Author's Note before you read: This story contains adult elements and violence. It also contains items named "Codex Entries", which are, simply, sample texts from the books and bestiaries that describe monsters as Andrzej Sapkowski and/or CD-REDkit designed them. It also contains 'breaks', wherein a short entry ends and another one begins- or at least transitions. This is marked by a visibly larger space between them.
As the door to her room creaked closed, and bootsteps sounded down the stair ramp, the young woman within clutched at the unexpected lace dress in her hands and began to weep after almost another four minutes of dazed thought. Rushing out, she ran straight to the madam, not taking so much as a moment to reconsider. Her employer cupped her chin and examined her, voice sharp and suspicious. "What is it, Curie? Did he hurt you? Should I call the city guard?"
She pocketed a sizable pouch she had been counting and made the girl turn about twice to better inspect her property as she listened.
"No, mum, n-no," the brunette young woman stammered in reply, and bit her lip. "It- it was just, strange."
"Oh, that. Did he play those little fancies out again instead of tupping you? Pretend to be a family, chat about your day, refuse to look at you if you doffed your coat and showed your girls?" the madam calmed and asked with a slow knowing nod. "I told him this wasn't a snuggery and some of the girls might not care for it. Always pays triple, though."
"I can still feel my heart aching," Curie answered back, and dried her large green eyes before beginning to reapply her makeup for her next real client. "I never thought I would have to care when I joined the brothel, to be honest. He was very nice for a freak; I almost feel like I would want to do it again, but I can't stop crying, e-either."
"Take the night for yourself. See if the dress fits. They usually do. Man pays close enough attention to know the birthdays and sizes around here, even if he's only in once in a blue moon."
All agape at the generosity, the young lady of the night didn't give her tightfisted employer time to reconsider before she was back in her room with the doors locked, eager for a decent rest and think for a change; but doing so also sealed her in with the mirror, and with objects looming up as recent memories. The dresser he'd dusted and the table, still set with a last few sips of tea and several cups, plates with the crumbs of pastries. The window drapes, drawn and tied, with the candles still burning strong.
Black tinted spectacles that had helped hide his disturbing eyes and almost made him handsome, left behind on the table. A stack of coins that she only now began to register were for her and her alone as a gift, if he'd already paid- triple!- to the madam. "What a damn shame," she gripped the table cloth, and wrung it as if strangling it for making her feel this way. "What a damn, damn shame."
A lovely day out as a family, discussing the children and whether to play in the park later, between a Witcher and a whore. If it weren't for the circumstances it might not have even been playing at roles. The lovely girl drank the last of the tea, pulled out a strong bit of wine she'd secreted under the floorboards, and crashed in her bed, pretending the next day the pillows weren't soaked in the salt of tears- if admittedly not with the usual sources of salt- when she opened the door to smile at her first proper customer in fourteen hours and lead him in, lead him on.
It didn't take much effort from ruby lips and curvaceous hips, especially when they didn't have to pretend to be nice. The madam, of course, would never, ever allow herself to admit that the girl had shone under the confusion and regret when she first came out the prior evening. Vivacious eyes under the red and moisture, as it were. But leaving her interested in that would bite into profit margins.
At something of the same time of evening, four days on foot later.
Slowly the crossbow drifted, following the target until the heavily armored man dropped his trousers to take a piss against the bushes at the edge of the encampment. No guards. The howl as a poisoned barb embedded itself in the softness of his buttocks was replaced by coughing and foaming. He would be dead inside of two days from the acting toxins of the injury.
The knight would be immobile inside of two minutes. Already he was starting to double over on the ground, no amount of plate preventing the rocks scraping him as he writhed. As the camp rallied and roused at the attack, the sniper swiflty disassembled and put away his crossbow as he quietly made his way into the waters of the ravine's gorged river. The sound of hounds and shouting, swearing, followed in his wake in the rare moments he broke water for air, almost three minutes between each. And in several other directions, drawn by the false trails he had set beforehand.
To his relief, the contract had not stipulated retrieval, not for a head or for fingers. News about the death would circulate on its own. Then would come the pay. For now, a place to lie low was in order. Radovid had an exceptionally cruel methodology when it came to those who murdered his commanders, just as Nilfgaard paid quite a fair deal and promptly.
Politely, even. Sensible folk, the Imperials. All the more dangerous for it. It would be among the Northern villages he'd need to disappear, at least until he could make his way to the Pontar, however. And certainly, it would never due to be associated with either completed murder or the Black Ones by those people.
Climbing free from the water and shaking himself, slapping his exhausted, soaked muscles to try to warm them after a long travel treading the river, he thanked whatever gods had decided to be merciful and kept the monsters from being disturbed by his wake or a decent tracker from noting him despite his best attempts. Another day to breathe. Oh, yes, joy.
Pouring his boots out and wiping them dry carefully, then spitting and polishing to try to better maintain the already admittedly flagging leather, he considered the glade around him. It was silent of conversation, but birdsong and animals chattered in the background. The breeze was picking up as he checked his quarrel to be certain that none of the wooden barbs had leaked their contents or come to start mouldering, rotting. He wiped his swords and oiled them, unbound and rebound their hilt wrappings, and attended to resharpening the edge to just a hair more of an edge before it began to occur to him that this was a very lonely sunset.
Well, going to that camp for rare and often undesired company would be right out. He'd seen no signs of a road or village for a good space either. After sixty years of wandering services killing, almost nothing surprised him more than when he had the urge of human conversation; but, despite not being human, there it was, every so small often.
That particular urge kept biting his wallet of late, he was coming to find. Worse, he'd left his horse in Tretogor. Alongside most of his coin with what wasn't actually and likely never would be his sweet chestnut haired bride. At least if he did die out here he'd have some sweet memories, however false they were, he supposed; but a Wolf would probably have considered it just as crazy as the usual Cat psychotic tendencies. Maybe it was.
At any rate.
The capital of Redania was going to be off limits for awhile if the King had investigators skilled enough to identify the potent cocktail of mutagens and toxic poisons that had coated the barb and shaft, though; he might well have to simply bid farewell to that particular horse. At least until he'd gone roundabout long enough for them not to be looking for anyone practiced in the alchemical arts. Then again, Oxenfurt and its famous Academies were only three hundred miles west of the city, and the Pontar River open throughout.
Hell, that rather was how he'd gotten here anyway, wasn't it? By ship the first time. He sat to meditate, closing his eyes, and clearing his mind of these pesky ramblings.
Two days passed before he rose again from that position. Finding his throat unslit and no monsters about, he proceeded along his way. Not without an effort not to dream, and frankly grasping for the legendary lack of emotions or humanity that the peasants tended to believe of his kind anyway. All along the way towards where the treeline ended, he finished off his satchel supplies and stopped at the river all of four times after emptying out the canteen.
Then there came a distinctive rattling, liquid hiss, some hundred meters away by his estimation. The sound of a large insect- no, an arachnid. He began to walk entirely more quietly and tried at first to avoid making any sort of noise that would attract its attention, until he heard the sound of a child screaming at it and some sort of a struggle.
The impulse to walk on died even before his legs started pumping straight for the danger, although he suspected it would have its meal well and truly started before he arrived, and, at best, he'd be performing an act of vengeance. But it was impossible to ignore anyway. Ruthless sensibility be damned when he was having one of these mood swings.
Codex: Arachnids are lone hunters - they patiently wait for their prey to kill it with one swift strike when it appears. The same is true for the arachas, a huge creature that took a liking of the riverside forest, becoming it's undisputed king. A ruler who does not tolerate other hunters on it's territory. Including witchers.
Arachasae are large, slow and protected by a durable armor. The carapace, as the witchers call this armor, is especially tough from the front, so it is much easier to wound the creature from the side or the back. The arachas' charges make an excellent for that - one has to evade the charge at all costs by stepping out the beast's way, and then make one's blow. Without doubt it's the best to use the strong style then.
