Chapter 134: What the hell is that?

But then I saw. Seven Horsemen riding back for the castle. Riding hard. They had been riding in formation along the road but that dissolved when they got to the clearing. A couple of them broke forward, the horses leaping into the gallop as the sped towards the base of the causeway.

Then a swirl of the mist carried them from view.

“Flame curse this mist,” Sam snarled, pounding his fist on the castle walls.

Then the flames leapt up. The old huts that we had slept in while the castle had been made safe along with Sam's temporary hall. They were suddenly engulfed in flame. So suddenly that there must have been oil or something in the mix because fire simply doesn't spread that fast. Especially in the cold chill of altitude and thick fog.

But it did mean that we could see. Three horsemen were still riding for the castle but it looked like the rest had either dismounted or had fallen from their horses. They were turning and waving at things in the tree line. I thought I could see one of the figures on the ground shooting a bow but it was a distant thing, seen through strands of mist. It looked like a scene from a nightmare. The flames and the jerking figures. One man was waving his sword around as though he was fighting but we couldn't see what he was fighting against. I saw another man throw his hands up into the air as though he had been shot before falling to the ground. Another horseman came out of the trees, the man in the saddle was slumped down.

“What are they fighting?” Sam wondered aloud.

But then we saw them too. They didn't attack like we would. They weren't organised, they didn't move in ranks or move together. One would dart forward, come within weapon range of the fighters before veering off and fleeing.

But the effect that this had on the defenders was profound. We could hear them screaming. Even as they fought, swinging swords blindly and wildly. Those were not screams of anger or the normal battle cries.

Those men were terrified

Sam spat over the wall before turning and bellowing down into the courtyard. “Kristoff, take men down there and see what's going on. I want everyone back inside the castle walls right, fucking, now.”

He span without waiting for a response.

“Kerrass, go with them. If anyone can make sense of all of this it's you. Those men are free and clear so why aren't they retreating?”

Kerrass nodded and turned to go and I followed.

“Freddie,” Sam called. I turned ready with an excuse of comment on my lips. “Be careful Freddie,” Sam said softly. “I would tell you to stay but you'd ignore me. I don't want to explain your absence to an angry vampire.”

He turned away before I could respond and stepped out of sight, presumably back to the edge of the parapet. I ran on, Kerrass had already pulled my horse over and I climbed into the saddle.

“Hard and Fast lads.” Sir Kristoff was saying. “Hard and fast. Get them out, pull them onto the horses bodily if you have to and then get them back up to the castle so Lord Samuel can do his thing. Hit hard, hit fast.”

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His horse was in front of the group of men and it reared for effect. I always wonder when I see this kind of thing whether or not the horse rider was doing that on purpose.

Redania.” He yelled.

The men cheered.

“Redania.” He yelled again.

“We cheered louder.

Redania.” He didn't wait for the counter call instead signalling the bugler who sounded the charge as we surged forward. I had time to glance over at Kerrass who's eyes were gleaming in the firelight.

The horses surged forward and we thundered through the gate and down the hill.

You have no way of knowing this but I have just paused in the writing of this account. I needed to think about how to describe what it was like. It's taken me a not small amount of time so the only way that I can think of to describe it is like this.

It was like descending into hell.

I know that that's going to cause some confusion. Mostly because to, as far as I know, the vast majority of my readership, their idea of hell is based on the version of hell as described by the cult of the eternal flame. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

For followers of the eternal flame, hell is a cold place. A place of ice and snow, of darkness and quiet. I haven't really looked into it and I imagine that there are others that are much more knowledgable about this kind of thing than I am but I believe that it's because if the eternal flame represents warmth, guidance, shelter and security then “hell” must represent the opposite of that. Hence the cold, darkness and so on. But in that, the Eternal Flame is actually the rarity in most modern religions.

By these I'm referring to Kreve, and the cult of the Divine Sun in Nilfgaard.

I don't know about Melitele but I did hear one priestess say that Melitele is a woman's religion. They have no need of a concept of hell because women are living through hell everyday and Melitele represents shelter from that and an ease of suffering. Therefore, for them, hell is living through every day.

