The Lovely Demise of Murlain Mungo

Prelude

It was a beautiful morning, and I was going to die.

The village was quiet, and all were fast asleep. Last nights coals smoldered, and the fog still held to the hovels when I urged myself into the woods with my basket. An old wood, it was, all elm gnarls and dead fall. A good wood for mushrooms year after year. Hundreds of them if you knew where to look. Every morning I went, and so the Three-Eyed Dog would have it's stew. It was work, but a sweet repose, and my favorite part of the day. I was away from Gerrard and Gustaan, with their foul tongues and unwelcome hands.

That old forest was a gentle heaven to me. The quiet trees held stage for songbirds. Woolly bumble bees hummed between the flowering shrubs. A stream bubbled through soft earth, and within the snarled forest floor beneath the buck thorn brambles I'd find myself. I'd crawl on hands and knees, not a care for the thistle and thorn, my blade in hand slicing fresh mushroom caps from sun baked moss. Happy in the sunshine, none but my daydreaming for company.

Deer trails were the only passage through such a well established thicket, and I, just small enough to pass them, would follow their winding trails. I knew each by heart and was never lost to the trees.

That morning my basket was nearly full. I had eyed a nice cluster all fresh and glowing new in the sunshine. I sliced them at their stalks already smellin' them in the pan, fresh butter and basil weed, but hissed as my blade cut into my thumb. It bled some, and I sucked at it and spat before realizing where my gathering had taken me.

I couldn't yet see the prairie, but I could hear the silence calling. Even the birds knew better than I to stay far from that side of the wood. Light came pouring through that end of the trail like a full bellied moon, and like a moth I'd struggle against it's pull. I had gone that way once, just to see, but turned back when my good senses found me.

There had been an old temple in the tall grasses, and surely it still stood, but with Nekkers rooting around in the lawn it lay abandoned and condemned. Some would morn, unable to visit their loved ones buried there.

I'd go to that prairie for a look if I weren't so afeared, but I've seen what they do when they fill their bellies with you. Swallow your insides while your still screaming. Da died like that. Others too, as the winters passed. The village pooled their scraps to afford the contract, but each year it went unanswered. None from the village went to that temple, or the grasslands surrounding, but I'd go further than that if I could have. Anywhere far from Klastenfort and The Three-Eyed Dog. Anywhere far from Gerrard.

I was thinking about mushroom stew, about Gretath and how she would smile her weathered smile at the sight of my full basket, when I heard a terrible sound. Gristle in a pan. Tumbling stone. A hellish scratching from below. The moss a few paces down the path began to shift. Claws snared hard roots, slicing at dead ends before tunneling off in another direction. I froze on my hands and knees in the buck thorn thicket afeard to move. If I did it would hear me, though I was certain it already had.

It was looking for me much further into the trees than its usual hunting grounds. A small mountain range of soft earth was left in its wake as it forced aside the moss and violets, though it's movements were stunted. The tangled veins of the elm trees seemed a tuberous maze below and bought me just enough time to acknowledge my coming death. I resisted the urge to close my eyes. If these were my last moments I'd surely not miss them, no matter how I wished I could.

~.~;~.~

I reached the Three-Eyed Dog with thunder in my chest and disbelief clotting in my throat. I tumbled through the tavern doors like a storm. Gretath was awake and at the hearth in her shawl stoking the embers back to life until she startled at the sight of me.

"Decia Dear, what's gone on? You look mad!"

"I was-In the Woods! I was-" I couldn't catch my breath nor explain the things I'd seen. Even Gretath with all her matronly charms could not calm my racing heart. Shame too, for when Garrard roused from his quarters above and bellowed down the stairs I'd wished I'd kept my excitement.

"What's all the Damn Racket, Blasted Cunts! Yammering on at such an early Hour!" Garrard lumbered heavily down the stairway in his trousers with his bare gut hanging loose above spindly legs. "Should be nearly through fixing my breakfast. Sow's too weak for the fields already?"

Gretath positioned herself at the hearth with her liver spotted hand shaking around the handle of her pan. I took it from her, at the risk of Gerrard's wrath, but he was indulging the cask nozzle beneath the stair, and so Gretath smiled before sitting to dice an onion in her lap. She looked me over and I could see the question in her eyes, but Gerrard beat her to it.

