bed.” He leered.

She shook her head. “For all the things that we need I'm going to need to be locked into the cottage doing Alchemy things. There are going to be flashing lights, bad smells and odd coloured smokes coming out which will help the idea that I'm communing with dark powers. But in truth, it takes a lot of work to do the things that they want,” she cocked her finger at Kerrass and I. “And I won't be able to leave for any kind of length of time.”

“Flashing lights and coloured smoke?” Father Anchor joked. “Sounds almost magical.”

“It is,” she sniffed. “All alchemy is magical because all herbs are magical in their basic form. That guy,” she pointed at Kerrass, “can swallow a bunch of stuff that can make his body literally regenerate in a way that is more than just an increase in metabolism.”

The priest shifted uncomfortably.

“Magic is a constant flow,” The Herbalist went on. “It flows around us all the time. You feel it all the time, when you shiver suddenly without cause or you get a hunch or a sudden urge to do one thing instead of another. It's not just humans or Elves that do that. Or the more magical creatures out there. But it's also about the plants. Where they grow and where they grow in respect to the magical currents in the area. It's not coincidence that my cottage is both the oldest building in the town as well as being situated exactly where it is.”

I stared at her for a long time. “Are you sure you're not a run away apprentice from Aretuza?” I asked her.

She laughed. “No, no I'm not.” Her expression turned sly, “But my Adoptive mother, who found me in the woods, was. She claimed that the cottage was old, even when she arrived here and it's original inhabitants had long since left.”

“They are expecting a yellow eyed demon,” I pointed out. “Can you make your eyes yellow?”

“And glowing,” she told me, waving her hand dismissively. “Pfft. Come back when you have a real alchemical problem for me to deal with. I won't be able to do it for long though. There's a risk that it might damage the eye so I will have to wash it out after a while.”

“How long?” Kerrass asked.

“As short as possible, but certainly no more than half an hour.”

“That's longer than I feared.

There was a bit more conversation while we sorted things out, which was when the second problem raised it's head. That problem? The overly protective new husband.

“'ang on, my wife is goin' to fight a Witcher?”

The Herbalist had a little squeal. “You called me your wife.”

“Yeah I did, but don' ler it go to yer 'ead.” The changes to his accent, the deepening of it, was useful to know how agitated he was.

“She will be in no danger.” Kerrass told him.

“Then 'ow will it look convincin'? I don't like this.”

“I will be obscured.” She told him. “There will be smoke, flying hair and flapping robes and all kinds of things going on by the time I'm done. I'm actually quite looking forward to this.”

“Yes but, you don't know how to fight or avoid his blows. Couldn't Freddie, sorry, Lord Frederick do it?”

“I think we're past the point of you calling me lord Frederick my friend.” I told him.

“No, I don't think Freddie can do it.” The Herbalist told him. “I can dose myself but I don't know him well enough to dose him properly and safely.”

“I know it's far from ideal,” Father Anchor put in. “But at the same time, the points that everyone has made are correct. It will have more impact if the demon “kills” Freddie before fighting the Witcher.”

“Another thing that I'm looking forward to.” The Herbalist commented smugly.

“But what if there's an accident?” The big man asked. “What if she ducks when Kerrass expects 'er to jerk backwards?”

“I will be nowhere near her. I will have taken my own potions and will be well able to see through the optical effects that your wife is talking about producing.” Kerrass answered.

“Yer what?”

“He will be able to see through the smoke,” The Herbalist explained.

“My blows will land nowhere near her,” Kerrass went on. “And I will have absolute control over the movements of my weapon.”

“Yes but...”

“No buts love.” The Herbalist told him firmly. “I love you for your concern but this is one of those moments where you're just going to have to admit that you're not going to win this argument. I'm doing this.” She lessened the impact of her words by kissing him.

Then he kissed her back which meant that there was more kissing and the entire thing was devolving again.

We finished things off by arranging for a small hand pushed cart to be added to the mix. The Cartwright would see to it that this would be delivered to the Herbalist's cottage in the morning and that the Cartwright would pretend that his temper had cooled overnight. He would make it a gradual thing so that on the night that we put our plan into action, it would be much more believable that he would be drinking with the company rather than sulking in the cottage behind his shop and repair yard.

In the meantime, The Herbalist told us that it would take her a couple of days to get all the things that we needed brewed up and prepared. This was on the understanding that Kerrass and his other Witcher friend could find all of the herbs that she required for the purposes. We also agreed that, while this was happening, The woodland contingent (Kerrass, myself and Schrodinger) would be setting up terrifying looking “ritual sites,” with animal carcasses and maybe even the remains of the Bog Hag's lair that Schrdinger had destroyed, to spread rumours of something dark going on in the woods. So that even if those men who knew about the fact that it was a Unicorn in the woods and not the potential of being something else, would be more open to the possibility that there was something else going on here.

After that, there was no more chance that we could keep the newly-weds off each other any more and we pushed them out of the door. Tulip then gave Kerrass and I a glare suggesting that she had similar schemes when it came to how she and her husband were going to spend the remainder of the night. We did as we were told andretreated into the tree-line where we made our report to an anxious Schrodinger as the eastern sky began to brighten.

It took two days to get everything together properly according to The Herbalist who gave us the news. It might have gone a lot easier if she and her new husband were able to keep their hands off each other for more than a few hours at a time but that was the price of their help and I didn't begrudge them that. There had been several times when people had thought that there might be something going on between them but those people had been quickly diverted onto other things. In the mean time she had locked her doors and had only come out to pre-made appointments to see to people's health or on one occasion when one of the village children had hurt her leg and the child's mother had “been about to have kittens” which was a direct quote from the Herbalist when she told us about it later.

When she was forced to make contact with what the Herbalist referred to as being the outside world, she wore make-up to emphasise her black eye and cut lip as well as other things to accentuate the very real shadows under her eyes and to accentuate her paleness. She snapped at people, got cross and at one time, with the mother of the hurt child, burst into tears spontaneously saying that the mother person was the only person that could be relied upon and “her only friend really” while refusing to talk about what was actually going on.

In the meantime Kerrass and Schrodinger amused themselves by “buzzing” the hunting groups. They did this by moving their tracking signs and leaving “supernatural” signs all over the place. Kerrass snuck out to the clearing that he had been shown by the village and had arranged a series of stones around the place in a strange pattern. Then he splashed a load of blood and animal faecal matter around the place as well as the fish guts of his afternoon's catch on the largest stone. The blood and the other innards provided by the deer that was being cooked up by me and turned into trail rations for the upcoming journey. We figured that we would need to just get out of the place and well on the road so that no-one would have to stop and hunt during the journey.

Each evening, Kerrass would pile up the required herbs and take them into the village to leave them at the Herbalist's cottage as she continued to work. On the second night she declared that she had enough for what was required but that she wanted a full days rest before we took action. Arrangements were made for us all to rendezvous in the woods behind the church the following evening.

The Unicorn would wait in the woods, ready to come in and help us fight if it did all go wrong although both the priest and the Cartwright told us that the village was close to panic due to the strange goings on in the woods and despite the best urgings of the village council members. Then when we were done, Schrodinger, Kerrass, myself and the Unicorn would high-tail it out of the village and flee North, in the opposite direction from where we were intending to drive the villagers.

Things started off fine when it came to put the plan into action. We met Tulip, Father Anchor and the Herbalist behind the church as agreed. Father Anchor told us where Kerrass and my horses were being kept so that we could steal them back quickly at the close of what the Herbalist was calling “The Festivities” so that we could join Schrodinger in getting the hell out of there. There was a small cart nearby which was loaded up with various bags and things and after quick consultation, it seemed that everything was ready.

The Cartwright had made his peace with the rest of the village Elders and was in the inn at that time drinking with the rest of the town council and discussing, in as great a detail as possible, all the strange things that had been found in the woods since the Witchers had arrived.

As is always the case with small towns and villages of this sort. People are much more willing to believe the strange and supernatural lie than they are to believe the mundane truth. I think I've commented on this before and I know for certain that Professor Dandelion commented on this in his own writings. He theorises that it's something to do with the monotony and boredom that goes with village life where, even though the work is hard and people get up before dawn and go to bed long after sunset, that hard work and the constant chores that are required to keep a village going can get incredibly boring after a while. So the Cartwright gently persuading people that there had been other things found in the woods before the Witchers had arrived gained a surprising amount of traction.

But still.

It was still daylight when we began our work. The day beginning to fall into the slow and gentle rhythms of evening that would, eventually tip us into the lake of nightfall. Kerrass, Schrodinger, Tulip and myself shouldered a couple of large cloth bags each that seemed to be filled with some kind of grain. Tulip had set up the sites for these bags around the edges of the village and we were instructed to simply rip open the tops of the bags and dump the contents on the ground before making our way back to the church by which time, the mist should be building to the right kinds of levels. The Herbalist warned us that the mist would be much thicker and soup like than normal mist and would lack the damp feel that normal mist would have so we were to be careful and to avoid breathing it as much as possible.

She was fiddling with a large, complex looking robe or coat which I understood that she would be wearing later when it came to be time for her grand performance.

We ran about, doing what we were told. The sites that we were supposed to use had small pieces of yellow ribbon tied to the trees. Apparently they were not unusual as people regularly marked trees for felling with pieces of cloth although the cloth was normally grey or brown which is why Tulip had chosen Yellow for the task. The stuff in the bags looked a lot like a kind of grey sand or a thicker and coarser kind of ash. As soon as it was exposed to the outside air though, thin tendrils of mist started to grow up out of the pile and I began to follow the directions to the next place where I was going to dump a bag.

By the time that I made it back to behind the church, the mist was already beginning to get thick. I kept being reminded of the Cult of the First-born and how they hunted. I found myself looking into the mist, searching for the shadowed outline of horses and listening out for the twangs of bow-strings and the buzzing kind of whistling noises that arrows make as they come towards you.

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I managed, more shaky than I intended. “You?”

“Fuck no.” He smirked. “But you know what helps? Reminding myself that this time it's us that are using the mist.”

I considered this. “That's true, I hadn't thought of it like that.” It sounds simple but it really was a startling change to the way I was thinking

In the meantime, The Herbalist was applying the make-up to Father Anchor. Apparently she had borrowed one of his older cassocks in order to put the fake blood around it and to adjust it so that he would be able to tell how it was supposed to move. She had attached a pigs bladder near one of the holes so that it could leak “blood” and that the priest could control the flow of the “blood” by squeezing his side.

