How We Witchers Are - 31 - 35 (Patreon)

Chapter 31: The Siege

“I understand, Your Majesty. The matter of succession is indeed... delicate.” The Nilfgaardian Empire ambassador took half a step back and gave a flawless court bow. His black sable cape gleamed unnaturally through the gun smoke, as though coated in a thick layer of battlefield grime.

“Please allow me to withdraw for the moment, so that you may discuss the tactical details with these...” His gaze swept across the Witchers’ cat-like eyes. “...professionals.”

Foltest did not even turn his head. He simply gave a casual wave of his iron-gauntleted hand, as though shooing away an irritating fly.

As the Black One disappeared around the corner of the supply trench, Foltest suddenly lashed out at the oak railing bordering the observation platform. The three-inch-thick timber cracked in a spiderweb pattern beneath his boot.

“Those Sun-worshipping southern bastards,” he cursed, his voice carrying a trace of self-mockery. “I should’ve nailed him to the gates of the City of Cintra with a siege crossbow and left him there for everyone to see!” The lily emblem on the king’s breastplate rose and fell with his heavy breathing, as if it might tear free at any moment and fly toward the burning walls.

“A Black One dares show his face in my camp before the fighting has even begun. What has the world come to? Nothing would make me happier than sending his wrinkled head back to Emhyr.”

He kicked the railing again, though with noticeably less force this time, as if merely finishing the motion his anger had begun. After three deep breaths, the noble King of Temeria adjusted his crown helmet and appeared to regain his composure.

“Unfortunately, my royal advisor insists that I must be patient and courteous.” He turned around. The blazing fury from moments before had vanished as abruptly as a red-hot iron pulled from the fire. “Tell me, Geralt. Did I do a convincing enough impression of a polite fool?”

“Your Majesty did very well,” Geralt replied without the slightest change in expression. “I doubt any king in the North could have done better.”

“No king in the North...” Foltest repeated slowly. “Careful, Geralt. That almost sounds like a curse. Demavend III was a king who ‘did very well’ too. Now his bones are probably lying in some Ghoul’s Nest.”

“Then perhaps Your Majesty should do a little worse.”

“Ha!” The king burst out laughing, his voice echoing off the walls of the Siege Tower. “Since when did your tongue get sharper than Dandelion’s?”

Giliam glanced at Geralt, who had delivered the flattery with a perfectly straight face. He had not expected the man to know how to flatter a king.

And Geralt had done it with remarkable precision. Not enough to be excessive, but just enough to leave himself room to retreat if necessary. This was clearly far from the first such exchange between the two.

“I always knew you were one of us.” Foltest clapped Geralt on the arm, then turned toward Giliam. “And Master Giliam! If you’re a friend of Geralt’s, I won’t treat you poorly either. Come, gentlemen. Up the Siege Tower. It’s time to attack.”

With a broad sweep of his hand, the king once again took the lead and strode into the enormous Siege Tower.

The air inside the Siege Tower was so thick it felt as though it could be cut and stuffed into sacks. Pine-resin torches crackled inside iron cages, casting the silhouettes of three hundred heavily armored soldiers across the walls lined with soaked cowhide.

The wet cowhide had been laid over the tower to keep fire arrows from setting the structure ablaze. Now it gave off a nauseating stench somewhere between animal fat and saltpeter. Every drop of water trickling down the lining carried the earthy reek of damp soil and moldy leather. They struck the wooden stairs with dull taps that fell almost perfectly between the booming volleys of the Catapults overhead.

The moment the King’s iron-studded war boots struck the first wooden step, the sound of clashing metal rippled upward through the tower. Every soldier dropped to one knee in unison, and the muffled growls beneath their closed helmets merged into a single thunderous roar.

“Fight for the Silver Lilies!”

“Save your strength for opening rebels’ throats!” Foltest laughed as he slapped the shoulder guard of every soldier he passed. His fingers brushed over the countless carvings covering the Siege Tower’s central support pillar, each one the name of someone who had died in a previous battle. At the freshest carving, he paused for half a second. Scratched there in crooked letters were the words: “Old Lame Hank, Mahakam liquor dealer, died while transporting arrows.”

Geralt suddenly caught the King by the wrist guard. “Careful. The tower’s swaying.”

“Of course it is! An eighty-foot wooden frame rolling around on forty wheels would be damned strange if it didn’t sway!” Foltest shook off his hand and continued upward, but Giliam noticed the king quietly adjust his balance. The seemingly careless clang of his armor was not careless at all. Every step landed directly above one of the Siege Tower’s load-bearing beams.

The King of Temeria was in excellent shape. He kept talking as he climbed, as though the long wooden staircase winding upward through the Siege Tower barely taxed him at all.

“You know I intend to pardon Maria Louisa La Valette, Geralt. All she has to do is kneel before her king.”

“You are very merciful, Your Majesty,” Geralt replied immediately, clearly accustomed to dealing with Foltest this way.

“Are you mocking me? Ha! I don’t care. But I’m certain Maria Louisa La Valette will eventually understand her mistake. Besides, the children need their mother. This whole matter would be simple to resolve. She merely made one demand I cannot grant.”

Giliam, who had remained silent beside them, grew increasingly puzzled as he listened. He did not know what had truly caused this civil war, nor did he understand why La Valette, an important border territory, had suddenly rebelled. Yet from what he was hearing now, this grand-looking war seemed little more than a dispute within the King’s own household.

Was all of this really over something so trivial?

“I suppose so,” Geralt replied, following Foltest’s lead with all the emotion of a machine answering questions.

“My daughter Adda married Radovid after her curse was lifted. That means she must remain in Redania, and I have no objection to that. Which means Radovid is now waiting for me to die so he can take what belongs to me. And ancient Temeria will never accept a Redanian as its king.”

“Damn those Redanian vultures!” The king suddenly smashed the hilt of his sword against the bronze speaking tube beside him. The Siege Tower hummed like a Dragon stirring from sleep. “The moment my corpse goes cold, they’ll prop my little Anaïs on the throne, and then...” He made a choking motion with one hand, the joints of his iron gauntlet clicking sharply. “Then the great Silver Lilies will be nothing but weeds for Radovid to pluck whenever he pleases!”

“And those damned nobles keep pretending they’re helping Maria Louisa La Valette. They tell her the wicked king is coming to take her children away, while they’ll help Maria Louisa become the mother of the next king... And so the Baroness was deceived. They took advantage of a mother’s love to weaken me.”

Interesting... So this really was a civil war, Giliam thought.

