Summary: A Witcher stops in a port town. Chaos ensues. A short story told in two (now three) parts.

THE LESSER KINDNESS

Part 3

I

When Harry stepped out, fully dressed in his travel-worn armour, he found the main room of the inn empty, but for one soul sitting at a table with a sumptuous feast laid out for him. As if sensing someone had intruded upon his meal, the stranger looked up, and smiled from beneath his cloak; he beckoned the witcher over and gave him leave to sit on the opposite bench.

"Well, hello, Master Witcher," the cloaked man said affably.

"Ah, the mirror merchant from last night," said Harry as he sat and scooted in close, "received any buyers as of yet?"

"Ha! No such luck, I'm afraid, though I thank you for your courtesy. Sadly, it seems none in this backwater have any desire to see their own hideous faces. I fear I shall soon move on to Cintra, where I'm bound to receive a few sales."

"It could also be that you were hawking your wares in the midst of hurricane."

"Hmm. Possibly, but I doubt it." The merchant shrugged casually and stabbed a slice of smoked sausage with a knife, before bringing it up and popping it in his mouth. He again beckoned the witcher to join him:

"I'm already waiting on food," declined Harry politely.

The merchant smiled knowingly. "That might take some time," he said it in a way that convinced the witcher that the wait would be very long indeed, though the innkeep had said their food was ready, "have a little of mine whilst we wait. I could use someone for diversion."

"As you wish," replied the black-haired witcher, who then picked up one of the discarded knives and cut himself a robust slice of bread, and a slice of the sausage the merchant had been enjoying earlier.

"I'd recommend the cheese as well," the other man said through a full mouth.

Harry took his recommendation to heart and spread some of the soft cheese, at the edge of the table, onto his slice of bread. The merchant lowered his hood and Harry was surprised by the face revealed. The merchant was neither ugly nor handsome, yet somewhere in between and characterised by stubble: his hair on his head was cut close, but not enough to be bald, and his chin had seen shaving some three days past. In a word, he was nondescript.

"Now that we've solved questions of animal nature," he said, indicating the food, "I must say, it's a funny thing."

"What is?"

"Time," answered the merchant, rubbing the nearly-bald crest of his head. "Not 200 years past, we were the intruders on this continent: peasants were armed like lords and their knights to go out into the forest; brigades of men and even women and children would protect transports from one makeshift town to the next. This was a land of wyverns, kikimoras, vyppers, zeugls, vampires, demons... And men took it from them, one bloody mile at a time."

Harry nodded. He had heard stories from some of the older witchers; the world was violent and brutish still, but paled in comparison to the savagery that was the continent just a century ago.

"But then, men decided it was no longer up to them to protect themselves from these monsters. So they took children, had swordsmen teach them the way of the blade, stuffed them from vein to artery with mutagens, and then teach them a few parlour tricks with magic. Then they're sent out into the world, condemned to a life of base barbarism, killing that which all mankind should fight."

Harry swallowed his food, then fixed the merchant with a searching look. "And us witchers were born. I see you've a point to make, but I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, merchant."

"All in due time, Master Witcher," replied the nondescript man. "You see, I don't condemn you for it, but the creation of witchers allowed for much of the basic brutality we see today."

"How so? As I'm aware, the world was far bloodier in the past."

"Yet mankind had an enemy that they could unite against: monsters, specters, the things that creep out of swamps and hide in mountain passes and go bump in the night. That they left their fate in your hands, allowed them to suddenly think themselves better than the world around them. And instead of remaining united against the monsters, they went on to lead wars against one another that fractured relationships and loosened the ties that bind."

The Witcher said nothing, he merely cut himself another slice of sausage, and continued listening:

"But that wasn't the worst part; the worst part was the introduction of otherness."

"Otherness?"

"Like I said, for a time, monsters were the 'others', and men had no time for wars or oppression. But then, the monsters became the domain of witchers, and men lost any real idea of how to deal with them, so they left for the greener pastures: elves, dwarves, halflings... all others. And you witchers, too, became others not long after. Others are vile, others are evil. Others must be repressed and dealt with so the righteous common folk can live their lives in peace. Did you know, there was a time when The Valley of the Flowers were nothing but elven cities and meadows as far as the eye could see?"

