Chapter 138: Kerrass, just so you know..... I hope it hurts

I thought for a moment longer.

“I would ask for a road forwards. I would ask that I be shown a way to find the answers that I need. That is all, just a branch to cling onto for I feel as though I am lost.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Kerrass turned away from me.

I took a sip from the horn, no more than that and believe me, I am glad that all I took was a sip for I am not sure that I could have handled much more.

Holy flame that was strong stuff.

I watched the horn go further and further round the circle, more and more people asking for a safe deliverance from the trials that beset them. But rather than feel some kind of catharsis at this, I found that I was feeling more and more guilty. Guilty at the fact that we hadn't offered these people any more securities or really any kind of promise that we could actually fix things.

The circle broke apart once everyone had had their little drink and said their little prayers and made their requests. It seemed that that was when the party started as a small band of musicians struck up a tune and the dancing started. Sir Rickard led a small group of Bastards up the steps and back out into the night air to guard against any attacks that might come but I was moderately confident that this wouldn't be the case. These people lived here and seemed to have some kind of “Sense” as to when a mist, or an attack would come and they were confidently predicting that everything was find for now.

I tried, I really tried to be the life and soul of the party. I had a little dance, I drank more than was possibly prudent of the potent apple brandy that the village seemed to produce and I joined in with some of the story telling and the gentle teasing that seemed to be going on between people. But at the end of the day, my heart just wasn't in it and I found myself retreating from the assembly and off into my private little cocoon of solitude, sitting on the edge of things and watching.

I was sat playing with my medallion for the majority of the night.

“You should have fun,” I sensed Ariadne telling me. “We are not married yet and I am not jealous.”

“No, we are not married,” I told her. “But we are betrothed. And to me, that's as good as for that kind of thing.”

“Silly man.” She laughed but I could sense that she was examining what I said to see if there was some kind of hidden meaning behind it. “Why so sad?” She asked after a while.

“I don't know,”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don't know that either. I miss you.”

“And I miss you too.” There was a warmth to her, for want of a better word, voice that brought a lump to my throat. “But is that all that's wrong?”

This work is hosted on mananovel.com

“I don't know,” I said again. “And I'm sick of not knowing. I feel a bit like I'm being distracted from things. Like something is holding me back or trying to distract me from what's going on but I can't see a way out.”

She didn't say anything but I had no sense that she had withdrawn from the contact.

We sat in silence for a long time. I would say that we were enjoying each other's company but that seems a bit ludicrous given that we were at different ends of the continent. I retreated to my sleeping area as soon as I started to see people leaving and got my head down for a restless and uncomfortable nights sleep.

As a result though, I did gain some measure of amusement from watching everyone doing the work in the morning nursing their hangovers, no matter how slight that hangover was. Apart from Kerrass' insufferable smugness at being able to dismiss those things with the consumption of a potion, the other bastards were all suffering a bit, much to the amusement of the villagers as, I suspect, it showed the villagers that the soldiers were human too.

But that didn't make the work any the less hard or urgent and to be fair to everyone involved. We bent to the work with determination and gusto.

All told it took us five days to get the village into a state that Sir Rickard was happy with it. Another two days after that and he declared that he could hold this place through anything.

Then came the boring bit.

Regular readers of mine will be well aware that if there is a running theme throughout all of my writing, that theme is the one of waiting. Waiting for the inevitable action and when I sit and think about it or go over old notes over and over again, it is easy to spot this pattern. That I spend far too much of my time talking about what it's like to wait before some kind of intense and terrifying activity and I've spent a bit of time wondering about this.

I suspect that part of the reason for this is that it's during these periods of waiting that I get to make up my notes. When there's nothing else to do other than to sit and wait, that's when I reach for my journals to note things down and to comment on various observations and things. So later, when I'm sat in an inn for a day or two, or in one of those other forced periods of laziness or recovery after our various adventures, I go back to these notes to write up the things that I have found or that I want to talk about and I find that lot of what I have made notes on is the subject of waiting for things.

Was this time different? Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

Yes and no.

I am well aware that that is no real answer to speak of.