The King of Temeria’s only legitimate heir had already married the King of Redania. Giliam could understand that Foltest might have hoped the marriage would forge a stronger alliance with Redania.

After all, Kaedwen had once been Aedirn’s ally, yet it had seized lands that rightfully belonged to Aedirn. Incidents like that made the already fragile alliance between the Northern Kings look increasingly unstable.

If a kingdom lacked an heir, ambitious men would inevitably begin circling. Legitimate or not, Foltest needed someone of his blood standing ready to inherit Temeria.

He had to take La Valette as quickly as possible. Otherwise, his enemies would only multiply.

The Nilfgaardian Empire, Redania, and even that obese king of Kaedwen would circle Foltest’s illegitimate children like bloodthirsty sharks.

There was still one thing Giliam did not understand. If the root of this war was the problem of succession, why had Foltest been so eager to marry Adda to Radovid?

As Foltest’s legitimate eldest daughter, Adda still possessed a claim to the Temerian throne even after her curse had been lifted.

Marrying her into Redania was effectively cutting away his own royal bloodline and handing the other side grounds to claim a joint rule. Yet now the King was waging a civil war to reclaim two illegitimate children. Taken together, those two decisions were either part of an extraordinarily clever plan or the result of astonishingly impulsive choices.

Giliam suddenly spoke. “So Your Majesty started this civil war to remove your children from the political game?”

Foltest stopped at the turn of the staircase. In the firelight, his profile looked as hard and cold as stone from the Mahakam Mountains.

“Witcher, do you know how to kill a king?” Without waiting for an answer, he resumed climbing. “Not with a sword. Not with poison. You do it by building a staircase from the bodies of his children.”

His heel struck a wooden plank with a dull thud.

“And if I die on campaign... Adda has already sacrificed enough.”

He paused. That brief silence held far more than he said aloud.

The long years Adda had spent cursed as a Striga. The pale hair and stolen childhood that remained after she awakened. The pain of a father watching his daughter return from monster to girl, only to then send that girl away to share the bed of another kingdom’s king.

“All she needs now is to be a princess. To wake every morning in a soft bed like an ordinary girl. Everything else is my problem. The Witcher has already done most of the work for me. This time, it’s the old father’s turn to take up the sword.”

Giliam narrowed his eyes as he listened. He had to admit there was a reason Geralt was willing to remain here and protect Foltest. The White Wolf was not someone a king could keep at his side simply by making threats.

The King of Temeria truly was a man with considerable charisma.

Interesting.

When they reached the upper platform, twenty knights were beating the flats of their swords against their shields in the rhythm of a battle song. These sons of noble houses, drawn from Temeria’s eastern frontier, were dressed in gleaming full plate. Long red ornamental plumes rose from their polished helmets, while their family crests were emblazoned on their shoulder guards.

Each carried a longsword heavy enough to require both hands to wield properly. The cold gleam along the blades left no doubt that they were excellent weapons.

These were minor nobles loyal to the King, and some of his finest soldiers. They stood waiting for his command to charge those their king had declared traitors.

“All right, gentlemen.”

Foltest raised one hand, silencing the knights’ cheers. With the other, he lifted a two-handed sword weighing nearly forty pounds. The sapphire set into its guard flashed alongside the reflected light on the soldiers’ breastplates.

“See those fools holding torches on the other side of the drawbridge? They think hiding behind a wall will keep them...”

The Siege Tower suddenly lurched violently.

Giliam moved like lightning, grabbing a knight who nearly went over the edge. A massive flaming crossbow bolt had buried itself in the right side of the tower, sending smoke curling from the soaked cowhide lining. The hastily built engineering tower seemed on the verge of collapsing. Somewhere deep inside the structure, a wooden beam gave a teeth-grating groan before falling silent again, like a man promising to hold on when he barely could.

Foltest showed no sign of panic. Two knights rushed forward with shields raised, but the king remained standing perfectly straight beside them, his eyes sharp as sword points as they fixed on a figure standing near a breach in the wall three hundred yards away.

“That’s old Hoog! I still remember the fool sneaking drinks at one of my banquets.”

The king’s fury seemed almost visible, like heat seeping through the cracks of the Siege Tower.

“That damned traitor. Now he dares stand against his own king. Whoever puts his head on the tip of a spear gets three thousand Oren!”

“Then we’ll have a skull for a chamber pot at the next banquet!”

The knights erupted into bloodthirsty laughter. The youngest among them even flipped open his visor and spat toward the walls.

There was a reason the Nilfgaardian Empire regarded the Northern Kingdoms as a pack of barbarians. Still, few things could raise morale like charging into battle beside one’s king, especially when that king already stood before them with sword in hand. These beasts could hardly wait to prove their loyalty.

“Save the rest for after the battle.” Foltest’s voice cut through the noise. “Now, in the name of Temeria, charge!”

“OOOH!”

The Siege Tower’s heavy bridge slammed down against the towering walls of La Valette. By the time they had climbed to its summit, the machine had already rolled slowly into its final assault position. The Ballistas on the castle walls were being completely suppressed by the firepower Foltest had brought with him and could do nothing to stop the enormous structure from closing in.

The Temerian knights stormed onto the ramparts.

Waiting for them were the knights of La Valette, wearing armor almost identical to their own. The white Lilies on a deep black field had simply been covered in green paint, with the crest of House La Valette painted over them.

In places, the green paint was still wet, gleaming damply in the morning wind. On some breastplates, the coating was incomplete, leaving the faint outline of a lily visible beneath it, as though some shameful crime had been concealed in haste.

These men had once been knights of Temeria as well. Only three months earlier, many of them had drunk in the same taverns as Foltest’s soldiers, trading filthy jokes about women and warhorses.

Now a bucket of green paint stood between them, and they would meet one another on the walls with swords in hand.

...

Chapter 32: Aryan La Valette

The soldiers of House La Valette were no match for those Foltest had brought with him. With the king fighting at their side, the Temerians surged forward with unstoppable momentum, cutting down every defender on the walls before hurling them over the battlements with cheers and jeers, laughing as their bodies became unrecognizable heaps of flesh below.

Fresh blood dripped from Giliam’s steel sword. In a single instant, he had opened the throats of two defenders, moving so quickly that even the knights beside him failed to see how he had struck.

For a moment, those knights actually stopped fighting. They cast him looks caught somewhere between awe and revulsion, then turned their attention back to their own opponents.

Giliam angled the tip of his sword toward another section of the wall.

