WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

007. mapped skins..

A dreadful scream tore out of the ribcage of its creator. Delving the light out of the tapestries and scaring the wind into howling through each window frame's cracks, whistles, that scream held its tone to the hump of a sudden fall. Aslan Korber's knees slid onto the ground of his chamber. The helmet he held bounced metal rings as if fell from his grip and tumbled away, across the stone.

Sorrowful cries continued beyond his control and he sat back, a subject to the only turn of fate he could not subjugate, no matter how old or wise, how fulfilled or experienced. For one seat besides him will now forever be cold and the caress of his wife or the smell of his children will only be witnesses of the family they too lost.

Before him, the pointed shoes of his squire trembled. They were young, but not fools, nor stupid as a stone to not have seen the horror on the faces of the search parties return. And the walls stared down on them both in a secretive posture of frozen faith. They've seen so many different kings bowing, so many Lords before their last days. Now, they looked over Aslan and his squire and they expected the sigh that undoubtedly came.

"No more of this silence," he ended the quietness with the sharpness of a tongue bleeding its lick on history's passive nerve. Tears numbly continued dripping down his old, wrinkled cheeks, gripping the tamed age to raise its hue back to the days where he would stand without the knees creaking. "No more of this loss and hidden terror which aims to have us bow our heads."

Spiteful, those words fell in the trails of saliva between his slightly yellowed teeth. Aslan moved his chin upwards, he raised one foot and stood on just one knee, but when his ankles faltered, the strength came from his reflection, contorted in the bloody mirror of his brother's helm. It made him see the youth, long passed and faded, glance back through time at the young lads Janus and Aslan were, running these halls with pathos, leading a League that everyone would fear.

He waved away the squire's try to aid his master into standing up and with the gentleness of his weaker bones, like a leaf in the wind, he shivered to straighten up on his own.

"If the enemies, whoever they are, however dark or vile or outworldly, wish to scare the North and send us back to our homes in the fullness winter..." His teeth creaked down, were they stones, they would have caused sparks by the strength of the clench in that jaw. "Let them learn how much the cold burns and how cruel are the people who live with it. We go to war."

His right heel kicked the ground then the tip bounced the helmet. It flew across the room, ragefully dropped and shattered into the wall like thunder which overtook as well as the primary symphony of soldiers' armours cackling their laughter while taking a deep rest.

No one knew the passes through the mines, the tunnels and the mountains quite like the true northeners of the Continent. These paths have shielded these hard bred people from many wars coming viciously from the south or from the dreadful times when the blood of elves had been a gore spill. Nilfgaard knew the true value of Sylvain's mad rule being supported and it was not just a strategic position, but instead a map laid under the young king's fingertips.

That old tainted papyrus held patches of different colors, thousands of lines overlapping named in letters written in the elderly dialacts long forgotten by those who have felt the warmest weather. The legend-less map of all the mountain trails, written in few originals and many copies sanctified in each keep as a mandatory knowledge for the future of the fortress to learn.

Sylvain was forced by his father that while his sister would have rather learnt a fair art as sewing or dancing, something which would have married her timely, he remained locked in the library, with the original Arcapan was proud to hold.

"It's written on skins," Sylvain muttered. They have found a cave, they set a fire, and inside the archway, on the biggest stone, under the shivering candlelight held by a soldier, he unwrapped the map and draped it over the rock. Then, much more familiar and confident with touching the macabre legacy the future of their campaign was counting on, a hint darker himself than the scared little boy that used to cry days by the river washing his hands from touching this desth, Sylvain grinned.