"The Stews not on! Where's all the mushrooms, girl! Sold em' to Halladen again, didn't you ya little Cunt!" His eyes intensified with his verdict as he found me at the hearth and slapped me so hard on my end that I dropped my pan in the fire.

"I d-didn't sell them master Gerrard! I dropped them..." My explanation did nothing for his disappointment.

"You dropped them? You expect me to believe that, you do? Ya lyin' little Bitch! Where's the florens you've got for em'!" His fat hands roughed the folds of my skirts and I struggled to explain while fighting him away from my corset.

"There's a Witcher in the woods!" I cried, and the room went stiff at the sound. "A Nekker come after me in the woods, and a Witcher slain it!"

A shadowed smile fixed itself to Gerrard's foul face. He chuckled and my heart sank in that familiar way.

"Tellin' lies, are you? You'll be sorry you did. Now, Get to Work!" He took a handful of my hair and faced my chin to the skillet in the hearth. It was smoking at the edges, and an abysmal shade of black against the hot, red flames. I took up the handle and bit my own tongue until he finally walked off. My palm was sure to blister, but I'd told no lies. I'd seen a Witcher in the woods as tall as he was broad, with the beastly eyes of a cat and the sidgil of the bear 'round his neck.

Gustaan did not believe me, but his disagreement was much more bearable than that of his father's. He was sat at his usual table while the folk came for breakfast, slouched in his chair with his morning Ale and his fried eggs and hash, casting me a bitter look of disapproval.

"Talking like that might make folks look on you unkind, gettin' their hopes up all for your whimsical fantasies."

"It weren't no fantasy! I seen it with my two eyes!"

"Quiet that!" Gustaan hissed as his fist found the table with a firm thump. "It's like you enjoy it." He murmured under his breath with disgust. "You want him to hear you blaring such nonsense? You like what he does when you act up? Stupid girl..."

My chest swelled with a handful of unsavory feelings. How dare he say I enjoyed a single thing about that monster, but I knew by the kisses he'd force on me when we were away from all others, that Gustaan wished he were the only one to touch me. His darling Burnetta would be one pleased to know it. I hated them both Gerrard, and Gustaan. Though, Gustaan I managed to hate just a few hairs less.

I held my tongue and filled his cup and nearly spilled the whole pitcher as the room flexed in unison. The tavern door struck the wall like an axe to a tree and noonday light failed to pour in through the entry as a massive figure filled the way.

A beast of a man with two swords at his back held the dripping head of a Nekker in his fist, its purple blood splashing the floor with heavy droplets you could hear. The floorboards groaned beneath his weight, and not a single person in the room dared take a breath. The Witcher's eyes were glinting, all four. The two in his head a beastly yellow, the two in his ursine pendant a cold and beady black.

I looked to Gustaan and his eyes were fixed at him, my declaration now proven honest, was the very last thing on his mind.

The Witcher made his way to the counter and the sound of heavy steel and leather filled the tavern. Gretath stumbled away on her rusty legs and Gerrard cowered, stale in his place as the Mutant approached and slammed the Nekker's head down on the counter top. The Witcher straightened, taking his time to draw from the folds of his cloak the contract he'd collected from the village notice and laid it down beside the open mouth of his putrid trophy.

"Coin." His voice was rough and cold as jagged stone, and in one word I felt the hairs on my arms stand at their ends.

Gerrard must have found his voice at the sight of his own hand writing. "Ah, Y-yes. The contract. You...You're a Witcher..."

The Witcher looked unimpressed with his observation and slapped his massive leathered hand to the contract and underlined a bit of script with biting definition.

"For any man with a swift blade who can remove the Nekker hoards from our meadows shall receive 300 florens in reward, and all the ale he can stomach for his honorable service. Inquire with The Three-Eyed Dog." He raised a dark and heavy brow. "Nearly walked off after that last bit..."

He'd been a handsome man once, the Witcher. The lines of his face were sturdy and masculine, and thick black locks fell about his broad shoulders with two brush strokes of gray at either temple, but he was the kind of ugly one becomes after enduring centuries of sharp claws and gnashing teeth. The flesh of his face was a rugged terrain, gorges and ravines of scars pulled his features in barbaric ways, and carved out jagged patterns in the scruff at the shallows of his cheek.

