It happened on the fifth day of September, after the new moon, on exactly the thirtieth day of our expedition – beginning with our departure from Brokilon, and six days after the Battle on the Bridge.
Now, my future readers, I will go back in time a little and describe the events that took place immediately after the glorious and momentous Battle on the Bridge. First, however, I want to bring a number of readers into the picture, those that have no knowledge of the Battle of the Bridge – whether it be due to other interests or as a result of general ignorance. So:
That battle took place on the last day of August during the Great War. It was fought in Angren, on the bridge connecting the two shores of the river Yaruga near a fortress called the Red Binduga. The forces in that armed conflict were: the Army of Nilfgaard, The Army Corps of Lyria – led by Queen Meve, and us, our wonderful company – myself, the writer of these lines, the witcher Geralt, the vampire Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, the archer Maria Barring , called Milva, and Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, a Nilfgaardian who tended to stress, with an obstinacy that was worthy a better cause, that he was not a Nilfgaardian.
You, reader, might be unclear on how the Queen came be alive and in Angren, as you may have heard that she disappeared and perished along with her army when the Nilfgaardians thrust into Lyria, Rivia and Aedirn in July, which ended with the complete subjugation of those countries and their occupation by Imperial troops. Meve was not, however, killed in battle as was supposed, nor even taken into Nilfgaardian captivity. After they had regrouped, the brave Meve and a large portion of the survivors of the Lyrian Army recruited everyone they could, including mercenaries and ordinary bandits, and launched a guerrilla war against Nilfgaard. And wild Angren suited such a guerrilla war ideally – whether they needed a thicket to spring an ambush from or a thicket to hide in, Angren accommodated them. Because in Angren there are thickets everywhere. In fact, there is nothing in that area worth mentioning, except the thickets.
Meve's Crowd – which the army of the White Queen became known as – grew rapidly in strength and developed such bravado that they fearlessly crossed to the left bank of the Yaruga, deep behind enemy lines, in order to camp and harass the enemy to their heart's desire.
Here we return to our subject, namely the Battle on the Bridge. The tactical situation looked like this: Queen Meve's forces, after having camped on the left bank of the Yaruga for some time, wanted to flee to the right bank. However, they met a group of Nilfgaardians on the bridge who, after having camped on the right bank of the Yaruga for some time, wanted to flee to the left bank. We entered the above-mentioned situation from a central position, that is, starting from the middle of the river Yaruga and surrounded by armed men on both
sides, right and left. Since we could thus escape to nowhere, we became heroes, covered with immortal fame. The battle was won by the Lyrians because they achieved what they intended, namely to escape to the right bank. The Nilfgaardians, who had fled in an unknown direction, had lost the battle. I realize that this all sounds pretty confusing and I promise to consult a military theorist before publishing. For now I am relying on the authority of Cahir aep Ceallach, the only soldier in our company – and Cahir has confirmed that, from the perspective of most military doctrines, winning a battle through the rapid escape of the battlefield is allowed.
Without a doubt, our company's part in the battle was glorious, however it had some negative effects. Milva, who was pregnant, suffered a tragic accident. Luck was kind enough to hold for the rest of us and no one else suffered serious harm. However, it soon wore off because we received no rewards, only thanks. The exception was the witcher Geralt.
Because, contrary to his often proclaimed – and, as you can see, hypocritical – indifferent attitude and his often declared neutrality, the witcher Geralt displayed equally large and overly-spectacular zeal on the battlefield. In other words: He fought so remarkably well that it was impossible not to notice. And indeed, it did not go unnoticed – Meve, the Queen of Lyria, personally knighted him. However, this accolade soon revealed more inconveniences than advantages.
You must know, dear reader, that the witcher Geralt was always a modest, uncomplicated, balanced, and controlled man, who kept his feelings to himself and was as straightforward as a halberd shaft. However, the unexpected promotion and apparent favour of Queen Meve changed him – had I not known him better, I would have said that the glory had gone to his head. Rather than quickly and anonymously vanishing from the scene, Geralt rode around in the royal camp, delighting in the honour, enjoying the patronage and basking in the glory.
But fame and attention were the last things we needed. To those to who have forgotten, I call to mind that the afore-mentioned witcher Geralt, now knighted, was wanted in connection to the uprising on Thanedd, the island of magicians, by the intelligence services of all four kingdoms. To me, a person who has never been guilty of anything, they tried to attach the charge of espionage. In addition was Milva who, as it turned out, had collaborated with the Dryads and the Scioa'tael and had been involved in the infamous massacres of people on the edges of Brokilon Forest. On top of that was Cahir aep Ceallach, the Nilfgaardian who was, after all, a citizen of a hostile country, and whose presence on the wrong side of the front would not be easy to explicate and justify. As it turned out, the only member of our company whose career was not tainted with political or criminal affairs, was a vampire.