The arachas has no fear of poison, and not much fear of fire. It's primitive nervous system barely reacts to wounds, and it's incredible vitality allows it to take even great wounds. The beast will heal them after the fight anyway, all the while digesting its prey.
All said and done, the arachas is a bug, so one's blade should be coated with the Insectoid Oil before fighting it. The monster's susceptibility to this blade coating is probably its sole weakness. The beast can easily all shrug off other witcher tricks, so common poisons and Signs are of no use, not to mention attempts to knock the colossus down.
To say that mud from the heavy rain and swamp coated their apparel would have been something of misinformation in the degree to which it clung. Scarcely a flash of cloth beneath molting sodden clay and rivulets of precipitation showed, and certainly not skin as they huddled quite as close as walking men could while making any pretense at progress. And, with the lack of visibility and mobility, pretending was about all that could be said of that in particular.
Their misery was perpetuated and vastly deepened by the sounds that accompanied the squelching of their boots and the sky-shattering thunderous bursts, audible over the endless downpour and equally unquenchable, as their heartless employer hummed with merciless cheer and trotted along behind them. In the magical shield that she of course didn't so much as think about bothering to extend to them, the physical world simply failed to touch her with the annoyances that were proving so vexing to her laborers.
Or so it held for a time beyond which most of the lunks, frankly, could count at any rate even without being severely drunk or disgruntled, a time of seemingly endless, waterlogged woe, before a heavily tattooed lad cocked his ear midway between removing his hat to wring the water out and spitting at his clay caked boots. "You hear that, lads?"
At first, they couldn't quite, although the mage actually went quiet to try herself, something that the half mutinous company could certainly appreciate. But the target of this newfound attentiveness proved swift to make itself known to first their senses and then in a ripe moment their company, as a fully tacked horse and rider trotted towards them from the otherwise largely identical seeming brush and treeline, lightning flashes showing features in the darkness. "Cold, dark day, isn't it? If you have any dry bread in all this, I'd gladly trade you some brandy for it."
Despite the rider's cheerful offer, his voice was flat, sharp, and grim, and as his eyes glowed in the darkness, one of the workers made the sign of the Eternal Fire to ward off evil. Another spat, and a third snorted. "I ain't breaking breakfast with a ploughing mutant. Piss off, freak."
"It's an ill tide that washes no good ashore," the witch mused. "A mutant, you say?"
"It's the cat eyes, mum," the first twitched and muttered aloud with shame. "Dead giveaway, that. This is one of 'em Witchers, see. Takes children and property in exchange for a fellow's life. Kill monsters for coin and ain't good for much else otherwise."
"Mm. Sometimes," the man with the yellow eyes agreed, the slit indeed sharpening like an attentive cat's as he focused. "That's the basic concept of enterprise, of course. Compensation? Remuneration? The words mean something to you, friends? Pay? You understand, 'pay your debts', right? I imagine that you do.
"I suppose this is as pleasant a chat as I'm likely to get for a few days of travel alone otherwise, so I would like to ask again if you care just to split the brandy? You've made your opinions clear, but one drink won't hurt strong, gods fearing men, will they?" the armored man on the horse wheedled despite the stronger hint of sarcasm in his earlier little diatribe. "The water hags in the swamp beyond tend to make for even more unpleasant company, and there's no contracts to attend to at the moment."
"Water hags? I was assured the way forward was clear of monsters. As much as can be, anyway," the witch muttered with annoyance to herself. "Witcher, go and kill them for us?"
"There are several of them, all quite dangerous and with their own dens. What price are you willing to pay?" the Witcher asked in return to her question, and put his brandy back in the saddlebag, to, to his amusement, a groan of disappointment from the properly human men.
She poised with a hand on her chin, eyes drifting over her party. "I suppose threats are right out."
"From them, at any rate. I'd rather not spill human blood on such a nice morning, though. And I'd definitely like not to fight a sorceress without a very good reason, human or otherwise," he agreed. "Coin will do nicely instead."
Entirely too bedraggled to be menacing or to like their chances of fighting a better armed man with such calm about the possibility of their demise, none of the seven men, not even the three loudest protesters voicing complaints about his presence, offered a single sound. Barring sneezes, at least. And the ambiance of the flooding's dripping.
"I don't much like you," she decided, and fetched a tarp from her satchel, feeling her flaunted powers beginning to become entirely too draining to keep up the magic shield. "I don't care to be at a disadvantage when bargaining and I have no idea in the slightest what a decent rate would be."
He watched silently behind her as she set up the tent, apparently content to camp at last, to the relief of the formerly slogging company. She turned, and frowned deeply as she pointed at him. "No answers?"
"No charity," he answered, and set to muttering reassurances at the horse to keep it from bolting. His medallion spun slowly, the graven cat slowly bobbing against his deeply blue apparel. If it weren't for his mount and his glowing eyes, he would have been all but invisible in what she was rapidly becoming aware was a menacing, encroaching darkness. The cheer of her expedition and her prospects were being washed away, not by the torrential downpour, but by the gravity of the unwelcome visitor and the thought of what lay ahead if he told any sort of truth about it after all.
The object's eyes began to glow a green tint themselves as he leaned closer and it reacted to her own magics.
"The Cat! Oh, save our souls!" wailed the devotee to Novigrad's most popular religion, and drew his sword after all. It wavered in his wet hands, but his callouses clung to the handle as though his life depended on it, and perhaps it did. "He's not just a freak, he's one of those freaks!"
"I assure you, despite what you may have heard, not every member of my School is an unpredictable, murdering psychopath," the Witcher answered in a rather colder tone. "Kaer Morhen is fond of portraying us as assassins, brigands, and botched creations, true, but I am not here to harm you. There's no profit in it."
"Ah, this sounds like a lovely story. What's this all about? I could use a laugh," the witch chimed, and patted the ground beside her. "Or a knife man, really. Have a seat! Tell us your name. You wanted conversation when you first came by, you said, after all. Talk up."
"I really ought to be going now, actually. I've taken far too much of your time already. Don't worry; going on your own way out of the woods is free."
"Sit," she commanded, and a force jerked him from the saddle face first into the ground, then pulled him partially upright. "I get very bored of peasants."
He cast a look that in a man with more emotions might have been called resentful, whereas her guide was simply red faced and scandalized in a similar glance. He took a more proper seat, edging away from the naked blade, and muttered Igni at the woodroots to start a fire going despite the utter efforts of their surroundings. "I'll thank you not to do that to me again."
"That might be considered your payment. Or part of it, anyway. You wanted company? You'll come with us. I'll even see you get a proper bit of treasure at the end when we're done uncovering the lost elven library, dear thing," she smirked. "If they happen to die on the way to the dig, more shares all around. Now out with it. A name."
"I am Maerlyn of the Cat School, as your man surmised. I prefer Maerlyn of Gwendlith . At your services, for a real reward, but I will kill you if the need arises," the heavily bearded man answered, looking at her dead in the eyes. His own reflected very little emotion. "Who are these charmers and yourself?"
"Moraine. These are..." she gestured dismissively. Hazel eyes glinted with briefly exposed disappointment and contempt before returning to a mad cheer.
"Godwin," "Bodwin," "I don't want no Witcher knowing my name," "Mikhael," "Soren," "Roberts," "Jakob."
"As you were," she nodded primly, and promptly made certain to forget them again as the yellow eyed man traced over them slowly with his gaze and matched man to title. "Go on with the story, and we'll get on with business in a moment."
