Two brown geldings galloped along the royal post road, stirrup to stirrup, while the gray ramparts of Ellander took shape against the horizon.
“You claim a sorcerer uncovered a method to induce secondary mutations in a witcher?”
Yennefer rode with her back straight, violet eyes alight with clinical intrigue.
Geralt held his tongue, but the sorceress showed no such restraint; refining the alchemical matrix of the Swallow draught had long been an obsession among scholars of the Art.
Will glanced down at the mount beneath her saddle, a sleek mare that had materialized beside their camp at dawn with a soft whinny.
A convenient bit of conjuration.
“He did,” Will answered, keeping his reins steady.
“Jerome was living proof, much to Moreau’s fury.”
The boy had made peace with his witcher medallion, but the father refused to yield.
Moreau had lured his own son back to the manor under false pretenses, bound him in sorcerous chains, and subjected him to agonizing trials until the boy broke.
A bitter comedy of errors dictated by destiny.
“You must despise him with everything in you,” a small voice drifted from the saddle behind Will.
Ciri sat with her hands knotted into his wool coat, her face half buried against his shoulder.
A clean, herbal warmth rose from his linen, soothing the tension behind her ribs.
“He burned out my magical conduit before I had teeth,” Will said flatly.
“That earns him a slit throat.”
Geralt cut a sideways glance toward the youth.
His scarred features stayed neutral, but the exchange from the night before lingered behind his golden eyes.
“Will, as I recall, I already gave you my answer last night.”
The witcher pulled his reins, slowing the pace to a trot before the temple road branched off.
Will matched the rhythm, falling in beside him.
“You want the spark,” Geralt said, his gravelly voice leaving no room for misunderstanding.
“Vesemir has no stomach for taking in new pups, and Nenneke will skin us both alive if she hears a whisper of mutagens.”
“Hear me out before you shut the door, Geralt.”
Will leaned over his saddle pommel, keeping his voice low.
“I intend to mend what Moreau broke. In exchange, I lead you directly to his hidden laboratory in Toussaint. Yennefer can dissect his research logs, and Ciri will have a reliable method to stabilize her conduit without throwing her onto the butcher’s table.”
He paused, holding the witcher’s slit-pupil stare.
“More than that: while the draughts run through her veins, my vitality will keep her heart beating.”
He tapped his own temple, indicating the golden circle around his pupils.
“Folks take me for a stray witcher already. Might as well have the steel to back it up.”
He pressed the point, letting confidence bleed into his tone.
“My body metabolizes foreign energy naturally, and my regeneration outstrips any mortal man alive. You know what that means in an alchemical crucible, Geralt.”
The witcher gave a grudging nod.
“It means your liver handles decoctions twice as fast as an unblooded recruit. A natural mutant.”
“Then what holds you back?”
“The North hates non-humans,” Geralt said, his jaw tightening.
“Witchers sit in the same mud, no matter how many strigas we put down. We take the coin, clean up their filth, and they spit when our backs turn.”
Will let out a quiet chuckle.
“And you think playing the detached neutral keeps the mud off your boots? Look at your life, Geralt. You spend half your days running from court politics, yet every prince and brigand between here and the Yaruga drags you into their quarrels anyway.”
He flicked his reins.
“If trouble is hunting you regardless, you might as well carry bigger teeth.”
Geralt’s gaze flicked back toward Ciri, then settled on Yennefer.
The sorceress offered a barely perceptible arch of her brow; the bargain carried undeniable weight.
A knot tightened in the witcher’s gut.
The boy’s power could tether Ciri’s volatile flares, and Moreau’s notebooks were an invaluable prize for Yennefer.
“You make a compelling case,” Geralt conceded, exhaling through his teeth.
“Decoctions carry twice the venom of field potions. Are you certain your marrow can survive the burn?”
Will sorted through his recollections.
Common witcher elixirs ran moderate toxicity, while concentrated beast decoctions pushed the threshold to lethal limits.
How that translated to raw numbers remained to be seen.
“Hand me a draught of Swallow and watch,” Will said.
“The belladonna and wolfsbane Nenneke uses for blistering poultices go down my throat like porridge.”
Swallow was a restorative draught, but the formula required pulverized drowner brain matter, a foul brew that tasted like stagnant swamp rot.
Still, the fiery conditioning at the barrow had yielded results.
Enduring the burns had nudged his Vitality up by another 0.3 points, and with his banked attribute point allocated, his baseline had crested 10.3.
He was ready for a heavier crucible.
The threshold of his execution skill had adjusted with the growth:
[Life Drain]
Description: Your grasp of vital energy deepens.
You may now forcibly extract vitality from targets with a Vitality score below 4.0.