On the one hand it was exactly like every other period of waiting that I've ever had the misfortune to be part of, where I was waiting for action of the hard and physical variety. Where my life would be on the line and only the speed of my spear and the quickness of my feet stood between me and a horrible death. I did all the routines that many of my regular readers will be aware of. I did some brief maintenance on my armour such as it was. I ensured that the edges of my spear and various knives were honed to a razor's edge and I ensured that those same blades were as well oiled and cared for as the could be. I was already obsessive over those details as I was well aware that I could have to make use of those weapons at a moments notice. I made sure that I was always well fed but not to the point of bloating myself up which meant that I spent a good amount of my day snacking rather than having some kind of large meal. I also made sure to drank plenty of water with only enough alcohol in it to make sure that I would catch no disease from it.

But there were differences too.

This was an enemy that I had faced before, and lost, and I was surprised how much it had made a difference in my own mind.

I had done things that were similar of course while travelling with Kerrass. I have faced similar monsters, Griffins, Ghosts, Necrophages and so on but in each case we had found the creature in question before defeating it and all the circumstances were slightly different meaning that the fight and the wait themselves were slightly different.

This time, we knew what we were facing and had faced them before which meant that I knew precisely what I had to be afraid of. I remembered the visions that I had seen at the foot of Sam's castle, the things that I had heard. I remembered the smell and the choking sense of raw terror as well as raw....wrongness is the right word. To know, somewhere that you can no longer depend on your sense of sight, hearing or smell. I found that I was terrified of this and as a result there was more of a sense that I had to keep myself busy in an effort to banish these fears.

There was plenty of things for me to do. I was still involved in helping to prepare the villagers. The village itself was as prepared as it was going to be but the villagers still needed work. Like me, they were feeling the fear in the coming situation and coming to dread what was going to happen. It was different for them and far more difficult because they had been trained to back down. Trained to be afraid of what was coming for us all and as a result they were attempting to overcome years, and indeed, generations of terror and trained cowardice.

They say that bravery cannot exist without fear. If that is true, and I believe that it is, then those villagers were amongst the bravest people I have ever met.

So we kept on training but it was also important occasionally to set the villagers down and get them to take a break. Like me they longed to do things, to move stuff to straighten things out. To rearrange defences that had been in place for days and had already been rearranged multiple times and now, could not possibly be in a more efficient way.

Sir Rickard did come up with a partial solution in that he came up with an odd version of tag. The children's game where the objective is to touch a person without being touched yourself except that in this version a tag is delivered by grabbing the person and forcing them down to the ground. It was a good way to alleviate some stress and certainly got the blood pumping.

It might have been my imagination but I noticed that the game got particularly brutal whenever Sir Rickard or myself joined in and I ended up nursing more than one bruise.

Got my revenge though.

Kerrass, just so you know..... I hope it hurt.

The other thing that we had to do was to continue to train. Why? Try fighting. Now try tying a scarf over your mouth and nose. Now make sure that that same scarf is wet.

There is an old saying by the fencing masters which is that “If you cannot see, you cannot fight. If you cannot hear, you cannot fight and if you cannot breathe, you cannot fight.” This scarf over the air-ways didn't mean that you couldn't breathe but it did make things more difficult. I won't deny that most of that difficulty was in my head but at the same time that was something that needed to be overcome in order for us to continue.

Also there was a smell that came with the solution that Kerrass gave us to use. A knife edge kind of smell. Not entirely unpleasant but at the same time, it took some getting used to. It was a distraction that we didn't need but that we couldn't possibly do without.

So we trained, we fiddled with our defensive layout and deployment, arguing things out until there was nothing new to be said and nothing new to be done. But we argued anyway.

Every evening, after the evening meal had been served and people were beginning to settle down. Kerrass, myself, Sir Rickard and Edward the headman would get together on the lookout platform that was up on one of the roofs of the larger buildings. The idea being that the really good archers which were Dan and a man called Harris, would be able to lay in some shots wherever needed. In the meantime we kept a lookout there to let us know the first signs of a mist, or whether there was anything else that was strange going on in the undergrowth. Dan, the old poacher, was particularly skilled at this. There were multiple times where he would send a small group of hunters off into the undergrowth to go looking for a stag, some boar or some game birds that his old eyes had managed to spot, deep in the undergrowth. All other times, he would just stand there, cradling his War-bow and alternating between singing softly to himself and chewing a large supply of tobacco.

Harris was a good man, quiet and dependable. He was utterly unremarkable in his manner or his outfit. Polite to a fault unless he'd been drinking. He didn't do this often but when he did, he had a thirst that was all consuming and would, or so I'm told, be found having blacked out on his way to wherever he was due to spend the night. Rickard described him as the best “killer” in the unit. When I asked him what he meant he looked me in the eye.

