The Long Defeat

There is one fear that is universal to all beings. Water hags flee before it, kikimoras burrow away from it, forktails build their nests high to escape it; vampires and men fear it too, and have given the fear a name. The long defeat. The long defeat is dying childless and alone, unable to contribute to the world after death. Monsters have no conception of genealogy, but they fear the long defeat all the same. A few drowners may not pose a threat to a witcher, but the last drowner in the land will fight like six of its brethren. Dying, alone, is when monsters are closest to men.

The witcher and her companion leapt from their horses and landed firmly on the hardened mud. Alayna was reminded of the last two villages they had taken contracts in. The same overgrown ivy threatened the homes of villagers too busy to clear it away, and the same grime covered the faces of children and the boots of their parents. No Gadwall was not a pretty town, but the pretty towns did not often need a witcher. A solitary raven circled overhead, doubtless searching for some shiny new plaything to snatch from the smithy.

“I told you there would be work,” Alayna whispered to Bryanna, as the villagers reluctantly pointed them to the village matriarch. “There’s not a village north of the Yaruga that doesn’t have monsters on its hearth.”

Bryanna drew more glances than Alayna. Here on the borders of Mahakam and Lyria, racial prejudices were less strained than in Northern Aedirn. But an elf was still less welcome than a witcher. The villagers would have preferred neither, but both were here and neither looked ready to ride on.

The elf pursed her lips. “I never doubted that they would have work, only that they would offer it. Do you remember how fiercely that old witch haggled with you for the water hag? That haggler, now there’s a pity you cannot dispatch that hag of a woman.”

Alayna smiled thinly, but continued to walk briskly to the matriarch, who stood with crossed arms and a frown in front of the largest cottage in the village. The elf knew much of pogroms and hatred, but she knew little of witcher’s work. As always, Alayna did the bargaining.

“Greetings, mother. I have heard that–”

“Aye, there was a battle,” the crone interrupted with a scowl. “North. Follow the ravens. And ye will be paid for every corpse-eater. Go and perform your duty, so we may be rid of thee.”

Bryanna almost threw a retort back at the woman, but Alayna stilled her mouth with a quick squeeze of her hand. “Thank you, mother. Are they ghouls, rotfiends, or hags?”

At the last, Bryanna almost giggled. Alayna had to squeeze her hand again to keep her silent. The old woman only shook her head, her matted gray locks flapping around her ears as she did so. “Nay, lass. We do not understand your witching ways, nor wish we to. Ye are paid to let monsters feel the bitter tang of the long defeat, not compile encyclopedia.”

Alayna sighed, and she hoped it was imperceptible. “My rates are different for certain creatures. To travel to the battlefield, assess the danger, and return… it would cost you extra orens. Are you certain that nobody knows of the creatures? And what of a place where we could board for the evening?”

She frowned again. “There be no room in the tavern. Master Yazimir may know of the monsters, ‘twas he who the merchants were wont to meet.” The frown deepened. “The outlander is in the tavern, yonder. Search for the camel-backed donkey.” She departed in a flurry of mud-drabbed skirts.

Bryanna cast a curious look at the matriarch, and then raised her eyebrows at Alayna. The witcher shook her head in reply, her griffin medallion bouncing on her breast. She understood the woman no more than the elf did. They walked to the inn, where there was tethered the fattest bow-saddled donkey either had seen, munching happily on a bucket of oats.

Bryanna started in, but Alayna looked back. The raven slowed its circling, then began to descend and landed confidently on the matriarch’s outstretched hand. A pet? It almost seemed as though she were… talking to it. It cawed, and jerked its head suddenly towards Alayna. The matriarch followed its gaze with her own, but Alayna had already turned away.

The fat donkey’s master, Alayna discovered as she entered the tavern, was an equally corpulent dwarf with a beard that hung braided to his knees and a set of rusty plate armor that he wore with pride. He was ensconced in a bucket of his own – not oats, as his donkey gorged on, but a large Kaedweni stout. And not likely his first, from the way he swayed on his bench.

Alayna grabbed the dwarf by the shoulder. “What ho, master dwarf? I say, you must be Master Yazimir?”

“Aye, Yazimir is I, and I is Yazimir,” he replied in a brogue that was distinct through his slur.

“Master, we seek information of the battle by the Lyrian border, and were told that you might have some information for us.”

