Scout

In the central Nilfgaardian army camp, the quartermaster's office tent stood at the camp's southeastern corner. Its flap had been rolled up and secured with leather straps, and the light streaming in illuminated a map spread across the table.

Tawa Aegbraje sat behind the table. He wore no armor, only a black military uniform.

Two buttons at his collar were undone. His hands rested flat on the tabletop, his fingers pressing down on an unfolded letter. The handwriting on it was rushed and terse, only two lines long.

Velen agent missing. Contact vessel failed to return. Cargo and equipment whereabouts unknown.

His fingers lightly tapped the letter twice. Beneath it lay another document, bearing the seal of the Nilfgaardian Imperial General Logistics Office at the top.

It was the application he had submitted to write off supplies. Every item on the form had been checked off, and the final line bore a red "Approved" stamp.

He had personally allocated this batch of equipment from the warehouse. On the books, every piece had been listed as "scrapped." They should have been in the hands of his Velen agent, helping him catch people, transport goods, and make money.

Then they would be exchanged for a letter of recommendation from the Nilfgaardian Merchants' Guild.

He reached into the drawer of the low table and took out a pendant, a triangular piece cast in gold.

At its hollow center was engraved a star surrounded by flames. He was not yet qualified to wear it around his neck, but whenever he touched it, his fingers always lingered a little longer.

The Merchants' Guild, the most influential organization in the Empire, backed by the Empire's vast nobility.

Guild members could legally appear in any city. Though the North and South were at war, the Guild's passes carried more weight than military travel orders.

As long as he maintained the Velen route, in one or two years at most, once profits were steady and transaction records clean, he would receive his letter of recommendation.

The ceiling of his advancement stood right above his head. Beyond that, seniority was no longer enough. He needed some important figure to say, "This man can be used."

The Velen agent could not have run off on his own, nor could the contact vessel have sunk by itself. There was cargo, equipment, money, and an entire shipload of Northern barbarians waiting to be delivered to their buyers. None of it could simply vanish. Someone had interfered with his route.

Redania? No, impossible. Nilfgaard's army had them gasping beneath the pressure at the Pontar River line. Their reach could not extend this far into southern Velen.

Temerian remnants? Temeria was already gone. Stray dogs without a master did not have such an appetite. Swallowing an entire ship of armed guards required manpower, equipment, and intelligence. Stray dogs had none of those things.

He folded the letter, drew out a quill, dipped it into the ink bottle, and wrote several lines on a blank military order. When he finished, he sealed it with wax and stamped it with his own seal.

"Bring me the scout captain."

Someone outside the tent answered, and footsteps receded. He could not dispatch troops. Military movements required an order signed by a commander, and no commander would sign one for a "private trade route."

But scouts were different. Their deployment did not need to pass through the commander. The logistics office had its own scout establishment, responsible for surveying supply routes and ensuring the safety of material transports.

Send a seven-man squad, lightly equipped, in and out quickly. Confirm the camp's condition—who was there, how many, what their background was—then determine an appropriate response based on the situation.

If they were merely bandits or a mercenary company, that would be easy enough. Pay them to get lost, or have them killed.

If it was the influence of some Northern lord reaching in—though he did not believe that was likely—it would require harsher measures.

Whoever it was, anyone who had touched his route had to pay the price. He would reclaim the camp and warn everyone else: don't touch this route. Touch it, and die.

The tent flap was lifted from outside. A lean, tall scout captain entered and stopped before the low table, heels together, saying nothing.

Tawa pushed the sealed military order toward him. "Seven men. Lightly equipped." The scout captain accepted the order without asking where they were going.

Tawa's finger gave the edge of the table one final tap. "Confirm the camp's current state, numbers, identities, defenses, and patrol patterns. Observe only. Do not make contact. Withdraw immediately once confirmed."

The scout captain tucked the order into his clothes and nodded once.

Dusk came slowly to Velen. As sunlight leaked through the edges of the treetops, seven figures emerged from the shadows of the tree line, moving along the edge of the brush.

The lean, tall man at the front crouched and raised his left fist. The six behind him stopped at once. He drew a brass spyglass from his waist, its surface wrapped in strips of linen to prevent glare. He raised it to his right eye and aimed it at the clearing across the river bend.

Through the spyglass, the outline of the camp came into view. Half the roof of the castle's main building had collapsed, but the courtyard walls had been repaired. The ground behind them had been tilled, neat rows of furrows stretching across it. People moved between the ridges, barefoot and carrying hoes.

Not soldiers. Civilians. The camp gate stood open, and a soldier in a purple surcoat came out, a longsword at his waist and a bundle of spears on his shoulder.

He walked to the edge of the field, leaned the spears against the wall, and said something to a civilian carrying a hoe. The civilian stopped, wiped sweat from his brow, and nodded.

Purple surcoat. The collar of chainmail showing beneath it. Spears resting against a low wall. Civilians carrying hoes. Soldiers in chainmail.

The information recorded, the lean man put away the spyglass and signaled behind him with his right hand. Intelligence confirmed. Prepare to withdraw.

The seven began moving back. Then the lean man at the front abruptly stopped. Not because he had heard something, but because it was too quiet, as though the entire forest had held its breath at the same moment.

He slowly raised his head. A man stood amid the shadows of the trees opposite him, two meters and twenty tall, shoulders broad enough to nearly fill the gap between two trunks. He held a two-handed battle axe, its blade resting on the ground, sunk into the earth and leaving a shallow mark.

The lean man's hand shot toward the hilt at his waist. His fingers had barely touched it when the other man's right hand moved. The axe blade cut through brush, cut through air, and buried itself in the side of his breastplate.

He felt no pain, only a force striking him from the side and lifting his entire body off the ground.

His breastplate split down the middle, the torn iron curling inward to expose the leather lining. His upper and lower body separated and shifted apart in an instant.

He fell to the ground with his eyes still open. The axe did not stop after cleaving him apart. It swept sideways into the thigh of the young scout behind him.

The young man's thighbone snapped beneath the blade like a dry branch, breaking in two with a crack. He toppled sideways, one hand still gripping his sword hilt, unable to draw it.

The remaining five all made the same choice at almost the same time—run.

There was no possibility of fighting. They were scouts, in leather armor and armed with short swords. Their task was to avoid being discovered. Now they had been seen—seen by a two-meter-twenty monster who wielded a two-handed battle axe with one arm.

They ran toward the marsh. No one looked back. Looking back would slow them down, and slowing down meant death.

Karl stood at the edge of the tree line, silently watching the five figures flee desperately into the depths of the marsh.

Old Gott had already drawn his sword and held it in his right hand, about to charge out, when Karl stopped him with one hand across his chest.

Karl's left arm lay across his chest.

"No need to chase." His voice was quiet, yet it pinned them in place like a nail.

Karl gave a crisp signal behind him.

Five Fiona Champion Archers raised their bows almost simultaneously. Before Old Gott could react, arrows were already shrieking through the air toward the sky.

Three hundred paces away, the last Nilfgaardian soldier took an arrow in the back and collapsed into the mud. The man at the front, at least four hundred paces away, had an arrow pierce through his thigh. He screamed and fell, carving a long, muddy trail of blood across the swamp.

Five arrows, five hits!...

Old Gott opened his mouth. "Th-this... this fucking... can bows really shoot that far??"

Old Gott recognized that archer. He was the veteran who had fought Karl earlier. Turning his head, he said in clumsy Common, "Fian Champion."

There was no pride on his face when he said it, only the expression that it was perfectly natural.

The sound of a work bell came from the direction of the courtyard. Soldiers carried spears back from the fields, while cooking smoke slowly rose behind the walls.