The gauntlet
Along a well-used and somewhat broad dirt highway rode a lone man with twin swords stuck inside his satchel, the bags on the horse´s back making light clinking noises. The man was tall and lanky with sloped shoulders. His woolen cape and cowl was
dirty and a light drizzle of raindrops slowly fell as he rode his horse along the road. The man could easily be taken for an old refugee or traveler if seen from the back. But if one could get a glimpse of the face under the cowl then the yellow eyes
/of a cat would stand out. The eyes of a witcher. Though his eyes certainly stood out, but so did his hair. Both his beard and hair had the strong hue of Fiorano red. It was hard to see what he wore under his cloak for he had pulled it over his body
/to shelter himself from becoming wet in the ongoing drizzle. Harris of Donnel was a witcher from the school of the griffin. Autumn had started half a moon ago but he had traveled more west than he had expected this year so if he sought to winter
/with
/his brothers in the keep he had to turn around a little earlier this season. After two days since the last settlement Harris got a little startled at the sight of a light in the closing darkness. Harris squinted and tried to listen extra carefully.
/He thought he could see the faint light of a smaller campfire near the edge of the birch forest. The closer he got the more worried he got that he couldn't catch even a hint of sound of the campers. He silently skipped to the ground and led his horse
/to a berbercane bush and took his sword sheaths in one grasp. Crouching along the ground towards the light with his cowl still dropping some rains, Harris had one finger on the silver sword handle. Because he knew if it was humans then he easily
/could
/just jump aside and draw steel but monsters was a different matter. With monsters one only had so little time to both draw silver and notice the surroundings.
Staying close to the ground he went for a bush near the camp. As he was about to put all his body movement to halt a rumbling in the bush erupted and a fat mustachioed face rammed his forehead. Harris hadn't time to respond but just stood with his jaw
/hanging. The fat face started to laugh with a murky voice. The fat face started to fly towards the roof of the bush. The man had stood up from the shrub and slowly waggled towards Harris and reached out his fat hand. Harris reluctantly grabbed the
/hand and got to his feet. Harris was tall, but beside this man he looked like a shrimp next to a lobster. It was now that Harris noticed the eyes of the man. They were lemon-yellow with thin black iris. Witcher eyes. That answered some questions
/why
/he hadn't heard a sound.
"HAHAHA got you good, didn't I? You sly fuck! Saw you heading towards us and figured that you might want to inspect our fire" the fat witcher said with a laugh sounding more like a hybrid of a drum and a bull. "Guess so, friend. Is this a camp of your
/own or do we have more comedians in our presence?" Harris asked while quickly looking to the sides of the camp. "HAHAHA just a stranded cub in a tree" with that said came a low thud in front of Harris and a very young man came from the shadow of
/the
/birches. "Aye" said the man with an obviously strong skelligan accent. "wud ye say to share our campfire t'nite?"
After Harris had fetched his horse and relieved her of the packages and sacks he sat down beside the fire alongside his fellow witchers. A small cauldron hung over the warm flames with some sort of stew in it and gave out no kind of smell. This worried
/Harris a little. "Ye 'ave sumtin te spice up de chum mate?" Said the skelliger. Harris frowned with his dark red eyebrows but tried his hardest to get some information out of what he said. "I am sorry but I couldn't get a single word of that." Harris
/finally admitted. The fat witcher rolled his eyes and grunted "he asks if you have something to put in the stew". The young skelliger didn't look at all irritated. Skelligers had little to none contact with the continent except for trade and raids
/so it was no surprise that they didn't always understand each other. "Oh! Yes I have some parsley, crow's eye root and some dried rabbit meat." The fat man licked his mouth at the sound of parsley. "That parsley of yours will go fine to my potatoes
/and Ingmar's sheep meat."
