A significant cough from de Wyngalt brought Field Marshal Coehoorn back to reality. He adjusted the harness and stirrups and mounted the stallion.
‘Let’s go!’ he ordered.
At first they were fine. The Nordlings made a gap in their defenses, as they concentrated their forces on doggedly attacking the last division of soldiers who had survived the destruction of the Nauzicaa brigade. The Marshal made his way out of the encirclement, but not without obstacles. The Nilfgaardians had to fight the light cavalry, who according to their colors where from Brugge.
Coehoorn stopped pretending heroism, he just wanted to survive. He looked back at his private guards, struggling with the cavalry, he rode hastily with his assistants towards the river, flattening himself and clinging to his horse’s neck.
The way was clear on the other side of the river, behind some bent willows, was an empty plain, were he could see no armies. Ouder de Wyngalt also saw this and shouted with triumph.
Too soon.
The slow lazy current of the steam was the only thing that separated them from the green field. They came at it at a full gallop, after a couple of steps the horses sank up to their stomachs into a swamp.
The Marshal flew across the stallion’s head and landed in the mud. All around him horses and people screamed. Amidst the pandemonium Menno suddenly heard a different sound. A sound that signified death.
The sound of arrows.
He lunged towards the river. Cutting through deep mud. Beside him a wading aide fell on his face in the mud, the Marshal saw an arrow in his back. At the same time he felt a hard blow to his head. He staggered, but did not fall, because he was up to mid-thigh in the marsh. He wanted to scream, but only managed to croak.
I’m alive, he thought with relief, still alive. A horse who was trying to free itself from the clutches of the stick mud had kicked the Marshal’s helmet, smashing the plate and cutting his cheek, smashing his teeth and slashing his tongue... I’m bleeding... I can taste blood... But I’m alive...
Again he heard the sound of a bow, the whistle of arrows and the crack of thunder as the bolts pierced through armor, the shouting, the neighing of horses and the splash of blood. The Marshal looked back and saw at the edge of the shooters a small, stock, squat figure in chainmail in helmets. Dwarves, he thought.
The sound of ropes from the crossbows, the whistle of bolts. The neighing of terrified horses. The sound of screaming form people trapped in the mud and water.
Ouder de Wyngalt turned towards the shooters and called to surrender, in a high, squeaky voice he begged for mercy and offered ransom. He grabbed his sword by the blade, the internationally known gesture and held it towards the dwarves. The gesture was not understood or wrongly understood – two arrows hit him in the chest so hard that the impact almost lifted him out of the mud.
Coehoorn ripped the damaged helmet from his head. He knew the Nordling language well enough.
‘Mmmenno... Coehoorn...’ he stammered, spitting blood. ‘Mmarshal... Coehoorn...’
‘What is he spluttering, Zoltan?’ one of the dwarves wonder aloud.
‘Who cares, fuck this dog and his chatter! See the embroidery on his cloak, Munro?’
‘A silver scorpion! Haaa! Guys, nail the motherfucker! For Caleb Stratton!’
‘For Caleb!’
The strings rang. Coehoorn received one arrow in his chest, one in the groin and one below the collar bone.
The Nilfgaardian Field Marshal fell back into the slush, knotweed and pondweed and disappeared under the weight of his armor.
Who the devil is Caleb Stratton, he thought, I’ve never even heard of Caleb...
Turbid water, dense with blood and mud from the Cholta River closed over his head and into his lungs.
She left the tent to get some fresh air. Then she saw him sitting next to the blacksmith’s bench.
‘Jarre?’
He raised his eyes. In them was a void.
‘Iola,’ he said with difficulty, his lips swollen. ‘How are you...?’
‘What a question!’ she immediately interrupted him. ‘A better question is how did you get here?’
‘We brought our commander... Voivode Bronibor... He’s hurt...’
‘But so are you! Show me your hand! Goddess! You’re bleeding to death!’
Jarre stared at herm but Iola suddenly began to wonder if he was seeing anything.
‘There was a battle,’ said the boy, his teeth chattering. ‘We must stand like a wall... firmly in the ranks... It was easier to carry the wounded to a military hospital... The severely wounded. Orders.’