"I do. And I also know men drove them from the edge of the world, from their valley, with pitchforks and fire. I know, forest-dwelling elves are so fond of telling just us how brutish men are when they have us at the end of a notched longbow."

The merchant chuckled. "They are a pompous lot, aren't they? But is haughtiness deserving of death?"

"No, certainly not," replied the witcher academically, "but I'd imagine attacking transports and dealing death does. One turn deserves another, so to speak."

"But did we not do it first?"

Harry shrugged. "Do we receive justice by killing the children of the men who wronged us? When they attack, they waste their arrows and blades on common blood in out-of-the-way forest glades. They attack peasants and odd traveling merchant, not lords, and they attack them a hundred years too late. When they attack lords, they get crushed, so they content themselves with killing those who have done nothing wrong besides being haughty."

"Ah, Aelirenn, Aelirenn. Beauty and boldness and not an ounce of brains," said the merchant as he pushed the sausage to the side and set about a jam pastry. "But I must admit, I'm surprised to hear you say that. I thought you might be more sympathetic toward them."

"Being an 'other', as you say, doesn't extend my kindness to common bandits."

"Bandits? Are they not 'patriots', Master Witcher? Fighting a great evil done to them with acts of lesser evils?"

"Evil is evil, Master Mirror," said Harry, lightly mocking the merchant's way of addressing him.

"Master Mirror?" murmured the merchant. "I quite like that."

"You're welcome to it."

"Thank you. But, nay, Harry; evil is not simply evil. There's lesser and greater. And then there's Evil. And you'll know when you see it," the merchant puffed out his cheeks and exhaled deeply. "But, let's not philosophise. I simply find it surprising, still."

"What?"

"After all, it's hard to tell, as travel-worn, disheveled, and bearded as you are, but I sense the slightest tip of the auricle. Am I mistaken?"

Harry stilled. "No, you're not."

"Which one was it? Mother, or father?"

There was a pause, and Harry searched the merchant's eyes for any hint of deceit.

"Mother," he said at length, "I'm told she was a sorceress of some renown."

"My, Aen Seidhe and a sorceress! And your father?"

"A Temerian Voivode. Again, of some renown, or so I'm told."

"Haha!" the merchant laughed gaily. "A Temerian noble, an elven sorceress. An improbable coupling, leads to an improbable birth, leads to an even more improbable child: one who would grow up to be a witcher."

"I'm aware of the unlikelihood of my lot," Harry replied, reigning in his nasty tone.

"Truly, you must be a child of destiny."

"Hm."

"Ah well, we've all our station in life: merchants, and witchers, and bandits one and all," the merchant reclined and patted his yellow-shirted belly. "Goodness, that was a fine meal, especially being so far from the city! I thank you, Witcher Harry, for indulging a fool his idle chatter. It seems our time is up."

The door to the kitchen banged open, and out waddled the fat innkeep. "Oh, Master Witcher!" he cried, "I apologise, I didn't hear you."

"It's quite alright, innkeep, I had more than enough company with-" he turned back to find himself sitting an empty table, plates and meat miraculously absent, and the merchant of mirrors had also disappeared.

"What was that, Master Witcher?" asked the inkeep as he puttered around the serving table, pouring the bear-school witcher an ample tankard of fresh water.

"Nothing," replied Harry, still looking about for any trace of the merchant he'd spent so long talking to, "it's not been much of a wait at all."

At that moment, Ron stepped down the hall, whistling a jaunty tune as he came to the table. "My, you're spry for all that armor."

"Hm?" Harry questioned.

"It's only been a minute or two since I last saw you and you're already here, fully dressed."

"What?" Harry asked. He had been sitting in that table for well over twenty minutes. Ron gave him an equally confused look and Harry shook his head. "Er, never mind. My mind's a little occupied."

Ron shrugged, sat, and began chattering away about the leshen; Harry listened, but one portion of his mind remained preoccupied with the disappearing merchant.