When Harris had put his horse to pasture and laid out his blanket he sat down at the ring of fire with the others. While the young skelliger dipped the bowls in the stew, asked Harris "you're a bear I see, but our stout friend? What's your school, you
/don't wear your medallion for what I can see? For ploughing out load I don't even know your name." The stew still visible on the fat man's moustache quivered a little, probably because its wearer was so concentrated about the food. "Miezko of Hatun.
/Cat" Grunted the fat man. Harris lifted a red eyebrow. He had met a couple cats during his travels and this Miezko looked nothing like a witcher of the feline branch. "No don't you go and give me that ploughing look of surprise." Harris got taken
/by shock and started to explain that he didn't mean any offense but the fat man shrugged it off with his drumming bull laugh.
For a man with his own hearth and stove would this meal look like something thrown to feed his animals but for a witcher on the path was this a feast more valuable than a noble ever could understand. It was very seldom a witcher met with a brother on
/the path and even more rare meeting two at once. Though by principle witchers of different schools often choose to keep at different strides, one couldn't deny that three people were better than one as company a rainy night as this. After eating
/his first
/bowl of hot stew Harris quenched his thirst with lukewarm spiced mead. "How come a Skelliger is on the continent? I have heard that the demand of monster slayers on the islands is bigger than ever." The young Ingmar wiped his mouth with a muscular
/forearm and said "Aye it is. But I hadyet t' kill me first vampyr. Had the word of a garkain was prowling near Attre. Wee shit thought he could stop me by rush by surprise. Bashed his head straight on me sword like gull shit hittin' the shore."
Harris
/at least understood the meaning of the story: Look at me! I am a big boy now. Miezko grabbed in his bags andtook out a small pouch of a very white-grey skin. Inside the pouch he grabbed a handful of tobacco and shoved it in his mouth
and started
/to chew furiously. "Fucking vampires think they are hot shit. I remember once a prick who liked to hypnotize children to his lair. Flayed the fuck and made this pouch" Harris took some tobacco as well and embraced the warmth of the fire. Harris latest
/contract had been a lake-serpent in a sisterriver to the Rozrog delta. Naught exceptional and nothing noteworthy to tell by the fire. Harris had under his years acquired a handful of contracts that had given him some renown in Redania and Aedirn
/and
/even a knighthood in Toussaint, though a knight in Toussaint was as common as gonorrhea in poverty.
Miezko was talking about how he had lost his medallion to a lutin in a bet when the young Ingmar blurted out "Wadd'aya say to a gauntlet come morrow?" Harris definitely felt that he could do more productive things but he knew all too well the feeling
/of being a young witcher and wanting to prove oneself to the older ones. He had been only around 20 with a handful of drownerheads and a small forktail trophy when he himself chose to challenge a fellow witcher. He came out with a long scar from
/hip
/to spine from his foolishness. But he had learned a lesson in pride and self-respect. "Yeah, I can give it a try." Miezko explained that he gladly took part in the melee but that running and dodging obviously wasn't his specialty.
On the morrow he woke up to the sound of birds and the sun glimpsing between leafs of the birches. He put his cloak and blankets on a line between two trees to dry in the sun which was shining for the first time in a week. The fire was still lit but only
/a little and he was pleased to see that there was stew enough for breakfast. He downed his white cotton shirt and hardened leather tunic. His pantaloons of blue cotton and leather as well. His boots drying by the fire was a pleasure for his cold
/feet.
/Lastly he put on his gloves with holes for his fingertips. Miezko had a similar pair though the chubby mans was of much greater quality. As he checked all the rims and bucklers, came Ingmar with three somewhat straight branches. The witchers each
/took one and started to remove bark and twigs with knifes. Ingmar as the challenger decided that Harris and he should start at the camp, run to the big oak some 500 meters away, run back were their branches had been planted in the ground. The first
/can't attack the other before he has his branch. Miezko sat heavily with some pears on a log by the planted branches and would only fight if Ingmar requested further challenge. When the two witchers were ready they shook hands and stood by the branches.