“Your little admirer can barely take his eyes off you,” he said to Geralt, as casually as if he were commenting on a tavern serving girl. “Look at him. Never knew you were so popular with men.”

Geralt turned just as the morning light fell across Aryan La Valette’s armor.

It was falcon-crested plate befitting a high-ranking Temerian noble, though the sapphires that should have adorned the pauldrons had been crudely replaced with green glass.

The young man’s dark brown curls were pressed beneath his falcon-winged helmet, several strands plastered to his forehead with sweat. His jade-green pupils had narrowed under the force of his emotions.

Had Foltest’s herald been present, he would have recognized at once the pure blood of House La Valette in the young man’s features.

“White Wolf!”

Aryan’s roar suddenly cut through the din of battle. The young noble broke away from the soldiers around him. His curls beneath the falcon-winged helmet were soaked in sweat, and the hand-carved wolf’s head on his breastplate rose and fell sharply with every breath.

His steel sword cut through the smoke hanging over the battlefield, its point aimed directly at Geralt’s throat.

“Fight me!”

Geralt’s golden pupils narrowed slightly. He pivoted away from the thrust, his steel sword sweeping through half a cold crescent in his hand.

Aryan’s weapon flew from his grip almost effortlessly and buried itself deep in the iron-plated outer wall of the Siege Tower. The hilt continued to hum with the force of the impact.

Trying to catch a Witcher with keen senses and masterful swordsmanship off guard using nothing but a sword was clearly not going to work.

As the young noble stumbled backward, Geralt’s sword point was already resting against the gap in his gorget.

“Didn’t your master teach you that emotion gets swordsmen killed?”

“When I was seven and couldn’t sleep at night, my nurse would tell me stories about the Witcher who killed Renfri, the Daughter of the Black Sun.” Aryan’s hand was still trembling as he spoke, as though he could barely withstand the Witcher’s overwhelming strength.

“She said the White Wolf walked alone into Rivia’s camp, and when his steel sword took the heads of fifteen bandits, drops of blood scattered through the moonlight like rubies...”

“Oh.” Giliam raised an eyebrow. “How come I’ve never heard that part in Dandelion’s songs?”

“Because it isn’t a good story, Giliam,” Geralt replied shortly.

There was a weariness in his voice that he had not allowed others to hear in a very long time. It belonged to an entire stretch of his life that he wanted no poet to sing about, the days when a Witcher had earned the name “Butcher” in a small town.

He stared closely at the now unarmed young noble. Geralt could almost feel the admiration coming from him. It was the kind of worship only a boy could possess, almost idolizing, even faintly reverent.

Seeing that sort of devotion in a young man already wearing armor, carrying a sword, and fighting for his family was crueler than anything else.

It meant there were two souls inside the boy’s head.

One worshipped Geralt.

The other had to kill him.

“And now you draw your sword for the tyrant who defiled my mother!”

Aryan snatched up a fallen sword. This time his thrust carried a faint trace of Witcher swordsmanship. Where he had learned it was impossible to say, but his anger ruined his footwork.

He looked less like a swordsman than a beast lashing out in fury, wild and without discipline.

Giliam raised an eyebrow but made no move to interfere with Geralt’s fight. Fame might earn a man a seat at a king’s table, but as far as Giliam was concerned, the disadvantages far outweighed the benefits.

He certainly would not have had the patience to go easy on some nobleman trying to kill him in the middle of a battle.

One sword stroke. One heartbeat. Leave the corpse behind and move on to the next contract.

As a rule, Giliam had little interest in showing mercy to anyone who wanted him dead.

He sprang lightly onto an arrow tower along the wall. Once he had eliminated the most dangerous crossbowmen, there was hardly any question left as to who would win the battle.

There was not a single wasted movement in his attacks. Every strike landed along a path he had predicted before his opponents could even react. The crossbowmen barely had time to see what had appeared in front of them.

By the time Giliam jumped back down from the arrow tower, the Ballista crews that had still been firing sporadically had fallen silent. Only a handful of unfired bolts remained, lying in pools of blood.

Aryan’s swordsmanship was respectable, but it was no match for a Witcher who had lived for no one knew how many years.

When the steel sword that could have taken his head with ease once again rested against the heir to the barony, even the knights protecting him began urging him to surrender.

“Young master, stop fighting.” An elderly knight knelt in a pool of blood. A wound from the recent melee had split his left arm nearly to the bone, yet he still raised his right hand in supplication. “Your mother would not want you to die here.”

Aryan glared at the knight. His eyes were already reddening.

Then he abruptly pulled aside the armor on his left arm, revealing a crude picture painted in red on the inside. A knight wearing a wolf-headed helmet was killing a six-armed monster.

“I drew this when I was ten, after sneaking into the College of Heraldry...” His voice suddenly carried the wounded grievance of a boy.

“They punished me with three months of copying heraldry books, but they never knew I filled the margins of every page with little drawings! I copied all of them from the Witcher stories Dandelion used to sing. I even drew the part where you cut a sea monster apart with your sword, though mine looked more like an angry catfish.”

The School of the Viper Witcher spun his sword once, scattering blood across the ground, then looked toward his companion.

“Seems you’re far more lovable in children’s bedtime stories than you are in person. If you ask me, this is the fight Dandelion ought to put into verse. ‘The White Wolf Beats Down His Last Little Admirer.’ I imagine that one would sell very well among noblewomen.”

Geralt stepped forward, took the young noble’s weapon from him, and pressed him down against the floor, leaving him there to await the judgment of the King of Temeria.

Even then, Geralt was remarkably restrained. The hand on Aryan’s shoulder neither humiliated him nor left him any possibility of resistance.

“I will not surrender to the man who defiled my mother! Let me go!” Aryan struggled against him. “I never imagined Geralt of Rivia, the strongest swordsman in the North, would sink this low.”

“Young master, you’re drunk,” the wounded old knight said again.

“I’m not drunk!”

“That’s enough. Let him go, Geralt.”

Foltest arrived carrying the smell of iron and blood with him. He waved one hand, signaling Geralt to release Aryan.

By the time he approached, almost no La Valette soldiers remained standing on the walls. With every step, his iron boots pressed the blood beneath them into little dark-red blossoms.

“Take off his helmet. His king wants a proper look at his face.”

Aryan looked very young. He had deliberately grown a mustache in an attempt to appear older, but there was no hiding his actual age. Even during the fighting, he had repeatedly shown both his admiration for Geralt and his disappointment that Geralt had chosen to help Foltest.

Foltest stared at the young face.

