Auckes

Auckes was a witcher of the School of the Viper and one of the Kingslayers, the small band of Vipers that Letho led into the North to murder kings for Emperor Emhyr. Together with his fellow Viper Serrit he was Letho’s closest support. Letho did the talking with sorceresses, elves and emperors, and the two of them did much of the dangerous legwork.

He is a minor figure next to Letho, but not a stranger to Geralt. The two had history from the time before Geralt lost his memory, which is why their meeting in The Witcher 2 lands harder than a fight with an ordinary assassin. In the Polish version of the game he is called Egan.

Before the Kingslayers

Geralt saved Letho’s life in Angren while he was chasing the Wild Hunt, which had taken Yennefer. In return, Letho and his Vipers, Auckes among them, joined the hunt. They caught up with the Hunt at the Hanged Man’s Tree in Nilfgaard, where Geralt traded himself for Yennefer. The Vipers were left to look after her, and she was feverish, without her memory, and anything but easy company. Before long the whole group was arrested by the Nilfgaardian secret police.

That is where Emhyr made Letho his offer: kill kings in the North, and the School of the Viper would be rebuilt. Auckes went along with it. While Letho worked his way through the North, Auckes and Serrit were stationed with the Scoia’tael in Upper Aedirn as part of Letho’s deal with Iorveth. When Letho betrayed the elves, the Kingslayers slaughtered the Scoia’tael there and left just one survivor. Their next target was King Henselt of Kaedwen.

His fate on each path

On Vernon Roche’s path, during The Assassins of Kings in Chapter 2, Auckes and Serrit go after Henselt in the Kaedweni camp. Geralt fights them both outside the royal tent and cuts Auckes down, while Serrit escapes after Síle de Tansarville hits him with lightning. Dethmold then uses necromancy on Auckes’s corpse so that Geralt can relive the witcher’s last hours. The vision leads him to the Kingslayers’ hideout and exposes Síle’s part in the plot.

On Iorveth’s path Geralt never crosses swords with him. Once Síle finds the hideout, Dethmold sends Kaedweni soldiers in, and Auckes and Serrit cover Letho’s escape. They do not survive it.

Good to know

• The fight against Auckes and Serrit is one of the harder duels of Chapter 2, since the two attack in combination. Quen and Yrden help keep them under control.
• Before Dethmold’s ritual you need a potion, which the merchant Gadwall in the camp sells.
• Inside the vision, stepping into one of the Vipers’ traps resets the sequence.
• Auckes was created for the games and does not appear in Andrzej Sapkowski’s books.