‘Show me your hand.’
Jarre gave a short cry, his teeth chatter as if in fever. Iola frowned.
‘It looks bad... Jarre, Jarre... Mother Nenneke will be angry... Come with me.’
She saw him pale when he entered the tent. When he smelt the stench. He staggered. She steadied him. She saw him staring at the bloody table. At the man who lay there. At the surgeon, the little halfling who jumped suddenly, stomped his feet, cursed, swore and hurled his scalpel to the ground.
‘What the hell! Fuck! Why? Why?’
Nobody answered the question.
‘Who was that?’
‘Voivode Bronibor,’ Jarre said in a weak voice, looking straight ahead, his eyes blank. ‘Our commander... We stood in firm ranks. Order. Like a wall. And Melfi killed...’
‘Mister Rusty,’ Iola said. ‘This man is a friend of mine... He is hurt...’
‘He is still on his feet,’ the surgeon said coolly. ‘And this is expecting a trepanation. There is no room for favoritism...’
At this point, Jarre with great sensitivity dramatically fainted and fell to the floor. The halfling snorted irritably.
‘Well, well, get him on the table,’ he commanded. ‘Ah, his hand. I wonder what is holding it on? Probably his sleeve. Iola, tourniquet. Harder! Do not dare cry here! Shani, give me the saw!’
With a sickening screech the saw bit into the crushed bones of the elbow joint. Jarre woke up and shouted. Awfully, shrilly – but briefly. Once the bone gave way, he immediately fainted again.
And so the power of Nilfgaard lay in the dirt and dust of the fields of Brenna, and the march north by the Empire was laid to an end. The losses for the Empire amounted to forty-thousand killed and captured men. The foundation of Elite Knights fell. They died in captivity or went missing without a trace like such as the leaders, Menno Coehoorn, Braibant, de Mellis-Stoke, van Lo, Tyrconnel, Eggebracht and others, whose names have not been preserved in our archives.
Brenna was indeed the beginning of the end. But it is worth writing that this battle would have been a small stone in the building and its importance would have been small if the fruits of victory had not been used wisely. Constable John Natalis did not rest on his laurels, but immediately went to the south. An unexpected counterattack led by Adam Pangratt and Julia Abatemarco surprised two divisions of the Third Army which were running late to relieve Coehoorn, and were routed nec nuntius cladis. At this new the rest of the Center Group Army crossed shamefully back over the Yaruga and escaped in a hurry, and Foltest and Natalis followed on their heels. The Imperials lost their baggage train and all their siege engines which they planned to use to conquer Vizima, Gors Velen and Novigrad.
Like an avalanche rolling down from the mountains into the valley that collects more and more snow and gains power, so did the consequences of the Battle of Brenna provide more damage to the Nilfgaardians. The Verden Group Army was heavily afflicted by pirate raids
and attacks from Skellige and King Ethain from Cidaris. When Commander Duke de Wett learned of the disaster at Brenna and the news reached him that Foltest and John Natalis had ordered a forced march, he immediately sounded a retreat and in panic fled across the river to Cintra and escaping significant losses to his troops, because word had gotten around about Nilfgaard’s defeat and a new rebellion was rising in force in Verden. Only troops remained in the forts of Nastrog, Rozrog and Bodro
g and after the Peace of Cintra they emerged with honor with banners aloft.
Meanwhile, in Aedirn, the news of what happen at Brenna caused the antagonized Kings Demavend and Henselt to join together in arms against Nilfgaard’s East Group Army, which was led by Duke Ardal aep Dahy into the Pontar valley, unable to resist the combined forces of the two kings. With the addition of the strength of the troops from Redania and the guerrilla squads of Queen Meve, who undertook combat actions in the rear of the enemy, they forced Nilfgaard to Aldersberg. Ardal aep Dahy prepared for battle, but due to fate he suddenly became serious ill, perhaps from spoiled food he got colic and diarrhea and two days later died in pain. Demavend and Henselt, without waiting, launched an attack against Nilfgaard in Aldersberg, surely because of historical justice, Nilfgaard suffered a heavy defeat, though they still had numerical superiority. But daring, spirit and technique won out over blind, brute force.