He remained silent far longer than anyone expected.

The wind blew across the ramparts from the direction of the Pontar River, drying flecks of blood from the king’s breastplate into the wrinkles of his neck.

Giliam could even hear soldiers beneath the distant Siege Tower carrying away the dead. One load after another, like sacks of grain.

“Oh...” Foltest finally said after studying Aryan’s face for some time. “You certainly look a great deal like old La Valette did when he was young, but there’s no mistaking Maria Louisa La Valette’s blood in you. Especially that stubborn expression.”

Aryan clenched his teeth and glared at Foltest with such hatred that Giliam, watching from the side, began to wonder whether the unrestrained young man might suddenly leap to his feet and punch the overly confident king.

“What do you want?!”

“Nothing in particular,” the king said. “Aryan, I’m not going to kill you. You are Maria Louisa La Valette’s son, and I have no desire to make her grieve. Surrender to me, and I will pardon your crimes.”

“You spread word across the entire kingdom that my mother was a woman for anyone to have, and now you expect me to surrender?!”

Slap.

The sharp crack rang clearly through the noise of the battlefield.

Aryan stared at Foltest in disbelief.

The blow had landed across his cheek, leaving behind a red mark almost perfectly symmetrical to the crude wolf’s head painted on his breastplate.

“I believe I have the right to discipline you on your mother’s behalf. And yes, what you said is true. But your reckless heroics do not make your men’s deaths righteous. I swear as your king, if you refuse to surrender, I will kill every last man under your command. Now lay down your weapon!”

Aryan’s eyes widened. Anger and unwillingness churned in them, then slowly began to fade.

To his own surprise, he found himself admiring the sheer force of Foltest’s manner.

It truly did possess the bearing of a king.

Foltest... fighting at the front, putting old grievances aside...

What an imposing figure.

Aryan had never encountered anyone like him during his sheltered life of fine clothes and rich food within the castle. Not even his own father could have done such a thing.

The old baron had once proudly told him, “A true noble is never cowed by a king.”

But now Aryan realized that perhaps his father had never truly seen a king.

A real king.

The old baron had only seen the Foltest of the royal court, holding a goblet in one hand while stroking his mistress’s thigh with the other.

He had never seen this Foltest.

The king who had led the charge from the front and just walked across thirty corpses to stand before him on the battlements.

Aryan suddenly lifted his head and looked directly into Foltest’s eyes.

“Why do you dare stand so close to me? Didn’t you see my swordsmanship when I fought the Witcher...? Those knights beside you with their shields wouldn’t last a single exchange against me.”

Giliam lowered his head in secondhand embarrassment and ground the sole of his boot against the floor. Then he glanced sideways at Geralt’s unchanged, impassive face.

Geralt did not look remotely embarrassed by Aryan’s words.

But if Geralt had not been holding back, how could the White Wolf, who had spent more than a century honing his swordsmanship, possibly have traded several exchanges with a nobleman in his twenties?

This master of the Wolf School even had his own particular style of going easy on someone. He could make his opponent believe they were engaged in a genuine life-or-death duel while ensuring that their eventual defeat still felt completely natural.

Giliam quietly made a note of that. The next time he saw Serrit, he intended to mock him for it.

After all, Serrit’s usual method of holding back was to break three of someone’s ribs and then ridicule them afterward.

Foltest, however, clearly knew Geralt’s swordsmanship well.

He rested a hand on his sword hilt and took another step forward, moving even closer to Aryan.

“Ha! Why should a king fear his own subject? Besides...”

A distant look came over Foltest’s face.

“Not long after you were born, you grabbed hold of a model wooden sword. I knew then that you would become a fine swordsman. That very night, I sent for a craftsman from Oxenfurt and had a blade wrapped in velvet delivered to your mother.”

“Your mother hid it away because she was afraid you would cut your fingers. But when you were five, one summer you found that sword yourself and cut open the web of your right hand with it. You ran crying into your mother’s arms, but you still refused to let go of the sword.”

Aryan stopped breathing for a moment.

Almost unconsciously, he looked down at his right hand.

His glove covered it, but he knew there was a small, faded scar beneath the leather.

He had never told anyone how he had gotten it.

Because even he could no longer remember.

“How did you...?”

Foltest paused, as though even he was uncertain how that sentence ought to end.

Then he simply continued.

“I was the man who gave you your first sword. That is enough. Now behave like a true knight and swear loyalty to your king.”

Giliam suspected that the gift might simply have been something Foltest had done to please Aryan’s mother, but judging by the young man’s expression, the words had shaken him even further.

Then a tremendous cheer erupted as the city gates were finally battered open.

The young noble lowered his head.

“By the Heart of Melitele...” Aryan dropped to one knee in the traditional Temerian noble’s posture of surrender. His armored knee crushed half of his own family’s bloodstained crest beneath it. “I, Aryan La Valette, surrender to my king... Please treat my mother well.”

Foltest walked past him with his head held high.

With the surrender of their lord’s heir, every La Valette soldier in the outer city laid down his weapon.

Foltest crossed over them as though the discarded weapons formed a bridge beneath his feet.

His iron boots stepped across swords, axes, and maces, producing a clear metallic scrape utterly unlike the sounds that had filled the battlefield moments before.

In the air thick with the metallic reek of blood, only the king’s quiet words remained.

“I accept.”

...

Chapter 33: The Winds of La Valette

La Valette Castle was a vast complex of castle and town built hard against the Pontar River. The two sprawled across the cliffs like beasts gnawing at one another.

Any noble with the slightest sense, if his lands bordered the busiest waterborne trade route in the North, would build a fortress along its banks without hesitation.

It was not merely a matter of letting goods flow through his territory and enriching his estates. More importantly, he could levy tolls on every ship that passed. Oren, Floren, Novigrad Crowns, it hardly mattered which currency, so long as the coins landed heavily in the lord's treasury.

And La Valette Castle stood among the finest of them. The immense structure of obsidian and granite loomed atop the cliffs on the west bank of the Pontar River, its arrow towers casting jagged shadows in the morning light.

As a vital chokepoint linking the trade routes of the Pontar and Yaruga Rivers, even the most conservative tax collector would admit that the amount of Oren passing through the castle each day was no less impressive than that handled by Novigrad, the largest city in the North.

To protect all that wealth, the inner city had been given another formidable defense. After Foltest's army completely seized the outer city, which served as the first defensive line, they found themselves facing a long stone bridge built along the hills. Half of it hung over open air like the spine of some enormous beast jutting from the cliff, connecting the outer defenses to the far more prosperous inner city.

