Roach's hooves pounded into the dusty earth of the field as the horse, the bard, and the witcher sped over the ground. The mist seemed to be growing ever thicker and more than once Geralt had to yank on the reins to stop Roach stepping into a particularly deep rut in the ground. A second scream split the dawn air, though its origin still wasn't clear. A hedge materialised in front of them, but Roach leapt it with ease, the horse's hooves flying clear of the foliage and slamming back down to earth on the other side.
The screaming came a third time, very clearly from their left. Geralt suddenly pulled back on the reins, Roach's thunderous pace slowly coming to a stop. She began grazing on some of the sparse grass.
Jaskier stared with alarm at his friend. "What are you doing? Keep moving, she's in trouble."
"No."
"What do you mean no? Have you lost your senses? Save the people, that's what you do Geralt, dammit!" He gave the witcher's back a shove but it was like hitting a wall.
Geralt paused. His right hand moved slowly down to beside his leg, where he'd attached his silver sword to Roach's saddlebags. As he moved, he spoke almost too softly for his companion to hear. "Jaskier, each of those screams has been identical, the same from start to finish. No human screams like that." From one of the saddle bags he pulled out a large dagger, almost as long as Jaskier's forearm, and passed it behind him. Jaskier took it and eased it out of the sheath. The glint of silver was unmistakeable.
"I do believe," Geralt said, "This is a trap."
Jaskier almost fell as the witcher seized the reins and Roach spun back around to face where they'd come from. Only they turned to look into the dark, bulbous eyes of a Foglet, mere inches away from slashing at Roach's neck. The horse reared up in fright, her hooves flailing wildly at the attacking creature, but Geralt slid from his saddle, his legs remaining tight around Roach's body as he rolled around quickly enough to slash at the foglet's claws and deflect the blow. The silver on claw rang across the field, which was the only part of this clash that Jaskier was aware of, being that he'd been thrown from the saddlebags the moment that Roach had reared.
He hit the ground hard, the dry, icy morning dirt not the softest of landings. Although the wind was almost taken out of him, he had enough sense to scramble to his feet and away from the horseshoes of the panicked roach, now stamping the earth where his head had been.
Jaskier groaned as he looked around. He could see at least three foglets, their skeletal yet fleshy frames mottled blue and grey, advancing on him, though it wasn't exactly clear how many as they were joined by an assortment of mirage figures formed of the fog, their features equally repugnant though they were made of mist.
Behind the bard, Geralt rolled to the ground and sprung to his feet in one swift movement. He smacked Roach on the rump with a loud "Hyah!" and the horse bolted away through a gap in the figures. Only a couple of foglets attempted to swipe at her – the rest were focused on the two surrounded humans in their grasp.
"Get behind me, dammit," Geralt snarled at him. Jaskier happily complied, moving to Geralt's back as the witcher turned slowly to keep the foglets in view. "I count eleven of them. Plus their doubles."
"Eleven? What the hell? Can you see the person who screamed?"
Geralt swiftly uncorked a vial from his pocket and downed the dark contents. "There was no person, foglets make illusions to lure in idiots." Jaskier could hear the grimace in his voice. "Like us."
"Oh, naturally, foglets, illusions, of course, why wouldn't they be magicians as well as beasts?"
The foglets were getting closer now, beginning to advance less cautiously, though they definitely didn't like the look of the silver. Jaskier wasn't a fan of how they became less cautious the moment he was the one in front of them. It was something in their eyes.
"At least this will make for a good ballad. Us against a hundred and thirty-two foglets, wouldn't you say?"
"As long as you live to sing it. I'll try to cover you but use the dagger. They won't like the silver."
Jaskier wasn't a fool, he'd been holding the dagger in front of him since he landed. It was only at this point that he realised it was still in the leather sheath. He flicked open the clasp and flung the cover to the ground. Now the foglets were taking notice of him.
"They're about to attack. Move and stay low. Now!"
Jaskier ducked down and jumped to the side as two of the foglets pounced on him. One's claws stabbed the earth where he'd been stood and the other slashed the air in front of him, barely missing his tunic. The air was suddenly much louder, the foglets shrill screeching echoing off the surrounding mist. Jaskier moved, trying to stay close to Geralt, as the witcher's sword swung through the air, carving into the monsters, their ungodly screaming growing louder with each blow. Blood, thankfully not human, spun through the air and more than a few times Jaskier felt the warm splashing hit the back of his head or wash the ground at his feet and steam into the air.
"This is not how I expected – or wanted! – this morning to go, Geralt!"
"Shut up, Jaskier!
A gross foglet came at him, teeth gnashing in its skull. Jaskier waved the dagger in its face but it almost seemed to laugh at him. It sprang backwards on its gnarled heels and then jumped, up in the air and coming straight down at him.