The first day of searching for the marked individual proved fruitless. Harry and Ron scoured the village from port to exterior wall, but even for all their enhanced senses, they found not a single trace of the person in question. That evening, they trudged back to the ealdorman's home, and told the elder what had happened:

"It's very strange," Ron said, rubbing his forehead and then running a hand through his ginger hair, today tied back in the Rivian style. "Usually it's no trouble to find someone bearing a Leshen's mark. It shouldn't have taken very long at all."

Harry shook his head. "We'll take another look tomorrow. If there's still no one to be found, we'll enter the forest and fight the Leshen."

"But, you won't be able to kill it!" protested the ealdorman.

"I know," said Harry. "But we'll be able to dispense with it for a short time at least. Afterward, you'll be free to look through the woods for your missing girls. And from then on, avoid going into the forest."

The ealdorman's expression turned ugly. "I'll not pay for a job half-finished. You will deal with leshy permanently, or you'll not see one bloody copper from me!"

"Whoa, whoa!" exclaimed Ron. "Let's not be rash here."

Harry ignored his companion and stood, expression grim and unchanging. "As you wish. Fifty ducats is a pitiful sum for a leshen that ancient, anyway. If that'll be all, I'll make my way to Cintra. From what I've heard, they're having a spot of trouble with a dracolisk around the coast. Coram's like to pay a ransom for its head."

He made his way to the door.

The ealdorman's ugly expression faded away and was quickly replaced by a pale mask of fear. "Perhaps Master Ron was right, there's no need to be hasty, is there?"

The black-haired witcher stilled. "No, there's not."

"Forgive me, Master Witcher, that was unworthy of me. But you cannot expect me to pay out to you two if the townsfolk cannot be sure of their safety! What will they think of me if I simply roll over?"

"How about this," said Ron before Harry could speak, "after we defeat the Leshen, we will help look for your missing girls. Once they're found, you'll pay us the agreed sum. Is that fair?"

Harry made to protest but was silenced with a uncharacteristic serious look from the normally jovial wolf-school witcher.

The ealdorman looked unenthusiastic about the arrangement but grudgingly nodded. "Aye, that sounds fair. But you must try to find whoever has been marked by the leshy, and I'll only permit if, and only if, you still haven't found whoever it is the monster has cursed by sundown tomorrow."

"Okay," said Ron. "We'll reconvene tomorrow at dusk, whether we've found the marked one, or not."

Harry nodded curtly, and was the first out the door.

"Dangerous method of negotiation," said Ron affably, once they were out the door. "Are you always so stiff and curt?"

Relaxing, Harry let out a smile. "Only when I need to be. A leshen like that would probably months, if not years to regenerate. And it would take decades to return to the power it has today."

"True enough, it would hardly be a danger for some time yet. But, you know how it is, when people hear 'temporary', they get quite put out. No one likes to spend a 100 ducats on a stopgap."

"Be that as it may," said Harry, "we've still another day to find someone."

"We've been all across this town, looking, and no one seems to be afflicted; had the ealdorman not agreed to your proposition, I would have left for Cintra as well."

Harry shrugged. "We try again, I guess. Tomorrow."

Ron nodded. "Tomorrow."

II.

Dread crept over him, and Harry leapt awake, one hand on the sabre that had been propped against his bed.

He whirled around in the empty, dark room, finding no one. Yet he couldn't discount the feeling of being watched, and crept upon. Still alert, Harry moved toward the open window to his room, and felt the cool breeze nuzzle his cheeks. He looked out into the silence and murk of moonlit night, and suddenly, he heard it.

The sound of a flute on a distant wind.

And far from the town centre, near the forest, he saw what was nearly a speck moving toward the darkened trees. It moved and swayed silently to the music. With a start, Harry saw legs and arms, and a ringletted head bobbing up and down. It was a girl, no older than fourteen, dance-walking her way into the woods.

"Shite," he murmured to himself lowly.

He threw on his robe and armor as quickly as possible, and belted his swords over the shoulder and back. In his haste, he rushed out the door, forgetting in that moment that he was working with a partner on this contract.

