Roach trudged along at a steady even pace down the muddy path, the dark clouds blanketing the sky casting an early dimming of light as evening set in. Even the songs of the birds nesting down for the night seemed dampened by the heavy drizzle falling from the clouds. Muffled by the rustling of leaves above and creaks and groans through the thicket of trees around them as their branches swayed in the picking up howl of wind. The night's chill setting in earlier due to the constant rain, not that it bothered Geralt much what with his genetic enhancements and thick layers of leather and armour.
The chestnut mare slowed with a snort and a flicker of her ear and the Witcher urged her forward with a click of tongue and a gentle shift of his heels. Though rather than pick up pace she came to a complete halt with a stomp and a shake of her head, "Roach, come on." Geralt pressed with a pull of her reins. He was weary, aching and had mud in places it didn't belong, the constant wet of the past two days was wearing on him, though he was more than thankfull for the current drizzle after the mornings thunderous downpour. While the clashing of lightning and clapping of thunder had made for a dramatic backdrop for his fight with the water hag he was hunting it had also bolstered the damn creatures own vigour and dampened his Igni spell.
He wanted nothing more than to get back to town hand over his hunt and find a warm meal and dry room for the night. He'd thought he and his steed were on the same page there but it seemed Roach wasn't in much of a hurry. A swift shake to remove some of the water from her mane and Roach's ears twitched again turning towards the trees as she picked up a sound he had obviously missed. He tuned in his own hearing, past the howling of wind and creaking of trees, to the distant growls and gurled chokes of drowners, the rain drawing them further from the water than usual. But there was no contract nor talk of the things causing any trouble in the area and he was in no mood to be looking for fights, so he geared his horse on once more.
Roach finally started moving again, only to let out a huffed whinny as she turned from the path, towards the water dwelling monsters. "What is your problem you stubborn mare?" His horse continued into the thicket towards the river, ignoring his attempts to get her back to the road. He soon gave in with a grumbled, "Fine have it your way, but you can forget the carrots I'd promised." Honestly the damn beast could be as stubborn as he was at times.
It was as they drew closer to the commotion that the dampened scent of blood found him through the rain. The scent was unmistakably human and strikingly familiar, and this time Roach obeyed as he urged her forward at a swifter pace with a terse. "Fuck."
The Witcher swiftly dismounted his horse, drawing his silver blade and applying the appropriate oil, as they drew upon the stench of rot, muck and algae. Moving through the scrub quietly as he spotted the necrophages, four in total, and while they may not be the most fearsome creatures a Witcher can come up against, in numbers they could be quite troublesome. The watery creatures clambered around the base of a tree, obviously drawn by the scent of the blood of their prey.
Which currently perched precariously on a branch of said tree in the form of one very familiar bard swathed in muddy lilac, one trouser leg stained dark by the blood that dripped to the mud and leaves below. He may be safely out of reach up a tree now but it was just as clear to the creatures below as it was Geralt that that was to change very soon. Visible shivers racked the young man's body as he clung weakly to the tree, his weakened heart beat not near as strong as it should be.
The first drowner was easily slain with a single swing of his blade which sliced the monster's head clear off, which in turn alerted the other three to his presence. One giving a gurgled shriek as it rushed him all in a flury of claws that he parried with his sword as two burrowed into the mud. The first screeching in pain as he sliced off a clawed webbed hand, his blade slicing open it's protruding stomach in the next swing, spilling its innards. Rolling to his right as the disembowelled creature fell to avoid a second as it lept forth from the mud, landing on his knees and stretching his hand out to catch it's friend with Aard as it too sprung from the mud. The usually not so effective spell catching it off balance as it leapt through the air and sending it tumbling, giving him time to focus on the one at hand.
A few strategically placed hits soon had the foe he fought joining it's slain brethren as he yanked his sword from it's chest, twisting his blade and thrusting it behind him catching the last in the chest as it tried to strike from behind. Dragging the silver weapon on a diagonal, slicing it up and through the creatures shoulder before slicing clean through the things neck with a single swift turn. Flinging the majority of the blood and slime from his sword with a flick of his wrist as he watched it's head roll across the ground, before sheathing the blade once more.
A bearly audible murmur that even the Witcher's enhanced hearing couldn't decipher quickly drew his attention back to the young man in the tree. "Jaskier." He called to the poet who had once followed him around like a lost puppy. He didn't get a reply, not that he was surprised, the stain down the bard's pants leg and the fact Geralt could smell the blood so clearly even through the rain suggested he'd already lost a great deal of it.
The conundrum of getting the other out of the tree turned out to be simple enough, as the rain drenched poet swayed in place once, then twice before the fingers griping tight to the trees bark slipped from their place. His arms falling limp at his sides before he toppled sideways out of his perch, Geralt catching the smaller man easily enough.
