Will could only bark a warning to the men at his side; the patrols guarding the other conduits would have to trust their luck to the gods.
Salat and his four companions scrambled through the brick sluice archway, trailing close behind Will’s heels as they burst back onto the muddy flags of the surface depot.
“Gods above! You swore the shafts were clear of drowned dead! What in the hells is driving these scavengers?!”
“How would I know?!” Salat wheezed, adjusting his grip on his heavy broadsword.
“The chapter put down an alpha drowner only last month! Another one taking the pipes this soon should be impossible!”
The young captain was at his wits’ end.
Listening to the wet, frantic slapping of webbed paws churning through the drainage water below, he barked sharp orders to adjust their line.
Will’s jaw tightened.
He had only taken the commission to pick up easy pocket coin, yet once again the road had unraveled into a bloodbath.
Common drowners were bottom-feeders, cowardly and dull-witted when left alone.
Yet if an elder drowner walked the slime, the pack transformed into a disciplined swarm, buoyed by the creature’s predatory aura.
Drowned dead were troublesome brutes that turned mindless vermin into a cohesive army.
“Raise the shields!” Salat bellowed.
The five knights locked their heavy iron-rimmed heaters edge to edge, planting their boots in the grease to form a tight, three-sided wedge.
More than thirty blue-green shapes surged from the sewer grate like a broken dam.
The shrieking and splashing tore the cold air apart, making it impossible for Will to pinpoint the pack master in the dark.
“Salat, step the line back toward the stone wall, or the sheer weight of them will grind your men into the dirt!”
Will stood shoulder to shoulder with Monte, the White Widow humming in silver arcs that cleaved the skulls of the first beasts leaping from the lip.
Mottled green ichor showered his leather doublet, burning his cuts with a dull, acidic sting.
A sharp, rancid stench cut through the swamp gas, thick as spoiled lard.
Will flicked his eyes toward the sluice mouth and spat a foul curse.
A rotfiend.
The elder drowner remained hidden in the deep muck, and now a living keg of powder had waddled into the fight.
Geralt had warned him about these wretches around the campfire: bloated sacks of volatile gore that detonated when exposed to flame, and burst with catastrophic force the moment their hearts stopped.
Will could not let the thing reach the shield line, or the concussive blast would shred Salat’s men to ribbons.
He had grown fond of this little crew; they were disciplined, steady, and did their duty without grumbling.
“Monte, clear the gap! There is a corpse ulcer climbing the stones, we have to cut it down before it vents!”
Hearing the shout, Monte moved to pivot, but catching sight of Will lunging forward, the guardsman stepped right back into the seam.
The soldier cared nothing for exploding corpses; his standing order from Lady Marie was to keep the boy breathing.
Will glanced back along the line.
The knights who had butchered lone scavengers with casual discipline ten minutes ago were being battered back by the sheer tide of claws.
Holding the wall was taking everything in their shoulders; advancing was suicide.
Wasting no more words, Will brought the iron pommel of his blade down against the nerve in Monte’s elbow.
The guardsman’s forearm went numb, his fingers springing open as his heater shield slipped from his grip.
Will snatched the iron rim from the air before it hit the flags.
Without breaking stride, he ducked beneath two raking claws, carved through the bellies of three converging drowners, and sprinted straight into the foulest pool of the yard.
Silver light flared in the dusk.
Foul, blue-green bile splattered his neck and hair until he resembled some bog-born sprite.
Webbed paws tore at his breeches and boots, dragging at his stride with frantic weight.
Ten paces.
Five.
Will closed the distance to the rotfiend. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
The swollen creature’s blank, milky eyes widened in dull surprise, raising two jagged claws to meet the charge.
With a high, singing hiss, the White Widow’s tip punched through its windpipe.
Will snapped his wrists, twisting the blade across the vertebrae as he willed the siphon open.
The rotfiend’s head slumped sideways onto its bloated shoulder.
Its blackened talons clamped desperately over its breastbone as the skin along its ribs began to ripple and swell like boiling pitch.
Out of time.
Will dropped to one knee, yanking the silver blade back into his chest, and slammed the heavy iron shield flush against the flagstones, bracing his spine against the rims with both hands.
Boom!
A concussive roar ripped through the courtyard.
The shockwave hurled Will ten paces backward through the air, tongues of sticky, greasy fire licking across his woolens.
Bone fragments, liquefied bile, and drowner limbs rained across the cobblestones like shrapnel, carving an empty crater out of the center of the horde.
Monte’s iron shield was torn from his hands, vanished into the gloom.
Several seconds passed before Will stirred in the mud.
He took stock of his frame through the ringing in his skull: head spinning from the impact, while the cracked ribs and splintered vertebrae along his back were already knitting under the surge of his core.
He forced his chin up, blinking through the smoke toward the crater.
