At the Nilfgaardian central camp, the quartermaster’s office tent stood in the southeastern corner of the encampment.
Its leather flap had been rolled up, allowing daylight to spill inside and illuminate the map spread across the table.
Tavar Eggebracht sat behind the desk, wearing only a black military uniform instead of armor.
The top two buttons of his collar were undone.
One hand rested flat on the table, his fingers pinning down an unfolded letter.
The handwriting was hurried and crude, containing only two short lines.
The Velen agent has gone missing.
The rendezvous ship has not returned.
The cargo and equipment are unaccounted for.
His fingers tapped lightly against the paper.
Beneath it lay another document bearing the seal of the Nilfgaardian Imperial Quartermaster General’s Office.
It was the request he had submitted to write off a batch of military supplies.
Every listed item had been checked off, and the bottom of the form bore a bright red APPROVED stamp.
He had personally authorized those supplies to be withdrawn from the warehouse.
On the official books, every single piece had been listed as “scrapped.”
Originally, all of it should have ended up in the hands of his agent in Velen—used to capture people, transport them, and make him money before eventually being converted into a letter of recommendation from the Nilfgaardian Merchants’ Guild.
He reached into the drawer of the low desk and took out a pendant.
It was a triangular piece of solid gold.
At its hollow center was a blazing star surrounded by flames.
He still wasn’t qualified to wear it around his neck, yet every time he held it, his fingers always lingered on it a little longer.
The Merchants’ Guild—the Empire’s most influential organization—stood behind a vast network of powerful noble houses.
Guild members could legally appear in any city.
Even though the North and South were at war, a guild pass carried more weight than a military travel permit.
As long as he kept the Velen route running smoothly, another year or two of steady profits and clean transaction records would be enough to earn a recommendation letter.
His path of promotion had already reached its limit.
To climb any higher, seniority alone would no longer suffice.
He needed some influential figure to say a single sentence:
“This man is worth using.”
There was no way his agent in Velen had simply disappeared.
Nor could the rendezvous ship have sunk on its own.
It had been carrying cargo, equipment, and money.
Along with an entire shipload of Northern barbarians waiting to be delivered to their buyers.
None of that could simply vanish into thin air.
Someone had interfered with his operation.
Redania?
No.
Impossible.
Their forces were being crushed by the Nilfgaardian army along the Pontar River front.
They couldn’t possibly reach as far south as Velen.
Temerian remnants?
Temeria had already fallen.
Stray dogs without a master didn’t have the appetite to swallow an entire ship guarded by armed escorts.
That required manpower, equipment, and intelligence—things stray dogs simply didn’t possess.
He folded the letter, drew a quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and wrote several lines on a blank military order.
After finishing, he sealed it with wax and pressed his personal seal into it.
“Send for the captain of the scout corps.”
Someone outside the tent acknowledged the order, and footsteps quickly receded into the distance.
He couldn’t dispatch regular troops.
Any military deployment required a command order signed by the commanding officer, and no commander would authorize one over a “civilian trade route.”
Scouts, however, were a different matter.
Their deployment required no approval from the commanding officer.
The Quartermaster Corps maintained its own scout detachments, responsible for surveying supply routes and ensuring the security of logistical transport.
A seven-man squad.
Traveling light.
Fast in, fast out.
Confirm the camp’s condition.
Who was there.
How many. This story is hosted at g.com.
Where they came from.
Then, based on what they found, decide on the appropriate response.
If they were nothing more than bandits or a mercenary company, that would be easy enough.
Pay them to leave.
Or kill them.
If, against all expectations, some Northern lord had decided to extend his reach this far…
Then the response would have to be far harsher.
Whoever they were, they had meddled with his operation.
They would pay the price.
Not only would he reclaim the camp, he would also send a message to everyone else.
This route was off-limits.
Touch it, and you die.
The tent flap was lifted from outside, and a lean, tall scout captain stepped inside.
He stopped before the low desk, brought his heels together, and silently awaited his orders.
Tavar slid the sealed military order across the table.
“Seven men.
Travel light.”
The scout captain accepted it without asking where he was being sent.
Tavar tapped the edge of the desk one last time.
“Confirm the camp’s current status—their numbers, identities, defenses, and patrol patterns.
Observe only.
Do not make contact.
Once you’ve confirmed everything, withdraw immediately.”
The scout captain tucked the sealed orders inside his coat and gave a single nod.
