Of course I know my edge!
You think I just enjoy getting bitten?”
Will spat a curse under his breath, breaking into a low sprint toward the flank where the emerald motes scattered thin.
Three beasts surged ahead of the pack, jaws parted wide.
Through the saliva dripping from their jowls, Will caught the brown smear of dried gore caked between their needle teeth.
The lead wolf lunged, front claws extended to pin his chest.
Shk.
The Skellige blade took the beast cleanly through the gullet.
Will drove a heavy boot into its ribs, kicking the carcass off the steel.
Dark blood spilled down the fuller, pattering rhythmically against the dry pine needles below.
The two trailing wolves skidded to a halt on gravel, lips peeling back over bared gums in a low, rattling hiss.
Will let out a cold breath.
These brutes had no stomach for steel.
He closed the distance himself, his blade cutting twice through the air, felling both beasts before they could pivot to flank him.
He willed the siphon open.
[Experience +30]
A jagged fang had snapped loose from the dead mongrel’s jaw.
Will snatched it from the dirt, rolling the heavy bone between his fingers as an impromptu missile.
He backed against the trunk of a broad elm, cutting off his blind side, his eyes steady as the main pack spilled over the ridge.
“Look at you, Will! Proper killer now, aren’t you?”
A lazy voice floated down from the canopy overhead.
Will cast a sharp glance upward; there sat that old bastard Tris, swinging his boots over the bough like a spectator at a village fair.
“You miserable old drunk. Don’t expect me to roll your pipe weed when we get back.”
Will raised his middle finger high toward the branches, careless of whether the old soldier understood the universal insult.
Awoooo!
A raw, mournful howl rose from the deep thickets.
A dozen timber wolves poured through the bracken, fanning out into a semicircle to hem him against the trunk.
Under the dead stare of so many pale, milky eyes, a sharp prickle crept across Will’s scalp.
His right fingers locked tight around the leather hilt, forearm muscles knotting under the strain.
He leaned forward, weight resting on the balls of his feet like a cornered lynx.
“Say, Old Cui, does wolf meat taste like anything?”
Swish!
Before Tris could answer, Will hurled himself straight into the line, the hesitation vanishing from his gaze.
If these filthy mutts thought he was an easy meal, he would choke them on iron.
He collided with the left flank before the beasts could coordinate.
The longsword swept in a vicious horizontal arc, opening the throat of a gray-flanked veteran.
Without breaking stride to watch it fall, Will barreled toward the next shadow.
The pack erupted into a frenzy of snarls, snapping teeth driving forward to drag him down.
The first wounded beast stumbled three paces, legs buckling as scarlet fluid geysered from its windpipe.
Its chest twitched once and went still.
Mid-stride, Will snapped his wrist, hurling the broken wolf tooth with vicious force.
The jagged shard punched directly into a charging beast’s left eye socket, blinding it with a wet pop.
His return sweep caught two more across their snouts, iron clashing against tooth and bone.
Hiss!
A sharp gasp tore from Will’s throat.
To keep a set of jaws away from his carotid, he shoved his left forearm into the snap, letting the teeth punch deep into his meat.
Veins bulged along his forehead as he ground his molars, jamming his bare fingers straight down the wolf’s gullet to grip its tongue, wrenching backward with all his weight.
The beast’s skull slammed into the dirt with a dull thud.
Will planted his heel against its snout, pinning it to the earth, and ran his blade straight through the roof of its mouth.
Hah…
He ripped the steel free, air burning in his lungs.
Trading flesh for a kill had cleared away the remaining cobwebs.
He flicked the gore from his edge, letting the surging fountain of life wash through his torn arm, stitching torn sinew and skin in seconds.
With the pain suppressed, he turned his focus entirely to the hunt.
Up in the branches, Tris watched an unnatural scene unfold beneath him: a lone youth, blade in hand, running down a scattering pack of wolves.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
Fifteen minutes later, Will collapsed atop the carcass of the final flanker.
He rammed the tip of his longsword into the soil; the edge showed several notches from hitting heavy bone, though Moy could easily grind them out at the forge.
He straightened his spine, chest heaving.
Blood, thick and sour, coated him from his collar to his boots, turning him into a walking effigy of scarlet clay.
His vision swam behind a film of sweat and gore, forcing him to wipe his brow against the cleaner fur of a dead beast.
Across the clearing, not a single four-legged creature remained upright.
His status log showed Level 2, the progress bar resting at 190/200.
Thud!
A massive, gray-maned brute dropped out of the branches above, hitting the turf with a strangled yelp.
It scrambled to right its paws, yellow eyes wild with panic.
The alpha that had directed the pack from the brush.
