Ugh…
urgh!
Will braced an arm against the trunk of a dying elm, dry-heaving until his ribs ached.
For the first time since waking in this world, he yearned for the dull, muted senses of a mutated witcher.
Folk often warned that plague marched behind great hosts, and now he understood why.
Eleven allied crowns had clashed on the plains of Sodden, yet not a single kingdom had bothered to send ditch-diggers to bury the dead.
The Nilfgaardians had been worse still, butchering their way north and leaving rows of bloated corpses where they fell, stripping breastplates, weapons, and leather boots until nothing remained but pale, picked bone.
His gelding stopped dead in its tracks.
No amount of tugging on the leather could coax the beast an inch closer to the tree line ahead.
The horse looked ready to cast its stomach onto the dirt.
Seeing no alternative, Will pulled a handful of aromatic sweetgrass from his pack, bound it across the brown horse’s nostrils with linen, and stroked its neck until the trembling subsided.
Looking past the brush, the mud of the valley floor had turned a dark, rust-colored red.
He touched the silver medallion tucked beneath his collar, drew a steady breath, and led his mount into the stench.
…
Upper Sodden, along the banks of the Yaruga.
Two women and a lone swordsman stood by the water’s edge, watching a ruined span of river timber.
The sorceress lifted her right palm, her lips shaping the measured cadence of an incantation.
Drawn by unseen threads, splintered logs and missing planks rose from the marsh grass, locking into place with clean, resonant cracks until the bridge stood whole once more.
She wore tailored skirts of velvet and silk, stark obsidian and ermine white, her raven hair spilling down her shoulders in loose, cascading waves.
Her eyes were deep, liquid violet, gleaming like cut amethyst.
A faint birthmark sat near the curve of her lip, matched by another along her cheekbone, and a black velvet ribbon hugged her throat, centering an obsidian star crusted with diamonds.
“Yennefer, the magic is still slipping through my fingers. Couldn’t we have crossed by portal?”
The voice beside her sounded small, weighed down by defeat as the crossing settled.
“Hardly. Opening a conduit while your reserves are fluctuating would flay us into ribbons before we cleared the threshold,” Yennefer answered coolly, taking the first step onto the timber.
Crossing the river brought them out of Upper Sodden and into the borderlands of Lower Sodden, soil held under the crown of Temeria.
Cirilla trailed two paces back, a quiet sorrow clouding her emerald eyes.
Her ashen hair was pulled back from her brow with a leather cord, the afternoon sunlight catching the pale blush across her cheekbones.
A steel blade was strapped across her back.
Only recently had she walked the frozen flagstones of Kaer Morhen, learning footwork and parries from old Vesemir, but the erratic surges of Chaos within her blood proved impossible to tame through iron alone.
She needed someone who understood the source.
“Fret not, Ciri. We are heading straight for Melitele’s sanctuary in Ellander. Nenneke knows the old remedies; she will help you keep the flares under thumb.”
Geralt stepped alongside her, his leather-and-iron wolf mantle creaking as he rested a broad, comforting hand against her shoulder.
His features were rugged and pale, marked by a savage line running down from his brow past his left eye, framed by a mane of milk-white hair.
Beneath the bone ridge sat twin irises of luminous, slit-pupil gold, the indelible mark of the Trial of the Grasses. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“I know, Geralt. I’ll keep at it.”
Yennefer slowed her pace, glancing back over her shoulder.
“You mentioned a child at the temple who carries the goddess’s favor, Geralt. I must admit, hearing you speak of holy miracles is rather novel. Since when did the White Wolf turn pious?”
“I haven’t. Divine providence is just a bedtime story invented by hedge priests so frightened commoners can sleep at night.”
“And yet?”
“I was at the table when it happened. The boy manifested right in the middle of the noon meal, hovering above the flagstones in a haze of green fire. The laceration across his throat sealed before a drop could stain the altar cloth. None of the novices took harm or fell ill, though they likely mistook it for an apparition.”
“Fascinating. An innate healing conduit independent of Chaos?”
“Yennefer. Promise me you won’t treat the boy like an experiment.”
Geralt halted on the planks, catching the faint, familiar scent of lilac and gooseberries on the river breeze.
He knew that look in her violet eyes all too well; when a sorceress spotted an anomaly, dissection was rarely far behind.
Yennefer arched a dark eyebrow, a mocking smirk touching her lips.
