No matter who it is, losing your memory is a cruel thing. A person with no past is almost unable to act at all.
Fortunately, Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, had not lost his ability to speak or judge, and he was in a friendly environment, Kaer Morhen was helping him reconnect with the world.
After more than a month of treatment from Triss, although his memories still had not returned, from their warmth and familiarity Geralt could be certain that the witchers of Kaer Morhen, these men with catlike eyes like his own, truly were comrades who had once trusted him with their lives.
And the stories they told of the White Wolf, one mysterious and legendary adventure after another, could at least serve as reference points for him to understand himself, though he still did not feel much personal connection to them, as if he were listening to someone else's story.
That afternoon, Geralt, stern-faced and hard-featured, his white hair tidied somewhat and tied back behind his head, stood high in the tower and looked down over Kaer Morhen's outer courtyard. Most of the training equipment was there, pendulums, windmills, wooden posts, and many training dummies.
The witchers of the School of the Wolf and their apprentices were all active there.
Slightly balding Lambert was sharpening his sword with a whetstone. Scarred Eskel, his face marred by that old wound, was sparring with the crew-cut Leo.
According to him, the junior apprentice he had trained before, Victor, had already grown completely crooked and turned into the sort of fellow who treated kings like drinking companions. So this time he was absolutely going to train Leo properly and make him into an excellent, dependable witcher.
That was what he said, but Geralt could tell Eskel liked that absent junior apprentice very much, and when Lambert or Vesemir mentioned Victor, their tone was openly full of pride and doting fondness as well.
Below them, the old witcher master stood to the side. Only his appearance was aged, his spirit was still vigorous as he energetically supervised the apprentice's movements. Even from here Geralt could hear his instructions.
"Wrong! You missed the parry. I keep repeating this. Quick turn, then usually follow with a backward spinning parry, almost always!"
Leo adjusted his stance and engaged Eskel again. The scene before Geralt stirred something familiar deep inside him... and he started walking downstairs.
"A familiar sight, isn't it? Does it remind you of anything?" said the speaker, Triss. The White Wolf was not surprised. His keen hearing had already noticed her approaching from behind.
Triss Merigold, the most beautiful person he had seen since waking, with light blue eyes, a scattering of freckles across her face, a beauty mark beneath her mouth, and fiery red hair coiled into a bun behind her head. Her low-cut white bodice set off the sapphire amulet at her throat, making it gleam brilliantly.
After spending so many days together, it was not only her appearance that was beautiful. Triss's completely unguarded intimacy toward Geralt drew him in so deeply that he found it hard to resist her.
The two of them walked side by side toward the outer courtyard, and the White Wolf answered her question.
"Not much. Looking down there, I know what they're doing... moving... turning... parrying... slicing... chopping. The same cat eyes, and the kindness in the way they treat me. I know I belong with them."
The sorceress smiled and nodded, signaling for him to continue. This kind of progress in his awareness was encouraging.
"And when I see you... it feels like there's some kind of familiarity I can't explain. I know you're important to me."
Hearing the white-haired witcher say that so suddenly, Triss jolted and stopped in delight. "Geralt, you... I... we, in the past..."
But while they were speaking, a flock of crows suddenly burst upward from outside the keep. Lambert noticed it at once and instinctively glanced toward the open gate of the outer castle.
A faint intuition of danger flashed through his mind.
Dropping the whetstone, he advanced slowly with sword in hand.
Carefully passing through the gateway, he made his way to the drawbridge.
There, he saw several armed men who were obviously up to no good.
When their leader spotted Lambert, he shouted, "Wait for the others. He's alone. The Professor promised us fifty orens for every freak's head!"
The slightly balding witcher was pleased to discover that, although the group was fully armed and carrying all sorts of flails, swords, and blades, none of them had crossbows hanging at their waists, a small mercy in the middle of bad luck.
Then several of the attackers, unable to hold back, suddenly charged forward. Lambert immediately blasted one man away with the Aard Sign, cut another down with an upward slash of his steel sword, and sent a third man flying off the drawbridge with a spinning kick.
Then, faced with enemies surging at him all at once, he retreated at speed and shouted, "Vesemir, we're under attack!"
Having lived through the last massacre at Kaer Morhen, Vesemir had never once forgotten that tragedy. So the moment he heard Lambert's shout and realized what was happening, he ran straight to the gate and dropped the portcullis at exactly the right moment.
Geralt and Triss heard the cry too, broke off their conversation, and rushed to the outer courtyard, just in time to see the sturdy portcullis split the attackers into two groups. The batch that had already rushed into the outer courtyard numbered only eight men. There were six witchers present, and with the sorceress assisting, six against eight was not a difficult number.
Striding forward, Geralt pulled a practice sword from one of the training dummies, gave it a casual flourish to test its weight and balance, and then stepped into the battle.
