New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
✦
The cave room had a high ceiling.
That was a feature of dwarven architecture.
Dwarves were shorter than humans, yet their halls often reached in the opposite direction.
You could see it in the greatest structures humans still used: if they were not elven ruins, they had usually been overseen by dwarves.
Candlelight split Lambert’s face in half, one side bright and the other shadowed.
“After you passed out, I had no choice but to wait until dawn and cross the river.
When I got you into the city, I ran into Zoltan.
The dwarf with the crest of hair from yesterday.
Zoltan Chivay.”
At the name, Marek’s expression turned odd.
“You knew him?”
“No.
He recognized my medallion.
Saw me carrying you and came over.
Said he was Geralt’s friend and asked if I needed help.
“I said you were Ciri’s brother and asked him to find a doctor and somewhere to stay.
That’s how you ended up here.”
Lambert rubbed the back of his head.
“Only later did I remember that he was in Rivia during the pogrom, fighting beside Geralt against the mob.
Dandelion mentioned his name when he told the story.
I didn’t know him, so I hadn’t brought it up.”
“Quite a coincidence.”
“It was.
After we got you here, no one knew what was wrong at first.
Then you bent backward like a twisted spider, and even children know that means lockjaw.”
“Lockjaw?”
“Bell Town doesn’t have it?
Infection after an injury.
Before it starts, prevention is simple enough: pour strong spirits over the wound, drink a bitter decoction, and you have a good chance.
Once it starts, there’s no real cure.
You endure it or you don’t.
“You’ve been sleeping in Angoulême’s home these past days.
She’s the one who took care of you.
You should thank her properly.”
‘Sounds like tetanus.’
Out of habit, Marek argued with Lambert.
“Thank her how?
Offer myself in marriage?”
“No need.
She thinks your face is ordinary and feels nothing special.
If you want to thank her, join her hanza.”
“Tch.
Fine.
Then keep explaining this White Wolf’s hanza.”
“That starts with where she came from.
When Geralt was looking for Ciri, he gathered a few companions to help.
Angoulême was one of them.
“According to her, Geralt saved her from the gallows.
A life debt like that is hard to break, so he became her hanza leader.”
Lambert’s mouth had gone dry.
He pulled out a small flask of vodka and took a drink.
“Then came Stygga Castle.
Everyone in the search party died except her.
She was left with no kin and nowhere to go, so for the next few months she followed Geralt around until Rivia happened.
“Zoltan saw she was alone and brought her here.
“Now you have appeared.
In Angoulême’s mind, after the old leader, the White Wolf, died, the first successor was obviously Ciri.
“So this organization is something she invented by herself?” Marek reached the conclusion quickly now that his head was clear.
“I do not believe Geralt ever agreed he was leader of the White Wolf’s hanza.”
“Don’t reject it so cruelly.
Think of it as playing along.
The girl is pitiful, and that hanza is what she has to hold on to.
I can’t explain all the details.
Some of this is what Zoltan worked out.
You can ask her yourself when you have the chance.”
“The way you say that, I can already imagine it.
A pile of small, ugly tragedies no one wants to hear, or hears and then feels worse.”
“There is one big thing,” Lambert said.
His face showed apology.
“I have to leave you for a while.”
“What happened?”
It was indeed important, but Marek’s expression stayed calm.
Lambert would not leave without reason.
“I have a good friend named Aiden, a Cat School witcher.
We get along like brothers.
I received a message he left.
Seems he’s in trouble, and I need to help him.”
“Witchers don’t have fixed homes.
How did he get a message to you?
Can I help?”
“It’s witcher business.
You can’t help.
And he didn’t send it to me directly.
He left it somewhere I would hear of it.
Same way you had Bras in Ban Ard.
I have local friends in Vergen.”
Marek understood.
In an age where messages traveled poorly, wanderers like witchers naturally had their own methods of finding one another.
Wolf School witchers also had Kaer Morhen, where they could winter each year.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay and look after you,” Lambert said.
Marek raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“You know I can look after myself.
Especially in a city.
With Zoltan’s introductions, I should live quite comfortably.
As the Bell Town proverb says, where there are people, there are virility tonics.”
Would a virility draught ever fail to sell?
Impossible.
Lambert was certain Marek had invented the proverb on the spot, but he had no proof.
If the Kaedweni saying “a man without coin is a bow without arrows” counted as a proverb, then Bell Town’s saying was acceptable too.
Both were true.
“Will you continue your journey?” Lambert asked.
“Or wait here for me?”
“Who knows how long you’ll be gone?
Once my body recovers and I earn some money, I’ll leave on my own.
Don’t worry.
The road from here is by water.
Nothing should happen on a boat.”
Lambert considered for a few seconds.
“True.
If something happens on the Pontar, your luck is rotten beyond saving.”
***
The next morning, Marek stepped out of Vergen and saw the sun for the first time in eight days.
He also saw the enormous iron gate of dwarven craftsmanship.
That unmatched defense was how the city had twice repelled Kaedwen’s powerful army.
“And so Lambert rode away, never to be seen alive again.”
“Hey,” Marek said, turning on Angoulême with equal irritation and amusement.
Do you hate him that much?”
Her round brown eyes showed no embarrassment at all.
“I don’t like him.
He’s always mocking people.
I cursed him a little.
That’s fair.”
“What did he mock you for?”
Her cheeks puffed with anger.
“That baldhead said my hair was dry straw.
And a flat backside.
And a flat chest.
And a thick waist.
And short legs…”
Marek raised a hand.
“Stop.
Enough.
I admit your curse was reasonable.
Anyway, he’ll live a long time.
That’s what I actually think.”
“If you say enough, then enough.” Angoulême looked at him seriously.
“You can order me around.
You saved my life.
You’re Ciri’s brother.
You’re my hanza’s leader now.”
The hanza leader part he understood.
The life-saving part was new.
“You said I saved your life.
How?
I thought we met eight days ago.”
The girl took out an empty bottle.
Marek froze when he recognized it.
It was one of his grandmother’s special bottles.
What had been inside it could only be…
“The healing potion you gave Ciri,” Angoulême said.
“At Stygga Castle, I was stabbed in the thigh.”
She lifted her skirt high enough to show the old wound near the top of her leg.
It had healed completely, but the scar remained clear even after so long, proof of how deep it had been.
“I was bleeding to death.
Ciri gave me that potion.
It saved me.”
Marek turned away and gestured for her to lower her skirt.
They were standing in the open.
Lambert’s figure had already disappeared into the trees.
Sunlight spilled across the land, and a breeze stirred the forest with a soft rustle, carrying clean air with it.
Fine.
One more helper, then.
When Angoulême took out that bottle, Marek felt a sharp, unexpected satisfaction.
It came from knowing that his actions had changed this world.
His grandmother’s healing potion, given by his own choice, had carried a life that should have ended into the present.
That truly was a miracle of fate.
‘Whatever she was before, if I helped pull her back from death, then I have a share of responsibility for her.’
The thought settled quietly.
‘My people.
My hanza.’
✦
✦
✦
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.