She flicked her wrist, turned her back, and continued along the Temerian trail without another word.
…
Dusk had swallowed the valley, leaving a cold full moon pinned against the night sky.
Though heavy clouds rolled across the ridges, the silver glow still offered enough light to guide wanderers through the brush.
Where there was light, men found the nerve to walk.
Will pushed through the briars, his torch casting long, dancing shadows across the clay.
The soil here held few fresh battle mounds, but the ground had been torn open, scattering gnawed arm bones and cracked femurs bearing deep, triangular tooth marks.
The surrounding loam was churned by hundreds of sprawling tracks.
Clambering onto an ash bough, Will sat cross-legged, closing his eyes to sink into meditation.
He opened his life awareness, sending a silent ripple of perception drifting outward with the tree trunk at its core.
A hundred paces into the brush, dozens of vibrant emerald lights clustered thick beneath the loam.
Every few moments, several points darted into the gully and back, like hounds pacing around a feeding trough.
The pack was gathering for supper.
Ten minutes later, having secured his horse in a safe thicket half a mile back, Will stood alone before the cavern mouth.
Brambles choked the entrance, and from the black gullet of the rock came a rhythmic, wet rasp, like a yard dog panting in the heat.
He slipped off his kit, arranging six incendiary flasks and three jars of tallow oil on a flat stone, then drew the steel blade Moy had forged.
He ran an oiled rag along the fuller; common iron degraded under heat, but Temerian ore came straight from the dwarven smelters of Mahakam, tough enough to take an open flame without snapping.
He tucked a pinch of dried herb into his cheek, chewed it into a bitter pulp, and hurled two glass flasks straight into the dark.
Crash!
Smash!
Will’s eyes sharpened; the bait had caught.
He followed with the remaining flasks, striking touch-paper against his steel.
A clean, hungry roar echoed through the clearing as the blade caught the spark, the air sucking into the flames with a heavy rush.
The crimson fire rippled across the steel like a living ribbon.
Roar!
Strangled howls rose from the cavern depths as the fire took hold.
Blinded by smoke and blistering heat, the carrion beasts could bear the den no longer.
The first shadow broke through the brush.
Slash!
A clean arc of orange flame cleaved the dark, taking the lead ghoul’s head from its shoulders before its claws could touch the turf.
Burning necrophages tumbled from the rock opening in a shrieking tangle.
Will met them with measured footwork, his blade flashing in steady rhythms, his siphon tearing emerald threads from every scorched beast that faltered.
From the ridge above, it looked as though a serpentine dragon of flame guarded the threshold, iron jaws snapping shut to harvest the dark.
Status notifications flickered continuously across his vision.
Feeling the press of fresh vitality deep in the cave, he fell back half a pace, resting his spine against an outcrop to draw air into his burning lungs.
The smoke was turning the cavern entrance into a furnace.
The moment the draft cleared the ash, Will stepped back into the line.
Twenty minutes of heavy chopping through bone had softened the edge of his Skellige blade.
Without missing a beat, he slid the heated steel back into its scabbard, letting the lack of air smother the remaining embers.
He cleared Tris’s Nilfgaardian heavy cavalry sword from his hip.
Against the second wave, his heart stayed flat and cold.
The veteran’s drill forms flowed through his wrists: right foot anchored, left foot pivoting along the shale, arms locked inside a defensive cage of sharp iron that split skulls with mechanical efficiency.
Twice a slavering beast managed to slip inside his guard, raking its sickle claws across his ribs.
A faint numbness crept through the flesh, yet Will’s lips curled into a fierce grin; the venom was real, and his blood was already burning it away.
He twisted, driving the heavy point down through an exposed spine.
The tip lodged deep in the marrow; Will slammed his left fist against the pommel, shattering the bone to wrench the steel free.
Crack.
The final beast shuddered, its limbs turning to jelly as it slid down the bloodied rock.
Will let out a long, foul breath, the bitter taste of the chewed root long gone from his tongue.
He dragged the carcasses into the open one by one, sheared off the toxic claws with quick, practiced cuts, and piled the mangled remains beneath a canopy of brush.
Dousing the mound with tallow oil, he dropped a match into the heap.
In these borderlands, fire was the only medicine that kept carrion from breeding worse horrors.
Sinking onto an outcrop above the roaring pyre, Will leaned back against the rock, letting the notifications wash over his sight.