The mist was really coming in now and we could move about a bit more freely as those villagers who were on this side of the creek in the middle of the village had given up and headed off to the inn a while ago.

Finishing touches were added to Father Anchor and he stood up. “How do I look?” He demanded of his wife.

She shuddered theatrically and cringed away from him before grinning and kissing him on the cheek. She had spent the waiting time watching the mist spread and dancing from foot to foot in gleeful excitement.

“Right then,” I guess it's time for an alarm.

“Wait,” Schrodinger stopped him. “In case we don't have time later. Thank you.”

“Thank me by not killing anyone,” The Priest told him firmly. I got the feeling that there was some kind of disagreement or disapproval between the two men although I couldn't tell you what it was about. Although now that I think about it, we knew that Schrodinger had had to kill a few people out of self-defence and so it was more than likely that he had killed some of the priest's friends.

The priest went into the church and a couple of minutes later the first chiming of the bell happened. The sound was amazing, awful and deafening. Schrodinger and Kerrass had already stuffed bits of cloth into their ears. The herbalist flinched the first time before ignoring it and Tulip stood there with her hands clapped firmly over her ears. But even despite this, it was the kind of noise that echoed in your bones and refused to be ignored. Other than by the Herbalist of course who was now onto applying her own make-up. Mostly consisting of streaks of blood applied to her chin as though she had dribbled unspeakable liquids from when she had been eating. Then she was colouring her teeth which were normally the kind of white that you only get when people know what they are supposed to do to keep up with proper oral hygiene.

The bell rang for a long time. A very long time, almost to the edge of sanity. It finally stopped, just as I was beginning to wonder if I was going to bite through my tongue or grind my teeth down to powder.

The priest came almost straight back down, pulling something out of his ears.

“What's that?”

“Candle wax,” he told me. “The best thing for making sure that you're eardrums don't fall out and start bleeding in protest when you have to ring that thing.”

“You ever done it before?”

“A couple of times. Normally when a storm is blowing in or something. It's also been done to bring the hunters back in after someone has spotted an incoming caravan.”

“What's next?” Schrdoinger wanted to know.

“A scream.” I told him.

Father Anchor nodded and turned towards the church until he face the wall and took a deep breath. This was enough warning for me to clap my hands over my ears this time. Even with that, it sounded horrible.

“Have you been practising that?” Kerrass wanted to know.

“Not really.”

“Why facing the church?” Schrodinger asked.

“Because it will disguise distance and make it sound more unearthly if it's changed by the echoes. And with that I suppose I'd better start limping.” And he put his actions to his words, walked through the church using the back door and out of the front.

“We'd better watch this.” Kerrass said. “If it all goes wrong here then we can still pull back.”

The Herbalist was pulling out the large balloon like things that we had been told would generate the black smoke while, at the same time, also interacting with the stuff in the mist to create yellow sparks. This was also the stuff that would make the fear take root in the hearts and minds of the villagers and leave them open to suggestion.

“I still don't think that this will work,” Schrodinger told us.

“Of course it'll work,” The Herbalist snapped at him, pulling on the strange robes that she was wearing and strapping them down to herself. Other than the robe she was wearing a pair of legging trousers held up by suspenders and a shirt. There were straps and buckles to the voluminous robe that I didn't understand but Tulip seemed to know what she was doing as she buckled belts and tied knots. “Just light it on fire and then run for it. Do your best not to breathe it in or get any in your eyes. The raw stuff is quite unpleasant.”

“I am immune to such things.” Again, my nascent dislike of Schrodinger reared it's head.

“I wasn't talking to you. Be careful all of you. Yes, even you Freddie.”

“I'm honoured.” I told her.

“So you should be. Now off you fuck. Make sure that husband of mine doesn't do anything stupid.”

“Fat chance,” mimed Tulip before she took her own balloon and jogged into position. The Herbalist wasn't paying any attention though. She was leaning back, peeling her eyelids open with one thumb before squeezing some droplets into them.

“Mutherfucker but that stings.” She commented to herself as we walked away.

It took Father Anchor a long time to make it from his end of the village. I thought he over did it if I'm honest, but in the mean time, while everything else was being moved into place, no eyes were looking for Kerrass, Schrodinger, myself or anything else. All eyes were on that lone and injured priest as he walked down the main path, over the bridge, through the less populated areas as those folks who had stayed in and had stubbornly waited inside for whatever catastrophe that had befallen the rest of the town as signalled by the bells to have died down.

They came out and they watched the priest limp by, dragging his “broken leg” behind him. Leaving a trail of splattering and dripping red liquid that no-one could tell wasn't blood. The mist that we had generated hid a myriad of sins, not least was the over acting and the amount of gurning on Father Anchor's face.

But it did it's job and as Kerrass and I watched from our vantage point, Father Anchor carefully and precisely weaved his way towards the Cartwright and collapsed at his feet. We saw the Cartwright gesture other folks back and make a play of trying to save the village priest's life before pronouncing him dead with all proper portentiousness. I don't know how they would argue that afterwards when the priest turned out to “not” be dead but that wasn't going to be my problem. I suppose that he could put it down to a miracle very easily.

We signalled Schrodinger and Tulip who lit their balloons and sprinted off through the hedges and through the gaps between the cottages, their smoke mixing with the mist and I won't lie, as I lifted the scarf to my face to cover my nose and mouth, I had another shiver of memory as I could almost see a horseman coming out of the darkness, his spear exploding through the chest of a running Elf who had just pushed me to the side. I felt the spear in my hands and my lips pull back from my teeth in a grimace of remembered anger, fear and helplessness. But then I blinked and I remembered where I was.

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. “You ready?”

I had to take a breath or two to keep myself calm. The smoke and the mist was different to how it had been in the north. It smelled differently and although it was certainly having an effect on me, I didn't need as much protection from it. Which was good as we had wondered if people would wonder as to why the Witcher's apprentice had covered his mouth with a scarf.

The Herbalist was checking the last few things on the cart that we had for her use. She had tied all kinds of alchemical bags underneath the rim which she had told us would billow smoke, yellow sparks and all kinds of unpleasant smells. The “Cart” was little more than a large wheelbarrow, the kind of thing that you use to shovel horse manure into so that you can take it off to the compost pile and so that it's out of the stables. She was moving a little stiffly now that she was wearing her huge cloak as this was also lined with stuff that would keep her from bursting into flames at the contact of Kerrass' Igni sign as well as the other things that were lining the robe. She also reached out for things, grasping for balance.

“Right then boys.” She said to us both. “I think it's time.” She looked terrifying. Made up heavily so that her facial structure was pronounced and white while darker makeup had been rubbed into her eyesockets. The drops that she had put into her eyes earlier had had their effect which made them glow yellow. It was as though there was a yellow film over her eyes in the same way that a corpses eyes fog over after they've been dead for a couple of hours, except that the film was yellow. And, as I said, glowing.

It kind of sticks out in your mind, little details like that.

There were other substances on her face as well. Things that looked like blood and bile and unspeakable ichors. Her dreadlocks seemed to glisten with slime although she hadn't told me what that was all meant to do and to be fair, I hadn't asked. She had taken the task seriously though and put a lot of work into what she was wearing and what she was about to do.

“Probably,” Kerrass agreed.

“Look though, before we start.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you both, really and sincerely for everything you've done for me.”

“What?” I tried to make the mood a bit lighter. “Got you beaten up and ostracised by the village so that you're probably going to have to leave your home of years.”

I was told that there was a plan for the priest to come back and how to explain that the Herbalist wasn't really possessed by a demon. Even though, from where I stood, she would have been pretty tricky to recognise in the first place. But I had no idea what this plan was. If everything went well then we would be well on our way by the time that this plan needed to be put into place anyway and all concerned had told us not to worry about it.

She laughed quietly. It was an unsettling sight given the make-up and alchemical effects. “Freddie, I was coasting by. Just drifting through life. I've stretched my alchemy skills more than I would ever have thought possible in the lead up to tonight and as a result, I'm twice as good as I used to be. Ten times better than I thought I was. And I'm married to a wonderful man who I love very much. None of that would have happened without the two of you coming here.”

There is a certain kind of fool that struggles to accept compliments and gratitude. Let it be known here and all over that I am one of those fools.

“This town needed to die.” She told us. “It has become sick and I see that now. I should have seen it years ago. It's like an old, elderly person, long since having lost control of their mind and their bodies who can barely move and whose children and grandchildren have to spend their time nursing and putting off their own lives in order to care for the elderly relative. I've seen this so often. They call me over with pleading desperation in their eyes for me to bring the relative some medicine to keep them alive, to fight off their illnesses. But I look at them all and I wonder whether or not it would be a greater kindness, for the family as well as for the elderly person, if I gave the elder a gently and quiet nudge into the next world.

“This village has been like that for so long. And now I get to act to save the lives of all the young folk before they get poisoned by their Elders and Masters. Before they become convinced that there is life in this village yet and that they should stay here and work to make the place better in some way that no-one can foresee. Now, they will go on about their lives and realise that life is for the living. I was one of those people.”

She grinned slyly.

“Instead of staying here and mooning over a man who I was afraid of and healing people that don't respect me. I'm going to go with my new husband and ensure that I fuck his brains out at every available opportunity.”

“Thank you for that image.” I told her. But she wasn't done.

“I'm going to take him out into the woods,” she was implacable, those glowing eyes boring into me, “on a regular basis and ensure that we keep going until I can't stop screaming with pleasure. I'm going to have him make me scream with pleasure so much that neighbours will think there's a banshee living in the woods.”

“Enough,” I said waving my hands in surrender.

“I'm going to get fucked so hard that I'm going to have difficulty walking the following day.”

“Will you please stop?”

“Like I was this morning.” She finished with a smug smile.

“Are you done?”

She thought about this for a moment, head on one side. “Ok, I'm done.”

“Thank the flame for that.”

The impact of her hugging me was almost enough to take me off my feet.

“Thank you Freddie,” She whispered fiercely before breaking contact. “You too Kerrass.”

“Eaugh.” I said wiping at my tunic. “You've got shite all over me.”

“You are quite welcome.” Kerrass told her before helping her onto the cart. “You ready?”

She took a deep breath. “Let's see if she taught me right.” Then she nodded to Kerrass. “Light me.”

