There was a moment of stunned silence. Franz, still hampered by a post-sleep drowsiness reached up and rubbed an eye. Wondering vaguely if he might still be sleeping.
The second his hand touched his face the deer's ears flicked. Then in a flash, it bolted back into the trees.
After that both Tim and Franz had a second to be startled. As usual Franz was the on to break the silence.
"That fuck was that!?" Franz managed to sputter.
Tim blinked at the sound of that. "I thought you'd know...wait...I think that was a deer. I got one on my back y-"
"That's not what I damned meant you fucking freak!" Franz interrupted loudly.
"What the hell is your deal, huh!? You cozy up to wild animals like they're you godsdammned pets. You cut through a hoard of men like they were made of sausage. And don't think I didn't see it before! Silver burns you! Your'e some kind'f..."
He trailed off after that. A sudden sense of terror popped into his eyes and he suddenly started backing away frantically.
Tim started to move towards him with his hands out. He felt a sudden sense of guilt for terrifying the kid, and he didn't want him to go running off into the forest alone.
"Franz wait, look any questions you wanna ask me, I'll answer them. I'm human okay, I won't hurt you."
Franz didn't seem to listen. He kept his eyes directed forward. Dead ahead and unmoving. His gaze was so focused that he almost tripped over a small stone behind him as he advanced backwards.
Tim noticed something then. The kid's gaze wasn't settled on him. It seemed to be going over his shoulder. Tim didn't think to be cautious, he spun around to see what Franz had eyed up.
He didn't get a chance for a clear look.
A whir of grayish pink flesh slammed into Tim like a cannon ball. He was knocked off his feet and spent a barely perceivable second flying backwards. As he smacked onto the dirt Tim was still too surprised to know how to feel. That ended when a sudden raw and ragged pain shot up from his left arm. The creature on top of him was mauling him. Ripping into the flesh near his arm pit while making a series of disturbing gurgling sounds.
With his right hand Tim frantically clawed at it, trying to tare whatever it was off of him, but every time he grasped for flesh to grab his hand just seemed to slip off the greasy sides of whatever the thing was.
Tim began to panic and writhe as the creature stared yanking back, trying to rip a chunk of his arm off through the sleeve of his shirt.
Tim's right quickly slid off the monster and went for the sword on his left hip.
The hand had to force itself under the writhing jumble of muscle trying to dismember him. Eventually though, it gripped the hilt the sword.
Timothy suddenly ripped the sword out of it's scabbard and slid it across the creature's belly. The blade itself was chipped and dented from years of use and the impact of a certain Courier's skull, but all the same the force of the pull and the shaking of the creature made that all irrelevant.
There wasn't a sound so much as there was a sudden smell. A stench beyond putrid dropped out along with a tangle of entrails. The creature stopped it's mauling and looked down. Tim got a look at it's face then. It was unnervingly human looking and instead of in pain, it looked more confused than anything. Either or, it wasn't biting.
Tim blindly stabbed the sword back up. The blade went through the bottom of the creature's jaw and then stuck it's way through to the roof of the mouth. The creature sputtered in response before trying to lunge back down and bite at the arm again. The force of the lunge forced the sword point farther in. The creature heaved a chocking cough, shuddered and then went still.
There was silence for a few seconds after that. Franz realized that he had frozen after the creature had tackled Tim. He inwardly wondered why he hadn't bolted away the second that the ghoul had attacked somebody else.
Before he had time to think deeper on that line of thought the ghoul was pushed off by Tim. He made a scrunched face before sitting up and spitting.
Tim himself didn't seem to notice Franz watching him. He took several deep breaths coughed from the smell that he was now covered in and then pulled himself up.
Tim managed a breathless cough of pain as he tried straightening himself up. He looked over at the blood soaked bight mark on his left arm and groaned.
"I wonder if this'll get infected." he muttered in a tired and mildly sarcastic tone.