Lowering the sonneteer to the ground, the Witcher looked the other over, assessing the damage. A swatch of darkened crimson on Jaskier's shirt that had gone unnoticed earlier caught his attention, lifting the material revealed three long claw marks in the human's side, only mere scratches, nothing a little salve wouldn't clean up quickly enough. It was the wound on his right leg that was the main concern, gashes that tore deep into the meat of his thigh, rimmed red and heated, early signs of infection. Not surprising as a necrophages claws held more bacteria than a mange stricken wild dog bite.
The tourniquet the other had made himself at some point from a bootlace -explains the missing boot- looked to have worked wonders in slowing what once was no doubt a steady flow of blood into a slow trickle. In any case it would surfice the short trip back to town and the healer there in, so carefully slinging the smaller man over his shoulder he turned to head back to his horse. Pausing as he spotted the other's instrument laying in the sodden leaves near the base of the tree, he scooped that up too before trekking back to Roach.
The lute's leather strap was torn through making it a little harder to strap to Roach's saddlebags, but he soon enough had it secured next to the severed head that would serve proof of his successful hunt. Getting the unconscious bard and himself onto the saddle proved a little more challenging, he'd never had to sling a passed out person onto his horse then swing himself into the saddle before. The first attempt almost had the pastel clothed man slipping face first back down to the mud below as he flung him onto the horse with a little too much gusto, Geralt had nearly pulled Jaskier's pants clean off his backside in his attempt to stop the other's decent. The soft snicker Roach's let out had not gone unnoticed.
The second attempt went much smoother and he soon had them both in the saddle and Roach back on the sodden path to town, Jaskier tucked safely against his chest in attempt to get some heat back into the sonneteer's icey skin. His face may be flushed warm with fever but there was little heat anywhere else, the Witcher didn't know how long the other had been up that tree but given his current state and appearance he'd wager quite a while.
It had been three months since the two of them had parted ways, or more since he had unjustly taken all his frustrations and anger out on the bard and chased him away. Anger that Jaskier had not deserved directed at him, he wasn't even angry at the poet, he'd been angry at his situation with Yennefer, the woman herself, and most of all he'd been angry with himself. Jaskier just happened to be the unlucky participant of wrong place wrong time, and the unfortunate inability sense when and when not to open his mouth. Geralt had used him as a scapegoat to try and escape his own guilt, when in truth he had dug his own grave, he just didn't want to lay in it.
For all the bard's claims and talk of friendship, Geralt had certainly proven himself a bad one during that last adventure. Not only had he been cruel in his parting words, but he'd pretty much pushed Jaskier to the side lines every time Yen was present. He didn't even bother waking the younger man for the encounter with the dragon, the one very thing they had travelled all that way for. And while he could argue that he didn't want the bard in any danger(and there was little more dangerous than an enraged dragon) he knew that wasn't the case.
In fact Jaskier couldn't have been further from his mind that particular morning.
Geralt had had three months to wallow in his regrets and guilt over words spoken on that mountain but none more than those he'd directed at Jaskier. He wasn't naive he knew he'd bump into the bard again, he had quite the habbit of bumping into familiar faces of late, especially those he hoped to avoid. He'd been dreading crossing paths with the sonneteer and the inevitable confrontation that would come with it. He expected to eventually run into the younger man in a tavern, or the company of a noble, or at some horrid event he'd be dragged along to for what ever reason. Geralt seemed to find himself at them more frequently in recent decades, despite his distaste for such evens.
In all honestly he should have expected this, of course he'd run into Jaskier in some form of danger, the bard seemed a magnet for trouble. Luckily with Roach's aid they made it back to town by dark and Geralt had found an old farmer kind enough to give directions to the healer's cottage on the edge of the village. Tying his mount off under the old oak tree out front to offer her a little shelter from the weather, he soon had the sonneteer down from the saddle and was carting him down the path to the cottage door. He didn't need to knock, the door swinging open itself as he neared, the woman inside obviously having heard the horse approach. The scent of soup and warm toast filtered out as the door swung open and the Witcher found himself actually feeling a little bad for interrupting her evening meal.
To her credit she only faltered a moment when she caught sight of Geralt's unnatural eyes, shaking the shock off swiftly and stepping out of the road to gesture them inside. Geralt paused then, releasing a breath before telling the woman, "I've no coin to offer, not until I've handed in my current hunt and received payment."
"You are to kill the monster lurking in the mire then?" The healer asked, brows rising towards her hairline.
The Witcher's own drawing together in question. "Already have, you seem surprised?"
"I'm sorry, it's just that the last Witcher to pass through turned down the hunt when the alderman refused payment up front." The lady informed him, waving him enter.
"There was another Witcher pass through? Recently?" Geralt asked as he crossed the threshold.