Kerrass gestured and lit the two candles with his Igni gesture. He passed one to me and we started lighting all the little fuses and the bags of chemicals that were strapped to the cart. Then we moved onto the fuses that came out of her robes. We could hear her breathing deeply for a while and saw as she lifted a small glass vial to her throat and downed the contents before tossing the phial to Kerrass who put it in one of his many pouches.

Then she started to count before she reared back and screamed. It was an ugly noise. Naked, hungry and harsh. It rasped out of a throat that had once provided a melodious, beautiful sound, even when she was swearing at me. Then she started to laugh.

I'm a full grown man that is both in love with, and marrying a Vampire. I have seen things that I would not have even dreamed of in my worst nightmares. I have danced with a succubus, faced down an angry Dragon and heard men of power ordering my death. I have seen madness and murder in a friend's eyes. I have felt the hopelessness of a lost battle and I have also seen the helpless, formless rage of a child who is contemplating the cruelty of men.

But that laughter made me shiver in fear.

“I'm coming for you.” She called into the night. “I am coming for you all and your nightmares will barely be able to sate my hunger. Your terror will be like a fine wine and your revulsion will be my bread.”

Then she turned and winked at me with an impish smile on her face.

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

Kerrass and I bent to the handles of the cart and pushed it out into the main street. Smoke was streaming from the rims of the wheels, billowing out from underneath the body of the thing and the shrieking of the wheels added to the unearthly nature of the entire thing. I had time to wonder if the Cartwright had adjusted the wheels in order to sound like the howls of the damned souls that his lover had obviously imprisoned before the smoke engulfed me.

Then all I could do was concentrate on breathing and just push, relying on Kerrass to steer us and to be able to see what was happening.

The Herbalist continued to laugh as she pushed. Shrieking, hair raising threats towards the villagers who must have been absolutely terrified at the apparition coming towards them.

I would have been. Indeed I was, and I knew of all of the artistry involved.

We pushed and pushed and pushed until I didn't think my ears could take any more but then I heard what we had begun to hope for from the crowd. There were cried of negativity and denial. Some people were praying, a couple of people had screamed.

Kerrass grabbed me by the shoulder, pushed my spear into my hands and we ran down a side alley. The Cart was well on it's way now, trusting that the Herbalist would be able to leap free if there was a problem. The smoke would certainly billow enough to hide anything that was going on.

We came up behind a house.

“You alright?” Kerrass asked.

“Half a second,” I wiped my eyes, trying to clear them. “Fucking hell but that smoke was strong stuff.”

“That was the idea.” Kerrass grinned as he drew his sword.

I nodded and we charged out into the village to intercept the demon.

“RUNN” Kerrass was bellowing. “For your soul's sake, don't just stand there, run for it. DO. NOT. STOP.”

The crowd was frozen in place. I would like to think that they were frozen in fear.

Kerrass leapt into face the billowing smoke of the Demon which had begun to coalesce around the form of the Herbalist. He leapt to strike and she ducked, spinning away. Her hand raised itself into a claw towards him and he went flying backwards as though he had been struck.

I had time.

I ran at the crowd. “We can't contain it. Run for it. Do not look back.”

“Behind you.” Someone shouted. Hopefully the Cartwright but whatever it was, it did the job. I spun and saw the smoke coming for me. Out of it leapt the “Demon,” who grabbed me, the weight of her carrying me to the floor.

“Watch,” she told the villagers, “as you see your fate.”

She looked down at her pray. “Filthy Witcher's apprentice. Dirty and false. You will be begging for death before the end but you will watch as I torture these people and your master before your eyes.”

I struggled against her but to no avail. “No,” I begged. “No please.”

I heard Kerrass roar behind her and she spun. Another Gesture and Kerrass flew backwards again. “I will deal with you later Witcher.” She spat

I used that gap to struggle free, reaching for my spear.

“Not bad,” she commented as she grabbed me by the hair and turned me over. “Maybe I will keep you alive after all. See if you can be useful as a slave to my pleasure.”

She bent down and kissed me. Hard, black goop dripping from her mouth.

“Swallow and then scream,” The Herbalist whispered. “Think of it as my vengeance.”

I did as I was told.

It tasted faintly of Plums.

I moaned in agony and helplessness as a numbness affected me and I couldn't move.

This was not an act. I felt myself flopping about and twitching uncontrollably. Apparently my skin turned pale as I spasmed and my veins stood out red against the skin. Then I was paralysed.

“Now watch as I slay your master and torture the people that you were sworn to protect.” She said, spinning, more smoke billowing from her robes as she ran towards Kerrass who was climbing out of the boxes and barrels that she had sent him in to.

He gestured, sparks flying from his hands. He did so far more theatrically than he would normally and she had plenty of time to cover her face before the sparks as she just walked towards him. The smoke from her alchemy mixing with the smoke from Kerrass' sparks to amazing effect.

“RUN,” Kerrass bellowed again. “I can't hold it.”

Finally, finally the crowd started to do what they were told as one person, I have no idea who, turned and started to push their way through the crowd. They were joined by another and another and soon the entire mob was in motion.

And mob it was. We had depended on this. Mobs are not clever, generally about as clever as the stupidest person in the mob, divided by the number of people in the mob. I know that I've made this joke before but it remains true today.

They ran, as Kerrass and the Herbalist danced and I lay there, immobile other than the occasional muscle spasm.

Kerrass and the “demon” kept going for a while in case there were some late stragglers but the Cartwright had remained behind precisely for this reason, rousting out the last of the cautious and suicidal people that always want to sit and watch a tidal wave coming in, or to watch their home burn. People always go and watch a battle, despite or even because of the horror that is being enacted there and the Cartwright chivvied people along. It was almost certainly him that started the panic by grabbing some of the watching people and ordering them to run, children and young women holding babies his most likely targets. But they did what they were told and that was the point.

I couldn't move though so all I could do was watch the “fight” continue. The smoke was beginning to die down now though and it was becoming more and more obvious that Kerrass' strikes were going nowhere near her, also that she was having increasing difficulty seeing what was actually going on.

What I do know was that Kerrass was starting to cast furtive glances off in the direction of where the villagers had fled before he leaned backwards and gave a signal with their hands.

“Have they gone,” The Herbalist gasped out. It would seem that with all the screaming and the potions and things that she had consumed, she had lost her voice.

“It looks like it,” Kerrass murmered quietly as he craned his neck to see. They made a few short passes at each other to keep the thing going before Schrodinger and Tulip emerged from the smoke.

“They've gone,” Schrodinger told us. “I couldn't see any stragglers, your man The Cartwright was driving them along enough that I don't think they'll stop until they got to Cintra.” He was grinning.

Tulip ran over to her husband that was climbing to his feet and threw her arms around him hard. “Whoof,” he said. “I'm alright,” he told her. “Although I am looking forward to getting all this gunk off me.”

“Could you please give my “apprentice” the antidote to whatever you gave him so that we can all get out of here?” Kerrass whined comically. “They will soon change their minds if I'm any judge and start to remember their valuables that they left behind.”

The Herbalist nodded. She was drinking from wineskin and splashing water in her eyes. “Awww,” she complained, “but I wanted to leave him long enough that he ended up soiling himself.” Her voice was still overly raspy though for the proper comedic effect.

I really stared trying to move then, but the most I could come up with was a kind of “Uhhnnn” groaning noise and flopped about like a dying fish on the riverbank.

“Just a minute then,” She said. She pulled off her outer robe to show that she was wearing a bandolier of potion bottles under the robe. She chose two which seemed to have wide necks that she opened and poured the contents into her eyes. The process didn't look pleasant.

“So I can see.” She rasped out the explanation. Then she took another larger bottle from near the bottom of the leather strap and drank this as well. “So I can speak,” she said in tones much closer to her normal voice.

In the meantime Kerrass had gone off to find his and my horses, Schrodinger was calling out for the Unicorn. The priest and his wife were splashing large bags of fake blood around to show that my “corpse” had been dragged off somewhere and that Kerrass' corpse had been likewise “disposed of.” They also did a bit to cleanse the space where the Priest had lain in order to give the impression that he had simply disappeared rather than that there was a corpse there a moment ago. I got the impression that there was some kind of scheme to suggest that the dying priest was just some kind of illusion conjured by the demon. The Herbalist would be found in the morning, probably by the Cartwright, weaving around in a state and complaining about nightmares. She would then be inspected by the priest and declared clean from all kinds of demonic influence.

As I said, I don't think anyone would have recognised her under all the make-up, smoke, mist and Flame knows what else. But I suppose that you can't be too careful.

In the meantime, The Herbalist came over, pulling another bottle out of her bandoleer and poured it into my open mouth.

After a little effort I swallowed it down and the effect was almost instant.

“Did you have to kiss me?” I demanded. “That stuff was foul.”

“You have to look at it from my perspective.” She said. “I had to kiss you to get it into your mouth.” She shuddered. “Talk about the proverbial fate worse than death.”

I managed to scramble to my feet and helped her up before scooping up my spear. She looked absolutely exhausted and with all the reason in the world. Kerrass came back with our two horses. Shortly after that, the unicorn also arrived with her own burdens. Father Anchor helped me re-saddle my horse while Schrodinger helped Kerrass.

“Look, all of you.” Schrodinger began. “I don't know what to say but I want you all to know that I didn't know whether I could trust you when Kerrass and Freddie first suggested this, ludicrous plan. But you have proven me wrong and I am beyond glad to have had that happen. Thank you all.”

Father Anchor reached out and shook his hand. “Try not to kill any lookouts on the road.” He said. “They're good men all.”

“We'll be riding pretty fucking fast.” Schrodinger said. “And they will want to report back more than anything. It's also been a factor that to get to the road, I would have had to come to the village as well and you all knew that which is why the village hasn't been as closely watched as some of the other things.”

“True, but still. I would hate to think that we went through all this in an effort to stop young wives becoming widows, only to let that still happen in the end.”

“We will do our best.” Kerrass said, joining the conversation.

The backslapping and hand shaking was interrupted with the arrival of the Cartwright who all but ran over to his wife who promptly collapsed into his arms.

“That were amazing.” He told her. “You were fantastic.”

“Was I?” She asked. It would not have surprised me if she fell asleep on the spot. “I thought that with all the make-up and everything I would look...”