Gerrard scuttled to the tap to fill a pint for the ancient sell-sword, and I could see the sweat beading at his brow. He sat it on the counter and was careful to stay clear of the severed head before stepping back and swallowing hard.

The Witcher downed his first mug in one go and Garrard simply filled it again, ignoring the obvious intention in the Witcher's impatient gaze.

"Where's my coin, Barkeep."

"M-master Witcher..?" Old Everard's frail voice came rattling from behind, and the old man looked as frightened as he was sincere. When the Witcher turned to glimpse over his plated shoulder the old farmer shrank to his movements. "G-Gerrard here's the village treasurer, he'll have your coin for ya's. Been savin' it for someone like you for seven winters, Master Witcher, a-and god's bless you for what you've done for us..."

I spied Halga, the village chatter, slip out the tavern doors surely eager to be the first to spread the news. Bless her for it, for Gerrard wore a face I'd never seen, too tight and cheerful to be his own, and seein' him so uncomfortable proved delightful in every way. He slid out from behind the counter like a slug against the wall after handing the Witcher his mug with shaking hands.

"Of course, the savin's... I'll just go fetch that." As Gerrard went up the stairs I caught him trip and pick up speed disappearing into his quarters like a tit-mouse to its burrow. I nearly smiled until Gustaan's sharp grip stole my attention.

"The coin's gone!" He whispered frantically with his blue eyes wide and darting about.

"What do you mean the coin's gone!"

Gustaan shook me with a hiss. "You want him to hear you?!" He pulled me into the seat beside him and tried to look natural but his eyes were like an owls in the dark of night. "It's for the hand-fastin'! Honey ale and Temarian wine... Burnetta's father needs believin' the Three- Eye'd Dog's on sturdy legs. For investments sake..."

The imbecile. Spent the village savings on a wedding they'd all be attending, just to prove to Burnetta's wealthy father that he was a worthy namesake. The audacity of Gerrard's shameful schemes had me lose my tongue. "You fool! What did Master Gerrard and Master Gustaan hope half the village be swallowed by the nekkers afore anyone found out the florens been spent?!"

"I'd strike you for less than that!" He warned under his breath with his finger at my lips. "How was we supposed to know A Witcher finally come! Now, look 'ore there. You don't know who that is?!" He took my jaw in his hand and forced my gaze to the Witcher. I didn't know who he was, but I'd seen first hand what he could do, and now his second ale was empty at the counter.

"That's a Berserker, but not just any. Murlain Mungo, The Butcher Bear. He'll have our heads on his saddle..." The reverance and fear in Gustaan's voice felt alarmingly foreign to me. "Now, we need to come up with a plan, some kind of distract..."

An obvious scuffling from above filled the foyer, and Gustaan and I shared a glance before our gazes snapped to the Witcher. He looked calm, in fact, too calm as he stood from his stool at the counter and left.

Gustaan and I practically leaped from our seats and followed him outside and around the tavern where a small group of Villagers had gathered. The Witcher stood in the center with folks in a wide circle around him glaring up through the sunlight to spy Gerrard's fat ass hanging from a roof beam. Gustaan hollered nonsense before taking off to stand below his father.

"It's Customary for one to I-Inquire of the job before up and F-Finishing It!" Garrard hollered down through gasps for breath. He was struggling against his weight, and three decades of forcing his labor on poor Gretath would serve him no favors now.

"Da! I Gotchya's, Da!" Gustaan began hollering.

"It is also customary for one to have the coin before issuing a public contract." The Witcher explained without raising his voice. The impossible depth and gravel left little need for volume. "Especially one with such a high reward."

"Gerrard's lost the coin..?"

"The coin's spent!?"

"That Fat Fuck stole our Florens!"

The village murmurs turned to uproar in moments, and all raised their fists at Gerrard where he clung like a cat to a tree limb.

"I gotcha, Da! I can-!"

Gerrard lost his grip on the roof and fell hard as a stone unto Gustaan, and the sound of them hitting the ground had me losing the smile I'd been wearing. I shouldered through the crowd to where they lain at the Witcher's feet. Gerrard was struggling to stand, gasping and wheezing for his breaths. Gustaan looked even worse, but both rose from the ground by some way of luck.