“I do,” he belched, “But not without a drop o’ spirit in me. I’m mighty parched, lass.”

“Would that I could buy every goodly dwarf a round of spirit, but I have been cheated more than a cuckold in Vizima. But let us wager for the bill.” Grinning, Alayna handed her swords to Bryanna. “We buy cheap. The one with the least glasses must pay the final bill, and fulfill one request from the other – moreover, you will tell us what you know of the battle regardless of the victor.”

His cloudy eyes twinkled for a brief moment in delight. “You haggle as prettily as a Mahakam jeweler, lass. Innkeep!” The man bumbled to the counter, “Get me two shots of Rivian kriek, and don’t you stop pouring!”

Shortly thereafter, Master Yazimir awoke in a pool of his own spittle and piss. The slim witcheress grinned unsteadily, then quickly closed her mouth as if unsure what might next emerge. The innkeep had cleaned six glasses, and eleven more remained. Alayna and Yazimir both looked sick, but the innkeep smiled: his orens would be stacked higher than the dirty dishes.

“You haggle like a Mahakam jeweler,” the dwarf moaned as he thought of the bill, and of his stomach, “and drink like a Skellige jarl at feast. I must face my defeat with honor… and one last stout.”

She grabbed his hand as it reached for the mug of hardened clay. “I trust that our agreement still stands, dwarf.”

Yazimir eyed her cautiously, as if seeing her properly for the first time. “Aye, so it does… witcheress. It seems we have much to discuss. On the morrow. Once we have… regained ourselves.”

The matriarch met the two girls as they exited the tavern. “I see ye have met Yazimir,” she sniffed with displeasure.

“Aye, though ye might have simply told us what we needed to know,” Bryanna sniffed back with equal contempt. Alayna would have argued, but she was not sure which image of Alayna she would have argued with. Or which matriarch to placate, though she did not remember there being twins, no, triplets…

“I, ah,” the wizened haggler stumbled over the words. “I must apologize to ye. To ye both. There be room in the tavern a’plenty, and if there be no then I will board ye in my own home. Nothing lesser is befitting a witcher,” she mumbled disconsolately.

Bryanna’s face did not lose its hardness, but her voice bit less when she finally replied. “We would be grateful for it. We will dispatch the beasts on the morrow with the help of yon smashed dwarf.”

Their room was on the ground floor of the tavern, and finer than any they could have afforded on their own. It smelled of holly and privet, which both grew extensively outside the open window. The tavern stood atop a hill, so that the girls could look out the window and see miles of uninterrupted farmland, except for a solitary oak tree which stood proudly adjoint to the building.

A raven sat perched in the tree, and Alayna watched it with dull eyes. She absentmindedly thought of casting a sign at it, but when she blinked the bird was gone and the sun had dipped another few inches on the horizon. Was it the same raven? She blinked again, and there in its place was a bat, merrily fluttering after lightning bugs. She blinked again, and her head throbbed as she peered with squinted eyes into the blinding rays of dawn. Past dawn, at that.

“Rise, you slugabed, or yon matriarch will have fuel to add to her fires of prejudice against witcher and elves alike!”

Alayna turned to find Bryanna, half dressed and with her hair undone, grinning sheepishly at her. Alayna lay her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, only to be roused again by the elf. She opened her eyes and saw Bryanna kneeling over her, her face pantomiming a look of dead seriousness.

“You forget yourself, Alayna. You are no louse-infested, pox-ridden, hairy-chested mule of a man: you are a witcheress! Gvalch’rienn of the Griffin!” Her eyes twinkled, and the corners of her mouth quivered from barely contained laughter, “And, madam, you are late for a date with a certain fat dwarf.”

Alayna groaned and rolled out of bed, barely able to hear her dear friend laughing at the splitting headache and dizziness that remained from the day prior. Never again would she drink with a dwarf, not for all the gold in Kovir!

Yazimir grimaced when she opened the door, which squealed like a stuck pig. But he was true to his word, and sat astride his beleaguered donkey, resplendent – as such – in his rusty armor, with a battle-axe hanging on his back that had seen many years of use.

“Well, let us not waste away the day. Shall we be off?”

Bryanna giggled. “You already wasted today by drinking yesterday. Imbibe one drop more and you would have wasted tomorrow, too!”