He reached back into his bags and withdrew the brandy, and most of the men accepted the chance to sit and rest under Moraine's shelter while they had the opportunity of her being distracted. Bodwin broke out sandwiches, Soren some salted pork to grill over the magical blaze, and the smells of cooking very swiftly started to dissipate at least a portion of the tension. Roiling bellies and envious glances at the balm to forget troubles were almost as strong as the one fellow's stigma against the unnatural.
"Our story begins with Kaer Morhen, and a set of individuals with powers like yourself who decided that children would make excellent candidates to rid the world of troublesome beasts from the Conjunction of the Spheres. All it would take is research, some reshaping, and throwing them headfirst into the turmoils and troubles of the world.
"Three in every ten died. One in every three had flawed mutations that even successful training couldn't compensate for. Many of these men broke under their pain and stress, and, eventually, they were cast out entirely from their fellows. The Aen Sidhe adopted a few of these exiles, and reformed them again into fighting men, not unlike how they formed the Scoia'tel alongside the Dwarves in their own defense. The Elves hate seeing something wasted, after all.
"That was the start of the Witcher Schools, of differing modes of thought and operation. Skills and methodology, including what contracts would or would not be taken.
"The pure strains and the mutations considered to work the best were the Wolf School directly under the magi implementing their studies, even when they went to more drastic experiments to test their reach. The Cat school was begun by Elves and those the Wolf would not accept, but it became the most inclusive of any of them. We had Elven tutors and Elven Witchers in time, and unlike most, we had men and women serving along the Path.
"In time, other Schools formed as other mages emulated the Elves and lured away, or stole away, people with first hand knowledge of how to perform the alchemy and magics that allow for successful combat mutations without killing or completely devolving the subject. The Griffin came first, then, the Viper out of Nilfgaard's efforts to take the advantages of the North. The Skelligan druids formulated the Bear school with their berserkers next. The alchemists of the far east devised the Manticore in due time as well."
He ate in peaceful silence for awhile as she worked to process this, then, bluntly, added, "The Wolves refuse to take contracts to kill men. Most of the other five have accepted that monsters can be found in all varieties, shape and behavior, and all six carry silver and steel. Silver for monsters; steel for men. Only in self defense in the mouths of some. We Cats have something of a reputation for being quite as willing to take contracts for our steel as for our silver, and the Wolves hate that."
Waiting until the Witcher was again savagely chewing at the pork, the religious man eyed the medallion and spat again. "Not the only ones. Last I heard, the Cat fortress was being sieged by soldiers for their members' crimes and bounties were on the heads of runaway members."
Moraine considered again. "I don't like you. But I imagine you might be useful. Twenty gold a hag head and your company will keep you alive and without worry from the law, Maerlyn."
"One hundred and eighty seven golden florens a hag head, plus labor and remuneration for supplies, and hang any notions you have that you might kill me or turn me in," haggled the golden eyed man, with a hand slowly edging toward his belt. "It will take some time to hunt down the individual lairs as it is."
"Sixty Novigrad crowns each instead and I shan't make you into a hat," the witch smiled back pleasantly, and waved her fingers. "Well, go on then, ugly, get on with it. Shoo. You already made the boys dour enough."
The mental calculations as to how he might best cut her down and then the seven before she could loose a set of catastrophic spells from the Circle of Elements or beyond and, of course, before her servant with the bared blade could strike as he wished did not pan out favorably in Maerlyn's estimations. Not favorably enough to entirely ignore the paid option, anyway. It wasn't as though being mocked and used was a new disservice, either, not by a long shot in these many decades. Although still a rather irritating one.
He nodded, instead, and as he stood and swung a leg over his horse's saddle, cursed the innate human need for companionship. It often landed trouble. This was exactly why so many of his kindred elected solitary Paths and blunted their emotions, mutation and training aside. He could still feel the stares and glares at his back long after the horse trotted a reasonable distance from the camp, definitely beyond their range of visibility in the weather.
There was no use simply leaving, either. This Moraine was fairly potent. She could find him and catch him by divination or portal fairly more easily than he could track her down the older fashioned ways, and potentially off guard at that. He would be far safer with a chance at the using mage's throat if it came to it.
Speaking of the which, finding the tracks and the difference between the slime of the necrophages and the mud it floated in swiftly took top priority, as the hunt filled his senses.
Codex: Some tales mention water hags and swamp bints masquerading as lost old women to lure travelers back to the rickety shacks they build in the wetlands. In truth, only a blind man, or a sighted man blinded with drink, could mistake the rank sludge and rotting carrion of a water hag's den for a cozy cottage, and the hideous hag herself for an innocent grandmother. Their wrinkled, wart-covered bodies stand nearly two yards tall, with skin the color of a long-dead cadaver and stinking of muck and fish. Bony growths two spans long stick out from their backs, with hair like a tangle of seaweed and claws that would make a werewolf proud completing the picture.
He caught one all but unawares to either of them, and speared her through the neck, though her shaking last breaths and bulk still hurled him headlong into the water. There her hag sisters waited with simpleminded drowner servants, magic on their distended, distorted acrid tongues, breath vile as the bile they devoured. Fighting underwater was seldom advantageous to begin with and certainly not against the dead who thrived in it. He popped a Killer Whale potion to breathe and to see just before sharp claws raked the side of his neck and a powerful blast etched well into into his armored gear.
The corpse eaters would soon be disappointed with their attempted catch, however, as a Yrdren slowed another long enough for him to shove his blade cleanly through her jawline, severing the tongue entirely and piercing her brainhandle. He spun with the blade and the fall of her rapidly cooling flesh, letting her corpse take the brunt of her sister's brutal strike for him- and the thick, warty cadaver did not fail him in this regard. As black blood sprayed into the water and made a more murky mess, he ripped his sword free with three tugs more and broke the surface of the lake again, even as the survivor skirted around the heavy obstacle of her bereavement.
She was about to throw a ball of poisonous mud when he set off a Northern Wind to great effect in the water and the rain, the alchemical explosive cocktail freezing every ounce of moisture in its radius and cracking it... with the lake size and the downpour, it was positively catastrophic, trees utterly shattering as the effect began to wear off. She, bloodied, began to clamber out of the lake, ten dead drowners floating behind her that weren't mean or potent enough to survive the Witcher's grenade. He slashed the edge of the blade a good four inches into her three times in the belly and torso, but she still made it to the shoreline and began to menace him, the guts hanging out no match for her wrath. Each breath and motion the monster made caused the splits to widen, and of a surety, in some hours' time, she would die from her own movements, but if he waited anywhere near that long she would probably do so while supping on his bones.
Maerlyn was forced to dodge as her tongue whipped out and cracked into a branch behind him, the apple on the tree withering with the touch of the foul appendage, and took another hard strike to the shoulder as he tried to roll between her unmentionably foul legs. Slowed by the mud, she seized him by the beard and slammed him to the ground twice with bone shattering force for a man without compensating gear and mutations, though he slashed off her hand and rolled to stab the base of her spine in return. She simply whirled, the force again tossing him, and lunged, trying to bite down upon his throat.
Damning the rain for making him look like a poxy novice after it had begun so well, the panting Witcher let her mouth close around another Northern Wind instead and sprinted for dear life before it went off. The edge still frosted his back and his bootheel a trace. He watched her shatter before returning for his blade and attending with a hunting knife to cutting off the trio's heads as evidence of a fulfilled contract. All the while, he swore bloody blue blazes the likes of which churchmen would claim his kind could never actually feel... but if he'd taken the time to make proper traps and wait out the beasts as was his preference, he suspected Moraine would have found a way to make him regret her lack of progress.
The messy affair of cutting the viscera for that vital bounty instead was, at least, viscerally cathartic, if he pardoned himself the pun.
