Thank you, Omnigamer, for the editing help!
Thank you, The Pineapple Approves, for the cover picture of Micah and Arek, and for letting me borrow the grumpy old Bear. I promise to feed him well, stoke his pipe and ensure his ale cup is ever full :)
Kozin was irritated. The ealderman in front of him was spouting some shite about not having agreed to such a steep sum to get rid of the strigga terrorizing the town. The big witcher from the Bear School reached deep inside himself for the discipline required to avoid grasping the spiny little man by the throat and shaking him. He thought, not for the first time, that he should start requiring his customers to sign contracts in duplicate before he would take a job.
"Ealderman Janners," Kozin interrupted in his best I-really-want-to-kill-you-but-I-won't voice, his Skellige accent pushing its way to the fore. "We agreed on three hundred orens to kill the strigga. Ye agreed, I agreed, we drank on it. In my mind, that means we had a deal."
"Well, ah, see," the ealderman wheedled and Kozin pinched the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, "we don't HAVE three hundred orens. We have one hundred orens." He looked doleful and sheepish. Kozin hated that combination of looks so he just glared back, waiting for the offer of bartered goods.
"Would ye take a few barrels of pickled calves feet, a cask of salt and two demijohns of wine?" Janners looked downright hopeful, good cheer radiating from his too-thin face.
The big Bear glared at the ceiling and mentally calculated what those commodities would cost at the market square, then countered "Give me twenty pounds of dried beef, ten pounds of salted pork and three demijohns of oil to boot and I'll take your offer."
He really didn't mind bartering for his services; he just preferred those things be spelled out during initial negotiations. At least they weren't stiffing him entirely and Kozin breathed a sigh of relief when Janners enthusiastically agreed. The little ealderman clapped his hands, handed over the purse of golden orens and stepped sprightly out of his house, shouting for the goods to be delivered right away!
August was swiftly giving way to September, prompting Kozin to hurry preparations for wintering over. He wanted to settle into the mining shack he had found in the mountains earlier in the season before the snows started to fly. There wasn't much to it, really; just an old one room cabin backed into a niche in the mountainside next to a shallow mine shaft. The remains of a cooking fire and a flask hinting of vodka and cherries told him the hut had been used within the last year, but there were no signs of more recent occupation. The witcher hoped they wouldn't come back while he was in residence. He didn't fancy spending his winter amongst these Nordlings and their infernal Flaming priests with their talk of pyres and pikes for anyone they didn't like. Isolation in the mountains might make for a lonely off-season but it was better than immolation by the fucking Church. His life was worth more than easy access to a well-stocked bar and willing wenches to bed. Kozin shrugged as he considered his options. Maybe he would get really lucky and there would be a nymph in the woods willing to tryst with a grumpy old Bear through the cold months. A bored witcher is a randy witcher, as Andryk used to tell him when they were young.
He mounted up after loading his horse and rode toward the Blue Mountains, leaving what passed for civilization behind and enjoying the warm sunshine mingled with the sharp tang of fall floating in the air. Peasants mowed wheat in the fields, their harvesting songs providing an even tempo for their swinging scythes. Older children followed behind the scythers and collected bundles of stalks that they stood up and tied together while the very youngest toddled along collecting the small heads that came off the sheaves, putting them in sacks hung about their fronts. The fresh cut aroma of ripened wheat saturated the air, summoning birds of all varieties to feast on the leftovers.
A light breeze played in his full, shaggy beard, rattling the beads adorning two narrow braids skimming his cheeks. His long, dark hair would have hung to his shoulders if weren't bound in a topknot at the back of his head, revealing the shorn strip of his lower skull and three parallel scars tracing vertical lines from mid-cranium down his neck. The big witcher turned his face up to the sunshine and just reveled in the moment, breathing deeply and glad that no one was calling ...
"Master Witcher! Master Witcher!" The voice shattered the peaceful day and was accompanied by an older man limping as fast as his bowed legs could carry him. "Master Witcher!" the man gasped, catching up to the halted horse, hands on knees as he chased his runaway breath. Kozin dismounted and fiddled with the bridle to give the man some time, turning only when the wheezing eased. The farmer looked the witcher in the eye. Surprising. Most people wouldn't. "We needs yer help, Master Witcher. Needs it bad. We has a wraith in the far field and ain't been able to harvest it. Please, Master Witcher, will ye help us?"
"I don't work for free," he stated baldly.
"Oh no, Master witcher. We took up a collection. We haven't much, but we can throw in some goods on top of it if ye prefer."
They dickered on compensation and came to an agreement. Tanned leather, armor rings, and scales along with repair to his armorer's tools, some new boots, two full bags of grain, a bear skin suitable for a cold winter, a milk goat, and a pack mule to carry his belongings were included with the thirty orens the peasants had collected. In addition, they would feed and shelter him and his horse for the night. These folks seemed far more prosperous than the people back in the village he had left hours ago, or else they appreciated the worth of a witcher better.
A tiny hamlet was home for the farmers, boasting five neat huts gathered about a central well with a stable byre suitable for his horse and tack off to the side. A blushing young maid came to care for the beast while Kozin prepared for his initial investigation. The girl was pretty, of course, and petite, of course, with long chestnut locks that fell to a trim waist he could span with one hand. Her eyes were a soft brown in her oval face and she sported an adorably pert nose. She was impossibly young. They all were these days, with their soulful eyes and kissable noses. Even the ones in the brothels. He sighed, running a hand down his sun-beaten face. When had he gotten so old? As time went on he preferred well-set widows entirely finished with youthful idealism. They seldom got romantic notions, savored their independent lives and enjoyed the mutual slaking of lust without any kind of entrapping commitment. There were plenty around now, considering a decade of constant warfare that had ravaged through the North.