The witcher ran, soundless and quick, past darkened huts and empty stalls. His golden eyes, glowed with intensity as he rushed toward the forest's edge, but when he reached there, the girl had long disappeared beyond the trees, and yet the strange, lilting song of the flute remained, closer now, but still far away.

Looking down, Harry quickly located the girl's tracks, barefooted, twisting and turning. Raising one hand to his blades, Harry stood at the ready to draw whichever one he would need in the coming minutes, and then, he entered.

Aside from the distant music, and the bubbling of the closer brook, the forest seemed dead. Even the wolves didn't come out, this time. Harry still remained cautious as followed the girl's tracks to the brook and beyond the obstacles Harry and Ron had faced the day before, into the glade. At the other end of the glade, Harry spotted the girl, thin as a slip and garmented in a white sleeping frock, disappear into the woods where he had the fought the leshen.

This only inspired Harry to move more quickly, around the edges of the glade, to avoid any chance of being easily spotted by the leshen, in case it had already healed by now. When he reached the other end where the girl had disappeared, his medallion jumped alive, jittering wildly. Harry gripped the bear to keep it from making any noise, though it vibrated furiously in a fist.

The flute became louder, and louder, and the girl seemed to be getting closer, and closer to the origin. Harry followed behind, tree-to-tree until the lilting music hit fever pitch, and the girl stopped dead, in a tiny clearing where a natural formation of boulders sat high.

The sound of the flute suddenly stopped. Harry looked up, and saw a figure sat upon the tallest boulder. The figure looked up, and Harry was taken aback: she had long, black hair, eyes that sparkled like two hunks of jade quartz, full, rose lips, and ears not unlike Harry's. She wore a green surcoat, lined with mail so as to defend, but remain flexible and light as well. In her hand was an intricately carved flute; a bow rested on her lap underneath a silk-orange sash, which tied together with a rough-hewn belt.

From the belt, dangled a sword, and the tail of a squirrel.

Harry drew his blade, but stayed hidden behind the tree; the girl may have been in danger, but he would help no one by running blindly into a trap and being used as a pincushion for hidden Scoia'tael archers.

The elfwoman smiled kindly at the girl. "Ceádmil, elaine."

The girl smiled back, and spoke, as if in a trance: "Ceádmil, Aen Woedbeanna."

Harry grimaced; she was definitely in a trance. Few, if any, peasant girls could speak the elder language, and somehow, Harry doubted she was one of them. The Scoia'tael elf smiled at the girl once more:

"You shall come with us. You shall no longer know the pain the dh'oine subject you to. With us, you shall be free."

The girl nodded, ambling toward the rocks on which the woman sat. Harry grimaced once more; and tried to listen for any hidden Scoia'tael units hidden among the trees. When he couldn't sense anyone, he prepared to make a run for the girl, but stopped dead when the Scoia'tael woman spoke once more.

She raised up a hand, and the girl stopped: "Come out, vatt'ghern. I can smell you a mile away. You will not be harmed."

Game's up now, thought Harry to himself, as he crept out of the relative safety of the trees, blade still drawn. The girl turned from the rock face toward Harry, and the woman above blinked in surprise:

"Well this is interesting," she said with an impish grin, tapping at her chin with the flute. "I'd not known that your kind allow Aen Seidhe to be mutilated and turned into monster hunters. Though, it makes sense, why waste a perfectly good human boy on the mutations?"

Harry kept his eyes on the woman. "I'm only half."

"Ah," laughed the woman, "that's good. For a moment, I'd thought the dh'oine had forgotten all respect for other peoples."

"Interesting perspective," replied Harry, "for one who steals away human girls during the night."

"I don't like to think of it as stealing," replied the woman, standing up so that the full light of the moon fell upon her. Suddenly, Harry understood:

"Ah," he said, indicating the green skin the pale moonlight fell upon. "So you're a dryad of Brokilon, then? Why the coat, and the squirrel tail?"

The dryad shook her head. "I am not of Brokilon. Though I was, once."

"Once?"

"Call it a difference of opinion."

"On what?"

"On who to offer salvation."

"Salvation from what?" Harry grunted, annoyed at the dryad's evasive nature.

