Chapter 14:Final Goodbye

A week had passed since the end of the siege. But they had no way of knowing if the siege came to an end, but Vesemir decided to check for the presence of a crowd.

When he returned, he ordered the boys to pack things up and prepare to go back.

When they were close enough to see the castle they were hit with a horrible smell of burned flesh. All the area surrounding the castle was pained in red and some rare bits and pieces of the human flesh and guts were here and there.

But it looked like someone cleaned up the area after the battle, the closer to the castle they were, the worse the smell got. When they were close to the gates and saw a huge pile of ash that was in front of the gates.

August walked close to the pile of ash and sat down picking something up. When he cleaned all of the ash off it showed a medallion with the face of the wolf. In a hurry, he started to search in a pile of ash for more.

But to his disappointment, he didn't find anything that he wished to find. He found another 15 medallions, but the one he really wished to find didn't appear.

August didn't know, but no matter how long he would try to search for it, he won't be able to find the Medallion he was searching for since it was torn to pieces with an explosion.

He walked back to Vesemir giving him all of the Medallion.

Vesemir looked at August's hands and released a heavy sigh taking them in his hand "They died doing the right thing"

Then suddenly Vesimir looked through all of the medallions trying to find one in particular, when he wasn't able to do so, he looked with heavy eyes toward August, saying "Son, don't worry we will find it"

To the surprise of Vesemir, August denied shaking his head from side to side.

Vesemir inquired "I understand that it might hurt, but why you don't want to search for it?"

August turned his head towards Vesemir and then looked towards the direction where the battle took place, pointing his finger at the crater "We won't be able to find it, he was there"

Vesemir rose his eyebrows asking "How do you know?"

He tried to search for August, but he was not there with him anymore. He turned toward the other boys silently asking where did August go.

In response, they pointed in the direction of the half-destroyed castle.

Vesemir frowned at the behaviour of one of the boys, but washed his worries away for now, since it was hard for all of them.

August moved through the corridors of the castle holding a direction towards the library, he wished that some of the books survived. When he was close enough, he sniffed that something was burning in the direction of the library.

He switched from walking to running and tried to reach the room as soon as possible.

When he was close and opened the door he saw a man standing over a pile of stacked books, holding a torch in his hands. He was about to light up the rest of the books that were there.

The action of opening the door attracted the attention of the man that stood there and he turned his head spotting August.

The man said, looking confused "Huh a kid?"

Seeing such an act August's blood started to boil, and anger started to rise inside.

The man looked at the kid a bit more cautiously and saw his eyes which were yellow with a cat-like red pupil.

He screamed at August taking a silver sword in his hands, that previously was owned by one of the Witchers that died in the siege "Filthy witcher!"

August's eyes took a dangerous glint as he unleashed his knife and dashed at the man.

The man tried to slice August in 2, but he was a terrible swordmaster, he was just one of the peasants that happened to own a sword that could kill anyone, but only in hands of professionals.

August using almost no effort parried the big sword with his small knife and slid in between the man's legs cutting his leg along the way.

The man fell to his knees groaning in pain, he dropped his sword and looked in the direction of August "Monster"

August looked him in the eyes with 0 emotions as he slid his knife across his throat.

Blood splashed everywhere, covering all the floor August looked at how the eyes of the man slowly lost their light and he dropped to the ground holding his throat.

When the man dropped dead Vesemir ran inside the library and saw August standing over a dead body with fresh blood flowing out of his throat and August covered in blood as well.

Vesemir felt speechless, he didn't want the boys to claim the lives of other humans, so early, but it looked like he failed in this matter.

August on the other side didn't put too much attention to Vesemir and walked towards the books and started to place them back on the shelves.

Later in the day, Vesemir gathered all the boys up. In total there were 30 of them, and it is not much, to tell the truth, they will need to pass the trial to claim their medallions, so less than half will survive.

He looked at the boys and announced "We will bury our brothers that died defending this castle during the siege."

One of the boys inquired "But we don't have bodies to bury"

Vesemir replied "We will bury their medallions, to let their souls rest in peace"

Later in the day when all of the boys were gathered outside in front of the big stone, close to which they buries medallions of the fallen brothers.

Vesemir was the first one to walk to the stone, he kneel and muttered words that only he could hear "It was a pleasure fighting and living along with you all. I will take care of the kids that you all trusted me with, so you can rest in peace"

He walked backed and announced "If you want to say something, go ahead"

Few boys went towards the grave and bid their final goodbyes and left to do their thing.

When almost everyone left, but August, Geralt, Eskel and Vesemir.

August walked towards the stone and unleashed his knife plugging it deep in the ground right on top of the place where medallions were buried. He whispered "Rest in peace teacher. I'm returning this knife to you, you entrusted me this weapon and I'm returning it to you. It will serve as a reminder for me of you"

Boys and Vesemir were surprised by the number of words that August said, usually he was silent, but there he went beyond himself.

He walked back to the rest and looked at their surprised faces, before walking back to the castle leaving others a bit stunned.

….

During the next week, all of the people were busy doing anything they can to restore the little they could, to make the place habitable enough for them to live.

August dig out all of the books that he hid and showed them to Vesemir whose mood was down because most of the knowledge was lost once and for all. Since very ancient texts were nothing, but ash now.

This made Vesemir a bit happier since some of the books were essential to teach the boys all the skills they will need in the future, sadly most of them were books about alchemy.

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