He shrugged his wide shoulders back, cracked his neck and, hiding behind a facade of cold professionalism, began his questioning.
"What do they call ye, lass?" he asked, inspecting a tangle of straw and keeping a polite distance from the girl.
"Me name's Matilda, sir, but everyone just calls me Matty."
"And what do you know of this wraith, Matty?"
"She's terrible fierce, she is sir," the young lady peered at the witcher with her melted chocolate eyes. "Appears when the sun is highest then leaves on a wail when evening is nigh,"
"Noonwraith," grunted the Bear, "You know when she first appeared?"
"About three weeks past, sir."
"Ahh." He nodded. "Any ladies go missing from hereabouts recently? Heard of any women dying nearby?"
"No, no I haven't. Mayhap Dandy Brolla would know. She's the wise woman that tends to the sick and helps the pregnant women birth their babies." Kozin got directions to Dandy Brolla's hut and strode away from the chit, knowing in his bones it was going to be a long winter without a willing woman who had a phobia to commitment. He shook himself and got down to business.
"There was a girl, some years past. Died to bandits on the way to her beloved," the old woman sang as she offered the big man tea and biscuits in her tiny home. "She were on her way her wedding, she was."
"How long ago was this?" Kozin inquired, stroking his beard in thought.
"T'wer ten years past, now," said Brolla, "poor child was found ravaged with the remains of her guards scattered about. There was naught to be done but bury the bodies and send word to her betrothed of the slaughter."
"She only appeared three weeks ago?" he kept his query neutral, watching thoughts slide over the old woman's face.
"Nay, she's been appearing regular like since that summer." Brolla refilled his empty cup and set a fresh biscuit on his plate. "Every year at the end of August till just after Yule."
"Hmph," grumped the Bear. "Why, all of a sudden, is she a problem? Why not hire a witcher long before now?"
"Well, see, we usually start harvesting at the beginning of August with that field, so it's done by the time she shows up," replied Brolla, "but this year, for one reason and another, a dead pig, some gout, what have you, the workers haven't gotten to it." The wise woman tilted her head at the witcher, then sighed. "We simply stayed out of her way. Witchers don't come cheap, sonny, and we didn't see a need to hire one till now." She sat across from him with her own tea steaming in an earthenware mug and continued in a very quiet voice, "isn't ten years long enough for a tortured soul to be bound to the earth? Won't ye do something to free her so she might actually rest?"
"Aye, I've already agreed to help," grumbled the big Bear as he stood and took his leave of the little old lady. Kozin checked the angle of the sun as he walked out of the hut. He would go take a look now, knowing all he could do this afternoon was send her back to the nether till tomorrow. If at all possible, the witcher intended to avoid a fight until he knew what tethered her to the prime material plane. Once he found her anchor, he could lift the curse and release her from this world.
The bear settled at the well in the center of the hamlet and pulled out his customized, silver Zweihänder and started oiling and sharpening the blade. She was a dream of balance and beauty, taking a wicked edge with finely tooled double fullers up the center that were laid with crimson elder runes.
Grandmaster Undvar's words came back to him, as they always did when he was preparing for a fight. "Always treat your blades with respect, lad. They are like a woman, requiring stroking and rubbing with loverly care. Do that and they will purr for you."
Kozin's blades were his life and he bestowed more affection on them than he ever had on any woman. As he oiled the sword he felt eyes on him and looked up, catching Matty gazing with rapt attention at his ministrations. With a weary sort of amusement, he noticed that her eyes had grown heavy-lidded and she was starting to pant. Only supreme self-control kept his lips from twitching into a grin, but he did raise one eyebrow. For some reason, taking care of his weapons brought all the girls to the yard. He was not without his own sense of humor, however, and firmly thrust his weapon back in its sheath with a satisfying thump that caused the girl to jump and then blush a fiery red.
'That should keep her warm all winter' he thought to himself with an evil grunt he wouldn't allow to turn into a snicker. He would tell Oslan …. No. He caught himself mid-thought. It had been a long while since he had made that slip, even in the privacy of his own mind. He must be getting soft. He pulled his head out of his arse, stood up and stretched. Time to go see what this noon wraith was all about.
"Papa, where's mama?" Greta asked in her piping voice as she swayed with the horse's even gait. The man holding her in front of him on the saddle didn't answer, but her brother did. He was on his own horse because he was a big lad and papa said it was time he learned to ride and care for his own mount.
"Mama has gone to the Eternal Fire, Greta, and we will see her again when we go there too." Bartholomew Jasper Karadin said with solemn pride, sitting straight in the saddle and not sawing on the reins.
"Are we going there now?" asked the little girl, squirming to look up at the gaunt man behind her. She was still frightened of him. Oh, she knew he was her papa, but he looked so fierce with his face all ragged like that, and the swords sticking over his shoulder. Not at all like the man she loved most in all the world.
"No, Greta. We can't go till the fire calls us to enter its light. You know that from your lessons." His voice was raw and wounded. He didn't even SOUND like her papa. She was sad and scared with this stranger who wasn't really a stranger. Why couldn't they go back home? They had been riding and riding for days on end. And they never took the road. She simply couldn't understand it and she started to cry. Her papa gathered her close against him and shushed her quietly, hugging her as he guided the horse with his other hand.
"We'll stop for the night in few hours, Greta. Then we'll have something to eat and you can tell me a story, ok?" She looked up into his face and thought he might be crying too, and that made her feel a little better for some reason. She reached up a hand and patted his battered cheek, then nodded her little head solemnly.