Franz may still have stayed silent after that but the stench of the dead ghoul had finally drifted his way. He made a rough coughing noise before answering Tim's rhetorical question.
"You...should clean that up. I'll kill you if you don't." his said in a low tone.
Tim turned around to Franz and gave him a nod paired with a sickly looking smile.
"There should be another village near here." continued Franz.
"It's called Honorton. I think that they may have some strong booze to spare."
"Sounds good. I'll follow you." muttered Tim with his same tired smile he'd been holding up.
Franz gave him a nod before walking forward, all the while keeping far away from the dead ghoul.
If Franz was feeling a little more honest he would have said that he wasn't really sure where Honorton was. He'd only been there once. Once before with Cedric to pick up another tithe for the Barron.
It was funny thought Franz. Of all the villages that they had stopped at, Honorton was the only one that managed to talk it's way out of paying up. Franz hadn't managed to hear the private deal the village headman had hammered out with Cedric. He'd only heard some muffled shouting coming from the home they spoke in.
The next thing he knew Franz saw a red faced Cedric stomping out while giving the soldiers a silent flick of his hand announcing that it was time to leave.
The headman had walked out and watched them leave. Franz had remembered the look of him. An older, healthy looking man with a curled mustache and a gaudy looking fur coat. He had stood there looking so a little smug. Franz didn't know what he had said to Cedric, he didn't know anyone could talk the man down. Especially when he lost his temper.
Now he was trying to find that haughty peasant and his backwoods village. He had to help Timothy. He felt...slightly guilty. About everything, about just standing there and doing nothing.
For the past few months that was all that he had done. He sat silent on the cart when Cedric's thugs had robbed starving people blind to feed Crow's Perch. He had done nothing when one of the soldiers would slash a villager across the face for looking at them the wrong way. He'd did nothing when the soldiers would grab one of the women and haul her writhing and screaming behind the wagons. He'd done absolutely nothing at all through all of the cruelty and horrors that took place in front of him. He might not have taken part any of it, but it did not feel that way. Not to himself.
Now he'd just sat there and watched the man who hadn't done anything to hurt him get mauled by a ghoul.
What could I do, stab it with a stick?
That rationalization didn't seem to help him. It didn't work those other times, why would it work now?
"Now" thought Franz "Maybe I can help. I can help him, I can stop break this feeling up and do something."
"Just follow me...straight. Yeah, right this way. I'll get us there. Just have to get us through this copse...then...then we'll probably smell it before we see it." he said in a self reassuring way.
"You gotta move quick with ghoul bites." continued Franz. "If you burn out the infection fast, then it'll be alright, wait to long an..."
A short but loud cackle of laughter made him trail off. He turned around to see Tim falling back to a chuckle as he continued to follow Franz.
"Sorry" he finally managed. "Sorry, I know, this is serious. I just couldn't help myself there."
Franz raised an eyebrow and almost asked what was so funny, but then he thought better of it and just carried on walking.
There was silence for a moment after that. Franz lead and Tim followed. Franz knew that they were heading in roughly the right direction, but beyond that he recognized no landmarks.
Without him really thinking about it he said he said "I only helped them load stuff...you know. Most of them didn't need help with the directions. They knew Vellen that well...but...a few places...they asked me where they were...and I told them how to get there. I knew what they'd do...but I just...I just..." he railed off.
A light tap on his shoulder suddenly made Franz freeze. He stopped what he was saying and looked around at Tim. There was a weary expression still on his face, but there was something else as well. Franz couldn't place it. He never did.
"You stayed alive." was all that he said.
Franz bit a cheek at the sound of that. It didn't make him feel relieved, but it did seem to clear up something.
The why of it all. He thought idly.
He shook Tim's hand off and continued walking on.
Keira Metz had an easy time creating the illusion. The hard part was remembering the face. The subject that had practically bashed her own face in before leaving, and that had somewhat disturbed her memory. She realized while she was trying to recreate them that she had remembered it's eyes wrongly. They hadn't been an emerald green.