Crouched in the scorched slurry stood a larger horror: a hunched, spindle-shanked crone with jagged spines running down her humped spine, a twisted, serpentine neck, and a shattered stump where her left forearm had been sheared by the blast.
Will pounded his fist against his temple to clear the dizziness.
A water hag.
He had seen the parchment plates in the temple archives.
Wetland witches came in half a dozen sub-species, but what in the hells was one doing in the middle of Vizima’s storm conduits?
He had misjudged Salat.
There was no drowned dead below; it was a water hag directing the scavengers through the pipes.
“Salat! Cut the witch down!” Will roared.
No answer came.
The shield wall continued hacking blindly at the scattering drowners, their eyes glazed.
Will looked closer; dark red ribbons were weeping from their ears.
The concussive thunder had blown their eardrums flat.
Will pushed off the flags, only for his legs to give out.
Both knees hit the stones with a wet smack.
Looking down, his kneecaps were a mess of torn ligaments and white, exposed bone.
Without hesitation, he opened his status ledger and slammed his free point into Constitution.
A violent shudder tore through his marrow.
For a heartbeat, it felt as though his flesh had slammed against the ultimate ceiling of human biology.
Was this the peak of mortal sinew?
He caught himself wondering how high the White Wolf’s attributes sat when pushed to the brink.
Thirty?
Forty?
Before the thought could settle, the Fountain of Life surged into a violent torrent, driving rich, boiling warmth down along the femoral arteries.
Torn tendons braided back together in seconds, the shattered bone knitting smooth.
Gripping the White Widow with a feral grin, Will charged the crone.
Monte, staring through the haze from the flank, caught sight of the youth sprinting through the drowner carcasses and rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Snapping out of his stupor, the guardsman drew his short blade and charged behind the boy’s wake.
The water hag fixed her bloodshot yellow eyes on Will, unleashing an ear-splitting, ultrasonic shriek that rattled his teeth.
The remaining drowners wheeled around, their webbed feet splashing frantically to form a defensive ring.
Salat and the other three knights finally caught the motion.
Seeing Will alive and cutting through the muck, a fierce roar broke from their throats as they drove their spearheads into the flank of the pack.
Six blades formed an iron plow, punching straight into the belly of the swarm.
Will’s focus sharpened to a razor edge.
Had this water hag been fresh, its supernatural speed and poisoned talons would have forced a cautious retreat.
Geralt had drilled the creature’s strengths into his skull: lightning reflexes and razor claws.
Yet even with a missing limb and half her hide scorched to charcoal, the crone’s agility was monstrous.
In the opening clash, yellowed claws sheared the air an inch from Will’s collar.
He dropped his weight beneath the swipe, his Skellige footwork shifting seamlessly into Kaer Morhen’s pirouettes, parrying the return claw with the flat of his silver blade.
As the hag overextended her reach, Will planted his right heel, pivoted on the ball of his foot, and swept the White Widow toward her waist.
The edge skimmed across the leather hide, biting only an inch into her belly.
Before she could counter, Monte lunged from the shadows.
Capitalizing on the crone’s recoil, the guardsman drove his longsword straight through her right ankle, pinning her heel to the stones with a dull crunch.
The moment the iron lodged, Monte abandoned the grip and scrambled clear.
Brilliant.
Will’s lips curved into a sharp grin.
The timing was textbook military work.
“Skreeeech!”
The crone’s shrill shriek tore through his skull, threatening to scramble his senses.
Will swallowed the nausea, gripped the silver hilt with both hands, and brought the White Widow down in a clean, vertical cleave.
The crone’s head tumbled into the black water.
The sonic wail died on the wind.
With their matriarch severed, the drowners lost whatever discipline had held them together.
The cowardly brutes scattered in blind panic, tumbling back through the stone grates to vanish into the deep sewers.
“Hah… hah…”
Will dragged his boots through the muck, approaching the five breathless knights.
Reaching out, he laid a gentle palm against each man’s temple in turn, channeling a thread of life essence to knit the ruptured eardrums; being unable to communicate in the field was an invitation to a shallow grave.
The last dregs of his vitality drained away with the healing.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the muddy stones, sucking freezing air into his raw throat.
Salat caught him beneath the armpits, easing him against a dry barrel while the other four knights went to work lopping off trophies.
Resting his spine against the cedar staves, Will finally pulled open the ledger:
[Life Drain x 8, Experience +120] (Remaining Drowners)
[Life Drain x 1, Experience +15] (Rotfiend)
[Life Drain x 1, Experience +30] (Water Hag)
[Swordsmanship Level 2 -> 3: Your comprehension of Geralt’s dance-like forms deepens. You recognize the symmetry between his fluid steps and Tris’s defensive footwork: offense and defense turning around an unshakeable center.]
[Perception +0.2, Strength +0.2, Agility +0.5]