The Witcher: Lord of the Empire

The first thing that caught everyone's eyes was the three lions of Cintra flag flying in the wind. When the flagpole slowly rose and exposed to everyone, the composition of the team was also clear at a glance.

This was a cavalry team of only about fifty people, but their momentum was amazing, and they were obviously elite on the battlefield.

The leader was a blond knight with an imposing manner. The lion emblem on his chest seemed to be roaring at the scorching sun under the sunlight.

Behind him were two male attendants and a female attendant, and then four warriors wearing strange armor and carrying double swords.

After that, there were the Cintra cavalry neatly dressed in standard silver-gray armor.

Triss was no longer in the team at this moment. After finishing the trip to Novigrad, she did not accompany Lann to Hagge Castle again.

First, her 'magic teaching' had ended, and she needed to return to Cintra and Aretuza to handle affairs; second, the other kings did not bring their royal advisors because they did not trust the sorcerers, so it was not appropriate for Lann to bring Triss.

When Triss left, she also took the [The Caretaker's spade] that Lann had obtained from von Everec Estate. This kind of equipment enchantment with blood-sucking effect was simply unheard of. She decided to go back and study it carefully with Mousesack and others to see if it could be reproduced.

Triss was not traveling alone, however. She was accompanied by a royal wizard from the kingdom of Ofir, an expert in 'magic infusion', who intended to pass on his knowledge to Mousesack. Lann was confident that by the time he returned to Cintra, great progress would have been made.

From a distance, looking at the flags of the other kingdoms in the Pontar Valley, it could be seen that their troops far outnumbered those of Lann.

Since the kings were present, the three great kingdoms—Temeria, Aedirn, and Kaedwen—had brought around a thousand soldiers each, composed mainly of knights, royal guards, and elite corps.

The Pontar Valley is located at the junction of four kingdoms, so these kingdoms have also deployed troops on the borders. If something unexpected happened, they could mobilize their armies to protect the kings, a situation that Nilfgaard longed to see.

Following the communication via horns between the Kaedwen guard post and the Lann party, a loud horn also sounded from the direction of Hagge Castle.

Soon, an emissary from Kaedwen, another from Temeria, and one from Aedirn rode up from the castle, ready to guide them to their assigned camp.

Among the emissaries were high-ranking officials and figures with the bearing of a royal butler.

This reflected a balance of power. Although Hagge Castle was nominally under the jurisdiction of Aedirn, the situation was more complicated. With so many kings gathered, they could not find a suitable 'representative' to act as host, so they decided to form a team of 'stewards' made up of members of the different kingdoms to serve the monarchs at the castle. Lann would also have to appoint someone from his group to join this team.

Kaedwen's high-ranking officer, passing by their camp, clearly noticed the smell of alcohol. He glared at the sergeant, while the two merchants took advantage of the distraction to slip away.

When Lann and his entourage were about two hundred meters from the guard post, they slowed, moving slowly until they met the team of butlers at the entrance.

House was the first to advance on his horse and announced loudly: "Before you stands the Lion of Cintra, the Griffin Knight of the Lady of the Lake, the Lord of Brokilon, Lann Lannister!"

The three officers quickly dismounted to salute Lann, showing respect even though some of them held noble titles similar to Lann's. In these diplomatic encounters, it was crucial to show sufficient deference.

After all, Lann would soon be sitting at the negotiating table with their kings; disrespecting him would be the same as disrespecting their own king.

Lann looked at the three people in front of him.

"Earl Lannister, it must have been a tiring journey. Did everything go well on your voyage?" It was Aedirn's royal steward who finally broke the silence, bowing in greeting.

"Sort of. Though security in the region seems to leave a lot to be desired; we encountered quite a few drowners, ghouls and the like along the way." Lann replied, shaking his head with a puzzled expression. “What have you all been doing here? In theory, these monsters should avoid an area with such a high concentration of troops.”

Unexpectedly, the royal butler smiled bitterly after hearing this. "If even the witchers accompanying him don't have an answer, much less us. Lately, the monsters in this area have become unusually numerous and aggressive. At first, this almost caused a conflict among our own soldiers."

On the way, Lann found that there were far more monsters in Pontar Valley than outside. Although they were not everywhere, they killed more monsters in a week than in the previous two months combined.

Furthermore, instead of being found in small groups of three or five, the monsters now appeared in large groups of up to a dozen or more. While for Lann and his men this did not pose a great danger, for the small settlements in the region, such numbers of monsters meant total disaster. Along the way, Lann rescued several villagers who were in danger, receiving their gratitude.

Initially, Lann had speculated that the geography of the Pontar Valley, on the border of four kingdoms, was responsible for the lack of attention to security in the area, which had allowed monsters to proliferate.

But now it seems that this is not the case, because even the surroundings of the military base are frequently harassed by monsters, which is obviously not a simple security problem.

"Now you don't have to be troubled by monsters." The royal steward of Aedirn said: "This is now the safest place in the North."

Lann nodded without comment.

Cintra is different from the four kingdoms in the north. They can station troops here unscrupulously, but Lann only has dozens of riders with him. However, because of this, Cintra's base was arranged closer to Hagge Castle, which can save a lot of time.

However, before they could return to the castle, a deep horn sound was suddenly heard in the distance.

That sound...? Could it be a troop calling for help with horn signals?

Lann looked back in the direction of the sound, and saw two black dots hovering in the sky, dropping smaller black dots from time to time.

With the keen vision of a witcher, he could make out that the small falling dots... were human-shaped!

As he watched the scene, he could even hear a harsh, unpleasant roar of some beast echoing through the air, followed by the pained screams of humans fading into the distance until they died away completely.

At the same time, Lann heard the royal steward of Aedirn behind him exclaiming: "According to the itinerary, the only one who should have arrived in Pontar Valley in this time frame, apart from you Earl Lannister, is Queen Meve!"

“Get moving, you lazy bums!”

Hearing the horn of distress, the nearest Kaedwen officer shouted at his soldiers to prepare.

However, these carefree soldiers had just been drinking and having fun. Although they quickly regained order, they still needed some time before they were ready to face the enemy.

Lann looked into the distance at the small black dots in the sky and suddenly her expression became jubilant.

“Let’s go first!”

Lann decided immediately, leading his group of witchers and the cavalry towards the place where the distress horn came from, leaving behind the Kaedwen officer, who was cursing his own troop for their disastrous performance.

The sound of the horn was not far from the camp gate. Lann and his subordinates approached the troops seeking help in a short while.

Lann rushed there with one goal: to claim the loot, and with it, the right to distribute the rewards.

In his eyes, the flying things in the sky were not monsters, but bottles of decoction.

The two creatures seemed to be a couple, acting in perfect synchronicity. Outwardly, they resembled the dragons of legends, but were much smaller, with a length of just four meters, similar in size to griffins.

They had wing-like forelimbs that helped them fly, and their skin was covered in fine, fragmented scales, leaving patches of tough skin exposed. Their cries were hoarse and unpleasant.

Inverted spikes protruded from the tops of their snouts and near their ears, and their tails ended in a horny, razor-sharp protuberance. When Lann and his group were a few meters away, they saw the tail of one of these creatures split an oak shield in two with a single blow.

[Draconid Class Creature] – Forktail.

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