But I was talking about the other version of hell.

For Kreve and the cult of the Divine Sun, Hell is described as a hot place. A place of fire and smoke. Of pain and heat where the air is poisonous and the ground is fire.

I could speculate as to why this is and again it's because of opposites. Kreve is referred to as “The Sky-Father”, the important part of that sentence is “Sky”. The Divine Sun is a worship of the Sun itself which is a thing of the sky. Therefore the opposite of both of those things is what is going on underneath the ground.

We know, from the volcanic eruptions that have sometimes occurred in Skellige and up in the mountains down South that under the earth is a lot of lava and molten rock. Therefore....

I'm sure you get the point.

But that is what it was like. Riding down that causeway and into the valley.

It was like descending into hell.

I've talked about the fog and the mist aspects of things but I don't think I've properly got the idea across of how thick it was and what it was doing to the landscape. It had this strange effect where it was causing rocks and trees to seem as though they were jumping out at me. Small movements in the undergrowth seemed massively amplified and overwhelming to the point where I didn't know what to do with it. I felt like ducking all the time and had to fight not to jink to one side or another to avoid obstacles that I was absolutely sure were going to lead to my being unhorsed.

This was ridiculous because I was riding towards the back of the column. In the middle of the column so if there was anything there then it would have struck the other soldiers in front of me.

It was cloying as well, it sounds ridiculous as I write it but I could feel it at the back of my throat, this odd kind of rasping sensation in the same way that you get when you've had a particularly sweet, creamy desert and it sticks to the roof of your mouth and to the back of your throat, or when you have a cold and you get that cloying feeling of sickness in your lungs.

It had a smell as well. I knew that it shouldn't smell, that mist smells of nothing but damp.....leaves or grass or whatever else you are riding through at the time. But there was a smell that you could taste. It was an awful kind of vinigary smell. The closest thing that it reminded me of was of bad eggs. A soldier a couple of rows ahead of me had to lean over the side of his horse and vomited.

As we followed the causeway round, it bent to the left as we came round the hill that the castle was built on. There was a ripple in the troop as we narrowed our profile to let a trio of horsemen past. I thought I could see the red tabbard of a church soldier as well as the robes of a priest of the Eternal fire but I couldn't be sure as they sped up the hill towards safety and the castle gates.

I found that I was struggling to breathe, each breath hissed in my throat and I began to feel light-headed. The men that we were riding with had begun to shout at each other now. Prayers and curses, battle-cries and small whimpers of fear. Some of those sounds might even have come from my own mouth. My spear was strapped to my saddle, already linked together. I had wanted to ride down with it couched under my arm-pit the same way that a knight might carry a lance in the jousting field but, rather prudently I had thought at the time, I had decided that I would need both hands to steer and control the horse that I was riding. It wasn't that I was incorrect. But I found the distance between me and the spear increased as I thought about it. I desperately wanted to unstrap it and have it in my hand as though it would comfort me by it's sheer presence. I began to want it, to need it.

I shook my head to try and clear it and I could see the same gesture being reflected in the other men riding up and down the column.

Then, we started to get the smell of smoke, burning straw, wood and grass. Filthy from the rain and the mud but still hot and even more so we were being choked and blinded by the stinging smoke. At one point I had been worried that I might become afraid of fire after the adventures with Sansum but I drove my horse on.

A man in front of me leant over and fell of his horse. Just leant over as far as he could go and simply fell off in the same way that a tree might fall in the woods after a wood-cutter has been working at it for hours. At first I flinched as I supposed that some kind of weapon or spell had caught hold of him and that he was dead but then I saw him push himself to his knees and begin to pray.

Not far now. Not far to the battlefield.

Kerrass caught hold of my arm as he rode next to me.

“Turn back.” He yelled. “Go back Freddie.” But I ignored him. I flinched away from him as though his touch burned me, his eyes blazing in the animal skull of his face. I yanked my arm from his grip as we rode on. He seemed furious but he didn't have time to grab me again as we had arrived.