It is necessary to mention one other thing – namely that it is still unknown what happening at Brenna to Menno Coehoorn. Some believe that he fell with his soldiers and his remains, unrecognized were laid to rest in a common grave. Others speculate that he escaped, but from fear of the Imperial wrath never returned to Nilfgaard, but instead resorted to the Dryads in Brokilon and became a hermit in the forest. In remorse he lived for years in seclusion and separation and eventually died.
Among ordinary people circulated the rumor that the famous Marshal in the night after the battle returned to the field at Brenna and could not stand looking at the tragedy and hanged himself from a aspen on a hill, which from that time on was called Gallows. At night it is said that his spirit wanders the battle field, lamenting and crying out ‘Give me back my legions!’.
‘Grandpa Jarre! Grandpa Jarre!’
Jarre looked up from the paper and pushed his glasses further up on his nose.
‘Grandpa Jarre!’ screamed the high pitched voice of his youngest granddaughter, a bright and lively six year old, which, thank the gods, looked like her mother, Jarre’s daughter and not his son-in-law.
‘Grandpa Jarre! Granma Lucienne told me to tell you that is enough writing for today and that dinner is on the table!’
Jarre carefully place the reams of paper and put the cork into the inkwell. The stump of his hand throbbed with pain. The weather is changing, he thought, it’s going to rain.
‘Grandpa Jarreeeeee!’
‘I’m coming, Ciri. I’m coming.’
Before he was finished with the last of the wounded it was already past midnight. The last operation was performed under artificial light - lamps, candles and also magic. Marti Södergren regained consciousness after overcoming her crisis and though deadly pale, stiff and unnatural in her movements, like a golem, she effectively performed spells.
It was dark when they left the tent, the four of them laid flat on some canvas. The meadow was full of fires. Various fires - fires of campers, unstable fires, torches and
firebrands. Through the night sounds resounded through the air, shouting matches, singing, chanting and cheering.
The night was alive around them too with disjointed cries and the groans of the wounded. Supplications and sighs of the dying. They did not hear any of it. They were used to the sounds of suffering and dying, to them the sounds were ordinary, natural and blended into the night with the croaking of the frogs in the marshes by the River Cholta or the cicadas chirping by Golden Pond.
Marti Södergren was silent, leaning on the shoulder of the halfling. Iola and Shani, hugging, tightly, occasionally issued a laugh at something completely stupid. They all sat next to the tent, each drank a glass of vodka and Marti delighted everyone was one last spell - an intoxicating spell, usually used for tooth extraction.
Rusty felt cheated the treatment - the drink that was bound by magic, rather than relax him, or reducing his weariness, it intensified it. Instead of granting oblivion, it reminded him. It seemed that the magical alcohol affected only Iola and Shani as it should.
He turned and saw the moonlight on the faces of the two girls, bright and silvery with tears.
'I wonder,' he said licking his dry and callous lips, 'who has won the battle. Does anyone know?'
Marti turned to face him, but remained silent.
The cicadas sang among the willows and alders by the pond, the frogs croaked, the wounded wailed, prayed and sighed. And died. Iola and Shani laughed amongst their tears.
Marti Södergren died two weeks after the battle. She had an affair with an officer of the condottieri Free Company. She tried this adventure as something temporary. Unlike the officer. When Marti, who liked changes, became involved with a cavalry officer, the condottiere, mad with jealousy, stabbed her. He hung for it, but they were unable to save the healer.
Rusty and Iola died a year after the battle, in Maribor, the biggest explosion of the epidemic hemorrhagic fever, also known as the Scarlet Death, or - from the name of the ship which it was imported from - The Catriona Plague.
All the doctors and most of the priests hurried to Maribor, along with Rusty and Iola. To heal because they were doctors. The fact that there was no cure for the Scarlet Death did not matter to them. Both were infected. He died in her arms, the strong, confident grip of her large, ugly, peasant hands. She died four days later. Alone.