The bridge had been built to keep trade moving freely. Its surface was scored with grooves left by caravan ropes over countless years, and its deck was broad enough for eight wagons to travel abreast. Its sheer width spoke of the ambitions of a prosperous age, but the broken railings on either side now revealed how deadly it could be.

To the east, the river churned eighty yards below. Through the mist drifted shattered pottery, broken cargo crates, and the pale, waterlogged corpse of some soldier whose allegiance could no longer be determined. Its lower half was wedged between the rocks while the current tugged rhythmically at the upper body, making it sway like a tavern sign forgotten outside the door.

To the west, the sheer cliff looked like ribs stripped of flesh. A pack saddle left behind after merchants were attacked the previous year still hung from one of the jagged rock spires formed by the collapsed outer wall. Weather had torn the leather into strips that fluttered in the wind.

The midday sun stretched the shadow of the statue at the bridgehead into a twisted fence. It was a bronze image of a goddess holding the scales of justice, though moss had long since eaten away her features. Now the weighing pans were filled with raven droppings, which mingled with the rust until even the very idea of "justice" seemed to have been pickled into a foul stench.

In ordinary times, this long stone bridge would have been the inner city's strongest defensive position. No matter how broad the bridge was, there still was not enough room to deploy an entire infantry formation.

Both sides would have to feed men into the fighting a group at a time, turning the bridge into a meat grinder until one army finally broke. Countless sieges recorded in the histories of war had taught later generations the same lesson: a good bridge was worth more than a thousand good soldiers.

Unfortunately for the defenders, Foltest's assault had swept through them with overwhelming force. Their lord's heir had been captured, and the old Baron himself was said to have been placed under house arrest deep within the inner keep by his own wife. Most of the remaining troops had already withdrawn farther into the town.

What defenders remained had morale like mud trampled underfoot. Even when they tossed a few stones onto the bridge, they did so without much conviction.

Naturally, no troops remained to hold this crucial position.

"Even for a border territory, this castle is far too large for a barony."

Giliam adjusted the position of his steel sword as he spoke in a mild, almost indifferent tone. "I imagine our beloved Majesty has wanted to take direct ownership of this castle for quite some time. That's a great deal of hard coin slipping out of his pocket every single day."

"I didn't expect a Witcher to know so much about politics. Aren't you lot always claiming you don't care about the affairs of kings?"

Triss, who had come from the other direction of the assault to join them, shot Giliam a glare. Foltest might not possess a Witcher's sharp hearing, but she had no wish to risk anything that might endanger her own position.

No king enjoyed hearing others pass judgment on his actions.

"We choose not to care. That doesn't make us stupid." Giliam gave a slight shrug.

"Kings are always suspicious... Maybe they're born that way, or perhaps it's a skill that comes with sitting on the throne."

Geralt's voice was hoarse as he made a somewhat clumsy attempt to change the subject. His amber eyes shifted slightly to the side, looking at neither Giliam nor Triss.

He had no desire to let relations between his friend and the Sorceress sour, so he settled for a compromise.

"Oh! Just like you, Geralt. I suppose the Trial of the Grasses gave one particular talent of yours a fine boost as well." Giliam seized the rare chance to tease him. They were standing behind Foltest now, while the king reorganized his soldiers for the next assault. The ears beneath that crown-shaped helmet were unlikely to pick up their conversation from here.

"I'll have to visit Kaer Morhen this winter and learn a few things. Find out exactly what sort of 'side effects' your School's mutation potions have. I hope Vesemir will welcome me."

At that, Triss gave Geralt a meaningful look and raised one eyebrow. Then, speaking with the easy familiarity of someone who knew Kaer Morhen well, she said, "Vesemir will welcome you. He's always complaining that the castle is too quiet. But there are some things you can't learn simply by going there... For those, you need talent."

Giliam froze for a moment. He genuinely could not tell whether the Sorceress was merely playing along with his joke or hinting at something else.

He did not get the chance to think about it for long.

The shriek of cast-iron hinges cut their conversation short.

As the iron-bound oak gates of the inner city slowly rose, the chainmail of the Blue Stripes gleamed from the shadows with the cold sheen of raven feathers.

They seemed to seep one by one from the darkness beneath the gate. Their footsteps were unnervingly precise. Even while crossing a passage strewn with rubble and ash, not one of them made an unnecessary sound.

Clearly, Foltest, a king well versed in warfare, had not placed all his hopes on the frontal assault.

The first man to emerge from the smoke-cleared gateway wore a blue-and-white military uniform. A grease-stained cap sat on his head. It offered no protection whatsoever, but looked perfect for concealing things. A dagger, poison, or something no one would ever think to search for.

Who knew?

The man himself looked remarkably agile. He lacked the raw build of a Witcher, but the taut muscles beneath his clothes suggested considerable explosive strength.

A fresh slash marked the leather pauldron on his left shoulder, though no blood seeped from beneath it. Either the wound was shallow, or whatever blood had been spilled was not his.

A standard Temerian military sword hung diagonally from his well-worn weapon belt, and, surprisingly, he also carried a hand-and-a-half sword across his back.

Unless the man was trying to imitate a Witcher, he clearly had some unusual occupation. The sort that required stabbing people in narrow corridors as often as cutting them down in open ground.

What impressed Giliam more, however, were the man's sharp eyes, which locked onto the Witchers almost immediately.

There was no respect in them. No curiosity. Not even the instinctive unease ordinary people showed around Witchers.

Only distrust.

Dense, unyielding distrust, as though he were looking at men who might belong among the traitors.

"By the Lily, the gate has fallen, Your Majesty."

Roche's voice sounded like two iron blades dragged across stone. When he turned and bowed to his sovereign with a hand against his chest, his leather glove struck his breastplate with a brief metallic clink.

"The traitor Aryan's surrender hastened our advance considerably. But with all due respect, Your Majesty..."

His hawk-like gaze swept once more toward Giliam, who habitually stood in the shadows, and lingered there for a full two seconds.

"Accepting a traitor's surrender gives a viper a second chance to bite. Leave this to me, and I guarantee I'll root out everyone who supported House La Valette's rebellion. From the Baron's groom to his wet nurse. I won't miss a single one."

"Roche. My Blue Stripes." Foltest raised a hand. There was a trace of weariness in his voice, so faint it was almost impossible to notice, like a father who had been forced to settle the same family dispute a hundred times before.