“There are some people in this world who are just good at killing. That is their talent and they are good at it. The rest of us need to be taught how to kill. We have an instinct to not kill and then we have a tendency to pull our blows at the last moment.”

“Kerrass has told me something similar.”

“And he would be right. That man,” Rickard pointed at Harris who was chatting amiably with a villager. “Is a killer. He's not a bad man, he's relatively moral. He likes his women willing or he would rather do without. He doesn't steal, he only argues with people if he knows that he is correct or if he doesn't understand something. He is the most open to new knowledge person that I've ever met, including yourself, and if he'd been born in a slightly higher social position in life then he could have been your peer in the scholarly art. He's always asking questions and shuts up when what is really needed is his obedience. But there is not a better killer in the unit. He goes from quiet to man of violence with a speed that is bewildering and there is no man that is better at it in the squad.”

“I don't get it.”

Sir Rickard considered for a moment. “Dan is a better shot. But if I really want someone dead and the shot isn't that difficult, I would rather get Harris to do it. Jenkins is a better knife man and has a thirst for the killing but if I need a sentry taken out quickly and quietly then I send Harris. I can't explain it better than that. Taylor is a better swordsman and teaches all of us how to be better with the sword but if it came to a straight fight then I would put my money on Harris. I can't say fairer than that. It's not a talent for violence, it's a talent for killing.

“Most soldiers have this kind of explosive reaction to a battle or a fight.” He went on. “The release of all that fear, doubt and anger can leave a person feeling fairly light-headed and it's this that leads to the stereotype of a soldier getting drunk and hitting the brothels hard after a battle. That confirmation of life. But one of the things that they do is to tell each other stories, bragging up their capabilities and telling each other how many men they killed and how many they fought off. Most of this is bragging and the proper maths to figure out what each man accomplished is to take that number, halve it and then make adjustments according to the soldiers experience and character. The scary ones. The ones that you need to keep an eye on and avoid, are the men who walk back into camp. Clean their weapons and gear carefully before walking off and being carefully quiet for a few moments. They're the scary ones.”

I still didn't get it but I didn't push it any further.

But the four of us, Kerrass, Rickard Edward and myself would gather, giving Harris and/or Dan the opportunity to go to the Jacks or to get themselves something to eat while we discussed the state of the situation. We were as ready as we were ever going to be but I think that we needed to get together to discuss matters as much as anything else. For our own piece of mind.

By this point we were onto discussing contingencies.

There are several great military minds that have put their thoughts down on paper over the years but our thinking reminded me of one piece of advice from a book that Father had given me when he was still trying to turn me into a military man. “Be wary of making your plans too complicated.” The general said, I wish I could remember his name now as I would like to give him the credit that he deserves. It goes on to say that “No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy and this is the reason that plans should not be too complicated. Keep your plans simple and to the point but then spend all your time on contingencies for when your plan inevitably goes wrong.”

So that's what we did. Dreaming up more and more creative ideas as to what we were going to do if and when things did go wrong. It wasn't all pointless. We had filled barrels full of water and had stacked more buckets for the carrying of said water for if the Hounds brought fire. Then Rickard had asked what would happen if the Hounds used burning pitch which isn't put out by fire so we also had boxes of dirt ready for the smothering of the flames as well.

We actually got quite creative, up to and including what we were going to do if the Hounds turned up with some kind of battering ram to knock down the walls (we deepened the ditch, added stakes of wood and loose rock and built a slope of earth up to our palisade.) and had even wasted far too much of our lives discussing what we were going to do if the enemy turned up with siege towers.

Note the plural there.

But generally we would all agree that nothing was going to happen tonight before retiring to our beds letting Dan or Harris resume their watch.

I remember that I was the first one up there on the platform that day. I was in my shirtsleeves, sat, watching the sun go down while reminding myself, not for the first time, that this really was a beautiful patch of countryside.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Kerrass asked as he perched next to me.

“You wouldn't get your moneys worth.” I told him. I offered him the water bottle which he took taking a long swig. “They're taking their bloody time to get here.” I said. “I thought that we would have been attacked days ago.”

“Give them time.” Kerrass said, passing the bottle back. It was not a new conversation and this was one of the things that was adding to my general sense of depression. “Give them time,” he said again. “It's only been a little over a week and we're heading into summer now, the mists are going to get fewer and fewer and they are probably waiting for the next real one.”