“So very hot.” He told her. “If I didn't know that I were needed elsewhere then I would have carried you off to bed immediately.”

“Really?” She looked fascinated. Tired but fascinated. “Got a bit of the kink for the demonic woman then.”

“Only if that woman is you.” He answered with a grin.

“Oh, that's another good line,” she commented. “Well, I tell you what, you can carry me off to bed now if you like. But I need to sleep before anything else.”

The hand cart that we had been using was now well aflame and we threw the remains of the bags and the cloaks and the robes that we had been using for our subterfuge on to the fire. The smoke was now well dispersed and the mist was lifting but there was still enough in the air for the flames to see otherworldly. That and the remaining chemicals flared oddly. Schrodinger came over, presumably to thank the Cartwright as well.

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Which is when it all went wrong.

Because of course it all went wrong. How could it not. No-one hurt, no-one dead so how could it not all go wrong. I suppose I could discuss who was at fault, who made the mistakes and what led to the tragedy of what followed.

The Herbalist could have made the smoke and the mists stronger and longer lasting. The Cartwright should have stayed with the fleeing mob for longer until we could all get away. Kerrass and I should have come up with a different plan. Schrodinger and the Unicorn shouldn't have allowed themselves to become trapped in the first place.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Plenty of blame and I suppose that people will be discussing the outcome for a while, while they discuss what we should all have done. I don't know the answer I'm afraid. Maybe a few weeks and months might give me some perspective, or after I've been able to discuss it with other people. I know that, as I read my notes in Novigrad and used them as an aid to force myself to remember what happened there in that village, I am lost in thinking that things could have, should have gone differently.

It's another thing in the ledger, of things that I could have, that I should have done differently. I don't know what to say to that.

“SEE,” shouted a demanding voice. “I told you that it was a con. I told you that it was a Unicorn.” I spun, legs still not functioning quite right after the paralytic that I had taken earlier. I blinked.

Maybe a dozen men had come back that we could see. Maybe a few more men in the shadows. Certainly no more than twenty. The innkeeper and the Smith in the front. Half of them had hunting bows in hand while others had clubs, little more than branches and picked up chunks of wood. No less dangerous though and I would certainly not have wanted to be struck over the head with one of them. The Smith still had his hammer though and the way he was brandishing it told me that he had every intention of using it.

“Friends.” Father Anchor began. “Friends let us not...”

“You've been working with them from the beginning haven't you.” The Smith snarled. His eyes were wild and bloodshot. “You've been hiding this from all of us. You and that harlot wife of yours.”

“My friend look...” The priest had his arms held wide and was walking towards the returned men. It was not lost on me that he had put his body between the angry men and the Unicorn. I turned and caught Kerrass' eye.

“Don't call me that. You are no friend of mine. No friend of this village.” The Smith snarled. He spun on those that followed him. “Kill him.”

The innkeeper stirred at that, “Now hold on... There's a lot going on here we can't just...”

The Smith “He lied to us. He's known about this as long as it's been going on. That Unicorn can save our village. That unicorn can render things so that we can all live in comfort and ease for the rest of our lives.”

“She's a living creature. She can talk, reason, think and love.” The Cartwright tried.

“So?” The Innkeeper asked, spinning back around. His sentiment shifting just as quickly. “One life for the lives of all of us. That sounds fair enough to me.”

“Not if you're the life being lost.” The Herbalist added to the mix.

Kerrass gestured to me, giving me instructions with his hands and I nodded. If the Witchers, or I, moved early. Then the fight would start and people would die. But if the fight did start then we needed to be ready.

My target, or targets were going to be the men to the left of the group as we looked at them. They were mostly armed with clubs but it was more the people who were pointing arrows at us that I was worried about.

“Her death will not save the village.” Father Anchor took another step towards the Smith. Doubtless picking him out as the target that needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible. It was a noble goal. “The village is dying and we all know that. A Unicorn horn will only prolong the inevitable.”

“And what do you suggest we do?” The innkeeper was getting angry. Not a good sign. “All we need is a couple of good wagon trains and we'll be back on our feet.”

“There are no wagons coming.” The Cartwright argued. He had pushed the Herbalist well out of the way during the delay and had risen to his feet. “We know that. We've looked. They go by road or by sea. We need to leave, start a new life elsewhere.”

“This is my home.” The innkeeper wailed. “I can't leave it.”

“Enough of this.” The Smith snapped. I saw Schrodinger palm a potion bottle to his face, the same gesture that Kerrass uses when he wants his potion use to go without notice. He shuddered violently.

The Smith spun on the nearest archer who was visibly shaking. “Kill them, kill the Unicorn. It will save us.”

He went to grab the Archer.

Schrodinger was off, sword still on his back, feet pounding the ground.

The smith's hand made contact with the Archer's shoulder, whose grip loosened on the string and the arrow flew.

I swear, that....that child with the bow did not intend to fire.

But the bowstring sang and the arrow sped towards it's target.

Father Anchor.

I felt my eyes want to close so that I wouldn't have to see the death of a good man.

Tulip screamed, an awful sound, and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

Thank the Holy Fire for the reflexes of a Witcher.

Schrodinger tackled Father Anchor with a his full body. The arrow took the Priest in his shoulder as the two of them spun to the ground.

“KILL THEM,” roared the Smith. “KILL THEM ALL, THE TRAITORS TOO.”

Believe it or not, this was not actually our worse case scenario. The worst case scenario was that all of the village would hang around and watch the goings on. Or that someone would laugh, or that someone else would refuse to believe what they were seeing.

There were plenty of other variables that could have gone wrong. The most likely, and even she admitted that this was possible, was that the efforts of the Herbalist would turn out to be ineffectual and that they would then all devolve into giggles or that it would have some kind of other effect.

So, people coming back before we were ready for them, was actually way down on our list of things that might have gone wrong.

Funny but that was not as reassuring as you might think it was when we faced down a dozen or so angry, scared villagers with bows and clubs.

And they had fired the first shot as well.

Dammit.

It all happened quickly.

“Freddie,” Kerrass called so I was off and running, spear in hand.

My target was the small group of three men to the left as I looked at them.

I heard a piercing whistle from behind me which meant that the Unicorn would soon be joining us.

The aim was not kill people. The very moment that we became the killers, the moment that we became the murderers here, that would be when it really all went wrong. No matter if we did it in self defence or that we were provoked. No matter that they had fired first or that we were acting to protect others. We would then be the villains.

I heard a “Fwhoosh” sound, the telltale sound of a Witcher sending a shower of hot sparks in some direction but I didn't see it.

“Flame curse you man, stop this madness.” Someone else called. I thought it was the Cartwright.

I was on my first man, he was shaking. Younger than me and with a shock, I realised that I recognised him. He was the Smith's apprentice, the level-headed and calm young man who knew enough to advise me to wait for his returning master. He held his club out towards me in the way that you are supposed to hold a sword, point held towards your enemies face. But it was a club, not a sword and I got the impression that it was old wood. Meaning that if he swung it at me with any kind of force then there was a better than evens chance that it would simply break over my body leaving little more than a bruise.

He didn't even raise it back to strike at me with it.

I reached over the weapon with my left hand and caught hold of it. Tugging the lad off balance.

Nor did he have the sense to let go of the club and go for his belt dagger. Little more than an eating knife but it might have had something of an edge to it now that I was close to him.

Instead, he staggered forwards and I held a leg out. He tripped and fell down. I kicked him in the balls as well to make sure that he wouldn't get up. I didn't kick him hard. But then again, it doesn't take a large kick to the balls to render a man useless.

The next man took a swing at me. He had a much more dangerous piece of wood, it was bigger, he held it with both hands and seemed to know what he was doing. His hands moved up and down the wood to aid in the balance of the thing and to get a proper grip. I ducked the first strike, he recovered quickly and I stepped back to avoid the second. The club made the air whine as it went past me. We were circling now. I thought that I could kill him relatively easily. He thought he was doing much better than he actually was on the grounds that I hadn't actually attacked him yet which was making him overconfident. But I didn't want to kill him. But I needed to beat him. This was already taking too long.

There was a concussive impact from behind me. It sounded like man clapping only imagine a man with hands the size of dinner plates. It was the sound of a Witcher's shield being impacted against.

There was a thunder in the ground. Horses?

The Unicorn screaming as she got closer. I didn't have time to look though.

I dodged another strike but then I saw the third man, the one with the bow and I saw what he was doing. I didn't think, I didn't have time. I acted. Leaping forward I shoulder checked my man with the club. Knocking him off balance. The flight of the arrow just missed him. Cutting him across the shoulder, tearing across the shoulder. Blood spurted, dark and crimson in the reflected firelight and Club screamed, more out of surprise than the pain I think. He dropped his weapon, clapped his hand over the injury before taking his hand away and examining the wetness.

Then he fainted.

“You stupid bloody fool.” I raged at the Archer. “You stupid, ignorant...”

The Archer, who was actually, probably a bit older than me in truth, gave up trying to fumble another arrow onto the string and just clutched hold of the bow with both hands and screwed his eyes shut.

Properly angry now, I tore the bow out of his hands and threw it into the darkness. His eyes opened in shock and surprise, presumably at the fact that he still wasn't dead.

“No, don't kill them,” definitely the priest's voice from behind us.

“Stop ya bastard, stop.” The Cartwright I thought.

“NOO,” Schrodinger called out.

But I didn't have time to look.

I grabbed hold of the archer by the scruff of his neck and hauled him over to the injured man. The injury wasn't immediately life threatening but it was long, ugly and it was bleeding profusely. I tore the remains of the sleeve off the injured man's arm and quickly folded it into a pad.

“Hold this here.” I ordered the archer. “Press hard.”

The apprentice groaned and started to push himself upright.

“You. Take your shirt off.” I ordered him.

“FOR THE GODDESS' SAKE. Put down your fucking weapons.” I thought it was The Herbalist.

“You 'eard her.” The Cartwright's voice. “Put 'em down or I'll...”

“SHUT UP.” The innkeeper's voice. “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.”

“Why?” The Apprentice demanded to know.

“DO AS I SAY.” I roared. “Then tear it into strips. When that,” I pointed at the pad being pressed against the injury. “Gets so full of blood it won't hold any more in, change it for a fresh rag.”

“What happens when we run out of rags?” The Archer asked, not unreasonably.

“STOP SHOOTING.” Kerrass' distinctive bellow. I forced myself not to look over and see what was happening.