I could see the burning buildings off to one side, ahead and a little to the right as we came to the clearing I could see a small knot of men, our men, who looked as though they were fighting for their lives. There were men all over the place.

I've never been on a battlefield or in a battle really but I'm told that it's generally not as chaotic as this. I'm told that experienced men can tell you what happened on any given field of battle just by looking at the lay of the land and the way that the corpses are arranged. Walls of dead horsemen, crowds of men in the same uniform with arrows sticking out of them. Corpses like unmoving waves as though an artist has taken a still picture of the sea from above, only instead of water, there are bodies and they are everywhere. They can tell you where the shield wall broke and where the cavalry hit the infantry line.

Or so I'm told.

This wasn't like that. This was chaos. I saw one man staggering through the grass with the skin off the side of his face missing. He was reaching up to the sky, begging for help from some kind of unseen thing. Another man was lying on the ground clutching at his belly even though there was nothing wrong with it. Individual men wandering about, screaming at nothing, gibbering and yelling at apparitions that only they could see.

Then there were the horsemen. The Hounds themselves that would come riding out of the smoke and the fog with eye-hurting lack of speed as they almost leisurely reached down and out to the side with long, claw-like hands as they killed their chosen target before they would scream to the heavens and ride off.

These weren't men. I don't know what they were but they weren't men. They looked to be made out of bone and metal. You could see the spurs of bone sticking out from their leather cloaks as they raised their arms. That makes no sense I know and I've struggled to try and define what I saw that night.

Try and imagine a man, this will be more useful to those of you that might be more medically minded. So Imagine a man, keep the same proportions so, the same height and build, but then start to increase the size of the bones in the man's skeletons. Not just thickness but the length of the bones as well so that they get to the point where they can't fit inside the skin and muscle of the man and it breaks free. The skin breaks along with the blood and other liquids that run freely along the bones.

But the muscle remains behind so that all the limbs keep working. The limbs and the other organs.

But then start to think about the cartilage and other things that hold the bones together and help them move. Imagine that those things are made from metal that has been oiled and moves around like the clockwork of the gnomes and the dwarves. Then wrap the entire thing in a dark leather hooded cloak and cowl. I don't know why but I thought that the leather was blue in colour and I remember thinking that it was strange to think of it as being blue but that was what I remembered.

They would ride out of the surrounding trees at a gallop and dash up to their target whether this was a man by themselves or whether it was the small knot of men that were still trying to fight together as some kind of unit. They would ride up, swing their claws or their weapons. Some of those men carried swords, others carried spears but by far the most just had these strange claws that seemed to extend out of their arms that when they would brush, even just near, their target, then there would be a fountain of blood as the claw would unerringly strike at an artery or some other vital area and the man would go down.

The knot of men were still fighting. There was someone there, although I couldn't tell who it was that was holding everyone together but they wouldn't last much longer. Those men were already puking and screaming, weeping and shaking with their fear and their utter abject horror. I watched and another man died.

The group of men that I was with just shattered. What little unit cohesion that we had from the ride down into the valley just exploded under the onslaught to our senses in the same way that a hammer would break glass. A good half of the men just turned their horses and fled or, if they fell off their horses, just turned and fled back up the causeway. The other half let out their own howl and charged towards the knot of men. A couple of them had managed to keep their heads and started forcing wounded or otherwise incapacitated men onto horseback and herding them back towards the keep.

I would later learn that Sir Kristoff was one of the men that managed to keep his head. He would later claim that it was one of the benefits of superior Redanian training but I personally came to think that it was just his utter lack of imagination. The credit for salvaging what could be salvaged from that action lies with him. I don't like the man as he is a stickler, the kind of man that looks down on others if they haven't served in some kind of armed conflict or another and treats those of lesser ranks as being lower than himself. His conversation is full of rules, regulations and military history which, to be fair, in the right hands of a skilled teacher can be fascinating. In the hands of Sir Kristoff it can be mind numbingly tedious.

