The sunset is coming close. Jormungand sits on a bench in front of his hut and watches, as he always does. The village is coming to rest after a long day of work. Women, some with babes on their hips and kids clinging to their skirts, with their faces red from the sun and with dirt on their hands, are coming to the yard to chat and grouse about their husbands. The men are coming back from the fields and workshops with the tools on their arms, some of them grim and tired, some with a placid spirit. The kids are racing around the well, laughing and screaming, chasing their fun before their mothers' call. The cows and the pigs bellow in their crofts, seeking their evening feeding, and the geese flee with clamor from the folks rushing to their homes. Jormungand watches the ruddy faces and listens to the bustle of chatter and laughter. He is calm and content. They had a good year, gods save them. There is no plague and no hunger, the crops were good. There is no worry for the winter to come. The only thing that troubles Jormungand is the beast that has nested in their forest and keeps ravaging their horses and their cattle. He knows that the monster must be slain before it steals babies instead of goats and calves, but he does not permit folks to go at it with scythes and forks. He does not want to see the women bring wreaths to empty graves. But luck was sent unto them and a witcher came to the village. Jormungand treated with him for a prize and the witcher promised him the head of the monster in return. A moon has passed since then. Jormungand sits in front of his hut, looking towards the darkening forest and brooding. If the witcher doesn't come back soon, he thought, he will need to send someone on the road. The village is his to command. He would not let this monster menace and ravage its people.
Big, shaggy dog that was sleeping by his feet raises its head and growls alarmingly. Jormungand turns his gaze away from the woods. The hunter's widow is coming towards him. Her pace is quick and she looks sullen. Jormungand props himself against the wall of his hut, warmed with the last rays of sunlight. He rolls his oaken staff between his hands and waits.
Wszebora stands before him with her hand on her axe and bows her head just a little.
"You went outside the village. I forbade it until the witcher would kill the monster", he says calmly.
"The monster is no more, but the witcher's bloodied. I went to the woods. I saw it. We need to bring him back here and treat him", she tells him firmly.
Jormungand furrows his brow. The widow is not asking nor is she suggesting. That woman stands before him, not for the first time, with her head raised and her gaze adamant, talking to him with such audacity as if she thinks her words have meaning to him. Deep in his soul Jormungand promises himself to punish her for this insolence. Soon, but not today.
"It's a good thing if the witcher completed his contract. But is it for him and for him only to collect the prize", he says calmly. He leans forward, props against his staff. "If he doesn't come back for his coin, it's not for us to search for him".
A shadow passes through the widow's face. Jormungand stares at her in silence.
"The witcher saved us from the monster. Doesn't it earn him a bed and a meal?", she asks with a low, sharp voice.
The accusation that rings in her words does not move him.
"The witcher surely knows the burdens of his craft", he says slowly. "If the beast kills him, we will not waste the prize that was promised to him. It will pay for the meals of our children".
The widow grips the hilt of her axe, her brow furrowed. The bustle of chatter and laughter dies out. The folks stop in their tracks. They watch. They listen.
"Had it not been for the witcher, the children would need graves, not meals", the widow speaks with a lower, colder voice.
She looks at him with a blank face, but in her eyes he sees disdain. The dog that was sleeping underneath his bench raises and bristles, disturbed with the growing tension.
"We need no strangers here". Jormungand sits patiently under the widow's cold glare. "The witchers carry misfortune with them".
"Misfortune needs not be carried", she growls in a low whisper. "It comes as it pleases".
Jormungand smiles with a dry, humorless smile. He raises his arm to pet the dog. The widow is standing before him with stony eyes and with her arms on her hips. Behind her he can see villagers listening to their quarrel. It is quiet around them.
"He will be saved, if the gods desire it. Not for us to know their ways", he says firmly to end this wrangle, but the widow would not surrender.
"I wonder if it will please the gods that we left to die a man that had saved us all", she barks sharply.
There are murmurs rising around them. Some folks look at each other, some turn back to their huts. Jormungand gazes at the widow in silence. He rolls his staff in his hands and looks around, at the people that avoid his gaze. At last he props his elbows on his knees and says:
"It's your thing if you want the witcher here. But he will come under your roof. If any wrong befalls us from that, you will give your neck for that", he declares, squinting his eyes in the last rays of sunlight.
They glare at each other for a long time. At last the widow bows her head.
"Thank you", she says.
Then she turns around and goes away. The folks step back as she goes, whispering and murmuring around her. Jormungand props himself against the wall again and sighs deeply.
In the red sunset the thatches of the huts look as if they were on fire.
The blacksmith is about to sit behind a table for supper when a persistent knocking stops him in his tracks. Grumbling and cursing under his voice, he leaves his plate and strolls without hurry towards the door. If he is to see another hick with a rust-eaten scythe or with a bony horse to shoe, he will send his guest on his merry way - he promises to himself. His father and his grandfather before him used to forge solid weapons and he got stuck in this forgotten village to waste his days on fixing worn-out mattocks and sickles. These folks do not know how to handle their own tools. Just the moment he hung his apron on the hook in his forge and came back to his hut, somebody comes to interrupt his rest.
The blacksmith opens the door to get rid of his guest, maybe with a kick to the arse if need be, but there is no hick with a broken flail on his doorstep. Instead he sees the hunter's widow. He scowls and crosses his giant arms on his chest.
"Whaddaya want?", he grumbles, eyeing her with suspicion. She bows her head, greeting him.
"The witcher that we hired to kill the monster in our forest is badly hurt. We need to bring him back to the village", she declares calmly.
The blacksmith snorts.
"And why are you telling me this? Even if the monster had ripped his arms and legs out, I would not have cared. I won't make steel limbs for him, will I?".
It seems that the spite in his voice does not move her. The only sign that her patience is getting thin is the slight crease that forms between her brows.
"I might be wrong here, but if I remember well, another witcher searched through the marshes for your kids last spring. And he brought them back safe and sound. Don't you want to return the favor?", she asks. Her voice is still calm, but there is a hint of rebuke to it.
The blacksmith broods for a moment. Even if he does not want to admit it, the widow is right. If not for the witcher, his house would be empty and his wife would wither with grief. And he thinks of himself as a man with honor. The debt needs to be paid, that he is sure of. But there is still the monster in the woods.
"The witcher's wounded, you say. No good to go into the forest then", he grumbles, looking at the widow with reluctance.
"The beast is dead. We need to take the witcher to the village before the sun sets", she replies insistently, looking him in the eyes.
The blacksmith sighs, scrapes his neck and broods for another long while. He looks at her from under his eye with a scowl on his face. Finally he mumbles something under his breath and turns his back to her.
"Lestka! Bring Chedrog here, will ya?", he shouts to his wife who eyes him with suspicion from the corner of the room, propping a hand with a ladle in it on her hip. "And tell him to bring the cartload", he adds. Then he turns back to the widow and looks her in the eyes, not trying to hide how tired and irritated he is.
"Honestly don't know what scares me more, that beast in the forest or you", he grumbles grimly.
The widow smiles at him a little and nods.
"Make haste. The dusk is near", she says quietly and with this she goes away, her footsteps quick and steady.