Shadows Bleed

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The town of Merte is the only town separating the Fell-Lands from the Imperium capital of Vvarstor. It is small and garrisoned by an appropriately sized force of misfits and troublemakers not deemed suited to be assigned to a proper Imperium force. The soldiers in Merte were not to be taken seriously.

The hectares surrounding the village, for it was more that and less of a town, despite its official classification, were sparse and struggled to grow anything of real value, keeping Merte and its denizens in a constant state of malnourishment and fragility.

I contemplated stopping overnight in the village as we passed the junction along the road to Vvarstor, splitting to the north and Merte. However, I decided against the unnecessary detour; the countryside from here to the capital was safe, for the most part, and we would be able to find a location not far from the road to camp for the night.

Surely enough we set up to sleep in an empty field, the grazing cattle herded into their enclosure for the night. The sky was clear, stars shining brightly down and I envied them, envied their ability to be so detached from the happenings of the mortal world whilst being able to witness it all.

I wondered and could only hope that Bluepin was somewhere in the Fell-Lands looking up at the same stars. While I remained doubtful that he even survived, supposing that he did, Yehiva's pass is not the only way out of the Fell-Lands. There are numerous paths, many wider and more accommodating than Yehiva's. I had chosen that route as the fastest but paid for it in the loss of yet another friend.

"Wishing you'd done things differently won't change anything," Yennyfer whispered beside me.

"What do you mean?"

"You're thinking about Bluepin, Baller and Orepk, Druilo and Varik; all of our companions and friends, who have died in the last few days, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I suppose I am."

"It's easier not to, you know. There's nothing that will change it now."

"You're right. We can't change it, but reflection on past mistakes can help us to not make them again."

"That's assuming mistakes were made. You took us the only way we could go; had we landed at Banstead there's no telling what would have happened, we could all be rotting in an Imperial prison now instead of being free under the stars."

"Is the freedom worth it?" I asked, more of myself than her. She replied anyway.

"Of course! Freedom is worth any price for without freedom we're nothing more than pawns to be played and manipulated by others."

I didn't know how to respond to such a passionate argument, my mind straying to the shards in my chest and the promise of freedom I had been given should I follow them. I had done all they demanded of me and yet still I was a slave to the pre-defined societal structure of the world, a slave to the task set before me. Maybe this had been my fate all along.

"Nothing is worth this," I muttered a few moments later but Yennyfer had already drifted off, sleeping soundly beside me.

***

The morning came and went, seeing us packing our things and resuming our travels to bring us to Vvarstor by mid-afternoon. The clear skies of the previous night were shrouded by dark clouds, blotting out all but the most fervent of natural light.

Wrought-iron gates loomed ahead on the path to the capital. The walls of Vvarstor were some hundred metres tall and had never been breached. Of course, the city had only ever been besieged once since its construction at the dawn of Imperium rule five hundred years earlier. Before then invaders either had to cross the Fell-Lands to the east or take the fortress at Aedan's Breach to the north before they could even hope to reach the capital. The odds were stacked in favour of the capital.