He himself noticed nothing strange, but to every onlooker it was obvious that the White Wolf's movements combined flair, speed, and practicality. That was the sword style known as Pirouette, and clearly his body had not forgotten it.
He spun in a smooth flowing motion, knocking an attacker's sword aside, then beheading him.
After killing two men in quick succession, every invader trapped in the outer courtyard had been wiped out. Geralt noticed that he did not feel the slightest discomfort. His breathing was steady, his emotions calm.
Beyond the gate, the sounds of pounding, shouting, and fighting could be heard faintly from outside.
"Geralt, how do you feel?" Vesemir asked.
Thinking back to that sensation of drawing his sword and cutting without conscious thought, he nodded to the old witcher master. "Couldn't be better."
Vesemir then asked, "Does anyone here know who these intruders are?"
Triss said, "Ordinary bandits would never attack Kaer Morhen. They wouldn't even be able to find it."
"We know that already. Merigold, could you maybe tell us something we don't know? Or better yet, why don't you try a little magical divination?" the slightly balding witcher said in a mocking tone.
The sorceress snapped back irritably, "Bastard! You'll see soon enough, Lambert."
Seeing the two of them on the verge of starting yet another argument, Vesemir cut in at once. "Enough. We need to confirm the other possible routes of entry. To the upper courtyard."
The group ran quickly toward the upper courtyard, but just then they suddenly heard a violent crash from the outer gate.
"They can't be breaking the gate down, can they?" Geralt asked.
"They don't have a battering ram, it won't do them any good no matter how hard they try. There's no way they could possibly... damn it, what is that monster!?" Leo asked in shock.
From their high position, everyone could clearly see the gate burst open. The monster forcing its way in was enormous, moving on four legs, with a triangular head that turned freely, bulging compound eyes, and long threadlike antennae made up of many segments. Its long, powerful forelimbs were like razor-sharp scythes, and a casual swing of them sliced a training dummy into three pieces.
"Frightener," Master Vesemir answered. "A very vicious beast."
And behind the massive creature, a mage was controlling it. His face was hidden behind a mask, but the exposed bald scalp was covered in angry red lesions, making him easy to identify.
Triss recognized the dangerous man at once. "Savolla! I know him, a mad and ambitious mage."
With the gate broken open, a large number of attackers poured into Kaer Morhen. Savolla looked up at the witchers and the sorceress, drew a finger across his throat in a cutting gesture, then cast his magic to drive the Frightener forward.
"They're coming up. Fall back, now," Eskel said.
But just then, with a thunderous bang, the portcullis leading into the inner courtyard suddenly dropped. From a distance Geralt saw that more than ten invaders had already made their way inside. It was they who had lowered the iron gate, trapping the witchers between the inner courtyard and the outer one.
Their leader was a mercenary wearing dark round spectacles. He flashed a cruel smile and waved at the witchers in greeting, then turned and headed toward the keep. Beside him was a Zerrikanian, his dark skin and the aesthetic of full-body tattoos, piercings, and metal rings too distinctive to mistake.
"This is bad. There are even more of them. We're trapped outside now, they'll hit us from both sides," Leo said, momentarily at a loss, having never faced anything like this before.
Triss spoke quickly. "That man with the glasses is the Professor, a professional killer. And the Zerrikanian next to him, I can feel strong magic from him. He's a sorcerer."
"I've heard of this Professor. He's wanted in Redania, Temeria, and Kaedwen. He's a genuine piece of filth," Eskel added.
Lambert said, "Forget the ones inside for now. Focus on the danger outside. Merigold, I want to know if you can break Savolla's magic and free that Frightener. The rest, the witchers can handle."
"I'll try, but I can't promise anything." Triss checked her casting materials as she spoke. The battle had begun too suddenly, and she lacked the proper medium for stronger spells.
Even at a moment like this, witcher master Vesemir remained calm and unhurried as he laid out the plan.
"The Frightener is extremely dangerous, but it fears loud noise. Ringing the bronze bell in the courtyard will interfere with it effectively.
We need to find a way to open the iron gate. Eskel, Lambert, you two and I will hold off the Frightener and the bandits. Leo, stay behind us and protect Triss while she casts.
Geralt, climb along the wall into the tower. There's a passage from there to the winch. Open the gate to the inner courtyard for us."
"You want me to go alone?" Geralt asked, still not fully trusting his own strength.
Vesemir said, "They're only bandits. One of them may be more notorious than the rest, but no one can stop you. You have to open that gate. We'll be waiting here for you. Good luck, White Wolf."
When the old witcher master said White Wolf, Geralt suddenly felt something both strange and familiar, as though he had faced danger countless times before, heard that name countless times before, and never once failed the companions who called him by it.