…
Dusk came slowly to Velen.
As the last rays of sunlight filtered through the forest canopy, seven figures emerged from the shadows of the tree line and advanced along the edge of the undergrowth.
The tall, lean man at the front suddenly crouched and raised his left fist.
The six men behind him stopped in unison.
He pulled a brass spyglass from his belt—a single-tube model wrapped in strips of linen to prevent glare.
Raising it to his right eye, he aimed it across the river bend toward the clearing on the opposite bank.
Through the spyglass, the camp came into view.
Half the roof of the castle’s main keep had collapsed, but the courtyard wall had been repaired.
The ground behind it had been plowed into neat, orderly furrows.
People moved between the rows, barefoot, carrying hoes.
Not soldiers.
Civilians.
The camp gate stood open.
A soldier in a purple surcoat stepped through it, a longsword hanging at his waist and a bundle of spears slung over his shoulder.
He walked to the edge of the fields, leaned the spears against the wall, and said something to one of the civilians carrying a hoe.
The man stopped, wiped the sweat from his brow, and nodded.
Purple surcoat.
The collar of a mail hauberk showing beneath it.
Spears propped against a low wall.
Civilians carrying hoes.
Soldiers wearing mail.
Once he’d recorded everything, the scout leader slipped the spyglass back onto his belt and gestured behind him with his right hand.
The reconnaissance was complete.
Time to withdraw.
The seven men began moving back.
Then the scout at the front abruptly froze.
It wasn’t because he’d heard anything.
It was because he hadn’t.
The forest had suddenly become too quiet, as though every living thing had stopped breathing at the exact same moment.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
A man stood among the trees opposite him. Get faster updates on g.com.
A towering figure over 2 meters tall, shoulders so broad they nearly filled the gap between two tree trunks.
He held a two-handed battle axe.
Its blade rested on the ground, buried slightly in the earth, leaving a shallow groove.
The scout’s hand shot toward the hilt of his sword.
His fingers had barely brushed it when the giant moved.
The axe sliced through the bushes.
Through the air.
Then into the side of his breastplate.
He felt no pain.
Only an overwhelming force slamming into him from the side, lifting his entire body off the ground.
His breastplate split cleanly down the middle.
The torn steel curled inward, exposing the leather lining beneath.
His upper and lower body separated in an instant.
He crashed to the ground with his eyes still open.
The axe didn’t stop after cleaving through him.
Continuing its sweep, it slammed into the thigh of the young scout behind him.
The young man’s femur snapped beneath the blade like a dry branch.
With a sharp crack, it broke clean in two.
He collapsed sideways, one hand still gripping the hilt of his sword.
He never even managed to draw it.
The remaining five men all reacted the same way at almost the exact same instant.
Run.
There was no possibility of fighting.
They were scouts.
Leather armor.
Short swords.
Their mission was to avoid being seen.
Now they’d been spotted.
Spotted by a 2.2-meter monster who could swing a two-handed battle axe with one arm.
They sprinted toward the marsh.
None of them looked back.
Looking back slowed you down.
Slowing down got you killed.
Karl stood at the edge of the tree line, silently watching the five fleeing figures race desperately toward the depths of the swamp.
Old Gott had already drawn his sword and was about to charge after them when Karl raised an arm across his chest, stopping him.
“No need to chase them.”
His voice was quiet, yet carried the finality of a nail driven into wood.
Karl casually made a hand signal over his shoulder.
Five Battanian Fian Champions raised their bows almost simultaneously.
Before Old Gott could even react, five arrows were already screaming into the sky.
Three hundred paces away, the last Nilfgaardian soldier was struck in the back and pitched face-first into the mud.
The man in the lead, at least four hundred paces ahead, had an arrow punch clean through his thigh.
He screamed as he crashed into the marsh, carving a long, bloody trail through the muck.
Five arrows.
Five hits.
Old Gott stared, mouth hanging open.
“…What…
what the fuck…”
“That’s possible with a bow?”
He recognized the archer who had spoken before—the veteran who had sparred with Karl earlier.
The man turned toward him and said in clumsy Common, “Fian Champion.”
There was no pride in his voice.
Only the matter-of-fact certainty that this was exactly what a Battanian Fian Champion was supposed to do.
…
The bell announcing the end of the day’s work rang out from the courtyard.
The soldiers shouldered their spears and walked back from the fields.
Behind the walls, cooking smoke slowly began to rise.