chsdbacks Chapter 34 The Silent Wind
Chapter 34 The Silent Wind
"wrong."
"What's wrong?"
"The wind has stopped."
"What's so strange about that?" Geralt didn't even look up; his attention remained fixed on the iron gate leading to the inner city, his vertical pupils searching for any possible signs of an ambush. "Around noon, the river winds usually calm down for a while."
"No." Triss shook her head; her red hair was indeed no longer fluttering as before. "It's not just the wind."
She didn't finish her sentence. Because she couldn't find the words. As a formally educated sorcerer, she possessed a complete vocabulary of how to describe the "flow of magic in the environment." But at this moment, all those refined words, belonging to the high walls of the magic academy, were like ill-fitting clothes, unable to fit into the situation before her.
She just felt—something was wrong.
This "abnormality" is so subtle it's almost indescribable. The air density seems to have changed a little, but not by much. The humidity on your skin feels slightly lower, but not enough to send shivers down your spine. It's like walking around your own kitchen for thirty years and suddenly one day you notice the salt shaker has been moved half an inch. You can't pinpoint exactly what changed, but you know someone has been in your house.
"Gilliam," Geralt spoke suddenly. His tone was still calm, but those who knew him well could detect a barely perceptible tension within it. "Is your badge moving?"
Kiriam lowered his head and pressed his fingers against his chest through his clothes.
The snake-head badge didn't vibrate evenly like a normal monster when it approached; instead, it trembled intermittently, as if it was hesitating, as if the badge itself couldn't decide whether it should call the police.
"It's moving." Kiriam looked up at him. "And yours?"
"Same," Geralt said, "but not like a ghoul's movement."
"It's not the Wild Hunt either," Kiliam added. They had both encountered the Wild Hunt before, and when the Wild Hunt passed by, the badge felt sharp, cold, and almost like it was going to burst out of their flesh. It was completely different from the "hesitant burning" they felt now. It was as if that thing was still far away, but its powerful magic had already crossed space and reached them.
"It doesn't resemble any monster I know, but there is indeed a faint flow of magic within it."
"..."
This time, Kiriam was truly silent for half a second.
Geralt's statement, "Unlike any monster I know," is chilling more than any warning coming from the mouth of a white wolf who has lived for nearly a century, experienced the Wild Hunt, hunted hundreds of creatures, and even dealt with real high-ranking vampires. Kaer Morhen's Witcher's Handbook is so thick it could be used as a brick, and he says it doesn't contain this.
"Triss? Didn't you just say there were no warlocks here? Could they be from somewhere else, Nilfgaard or Redania, or whatever force can get warlocks but wants the King of Temeria dead?" He turned to look at the sorceress, the usual teasing in his voice completely gone.
"I don't know either. This doesn't feel like a normal warlock." Triss's voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of disturbing something. "But..."
She was about to say something, but halfway through her sentence, her gaze suddenly froze.
Kilyam followed her gaze.
The bronze scales statue at the bridgehead, a symbol of fairness, should have been accompanied by several noisy ravens standing on its pedestal. But the ravens were silent; they neither fluttered away as if startled, nor cawed at passing creatures as usual. They simply took flight quietly, one after another, from the statue.
Not a single chirp was heard.
The flock of black birds, considered an ominous sign in northern legends, now resembled an army unwilling to attract anyone's attention, quietly, hastily, and desperately fluttering towards the lower reaches of the Pontal River, like a group of guests who did not want to attend a funeral and had already slipped away before the funeral officially began.
Kiliam heard his Adam's apple bob. He suddenly realized that it wasn't just the wind that had stopped.
The roar of the Pontal River, which should have flowed ceaselessly day and night, washing over the stone bridge piers, was now somewhat suppressed. It wasn't completely gone; the sound of water could still be heard, but it was noticeably, eerily, much weaker, as if the river itself was holding its breath.
On the distant catapult position, the soldiers responsible for winding the bowstrings, who had been laughing and joking, suddenly fell silent. No one ordered them to shut up, but they did. The oldest part of human instinct, long before civilization built them a whole set of armor, a whole set of military discipline, and a whole set of languages, already knew when to shut up.
"Your Majesty," Roche said in a low voice, his right hand already silently resting on the hilt of his armored sword, "please step back half a step."
"What?"
"Please, take half a step back."
Foltest was a seasoned king, and he didn't ask any further questions. A battle-hardened monarch knew one thing: when your most trusted officer speaks in this tone, you should do as he says first, and then ask why. He took a half-step back without making a sound, his right hand resting on the hilt of his ornate sword.
"...Something's not right," Kiriam murmured.
He looked down at his badge again—the metal that had previously only "slightly trembled" was now heating up. Not the kind of mild, painless heat, but a real, scorching heat that almost burned through his clothes.
"Wait!"
The Witcher's badge, crafted using a special technique, serves as a warning when it gets too close to their chaotic magic. After all, while they can use signs, mutated Witchers cannot actively sense chaotic magic. This is why children with sorcerer talent who unfortunately become Witchers can never unleash true magic. The badge is their extra "sixth sense."
However, the source of the badge's vibration was completely different from the warlock that Giliam had imagined.
Kiliam's expression changed drastically. The Witcher's badge on his chest vibrated with a crisp metallic sound, and an excessive heat seeped through his clothes. The scorching heat of the metal penetrated the leather on both sides and reached his chest, reminding him of the powerful chaotic magic he had experienced when he first encountered the Wild Hunt, only now the feeling was much more intense.
He suddenly looked up at the sky.
The sky has changed.
It didn't change gradually, but in an instant.
The once clear, almost innocent blue sky was suddenly ripped open somewhere overhead, as if slashed open with a red-hot dagger. Clouds churned wildly outward from the crack, the vortex-like cloud hole rapidly expanding, its edges churning with a purplish-black hue that seemed to belong to another world.
The entire Château de la Valéry, along with the army outside the castle, the stone bridge, and the waves of the Pontal River, were instantly shrouded in that eerie shadow.
The midday sun was completely blocked.
Then--