“Enough of that,” Alayna commanded, “or I’ll strap you to Calliope and switch you from here to the battlefield.” Neither she nor the dwarf, who had paid for their alacrity, needed any more moralizing. She had certainly never drunk that much before, but nobody had ever taught her how much alcohol was proper. Nobody had ever taught her much of what she needed to know as a witcher, for that matter.

They mounted to begin the ride west, against the sun, but Bryanna turned to the left and asked curiously, “Was that there yesterday?”

Alayna turned her head to see what she meant.

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It was a tower, cloaked in mist, whose pointed top rose not much higher than the jagged pine trees which enveloped it. It stood separate from the village, just like a king’s palace would stand separate from his subjects, or like the rich would build their mansions separate from the poor. A conspiracy of ravens flew from the tower, cawing defiantly for their whole flight into the forest reaches. Their discarded feathers drifted down and were forgotten in the mist.

It was as unknown as a knife in the back, and no less startling. It was said that ravens flew three paces behind death itself, and feasted on the rotting outcomes of the long defeat. Battlefields, rat traps, and pogroms; each could be found by searching for the ravens.

“Master Yazimir, did you see that tower yesterday?” Alayna was sure that it had not been there the day prior.

Yazimir shrugged. “Who can say? When I came here awaiting my comrades, I looked down into a bottle and didn’t look up until you passed by.”

The witcher of the griffin frowned, and they began the ride west. Alayna bent down into her saddlebags, and her medallion hung between her eyes and what she looked for. Grumbling, she swiped it away, and the sound of her gauntlet striking the metal chain pealed like a bell to her sensitive hearing.

“What are you looking for?” Bryanna asked.

“Potion,” she said. “White Honey. It nullifies toxins from my other witcher potions. I think it might just do the trick for this headache.”

The elf and the dwarf chuckled together, but soon her head was clear enough to appreciate the beautiful and multifaceted landscape around them. Farmland continued to the north, but the land south was thickly forested. Nobody wished to farm too near to the Lyrian border, not so close as they were to war. Ahead of them – west – the land rose in what would be the Mahakam mountains, just over the horizon now, and Mount Carbon chief of them all.

“Yazimir, what are you doing in this swill of a village when you are so close to your homeland?”

He pondered Alayna’s question thoughtfully, then answered, gesticulating with one mailed glove. “Well lass, we dwarves have not faced so much enmity as yon elves. Meaning no offense,” he insisted to the frowning elf who rode beside him. “We have not faced so much enmity because we have adapted to yer human customs. We are not ashamed to say that you outbreed us and claim land with more rapacious greed than even a dwarf faced with a dragon’s hoard could muster. No, so long as we do not forget our ways, we are not ashamed of this. We will still trade in our caravans, and forge better goods in our smithies, and raise better fighters than all the rest of the land. Because of that, we and our cousins the halflings have not had to taste the bitter wine of the long defeat.”

After a moment, he added, “The battlefield is just up ahead.”

She thought about his words as they drew closer. She had no ‘ways’ to keep to, not as a human nor as a witcher. All she had was guesswork from a forgotten childhood and the silver sword from a half-finished training. Was that the legacy of a witcher? She was startled from her reverie by Bryanna’s quiet gasp.

The field had surely been beautiful, once. Flowers still dotted the fringes of the clearing, and a stream bisected the hill which was a pleasant lump leading into the forest’s edge. The severed arm of a man swayed in the banks of the stream, and blood was so thick in the grass that it might have been easily mistaken for poppies.

“Stay here, Bryanna, Yazimir; I’m only searching for the monsters that did this. There will be no blood today.”

They obeyed without arguing. Alayna left her horse with the pair and searched the field.

She looked past the bodies. There were so many, and the necrophages had already passed through, leaving almost every corpse with chunks of flesh torn from the ribcage, gibbous and bleached white from the sun where they were not spattered red with blood. It was not difficult work for a witcher; it was difficult work for a girl of seventeen, who still could not look at a body charred by flame without remembering the sins of her past.

Charred by flame?

She looked again – more carefully, more intentionally – for signs that she had complacently passed over. Flesh was torn by necrophages (alghouls, from the footprints and the shapes of the jaw) but the bodies were also burnt by an intense flame. What caused a fire like that other than sorcery?

“Bryanna, Yazimir, come here. It’s safe – for now.”

