New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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She was a happy thirteen-year-old girl with a father who loved her, an honest merchant of good reputation, and a gentle, kind mother who kept their home.
This journey to Vergen was the first time she had ever left Ard Carraigh.
She had begged her parents for a long time before they finally agreed.
Compared with the crowding and noise of the city, the green landscape beyond the window never grew boring.
Her bright eyes brimmed with longing for the world.
***
He was a happy thirty-year-old man with a loyal wife, a daughter who adored him, and enough success as a traveling merchant to live comfortably.
This trip to Vergen was his first trading journey there since the end of the war.
He believed the markets would be eager for Kaedweni beer and magical goods from Ban Ard.
His daughter’s company brought unexpected joy.
Childish questions and laughter followed him along the road.
Toward evening, clouds covered the setting sun and spread lead-gray light over the desolate fields the war had made.
On the military road, the horses moved at a steady pace, carrying the travelers past the bandits and their victims.
The bandits only watched the witcher and the alchemist in silence.
The girl managed half a strangled plea before one of them kicked her in the back and cut it short.
“Leave it,” Lambert said quietly.
“They already have prey.
They won’t bother two armed travelers.”
Marek said nothing.
The witcher and the boy kept moving.
What happened beside the road had nothing to do with them.
And yet the glimpse as they passed kept replaying in Marek’s mind.
The man was big, filthy, bald.
His teeth were yellowed and black.
He dragged the girl down from the wagon.
He tore at her clothes in front of her father.
She was still a child.
He said, “Time for you to meet a real man.”
‘Monster.
You deserve to die.’
Marek hauled the reins back and growled, “Lambert.”
He jumped down from the horse, drew the steel sword from his back, and started forward.
Lambert understood what had happened almost the instant Marek pulled up.
He sighed, wrenched his own reins left, and forced his horse into a sharp turn.
With his right hand, he cast Axii to calm the animal.
“I take three.
You take one.
The crossbow is mine.”
He squeezed his legs around the horse and surged past Marek into the attack.
The noise alerted the four bandits in the middle of their violence.
With the horse already gathering speed, two of the closer men grabbed axes and moved toward either side, trying to attack the mount from the flanks.
Lambert drove the horse faster.
As he passed between them, he drew the steel sword and cut left and right in one savage motion.
Momentum carried the blade through their throats.
Two heads flew up, and blood burst from the headless bodies like fountains. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
The horse continued toward the third man, the one with the crossbow.
Panicking, he aimed and fired.
The bolt struck the Quen shield Lambert raised and bounced away.
Seeing the horse bearing down on him, the man threw aside the crossbow and ran.
He did not outrun the horse.
Lambert’s next stroke severed his spine from behind and dropped him face-first into the dirt.
Then the witcher turned the horse and rode over him.
While Lambert killed with brutal efficiency, Marek’s side met a small complication.
The boy walked toward the self-proclaimed real man with hatred pounding in his chest.
The distance closed fast, close enough for him to see panic on the man’s ugly face and the clumsy, frantic slashes that had no real form.
‘If he had an axe, this might be harder.’
With a sword, the man was handing him the fight.
Marek thrust, drew the steel edge neatly across the wrist, and sent the weapon falling to the ground.
Pain and terror dropped the bandit onto his backside.
One more step.
One thrust down.
‘Kill him.’
The voice rang through Marek’s mind with sudden clarity and froze him.
‘Do not hesitate.
Now.
Kill him.’
‘Ignore his begging.
Put the sword through him.’
‘He is the monster.
Kill him.’
‘No mercy.
Do it.’
‘Drive it down, and we will…’
Echoes layered over one another, some clear and some blurred, but all of them shouted for blood.
Dizziness rolled through Marek’s skull.
When Lambert came racing back, he saw the bandit on the ground crying, “Mercy!
Have mercy!” while Marek stood frozen, dazed and lost, as if he no longer knew where he was.
Lambert naturally assumed the boy had gone soft.
Hesitation before a first human kill was normal.
After a few desperate cries for mercy, the last bandit realized Marek truly had stopped.
Then he saw the blank confusion on the boy’s face and understood that it might be a chance.
He ripped a dagger from inside his clothes and lunged.
He moved fast, and his aim was clear.
The dagger was only a few inches from Marek’s eye when an irresistible shockwave slammed in from the side and hurled the bandit away.
Lambert’s Aard had arrived in time.
Pain snapped Marek back to himself.
The shockwave had saved him, but the dagger had still scraped across the bridge of his nose, cutting a line of blood.
He watched Lambert do what he should already have done.
The witcher stabbed the steel sword down and pinned the monster to the ground.
His first attempt to face a human monster had ended in failure.
He had leapt down so decisively, and then accomplished nothing.
The voices that had filled his mind seconds ago were gone.
In their place came a scream.
The girl screamed with astonishing force.
She screamed at the broken bodies and severed limbs.
The sound drew Marek’s gaze, and when their eyes met, she screamed even harder.
‘That fear is aimed at me?’
‘Why?’
‘Why is she screaming?’
‘Did I do something wrong?’
‘If I didn’t, why is she screaming at me?’
‘Can she stop?’
‘Would she rather I had done nothing?’
Under the surge of emotion, Marek suddenly began to doubt himself.
Lambert pulled the sword free from the bandit, stepped closer, and cast Axii to soothe the girl into sleep.
Marek looked around but could not see her father.
“Where is he?
Did he run?
What about his daughter?”
His throat felt dry, and his voice sounded hoarse enough that he barely recognized it.
Lambert smiled faintly, snapped his sword to throw off the blood, and sheathed it.
“You’re too worked up to think straight.
With us standing here, of course he doesn’t dare show himself.
Her father is lying in the grass just to our left.”
Marek drew a slow breath and forced himself to calm down.
“Then…
let’s go.”
His voice had gone flat.
“What, Sir Marek the rescuer isn’t going to drag the man out and make him pay under the Law of Surprise?” Lambert asked with a hint of mockery.
“If witchers kill men, they cannot demand pay.
I remember that much.
So let’s go.
Even one second sooner, I want this to be over.”
Blood covered the ground.
Marek looked desolate.
“We clearly killed monsters,” Lambert said.
Then he saw the boy’s expression and relented.
“Fine, fine.
Stop looking at me like that, little Marek.
You look pitiful.
Let’s go.”
They rode hard in silence and reached the Pontar around midnight.
After washing away the blood, mostly Lambert’s, they made camp near the ferry and planned to take a boat across in the morning.
Lambert saw Marek’s dark mood and did not prod him into conversation.
They ate dry rations in silence and lay down separately.
No one expected that Marek would fail to see the next morning’s sun.
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.