The dryad's lip curled. "I'd hardly expect one such as you to understand."

"Try me."

"I offer them solace, in the embrace of the forest," she harrumphed, "away from the cruelty of man. Here, they will live, and be protected from you dh'oine."

As if on cue, the ghostly figures of girls appeared behind her, flanking the dryad upon the rock and looking down on the witcher. They, too, were dressed in the green of the Scoia'tael.

Harry's brows furrowed. "You've taken these girls from their homes, their families, everyone they've ever known."

"What of it?" asked the dryad.

"Am I to believe you call kidnapping and brainwashing children a kindness?"

The woman tossed her long, raven hair, and sighed aloud. "Yes. A lesser kindness than I would have hoped, but a kindness still, in the face of the world they will inherit," Harry waited for her to elaborate, and the dryad eventually complied. "War. Famine. Rape. That's the world they'll inherit from your precious humans. They will cast each of these women aside, force them to bear children for men who don't care whit about them, and they will grow old without ever having a voice in their own homes. Am I to believe you call that a kindness?"

Harry lowered his blade, pondering the wisdom of the dryad's words. "How do you do it? Magic?" the dryad blinked at the question. "My medallion shakes around you. And it only ever shakes around magic or monsters."

The dryad nodded. "There is magic here, but it's not me," she raised the flute that had been playing in the wind. "All the power in the world is vested in this flute."

"Where did you get it from?"

"A djinn," she answered quickly, to an incredulous look from the witcher. "Don't gawk; they do exist, regardless of what your infallible bestiary tells you. And this one was very, very powerful. He granted me this flute, with power over all things natural. With this, I can topple kings, set brother against brother, loose every nekker in the forest upon a town, force wives to kill their husbands and mothers to drown their babes. Anything naturally made, I can command; so of course, the one thing I can't is a mutant."

Harry ignored the gibe. "You said a djinn granted you the flute as a wish. What did this 'djinn' want in return?"

"Nothing that concerns you. The only reason you're still alive is because I wish for you to understand why things are the way they are. And for you to leave." she said. "If you wish for these girls to live a life free of the diseased world you come from, you will get on your horse, or ferry, or however you decide to travel, and leave before sun-up tomorrow. Otherwise..." she let the threat hang.

Harry made a show of considering the offer. The dryads were a fiercely isolationist culture, but they rarely ventured out of the Brokilon Forest. That one would be here in Scoia'tael colours was a telling bit of information. As he mulled over the options, the girl in the white frock climbed up the rocks to stand with the dryad, and Harry heard a soft rustling in the trees. Had he the hearing of a normal man, he would be none the wiser, but it appeared that the dryad and whoever her companions were had underestimated him. The sound of waxed string and the slight creak of bending wood reverberated loudly through his eardrums.

Archers. Two of them, one on either side, in the branches of the trees.

"I didn't come here for the girls," replied Harry. "My contract bids me to kill a leshen."

"I forbid it," said the dryad, "with the flute, the leshen is our best method of protection; it keeps us safe from the dh'oine."

"Then I can't accept your offer."

"Please reconsider, vatt'ghern," entreated the green-hued beauty. "You may work for them, but you are not truly a dh'oine. They despise you, and yet you would risk death for them?"

"No, not for them. Sorry, Aen Woedbeanna, but this is strictly business."

The dryad frowned, and waved the girls away. They complied soundlessly, stepping back over the ridge and out of Harry's line of sight. Then, sounding as though she had truly wished to avoid bloodshed, the woman spoke:

"So it seems they speak true of witchers: won't lift a finger without pay. If that's business, then, I'm sorry, but so is this," she said, and raised her arm, before quickly bringing it down, and shouting, "Loose!"

Harry dived behind the trees as two thick arrows criss-crossed one another in the air, and smacked deep into differing trees on opposite sides of the clearing. He kept his sword low, and unobtrusive as he made for the first archer, location given away by strained breathing. The archer drew the bowstring once more, but not before the witcher had reached the tree they were perched in, and hit the trunk as hard as possible with the Sign of Aard. The tree rocked and shook, and the archer tumbled from a high branch, crashing into the ground painfully.