"Aye, only two days past." She nodded, guiding them further into the house. "This way," she lead him to a door on their right, to a room with two narrow beds, "Either cot they're both fresh."
Geralt did as told carefully laying the smaller man on the nearest cot, as the healer worked on lighting the small hearth in the corner. "That should warm the room soon enough." She smiled, dusting her hands on her skirts before moving to dig through some nearby drawers. "I should have something clean and warm for him here, we should get him out of those wet clothes." She started over to the cot, a warm blanket and clean night shirt in hand , her warm brown eyes catching on the bard's stained leg. "May I ask what happened to your friend?"
"He was attacked by drowners, the wound in his legs deep and from the looks a day old at least." A questioning look on the woman's face had Geralt pointing out, "I found him up a tree."
She didn't question further instead focusing on the task at hand and with the two of them they soon had the poet out of his soggy muddy clothes and dressed in the clean night shirt, bunched above his injured thigh. The healer, Hilda, had smeared a layer of balm over the scratches on Jaskier's side, cleared around the gashes on his leg. Besides the odd twitch or small sound, the bard had stayed peacefully still through it all, up until it she poured a potion onto the wound to help fight infection.
"This will produce a burning sting before calming to numb the wound, you may need to hold him down." She'd warned before pouring the dark oily liquid into the deep cuts. Jaskier had indeed shot up with a pained shout, eyes instantly finding the Witcher before flitting to his wound. A hand on his chest and another on his uninjured leg to stop him kicking around too much worked in mostly stilling him, as the bard moaned and pleaded.
"Gods it hurts, Ge-Geralt am I dying, I can't die Geralt, I can't... Aargh, oh gods make it stop... C-cut it off if you have to. No! They don't have to amputate do they? Please tell me they don't, I-I... I don't want to loose my leg, don't let them take it-"
"Jaskier!" Geralt growled out, voice softening as paniced fever clouded blue finally focused on his own. "Calm, you'll be fine. You're not dying and nobody is taking your leg." The struggling bard's sudden kick of energy didn't last long and he was soon sinking back into the cot, tired eyes drooping as the numbing effects kicked in. Breathing out a soft, "promise?" as his consciousness gave out once more.
"Promise." The Witcher didn't know if the other would hear but the word slipped out none the less. The glint of needle and thread soon drew his attention back to the healer who was sending him a concerned look, as she prepared to stich the wounds shut.
"He's a bard." Geralt shruged in reply, "He loves to over dramatise."
Before long Jaskier was all patched up and tucked away safely in the cot, the healer setting aside a vial holding a decoction she said she'd mix with warm tea and give the bard when next he stired to help fight the fever. Apparently she had lost a friend to the water hag and was more than inviting once hearing he had slain it. She informed Geralt the alderman always turned in early so it was unlikely he could turn in the hunt till morning, but offered him share a meal as she got back to her supper even offering some of the carrots she grew herself for Roach. Telling him he was more than welcome to use the old shed out back to store his saddle and bags if his horse needed a break from it.
He had taken her up on all her offers, Roach had certainly earned those carrots and a night free of the mud ridden saddle. The drizzle had finally stopped and there was a break in the clouds as he removed the saddle from Roach's back, with a little luck the weather was finally clearing. The mare had made a bit off a fuss when he'd first approached but quickly calmed once he'd informed her the Jaskier was okay, thanking her for finding him in the first place. The bard's lute caught his eye as he set the saddle in the shed, he'd get the strap replaced once he received his pay, that wasn't what drew him to it though. The base of instrument's case was cracked and coated in the rottified slimey membrane that coated a drowner's skin.
Rain alone would not rid the case of the sludge so taking it back in with him, he took up seat near the bard's bedside and set about cleaning it with his own concoction he used to clean monster fluids and grime from his own saddle and leathers. The damage to the instrument's case made something tighten in his chest, how dire must it have been for Jaskier to use his beloved lute as a weapon. Strangley enough he felt some comfort in the fact the instrument inside itself remained unharmed, it seemed not so long ago he had once wanted nothing more than to smash that very noise maker into splinters.
"I'll make up the other cot for you before I turn in, so you can get some rest too Witcher." The healer said some time later, breaking Geralt from his thoughts. He looked to the woman who was currently feeding the feverish poet the decoction and tea she'd brewed up. Jaskier wasn't quite coherent but he was active enough to slowly sip at the warm brew.
"No need, I can rest without a bed." Geralt assured, "You may need it should another need healing."
"With you having killed the monster in the mire I'm sure I'll have fewer patience for the time being." She smiled as she set the cup aside and shifting Jaskier so he once again lay flat. Hushing him as she pulled the blanket up to his shoulder to let him rest. "Never the less I'll make it up, just incase you should change your mind."
If she was to make it anyway maybe he would, but for now he'd keep watch just a while longer.