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TWL Chapter 96: Pursuits and Collisions
🕑 Added 2024-03-15 03:46:27 +0000 UTCSoldiers rushing to complete their mission would not bother to take Ciri's poorly made cloak, and soldiers later coming to plunder the battlefield might not recognize its value and simply left it there, thinking it was not worth it. This gave Lann the opportunity to find the cape.
He brushed the dust and prints off the cloak, then activated the Witcher's Senses.
Many mist clusters of various colors formed by pheromones surrounded the cloak. Lann focused on the thickest, red haze that then transformed into a route marking in the air.
This route marking was divided into two, a denser one pointing forward, heading north of the capital city of Cintra. The other, less dense, pointed behind Lann, towards the combat zone in the capital.
Why are there two roads?
Lann was confused, and suddenly he saw Black Wind's ears moving, and the horse immediately raised its head on alert. Then he also heard the sound of slight footsteps and the sound of conversations coming from the direction of the war zone.
"Did anyone see a man in an officer's cloak come in here just now?"
"Absolutely, sir. He was also carrying a warhorse from Cintra. There is no mistake."
Lann counted silently in his mind: one, two, three...eleven, a small team with about the same number of people, walking dull and wearing armor, but without horses, they were all infantry, so it was not a big problem.
Soon a group of black-armored soldiers appeared in sight. Lann had not yet turned off the witcher's senses at this time. What surprised him was that the officer leading the team was surrounded by a thick red mist.
He carried a black backpack on his back and could vaguely see the hilt of a lion-headed sword and another swallow sword hilt decorated with crystals.
“That’s him!” a soldier shouted after seeing Lann.
The officer sneered: "Ha, you're clearly not one of us in that armor, where did you get that cloak...?"
Before he could finish his sentence, the officer was startled by Lann's lion-like eyes, taking several hasty steps back.
Lann took off his officer's cloak, then covered himself with the Archgriffin’s cloak, lowered the hood over his face, drew his steel sword, and let the lion's mane of the cloak fly.
Before attacking, he calmed Black Wind and placed Swade on his back.
"They've taken my things... a lot of things."
...
The Nilfgaardian squad disappeared without a trace.
Meanwhile, Lann rode towards his destination.
On the other hand, Ciri and Geralt were finally officially reunited. But their current situation was certainly not suitable for going directly to Kaer Morhen, and in the end they still followed Mousesack's plan and headed towards Brokilon.
But they ran into Fringilla and Cahir.
According to the current march route of Nilfgaard and the pattern of the northern border, anyone with some strategic perspective can infer that the princess will definitely flee north, not to mention that Cahir and the others are directly following Cili.
At this time, there were only five wizards left in the wizard team around Fringilla. And together they teleported to the front of Ciri's team.
At this point, Ciri's group had already exceeded one hundred men, counting both the city guards and the local troops recruited along the way. For Fringilla and his group, this number already represented a threat to them.
The mages from Fringilla's group are those who were eliminated from the two main academies. Otherwise, they would not be reduced to participating in Nilfgaardian military training and losing their dignity as mages.
Mages rarely go to the battlefield in person, and even when they do, they mostly play a supporting role. What's more, the group of them had already consumed a lot of magic power when they faced Mousesack. At this time, they were all exhausted.
To block the progress of Ciri and her group, a mountain next to a main road collapsed under the influence of magic.
To avoid hurting Ciri, Fringilla did not choose to use this landslide to directly attack the group, but still blocked their advance. If they wanted to move forward, they had to at least take a detour and lose at least a day in the process.
Not even half a day passed before the pursuit squad led by Cahir arrived.
Cahir ordered: "Send the signal!"
An arrow with a deep red glow rose into the sky, catching the attention of the nearby Nilfgaardian soldiers.
...
Lann finished off the last man of the Nilfgaardian cavalry in front of him, while many corpses lay scattered around him. He wiped the blood from his face with the bag of water he had snatched and looked up, just in time to see the glowing arrow.
"I found them!"
Black Wind ran with all his strength. The witcher's mutation made its endurance and speed far exceed that of any war horse in the world.
Lann had already encountered a lot of Nilfgaardian soldiers along the way, and inevitably suffered a lot of minor wounds on his body. While fighting with the witcher's signs was exciting, the reality was not like in the games where you could meditate in one place for a day. At this moment, the sword was still his main combat tool.
Because of the big explosion in the castle, he knew that he would definitely encounter a mage in this battle.
Took out a wine bag snatched from the Nilfgaardian officer, took a sip of strong wine, and strength suddenly surged up slowly from his stomach. The [Gourmet] skill activated.
The pain from the wounds began to slowly subside. Lann barely noticed him as he advanced toward the front, where war cries, sounds of lightning, explosions of flame, and the roar of wind could be heard.
The battlefield suddenly came into view.
Black-armored soldiers rushed to surround the desperately fighting Cintra soldiers.
Geralt is undisputedly on the front line. Surprisingly, Enns was followed closely behind. The strong old butler wore a chainmail and robe with the seal of a lion. He rode a horse and bumped left and right in the crowd. House behind him could barely keep up with him.
Lann suddenly remembered that the old butler seemed to have said that he had been on the battlefield with the old Lannister.
Ciri was trying hard to stay at the back of the formation so as not to cause trouble, while Ace led a dozen city guard soldiers, constantly attacking the six enemy mages with their bows and arrows.
A protective shield surrounded their bodies, generating continuous waves under the impact of the arrows. The leader of the mages, a woman, had not attacked yet. She simply frowned as she watched the battle below.
Ace fired his bow while shouting: "Keep them under pressure, once the mages activate the protective shield, they can't use offensive magic! If they release their hands, we will be finished instantly!"
Lann hesitated with his hand behind his back, and finally drew out the gryphon silver sword.
“Black Wind, jump up!”
Black Wind, in the midst of his gallop, crouched slightly to gather strength in a single breath. Then, with a strong push of his hind legs, he broke the stones under his hooves and rose into the air.
Lann raised the gryphon silver sword high above his head. The silver sword came out of his hand like a hand axe, spinning and flying towards the place where the mages were, piercing through the protective shield and cutting one of the mages in half.
A companion next to him had blood sprayed all over his face. He was stunned for a moment and suddenly shouted loudly: "Dimeritium ore!"
The next second there was an arrow on his head, and Ace shouted excitedly from below: "Very good, continue! It's just a mage, Cintra's sword can... huh?"
Ace suddenly saw the black horse falling from mid-air and the blond knight on his back, and his eyes widened suddenly.
The Nilfgaardian soldier at the back of the team heard the sound of horse hooves behind him. Before he could turn around, he was trampled by the falling horse hooves, almost splitting him in two.
“Nilfgaardians!”
Lann rode towards the infantry formation, drawing a spear from his inventory as he went. Without any special abilities, he relied on Black Wind's strength and his own strength to break through.
One, two, three bodies were skewered on his spear, creating a chain of corpses. In the blink of an eye, he surpassed the limit that a single hand could bear, releasing the spear. At this time, Black Wind still had enough momentum to move away, so Lann opted to get off the horse and prepare to fight on foot.