Jaskier wasn't proud of what he considered the most effective move in a bard's fighting arsenal. As the foglet lunged, he dropped down low to his haunches and then punched the dagger straight upwards. A swift punch from below the testicles, aiming to place them back inside a man's body, was often enough to fell a bar-brawler, but this foglet didn't appear to have bollocks and hence the inclusion of the silver dagger. The blade pierced the beast in the (groin? Skeletal pelvic area? Foglet love den?) and carried on upwards, Jaskier's punch and the beasts own weight driving it through stomach, sternum, throat, and eventually lodging the silver spike deeply through the jaw and up into its brain. It gurgled and suddenly decided to stop holding its own weight, instead preferring Jaskier to. It didn't weigh all that much but the sudden second body falling on Jaskier's own took him by surprise and he began to topple backwards.
"Geralt!" he shouted, beginning to panic.
Two other foglets noticed his cry and descended on him. They barrelled into him from behind the foglet he was now cuddling and pushed him to the ground, the weight of three on top of him and two toothy rage-filled maws now crashing together inches away from his face. He tried blocking them with their friend's face, still stuck onto the dagger in his hands, but with one each side it was a balancing act. He took to quickly knocking the dead foglet's head back and forth between the two live ones as fast as he could. It sounded rather like a macabre xylophone with only two keys – oddly one foglet's skull rang at an octave higher than the other's.
"Gera-" Jaskier cried out again but his shout was cut off as he felt a small pain across his midriff. The foglets suddenly stopped moving, their tongues lolling out of their mouths, and their bodies slid off of him. Or at least their legs did. Then their top halves. The first foglet, the one Jaskier had stabbed, whom he'd come to think of as a Tim, slid off him also, though his legs went to Jaskier's right and top half moved off him to the left. And the bard was left sat in a pile of six halves of foglet.
Then he noticed a thin cut across the stomach of his tunic, a clean severance of the material, and peeking through the gap, a very fine red line, horizontally across his tummy.
Geralt leant down and grasped him by the hand, pulling him back to his feet. As he stood up, Jaskier yanked the dagger out of Tim's skull, followed by a splurge of brain matter.
"You know, that shows extraordinary skill with a sword," Jaskier started. "To chop those three in half, without… you know, me. Only thing better would have been to attach a new button at the same time."
"Tell me later, we're not done."
"Oh, for heaven's…"
Around them had amassed a group of foglets even larger than before; Jaskier was starting to think his estimate of a hundred and thirty-two might have even been modest. The beasts were even starting to jostle each other for a go at the two humans, surrounded by swathes of their dead brethren.
"You might need to run in a second, Jaskier."
"What? You think you can take on that many by yourself?" Jaskier held Geralt in the highest regard when it came to monster slaying, but this was getting ridiculous.
The witcher held out his right hand and swiftly made the sign of Quen, the shield. Forgoing the monsters, Geralt looked at Jaskier and grimly smiled at him. "No," he said, pushing his hand into Jaskier's chest.
The shielding sign spread across the bard's body instantaneously, the shooting waves of protecting magic flashing across his vision and almost warming his skin with its tingle.
"Run, Jaskier!" Geralt said, giving him a shove.
Jaskier stumbled at the push and watched as his friend turned and began to run at the largest group of foglets who in response advanced on him, a great wave of claws and teeth ready to crash down upon him. Jaskier swallowed and gave a swift nod. He turned to run, trying to remember the last image that he would likely see of Geralt of Rivia.
Then a clear note, like glass struck by a thin, weightless shard of metal, but loud as if fallen from a great height, rang through his head. It seemed to come from the mists around them, as if from the very air.
Jaskier turned back to see Geralt had stopped his charge, but so had the foglets. Each of the beasts had turned its head to the sky and was listening. Then, as one, they sifted away into fog and melted into the surrounding mist, like they'd never been there. The corpses on the ground melted into rainwater and soaked into the earth so dry it drank them greedily.
"Um, Geralt? Do you…"
The witcher didn't answer him, instead looking around. He didn't lower his sword.
"I really must apologise."
Both of them whipped around at the voice. Suddenly, Jaskier was looking straight at a tall, beautiful woman walking out from the fog, eyes and hair both a shade of deep emerald green, a thin golden crown woven through the locks. She wore robes, like that of a priestess, though far more ornate than Jaskier had ever seen, and her skin seemed to glow so that she lit up the space. She wasn't walking, so much as gliding towards them and she stopped when she had drawn near.
Jaskier noticed Geralt raising his sword in her direction and he waved rapidly at him. Geralt stopped raising it but didn't sheathe it either.
"I understand your caution – I even recommend it," the woman said. "But I really would like to talk to you both. Please come in." She waved her hand in its long sleeve behind her and the fog which she'd walked through separated, a corridor opening in the gloom. Clean air filled the space and Jaskier could see all the way through to where the fog dissipated and a small, simple cottage sat in the sunlight.
"Please follow me," she said. She smiled, nodded, and then walked down through the corridor.
Jaskier and Geralt shared a look. Jaskier shrugged, Geralt glared, Jaskier gestured, Geralt paused, Jaskier gestured again, Geralt sighed, sheathed his sword and walked towards the corridor through the fog. Jaskier smiled and followed, already thinking up the next few verses of "Three hundred foglets, the bard, the witcher, and the strange yet beautiful floating lady." The title needed revising, perhaps.