As he trudged back to his horse, the rain slowly, finally, began to peter out into a stop, though the thick canopy continued to drip. Now, perchance, he could finally see what his enforced companions for awhile would look like. And, perhaps, a way out. There was no particular need to destroy the other six water hag dens if they went quickly enough through this cleared section of the infestation that had formed in recent decades.
That part of the story of the Schools he hadn't told Moraine and likely wouldn't; the part about most of them having been destroyed by pogroms and riots by the precious normal folk, whether for being mutants or for perceived crimes. To such a degree that the monsters within the world had more than trebled their ranks from the time when Witchers were actively patrolling routes everywhere. Dying here for money that, frankly, he might never even see from a woman he'd just met and had been given severe cause to mistrust in a task he could have used six brothers and ten days of careful trapping for was not all that appealing.
Although... the smell of the heads he carried really was the less appealing smell of the options at that, he supposed. Dumping them out at the campfire snuffed it out and the smell of the now slightly cooked brine coated rotting flesh definitely woke the occupants of the tent. He began to notice his injuries and his fatigue on seeing how they rose from sleep. Dully, he noticed it had taken him six hours to find the den, another seven minutes to kill everything, and another hour of riding back, if the sunlight starting to poke at the soggy skies was any indication.
The chance to meditate or get a proper sleep would probably help, but his embarrassment would keep him partly from doing either even if present company didn't. "A hundred and eighty."
"Gods damn- those are-" Jakob began, but Soren answered the thought better, staring at the heads for only seconds before turning to the side and promptly vomiting out what had to have been his last two days' dinners. "Fire preserve us."
Spelling out the words WHEN WE GET TO THE DIG SITE in the earth with an annoyed gesture instead of bothering to answer aloud, Moraine cleaned her clothing with a word, clapped twice, and set off through the mud with a backwards glare before noting the sun and brightening. Humming began anew.
Seven men and a horse trailed in her wake, and Maerlyn elected to follow alongside, if only to better point her into the currently-safe avenue of travel. No telling after all the flooding if the other hags would decide to get ambitious. No reason to chance it.
It might have been nice to have a breakfast and a chat without death and insults on the line, one of these days. Such was not the lot of a Witcher's life though. Not even in the wilds, for most.
The men, still sodden and mudcaked for the most part, were at least now distinguishable. A glance or two to each solidified their features for him, although more intrinsic analysis would be needed for any particulars covered by their current condition. Admittedly, that would be quite a lot, actually, but also a matter he didn't particularly care about and didn't immediately register as necessary. He wasn't hunting them.
So.
Godwin, early thirties, brunette, a lumber worker if Maerlyn knew anything of craft and village work. His build and attire both suggested a woodcutter more than a woodsman. His rough face could be called handsome after a fashion in the same way it could be called crude or even ugly after another, but it looked, at least, to be fairly honest. Which meant he merited watching, because it was always impossible to tell what someone else was truly thinking and those who lent themselves to being open could sometimes hold the darkest thoughts and betrayals.
The ax the man kept fingering uneasily as they worked through the trees was equally rough, but nothing to scoff at. It would split a bone as well as it would a root.
Bodwin, early twenties, not unakin in features to Godwin but with a different enough nose and shoulder set that Maerlyn would stake a guess at them being cousins rather than brothers. Slightly more hawkish and a good deal more lithe, this one he liked at first glance. The man didn't break twigs or disturb the underbrush as he moved and he worked with a hunter's grace at his surroundings, studying them quite as attentively as the Witcher himself was. This was a fellow who could bag meat even in monster infested terrain and escape with his wits and life.
Unsurprisingly, there were the longbow, arrows, and hunting knife he expected out of the man, although the extra three knives and the short throwing spear held a bit more surprise. Good on him. Prepared might be alive a little longer.
Maerlyn still found himself lacking a name for Faithful Doubter, as he elected in a moment's whimsy to name the man who most clearly hated him and kept praying, although it wouldn't really impede observations. Not a priest by any means, not even a lay one. Not enough gear to be a guardsman either, but he didn't handle the sword like he was joking, either. A mercenary, most likely, but where was his armor, then?
The balding little man with his facial scars and perpetually scowling mouth almost struck him as a bandit in that regard, village apparel or not. An incompetent one to be sure if that. Retiree, perhaps? Or undercover.
What did he bring to the table for the mage, what secret was it he was overlooking? It surely wasn't for the gray hairs or company. FD didn't have a shield to complement the sword, but he did have a main gauche, so perhaps-
-ahh, there was a detail he'd missed! The man had a set of admittedly bedraggled pipes half hidden under the plastering stuff crusting their clothing. Which made him a bard of some sorts. In a traveling trade in this land, without a patron or a steady gig in the city, he certainly would have had to become proficient with those weapons.
"Mikhael," "Soren," "Roberts," "Jakob."
Digger, muscle, digger, muscle. Blonde toffs without a brain between them trudging and trundling along as unnaturally in woodland settings as a bear at a dinner party. Going by hammers, picks, sallow but pallid appearances, and, of course, the way they squinted when they all had to go into direct sunlight, he'd venture to say all of them had been plucked from working a quarry somewhere. Made sense for a dig site, but the nagging question of why the mage wouldn't simply use a portal instead of poking around on foot was getting stronger with each crunch they made.
He patted his horse to reassure Mantis that she was certainly more stealthy than the gaggle of brown eyed walkers and cast about for the most important detailing, that of their mutual, ahem, employer.
Sorceresses, as most folk knew who studied, were cheats. It was thus no surprise to find she was at least physically gorgeous, though he'd seen enough of her demeanor to be severely put off by her at the moment. He reckoned to himself that most of them probably felt the same of him, to be honest.
Codex: Unlike priestesses and druidesses, who only unwillingly took ugly or crippled girls, sorcerers took anyone who showed evidence of a predisposition. If the child passed the first years of training, magic entered into the equation - straightening and evening out legs, repairing bones which had badly knitted, patching harelips, removing scars, birthmarks and pox scars. The young sorceress would become attractive because the prestige of her profession demanded it. The result was pseudo-pretty women with the angry and cold eyes of ugly girls. Girls who couldn't forget their ugliness had been covered by the mask of magic only for the prestige of their profession.
As a rule, then, he didn't trust that the one in ten who actually was lovely would be in front of him, and certainly not by the way she cheerfully took out abuse on those around her. Nonetheless, it would be cheating the magic to utterly deny its effects. So, yes, she was gorgeous, but what of it?
Stripped down to elements without lavishing undue praise on them, she was curvaceous in a shapely, lithe manner that accentuated the assets she had while still leaving her at a peak physical performing condition. Magic could do the outlandish, too, but it seemed some sense and moderation had gone into her makeup. The which she wasn't wearing, equally sensibly- makeup, that is.
Very hard, gray eyes flecked with white specks and little blue streaks, wells of malice in a face desperately trying to brim with joy and a throat mouthing sounds that ought to have been signs of happiness with no real spirit behind it. Red, red hair, like freshly shed blood wavering on the edge of a mirror shard, cut to a sensible length for traipsing about the swamp. Eyebrows that seemed as like as not to come off and try to hook someone through the throat, apparently a feature rather than fault...
Noticing she was being observed, she mockingly posed, which only served to set off the cyan gown that went at utter odds with her otherwise road ready appearance. He'd have expected breeches if he were starting his study at her head rather than her shoulderline. Breeches and a backpack at least, however some cities might discourage it. The Witcher women in his own School would have had words about a tart, however magic, that went about dressed like that in waters that until extremely recently held active Water Hags and still smelled of their rank bile and spoor.
This was going to be a long experience indeed.
Or, a short one, he blinked, as the portal opening up cut Roberts and half of the shore brush in half behind them without so much as a scream. It was upon the rest before he'd finished counting the sorceress' buttons and hoping she had some means to avert or close it. Judging by the thud of the man's meat on the dusty plain on the other side and the confused wails of muddy fellows suddenly baking in the desert, as well as her own rather put out shrill evocation, he was forced to conclude that said hope was, sadly as usual, in vain.
