New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
✦
At midnight, Lambert realized something was wrong.
Marek’s breathing had grown short and urgent.
He rose to check on him and found the boy pale, burning with fever, teeth clenched tight and sweat soaking his skin.
The dagger cut across the bridge of his nose had already closed.
Poison?
Slow poison?
Lambert had no time to wonder why a roadside bandit would carry a dagger smeared with slow poison.
Who knew where scum found anything?
He was worried, but not panicked.
Marek’s personality made him the sort of person who never missed a chance to prepare for the worst.
He had to be carrying potions for almost every purpose.
Lambert shook him hard until the boy opened his eyes in a fevered haze.
“Hey.
Marek, you’re poisoned.
Find an antidote.”
Marek woke through confusion with a headache that felt as if his skull would split.
He knew he had been careless.
Since the incident on the road, he had been trapped in self-reproach, worrying about the voices that had shouted in his mind, and he had ignored the warnings from his own body.
‘There should be something in the satchel.’
But when he forced his hand into the Bottomless Herb Satchel Lambert held out, the sudden increase in muscle pain shattered his concentration.
The satchel’s storage space was bound to his mind.
The stronger his mental focus, the larger its capacity.
When he was healthy, the storage space was roughly one cubic meter.
Now that he could not focus, it might as well have been locked shut.
After a few seconds of trying, Marek could no longer hold back the violent dizziness building in his head or the spasming pain tearing through his body.
Lambert watched helplessly as the boy collapsed without taking anything out.
***
Vergen.
Angoulême’s home.
“Anything useful in his herb satchel?”
“Looked through it.
Unlabeled liquids and common roadside herbs.”
“It’s plague.
Catriona plague.
Throw him out of the city.”
“Shut up.
I’ve seen plague.
This doesn’t look like plague.
Looks more like…”
The symptoms worsened.
Marek’s body suddenly snapped up from the bed, his spine bending backward into an arch.
A strangled sound of pain forced its way through his teeth.
His face twisted into something grotesque, brows raised, jaw locked, mouth pulled into a grimacing smile.
“Lockjaw,” the people in the room said almost at once.
The Battle of Vergen had ended not long before.
Many men had taken arrow wounds, then died days later after developing the same contortions.
“Wounded only yesterday evening?
Acute, then.
For it to strike this fast is rare.
The boy has rotten luck.”
“It doesn’t spread. This story is hosted at g.com.
He can stay here.
I’ll give him something to ease the spasms.
As for whether he lives, pray to Melitele.”
“Thank you, doctor.
Thank you, Zoltan.
Thank you, Angoulême.”
“Don’t mention it.
The White Wolf drew steel for us.
His friends are mine.”
***
Several days later, in Angoulême’s house.
“The boy’s body is strong.
The worst has passed.
He’ll pull through.”
“Strong, sure.
Shame he’s so ordinary-looking.
Not handsome at all.”
“Angoulême, I’ll have to trouble you to keep looking after him.”
“No trouble.
He’s Ciri’s brother.
Of course I should look after him.”
Days passed.
It felt like rising from underwater.
Breathing suddenly became easy, the muscle pain eased, and at last Marek opened his eyes.
Her eyes were dark brown.
That was the first thing he saw.
Her hair was bright straw-blond, and her brows were thick with a wild stubbornness.
Those were the second and third things.
She waved a hand before his eyes.
Once she confirmed that he was truly awake, she ran out of the room in delight.
Marek struggled to take in the room through half-lidded eyes.
‘A cave room.
Dwarven style, from the furnishings.
This must be Vergen.’
His memory ended with Lambert shouting that he had been poisoned.
So he had collapsed and been carried into Vergen?
‘I need the satchel.’
When Lambert entered, he found Marek barely propped up and trying to get out of bed.
Zoltan and the blond girl came in with him.
The next day, when Marek opened his eyes again, he was certain his body had truly improved.
Pain lingered in every corner of him, but the burden had lifted.
The day before, after recovering the satchel, he had used the brief clarity to take out several potions that might help and drink them.
The symptoms had already been receding, and by today they were finally gone.
Now he only needed time to rebuild his strength.
He accepted warm water and white bread from the blond girl.
“Thank you, Angoulême.”
“Don’t mention it.
We’re a hanza.
Looking after you is only right.”
Her bold tone, hearty manner, and immediate familiarity gave Marek a strange feeling.
He tore off a piece of bread.
“What is a hanza?
And when did I become part of one?”
“Aen Hanse,” Lambert said from the doorway.
He had clearly heard the question from outside.
“In Nilfgaardian, it means a small armed group held together by friendship.”
“Armed group?”
The strange feeling in Marek’s mind grew stronger.
He had no memory of joining any hanza, unless he had pressed a thumbprint or signed something while delirious.
“A hanza is a hanza,” Angoulême said with a shrug.
“A fellowship.
A band.
A crew.
Whatever.”
They were both speaking delicately, but Marek understood with sudden clarity.
In plainer terms, a hanza was a road gang with better feelings about itself.
The question remained: when had he joined?
Lambert laughed with bright mischief.
“Congratulations.
You’re the newest member and new leader of the White Wolf’s hanza.
I don’t even qualify to join.”
Lambert’s laughter did not stir Marek’s temper.
Angoulême reacted first.
“Hey, baldy.
Got a problem with our White Wolf’s hanza?”
She planted her hands on her hips and glared.
Her round brown eyes were surprisingly fierce.
“No, no.
No problem,” Lambert said, immediately sobering and raising both hands.
“Sorry, young lady.
Let me talk to him alone for a bit.
And I’m not bald.
My forehead is just high.”
Angoulême glared at him once more, adjusted the pillows behind Marek’s back, pulled the blanket over his legs, and left the room.
Then only the witcher and the witcher apprentice remained.
In the quiet, Marek flexed his hands one after the other and tapped lightly at his arms.
“How many days was I unconscious?”
Lambert’s expression turned serious.
He drew a chair to the bedside.
“Seven.”
Marek exhaled.
“All right.
Seems I missed quite a lot.
Where do we start?”
“From when you collapsed.”
✦
✦
✦
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.