“Not a nice thought.” I said. “I want to move on Kerrass.”

“Where to?”

I shrugged. “That's the problem though. I want to move on. I want to feel the road between my feet and to have a lead to follow but I honestly cant think of a single thing to do or to say or to get on with. I can think of no new questions and no places to go and the pursuit of the remnants of this cult are the best chance I have towards finding out what happened to Francesca which means that I have to stay here. But I don't have to like it.”

This was still not a new conversation. We went over these points on an almost daily basis where I would suggest new things to do and Kerrass would shoot them down, or he would suggest other ideas and I would shoot them down. This was a relatively tame version of this argument.

This time though, Kerrass chose to sit in silence.

“Any other news?” I asked him.

“Nah, Sir Rickard is pleased with the progress of a couple of the villagers and their shooting and even dared to suggest that he could make decent archers out of them in another week or so. It put the fear into a couple of the mothers hereabouts as they thought that the lads would run off and join the Bastards on some kind of adventure.”

I nodded. “Will they?”

“Nah, I think Rickard was buttering them up to be honest.” He scratched his chin. “Oh and he made a run for it again.”

“Again?”

Kerrass nodded.

He was a farmer from one of the outlying farms. He was relatively new to the area and was, as far as anyone was in this area of the world, relatively well to do. He had brought in a number of fairly new farming innovations and as a result was better able to work the land that he had been given and so was better off than many of his neighbours. He would still be looked down on by many of the gentlemen farmers around Novigrad and Oxenfurt as well as Temeria and Aedirn but in this case, wealth is relative. His farm buildings were extensive and he was able to employ a dozen young men to work his fields which made him something of an important man. Most of the local farms were entirely family run by the father and maybe an uncle or two with their wives sons and daughters. This man had employees.

He was the man who had complained the loudest and with the most venom when the orders had been given that people needed to move out of their homes to come to the village. He had tried to sneak off with his sons on several different occasions to see to the farm rather than to help protect the village. He was a little stymied by the fact that his wife, who was equally well-to-do in the local area was good friends with Edward's wife and heavily involved with the worship of Crom Cruarch, was on our side. His first escape attempt had been thwarted by an argument with his wife on the subject, she had told Edward's wife who had passed it onto Edward who had, in turn, passed it on to Rickard.

He had tried three times since then. On average once every other night. We were still fairly suspicious about this kind of thing on the grounds that it could be some kind of attempt to make contact with the Hounds or some of their other agents so Kerrass and a couple of the bastards had arranged to let him go and follow him. He made it back to his farm and spent a bit of time moaning about non-existent attacks and beginning to nail wood over the windows before and the other bastards scared the crap out of him and all but carried him back to the village.

We were pretty confident that he was as innocent as a man can be about this kind of thing but at the same time.

“Does he not realise that we're doing this for his own protection?” I wondered aloud, not for the first time either.

“Believe me when I say Freddie, that they never realise that kind of thing.”

We sat together in silence watching the sun go down and passing the water bottle between us. It was oddly peaceful.

“Where is Rickard?” I said suddenly turning around to look around the village. “I'm beginning to get the feeling that nothing's going to....” happen today was what I was going to say. Another of our little traditions that we had picked up over the last few days. We knew that we weren't going to be attacked after the sun had gone down and so the next point of danger was going to be when the sun was coming up. I normally said this infamous phrase just as it was becoming clear that there wasn't going to be anything happening that night and so I was getting ready to get my head down and get some rest to get ready for the early morning wake-up call that was normally administered by the toe of Kerrass' boot.

This time though, this was not going to be the case.

Like it had last time, I felt the wind change and smelled dampness on the air. It was almost exactly the same as the previous time that I described it so I won't go over it again here. The difference? This time I knew what was going to happen and I felt a surge of adrenaline.

I spun, Kerrass just a split second ahead of me and we stared at the mountainside above us, looking for that first telltale wisp of cloud that told us that things were beginning to happen.

I turned back to look at the setting sun to check the colour. If the sun was yellow then the conventional wisdom was that we had nothing to fear.

It wasn't though was it. It was reddening almost visibly as I watched.

I spun back to stare at the mountainside and as I did so I had the sense that the entire village, almost the entire world was watching with me to see what was going to happen.