Therefore, it was sufficient that only one of us needed to be exposed and identified in order to bring sharpened aspen stakes on all of us. Every day we spent in the shadow of Lyrian flags – which at first were spent comfortably, well fed and safe, by the way – increased the risk.
When I strongly reminded Geralt of this, his face darkened a little, but he presented his motives to me, of which he had two. First, Milva still needed nursing and care after her unfortunate accident and there were field medics with the army. Second, Queen Meve's army
was travelling east, towards Caed Dhu. Before our company had been forced to change direction and had been caught in the battle described above, we had also been travelling east, towards Caed Dhu – because we were hoping the Druids who live there could give us information that would be useful in the search for Ciri. Rampant horsemen and marauding mercenaries in Angren had been the reason we were forced to stray from the straight path to the Druids. Now, under the protection of friendly Lyrian army, and with the favour and affection of Queen Meve, we could openly travel the way to Caed Dhu, easily and safely.
I warned the witcher that the Queen's apparent favour was fickle and deceptive. The witcher would not listen. However, it was soon shown who was right. When news arrived from the east that a Nilfgaardian punitive expedition was marching to Angren from Klamat pass, the Lyrian army turned north without hesitation, towards Mahakam. As one can easily imagine, Geralt did not like this change of direction – he wanted to reach the Druids as quickly as possible, not Mahakam! Naive as a child, he rushed to Queen Meve to receive a discharge from the army and the royal blessing for his private affairs. And at that moment the royal grace and favour came to an end, and the respect and admiration for the heroes of the Battle on the Bridge scattered like smoke. The knight Geralt of Riva was reminded in a cold, but firm tone of his duties to the Crown. The still-ailing Milva, the vampire Regis and the author of these lines were advised to join the column of refugees and civilians who followed the camp. Cahir aep Ceallach, a tall young man who looked nothing like a civilian, had a blue and white sash tied to him and was assigned to the so-called Free Company – a cavalry unit comprised of all sorts of scum the Lyrian Corps had picked up along the way. And so we were separated and it looked like it our expedition had come to a definite and irrevocable conclusion.
As you can imagine, dear reader, that was by no means the end. Yes, it was not even the beginning! As soon as Milva learned of the development of things, she immediately declared herself to be healthy and fit for travel – and issued the watchword to escape at the first opportunity. Cahir threw the royal colours in the bushes and disappeared from the Free Company, and advised Geralt to do the same from the exquisite luxury tents of the knighthood.
I will not indulge details about myself – my modesty does not allow me to highlight my own achievements in the company's escape – though they were not small. I will only state the facts: On the night between September fifth and sixth, our company quietly left the Corps of Queen Meve. Before we said farewell to the Lyrian army, we did not miss the opportunity to restock our provisions, where we were caught without permission by the quartermaster.
Milva used the word ‘robbery’, but I think it is too strong. After all, we deserved a bonus for our participation in the memorable Battle for the Bridge. And if not a reward, at least satisfaction and compensation for the losses suffered. Apart from Milva's tragic accident and the numerous injuries and wounds Geralt and Cahir had sustained, all of our horses had been killed or maimed in the battle – excepting my trusty Pegasus and the wayward Roach, the mare of the witcher. So, as recompense, we took three thoroughbred horses and a pack horse. We also provided ourselves with as much equipment as we could fit into our hands – in fairness I should add that we threw half of it away later. As Milva noted before we started, if
you steal in the dark, you don't know what you are getting. The most fiscally useful things came from the cache of the vampire, who sees better in darkness than in daylight. Regis also reduced the combat power of the Lyrian army by one fat, mouse gray mule, which he so ably led from the camp that not once did the animal neigh or stamp. Therefore, the stories of how animals sense vampires and react to their smell with panic must be dismissed as a myth – at least when it comes to certain animals and certain vampires. I should add that we still have this mouse-gray mule today. Later, after the pack horse was frightened by wolves and abandoned us in the forests of Riverdell, the mule bore all of our belongings – or rather what was left of them. The mule is called Draakula. It received the name from Regis just after he had stolen it, and retains it to this day. The name obviously amused Regis, and must surely have had some humorous meaning in the culture and language of vampires, but when we wanted him to explain it to us, he claimed that it was an untranslatable play on words.
So our company was on the road again, and the already lengthy list of people who had something against us had become even longer. Geralt of Rivia, the knight without fear and without reproach, left the ranks of knighthood before his accolade was notarized and before the heraldic coat of arms he had devised was patented. Cahir aep Ceallach – who had already fought with, and deserted, armies on both sides of the Great War between the Northern Kingdoms and Nilfgaard – had earned himself death sentences in absentia from both. The rest of us were in no better positions – the noose is the noose, and it is ultimately not a big difference, the only difference is for what – for defilement of chivalry, desertion, or that you have given a military-mule the name of Draakula.