As the door to her room creaked closed, and bootsteps sounded down the stair ramp, the young woman within clutched at the unexpected lace dress in her hands and began to weep after almost another four minutes of dazed thought. Rushing out, she ran straight to the madam, not taking so much as a moment to reconsider. Her employer cupped her chin and examined her, voice sharp and suspicious. "What is it, Curie? Did he hurt you? Should I call the city guard?"
She pocketed a sizable pouch she had been counting and made the girl turn about twice to better inspect her property as she listened.
"No, mum, n-no," the brunette young woman stammered in reply, and bit her lip. "It- it was just, strange."
"Oh, that. Did he play those little fancies out again instead of tupping you? Pretend to be a family, chat about your day, refuse to look at you if you doffed your coat and showed your girls?" the madam calmed and asked with a slow knowing nod. "I told him this wasn't a snuggery and some of the girls might not care for it. Always pays triple, though."
"I can still feel my heart aching," Curie answered back, and dried her large green eyes before beginning to reapply her makeup for her next real client. "I never thought I would have to care when I joined the brothel, to be honest. He was very nice for a freak; I almost feel like I would want to do it again, but I can't stop crying, e-either."
"Take the night for yourself. See if the dress fits. They usually do. Man pays close enough attention to know the birthdays and sizes around here, even if he's only in once in a blue moon."
All agape at the generosity, the young lady of the night didn't give her tightfisted employer time to reconsider before she was back in her room with the doors locked, eager for a decent rest and think for a change; but doing so also sealed her in with the mirror, and with objects looming up as recent memories. The dresser he'd dusted and the table, still set with a last few sips of tea and several cups, plates with the crumbs of pastries. The window drapes, drawn and tied, with the candles still burning strong.
Black tinted spectacles that had helped hide his disturbing eyes and almost made him handsome, left behind on the table. A stack of coins that she only now began to register were for her and her alone as a gift, if he'd already paid- triple!- to the madam. "What a damn shame," she gripped the table cloth, and wrung it as if strangling it for making her feel this way. "What a damn, damn shame."
A lovely day out as a family, discussing the children and whether to play in the park later, between a Witcher and a whore. If it weren't for the circumstances it might not have even been playing at roles. The lovely girl drank the last of the tea, pulled out a strong bit of wine she'd secreted under the floorboards, and crashed in her bed, pretending the next day the pillows weren't soaked in the salt of tears- if admittedly not with the usual sources of salt- when she opened the door to smile at her first proper customer in fourteen hours and lead him in, lead him on.
It didn't take much effort from ruby lips and curvaceous hips, especially when they didn't have to pretend to be nice. The madam, of course, would never, ever allow herself to admit that the girl had shone under the confusion and regret when she first came out the prior evening. Vivacious eyes under the red and moisture, as it were. But leaving her interested in that would bite into profit margins.
At something of the same time of evening, four days on foot later.
Slowly the crossbow drifted, following the target until the heavily armored man dropped his trousers to take a piss against the bushes at the edge of the encampment. No guards. The howl as a poisoned barb embedded itself in the softness of his buttocks was replaced by coughing and foaming. He would be dead inside of two days from the acting toxins of the injury.
The knight would be immobile inside of two minutes. Already he was starting to double over on the ground, no amount of plate preventing the rocks scraping him as he writhed. As the camp rallied and roused at the attack, the sniper swiflty disassembled and put away his crossbow as he quietly made his way into the waters of the ravine's gorged river. The sound of hounds and shouting, swearing, followed in his wake in the rare moments he broke water for air, almost three minutes between each. And in several other directions, drawn by the false trails he had set beforehand.
To his relief, the contract had not stipulated retrieval, not for a head or for fingers. News about the death would circulate on its own. Then would come the pay. For now, a place to lie low was in order. Radovid had an exceptionally cruel methodology when it came to those who murdered his commanders, just as Nilfgaard paid quite a fair deal and promptly.
Politely, even. Sensible folk, the Imperials. All the more dangerous for it. It would be among the Northern villages he'd need to disappear, at least until he could make his way to the Pontar, however. And certainly, it would never due to be associated with either completed murder or the Black Ones by those people.
Climbing free from the water and shaking himself, slapping his exhausted, soaked muscles to try to warm them after a long travel treading the river, he thanked whatever gods had decided to be merciful and kept the monsters from being disturbed by his wake or a decent tracker from noting him despite his best attempts. Another day to breathe. Oh, yes, joy.
Pouring his boots out and wiping them dry carefully, then spitting and polishing to try to better maintain the already admittedly flagging leather, he considered the glade around him. It was silent of conversation, but birdsong and animals chattered in the background. The breeze was picking up as he checked his quarrel to be certain that none of the wooden barbs had leaked their contents or come to start mouldering, rotting. He wiped his swords and oiled them, unbound and rebound their hilt wrappings, and attended to resharpening the edge to just a hair more of an edge before it began to occur to him that this was a very lonely sunset.
Well, going to that camp for rare and often undesired company would be right out. He'd seen no signs of a road or village for a good space either. After sixty years of wandering services killing, almost nothing surprised him more than when he had the urge of human conversation; but, despite not being human, there it was, every so small often.
That particular urge kept biting his wallet of late, he was coming to find. Worse, he'd left his horse in Tretogor. Alongside most of his coin with what wasn't actually and likely never would be his sweet chestnut haired bride. At least if he did die out here he'd have some sweet memories, however false they were, he supposed; but a Wolf would probably have considered it just as crazy as the usual Cat psychotic tendencies. Maybe it was.
At any rate.
The capital of Redania was going to be off limits for awhile if the King had investigators skilled enough to identify the potent cocktail of mutagens and toxic poisons that had coated the barb and shaft, though; he might well have to simply bid farewell to that particular horse. At least until he'd gone roundabout long enough for them not to be looking for anyone practiced in the alchemical arts. Then again, Oxenfurt and its famous Academies were only three hundred miles west of the city, and the Pontar River open throughout.
Hell, that rather was how he'd gotten here anyway, wasn't it? By ship the first time. He sat to meditate, closing his eyes, and clearing his mind of these pesky ramblings.
Two days passed before he rose again from that position. Finding his throat unslit and no monsters about, he proceeded along his way. Not without an effort not to dream, and frankly grasping for the legendary lack of emotions or humanity that the peasants tended to believe of his kind anyway. All along the way towards where the treeline ended, he finished off his satchel supplies and stopped at the river all of four times after emptying out the canteen.
Then there came a distinctive rattling, liquid hiss, some hundred meters away by his estimation. The sound of a large insect- no, an arachnid. He began to walk entirely more quietly and tried at first to avoid making any sort of noise that would attract its attention, until he heard the sound of a child screaming at it and some sort of a struggle.
The impulse to walk on died even before his legs started pumping straight for the danger, although he suspected it would have its meal well and truly started before he arrived, and, at best, he'd be performing an act of vengeance. But it was impossible to ignore anyway. Ruthless sensibility be damned when he was having one of these mood swings.
Arachasae are large, slow and protected by a durable armor. The carapace, as the witchers call this armor, is especially tough from the front, so it is much easier to wound the creature from the side or the back. The arachas' charges make an excellent for that - one has to evade the charge at all costs by stepping out the beast's way, and then make one's blow. Without doubt it's the best to use the strong style then.
The arachas has no fear of poison, and not much fear of fire. It's primitive nervous system barely reacts to wounds, and it's incredible vitality allows it to take even great wounds. The beast will heal them after the fight anyway, all the while digesting its prey.