Then we saw it. It didn't form on the side of the mountain like it had the last time I had been in this place and watched the mist begin to form. This time it seemed to rise out of the ground. Like a slowly rising water level, lifting itself up and up until it swallows the stone, stone sand and bits of shell on the shore.

It looked oddly peaceful and reminded me of the way that a thick blanket would lie across the body of a naked woman on a cold day.

I smirked. If ever there was a time to not be thinking of things like that then this was it.

Then the edges of the mist began to take on that kind of silvery red hue that we had been waiting for with almost a sense of dread and excitement.

It was finally here. We would finally have the chance to try out Kerrass' remedy and, if it worked, get some catharsis.

If it worked.

I wanted to scream and shout. I wanted to ring the alarm bell and scream a warning at the top of my lungs. “BLOOD MIST” I wanted to yell, my voice cracking as I tried to project those words as far as they would go.

But that wouldn't work. Indeed, we had deliberately not installed an alarm bell for precisely that reason, a suggestion of mine even. An alarm, or the sound of one of the outsiders that had come here to keep them all safe running around like a chicken with his head cut off would be just the kind of thing that would cause a panic resulting in our doing half the hounds job for them. The Bastards could run about and shout orders but it was imperative that Kerrass, Rickard and myself appear calm and unruffled.

With a stark grin Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder and climbed down from the platform. He was on his way to take on a, probably, dangerous number of Witcher potions. If his remedy didn't work, it was only Kerrass who could be depended on to fight with any kind of effectiveness.

I watched the mist for a suitable amount of time so that it would appear that Kerrass was all but taking a nonchalant stroll before descending from the platform myself. Dan climbed up the ladder after I got to the ground before Harris and he hauled up a couple of bags of arrows up to the platform. I nodded at Jenkins who had been hanging around, practically dancing from foot to foot with excitement at the prospect of finally getting some action. He was pale and sweating, reminding me of a man who was starving for something to eat.

I managed to keep myself from shuddering.

“Combatants to their posts please Jenkins.” I told him. He nodded and carefully marched off. Keeping to the calm military cadence that I guessed these soldiers learned on the parade ground. Arms swinging, Legs marching.

He whistled as he went and I shook my head.

Harris chuckled at me. “He'll be alright once he gets a couple of scalps.” he said as he tied a rope onto another bag of arrows for Dan to haul up to the platform.

“Scalps?” I swallowed.

“Yeah, not literally though.” He seemed to consider this. “Although he has been known to take other souvenirs.”

This time I did shudder.

“Wait a second.” I commented after a moments thought. “You think you could tell me anything and I'll believe you don't you?”

Harris shrugged. “It's worked before.”

I told him to fuck off and left at my own carefully moderate pace to the sound of Harris' laughter. Another thing that the villagers could do with seeing and hearing. Laughter is the enemy of fear after all. Or so I'm told.

I went to the small area of the communal hut that I shared with Kerrass. He was knelt on his sleeping mat, legs tucked under him. His swords were laying flat on the ground behind him and he had four potion bottles within easy reach of his right hand. Two were green although one of those had silver flecks in while the other was cloudy. There was a purple one and one where the bottle was made out of some kind of pottery. He was already wearing another harness which had several other potions in. I recognised the bottle he used for what he called “White Honey,” that almost magical substance that could remove all poisons and intoxicants from the body.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't that Witchers are immune to poison and toxic substance, it's just that their tolerance is far higher than that of normal people. Put enough in their bodies and they will still be overwhelmed so Kerrass was taking proportions.

I chose not to disturb him. He was pale, sweating profusely and was absolutely rigid. So much so that I honestly believe that if a couple of men came and picked him up then he would keep his current kneeling shape without his other limbs falling out of his current stance.

I noticed that he had a towel near by as well as a large bottle of water.

For many of you, I have no doubt that you have been reading my journals since they first began being published but there is a point here that bears repeating. Look at what we made of the Witchers. Look at what we expect of them and look at what we made them expect of themselves. Look at what we made them do. How would you feel if you had to take a bunch of drugs, both relaxants and stimulants before going to work?

Actually that doesn't sound too unpleasant now that I write it down but then imagine that those self-same drugs are also poisoning you and you still have to function well enough to do your job well otherwise you would be killed. Doesn't sound as pleasant now does it.