"Good work. But one correction. If Maria Louisa La Valette is willing to surrender, then her son is not necessarily a traitor. The greatest traitor here is old La Valette."

"Yes... Your Majesty."

Roche lowered his head.

Unlike Witchers hired for a job, the Blue Stripes were a special force belonging to the King alone. Their loyalty was beyond question. The King's word was an order.

Though the gate had been opened, the stone bridge leading toward the inner city had drops on either side high enough to kill even the most agile Witcher.

One side of the bridge followed the slope of the hill downward, while the outer city wall curved around it like a coiled python. The other side opened directly onto the turbulent waters of the Pontar River.

The river had taken on an indescribable lead-gray color. It was neither the blue of morning nor the dark green of evening, but something heavier, as though molten lead had somehow been mixed into the water.

Giliam felt the fierce wind blowing off the Pontar. The air was so damp that his undershirt already seemed to be growing wet against his skin.

He subtly licked his lips.

Something about the wind smelled wrong.

It was not the cool, faintly fishy scent that should have come from the river. It was something... difficult to name. Like the oppressive air before a violent storm, or the suggestion that something was burning far away even though the smoke had not yet reached them.

He glanced upward instinctively.

The sky remained perfectly clear. The midday sun was almost painfully bright. There were no clouds and no sign of rain. Above the west bank of the Pontar, the sky was a spotless blue.

A blue so clean that it somehow made him uneasy.

"I doubt the King of Temeria intends to wait for his beloved special forces to clear every enemy from the road before he moves forward..."

Giliam shook his head lightly. This siege seemed to be going far more smoothly than he had expected.

Foltest appeared to have prepared for everything. Catapults to destroy the walls and wear down morale, heavily armored troops for the frontal assault, and the Blue Stripes for infiltration.

Giliam suspected Foltest might even be using the rebellion as a large-scale military exercise, preparing his army for the next time they had to resist the Nilfgaardian Empire, or perhaps even launch a counteroffensive against it.

"Look at that straight, towering stone bridge. I'd wager that if this barony had a Mage, he'd laugh himself senseless seeing the King dare to cross a place like this..."

"Fortunately, they don't," Triss said from beside him. "La Valette can't attract a Mage."

"Can't?" Giliam raised an eyebrow. "The ships passing this castle in a single day could support an entire street of Mages in Novigrad."

"Money isn't the problem," Geralt said. "Whether a Mage is willing to come is another matter."

That was true enough.

Giliam considered it and realized Geralt had a point.

House La Valette might possess considerable wealth for a border barony, but to those arrogant figures in silver-trimmed robes who regarded the Academy as their "eternal home," money alone was rarely enough to make them lower themselves to serve some provincial northern Baron.

They cared more about remaining close to royal power, taking part in politics, and ensuring their names appeared in the chronicles of some capital.

A frontier castle that did little more than guard a river route and collect tolls, a place that could not even gather enough nobles for a respectable court ball, held little attraction for them.

At best, it might draw a few half-trained traveling fortune-tellers, or destitute Mages expelled from the Academy who could barely cast a proper spell.

Someone of Triss's standing, someone who truly had a voice in the Council of Mages, would never willingly waste years of her life in a place like this.

At least, that was how things usually worked.

Of course, the world never lacked exceptions. Unfortunately for the old Baron, no such fortunate exception had found its way to him.

"Tsk. So in the end, those robed bastards are simply too picky."

Giliam shook his head, then gestured with his chin toward Foltest, beside whom Roche stood respectfully waiting.

"Though now that I think of it, I don't believe His Majesty of Temeria is much better. Look at that crown-shaped helmet. That thing would trip him over while hunting a wild boar, never mind fighting a war."

Triss gave a faint snort but said nothing.

It was not that she had nothing to say. Her professional instincts simply told her that half a word too many on a subject like this might one day become part of an informant's secret report to one of the King's attendants.

Instead, she discreetly pressed one finger against the hairline near her temple, a small gesture Mages sometimes made without thinking when they could not conveniently use magic and wanted to sharpen their senses.

Giliam noticed, but paid it little attention.

Then he sneezed quietly.

"What is it, Miss Sorceress? You think there's something strange about this wind too?"

"..." Triss paused, apparently considering how to answer.

She raised her head, looked toward the Pontar River, then up at the sky.

...

Chapter 34: The Silent Wind

“Something’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The wind stopped.”

“What’s strange about that?” Geralt did not even look up. His attention remained fixed on the iron-bound gate leading into the inner city, his slit pupils searching for any sign of an ambush. “The river wind often dies down for a while around noon.”

“No.” Triss shook her head. Her red hair was indeed hanging still now instead of fluttering as it had moments before. “It’s not just the wind.”

She did not finish.

She could not put the feeling into words. As a formally trained Mage, she knew an entire vocabulary for describing the flow of magic through the environment. But now, all those elegant terms learned behind the high walls of the Academy fit what she sensed about as well as ill-fitting clothes.

She simply knew that something was wrong.

The wrongness was so subtle that it was almost impossible to describe. The air seemed slightly denser, but only slightly. The dampness against her skin had lessened, though not enough to make anyone shiver. It was like walking through the same kitchen every day for thirty years, then one morning noticing that the salt jar had shifted half an inch. You could not say exactly what had changed, but you knew someone had been inside your home.

“Giliam,” Geralt said suddenly. His voice remained flat, but anyone who knew him well could hear the faint tension beneath it. “Is your medallion moving?”

Giliam lowered his head and pressed his fingers against his chest through his clothing.

The snake-headed medallion was not vibrating with the steady hum it gave when an ordinary monster drew near. Instead, it trembled in irregular fits, almost hesitantly, as though the medallion itself could not decide whether there was enough danger to sound the alarm.

“It is.” Giliam looked up at him. “Yours?”

“The same,” Geralt said. “But not like a Ghoul.”

“Not the Wild Hunt either,” Giliam added.

They had both encountered the Wild Hunt before. When the Hunt passed nearby, their medallions gave off a sharp, icy sensation, almost painful enough to tear free through flesh. This was completely different. This was a hesitant, growing heat, as though whatever caused it remained far away, but its immense magic had already crossed the intervening distance to reach them.

“There is a faint flow of magic,” Triss said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything like it.”

Giliam fell genuinely silent for half a second.

The Witcher manuals at Kaer Morhen were thick enough to use as bricks, and if this was not covered in them...