All said and done, the arachas is a bug, so one's blade should be coated with the Insectoid Oil before fighting it. The monster's susceptibility to this blade coating is probably its sole weakness. The beast can easily all shrug off other witcher tricks, so common poisons and Signs are of no use, not to mention attempts to knock the colossus down.
To say that mud from the heavy rain and swamp coated their apparel would have been something of misinformation in the degree to which it clung. Scarcely a flash of cloth beneath molting sodden clay and rivulets of precipitation showed, and certainly not skin as they huddled quite as close as walking men could while making any pretense at progress. And, with the lack of visibility and mobility, pretending was about all that could be said of that in particular.
Their misery was perpetuated and vastly deepened by the sounds that accompanied the squelching of their boots and the sky-shattering thunderous bursts, audible over the endless downpour and equally unquenchable, as their heartless employer hummed with merciless cheer and trotted along behind them. In the magical shield that she of course didn't so much as think about bothering to extend to them, the physical world simply failed to touch her with the annoyances that were proving so vexing to her laborers.
Or so it held for a time beyond which most of the lunks, frankly, could count at any rate even without being severely drunk or disgruntled, a time of seemingly endless, waterlogged woe, before a heavily tattooed lad cocked his ear midway between removing his hat to wring the water out and spitting at his clay caked boots. "You hear that, lads?"
At first, they couldn't quite, although the mage actually went quiet to try herself, something that the half mutinous company could certainly appreciate. But the target of this newfound attentiveness proved swift to make itself known to first their senses and then in a ripe moment their company, as a fully tacked horse and rider trotted towards them from the otherwise largely identical seeming brush and treeline, lightning flashes showing features in the darkness. "Cold, dark day, isn't it? If you have any dry bread in all this, I'd gladly trade you some brandy for it."
Despite the rider's cheerful offer, his voice was flat, sharp, and grim, and as his eyes glowed in the darkness, one of the workers made the sign of the Eternal Fire to ward off evil. Another spat, and a third snorted. "I ain't breaking breakfast with a ploughing mutant. Piss off, freak."
"It's an ill tide that washes no good ashore," the witch mused. "A mutant, you say?"
"It's the cat eyes, mum," the first twitched and muttered aloud with shame. "Dead giveaway, that. This is one of 'em Witchers, see. Takes children and property in exchange for a fellow's life. Kill monsters for coin and ain't good for much else otherwise."
"Mm. Sometimes," the man with the yellow eyes agreed, the slit indeed sharpening like an attentive cat's as he focused. "That's the basic concept of enterprise, of course. Compensation? Remuneration? The words mean something to you, friends? Pay? You understand, 'pay your debts', right? I imagine that you do.
"I suppose this is as pleasant a chat as I'm likely to get for a few days of travel alone otherwise, so I would like to ask again if you care just to split the brandy? You've made your opinions clear, but one drink won't hurt strong, gods fearing men, will they?" the armored man on the horse wheedled despite the stronger hint of sarcasm in his earlier little diatribe. "The water hags in the swamp beyond tend to make for even more unpleasant company, and there's no contracts to attend to at the moment."
"Water hags? I was assured the way forward was clear of monsters. As much as can be, anyway," the witch muttered with annoyance to herself. "Witcher, go and kill them for us?"
"There are several of them, all quite dangerous and with their own dens. What price are you willing to pay?" the Witcher asked in return to her question, and put his brandy back in the saddlebag, to, to his amusement, a groan of disappointment from the properly human men.
She poised with a hand on her chin, eyes drifting over her party. "I suppose threats are right out."
"From them, at any rate. I'd rather not spill human blood on such a nice morning, though. And I'd definitely like not to fight a sorceress without a very good reason, human or otherwise," he agreed. "Coin will do nicely instead."
Entirely too bedraggled to be menacing or to like their chances of fighting a better armed man with such calm about the possibility of their demise, none of the seven men, not even the three loudest protesters voicing complaints about his presence, offered a single sound. Barring sneezes, at least. And the ambiance of the flooding's dripping.
"I don't much like you," she decided, and fetched a tarp from her satchel, feeling her flaunted powers beginning to become entirely too draining to keep up the magic shield. "I don't care to be at a disadvantage when bargaining and I have no idea in the slightest what a decent rate would be."
He watched silently behind her as she set up the tent, apparently content to camp at last, to the relief of the formerly slogging company. She turned, and frowned deeply as she pointed at him. "No answers?"
"No charity," he answered, and set to muttering reassurances at the horse to keep it from bolting. His medallion spun slowly, the graven cat slowly bobbing against his deeply blue apparel. If it weren't for his mount and his glowing eyes, he would have been all but invisible in what she was rapidly becoming aware was a menacing, encroaching darkness. The cheer of her expedition and her prospects were being washed away, not by the torrential downpour, but by the gravity of the unwelcome visitor and the thought of what lay ahead if he told any sort of truth about it after all.
The object's eyes began to glow a green tint themselves as he leaned closer and it reacted to her own magics.
"The Cat! Oh, save our souls!" wailed the devotee to Novigrad's most popular religion, and drew his sword after all. It wavered in his wet hands, but his callouses clung to the handle as though his life depended on it, and perhaps it did. "He's not just a freak, he's one of those freaks!"
"I assure you, despite what you may have heard, not every member of my School is an unpredictable, murdering psychopath," the Witcher answered in a rather colder tone. "Kaer Morhen is fond of portraying us as assassins, brigands, and botched creations, true, but I am not here to harm you. There's no profit in it."
"Ah, this sounds like a lovely story. What's this all about? I could use a laugh," the witch chimed, and patted the ground beside her. "Or a knife man, really. Have a seat! Tell us your name. You wanted conversation when you first came by, you said, after all. Talk up."
"I really ought to be going now, actually. I've taken far too much of your time already. Don't worry; going on your own way out of the woods is free."
"Sit," she commanded, and a force jerked him from the saddle face first into the ground, then pulled him partially upright. "I get very bored of peasants."
He cast a look that in a man with more emotions might have been called resentful, whereas her guide was simply red faced and scandalized in a similar glance. He took a more proper seat, edging away from the naked blade, and muttered Igni at the woodroots to start a fire going despite the utter efforts of their surroundings. "I'll thank you not to do that to me again."
"That might be considered your payment. Or part of it, anyway. You wanted company? You'll come with us. I'll even see you get a proper bit of treasure at the end when we're done uncovering the lost elven library, dear thing," she smirked. "If they happen to die on the way to the dig, more shares all around. Now out with it. A name."
"I am Maerlyn of the Cat School, as your man surmised. I prefer Maerlyn of Gwendlith . At your services, for a real reward, but I will kill you if the need arises," the heavily bearded man answered, looking at her dead in the eyes. His own reflected very little emotion. "Who are these charmers and yourself?"
"Moraine. These are..." she gestured dismissively. Hazel eyes glinted with briefly exposed disappointment and contempt before returning to a mad cheer.
"Godwin," "Bodwin," "I don't want no Witcher knowing my name," "Mikhael," "Soren," "Roberts," "Jakob."
"As you were," she nodded primly, and promptly made certain to forget them again as the yellow eyed man traced over them slowly with his gaze and matched man to title. "Go on with the story, and we'll get on with business in a moment."
He reached back into his bags and withdrew the brandy, and most of the men accepted the chance to sit and rest under Moraine's shelter while they had the opportunity of her being distracted. Bodwin broke out sandwiches, Soren some salted pork to grill over the magical blaze, and the smells of cooking very swiftly started to dissipate at least a portion of the tension. Roiling bellies and envious glances at the balm to forget troubles were almost as strong as the one fellow's stigma against the unnatural.
"Our story begins with Kaer Morhen, and a set of individuals with powers like yourself who decided that children would make excellent candidates to rid the world of troublesome beasts from the Conjunction of the Spheres. All it would take is research, some reshaping, and throwing them headfirst into the turmoils and troubles of the world.