They were lime...lime with some flecks of brown dotted in. For sure much more ugly than emerald.
After that it had taken a few more seconds of concentration to summon back the image of the rest of his face and body.
Geralt of Rivia had been...mildly amused.
The first thing that he'd asked after she'd recreated him was why he was naked. With a blush Keira had changed that and returned his clothes to him. That slight misstep quickly changed into part of the story she told.
She played the part admirably. False embarrassment shone on her face as she pretended to dodge details. She had received much practice faux emotion due to her years as King Foltest's adviser. She planted the idea that she wanted in the Witcher's head.
The man was an old liaison. A foreign mercenary who had caught her attentionwhen she still lived in Temerian high society. He had managed her here out in Vellen with the intention of cashing in on their past relationship.
Keira had coyly let him in as a chance to break up the boredom. They had gotten intimate for a little while, and then...not so much.
She had been sent flying to the floor by a stay punch and he had been sent out the window. A lightning bolt seared into his ass that made him forget about the clothes...and the armor.
Keira had then made Geralt a deal. He was always looking for an upgrade to his equipment and here another one was.
A light cuirass of incredible strength as well as a jacket some shoes and a strangely made pair of pants.
He could have all these things...and maybe something else later. All he had to do was bring that man back alive.
Back alive for punishment.
Franz was definitely right about one thing. They smelled Honorton before they saw it.
The smell was one that they already recognized. The smell of rotten flesh. The smell of ghoul.
Honorton materialized out of the trees before them. It was smaller than Franz remembered. Smaller and filled with more corpses.
Filled...might have been the wrong word. Thought Franz. Not filled, populated by sounded more accurate. There wasn't a single person there left alive.
Not even ghouls were kicking there. The corpses of a few of them lay scattered around. All of them chopped into bits.
Both Franz and Tim held their tongues, but kept walking all the same. Tim noticed that there was't a cloud of flies here yet. Whatever had gone down, it hadn't happened that long ago.
Franz thought something similar. The bodies hadn't started swelling up or begun to reek. These people had to have been alive just a few hours ago.
Tim looked over at one of the cut up monsters. "Ghoul...ghouls...are these things everywhere?" Tim asked.
"They show up to eat corpses. Though you know that they eat the living too. The war has been pretty good for them." replied Franz.
Tim looked down at the bodies. One near a dead ghoul looked like it had been chewed on, but the rest looked different. Glancing over Tim saw one corpse that had been decapitated. A clean slice lay across the man's neck. The head was nowhere to be found. Beyond that though, there weren't any bit marks on the body.
Looking around he saw several other corpses. They hadn't been eaten either. They'd all been slashed apart. It wasn't the rough hacking of axes and swords, it was something else. The cuts looked unnaturally precise. Like a massive razor blade had done them all in.
"Franz..." asked Tim. "Do you know what might have done this...Franz?"
Franz heard but did not answer. He had walked ahead of Tim. Over to the headman's home. He knew that the man had to be dead, but all the same he wanted to see him again.
Tim caught up with Franz right as he went through the building's open doorway.
"Please don't do that." Tim gasped while quickly catching up with him. He hadn't known why Franz went off like that and didn't really have a chance to think on it.
Franz heard what he said but did not respond. He was too occupied staring at the room now before him. Tim saw it as well. It was absolutely hung with trophies. Most of them were the average sort, deer and bears. But one stood out. On the back wall, directly over the desk in the center of the room was a horned skull.
Skull Timothy thought, wasn't exactly the right word.
It almost seemed fake. It was a mashed up fusion of bone and wood. It had no discernible set of features besides the two oval shaped eye holes in the front of it's face and an expansive set of horns.
Tim noted that despite how ridiculous it looked, he found himself believing that it was real. The skull looked organic. The grainy looking surface on it, where bone, wood and even antlers met seemed totally natural.