But he held the men together that day and if anyone can claim to have saved lives, it would be him and Kerrass who also, unsurprisingly really, kept his head and was able to fend off those horsemen that attacked the group of men while Kristoff got them organised.

I saw none of this at the time. I was too busy looking at one of the hounds.

I had seen a man staggering towards me. He was clutching his belly and he had a quiver of arrows on his back so, on some level I must have realised that he was one of Sir Rickard's bastards. He was weaving this way and that, obviously wounded. I might not have reacted but one of the hounds was charging towards him. Sword outstretched in the typical pose that has been immortalised in paintings, plays and tales all over the continent of what happened when a horseman is chasing down a fleeing footman. Sword out, held up and high over their shoulder ready to sweep down in a huge blow to the back of the fleeing man. The archer hadn't seen him and I screamed something.

The horseman looked at me and it's own mouth opened. A horrible sickly grey, pink kind of light came from it's eyes and it's mouth. Fire seemed to emanate from that gaping maw and then it screamed itself with an ear shattering sound that made my teeth hurt.

Something snapped inside my head as various conscious parts of me just shut down and I started to act without thinking.

I jumped off my horse, tearing the spear from the saddle as I went and sprinted forwards so that I was between the chasing horseman and the staggering archer. I was howling, saying something but I couldn't for the life of me tell you whether I was screaming for help from the Eternal flame or calling for my mother. I planted my feet and lunged forwards with my spear. The rider's sword came down and hammered into the spear with force enough to cause sparks to fly from where the two weapons impacted with each other.

I staggered, he drew back and struck down again at the same angle, this time I managed to turn the blade to one side ready for a strike of my own. I howled in triumph as I plunged the spear forward into the place where I knew, I knew that my enemies body would be. So much so that I staggered as I overbalanced when my spear didn't reach the resistance that I was expecting.

The horseman had vanished.

I felt, rather than heard myself scream in frustration as I looked around for my enemy, for my quarry and in the end it was a flash out of the corner of my eye that saved me. I ducked and spun round, bent to one knee as the Hound's sword whistled over the top of my head.

I used the fact that I was down on a knee to use the extra leverage of climbing to my feet to strike out with everything I had.

I saw it this time.

As the spear connected with where his body should be, he disappeared into a puff of smoke.

I howled at the moon, slashing out at the open air.

I heard a shout and I turned before I felt as though a horse had kicked me in the stomach. The breath whooshed out of me and I fell hard. Kerrass had grabbed me round the waist and had pulled me down. He was screaming at me but I couldn't hear the words.

I quailed before his face. His eyes were huge in his face, glowing yellow, stark against the white skin. There were flames in those eyes but that wasn't the thing that drew my eye. I have often commented that I have thought that I could see fangs in Kerrass' mouth. This time there could be no doubt. As he snarled his teeth grew and as his mouth opened saliva and bile dripped from his maw.

He was screaming, bellowing at me but I couldn't hear him.

His arm raised and I tried to pull away but his hand came crashing down and got me across the face. A huge, open handed slap, the sound of which echoed in my ears.

I snarled my own response and tried to close my hands round his throat. I had no idea where my spear was and suddenly it didn't seem as though it was that important. All I could think was that I wanted to kill, to slaughter.

Kerrass threw me aside, rolling away himself as another horseman came thundering towards us. I rolled to my feet. Somewhere I was aware that I was aching, that I had hurt myself as part of the fall and the impact, maybe a bruised or even a cracked rib but I ignored it. The need to kill was still a strong one.

I could no longer see Kerrass but the horseman was coming back. This time I remembered the knife, tucked into the belt in the small of my back.

I drew my weapon and decided that it was unfair that only horsemen could properly charge an enemy. So I ran at the horseman and leapt into the open air. I should have landed on him perfectly.

But he wasn't there, because of course he wasn't there.

Again, his body turned to smoke before my eyes and I flew through the fumes. The red haze over my vision deepened and started to take on a deeper texture, a thicker feeling to it. I landed awkwardly and collapsed forward into a roll, not quite making it to my feet in the process. I was on my knees and I looked around, panting for breath.