"Three in every ten died. One in every three had flawed mutations that even successful training couldn't compensate for. Many of these men broke under their pain and stress, and, eventually, they were cast out entirely from their fellows. The Aen Sidhe adopted a few of these exiles, and reformed them again into fighting men, not unlike how they formed the Scoia'tel alongside the Dwarves in their own defense. The Elves hate seeing something wasted, after all.
"That was the start of the Witcher Schools, of differing modes of thought and operation. Skills and methodology, including what contracts would or would not be taken.
"The pure strains and the mutations considered to work the best were the Wolf School directly under the magi implementing their studies, even when they went to more drastic experiments to test their reach. The Cat school was begun by Elves and those the Wolf would not accept, but it became the most inclusive of any of them. We had Elven tutors and Elven Witchers in time, and unlike most, we had men and women serving along the Path.
"In time, other Schools formed as other mages emulated the Elves and lured away, or stole away, people with first hand knowledge of how to perform the alchemy and magics that allow for successful combat mutations without killing or completely devolving the subject. The Griffin came first, then, the Viper out of Nilfgaard's efforts to take the advantages of the North. The Skelligan druids formulated the Bear school with their berserkers next. The alchemists of the far east devised the Manticore in due time as well."
He ate in peaceful silence for awhile as she worked to process this, then, bluntly, added, "The Wolves refuse to take contracts to kill men. Most of the other five have accepted that monsters can be found in all varieties, shape and behavior, and all six carry silver and steel. Silver for monsters; steel for men. Only in self defense in the mouths of some. We Cats have something of a reputation for being quite as willing to take contracts for our steel as for our silver, and the Wolves hate that."
Waiting until the Witcher was again savagely chewing at the pork, the religious man eyed the medallion and spat again. "Not the only ones. Last I heard, the Cat fortress was being sieged by soldiers for their members' crimes and bounties were on the heads of runaway members."
Moraine considered again. "I don't like you. But I imagine you might be useful. Twenty gold a hag head and your company will keep you alive and without worry from the law, Maerlyn."
"One hundred and eighty seven golden florens a hag head, plus labor and remuneration for supplies, and hang any notions you have that you might kill me or turn me in," haggled the golden eyed man, with a hand slowly edging toward his belt. "It will take some time to hunt down the individual lairs as it is."
"Sixty Novigrad crowns each instead and I shan't make you into a hat," the witch smiled back pleasantly, and waved her fingers. "Well, go on then, ugly, get on with it. Shoo. You already made the boys dour enough."
The mental calculations as to how he might best cut her down and then the seven before she could loose a set of catastrophic spells from the Circle of Elements or beyond and, of course, before her servant with the bared blade could strike as he wished did not pan out favorably in Maerlyn's estimations. Not favorably enough to entirely ignore the paid option, anyway. It wasn't as though being mocked and used was a new disservice, either, not by a long shot in these many decades. Although still a rather irritating one.
He nodded, instead, and as he stood and swung a leg over his horse's saddle, cursed the innate human need for companionship. It often landed trouble. This was exactly why so many of his kindred elected solitary Paths and blunted their emotions, mutation and training aside. He could still feel the stares and glares at his back long after the horse trotted a reasonable distance from the camp, definitely beyond their range of visibility in the weather.
There was no use simply leaving, either. This Moraine was fairly potent. She could find him and catch him by divination or portal fairly more easily than he could track her down the older fashioned ways, and potentially off guard at that. He would be far safer with a chance at the using mage's throat if it came to it.
Speaking of the which, finding the tracks and the difference between the slime of the necrophages and the mud it floated in swiftly took top priority, as the hunt filled his senses.
Codex: Some tales mention water hags and swamp bints masquerading as lost old women to lure travelers back to the rickety shacks they build in the wetlands. In truth, only a blind man, or a sighted man blinded with drink, could mistake the rank sludge and rotting carrion of a water hag's den for a cozy cottage, and the hideous hag herself for an innocent grandmother. Their wrinkled, wart-covered bodies stand nearly two yards tall, with skin the color of a long-dead cadaver and stinking of muck and fish. Bony growths two spans long stick out from their backs, with hair like a tangle of seaweed and claws that would make a werewolf proud completing the picture.
He caught one all but unawares to either of them, and speared her through the neck, though her shaking last breaths and bulk still hurled him headlong into the water. There her hag sisters waited with simpleminded drowner servants, magic on their distended, distorted acrid tongues, breath vile as the bile they devoured. Fighting underwater was seldom advantageous to begin with and certainly not against the dead who thrived in it. He popped a Killer Whale potion to breathe and to see just before sharp claws raked the side of his neck and a powerful blast etched well into into his armored gear.
The corpse eaters would soon be disappointed with their attempted catch, however, as a Yrdren slowed another long enough for him to shove his blade cleanly through her jawline, severing the tongue entirely and piercing her brainhandle. He spun with the blade and the fall of her rapidly cooling flesh, letting her corpse take the brunt of her sister's brutal strike for him- and the thick, warty cadaver did not fail him in this regard. As black blood sprayed into the water and made a more murky mess, he ripped his sword free with three tugs more and broke the surface of the lake again, even as the survivor skirted around the heavy obstacle of her bereavement.
She was about to throw a ball of poisonous mud when he set off a Northern Wind to great effect in the water and the rain, the alchemical explosive cocktail freezing every ounce of moisture in its radius and cracking it... with the lake size and the downpour, it was positively catastrophic, trees utterly shattering as the effect began to wear off. She, bloodied, began to clamber out of the lake, ten dead drowners floating behind her that weren't mean or potent enough to survive the Witcher's grenade. He slashed the edge of the blade a good four inches into her three times in the belly and torso, but she still made it to the shoreline and began to menace him, the guts hanging out no match for her wrath. Each breath and motion the monster made caused the splits to widen, and of a surety, in some hours' time, she would die from her own movements, but if he waited anywhere near that long she would probably do so while supping on his bones.
Maerlyn was forced to dodge as her tongue whipped out and cracked into a branch behind him, the apple on the tree withering with the touch of the foul appendage, and took another hard strike to the shoulder as he tried to roll between her unmentionably foul legs. Slowed by the mud, she seized him by the beard and slammed him to the ground twice with bone shattering force for a man without compensating gear and mutations, though he slashed off her hand and rolled to stab the base of her spine in return. She simply whirled, the force again tossing him, and lunged, trying to bite down upon his throat.
Damning the rain for making him look like a poxy novice after it had begun so well, the panting Witcher let her mouth close around another Northern Wind instead and sprinted for dear life before it went off. The edge still frosted his back and his bootheel a trace. He watched her shatter before returning for his blade and attending with a hunting knife to cutting off the trio's heads as evidence of a fulfilled contract. All the while, he swore bloody blue blazes the likes of which churchmen would claim his kind could never actually feel... but if he'd taken the time to make proper traps and wait out the beasts as was his preference, he suspected Moraine would have found a way to make him regret her lack of progress.
The messy affair of cutting the viscera for that vital bounty instead was, at least, viscerally cathartic, if he pardoned himself the pun.
As he trudged back to his horse, the rain slowly, finally, began to peter out into a stop, though the thick canopy continued to drip. Now, perchance, he could finally see what his enforced companions for awhile would look like. And, perhaps, a way out. There was no particular need to destroy the other six water hag dens if they went quickly enough through this cleared section of the infestation that had formed in recent decades.
That part of the story of the Schools he hadn't told Moraine and likely wouldn't; the part about most of them having been destroyed by pogroms and riots by the precious normal folk, whether for being mutants or for perceived crimes. To such a degree that the monsters within the world had more than trebled their ranks from the time when Witchers were actively patrolling routes everywhere. Dying here for money that, frankly, he might never even see from a woman he'd just met and had been given severe cause to mistrust in a task he could have used six brothers and ten days of careful trapping for was not all that appealing.