The talent refused to accept raw skill points; it grew solely alongside his natural essence and bodily constitution.
A fair trade.
Geralt remained unconvinced.
He had buried too many brothers to treat mutagenic poisoning lightly.
“Necrophage talons are child’s play compared to alchemical decoctions. A swallow of witcher brew turns a mortal man’s liver to black sludge in three minutes.”
The witcher reached into his saddlebag, unstopping a small glass vial containing a viscous, ink-black fluid.
He let a single drop fall into his tin cup, swirled it with well water, and held it out.
“Diluted arachnomorph venom. Let us see how that godly blood of yours handles giant spider spit. Mind you, I have golden oriole ready if your throat starts to swell.”
Will took the cup without hesitation, threw his head back, and drained the water in a single swallow.
Within three breaths, the concoction took effect.
Cough…
hack!
Will clamped a palm over his mouth, coughing violently as a suffocating, sulfuric heat clawed up from his gullet.
It felt like swallowing a spoonful of fermented mustard laced with lye, dragging him right back to the afternoon he had chewed his first wild hemlock root.
Gasp…
hah.
He drew three deep lungfuls of air, the deep crimson flush across his cheeks fading into pale composure.
The arachnomorph bile was virulent enough to drop a dozen sheep in minutes, yet the burn receded like spilled water sinking into sand.
“No vomiting, and metabolized in under five minutes,” Geralt remarked, genuine respect slipping into his tone as he tossed the corked phial to the boy.
The witcher paused, an ironic smirk touching his scarred mouth.
“Now all you have to do is convince Nenneke. I prefer to keep my skin intact, so you fight that battle alone.”
“Geralt! Will! Stop whispering and get over here!”
Yennefer’s sharp call cut through the pines ahead.
The two men exchanged glances, kicking their mounts into a canter toward the timber line.
Beyond a screen of hazel bushes lay a scene of silent butchery.
A dozen bodies lay scattered across the loam, limbs contorted in terror, coarse woolens shredded by steel.
A calculated massacre.
Yet the corpses wore the threadbare smocks of Cintran refugees, folk who possessed not a single Novigrad crown between them.
Killing them served no profit.
Yennefer knelt beside a fallen shape, her gloved fingers brushing a pool of dark blood.
A ripple of magic hummed through the dirt, causing Geralt’s silver wolf medallion to vibrate against his chest.
“Killed within the hour,” she said, her violet eyes narrowing.
“The marrow is still warm.”
“Nilfgaardian rearguard?” Geralt frowned, studying the lacerations.
“The irregulars should have fallen back toward the Sodden border by now.”
Will stepped closer, his golden eyes scanning the dead.
A dark realization chilled his blood: every single casualty was a young girl, their ages and heights matching Ciri with terrifying precision.
His eyes flicked toward the ashen-haired girl beside him.
A roster of conspirators flashed through his thoughts: Emperor Emhyr, the rogue sorcerer Vilgefortz, and rival factions scrambling for the Cintran succession.
These were hounds hired to hunt down the Lion Cub.
“Listen to me,” Will said, stepping between the bodies and the girl.
“Nilfgaardian bounty hunters are sweeping the brush.”
The air grew heavy.
Geralt pulled a dark woolen mantle from his bedroll, draping it over Ciri’s shoulders, while Will drew a leather domino mask from his belt and handed it to her.
“We skip the city gate,” Will commanded, checking his scabbard.
“Cut around the western orchards and make for the sanctuary grounds. Longer road, but it keeps prying eyes off her face.”
Before they could turn their mounts, a cluster of eight emerald points flared into his awareness, barreling through the woods at a dead gallop.
“Riders incoming,” Will hissed.
“Eight mounts, closing fast.”
Both Will and Geralt cleared their steel in the same breath, the rasp of iron breaking the quiet as they formed up before the women.
Ciri drew her own short blade, knuckles white against the grip, her breath catching as the shadows of Cintra flickered in her eyes.
The three swordsmen closed ranks around Yennefer.
A sorceress in the field required breathing room; an errant arrow or a broken incantation could shatter a spell before the syllables left her tongue.
“Well, well! Look what crawled out of the brush, boys!”
Eight mounted mercenaries tore through the thicket, fan-shaped steel glittering in the noon light as they boxed the party against the trees.
The leader wore a jagged saber scar across his jaw, reining his courser in with a cruel grin.
“A witcher mongrel, a fine-looking court mage, and two fresh fledglings.”
The scarred rider rested his naked longsword across his pommel, his yellow teeth bared in an ugly sneer.
“Simple question, travelers: how much silver are your hides worth to you today?”