The red smoke was in my eyes and in my head and I couldn't shake it free. A wave of nausea came on me then and I had to turn my head to one side, sucking down deep breaths of air into my lungs. Spectres of horsemen rode through the clearing. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them and I lashed out with my dagger, no longer caring if I lived or about the fact that the prospect of taking on armed horsemen with a short dagger was utterly ludicrous.

I could see lines on the edge of my vision like the webs of the spiders that Ariadne loves so much. I couldn't tell if they were on the surfaces of my eyes or if I was seeing them in the clearing.

The horsemen had become phantoms now, phantoms made of smoke and they would vanish as I struck out at them. Sometimes the smoke would swirl but sometimes they would change into figures of blood that that shattered with a pop, drenching my feet and the land around me.

I saw other things as well. I saw a Dragon flying over head. Not the majestic, awful magnificence that Maleficent had possessed. This beast was fury and decay.

I saw Arch-Bishop Sansum's face drifting out of the smoke as well as Lord Dorme of Angral riding with the Hounds. I could see the pail corpse face of Ariadne from back when she was still a skeleton looking at me with disdain and disgust.

I could hear Jack laughing through the screams of the suffering.

All the while, my fury rose in my chest until it became a tangible thing, a ball in my chest that tried to drive me onto greater feats of energy while at the same time weighing my steps so that I could barely move. It was formless at the same time, lashing out at anything

I saw a red reflection on the ground and recognised my spear for what it was.

I limped over and pulled the spear up before turning and looking for another enemy, another target to strike out at. Someone to kill.

I saw that the member of the Bastards that I had first tried to rescue had slumped down to his knees. He had his hands clutched over his belly and was looking down at his hands in horror and fascination. A Horseman came out of the mist and smoke. For all I know it might have been the same horseman but there was no way to tell. He was aiming for the fallen man.

“No, you bastard.” I remember thinking. For all I know I might have screamed it aloud. I was up and running towards it, aiming for the horse.

But I wasn't going to make it.

Kerrass was there for me though. Spinning out of the smoke. Flames spitting from his eyes he ran at the horse and gestured. I saw the horse rear up and shy away. Kerrass picked up the fallen man, draping one of the man's arms over his shoulders before half carrying him off into the mist.

I blinked and my vision swam as another wave of nausea and dizziness struck me.

I staggered.

I would have fallen but Kerrass caught me.

He spun me around to face him.

His face was worse than before and I could feel my mind shying off what I saw. Trying to shut down. I screamed as his mouth split wide open and his fanged maw gaped wider and wider and wider until something struck me in the gut.

Hard.

And again.

A strong grip of my tunic and light armour held me to one side as the nausea raced over me again and I vomited. Hard.

I realised that my head was pounding as though someone had wrapped a red hot iron vice around it and was tightening the screws.

I was hauled upright again and saw that Kerrass' face was approaching normal despite being a little wild eyed and covered in soot. I could still see fangs though.

“Come on,” he bellowed through the din. I could still hear Jack laughing and Ariadne screaming. I tried to shake my head clear of the sound.

“Come on,” Kerrass said again. I almost walked into a horse that he was holding the bridle of. Another man, the injured Bastard who was groaning with an awful agony was slumped in the saddle.

“Get him back to the keep Freddie.” Kerrass snarled. “And whatever happens up there. Whatever you see, do not come back.”

“But...”

“Don't argue with me. Just go.” He was screaming. The flames were back in his eyes again while his fangs grew in his mouth. He turned the horse's head and slapped it across the arse with the flat of his sword.

Fortunately for me, the horse knew what that meant and leapt forward. I didn't steer so much as just hold on for dear life, half onto the reins and half onto the injured man that I kept in front of me.

The injured man that turned out to be the young thief from Vizima. Pendleton.

The sound of the ground under the hooves turned from the packed earth of the Grassy meadow where the huts were to the loose, stone of the causeway up to the castle. Cold air hit me in the face and I had to lean aside before vomiting again.

