Tavar Eggebracht stood in the shadows of the quartermaster warehouse, staring at a row of empty storage racks.
Until recently, those racks had held enough equipment to arm half a company—mail hauberks, breastplates, iron helmets, longswords, crossbows.
Every single piece had been labeled “Condemned Equipment.” Every item had been properly recorded.
Every one of them should have been making him money in the slave-catching operations throughout Velen.
Now they had vanished along with the rendezvous ship.
Along with the scout squad he had sent out.
Seven scouts.
Lightly equipped.
Ordered to move fast and return fast.
Their only mission had been to confirm the camp’s intelligence—observe only, make no contact.
Three days had passed without a single one returning.
If all seven had disappeared at the same time, it meant the enemy had not only discovered his scouts but possessed the capability to ensure that not one of them escaped.
That kind of control wasn’t the work of common bandits.
No bandit gang could wipe out that many elite military scouts without letting a single one get away.
He hesitated over whether to send his own troops.
That company of heavy infantry had taken him three years to build.
Its captain was a man he had personally promoted.
Equipment and supplies for that company always received top priority.
More than a hundred soldiers—every one of them a dependable force he could move in secret whenever he wished.
But deploying a fully organized company without going through its commanding officer wasn’t dangerous because of the paperwork.
In a place like Velen, he had a hundred ways to make deployment orders appear perfectly legitimate.
The real risk was the men.
Once the company moved out, every soldier involved would know where they were headed.
That camp contained evidence of his involvement in the slave trade.
It also contained records of military supply transfers.
The former wasn’t a serious concern.
The latter absolutely could not be exposed.
He couldn’t guarantee that every man in the company was one of his own.
Every additional person who learned what was hidden in that camp became another potential threat.
After spending so many years maneuvering within the army, he had learned one lesson above all others.
If someone else could dirty their hands for him, he would never dirty his own.
He pulled out a fresh sheet of stationery from the drawer.
After dipping his quill into the ink, he carefully revised the wording several times before folding the letter, sealing it with wax, and pressing his personal seal into it.
“Take this to Crow’s Perch.
Deliver it to the Baron.”
Someone outside the tent accepted the letter, and the sound of departing footsteps gradually faded away.
…
Inside the great hall of Crow’s Perch, the Baron slapped the letter onto the table.
The heavy oak table before him was carved with fleur-de-lis patterns that years of wear had nearly rubbed smooth.
“Hah…
a resistance army.”
The Baron couldn’t help laughing.
The sound rumbled deep from his chest, sending ripples across the wine in the goblet on the table.
“In Velen.”
He rose to his feet.
The chair legs scraped sharply across the stone floor.
His adjutant remained standing where he was, unmoving.
“I’ve spent so many years wallowing in this mud pit where even dogs can’t stand to stay.”
His fingers tapped against the letter.
“And now a Nilfgaardian quartermaster tells me a resistance force has sprung up in the southeast.
They hijacked an entire shipload of his equipment, wiped out his scout squad, and somehow assembled an organized military force…
right under my nose.”
“And I’d never even heard of them.”
The Baron slowly lowered himself back into his chair. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
He swirled the wine in his goblet twice without taking a drink.
“An organized armed force…”
He set the goblet back onto the table.
“So what’s he keeping his heavy infantry company for?
Breeding?”
“Only when something goes wrong does he suddenly remember I exist?”
“The quartermaster can’t deploy troops without bypassing his commanding officer,” the adjutant said.
“No commander would approve mobilizing a company over a civilian trade route.
Besides…”
“Besides what?”
“The scouts belonged to the quartermaster’s own establishment.
Seven of them died, yet he never reported it to his commanding officer.”
“That means the destination of that shipment wouldn’t survive an investigation.”
One corner of the Baron’s mouth curled upward.
It was an instinctive reaction whenever he caught the scent of something all too familiar.
He had served in the Temerian army for years.
No one understood the tricks of the quartermaster corps better than he did.
Condemned equipment.
Civilian salvage contractors.
Those words immediately assembled themselves into a complete picture in his mind.
“The old bastard had his smuggling route robbed.”
“Now his precious shipment is gone, and he wants to use me as the knife.”
“And how should we reply to him?”
The Baron shoved his chair back a little farther and planted both hands on the edge of the table.
“Go back?
Of course we’re going back.
Something happened on our turf.
If we don’t go back, we’re neglecting our duty.
Neglect your duty, and people start thinking you’re disloyal.