Although... the smell of the heads he carried really was the less appealing smell of the options at that, he supposed. Dumping them out at the campfire snuffed it out and the smell of the now slightly cooked brine coated rotting flesh definitely woke the occupants of the tent. He began to notice his injuries and his fatigue on seeing how they rose from sleep. Dully, he noticed it had taken him six hours to find the den, another seven minutes to kill everything, and another hour of riding back, if the sunlight starting to poke at the soggy skies was any indication.
The chance to meditate or get a proper sleep would probably help, but his embarrassment would keep him partly from doing either even if present company didn't. "A hundred and eighty."
"Gods damn- those are-" Jakob began, but Soren answered the thought better, staring at the heads for only seconds before turning to the side and promptly vomiting out what had to have been his last two days' dinners. "Fire preserve us."
Spelling out the words WHEN WE GET TO THE DIG SITE in the earth with an annoyed gesture instead of bothering to answer aloud, Moraine cleaned her clothing with a word, clapped twice, and set off through the mud with a backwards glare before noting the sun and brightening. Humming began anew.
Seven men and a horse trailed in her wake, and Maerlyn elected to follow alongside, if only to better point her into the currently-safe avenue of travel. No telling after all the flooding if the other hags would decide to get ambitious. No reason to chance it.
It might have been nice to have a breakfast and a chat without death and insults on the line, one of these days. Such was not the lot of a Witcher's life though. Not even in the wilds, for most.
The men, still sodden and mudcaked for the most part, were at least now distinguishable. A glance or two to each solidified their features for him, although more intrinsic analysis would be needed for any particulars covered by their current condition. Admittedly, that would be quite a lot, actually, but also a matter he didn't particularly care about and didn't immediately register as necessary. He wasn't hunting them.
So.
Godwin, early thirties, brunette, a lumber worker if Maerlyn knew anything of craft and village work. His build and attire both suggested a woodcutter more than a woodsman. His rough face could be called handsome after a fashion in the same way it could be called crude or even ugly after another, but it looked, at least, to be fairly honest. Which meant he merited watching, because it was always impossible to tell what someone else was truly thinking and those who lent themselves to being open could sometimes hold the darkest thoughts and betrayals.
The ax the man kept fingering uneasily as they worked through the trees was equally rough, but nothing to scoff at. It would split a bone as well as it would a root.
Bodwin, early twenties, not unakin in features to Godwin but with a different enough nose and shoulder set that Maerlyn would stake a guess at them being cousins rather than brothers. Slightly more hawkish and a good deal more lithe, this one he liked at first glance. The man didn't break twigs or disturb the underbrush as he moved and he worked with a hunter's grace at his surroundings, studying them quite as attentively as the Witcher himself was. This was a fellow who could bag meat even in monster infested terrain and escape with his wits and life.
Unsurprisingly, there were the longbow, arrows, and hunting knife he expected out of the man, although the extra three knives and the short throwing spear held a bit more surprise. Good on him. Prepared might be alive a little longer.
Maerlyn still found himself lacking a name for Faithful Doubter, as he elected in a moment's whimsy to name the man who most clearly hated him and kept praying, although it wouldn't really impede observations. Not a priest by any means, not even a lay one. Not enough gear to be a guardsman either, but he didn't handle the sword like he was joking, either. A mercenary, most likely, but where was his armor, then?
The balding little man with his facial scars and perpetually scowling mouth almost struck him as a bandit in that regard, village apparel or not. An incompetent one to be sure if that. Retiree, perhaps? Or undercover.
What did he bring to the table for the mage, what secret was it he was overlooking? It surely wasn't for the gray hairs or company. FD didn't have a shield to complement the sword, but he did have a main gauche, so perhaps-
-ahh, there was a detail he'd missed! The man had a set of admittedly bedraggled pipes half hidden under the plastering stuff crusting their clothing. Which made him a bard of some sorts. In a traveling trade in this land, without a patron or a steady gig in the city, he certainly would have had to become proficient with those weapons.
"Mikhael," "Soren," "Roberts," "Jakob."
Digger, muscle, digger, muscle. Blonde toffs without a brain between them trudging and trundling along as unnaturally in woodland settings as a bear at a dinner party. Going by hammers, picks, sallow but pallid appearances, and, of course, the way they squinted when they all had to go into direct sunlight, he'd venture to say all of them had been plucked from working a quarry somewhere. Made sense for a dig site, but the nagging question of why the mage wouldn't simply use a portal instead of poking around on foot was getting stronger with each crunch they made.
He patted his horse to reassure Mantis that she was certainly more stealthy than the gaggle of brown eyed walkers and cast about for the most important detailing, that of their mutual, ahem, employer.
Sorceresses, as most folk knew who studied, were cheats. It was thus no surprise to find she was at least physically gorgeous, though he'd seen enough of her demeanor to be severely put off by her at the moment. He reckoned to himself that most of them probably felt the same of him, to be honest.
Codex: Unlike priestesses and druidesses, who only unwillingly took ugly or crippled girls, sorcerers took anyone who showed evidence of a predisposition. If the child passed the first years of training, magic entered into the equation - straightening and evening out legs, repairing bones which had badly knitted, patching harelips, removing scars, birthmarks and pox scars. The young sorceress would become attractive because the prestige of her profession demanded it. The result was pseudo-pretty women with the angry and cold eyes of ugly girls. Girls who couldn't forget their ugliness had been covered by the mask of magic only for the prestige of their profession.
As a rule, then, he didn't trust that the one in ten who actually was lovely would be in front of him, and certainly not by the way she cheerfully took out abuse on those around her. Nonetheless, it would be cheating the magic to utterly deny its effects. So, yes, she was gorgeous, but what of it?
Stripped down to elements without lavishing undue praise on them, she was curvaceous in a shapely, lithe manner that accentuated the assets she had while still leaving her at a peak physical performing condition. Magic could do the outlandish, too, but it seemed some sense and moderation had gone into her makeup. The which she wasn't wearing, equally sensibly- makeup, that is.
Very hard, gray eyes flecked with white specks and little blue streaks, wells of malice in a face desperately trying to brim with joy and a throat mouthing sounds that ought to have been signs of happiness with no real spirit behind it. Red, red hair, like freshly shed blood wavering on the edge of a mirror shard, cut to a sensible length for traipsing about the swamp. Eyebrows that seemed as like as not to come off and try to hook someone through the throat, apparently a feature rather than fault...
Noticing she was being observed, she mockingly posed, which only served to set off the cyan gown that went at utter odds with her otherwise road ready appearance. He'd have expected breeches if he were starting his study at her head rather than her shoulderline. Breeches and a backpack at least, however some cities might discourage it. The Witcher women in his own School would have had words about a tart, however magic, that went about dressed like that in waters that until extremely recently held active Water Hags and still smelled of their rank bile and spoor.
This was going to be a long experience indeed.
Or, a short one, he blinked, as the portal opening up cut Roberts and half of the shore brush in half behind them without so much as a scream. It was upon the rest before he'd finished counting the sorceress' buttons and hoping she had some means to avert or close it. Judging by the thud of the man's meat on the dusty plain on the other side and the confused wails of muddy fellows suddenly baking in the desert, as well as her own rather put out shrill evocation, he was forced to conclude that said hope was, sadly as usual, in vain.
This place smelled unfamiliar. The flying metal carriages in the streets certainly weren't anything he'd faced before. The roar as one took a turn around the hot, black road of dried tar was deafening, not as much so as the crunch when it ran over what was left of the poor fellow who didn't expect a portal to the groin.
No comments:
Post a Comment