He suddenly felt that he could do it.
Geralt said nothing more. He quickly climbed the steep wall, and the moment he leapt into the tower, five or six bandits were already rushing at him with shouts.
Closing his hand around the steel sword, the witcher took a deep breath.
Pirouette, the name came from dance. At its root it meant a nimble spin, and it was the essence of the White Wolf's swordsmanship.
The steel blade danced lightly in his wrist. Combined with those special footwork patterns, his swift, deadly spinning layered the strength of his whole body and the inertia of each turn into the weapon in his hand.
The blade whistled through the air, blood rained down, and bandits fell one after another beneath his strikes. In the midst of battle, he discovered that his command of the sword was growing more and more practiced, and the surroundings around him were becoming more and more familiar. Fragments of his former life flickered in and out of view.
Fighting as he advanced, he finally ran up a staircase, only for part of the stone steps to suddenly collapse and cut off the bandits pursuing him. Geralt managed to jump over the broken section just in time, but the bandits chasing him were not so fortunate, and they tumbled down in a bloody mess.
Reaching the winch in time, Geralt opened the gate. His companions, who had been locked in a bloody struggle in the forecourt, quickly withdrew into the inner courtyard, and Triss, covering the retreat, used magic to collapse the gate behind them and seal the breach completely.
At last, they had won another brief chance to catch their breath.
Lambert excitedly stepped forward and hugged the white-haired witcher. "Gods, Geralt, you're actually not dead. The fact that you're still alive is a miracle!"
"I nearly fell to my death... you really should have warned me those stairs were about to collapse." Geralt was not used to the slightly balding witcher's embrace, but he did not struggle either.
Vesemir said, "Lambert, Eskel, you two should have repaired those stairs days ago."
"Oh, come on. We're witchers, not stonemasons. And if we had fixed them, they wouldn't have blocked the bandits just now," Lambert said.
At that shameless reversal of cause and effect, several of the witchers, apprentice included, burst out laughing.
Triss could not understand what was so funny, and immediately cut through the relaxed atmosphere. "This is no time to relax. The Professor and the other mage are still hiding in the keep. I think I can guess why they came. Face facts, witchers, they came here to rob you!"
Vesemir spread his hands. "Triss, child, we don't have anything valuable. Just a few decent weapons, snow fox pelts, bear pelts?"
"I mean the alchemy laboratory. You know that. Someone wants your mutagens. I admit, I used to be curious too."
Lambert snapped back at once. "You're jumping to conclusions too fast!"
Eskel said, "But Triss is probably right. Snow fox pelts or bear pelts aren't worth bringing two mages for. Only potion formulas would be worth that much."
Geralt remained silent, immersed in the scattered fragments of memory rising inside him.
The others all looked, almost in unison, toward the witcher master and waited for his decision.
"One thing at a time. We can't expose our backs to a powerful mage commanding a Frightener. His name is Savolla?" Vesemir asked gravely.
"Yes," Triss replied, "but we also can't let the bandits just walk into the laboratory!"
"You're right, child." The old witcher master acknowledged her point. "The rest of you stay in the inner courtyard and fight. With the bronze bell helping, the Frightener won't be as dangerous. Geralt, you're better at dealing with mages. Go find out what this mage wants. Leo will guide you."
"Reconnaissance only, or...?" This time Geralt did not hesitate, he merely wanted to confirm.
"No one is going to be heartbroken if some of them lose their lives. Decide for yourself, White Wolf, and keep an eye on Leo."
"I can take care of myself!" Leo said loudly.
Geralt's expression remained steady. "We'll look at the situation inside, then come right back. Don't worry."
Vesemir took out three vials and handed them to Geralt. "This is Thunderbolt. Drink it and your body will tighten, adrenaline will surge through you, and your strength will increase."
"Any side effects?" the white-haired witcher asked.
"Hardly any. Victor improved this version. And this is Tawny Owl, it speeds up the recovery of your vigor. Drink both of those now. The last one is Swallow, drink it if you're wounded. Remember, these are all witcher potions. Leo can't drink them. We'll stay here and make sure no one else gets through."
Vesemir finished explaining quickly, then noticed the eager look in the sorceress's eyes, she clearly wanted to follow them into the keep. The old witcher master stopped her.
"Triss, stay here and help us, in case Savolla comes up with some new trick."
Unable to go with them, Triss stepped forward and hugged the white-haired witcher. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, "Geralt, please, be very careful of that Zerrikanian mage. He gives me an extremely dangerous feeling!"
"Watch out for the Professor too. I've heard he's a specialist, seventeen lives to his name," Eskel added gently from the side. "I know you're good at fighting mages and bandits, but being careful never hurts. And Leo, don't forget what I taught you!"
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