Although the headache got worse, I almost instantly felt better but I was weak as a kitten.

Again I thank the Holy Flame that Kerrass knew what he was doing and chose the right horse to carry me back. I still have no idea if it was my horse or just some random horse that he picked out of the crowd but it served me well.

Pendleton was similarly affected and was vomiting hard which took him out of whatever reaction had over come him and was weeping with the pain.

“Hold on lad,” I whimpered. I had meant it to be reassuring but it came our like the raspy pleading that it was.

We got to the castle gate. Other men of the Bastards were there. Pendleton's pain was getting worse. Rickard, Dan and I think Taylor helped me out of the saddle as by now I was shaking like a leaf and vomiting up a kind of yellow, greenish goop. The Giant Skelligan Sergeant cradled young Pendleton as though he was a child. A child groaning with agony.

“I'm sorry Sarge,” He moaned. “I'm sorry.”

“You don't need to be sorry lad. You don't need to be sorry.” The Skelligan's accent became thicker with emotion. The faces of the other bastards were white with shapeless anger and sorrow.

“Mother,” he pleaded as he was carried to a blanket in the corner. “Mother?”

I was lowered down into the courtyard where I was propped against the cool stone that made up part of the gate-house. I wasn't wounded. Other than the physical reaction, I was unwounded. Someone handed me a skin of watered wine and I drank greedily.

No wine, or nectar of the Gods has ever tasted so wonderful.

As it turned out, I was one of the lucky ones.

Pendleton was dying. Stabbed through the stomach which he was clutching at with both hands. I hauled myself over. It took focus to keep my limbs from shaking. There were still tremors that would seize me every so often. But I felt that it was important somehow.

Sir Rickard was there. Standing over the small knot of men. The pain seemed to be ebbing and falling for the lad. When I had first met the Bastards, Pendleton had put me in mind of someone in his late teens. I thought he might have been sixteen or seventeen. Young, but still old enough to be a soldier. Now I was left to wonder if he'd lied about his age.

He looked as though he was twelve. Sweat standing out on his head, beading up and running down his face and onto the blanket that he'd been laid out on. Black blood smeared across his head where he'd wiped the sweat from his fore-head with the back of his hand and I winced at the sight. My training was not great, but it was enough to know that if the blood is black then you should call for someone who knows what they're doing.

He looked awful, pale and shivering.

Any man that ever tries to tell me that war is glorious will be punched.

In the throat.

By me.

“Captain?” The lad called. “Captain?”

Rickard knelt on the other side of the boy from the Sergeant and took the boys hand. “I'm here son. I'm here.”

“I'm sorry sir.” The lad whimpered. “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fuck up.”

“You didn't Pendleton. You didn't. You did your job and I'm proud of you.”

“Am I a good soldier?”

“A better soldier than I deserve.”

The Bastards could have been carved from stone, despite those men who had tears running down their cheeks. Jenkins, the pale-eyed killer was weeping openly. It took me a moment but I realised that they were stood to attention.

“I'm sorry sir.”

“What do I say about being sorry?” Rickard forced the words past a plainly dry throat.

But Pendleton didn't answer. He had died. Gone from shuddering to utter stillness.

Corpses get so still. It becomes so odd. All of the energy that had animated the young man had vanished and suddenly it was just a shell.

Rickard placed the hand that he was holding onto the lad's chest. The Skelligan Sergeant placed a sword in the lads right hand. It looked wildly oversized in his young hands.

It all felt deathly quiet as though a strange peace had settled like a blanket over the world. I think it was the lack of noise, more than anything, that got to me. Things weren't being drowned out by the blood pounding in my ears, the screams of terror and the distinctive sound of metal striking metal or flesh.

It all seemed so peaceful.

It wasn't, but that's what it felt like.

There were people dying in the castle courtyard. It seemed that the hounds had taken a number of people from us and they were moaning as they died, more people were retching and whimpering. Pendleton was not alone in crying for his mother and other men wandered from body to body bringing water and comfort where they could.