“If this is still going on when that happens then we're all fucked.” I told him before picking my spear up. “Stay here and keep your fucking heads down.”

Then I risked having a look.

It was a mess.

I had knocked out three of the opposing combatants. But after that it had gotten a little confused. Schrodinger was fighting furiously. Sword drawn and standing between the Unicorn and the remaining archers. He was keeping three others at bay, including the Smith while also deflecting all the incoming arrows. He couldn't close with any of his opponents without leaving himself or the Unicorn vulnerable.

The Cartwright was tussling with the Innkeeper and another man. I looked for the Herbalist who was slumped near where the Cartwright was fighting. I thought I saw blood on her face. Difficult to tell, what with her leftover make-up.

For whatever reason, the Unicorn was hemmed in. Not able to move, trapped between the still burning cart, Schrodinger, the incoming arrows and the fighters. I saw the slumped shape of the priest a small distance away, Tulip was with him, trying to staunch the wound from the arrow that still stuck out of the shoulder.

Kerrass was standing over them fighting another two men but I couldn't see what was happening there. I got the feeling that there were other men nursing bruises and sore heads around him. I also thought I saw to villagers wrestling with each other in the dirt, screaming at each other.

I didn't really have much time to think.

The situation around the Unicorn looked to be the most desperate. There were already a couple of arrows in her flanks that were causing blood to run down her sides. She and Schrodinger were confined and as had already been shown, the village archers were good at hunting game, but not good at shooting into a conflict.

The worst thing you can do in a combat is freeze. Especially when that combat involves archers and arrows flying around as all you're doing is making yourself a target and you're not helping anyone. Even a bad decision in combat is better than no decision at all. So I made my choice.

Things were getting worse. I didn't know how much further we could go before someone would die. Maybe someone already had but I needed to stop that if I could.

Archers. The problem was the archers.

I looked, I was further away from the bright flames that the burning cart and remaining village torches cast, and my night vision was a bit better than it had been.

I could definitely see one man crouched nearby, in the same way that he might crouch in the bush in order to shoot at his targeted game. There were a couple of shapes beyond him that might be similarly crouched men but they were problems for later. In maybe ten seconds or so.

I ran, not bothering to bring my spear into play I simply booted the first archer in the side of the head and he went sprawling. I bent, I didn't have time to check him but I needed to take him out of the fight. In a proper fight where I didn't care so much I would stamp on his throat, or drive my blade into his chest, or throat. But again, I didn't want to kill him. Instead I threw his arrows in one direction and picked up his bow, hurling it in another direction.

“Leave him.” Someone bellowed. I couldn't tell who at the time although later it turned out to be the Smith, calling his people away from fighting the Cartwright and pressing on against Kerrass.

The Archer that I had knocked down looked as though he was still breathing but I didn't have time to check.

The next archer was aiming carefully at something. I couldn't see what.

There was another shape close by, another archer. No more time. The one closest to me got the but of my spear in his forehead, snapping his neck back. Again, I didn't have time to stop as the third archer saw what I was doing and had turned to aim at me. I ran towards him, trying to dodge from left to right.

He let go of the string and I closed my eyes waiting for the impact of the arrow.

It never came. Instead there was the sound of wood splitting.

The archer had forgotten to fit an arrow to the bow-string and the bent force needed to go somewhere. Not having an arrow to propel it went into the bow, destroying it.

The bow shattered and then I was on him.

I tore the remaining splinters of the bow out of hand and his eyes widened in fear.

“Prophet's bollocks boy.” I said, gasping for breath suddenly. “My life flashed before my eyes.” Much to my surprise, I was laughing in fear and shock. “It was really boring.”

He laughed with me and I punched him in the face.

He collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

Things had not improved and my arms and legs were now aching with exhaustion and spent energy. The cost of looking at a man with an imagined arrow pointing at my face as well as all of the spent chemicals that were still running through my system. And I felt tired, my eyelids seemed weighted down and the ground looked awfully soft.

Kerrass was still fighting two men, guarding the priest and his wife although to my mind one of the two men was dressed differently. It took me far too long to realise that one of the men struggling with him had been knocked aside.

The Cartwright was still struggling with the Innkeeper who was wielding a long cooking knife. Not really meant for fighting but that wouldn't make the blade any the less deadly or sharp. One of the men that he had been struggling with had gone off to help with the Smith's assault on the Unicorn and Schrodinger.

Schrodinger was fighting now. All efforts to try and take the villagers down carefully had vanished and he was fighting for his life. The villagers were just playing a waiting game now. Waiting for the Witcher to make a mistake and open him up. They were darting in, trying to get Schrodinger to lower his guard in return for a killing blow. They were cautious and there were many more of them than there was Schrodinger.

I had done well in taking out the archers but we were going to lose.

I remember thinking about it very clearly. If I threw myself into the fight surrounding the Unicorn then I would simply be overwhelmed. If I saved the Cartwright then the Cartwright would not be able to help either of the remaining things.

I needed to help Kerrass and then maybe, between the two of us, we could salvage this.

I ran in, they didn't notice me. If I had been their weapons teacher I would have been furious. Absolutely no spatial awareness at all. I used the but of my spear to jab him in the back of the knee, still trying not to kill him. The structure of a body is truly fascinating and there are some places where, if you attack it, then the body will just break. Others where the body will just collapse on itself and still others where the body will not move. No matter how hard you try. It will either break or you will

The back of the knee is one that makes a man collapse.

Kerrass spun on the remaining assailant and was now able to attack safely while I finished off the man now on the floor. Always remember where the real threats are. It can be tempting to take out a weakened or distracted opponent but be careful that anyone else that you are defending yourself from is also waiting for you to be distracted as well.

Kerrass and I have fought together often enough now that we can communicate on this level and he trusts me to deal with anyone that I might have distracted or knocked down. Or, if the opponent is more skilled than I am, I can be relied upon to keep my feet and my defences up enough so that Kerrass can come back and dispatch him with ease.

This opponent was not more skilled than I am. He was already on the floor, his club had flown off somewhere and he fell awkwardly and incorrectly. His leg folding underneath him, badly. He screamed.

Automatically I bent to help him but Kerrass pushed me off, rapping the man smartly on the head so that he fell unconscious. His own opponent was likewise out cold. Apparently he had stepped in before driving the pommel of his sword into the poor man's jaw. Resulting in the fact that he was both, unconscious and had bitten the end of his tongue bloody.

I had time to see that Tulip was turning the man's head to one side so that he didn't drown in his own blood while being unconscious.

“FUCK,” Kerrass swore.

“What?”

He pointed with his sword down the road in the direction that the village had fled. There were torches and things coming towards us.

“We need to get this done Freddie. Help the Cartwright.”

“What about...”

“I'll help Schrodinger. But you will get overwhelmed and the Cartwright will be dead.”

I didn't hear the end of that other than on a basic level and I was already off and running.

Just one of many things I could have done differently. It's very easy to look back and look at all of our lives decisions and think about what we would have done this way and that way. We can wish that we had done something else or something other than the thing that we actually did but at the end of the day we could have made things better, or we could have made things much much worse.

I ran past the fight going on around the Unicorn. It was a mess, the Unicorn herself was making it worse by trying to enter the fray. She was not a small being and in trying to rear up to bring her hooves into play, she was pushing Schrodinger around the arena and knocking him off balance. The pair's frustration was almost palpable. I saw one of the villagers get the signature look of slack-jawed obliviousness that comes when Kerrass uses the Axii sign as he turned round. I consoled myself with the fact that there weren't any archers sniping at the pair any more and I ran on.

It was good that I had. The Innkeeper and the Cartwright were still struggling for control of the knife. The Herbalist was beginning to stir herself but blood still ran freely from a gash on her forehead. As I ran, there was that kind of feeling of events lengthening. I saw the Cartwright and the Innkeeper wrestling and I knew that I wasn't going to get there in time.

The Innkeeper swept the other man's leg from under him. The Cartwright was the stronger man so would have, presumably, won the wrestling match in the end but now the innkeeper could fall on his opponent and bring his weight to bear in trying to drive the knife downwards.

I roared in frustration as much as anything else. I was tired. I had thought we had won, my body deciding the matter for me and drove away all the stuff that a body needs in order to be able to fight. The anger, the fear and the adrenaline that went with it after the village had fled. I was all but stumbling in weariness and I could see what was going to happen as I tried to get there in time.

It was a matter of ten to twenty meters. No more than that but it might as well have been half the continent away.

A look of utter despair seemed to settle over the Cartwright's face. Then he shifted. Not his legs or his arms, but his body as he moved under his opponent. The blade sank into his right shoulder rather than into other areas. The innkeeper tugged at the blade to try and pull it back out but couldn't get it out, either from the slippery grip now that blood was pouring out of the wound, or because the suction was just so powerful that the blade couldn't be moved.

Which was when I got there.

I didn't want to hit him or do anything that might end up jerking his hands that were still on the knife handle. I dropped my spear next to him and wrapped my arm around his throat.

“Let him go,” I growled, although it was probably closer to being a gasp or a groan rather than a properly menacing growl. “Or I will choke the life out of you, you murdering piece of filth.”

He choked, gasped and let go of the blade spasmodically. My tugging him backwards caused us both to topple backwards.

I let him go just as promised. “I haven't killed anyone,” he complained as the same energy and adrenaline that fuels us all in a fight drained out of him.

“That remains to be seen.” I told him as I sank to my knees next to the Cartwright. The newly wedded husband was gasping for breath, his eyes wide and staring in panic. There was still a lot of blood coming out of the injury.

I swore and blasphemed a lot.

And I mean a lot.

“I need your strongest alcohol.” I told the innkeeper.

“What?”

“Listen, fuck face.” I was pulling the Cartwrights belt off his trousers. “You might still have killed this man and if I'm going to have any hope of saving his life then I need your strongest alcohol. Two large bottles. Go now or so help me...” But he was off, already running.

I folded the belt up and put it into Cartwright's mouth.

“Bite down,” I told him. “As hard as you like.”

He nodded.

“Not gonna lie to you my friend but this is gonna fuckin' hurt.”

He nodded again.