It was unique enough that Tim took a few more steps up to it. It was on his very last step that he felt the creak beneath him. The sudden sensation of an empty space below the floorboards. Tim looked down briefly, lifted his booted foot and brought it smashing down.
The wood splintered apart exposing a large bundle of burlap. Tim stooped over and unwrapped it. The fist thing he unbundled was a pair of bottles. They had labels on them but it was in a sort of language that seemed completely foreign to him. His best guess was that they were liquor.
Looking deeper into the rags Tim felt a heavy bag and pulled it up. It clinked the moment he did. It didn't take a genius to figure out what it had inside it.
"Franz!" Tim suddenly called out.
Franz turned around, then quickly had to catch a bag tossed to him.
"Count that out please." Tim said offhandedly while checking deeper into the rags.
At the absolute bottom of the compartment were two things. A rolled up bunch of papers and a small sealed ceramic bottle.
Tim unrolled the papers but, as with the bottles he could not understand what they said. It was a jumble of strange looking letters that ranged from vaguely normal looking to completely alien looking. He ended up dropping them in favor of the bottle. There was a little cork stopper stuck into it's stem. Tim popped it out and gave the bottle a sniff. The odor inside was a little familiar. The fumes themselves were dry and it seemed to numb the back of his throat.
Tim raised an eyebrow at that and then stuck the cork back in. He turned around and checked on Franz' counting.
"What's it look like?"
"Crowns" replied Franz "Something like sixty of them. That along with a dozen Lintars."
"Is that...a lot?"
Franz turned around at that. "It's...not bad."
At that response Tim gave Franz a genuine smile.
"Hey, can you read?" asked Tim.
"No" replied Franz. "Let me guess, you can't either"
Tim could sense the snark in that comment. "Not this language." he replied.
"So you say." Replied Franz.
Tim caught himself almost yelling fuck off at Franz. He managed to keep some dignity by holding that off.
He looked back down at the bottles he'd recovered. One of them had a transparent liquid in it. He popped it's cork and gave it a smell.
Vodka
Tim hated vodka. Hated the smell, hated the taste. His dad for some odd reason had loved the stuff. But love hadn't been passed down.
That all being said he'd rather have to drink the stuff then what he was about do do.
Timothy took off his vest before peeling off his shirt. Franz looked up and realized what he has about to do.
"You sure you don't want to take a drink of that first?"
"Nah" Tim whispered. "Fuck it."
Tim was still screaming by the time Franz stepped outside. The yelling hadn't frightened him. It was honestly everything he could do not to laugh.
The man...Timothy, had a rather funny scream. That and a slew of creative curses that Franz hadn't though of before.
Zombie fucker, rotface piece of shit and fucking asshole would be dedicated to memory and stored for later use.
In the meantime Franz continued walking away from the headman's home. He carefully avoided the dead bodies lying around him all the while doing his best not to look directly at them. After a short moment of walking he found himself by the stables. He was half way past it when he found himself stopped in his tracks. Turning towards the entrance he found the headman.
The smug old man lay slumped to his side against a stall. The front of his shirt was soaked in dark blood, his face was white as marble and caught in an expression of pure horror.
The room had three other corpses in it besides the headman. One of them had a bloodied pitchfork lying beside an outstretched hand. Franz gazed at the tips of the farm tool and wondered who had been stabbed by it.
He suddenly realized that he didn't have a weapon of his own. He quickly picked the pitchfork up and moved to leave.
It was at that moment that his foot struck something metallic.
Franz glanced down to see a small, silver cat's head. It had a bit of broken chain still attached to a clasp on it. It definitely seemed unique, even important somehow. Without much hesitation Franz picked it up and started making his way back to Timothy.
Alright, I didn't get you 4000 words but I came pretty close. This chapters like the last one was written in an alarmingly short amount of time. As such please excuse the syntax errors and run on sentences. I don't know what else to say beyond the usual stuff. Please encourage and/or threaten me to update. The more I do this the more consistent I will get.