It should not surprise you then, reader, that we displayed truly titanic efforts to increase and maximize the distance between us and the Corps of Queen Meve.
With the borrowed horses, we rode south to Yaruga and crossed over to the left bank.
Certainly not only to put the river between us and the Queen with her guerrillas, but because the solitude of Riverdell was far less dangerous than the war-captured Angren. And so we logically travelled to the Druids of Caed Dhu on the left bank instead of on the right.
Paradoxically – because the left bank of the Yaruga already belonged to the enemy, The Empire of Nilfgaard. The father of the concept to travel the left bank was the witcher Geralt, who, after resigning from the brotherhood of knightly braggarts, had recovered a considerable extent of his rational, logical thinking and his usual caution. The future showed that the witcher's plan was momentous and strongly influenced the fate of the whole drizzling, there was a disgusting wind, and it was so cold that our teeth chattered. I cannot
remember such a cold September, even though I have many of those months in my memory. It was then, dear reader, that I rummaged through the equipment that we had borrowed from the Lyrian camp, found a pencil and paper, and began – to kill time and forget the inconveniences – to write down and eternalize some of our adventures.
The depressing rainy weather and the forced idleness spoiled the mood and provoked dark thoughts to arise in us. Especially in the witcher. Geralt had earlier acquired the habit of calculating the days he had been separated from Ciri – and every day that he was not travelling, as he said, separated them more and more. Well, in the wet willows, in the cold and the rain, the witcher grew darker and more grim by the hour. I also noticed that he was limping badly, and if he believed that no one can see or hear him, he cursed and hissed in pain. You must know, dear reader, that Geralt's bone had been shattered during the conference of mages on Thanedd. The fractures had mended and healed, thanks to the magical efforts of the Dryads of Brokilon Forest, but clearly still presented difficulties. So the witcher suffered, as they say, both physical and emotional pain, and he was so furious that he preferred to be ignored.
And again dreams began to haunt him. On the ninth of September – the morning, because he had stood guard all night and had not slept until then – he terrorized us all, for he jumped up with a cry and drew the sword. He looked like he was about to go berserk, but luckily he caught himself immediately.
He walked away, and came back soon after with surly face, proposing no more and no less than to immediately dissolve the company and to go on alone himself, because somewhere a terrible event had happened and time was short. He said it would be dangerous and he would not force anyone to take responsibility for anyone else. He spoke and grumbled so bleakly and without conviction that no one wanted to discuss it with him.
The usually eloquent vampire dismissed him with a shrug, Milva spat, and Cahir dryly recalled that he had already attempted to travel alone, but, in regards the risk, said that he who wears the sword should not complain about the belt. And then they all fell silent and focused their attention on the significant writer of these lines, no doubt expecting that I would take the opportunity to return home. I need not add that they were very mistaken.
The event, however, led us to make an end to our miasma, and provided the impetus for a bold act – crossing the Yaruga. I confess that I worried about the operation – the plan called for, namely, crossing the river at night while swimming, or, as Milva and Cahir put it, ‘being towed by the horse's cocks’. Even if they were speaking metaphorically – and I suspect that they were – I could not imagine myself on such a crossing on my gelding Pegasus, on whose cock I would have to rely. Swimming, generally speaking, was not and is not my particular strength. If Mother Nature had intended that I swim, she would have, over the course of evolution, equipped me with webbed fingers and toes. The same thing was true of Pegasus.
My fears proved unfounded – at least when it came to be towed by a horse's cock. We crossed over a different way. Who knows, perhaps it was even more insane. In a truly bold way – on the reconstructed bridge at Red Binduga, right under the eyes of Nilfgaardian
guards and patrols. It turns out that the operation only appeared to be insane insolence and a deadly game of chance, when in fact, everything went like clockwork. Following the infantry lines across the bridge was a caravan of transport wagons, cattle herds, and all sorts of people, including people in plain clothes, with whom our company blended right in, unnoticed. And so on the tenth day of September we rode across to the left bank of the Yaruga. Only once were we questioned by a sentry, who Cahir, with a domineering frown, bluffed with the threat of some imperial service, underscoring his words with the traditional military and always effective salutation of ‘son of a bitch’. Before anyone arrived to investigate us, we were already on the left bank of the Yaruga, deep in the forests of Riverdell – where there was only one highway, leading south. To us, neither the direction of the highway nor the number of Nilfgaardians travelling on it was convenient.
At the first camp in the woods of Riverdell, I also had a strange dream – unlike Geralt I dreamed not of Ciri, but of the sorceress Yennefer. The dream was strange, worrisome – Yennefer was dressed, as usual, in black and white and flew through the air over a dark,
At the first camp in the woods of Riverdell, I also had a strange dream – unlike Geralt I dreamed not of Ciri, but of the sorceress Yennefer. The dream was strange, worrisome – Yennefer was dressed, as usual, in black and white and flew through the air over a dark,