The sounds of fighting were dying behind me. I risked a quick glance over to see what had happened. Kerrass was wrestling with the last assailant. I couldn't see any others standing in the flickering light. Schrodinger was down, a dagger stuck out of his leg but he looked more angry than seriously wounded. The Unicorn was shaking in what I assumed was a kind of suppressed emotion as she nuzzled the fallen Witcher. Tulip was still with her husband who was now slowly standing up with her help.

I forgot about them.

I later learned that one of the earlier villagers that had been knocked insensible had regained consciousness and had managed to crawl over to Schrodinger and drive an eating knife into the Witcher's leg while he and Kerrass had set about restraining the remaining fighters. The kind of thing that only happens when you don't have time to properly make sure that the person at your feet is definitely dead rather than merely injured.

Go figure.

The Herbalist groaned again but she was still well out of it and although she was probably a far better healer than me, I had no help coming from that direction.

“I'm sorry my friend.” I told the Cartwright.

He screamed as I pulled the knife out with the proper grip and slight twisting action.

I know, for those of you of a medical leaning, that you're supposed to leave the object in the injury in case it does more damage coming out than it does going in. This is true, but there was so much blood that I was afraid that he would bleed to death before his wife had time to wake up, recover her senses and set about healing her husband.

And there really was a lot of blood.

The innkeeper turned up with two bottles.

“Fucking finally,”

“What do I do?”

“Let him drink one of them,” I told him. “Let him drink as much as he can.”

“But...”

“I swear to the Holy Fire that if you complain how much that stuff costs then I will hang you from the tree myself.”

I snatched one of the bottles out of his hand, pulled the cork out with my teeth, resisted the urge to take a swig from the bottle, before a significant quantity into the wound.

“I need light.” I said to no-one in particular as the Cartwright groaned, “and someone to hold him down.”

A torch hovered over me by the hand of the priest who had joined me. The fighting seemed to be over.

“What do you need Freddie?” Kerrass asked me.

“A proper fucking healer would be a start.” I told him while I frowned at the injury. It was still pumping blood and I needed to find the artery where it was coming from. “In the absence of that, hold him down. Get as much alcohol into him as you can.”

“I'm sorry.” The innkeeper moaned from nearby.

I ignored him. Sweat from the moment and the torch that was awfully hot and awfully close poured down my face.

There it was. I pinched the end of with my fingers. There were more groans from my patient.

“I need some herbs.” I said to no-one in particular. “Puffball, Varris root, White myrtle, Barbercane if you can find them. Also some spider's webs.”

“Why?” Someone asked.

“Just fucking find them.” Kerrass snapped at whoever it was. “Try the banks of the stream or the meadow, break down the herbalist's door if you have to.”

“Kerrass, do that thing you do with my belt-knife would you.” I meant that I needed it heating with his signs. “I need to cauterize this.”

I felt his hands at my waist before I had finished talking.

The Cartwright was back to gasping for breath.

“Get that belt back in his mouth. This is going to really fucking hurt.”

I held my hand out and Kerrass put the knife in my hand. I had enough time to register the heat and thank the Flame that I was wearing gloves as I put the knife into the wound. Which hissed.

The Cartwright screamed. Closer to a gasp and a wheeze but that was what it was. By some effort of will, he didn't pass out.

I blew out a breath as I dropped the knife nearby. I would need a new one before things were done. “I need maggots.”

“The fisherman's place.” A young male voice said and some feet pattered off.

“I'm sorry.” The innkeeper moaned again. I continued to ignore him.

The herbs finally arrived. I tore up the petals, crushed the berries and squeezed out the sap from the stems of the plants and added them to the leftover alcohol before soaking a pad of cloth in the resulting mixture. To this day I have no idea where the pad of cloth came from. Just handed to me pretty randomly when I needed one. The maggots turned up. I checked that they were clean, packed a few into the wound and bound up the injury.

But I wasn't done. The cartwright looked at me, his eyes were still bugging out of his head and he was grasping at his throat. I bent closer to listen to his breathing but all I could hear was the rasping.

“What's wrong with him?” The innkeeper wanted to know.

“I think his lung's collapsed.” I said aloud. “Collapsing maybe,” I muttered to myself as I felt the first stirrings of panic at the edge of my own brain. I had no idea what to do. The Herbalist was still unconscious and there was no help there.

I looked up at Father Anchor whose face was ashen. He shook his head.

“Flame but I have no...”

“Freddie, look at me.” Kerrass told me, putting his face in my line of sight. “You're the most qualified field medic here.”

“Kerrass, I stitch wounds and set limbs. I probably killed him when I sorted out his shoulder he just hasn't...”

“Do you know how to do it?”

My brain was screaming at me. I so longed for a drink.

“I saw it done once.”

“Well that's good.”

“On a Cadaver.”

“That's less good.”

“When I was in the process of giving up on medicine.”

“Freddie, The Herbalist is not yet conscious but her injury is not severe. She's gonna wake up. Do you want to look her in the face and tell her that you didn't even try to save her husband?”

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Never let it be said that I'm not easy to manipulate and Kerrass knew exactly how to push my buttons.

“I'm gonna need your dagger.” I told him while I examined the Cartwright.

“Which one.”

“The sharpest one. The poniard. Douse it in the alcohol first.”

“Talk it through Freddie.”

“There's no blood bubbling out of his mouth so he's not drowning in his blood. Which means that the lung isn't pierced, which, in turn, means that it's being squeezed.” I reasoned aloud. The poor Cartwright looked really scared now. “Probably by the blood that didn't come out of his shoulder going into the chest cavity which means that we need to get that blood out before both lungs collapse and he suffocates.”

“Don't we just need to re-inflate the lungs?” Someone wanted to know.

“Then the lung might burst or tear under the different pressures or otherwise make the problem worse.” I answered. I took my boot knife and cut the man's shirt open. Then I shut my eyes and started tapping into his side. My old Tutor's voice coming from that long ago demonstration. “Don't look,” he had said. “Listen.”

But I couldn't tell the difference between what I was feeling. The panic clawed at me again. I snatched the poniard from Kerrass' hand.

“Hold him down.” I told the assembly.

“I am so sorry.” I told the Cartwright before I stabbed him in the side.

Not too deep but I thought I wouldn't need too much. I remembered that it didn't need to much. The Cartwright moaned. The flow of blackened blood was strong at first but then lessened. It would increase as the Cartwright breathed in before tailing off again. He was breathing easier now. I pushed another herby cloth against his side to let the liquid out and to stop the residual breathing. The Cartwright was visibly calming now as his breathing eased.

“Well done Freddie.” Kerrass told me.

“Yes,” Schrodinger added tiredly. “Well done.”

“Not gonna lie,” I said as I slumped backwards. “Still not sure I haven't killed him.”

There was some tittered laughter.

Then there was a scream.

We were not yet done with horror.

We had forgotten the Smith you see.

There is sometimes a flaw in trying to recount events in the written word rather than doing so verbally and that is that occasionally you miss some of the things, some of the clues that I give out about how I feel about this even or the other.

I have just sighed in sadness and regret.

When I had first met him, the Smith had seemed like a decent fellow. Leaving aside the fact that he was obviously a little too greedy to be entirely tolerated, I know that he was decent to others and his apprentice lacked the tell tale lash marks, limp and cowed nature that some, if not more, craft apprentices can boast. But something in the events leading up to the moment had tipped him over the point and into madness.

It's very easy for us to apportion blame here and there could be any number of reasons why he did what he did. I've mentioned some of them before. The smoke and the mist. Maybe he was more like me than is entirely comfortable for me to admit and he had an odd reaction to stress and fear. Others, more charitable towards my own sense of guilt, suggest that the madness was always there and that recent events had brought it to the surface. Or that the defeat of his men at the hands of half a dozen people, only three of them being combatants really, was too much for his reason to understand.

For whatever reason it was though, I know.... I know, that he could still think clearly. So despite all the fault and the guilt that I might have taken onto myself for these events, I know that it is not really my fault. That he could have decided to do something else.

How do I know that he was thinking relatively clearly?

He retreated and hid, waiting in ambush.

When it became obvious that he was going to lose. That none of his group of fighters were going to make it through to the Unicorn and the Witcher that was defending her. He backed off. He had already tried pushing men forward when they were being too timid for his own tastes....

Notice, because I did, that he didn't try and attack Schrodinger or the Unicorn himself. He pushed others forward in order to do it and take the wrath of the Witcher's blade instead of himself.

….He backed off and skirted round. He had heard the sounds of the villagers coming back behind us and hid behind a tree. My trying to save the life of the Cartwright had drawn people's notice, including Kerrass and Schrodinger. Kerrass had gone over to help me. The priest and his wife were also now absent. Schrodinger was wounded and had collapsed, although in no danger the Witcher was unable to climb back to his feet. The Unicorn was fussing over the fallen Witcher and watching the incoming villagers warily.

The Smith had wandered round, hidden from view while those that might have seen him were too busy looking at other things. It also bears mentioning that these people were all highly skilled woodsmen. We had mocked them earlier but that bears mentioning.

He snuck round warily and saw his chance. Stepping out of the bushes that bordered the nearby buildings he ran up with his hammer held in both hands and swung it down towards the Unicorn's head. The same way that a cattle man might slaughter a cow with his hammer.

He would have succeeded too. But although we were all watching the Cartwright to see if he was going to die on us all, Tulip was looking at her husband. He was trying to move around and do things with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder so she was watching him carefully in case he did anything to over strain himself. As a result, her attention was not entirely on the Cartwright, me and what I was doing with the Cartwright and various sharp implements. She was not fascinated by the strange liquids pouring from the Cartwrights body or the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh and blood.

So as a result, she saw the flicker of movement, saw the Smith step out from behind a building and screamed.

Then she was off and running. All jokes aside, Tulip was a skinny little thing. Almost painfully thin to the point where I had wondered whether there was anything wrong with her when I first met her. But then I had seen her move. She went from a standing start to a full sprint in the blink of an eye and she ran like a whippet that has caught the scent of a rat. She was a blur as her legs and arms pumped until she collided with the Smith.

It all happened so fast and I spent a long time afterwards trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. As she screamed, that scream alerted the Unicorn so that she moved away. A fraction of a heartbeat later, Tulip impacted the side of the Smith and she grabbed hold of him to try and halt the movement of the hammer.

It was a largely futile effort, an impossibly slight woman against the hardened strength of a Smith. I've said that he wasn't the massive build of your stereotypical Smith, but he was still a man that swung a hammer all day, every day, in order to put food on his and his families table.