She blinked as she watched the pair come over to them. Ravens lined the trees, silent as the corpses they came to feed on. A battlefield, a rat trap, a pogrom: which of the three was this? Hundreds of the birds lined the trees, simply waiting for the next meal to be proffered by the long defeat. A raven had circled above the village, sat on the matriarch’s hand, and watched Alayna through her window. Why ravens?

“Aye, lass, what have you found?”

“Yes, Alayna, for I do not wish to gab in this stench and squalor any longer than I must.”

The witcheress pursed her lips, acutely aware of the birds lining the trees. Every eye was on her. “Yazimir, look at these bodies. What would you say caused these burns?”

“Well lass, I’ve only seen burns like this once. A terrible day, that. A house, all burnt down, and the clan pulled the corpses from the remnant timber and stonework. A terrible, terrible day.”

She nodded. “Bryanna? What do you think.”

The elf cleared her throat and knelt, wrinkling her nose. “We elves are not overly fond of flame. I have never seen anything like this, except…”

“Except?” Alayna prodded.

“Except… one day there was a woman who came to town. She threw fire from her hands, and danced with illusions for us children. An elven woman, who was…” she bit her lip as she realized what she was saying.

“A magician,” Alayna finished. At the word, every raven in the trees flew away. For a full minute, they could hear nothing but a thousand flapping wings and raucous cawing emerging from hundreds of sharp beaks. When every raven had flown west, Alayna fell to the ground. Her knees were weak and trembling from the realization of what she had uncovered.

“Alayna? Alayna!” Bryanna shook her shoulder, and her voice quavered. “Alayna, talk to me: what do you know, and what were those birds?”

“Spies,” she murmured in reply. “A magician’s spies. They will return to the village and report what we know.”

“And what is that, lass?” The dwarf seemed unperturbed, but he was eager to hear from her as well. Perhaps he too was frightened.

“We know that ‘twas magic that slaughtered these men.”

“Men and dwarves,” Yazimir corrected, spitting vengefully into the creek as he surveyed the corpses himself. “My comrades. I’d recognize Mahakam plate anywhere in the land.”

She continued. “Magic killed everybody here. Alghouls came after and destroyed much of the evidence. The villagers hired us to dispatch the necrophages, and when we return I imagine the wizard will have some manner of devilry lined up against us. If we return at all.”

“The man slaughtered my kin,” Yazimir said sadly. “I do not care if ye join me or not, lassies, but I will exact vengeance for Mahakam’s honor.”

“Even to look in the eyes of the long defeat?”

“Even then, lass. Even then.”

“Bryanna?” The girl shook her head.

“The wizard deserves a reckoning for this treachery. But… we are but three outcasts pitted against a sorcerer and a village. What hope have we of enacting justice?”

Alayna chose her words carefully. “A witcher does not enact justice. A witcher fights Evil and Chaos, and defends Good and Order. A witcher does not need to prevail, only to fight. My training was not completed, but I was taught that much at least. I cannot stand by and let this dwarf do witchers work on his own.”

Yazimir had raised an eyebrow at her speech, but was nodding by the end. “Then let us return. It will be a brisk day in hell for somebody, this twilit evening.”

So they rode back. It was a less happy return than the first journey had been.

“Yazimir, what was in the caravan from Mahakam?”

He thought. “Iron. Gems. Pottery and other crafted goods. Nothing unusual.”

But Alayna knew that sorcerers needed gemstones as focuses for their spells. She knew that – stuck in a village such as this – a sorcerer would not be able to acquire as many gems for his craft as many of the famous sorceresses, who wandered more than the men.

The village came in view sooner than any of the three would have liked. The sun, eastward when they began their journey, was now found in the west. Alayna and Bryanna rode side-by-side, just a little ways behind Master Yazimir. Alayna found Bryanna’s hand, trembling as they rode. She squeezed it, then looked to her friend with a smile.

Her smile faded when she saw their welcome.

Ravens perched on every tree, cottage, and masonry in the village. The edges of roofs were black with feathers, and it seemed that they outnumbered the very leaves on the trees. There must have been hundreds of them. In addition, it seemed that every villager awaited their return. The tower – no doubt the wizard’s – was visible just above the trees.

“Oh, that does not spell good,” muttered the dwarf.

Alayna took the lead and addressed the villagers. “We wish to speak to the matriarch. Where is she, that we might discuss our contract with her?”