“Triss? Didn’t you just say there were no Mages here? Could it be someone from elsewhere? The Nilfgaardian Empire, Redania, anyone with access to Mages and a reason to want the King of Temeria dead.” He turned toward the Sorceress. Every trace of his usual teasing had vanished from his voice.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like the work of an ordinary Mage.” Triss spoke quietly, almost as though she feared disturbing something. “But...”

She had been about to continue when her gaze abruptly froze.

Giliam followed her eyes.

Several noisy ravens should have been perched on the bronze statue of the Scales of Justice at the head of the bridge.

But the birds had gone silent.

They did not flap away in panic as though startled. Nor did they croak their usual complaints at the creatures passing beneath them.

Instead, one after another, they quietly lifted from the statue.

Not a single bird called.

The black birds that northern legends regarded as omens of ill fortune flew silently and frantically downstream along the Pontar River, almost like an army desperate not to attract attention. They looked like guests unwilling to attend a funeral, slipping away before the ceremony had even begun.

Giliam heard himself swallow.

Then he realized the wind was not the only thing that had fallen silent.

The roar of the Pontar River beneath the bridge should have been endless, its waters striking the stone piers day and night without pause.

Now it sounded muffled.

Not gone. The water could still be heard. But the sound had plainly, unnaturally diminished, as though the river itself were holding its breath.

Far off at the Catapult positions, the soldiers working the winches had stopped joking and bickering.

No one had ordered them to be quiet.

They had simply fallen silent.

Some ancient part of Human instinct, older than the armor civilization had forged for them, older than military discipline, older even than language, already knew when silence was necessary.

“Your Majesty,” Roche said quietly. His right hand had already settled soundlessly on the hilt of his sword. “Please take half a step back.”

“What?”

“Please. Half a step back.”

Foltest was a King who had seen battle. He asked no further questions.

Without betraying any concern, he stepped back half a pace and rested his right hand on the hilt of his ornate sword.

“...Something’s wrong,” Giliam muttered.

He looked down at his medallion again.

The metal that had only been trembling faintly moments ago had begun to grow hot.

Not pleasantly warm.

Hot enough that it felt as though it might burn straight through his clothes.

“Wait!”

Witchers could use Signs, but after undergoing their mutations, they could not actively sense Chaos Magic. That was why children with the talent to become Mages, if unfortunate enough to become Witchers instead, could never cast true magic.

Their medallions served as an extra sixth sense.

But whatever was making Giliam’s medallion react was nothing like the Mage he had imagined.

His expression changed sharply.

The Witcher medallion against his chest began to vibrate with a clear metallic rattle. Heat radiated through his clothes, far too intense to ignore. The scorching metal burned through the leather around it and pressed directly against his chest.

It reminded him of the tremendous surge of Chaos Magic he had felt the first time he encountered the Wild Hunt.

Only this was far hotter.

Giliam jerked his head upward.

The sky had changed.

Not gradually.

All at once.

The clear blue sky overhead, so calm it had almost looked innocent, split open as though someone had slashed it with a red-hot dagger.

Clouds began twisting violently outward from the wound. A vortex rapidly opened in the heavens, its edges churning with a purplish black that did not belong to this world.

In an instant, the whole of La Valette Castle, the army outside it, the stone bridge, and even the surging waters of the Pontar River were swallowed beneath that unnatural shadow.

The midday sun vanished completely.

And then...

...

Chapter 35: The Green Dragon

“ROAR!!!”

The roar exploded from the depths of the opening in the clouds with enough force to tear the heavens apart.

It was not thunder, yet it was deeper than thunder. It was not a horn, yet it shook the soul more violently than the charge call of any army. It was a sound that awakened fear in the body, in the soul, and in the oldest memories buried in the blood. A sound that told every living creature who heard it: your ancestors once trembled beneath this cry.

Everyone instinctively clapped their hands over their ears.

Several Temerian soldiers in the front ranks were driven straight to their knees, blood running from their nostrils. The lips of a messenger standing beside Foltest began to tremble, and he pissed himself where he stood without even realizing it.

The warhorses screamed in terror. Several tore free of their reins and bolted toward the outer city, throwing their riders behind them like scraps of cloth discarded by their masters.

The bronze statue of Justice at the bridgehead shook violently beneath the roar. One of the pans hanging from the goddess’s scales broke loose from its chain with a clang and smashed onto the bridge, throwing up a cloud of dust.

The flock of ravens burst from the shadows beneath the bridge arches. They had barely made it halfway into the air when they seemed to be slapped backward by an invisible hand, colliding with one another in a frantic tangle. One old bird with a mangled wing flew straight into the bronze statue and burst against the remaining half of the scales, splattering it with foul-smelling blood.

Something was descending through the swirling opening in the clouds.

First came the shadow.

It was impossibly vast. The moment it emerged from the edge of the opening, everyone on the stone bridge felt something invisible and crushing slowly pressing down from the sky, so heavy that even lifting their heads became difficult.

Dark green scales gleamed with a cold light.

It was the same chill gleam found in the emerald veins of Kaedwen, that rare shade merchants of the Northern Kingdoms would trade for its weight in gold. The color of the most expensive stone in a noblewoman’s necklace, or the dim green jewel set into the edge of a temple altar.

But when that color appeared on something alive, it inspired only the deepest terror in everyone who saw it.

Four thick, powerful limbs ended in conical claws sharp enough to shame the finest swords.

As those limbs slowly emerged from the clouds, even the air around them seemed to grow several degrees colder. A frost-like chill seemed to drip from the tips of the claws. No one could tell whether it was some form of magic or simply the cold of the upper sky clinging to the creature.

Most astonishing of all, and most hopeless, were its wings.

When they spread fully from the creature’s massive shoulders, they blotted out the sky.

They stretched from its knotted shoulders toward the steel-whip length of its tail. In the shadows, the membranes were threaded with a dark purple network of veins, like an enormous cloak spread wide.

Or perhaps the cloak of Death itself.

Only a few golden shafts of sunlight slipped past the edges of the wings and fell across the bridge, making the already pale faces of the Temerian soldiers look even whiter.

In that moment, every veteran among them understood the same thing.

Every battle they had fought, every monster they had seen, every tale that had frightened them around a midnight fire, all of it was nothing more than children’s toys beside the creature above them.

“Hey...” Giliam’s voice was dry, as though he had scraped it out of his throat. “I don’t think... any Wyvern could grow this big. Much less sprout another pair of legs. Right, Geralt?”

Sweat had begun to gather in Giliam’s palms. If he survived this, he might have to get his medallion repaired. The heat against his chest already felt close to burning through his skin.

“I’m starting to wonder what it eats. Sometimes I think Yennefer is a little too thin.”