But somewhere between the scream which startled him, the Unicorn hearing the scream for the warning that it was and moving, the impact that staggered him and the grapple that deflected the blow. The Smith missed his blow. The Unicorn reared, backing away from this new enemy.

I've talked about battlefield reaction before and we were all struggling with it. Including the Unicorn herself. I'm told that it can affect even hardened and experienced warriors. I've even been told that the more experienced a fighter you are, the worse the effects of battlefield reaction can be. I was already limp and shaking with it. We had staged our little piece of theatre and thought that it worked so we were coming down from that when the Smith and his people attacked. Then we fought them and had won and were coming down from that combat. Then I had had to fight again in order to save a man's life. A man that I liked and respected. I had just collapsed from that and I could already feel the first tremors starting in my fingers of the oncoming reaction.

It's the only excuse that I have to explain why I, why we, didn't react quicker. I had time to see all of this and to realise that I needed to get my feet under me.

Kerrass spun round. The Priest didn't move. Some of the Younger villagers also started to move.

Even the Unicorn was suffering from the first stages of reaction and reacted according to instinct, her words, rather than training and experience meaning that she backed away from her assailant rather than attacking him.

All of these things to say how we could have avoided or prevented what happened.

Tulip clung onto the Smith like a limpet. Trying to pull him away, slow him down and prevent him. She was pleading with him, her lack of words and mouth to speak not an obstacle in her communication.

He turned and back-handed her across the face.

She spun away from him and fell to the ground.

I saw blood in the firelight.

“Nooo,” someone moaned, it might even have been me.

“BITCH,” The Smith screamed.

Then he made his choice.

People commit evil acts for a variety of reasons. Some men commit those acts because they believe in something. Be that a flag, a religion, a cause. Some men commit evil acts out of a desire to protect their friends or because their friends are also committing evil acts. Some men do so because they were ordered to and they have that moral flexibility in their character to make that possible. Some men, commit evil by way of greed and fear and ambition.

I can admit that greed started this man down that path, also the innkeeper and any of the others that started this whole thing.

But sometimes, if you watch carefully. You can witness the moment that someone makes a choice.

The Smith stood over Tulip who coughed, blood dribbling from her mouth. Kerrass was moving reaching over his shoulder for his sword. I struggled to get my feet and arms to do what I wanted them to do. The Unicorn screamed. I heard people calling, people shouting and thought I could hear people yelling.

The Smith made his choice, almost nonchalantly and absently as he nodded to himself. He brought his hammer round, over his shoulder and using the blow to crouch down, he sank to one knee and brought the hammer crashing down on Tulip's chest.

Someone screamed. A woman's voice, from the crowd I think. More people moaned and cried out. The Unicorn was bellowing.

Kerrass was still moving, the sword coming out spinning it round.

I finally managed to get my feet under me.

Time was moving so slowly but I couldn't move any faster.

Flame forgive me but I just couldn't do it.

The hammer came up again.

Kerrass abruptly planted his feet, brought his sword back and hurled it forward.

The hammer came down again. This time there was no outcry to distract from the horrible, wet crunching noise.

There was however a gasp of horror from the crowd.

Kerrass's sword flashed as it span end over end before cutting down into the shoulder of the Smith.

The hammer fell from nerveless fingers.

I finally managed to get to my feet.

Kerrass hates that move. He hates the need to practice it and moans constantly when it comes up in his training routine. He wonders why you would take the opportunity to throw away your only defence in the middle of a fight. Daggers? Certainly but your sword.

Apparently, it almost never works. It almost always misses and it's entirely blind luck as to which part of the sword hits the target first. If you practise with the same weapon then you know how far the weapon will fly and you can, with a LOT of training, know where to stand and how far away you need to be in order to make it most likely for the blade to hit the target first.

In this case, Kerrass was slightly off. The blade of the sword had cut deep into the smiths shoulder and stood out.

The Smith screamed in pain and anger. Then he saw the crowd of the villagers.

“Quickly,” he screamed. “Quickly we can still kill the Unicorn and take it's horn.”

The Thatcher was at the front of the crowd, his face a mask of horror at what had just happened.

“Oh my friend.” He said.

I got to Tulip's side and knelt next to her. I don't know why. Mercifully, I think she was already dead. I hope she was already dead. Her chest was pulverised. Bits of bone, fragments really stood out in the awful wound that was still sucking blood. Her neck was squashed flat and the bottom of her skull was likewise polarised. You could just about see half the jawbone sticking out from the pulverised mess of her face.

You could still see her eyes and in the miracle of the kind of woman Tulip was. She didn't look as though she was angry, or accusing. She looked a bit scared.

I reached forward and closed her eyes as gently as I could.

The only casualty of the night. Despite a score of combatants, she was the only one. It didn't seem fair. It wasn't fair. It's never fair.

“We can still kill the Unicorn,” The smith pleaded. “We can still save our town and make all of this worthwhile.”

The priest had staggered over to the corpse of his wife. Someone, I thought it was Schrodinger who had forced himself to his feet despite the dagger still embedded in his leg, put a gentle hand on Father Anchor's shoulder only to be shrugged off. He had been looking at me with absurd hope in his eyes when the Smith started to speak but then hearing the Smith's words. He changed from being a priest into being some kind of wild animal.

He screamed and threw himself at the wounded figure of the Smith who was struggling to stand despite the sword still embedded in his shoulder.

This time, my body obeyed my commands and I pulled the priest off balance until he fell to the ground and I held him there as he wailed and screamed his grief into the night.

“We can make this right.” The Smith pleaded. “One girl's death for the safety and security of the village.”

“She was trying to save lives.” The Herbalist was being supported. She was blinking furiously, pale faced, drawn, haggard and swaying dangerously. “She was trying to save lives. The Witcher and the Unicorn would have killed many in their attempts to escape. Still more would have died when you added another Witcher to the mix. This was the way out that would have saved lives.”

“By lying and deception.” The Smith snarled. The anger, greed and madness back in his face.

“Against murder.” She screamed back at him swaying with the effort. It was the Smith's apprentice that was helping to support her. Him and the woman I recognised as the Innkeeper's wife. “I saw what you did. You could have let her live. You murdered her. You had a choice and you murdered her. Just as your friend, your crony tried to murder my husband. He might yet have succeeded as well, despite the efforts of the men that you tried to kill.”

The innkeeper who was standing nearby, trying not to be noticed, quailed at the anger and rage in her voice.

“You murdered her.” The Herbalist sobbed. “My best friend and you murdered her.”

Kerrass hadn't moved. He was stood over the wounded Smith like a dark and awful statue. His eyes were blazing in the firelight as he gazed down at the smith.

Silence had descended.

“This village has a monster in it.” His voice grated. “Witcher for hire, reasonable rates.” His words were like ice on the mountain side. “Who will hire me to kill a monster?”

There was a pause as people considered. The only sound being the crackle of the flames and the moans of the priest that I was still holding onto.

“I will.” The Thatcher said abruptly.

Kerrass nodded.

He moved so fast that you could barely see it. His sword was out of the Smith's shoulder in a blur and then the man's head simply fell off his shoulders.

The crowd seemed to sigh as though a great tension had been removed and a weight lifted.

Kerrass wiped his sword and re-sheathed it. “Food and board for me and my companions until they are able to leave.” He said calmly.

“Done.” The Thatcher nodded. “Sometimes the necessary blade is the most merciful one there is.”

“Done?” The Innkeeper demanded. Finding his outrage finally. “He just killed...”

“Oh be quiet you stupid fool.” His wife told him. “When all this is done I'm going to have you divorced. If Father Anchor can't do it for Church reasons then I'll find me a Priestess to do it. That's if they don't hang you for murder by that point. I do most of the work round here anyway.”

And just like that, a village began to heal itself.

Just like that.

It was remarkable. I suppose life is too short to worry about such things. But still.

“No,” I heard the Unicorn say in my mind after I spent a while trying to make sense of my own thoughts and getting them into some kind of order as to what I should do next. “That is not enough.”

It feels strange to say it out loud, but it's also absolutely true, that it's actually quite easy to forget that the Unicorn is there at all. I suspect it's one of those subconscious racism things that we don't think about because we can't help it. When glanced out of the corner of my eye, or when I'm not really paying attention to what's going on. I just dismiss that shape as being a horse. It's an automatic thing, a reflex and a habit. I certainly didn't mean anything by it. But that's just the way my mind was working at the time. To be fair to me, there was a lot of stress and emotion going around but even so.

“What is?” I asked aloud automatically, turning.

The Unicorn was stood, staring down at Tulip's corpse. Father Anchor had wriggled free of my grip when I was distracted by the Smith's execution and had collapsed next to the splintered body of his fallen wife. People were leaving him alone. The apprentice Smith and the remains of the dead man's family were stood around his corpse. There were tears there, but it was a kind of “for form's sake” kind of thing. Certainly grief but a lack of shock that I find seems to go together with a recent bereavement in the family.

Instead there was a kind of circle of silence around Father Anchor as he knelt there. He was in the process of reaching out for one of her hands. His own hands trembling with grief as he looked down at the woman that he had cherished. That he had loved and had nearly left the church for, before she had told him that to do so was foolish.

None of us wanted to go to him, what could we possibly say in such circumstances. “We're sorry for your loss?” Always seems so inadequate.

People were just beginning to drift away. A working party who acted under the Herbalist's orders were fetching a stretcher to take the Cartwright away. Blankets were being brought. Fires were being put out and smoke was dissipating. The Innkeeper's wife, or by now I suppose she was the Innkeeper really, was setting things out and was making noises about feeding people.

It was all moving so quickly. Moving away from what had just happened with unnatural and almost off putting speed. I didn't like it and I felt faintly sick. But in the middle of all of this, the Unicorn walked up to Tulip's body, bent down her long neck and sniffed. A sick, petty part of me wondered whether she was going to eat the body. I made a note at the time that says that I found myself thinking that Iwould rather she took a bite out of the Smith's body instead. He would have more meat on him apart from anything else. Such was my mindset at the time.

But then she looked up and said the words.

“No, this is not enough.”

I have no idea what she meant by this. I was trying to gather my thoughts together to try and persuade the grieving priest that he needed to lie down so that I could take the arrow out of his shoulder. I wasn't really that worried about Schrodinger's leg wound. At the end of the day, he's a Witcher and can depend on the efficacy of Witcher potions. But how do you tell a man that he needs to step back from the corpse of his dead wife so that I can have a look at him? I had no idea.