An unhurt looking Father Trent was walking through it all. Weeping openly, trying to offer blessings but too often his tears were overwhelmed by his sobs.

The one question that seemed to be on everyone's lips was “What had happened?” Walking wounded sat together while their injuries were cleaned and stitched together and tried to talk it through, putting the pieces together.

There was another noise though. A noise that I had forgotten about. In the distance. That distant scream of a man in agony and fear drifting over the night sky.

Sir Rickard got up and abruptly walked away. The Sergeant managed to catch my eye and jerked his head in the direction of his knight. “For you to do sir.” he said simply. It suddenly struck me as odd that I had forgotten his name if I had ever known it. “Sergeant” seemed such a fitting name for him and I thought to see if I could remember him being called anything other than by his title, or maybe “Sarge” when the men were being cheeky.

I nodded and did as I was told, wandering after Rickard.

I found him on the other wall. The one facing away from where the fight had happened staring out into the darkness. This was the wall that faced away from the approaches to the castle. The approach that would be all but impossible without climbing equipment and a man on the inside to lower rope. He was staring out into the darkness.

“Sent you after me did he?” I didn't need to ask who he was talking about and said nothing. “I should call him Sergeant nurse-maid.” Rickard sighed and kicked the wall before turning back to me.

“Shepherd didn't come back either. He's out there somewhere, probably with a sword through him.”

“Are you ok?” I asked, rather redundantly. Of course he wasn't ok. Neither was I and I hadn't lost someone. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The ridiculous things that we say to each other when we're going through grief.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Or I will be in a minute.” He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to hide the fact that he was brushing away the water that had formed in the corner of his eyes.

“It's just,” he began before turning away, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “It's just I haven't lost a man since the end of the war. A war that Pendleton survived, Shepherd too, only for them to die out here.”

“How old was Pendleton when he joined?” I found that I suddenly had to ask.

Rickard chuckled. “He was seventeen when he died and I caught him stealing our rations when he was twelve. Took him a while to get the strength to use a bow properly but he could move through the undergrowth and no-one would know that he was there. He could hide in an empty field. Fast as a hare as well, jumping out at an enemy in a blur of his daggers until he eventually realised that his target was dead. Bless him.”

He sighed. “Go on, I'll be with you in a minute.” He waved me off.

My strength was coming back to me and I realised that I was famished. Someone was bringing around some fruit and I snagged an apple as I went off to find Kerrass and Sam. That screaming was still there. There was a plaintive quality to it. Like the sound of a dog mourning the loss of it's master. It was ebbing and flowing. Sometimes it would become silent whereas other times it seemed as though the air throbbed with the sound.

Kerrass was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps that would lead up to the tower that Sam had chosen for his look out.

He stepped out to meet me. “You ok?” He asked. He looked a little wild eyed and pale so I guessed that he was a couple of potions down. I tried to be subtle about looking to see if there were fangs in his mouth but if they had been there at all, I couldn't say.

“Tired,” I said. “And sick to my stomach.” I took another breath. “Thank you Kerrass. I'm self-aware enough to realise that you saved my life.....Again.”

He smiled a little. “No thanks this time. I should have seen what was happening and guessed how it would affect you.”

“Affect me?”

“You always react violently when people terrify you.”

He turned and we started to walk up the walls to where Sam was.

“No I don't,” I protested.

“You really do.”

“But....”

“Think about it. All of the times that you've killed people and gotten really, really violent. Not fighting to defend yourself or something. You've been utterly terrified haven't you.”

I should stress that this was not a new conversation between the two of us.

“Yeah but....”

“That time with Lord Fuck-face and his men?” he went on. “Where you drove your dagger into the man's skull. Or that time I used the Axii sign on you and you went berzerk. How about that time with the bandits, or the golem when you thought you were dying. Or Jack for that matter. Or when you were being tortured by Sansum which is, by far, the most violent thing you've ever done to my mind.”