The villagers were screaming and hollering, shoving one another to get to Gerrard until the Witcher took one heavy step forward.

"Surely, we can agree to a compromise, friend?" Garrard were practically whimpering as he hobbled away from the Witcher. "There's a hand-fastin' you see. Next month! The Village will be pleased with the celebration! Brighten their spirits in this time of trouble..!" He had to holler his excuses over the outrage of the Village. The raw display of karma had me smiling from ear to ear once more, but that smile wavered to the sound of the Witcher's warning.

"I dismembered your troubles, Barkeep, and I can flay you much more easily..." He grasped the hilt at his shoulder and the sharp draw of steel on steel cut the air and quieted the crowd. Gerrard looked around desperately, terrified of every face until his eyes found mine.

"T-take the girl!" He stammered.

The Witcher's scowl tightened and he cast me a sharp glance. "The betrothed?" He scoffed darkly. "You're quite the man, aren't you..."

"Betrothed? Goodness no!" Garrard chuckled nervously. "Just the barmaid, b-but! Our family servant! Father couldn't pay his debts afore his passin'. She's young, and very lovely isn't she? Shame she isn't of namesake, or I'd marry her off myself!" He had the sudden air of a peddler selling livestock, and though the crowd around was filled with the faces I'd known my entire life, no one spoke. Gustaan's gaze found the dirt. None would speak for me.

"A companion for your travels? Don't let her frail looks fool you. She'll work hard for ya's, she would! Listens well, this one. If not, she'd fetch a fair price at any brothel. 300 florens, at least! A bit mousy, it's true, but such a lovely face. She's yours to do with what you like!"

I spied Gretath in the crowd, her hunched and gnarled frame leaning heavy on her cane, her withered face lined with tears.

Gerrard had never bestowed me with anything close to such complimentary characteristics. If the Witcher found some terrible use for them, who would take care of Gretath? Who would protect her from Garrard's harsh hands? And who would protect me from the Witcher's?

None.

My eyes burned. I hoped the Witcher would refuse and hack and slash limb from limb as compensation for his inconvenience. And still, there was another part of me within that hoped the Witcher might take Gerrard's offer. A frivolous hope that the Butcher Bear might take me far from here. A brothel in Novigrad could be no more colorless than Klastenfort.

I could feel him starring with those odd eyes, but mine were fixed to the ground to hide my tears. That moment passed like a winter, and when the Witcher finally spoke I found myself unable to first understand. I jumped to the sound of a piercing whistle, and a dapple gray war-horse in leather tack came trotting around the tavern.

"You'll travel light." The Witcher said, and I realized he was speaking to me. When I met his gaze the slits in his eyes focused so intensely that they nearly disappeared and the sight of it sent a chill through my bones.

Gustaan recovered something within himself and was suddenly very concerned with the Witcher's intentions. "So, a brothel, then? Novigrad? C-crow's Perch..?"

The Witcher paid him no mind. "Be ready by dusk." He said to me, his intimidating gaze lending me no mercy. He starred through me, measuring my worth. I felt a doubt in his assertions. "You'll travel light." He reminded coldly, before he lead his horse toward the hitch. "Where's my ale, Barkeep!"

Gerrard jumped and scampered after the Witcher eager to be away from the angry mob of villagers that were closing in around him. Most followed after them, leaving me behind with my shock.

I could see the deer trails in my head. All those silly little trails that I, in this body, would never have trod.

It had been a beautiful morning, and I was going to die, until a Witcher stole my fate.

~.~;~.~

The Nekker erupted from the moss in a hail of stone and earth, It's long, opaque arms outstretched with its brethren at it's haunches. Their mouths were wide atop grotesque and flaring jowls. Sharp pikes of foul fang opened wide to me, each squealing like ungodly swine with eyes the same crimson as the blood in my veins.

I don't know how, but I moved. I fumbled on my hands and knees through the tunnel of buck thorn awaiting their hungry claws at my spine, but I stumbled past a pair of glistening plated boots instead. I fell back and witnessed a silver blade pass through flesh, two and fro like the wings of a Needle-tailed Swift. A spray of deep purple cast a fowl smell to the air, and the squealing intensified before slowing to a sickly gurgle, and I looked up from the teeming mess to find a beast of another kind. Yellow eyes saw through me, and I could not run fast enough.