For my part. I needed to dress in my own armour and strap my equipment about myself. I had carefully prepared everything only that morning, ensuring that my weapons were sharp and oiled and that I had everything that I wanted. But I always want to check. Apparently this is a soldier's habit and a soldiers anxiety. The sure knowledge that your equipment being in a properly working and maintained order will save your life is a bulwark of confidence that you badly need when you know that you are about to put your body in the way of extreme danger.

There are times when I look at the sort of man that I am becoming and wonder if those self-same changes are not necessarily for the better and there and then, I resolved that once the matter of Francesca's disappearance is resolved, I will prop my spear up in the corner. Hang my dagger above the hearth and have my armour converted into something useful. I will settle down with Ariadne and help to run our estates while devoting myself to scholarly work and to the happiness of my wife.

As I say that though, I know it for the falsehood that it is. I will no longer trust that I will be safe and I will, except in those circumstances where I will be unable to carry personal arms with me, always have my dagger in my belt and I will always, always know where my spear is.

I will even take steps to ensure that it is never too far from me any given time.

Part of me registers that this change is quite a sad thing.

But not now. Now I had enemies to kill and answers to find. I felt my lips draw back into a snarl of readiness and a hunger for action that I had to ruthlessly quell before it threatened to become overwhelming. I wondered if we were already being gassed and whether or not it was affecting me.

But now wasn't the time to worry about that.

I stepped out into the evening air to find that the mist was already beginning to creep into the village surroundings. I marched over to one of the water buckets and took the scarf from around my neck. Gave it a thorough soaking in the barrel before tying it around my neck in a way that would make it easy to lift up into position with relatively little notice or warning.

The smell was overpowering. Not a bad thing, not by any means but it was still strong enough to make my eyes water and I found myself wondering if the local smell would be enough to deter whatever fumes that the Hounds would be putting out.

Probably not. No such luck and all that.

The village was gathering beneath the look-out platform. Sir Rickard was on the top of it. The bastards milled about in amongst the crowd. I had expected them to be taking up positions already but then I noticed the pattern. They were standing next to the more opinionated villagers. Those men and women that thought that they were right and that things were going wrong.

Rickard was protecting himself from troublemakers.

I saw out of the corner of my eyes that Kerrass had emerged from the house that we all used. He did so furtively before slipping off into the deepening gloom. I can't say that he was wrong to do so. His face had taken on the chalk white, black-veined palour that was familiar to me but I couldn't imagine any of the villagers taking the sight of Kerrass' visage too well when they were already expecting eldritch creatures from hell to come and get them. I thought I saw him slink off in the direction of his post before I turned back to watch Rickard.

Edward had climbed the ladder to join him and was talking in his ear.

Rickard nodded before looking up and seeming almost startled at the presence of so many people. He nodded and stepped towards the edge of the platform looking out at the assembly and waited until everyone was quiet.

It didn't take long and I again I thought that the reason that he had been lifted from the ranks of “common” (not my words. Such men are anything but common) soldiery and knighted was because it was impossible for such a man to stay in the ranks. He dominated the area.

He looked like he was going to make a speech. If this was one of the bard's sagas then that would be what happened. A rousing speech to stir the hearts of the watching villagers and soldiers and prepare them for the coming battle. A few last minute instructions maybe but no.... Rickard looked out over everyone and simply nodded his satisfaction as if to suggest that he was pleased with what he saw.

“Good hunting,” he said simply. Then the bastards themselves along with their huge sergeant were the ones that started to give the instructions. Chasing the non-combatants to safety and pushing those villagers who had chosen to fight into their places.

A thought struck me and I have no way to back it up or to prove it. I have heard that many generals give a speech before battle, some crack jokes and lead by knowing the names of every man under their command. Still others are cold and remote, expecting the highest of standards before leading their men to victory. I know this but at the time I remember thinking that “Leaders know when to make a speech. Good leaders know what to say. Great leaders know when to say nothing at all.”

I reminded myself to write it down later.

I wasn't alone in being surprised at the lack of speech though. I heard more than one villager comment that they had expected more when it came to this kind of thing as they allowed themselves to be ushered towards the cave of the God and relative safety. I rewarded myself with a quick smile before turning towards my post where Kerrass would be waiting for me.

I could feel the beginning of combat readiness wash over me. That strange state of mind that is driven by the fear of what is about to happen coupled with the body's reaction to it. Since beginning these journeys, and something that I may have mentioned before, I have acquainted myself with the science of what is happening to the body at times like this. I know the names of the hormones and chemicals that are flooding my system. I know the emotions that I am reacting too, fear, anger and a certain amount of....no I will say it...lust for the release of it. I realised that I was beginning to enjoy this feeling and look forward to it.