The witcher saw the face of the would-be attacker and blinked in surprise. A handsome, angular face, pale blonde hair, and tipped auricles gave him away as an elf, but a proper elf of the Hill Folk, who had mostly been confined to edge of the world in Dol Blathanna. So, the dryad was Scoia'tael after all. The witcher grasped a dagger attached to his belt, and drove it deep into the throat of the fallen elf, tearing it right and ripping through soft flesh.

Harry withdrew the blade and ignored the gurgling from the dying Squirrel, before hitting the ground and creating a pulsing shield using the Sign of Quen. An arrow whizzed into the shield and bounced off pitifully. Harry reached for one of the the three throwing knives strapped on his sword-belt, and threw into the leaves, smiling grimly when he heard a yelp of pain.

Darting through the trees, he bore down on the other archer, who pulled the throwing knife from where it had been embedded in his arm and threw it back at the witcher, who dodged it easily, and met the Squirrel's sabre. The witcher deftly pirouetted around the second strike, and found himself behind the Squirrel; drawing his dagger once more, Harry shoved it backward into the unarmoured part of the elf's hamstring. The Squirrel cried and fell to his knees, and the witcher, of a species not known for their mercy, whirled back around with his sabre and cleaved it through the elf's neck.

The head landed some five meters away, eyelids still twitching.

"You are a skilled fighter, vatt'ghern. I expected nothing less than excellence," said the dryad, as the sound of the flute came once more. The ground shook imperceptibly, and the sound of cracking, contorting wood reached Harry's ear. Barely reacting in time, Harry dodged out of the way as roots pushed up the through the dirt and crushed the air where he had been only moments earlier.

There, standing ten meters from Harry's would-be grave, was the leshen, renewed for another fight.

III.

A root slithered round his wrist and coiled several times over. Harry's silver longsword cut through it before it could press down, and then he faced down the leshen. Reaching into a pouch, the witcher withdrew a small, spherical object and threw it at the feet of the leshen. Frigid snow exploded outward from the volatile mix that had made up the bomb, and ensconced the thicket that made up the leshen's feet in ice. The leshen roared in a powerless rage and swiped angrily as the witcher neared.

Harry deftly dodged the blow and struck hard at the creature's weak point: at the elbow, yet once dismembered, the lost appendage grew back in a hurry, until the leshen had another wooden claw like the one it had just been relieved of. The regrown arm jutted outward, and Harry heard a distinct cawing sound, before it was drowned out in a veritable cacophony of noise. A murder of crows flew at him through the trees, and it was all the Bear School witcher could do to throw up an active Quen shield around himself, just as the crows swooped in.

Unmindful of the obstacle, the crows pecked away at the shield, beady eyes screaming bloody murder under the leshen's control. Harry grunted as the shield weakened, and broke it by sending a blast of pure magical energy a few feet around him. The birds fell one by one until all the murder lay murdered.

That, however, wasn't the end to the witcher's troubles, for while he'd been preoccupied with the crows, the leshen had chipped away at the ice surrounding its feet and broke fully free by the time Harry had dealt with the avian nuisance.

Now truly enraged, the leshen let out a sibilant roar, and the forest suddenly came alive. The branches of the trees surrounding them dipped low, and grew long and gnarled. They swiped at him, trying to encase the monster hunter in a tomb not unlike the ones the boys from the village had found themselves in. For one very long moment, all Harry could see was bark-brown and leaf-green, before another sign of Aard blew the obstacles away, and Harry found himself facing another pack of wolves, puppeteered by the leshen, itself puppeteered by the flute-playing dryad on the lonely cliff of boulders.

For all his years of training, Harry wasn't prepared for the sudden onrush of wolves, birds, and roots, and suddenly found himself encased once more. And a pressure squeezed against him. It felt as though his head would burst, and his heart would hammer into oblivion, his bones felt crushed and mangled and his skin felt like rubber. But worse than all of that was how difficult it was to breathe. It hurt to inhale and was a positive struggle to exhale, and soon even that was gone, replaced only by the spiderwebs of dark that danced at the edge of Harry's vision.

