The ineptitude and stupidity of de Wett also had a psychological significance. The myth of Nilfgaard’s invincibility was broken. Scores of volunteers began to flock to the army of the Nordlings…

Restif de Montholon
The Northern Wars. Myths, Lies and Half-truths.

Jarre–what else can be said?–was very disappointed. An upbringing in a temple and his own open nature made him believe in people, in their goodness, kindness and selflessness. Not much remained of that faith.

He had already slept two nights in the open, among the remains of hay ricks, and now it looked like he would be spending a third night in a similar fashion. In every village where he asked for a bed or a piece of bread he was answered with either a weighty silence, or insults and threats from behind securely locked gates. It didn’t help when he said who he was and why he was travelling.

He was very, very disappointed in people.

It was quickly growing dark. The boy marched jauntily and briskly along a path between some fields. He spotted a hay rick, resigned and downcast at the prospect of another night under the open sky. March was, admittedly, extremely warm, but it got cold at night. And very frightening.

Jarre looked up at the sky, where, as it had been every night for almost a week, the gold and red bee of a comet was visible, crossing the sky from the west to the east, dragging in its wake a flickering plait of fire. He wondered what this strange phenomenon, mentioned in many prophecies, might actually auger.

He started walking again. It was growing darker and darker. The track led downwards, into an avenue of dense undergrowth that assumed terrifying shapes in the semi-darkness. From below, where it was even darker, drifted the cold, foul smell of rotting weed and something else. Something very unpleasant.

Jarre stopped. He tried to persuade himself that what was crawling over his back and shoulders was not fear, but cold. Unsuccessfully.

A low footbridge connected the banks of a canal overgrown with osiers and misshapen willows, black and shining like freshly pared pitch. Long holes gaped in the footbridge in places where the timbers had rotted and caved in, and the handrail was broken, its spindles submerged in the water. The willows grew more thickly beyond the bridge. Although it was still a long way to the actual night, although the distant meadows beyond the canal were still glowing with a yarn of mist hanging on the top of the grass, darkness reigned among the willows. Jarre saw the vague ruins of a building in the gloom–probably a mill, sluice or eel smokery.

I must cross that footbridge, thought the lad. There’s nothing to be done! Although I feel in my bones that something evil is lurking in the darkness, I must get to the other side of this canal. I must cross this canal, like that mythical leader or hero I read about in yellowed manuscripts in the Temple of Melitele. I’ll traverse this canal and then… What was it? The cards will have been dealt? No, the dice will have been cast. Behind me lies my past, before me stretches my future…