Silence was her response.

“I asked of you a question: where is the matriarch?”

A single, gruff voice echoed in the silence. “She don’t want you here, witch cunt. Leave us be or there’ll be trouble.”

Yazimir erupted. “I’ll say as much to any man as stands against us, and more! There was trouble when yer wizard slaughtered freemen and Mahakam traders for the spoils of their carriage. What reckoning will there be for that?”

A different voice, a woman’s, rang dismally from the crowd. “Master Perangomor warned us against ye. He said you would bring lies and trouble, and we ought to have nothing to do with ye.”

“But we have a contract,” insisted Alayna. “Why would you invite us into your village only to drive us out? Why would you treat us as such if you only ever intended to renege?”

“Because I told them to,” a voice answered, resonating magnanimously throughout the main square. The bearer emerged. A man with a long beard was the speaker, elegantly dressed in flowing robes, with faint crows eyes that made him look both solemn and kindly.

“You?” Bryanna asked. “Who are you?”

“He’s our wizard,” a townsman cried, “and ye had be best talking to Master Perangomor with respect, ye had!” The mob echoed his response, some beginning to wave farming paraphernalia threateningly.

“Witchers,” Perangomor repeated in a low cadence until the mob had settled down. “Killers, brigands, thugs: you come to our lands, bringing only trouble and the blade, and when you leave what have you fixed?” Some mutters buzzed through the assembled throng, but they had not caught his intentions yet. Bryanna had. She had seen it happen before.

“Witchers,” he continued, “Come to kill monsters, do they not? Have we been troubled by monsters until this witcher showed up? No? Well I think that it is very clear what has happened.” He thrust an accusatory finger at Alayna. “This swindler has killed our men – those who went to greet the Mahakam delegation – and stolen the gemstones for her sorceries. And then! Then she took a contract on the monsters that she knew would come after the bodies. Because monsters always come,” he said, locking eyes with Alayna, “do they not?”

“Always,” she replied without hesitation. “Monsters will always come where there are poor folk to be exploited and abused. A witcher uses silver for monsters.”

Poor words to choose in front of the poor folk of Gadwall.

“Kill the witcher cunt! Kill the elf bitch! Kill the dwarf bastard!” The mob erupted instantly, misunderstanding what Alayna and Perangomor understood perfectly well. The wizard had won, and the villagers had lost, though they did not know it and perhaps never would. It was but one infought skirmish that led inevitably to the long defeat. Humans and no other were the bringers of the long defeat, which threatened elves, dwarves, and every monster across the land. It would not threaten mankind until there was naught else to threaten.

But for now there was naught to do but run. Alayna had to tear Yazimir away from the village with blood staining his armor and his axe, some of it his own; he would have rather stayed and died for dwarven vengeance, and Alayna could not blame him after seeing the wicked glint in the wizard’s eyes, which had at first seemed kindly and fair. Bryanna rode far ahead of the others. She had no wish to be caught in a pogrom, this one for witchers instead of elves. As they had exited the town, that was what the wizard Perangomor had called for: a witcher pogrom. And the villagers, simple folk, who relied on their wizard for basic necessities, had followed him unflinchingly.

Gadwall was an ugly town. Prejudice splattered the villagers as readily as mud did their walls. But it was not a pretty town which needed a witcher. A witcher fights against Evil and Chaos, and those are not virtuous forces. But true Evil is not always the enemy. Sometimes a lesser evil, found in every man, woman, and child, is what the witcher finds. There is no blade to fight that evil. The witcher can only run, do the best that she can, and escape the long defeat.

A female witcher, a fertile elf, and a dwarven ex-mercenary. If any of them screamed in this land, many would hear, and none would aid them. All three were rare commodities, and all were hunted by prejudice. Each left alone would fight more bitterly than a pack of wolves, but when grouped together they were complacent against that lesser evil. They were complacent against the long defeat so long as they had each other, united as outcasts.

“Alayna?” asked Bryanna. “Where are we going?”

She sighed. They rode northeast, for now. Lyria, perhaps? Dol Blathanna? Kaerhen du Loc?

“If, agh, if you’ll have me for company…” the dwarf stammered.

“We’d be delighted to have you,” Alayna interjected. “On our ride home. Anywhere, really, so long as we avoid the long defeat of death. So long as we have each other, we will triumph over the long defeat of death.”