Another sign that I needed to begin thinking about setting aside my spear.

All of these thoughts and feelings were being amplified by the chemicals that were in the air of course. It was slightly different from last time at the castle. I don't know why, a couple of people have suggested that the reason for this would be my own state of mind and combat readiness. My bodies reaction to the knowledge of knowing what was about to happen.

I can't answer for that. All I can tell you is what it felt like.

I had a strange feeling that time was becoming elongated, almost stretched. Sounds began to feel as though they were coming to me from a long way off and they echoed inside my head in an odd way. I realised what was happening when I began to see the edges of my sight begin to quiver and the strange smells started to assail my nostrils as well. The odd scent of rotten eggs combined with wood smoke and something that made me think of hot metal and boiling vinegar as well as chewing nuts. The kind that they serve in Toussaint as part of their every day hospitality.

I got my still damp scarf up and around my face fairly quickly then. The smells were quickly masked by the perfume of the stuff that Kerrass had mixed together but I could still taste those odd smells on my tongue. I had a brief and ridiculous urge to suck some of the moisture out of my scarf and gargle with it in an effort to clean these poisons out of my throat but I settled for quickly lowering the scarf to hawk and spit by the side of the path.

Kerrass was crouched on our little step, still as a statue. He was hiding below the parapet so that he could see what was going on but, hopefully, remain unseen by any of the people who were doubtlessly approaching the village even as I watched. Hidden to allow our foes to enter the village before we would close the way behind them to cut off their retreat. He was poised on the balls of his feet, unmoving, barely breathing and utterly still and calm. Nothing that I could ever imagine being able to do, both swords on his back and ready for anything.

I felt myself grimace in anticipation of finally seeing some action. A facial expression somewhere between a grin and a snarl with a little bit of a sneer thrown in there for good measure. I took a deep breath, through the scarf, taking in the herbal smell in the hope that this would allow me to know the difference between what I was feeling and what the Hound's poisons were making me feel.

I climbed up onto the step behind Kerrass so that he could leap forward without being hindered by me and settled in to wait.

“After all this preparation,” I began, more of a way to hear myself speak than anything else. Like all other sound, my voice seemed to echo and come from a long way off. “They'd better actually be coming.”

At first I didn't think that Kerrass was going to say anything but then his voice came, grating out like steel scraping across flint and showering the ground with sparks. The best kind of sound he can make when full of potions.

“They are coming.”

I waited to see if anything else was going to come forth but nothing did.

But then they did come. Three Hounds walked their horses from the treeline and approached the village slowly.

They looked....different. So different that I wanted to laugh aloud. How I could ever have mistaken these....these things for anything other than human beings wearing elaborate costumes was suddenly a mystery to me.

Bipedal and blatantly riding horses they visibly had two arms and two legs and a head. All limbs present and accounted for in their proper configuration. I guessed that their sense of “otherness” came from their clothing and their weapons. They were wearing odd, leather coats with voluminous sleeves and hoods. So much so that I wondered how they could possibly do anything without the hoods falling over their eyes. The coats were sewn and riveted together from an almost patchwork of different cloths and skins. Some were obviously leather but I could also see fur patches and cloth patches. The fur seemed to be across the shoulders mostly where there were also fringes of long, hair that hung down the backs of the coats.

There were, to be fair, odd shapes as part of the cloaks which pronounced their limbs oddly. They had elbow spikes for instance and long, rounded shoulders much higher than the sides of their heads. There were similar spikes on their knees and the ends of their shoes were pointed on both ends which inspired me to get one of the Hounds off his horse and see how he fought with those ludicrous things on his feet.

Their horses were strange as well, there was something dripping from the horses hair and their coats which seemed to burn as though fire was rippling across their bodies. They wore odd shaped barding and strange plates and a hodge podge of armour that added to their otherworldliness. Looking back I find that I felt sorry for those horses. That stuff can't have been pleasant to wear.

As I say, in my heightened emotional state along with the herbs that the Kerrass was using on us all and the poisons that the Hounds were pumping into the atmosphere. I was almost giddy and found the sight comical.

“Well,” I commented to Kerrass with a smirk. “Your herbs are working then.”

Kerrass said nothing.