“Ah,” I said in triumph. “Ah, but I was absolutely terrified when I met Ariadne as well and I didn't attack her.”

“No, but you did take leave of your senses.”

“Now hang on.”

“Hey, you have to be a bit mad to stand up to an ancient vampire.”

“Yeah but she still terrifies me.”

“You and I both know that there is a big difference between erotic fear and physical fear.”

“Not much of one.” I muttered.

Another thing that always astonishes me. How quickly we return to humour after intense action.

The lone voice, screaming on the wind took that opportunity to start up again as we got to the summit. I don't mind admitting that, although I'm a lot fitter physically than I was in my student days, I had to stop and catch my breath as we reached the top of the stairs.

Sam was still looking out over the burning buildings. It was now properly dark and the night had fallen and the mist became silvery rather than the red soup that it had been. Sam came to meet us as we got to the top of the stairs and shook Kerrass' hand firmly. Inquisitor Dempsey was there, his arm in a sling and looking pale as he and Sam talked before Sam gestured him to silence as we got to the top of the stairs and approached the pair of us.

“Well Freddie,” he said with a slight smile. “Of all people, I did not expect you to be the one that was a berzerker.”

“Oh for crying out loud, I am NOT a berzerker.”

“Sshh, sshh, don't get angry, we don't want you to get angry.”

“Fuck off.”

Neither of us had much energy for extended banter though.

“Seriously though. You ok?” he asked.

“As well as I ever am. Do we know what happened yet?”

“Not yet.” Sam answered. “Lot's of people still getting their story straight.”

“Don't be hard on them Sam.” I told him. “I was there and I, the trained observer of events and people, could barely tell you what was going on.”

Sam grinned.

Another scream rang out.

“What the fuck is that?” I snapped, surprising myself.

Inquisitor Dempsey turned away and I was shocked to see an Inquisitor's shoulders shaking in sobs.

Sam sighed. “Come see.”

The three of us, Sam, Kerrass and I walked to the edge of the wall where we could look out and down on the valley. There was more smoke now than anything as the fog was beginning to lift. It still gace the air a dreamlike quality and things occasionally drifted in and out of view.

Down at the edge of the clearing where I had so recently fought against phantoms, a new fire had been set on the far edge. Or rather it was a series of fires that had been built up to give out illumination. In the middle of the flames and tied, spread eagled to a pair of posts that had been driven in the ground, was Inquisitor Hacha. Recognisable by his stature and his bald head. We couldn't see the details but we could see from some of the injuries that, certainly his eyes had been put out.

They were skinning him alive. Some people call this being flayed alive but somehow I feel as though that doesn't properly convey the horror of what that act entails.

Skinning him alive and it was his cries that echoed around the castle walls.

“It was set up like that just as the last of our people came up the causeway to get away.” Sam said, his voice flat and dead. “They lit the fires and brought him out so that we could see him. He'd already had his eyes taken out when they tied him up.”

I had not liked Inquisitor Hacha when I met him but I had been impressed by his competence and his working method. Some people might say that as an Inquisitor he got what he deserved. That he had been responsible for far worse during the Witch hunts. That I can't answer for. I never got the chance to talk to him about his role during those times but I fancy that this would not be justice.

What I do know was that no-one deserves that.

Standing in front of the torture tableau was another man. It was in the distance, in the dark and the firelight so I didn't get all the details as fog and mist still absorbed some of it and did, indeed, often obscure the sight of Inquisitor Hacha's torture to us. But there was another man. He seemed larger than the other hounds. He moved as though he was in charge and he towered over the others. As well as the normal skull outfit that the others wore, he had a huge pair of antlers on top of his head. They looked as though they were spiked and vicious as though they were dripping in blood in the same way that a Fiend's horns seem dirty and weaponised.

Periodically, the horned man would walk up to the struggling form of Inquisitor Hacha and bend closer to him. Each time, Hacha would become more animated, straining at his bonds and screaming again.

“We're going to destroy these people gentlemen.” Sam snarled at the sight. “We're going to figure this out and we're going to destroy these people.”

I said nothing.