Shani died seventy-two years after the battle as a famous and respected retired professor of medicine at the University of Oxenfurt. Future generations of surgeons repeated her famous quote - "Sew red with red, yellow with yellow and white with white. And everything will be all right".
Hardly anyone noticed, after delivering this quote she always secretly wiped away tears.
Hardly anyone.
Frogs croaked, cicadas buzzed, Iola and Shani giggled and cried.
'I wonder,' repeated Milo Vanderbeck, a halfling, a field surgeon, known as Rusty. 'I wonder who won the battle?'
'Rusty,' said Marti Södergren. 'This is really the last thing I'd be interested in your place.'
CHAPTER NINE
Some of the flames were high and strong, shining brightly and vividly, while others were small, shaky and trembling, and the flames darkened and they sank. At the end of the row was a tiny flame, one so weak that it was barely smoldering, barely alight and then it shimmered with great effort and almost extinguished.
‘Whose is that dying light?’ asked the witcher.
‘Yours,’ said Death.
Flourens Delannoy
Fairytales and Stories
The plateau, whose far end was bathed in fog at the foot of a giant mountain, resembled a stone sea. It rippled forming mounds and curling crests that looked like the sharp teeth of a reef. The wreckage of ships contributed to that feeling. There were dozens of wrecks. The remnants of galleys, caravels and longships. Some gave the impression of only being here a short time, while others were no more than a few piles of boards and ribs and were hardly recognizable and had certainly been there for decades, if not centuries.
Some ships were overturned and others were tipped on their sides and looked like they had been washed here by an immense storm or hurricane. Other ships gave the impression that they were still sailing the ocean. They stood straight, wedged between rocks, their masts towered proudly into the sky and the spars still flapped with ragged sails. They even had a ghostly crew – stuck in the rotten planks and tangled in the ropes where skeletons of dead sailors sentenced to an eternal voyage.
Alarmed by the appearance of a rider and frightened by the sound of pounding hooves, from the masts, yards, ropes and skeletons broke swarms of black birds, cawing. The flock circled for a moment over the edge of the abyss, at the bottom of which lay a lake, gray and smooth as mercury. On the cliff, towering over the plain of wrecks, half hanging over the lake, embedded in cliff was a dark, gloomy castle.
Kelpie recoiled, snorted, laid her ears back and looks suspiciously at the remains of the ships, skeleton and the whole landscape of death. The black birds had returned and once again settled on the brok
en masts, spars, bones, skulls and broken decks. The birds knew that they did not need to worry about one lone rider.
‘Easy, Kelpie,’ Ciri said. ‘This is the end of the road. This is the right place and the right time.’
She appeared before the walls from nowhere, as if the wind blew her from the plain of ghostly wrecks. The sentries standing guard at the gate were the first to detect her presence, alerted by the cries of the jackdaws. Now they were shouting and gesticulating, pointing their fingers and calling to their comrades.
When she arrived at the gate, there was already a crowd. Everyone stared down at her – the few who knew her or had seen her before, like Boreas Mun and Dacre Silifant, were greatly outnumbered by those who had only heard about her, those newly recruited by Skellen, mercenaries and common ravagers from Ebbing and the surrounding areas, who now looked down in amazement at the girl with the scar on her face and the sword on her back. The beautiful, black mare raised its head high, snorting and restlessly ringing its shoes on the cobblestones of the courtyard.
The murmuring ceased. There was almost complete silence. The mare lifted her legs like a dancer; her shoes rang like a hammer on an anvil. It took a long time before the men crossed their path. One of them with a hesitant and frightened movement, reached out to grasp the reins. The mare snorted.
‘Take me,’ the girl said loudly, ‘to the master of this castle.’
Boreas Mun himself did not know why he did it, but he held her stirrup and offered his arm. The other men held the snorting and struggling mare.
‘Do you recognize me, maiden?’ Boreas said quietly. ‘We have met.’
‘Where?’
‘On the ice.’
She looked him directly in the eyes.
‘I did not notice your faces,’ she said impassively.