“If it can talk, you could ask,” Geralt said. “Even Basilisks seem to care about a balanced diet these days... Eating nothing but vegetables can’t be healthy.”

“You two idiots and your damned jokes! The Dragon’s about to breathe fire!”

Triss screamed the warning.

The heat struck them before the fire had even finished gathering inside the Dragon’s mouth.

It was nothing like the heat of ordinary flame.

With normal fire came smoke, then flame, then the spreading heat.

What gathered inside this creature’s jaws was heat itself.

Heat fierce enough to make it seem as though the very air might ignite. Ash scattered across the bridge began to rise on its own beneath the pressure, like countless terrified insects desperately trying to flee their own graveyard.

Triss fought down the urge to tear open a Portal and flee at once. She cursed Geralt as though venting her fear through the words, then ran with him toward the gate on the far side while he pulled her along.

A Dragon had appeared in the middle of a Human settlement.

Not the sort of “dragon” farmers talked about while working their fields, calling anything that flew, whether Slyzards or Wyverns, a dragon.

True Dragons were entirely different creatures.

Aside from the unmistakable four legs and pair of wings, what mattered most was their extraordinary intelligence.

That intelligence was obvious now.

The Dragon had approached from behind them, deliberately cutting them off from the nearer gate.

A creature possessing both intelligence and overwhelming destructive power...

Giliam decided the King of Temeria would be wise to employ more than one Mage as a royal advisor. Otherwise, Foltest had better spend some time considering exactly how he had managed to offend something this terrifying, then offer a sincere apology and pray the monster was willing to forgive him.

“Goddess Melitele...”

Foltest, who had remained composed throughout the fighting, finally showed signs of panic.

Before a magical creature that defied the laws of nature, a Human King was no different from a piece of wood waiting to burn.

Flesh and blood were still flesh and blood.

How could either stand against such heat?

The King’s cloak, embroidered with gold thread and studded with rubies, suddenly looked absurd draped across his shoulders. Those jewels were worth half a lifetime’s pay to some minor noble, yet they could not stop a single breath of Dragonfire.

Fortunately, Roche, the King’s loyal captain of the Blue Stripes, managed to keep his head beneath the Dragon’s overwhelming presence.

He seized Foltest by the arm and dragged him toward the far end of the bridge, half carrying and half shoving his sovereign forward.

“Your Majesty! Run!”

A heartbeat later, orange-yellow fire poured from the sky.

The sturdy armor worn by the Temerian soldiers meant nothing before that heat.

Cast-iron shields gave dying groans inside the Dragon’s breath. The forging techniques Temerian craftsmen took such pride in curled and twisted beneath the heat into grotesque metal flowers.

Molten iron ran down charred bodies.

The soldiers did not scream.

The instant the flames engulfed them, the fragile organs that gave Human beings their voices had already been burned into black ash.

There were no cries.

No struggling.

They did not even have time to fall to their knees.

Roche was still some distance from the stream of fire, yet he could already smell the short hair beneath his headscarf beginning to singe. Even so, the left hand planted against the King’s back never wavered.

“Run! Run! Run!”

The stone bridge cracked under the lingering heat of the Dragonfire. Tar-like sludge seeped from the blackened joints between the stones.

On the eastern side of the bridge, a wooden rain shelter twisted into a charred skeleton. Burning pitch dripped through the cracks and fell toward the river, sending foul smoke billowing upward from the water.

The Dragon swooped down from above and turned the place where they had been standing moments earlier into a blackened field of ash.

With a beat of its wings, it scattered the remains and climbed back into the sky.

Giliam raced along the stone bridge leading toward the inner city.

Fortunately, several wooden roofs still stood along the bridge, offering at least some obstruction to the Dragon’s line of sight. Otherwise, he had little confidence that a Sign alone could stop fire like that.

The surge of Chaos Magic accompanying the Dragonfire had already turned his Witcher medallion into something like a red-hot branding iron. It burned so fiercely that Giliam wanted to tear it off and throw it away.

Ahead of him, an unnatural red glow shone at Geralt’s throat.

It came from the White Wolf’s wolf-head medallion beneath his collar. Clearly, Geralt’s was burning just as fiercely as his own.

Geralt, however, did not bare his teeth in pain the way Giliam did. The old bastard merely glanced down at the medallion, as though confirming something, then kept running.

“Does our Sorceress have any ideas?” Giliam shouted toward Geralt ahead of him. His voice was broken by the lingering heat of the Dragonfire and the roar of the river beneath the bridge. “We Witchers don’t hunt Dragons!”

“Are you asking me or her?” Geralt turned his head slightly without slowing.

“What use is asking you? You can’t cast magic!”

“Neither can I,” Triss said between ragged breaths.

Hard running had never suited a Sorceress accustomed to comfort. Her beautiful red hair was plastered to her cheeks with sweat, and one corner of her robe had been fouled by a splash of black pitch.

“At least, not the sort I can cast while running. I need time and somewhere safe to prepare a ritual. Ordinary magic won’t penetrate a Dragon’s scales.”

Fortunately, Geralt had one hand on her shoulder, taking some of the strain from her fuller figure and helping her keep pace with the others.

“Don’t you Sorceresses always pride yourselves on being prepared for everything and never putting yourselves in danger?”

“How was I supposed to know a Dragon was going to attack us? If I had known, I wouldn’t be the only one here. Philippa would be here, Keira...”

“Then forget about piercing its scales for now and start thinking about how not to end up as ash.” Giliam wiped soot from his face as he ran. “As far as I’m concerned, staying alive comes first.”

“For once, you’ve said something sensible,” Triss managed between breaths.

Through the rolling smoke, Giliam looked toward Geralt again.

The White Wolf’s hair had turned gray with soot and smoke, but those slit Witcher pupils remained as sharp as freshly forged blades.

“Hey, Geralt! I heard you and Yennefer hunted a Dragon together once!”

The expectant looks of the others were answered only by Geralt shaking his head helplessly.

“I’ve only hunted Slyzards... You know that, Giliam. Not every memory from my past is still in my head.”

“Then we can only hope the ancient blood of Temeria’s royal line left our King with some resistance to fire.”

Giliam tightened his grip on his steel sword.

The Dragon folded its enormous wings and dropped onto the stone bridge.

Its immense body blocked the entire way from edge to edge, leaving not even a sliver of space.

It raised its head slightly.

Golden eyes fixed on them with an unmistakably Human mockery.

Then it launched itself back into the sky.