WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

009. most wanted ruin..

Lingering remained the sound of another burial down the saturated lands of death, iced in winter ghosts. Beneath Sylvain's feet, a grave above which stood tall, appeared freshly, without name, beside his father and his sister. Geoffrey, what remained of him, had been ordered to find his final sleep as far away from his own family as possible.

A last, eternal, punishment.

"It's good to see you standing, your Highness," Yulis bowed his head, and wrapped in the aery robes, bizarrely subjected to no frost, fluttering behind him in the wind, he walked downhill, towards the graves he was so uninterested in.

His crimson eyes focused instead on the sturdiness and vitality returned to Sylvain's legs.

"Any news of the fugitive?" Sylvain's grains of thoughtfulness have reached the end of a barrel, that without kindness, was no longer bottomless at all. He held no emotions over his supple features sucked in, on skeletal aspects, into grey tones.

"We swept our lands, but unfortunately the bard is gone."

There was a small possibility that the cold has killed Jaskier or that he had ran to hide an entire life, as far away from the darkness which tormented him in Arcapan as possible. But neither Yulis, nor Sylvain could take those possibilities as chances to weight against their goals, or even against their darker urges of revenge.

Sylvain's mind was molded to the extent that from the night of horrors that just past them into bluer clouds, he only remembered the scarlet rage that Jaskier was to blame for Geoffrey's untimely departure from the land of the living. Were it not for that wretched bard, his knight would have never committed treason.

So the king sighed deeply, without anything more to lose, nothing further holding him back from his scheming mind, that of any child raised around lords playing games of politics. "We must assume the worst," Sylvain breathed in the brisk air. A scent of decay flooded his nostrils and tempered him into feeling the pulse of blood into the tired veins of the grave-digger.

With grave restraint, he tightened his jaw and did not look away from Yulis. "Jaskier is riding for Kaer Morhen," Sylvain concluded. There was no other way to explain why in the keep's yard, another head of a mutiny provoker had been added on a stake, dripping hissing blood on grounds no carnivorous birds dared visit anymore. "Send our hounds and three good men after him, on fast horses. If he's not on the main roads, instruct them to go ahead and get as close to Witchers' fortress, hide and wait there for his arrival."

"How many days will they wait?" Yulis, peering, pressed another question. Sylvain was wearing the crown, but he was tugging the strings of his every muscles, the true iron grip behind the army Nilfgaard offered Arcapan in silence.

Every soldier was of value, unlike every villager who became mere flesh for use. Nilfgaar ordered another conquer and Sylvain too was aching to turn the table on another enemy he was surrounded by. Though he was confident enough to even go down from Barefield with this new army and take on Hengfors itself, Sylvain agreed on keeping the northern frontier on a straight line, heading for a campaign over the Creyden mountains, to take the fortress with the same name.

No survivors of that place were needed, so none were in their prospect either.

The long march would be starting from there on, because they were planning on taking advantage of every second of winter and following passes through the mountains, from Talgar to Narok, and burn everything down to the harbor of Tridam, where, they shall wait, in victory, for another praise from south.

Amongst the moribund atmosphere, Sylvain could smell victory and glory, so when his eyes descend, he smiled upon Azaras' grave. Yulis threw the final stone one knowing glance filled with spite, for it was the corpse not buried which he dreamt to tear apart each night.