So when the Unicorn said that. I was startled. Not for the first time that night, I thought that things were over now. I thought that there might be a little bit of aftermath where people might have another go at the Unicorn but the spirit of that fight seemed to have left them. There would be a funeral which I would have liked to attend. I thought there might be a party for the Herbalist and the Cartwright getting married, presuming he survived his injuries of course. I thought that Kerrass, Schrodinger and myself might need to make something of an accounting of ourselves. But then we would all go our separate ways.

“What is?” I asked aloud. Mostly because I had forgotten that she was speaking to me telepathically and as such I had forgotten that I didn't need to actually say anything to her.

She ignored me anyway, She stepped forwards a couple of times and nudged Father Anchor with her head.

“It will be alright.” She told him.

Honest to Flame though, I don't think he noticed. To be fair though, I'm not sure I would have noticed. He was stroking his wife's hand and looking at what was left of her face. If I had to guess I would say that he simply wasn't there any more and who can blame him. There were a few people hovering nearby. One of whom was the Herbalist who couldn't decide between caring for the living and grieving for the dead. I also had a sense of other people that would always be the ones going to church. The older couples who gathered in the church rather than the Inn. They were standing nearby. Many of whom had removed hats and were looking down at Father Anchor with concern. I would like to give them credit enough to suggest that that concern was genuine.

But then the Unicorn turned away.

“I need you,” She said. There was no doubt who she was talking to.

“I'm here,” Schrodinger said, hobbling over. Kerrass had helped him up and had his shoulder underneath the other Witcher's arm to help him move. I saw that the dagger had been removed from Schrodinger's leg and that a hasty bandage had been applied to the injury that was stained. Something of my old training rebelled at that. The bandage was badly tied and would do nothing to protect the wound or keep a poultice in place. But it's a reflex. I always have to remind myself when I see Kerrass get hurt, that I'm dealing with Witchers. Not with normal people.

“What do you need?” He asked her, hobbling closer.

“We cannot allow this to stand.” She told him. “I, cannot allow this to stand.”

There was a slow look of dawning realisation in Schrodinger's face. There was horror there as well. Fear too but I have heard the tone in the Unicorn's voice coming out of other people's mouths. It's the tone that says that minds have been made up and that there is nothing that can be done to change it.

But he tried anyway.

“You don't have to do this.” He told her. “She made her choice and...”

“She would do the same for me. She did do the same for me. And one as pure as her does not deserve to end like this.”

“No, no she doesn't.” Schrodinger sighed. “I take it that I can't change your mind.”

“I am quite made up.”

“This might kill you.” He argued.

She tossed her mane and head. “Then you'd better strike true, or it will.”

Schrodinger snorted. “I need White Raffrd Kerrass.”

I was somewhat mollified to see that Kerrass clearly had no idea what was going on either.

A few people started to get the sense that other people were realising that all was not done here. The people that were clustering around ready to catch Father Anchor, were going from properly supporting people to being onlookers. A group of people had gone with the Cartwright when he was taken off to the inn. Largely because it was the closest building that had room and the Herbalist had finally made her choice and gone with him.

Some might call that harsh but to me it makes a certain amount of sense. Stay with the living, make sure that he's going to keep living and then take things from there.

But more and more people were gathering around again. They had turned to move off. To go home, go to the inn, go for a walk and begin to think about what they're doing with their lives and the future of the village. But then that joined mind of villagers that know what's going on, seemed to come together to let them know that the night still wasn't done with it's nonsense.

Kerrass sprinted off to our bags which were still over by the church. While he was gone, more and more people were gathering around. People started to ask me what was happening and I had to shrug and explain that I simply had no idea and that it was a mystery to me. Still more spent their time looking at the Unicorn as she peered down at the corpse of the woman that had tried to save her.

Who had saved her.

Kerrass came back at a run and handed a small bottle to Schrodinger who drank the bottle quickly. He shuddered, winced, gritted his teeth and the veins on his neck stood out for a moment. Then his eyes opened. His eyes were glowing a little more. Just a touch brighter in their shade and their colour but certainly no more than that. Then he shifted his weight a bit and tested his injured leg.

Then he drew his sword.

His sword looks a little shorter than Kerrass' blade. That might be my imagination but it looks a little shorter and a little wider. He rolled his shoulders and spun the blade so that it sang.

The villagers drew back.

Finally, Father Anchor had realised that something was happening and looked up. I saw his eyes and winced in sympathy. This was a man in hell.

The Unicorn turned towards Schrodinger.

“Do you have any idea what's going on?” Kerrass asked me. He had moved to stand next to me while I had been distracted. I was getting distracted a lot at the moment but....

“I was just going to ask you the same question.”

“No fucking clue.”

“Are you ready?” Schrodinger asked the Unicorn.

“No,” The Unicorn thought back. She moved so that she stood over the corpse and Schrodinger moved alongside her.

“Yeah, ok.” I heard myself say. “Kerrass?” We darted forward and caught Father Anchor underneath both arms and dragged him away.

He struggled with us. He fought with us but we held him fast.

For a moment Schrodinger stood there, resting his head on the neck of the great beast and stroked her mane.

“Please don't die.” He pleaded.

There was a bit of a moan from the crowd.

“Then strike true,” The Unicorn said. She almost whispered it.

The Priest stopped struggling. There was a solemnity to the moment and I have no way of knowing who heard the Unicorn's words.

Then Schrodinger moved. Faster than I had ever seen anyone move before. Faster than Kerrass does in a fight. So fast it was almost a blur and the air screamed as his sword slashed out.

Then there was no resistance to that movement and when he had finished, Schrodinger was like a statue.

There was a moment where the tableau was like a painting. Like Schrodinger was a statue of some kind in a museum.

Something glittered in the firelight. It was bright and reflected the light in the colours of the rainbow.

But then the Unicorn screamed. It was the awful scream of a creature in agony. Anyone who has ever been around horses, or even animals in general will know that particular scream. It is the scream of fear and agony that an animal uses when it is hurt and it doesn't know why. When a limb is broken but it doesn't understand this so it continues to struggle to stand.

It's the kind of noise where people say “Put that poor thing out of it's misery.”

She stood there shivering, pawing at the ground. It was a noise of agony and I couldn't, I almost couldn't bear it.

Schrodinger dropped his blade and reached forward and plucked something from the ground.

The Unicorn collapsed. She was rolling around now, still screaming in agony.

The crowd was silent.

Schrodinger took the thing that he had picked up and I saw what it was.

It was the very tip of the Unicorns horn.

Something black and viscous dripped from the end. Schrodinger caught it on his gloved hand and moved towards the corpse. He was weeping openly.

A Witcher's blade can be shocking when it strikes and it had certainly shocked the villagers. But a Witcher's tears seemed to shake them to their very core. He took the glove and smeared the dark liquid on Tulip's forehead.

Father Anchor began to struggle again but Kerrass and I held him firm.

Schrodinger looked up at us.

“It's not the horn.” He told us. “It's never the horn. The horn is but hardened bone, shaped by the magic of the Unicorns. But the marrow of the thing? The marrow of the horn? That can perform miracles if the Unicorn decides that the recipient is worthy.”

His voice broke then and his face crumpled in grief and shared pain with his wife. “If the Unicorn survives the giving.”

He turned away and knelt next to the Unicorn, mirroring the pose of the grieving priest earlier. The Unicorn was now lying on her side and whimpering with the agony.

But none of us were watching. Because Tulip's corpse had begun to glow. All the colours of the Rainbow began to emanate from her. At first from her horrible horrible injuries, then from what remained of her mouth, then from her eyes, her nose.

Then the light shot from her fingertips.

Father Anchor had stopped struggling when Schrodinger spoke but now he was all but tearing at us in his frenzy to get at his wife.

“Don't,” Kerrass told him, holding onto him ruthlessly. “Take it from someone who knows. It is never a good idea to stick your hand into the magic light.”

Father Anchor wasn't to be persuaded though. He fought and struggled and pulled and all the while, the light got more and more intense until we could no longer see.

Then Tulip screamed. But it was not a scream of pain, or terror. There was emotion there that I didn't recognise and the light vanished abruptly. It just winked out of existence as though it was a candle flame that had been snuffed out.

Tulip lay there on the grass verge. Her feet lying in the road. No sign of injury was upon her. Even her clothing was mended.

Father Anchor stopped struggling and tentatively, Kerrass and I let him go. He just knelt there. Trembling.

Tulip's eyes opened and she sat up.

The crowd gasped. There's no other word for it.

Oblivious to the effect she was having on the assembly, Tulip climbed to her feet. There was something different about her, she was still recognisable, her stature was the same, her movements were the same, just as expressive and expansive. She looked around us all, then looked down at herself. A look of horror and terror crossed her face and she checked that area of her body where she had been struck.

Then her face flooded with relief as she found all the right bits where she wanted them to be.

Then she turned to where her husband was kneeling, his eyes shining with tears and she smiled at him with such genuine care, love and affection that we all can only hope to be looked at like that by the object of our affections.

The poor man sobbed openly and no-one thought the less of him for it.

Then a look of surprised astonishment crossed her face and she gave a little squeak as her hands shot to cover her mouth.

Then she laughed and danced a little jig on the grass. It was like the sun came out to see her joy and the rest of the village laughed with her as she pumped her fists in the air in victory.

It was then that I realised what was different about her. Her face no longer had that strange sunken look.

Then she flew towards her husband. Faster than a Witcher, faster than an arrow flying from the string of a bow. She skidded to her knees before him as she laughed, tears streaming down both their faces.

There was a question on his face, on most of our faces I imagine.

“I have waited for so long,” she said carefully, her mouth and newly remade tongue forming the words carefully. “Oh so very long, to be able to tell you how much I love you.”

I whooped. It felt like the right thing to do and I was by no means alone as the crowd all but roared it's approval as Tulip kissed her husband thoroughly.

Making full use of her tongue I noticed.

“Well,” Kerrass commented as he joined in the applause, grinning from ear to ear. “Fuck me sideways.”

(A/N: It might be against the tone of the world. It might go against established themes. But after so many chapters of doom and darkness. I wanted to write a happy ending dammit. An epilogue to go for this story and then we'll get back to some nice Grimness. I promise.)