Old Cui must have plucked it from its escape route when the rout began.
Without time to draw his lodged steel, Will tackled the monster to the moss, pinning its shoulders beneath his knees.
With cold, mechanical precision, his knuckles hammered down against the beast’s temple again and again.
Whimper…
whine.
Within a dozen strikes, the thrashing beneath him ceased entirely.
[Experience +10]
[You have reached Level 3. Free Attribute Points +1]
[Free Attribute Points: 1]
The glowing runes faded from his sight.
His strength spent, Will rolled off the carcass, sprawling flat on his back to stare at the green canopy above.
A shadow crossed the sunlight.
Tris’s weathered face leaned into view, wearing a rare look of genuine approval.
Kneeling by his side, the veteran uncorked a waterskin and tipped a cool stream over Will’s blood-crusted cheeks.
Will willed his new point into Constitution without a second thought.
The score hit 8.5.
A fresh surge of warmth flooded his marrow, expanding the well of life essence at his core, soothing his strained tendons and clearing the fog from his head.
He pushed himself upright, snatched the skin, and drained every remaining drop down his throat.
Then he shut his eyes, sinking into a brief restorative meditation.
Beside him, Tris drew a broad skinning knife from his boot and began working the hides with practiced ease.
…
Down by the creek, strips of lean meat sizzled on sharpened twigs over a low fire.
A tidy stack of scraped pelts rested against a boulder; Will planned to carry them back for the novices to cure before the winter frost set in.
“Bah! Tough as leather and sour as vinegar!”
Will bit off a roasted chunk, his face puckering in disgust before he spat the charred sinew into the coals.
“Idiot. If wolf tasted good, there wouldn’t be one left alive between here and the Pontar.” Tris threw him an unimpressed look.
For all his grumbling, the old soldier kept chewing methodically, shoveling strip after strip into his mouth.
“Old Cui, did I look like a proper soldier out there?”
Tris set his skewer down, his casual air falling away into something cold and sober.
“Will, the footwork and the flourishes don’t mean a damn thing. What matters is who is still breathing when the dust settles. Remember what I told you about your gift? When we first went at it with practice rods, you needed me to bind your cuts. Today, those teeth couldn’t slow you down for three heartbeats.”
He poked the fire with a dry stick, sending sparks into the dusk.
“Once the iron comes out of the scabbard, it doesn’t matter who stands opposite you. There is only one way to win: survive. Everything else is campfire talk.”
The old man’s gaze wandered into the coals, drifting back to old campaign trails, forgotten trenches, and comrades whose bones had long since dissolved into swamp mud.
In the end, he was the only one who had walked back to Melitele’s gates.
“You never thought about enlisting, did you? If my old battalion commanders saw a lad who could mend his own flesh mid-stride, they would have shackled you to the baggage train before you could scream.”
“Not on your life,” Will sneered openly.
“I am Melitele’s boy. Those greedy barons and petty dukes have no claim on my hide.”
In this grim world, the southern empire that boasted of civilizing the Continent was built on slave labor, while the Northern Kingdoms spent their days drowning in court intrigue and border skirmishes.
Every realm was rotten with bigotry, ripe for pogroms against non-humans, sorceresses, and witchers alike.
Tris studied the golden glint in the boy’s eyes, then gave his shoulder a firm, heavy clap, a rough chuckle shaking his chest.
“Fair enough. The son of the goddess has no need to bend his knee to mortal lords.” The veteran shook his head with mild envy.
“Lucky bastard. I’ve never heard of a soul walking the Continent with Melitele’s personal favor on his brow. If I had your skin when I was twenty, I might have marched on Cintra myself.”
The mention of the south brought the humor down.
Will thought back to the hollow-eyed strangers huddled behind the garden walls.
“Tris, did you see the folk gathered around the back cottages?”
Tris narrowed his eyes, disgust flickering across his features.
“I can smell them from a quarter-mile off. It was that stench of rotting hope and misery that drove me out of the ranks in the first place. Bah.”
The old soldier went quiet for a moment, then caught the look on Will’s face.
“Ah… I see what’s eating at you. Don’t go filling your head with worries, lad. Take my advice: pack more salt, and hunt more game.” He offered Will a knowing wink.
Will turned the thought over in his mind, then gave a slow, understanding nod.
“Right, then. No expensive rolling tobacco for you. I’m handing every crown over to Nenneke tonight.”
Tris’s jaw dropped, pointing an oily skewer at the boy’s nose.
“Has nobody taught you how to treat your elders? The goddess blessed a skinflint! ‘Son of the Goddess’? You ought to be called the Son of Novigrad Crowns!”