Once they think you’re disloyal…
you start attracting attention.”
“But how we go back—that’s my decision.”
His fingers tapped twice against the worn fleur-de-lis carved into the tabletop.
“A sweep?
Sure, we’ll conduct one.
But we’re short on manpower, so we can only send out a small reconnaissance team.
It’s a small team, they don’t know the roads, so they move slowly.”
“Then the weather’s been miserable lately—fog all the time.
They took a wrong turn, couldn’t find this so-called resistance camp, and had no choice but to come back empty-handed.”
The adjutant nodded and was about to leave when the Baron raised a hand.
“Wait.”
He walked over to the window.
The setting sun shone in from that direction, deepening every wrinkle on his face into narrow ravines.
“That shipment…
For him to feed so much equipment into that route, it wasn’t some petty operation.
Now the route’s gone, the equipment’s gone, and so are his men.
Anyone capable of pulling that off in Velen…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
After waiting a moment, the adjutant cautiously asked, “Do you think that armed force really exists?”
“I’m not sure.”
The Baron closed the window and turned around.
“But if someone can swallow an entire shipload of equipment and wipe out a whole scout squad on my territory without me knowing a thing…
then the next time they decide to make a move, I won’t know about that either.”
He returned to the long table, pulled a quill from the pen holder, and scribbled several lines onto a blank sheet of paper.
The handwriting was rough but forceful.
After folding the letter, he handed it to the adjutant. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Send that reconnaissance team out.
Have them make a loop to the south, then come straight back.”
“Meanwhile, tell our informants in the southeast to keep an eye out for anything unusual—strangers, unfamiliar faces, anything that shouldn’t be there but is.”
“If they find anything, give them this letter.”
The adjutant accepted the letter without unfolding it, slipping it directly inside his coat.
“Send the reconnaissance report to the Nilfgaardian camp.
Make sure the wording is appropriate.”
“After a thorough investigation, no organized resistance force has been found operating within Velen.”
“The attack is believed to have been carried out by roving bandits.
The garrison at Crow’s Perch will continue pursuing all leads and spare no effort in apprehending the suspects.”
“We also request reimbursement for the supplies expended during this operation.”
The Baron picked up his mug of ale, tipped his head back, and took a long drink before slamming it down onto the table.
“How the quartermaster interprets that report…
that’s the quartermaster’s problem.”
…
The manor.
Evening.
Rhoen sat at a table in the central courtyard.
Erwin came down the steps, a letter clutched tightly in his hand.
His pace was noticeably quicker than usual.
Stopping in front of Rhoen, he placed the letter on the table.
“Rhoen, you’ll never guess who sent this,” Erwin said mysteriously.
He unfolded the letter.
Only a few lines were written on it.
“Something interesting has happened in the southeast, and it’s piqued my curiosity.”
“The gates of Crow’s Perch are open to you—but tell me, would you rather come through the front gate…
or climb over the walls?”
Bracing one hand against the edge of the table, Erwin pointed at the letter with the other.
“Crow’s Perch—the largest armed power in Velen.
It occupies Crow’s Perch Castle and controls most of central and northern Velen.
Its leader is known as the Bloody Baron.”
“No one knows exactly how many men he commands, but our intelligence indicates he has at least one core force made up of veteran Temerian soldiers.”
“The quartermaster’s messenger arrived at Crow’s Perch two days ago.”
“And today, this letter ended up in our hands.”
Rhoen looked up.
“The quartermaster went to him.”
“And then he came to us.” Erwin adjusted his glasses.
“The quartermaster can’t send troops himself.
We just killed seven of his scouts.
He needs a knife, and the Baron is the sharpest knife in Velen.”
“But judging from this letter…
that knife doesn’t want to be held.”
Erwin nodded.
He sat down across from Rhoen, folded his hands over his knees, and leaned forward slightly.
“As for the Baron himself, I did some homework before coming to Velen.”
“At the beginning of the Third Northern War, he was a Temerian officer.
After Temeria’s defeat, he led his own troops and seized control of Crow’s Perch.”
“The Nilfgaardian ground forces couldn’t properly deploy in the swamps, and they had no interest in wasting resources on a poor backwater like Velen, so they effectively accepted the Baron’s rule.”
He paused for a moment.
“As for his personality, all we have are rumors.
We’ll have to wait until we reach Crow’s Perch before we can judge him for ourselves.”
“What else do you know?”