Desperation seized at the witcher, and his next move was wild and reckless, as a flame spread through the wooden sepulcher he was laid within, and burst out into the trees surrounding the wolves and the leshen. The tomb withered and opened, and Harry alive, and mostly unharmed, came tumbling out, barely stopping to catch his breath before whirling around and using the Sign of Igni to trap the leshen within a raging circle of fire.

Pure anger and desire for survival fueled Harry now; he no longer cared to keep the leshen alive to find the one who had been marked. He would burn the monster and its damned lapdogs, then he would find the dryad and put an end to her and her flute as well.

Once the wolves and the woodland spirit had been trapped in the inferno, Harry returned to the clearing. The dryad had stopped playing music, and now sat upon the rock with a pleasant smile on her pretty face:

"What is your name, vatt'ghern?"

"Does it matter?"

"I should like to pay respect to such a mighty warrior. And I'd rather not continue calling you vatt'ghern, if you please. The elder speech is usually like music to the ears, but that is such an ugly word."

The Bear School witcher regarded her for a moment in mirth. She had kidnapped children, tried to kill him, and now, with a raging inferno behind them, she had the compunction to ask his name? Scoia'tael or not, Harry rather admired her style.

"It's Harry. My name's Harry."

The dryad frowned. "What an utterly common name for one so uncommon as you."

Harry shrugged, as he began climbing the short path to the ridge on which the dryad sat. "It's the name my mother gave me."

"Your mother clearly lacked flair."

"Or perhaps she had too much of it," countered Harry with a smile, overcoming the last obstacle to the dryad, "and that's why I ended up a witcher, instead of something sensible and safe." He finished, the tip of his steel sabre only a few inches from her throat. He looked around for the girls, but there was only him, the dryad, and trees for miles. "So, you've asked me mine, and now I'll ask you yours."

"You may call me anything you'd like; you'd never be able to pronounce the name I was given by my mother."

"As you wish, Cerbin," said the witcher; he laughed when he received a glare from the Dryad:

"You think yourself a jester, then? Fine, you may call me Nimlaë, if it pleases you."

Harry nodded. "It does. We've only a scant few minutes before the night watchmen in the village notice the fire; knowing them, the stupid fools will run full tilt into the forest to see what's happened."

"And?"

"I wish to be finished with you before then."

Nimlaë gave a poisonous smile in return. "And I wish to be finished with you," she said, jumping away from the witcher's blade, and drawing a short, curved blade that had been hanging from her belt, and raised it over her head, in the traditional offensive stance. Harry turned his own sabre downward, so that the edge faced the ground behind him, obscuring his own attack from the woman.

The dryad attack first, cutting diagonally, but the witcher danced out of the way, bringing his own sword up to swipe at her midsection, which Nimlaë parried easily. They both broke away from one another and stood at the ready, a few metres apart:

"You're not half-bad," said the witcher, "I'd been told dryads were only good with the longbow."

"I strive to be better than most," the woman replied, with an air of practised confidence.

And, then they were atop each other once more, a deadly whirlwind of steel and flesh. She was far more nimble than a human enemy; whereas a fight with a lonesome highway bandit would be categorised by steel clanging on steel in a flurry of block and parries, Harry found himself whiffing at air more often than not, as Nimlaë proved herself equally capable of pirouetting and waltzing away from danger as the witcher could.

Still, he had physical mass and bulk on her, so that when she came close enough and missed her own thrusting lunge, Harry grabbed her by the arm and threw her over his shoulder, where she landed painfully at the edge of the ridge. Harry brought his sword down but only struck rock; the dryad had rolled out of the way, quick as a flash, and stood up behind him.

The witcher whirled round to face his enemy, and, quite suddenly, nearly tripped over his own feet. Righting himself, he felt a hard pressure at his left foot. Blocking a blow from the dryad's sword, he awkward kicked her away, and looked down. There, out of the rocky ridge, grew a strong root, like one belonging to tree, and it wrapped several times around his foot.

Nimlaë noticed it, too, and a slow smile spread across her face. "It seems your fire wasn't enough, vatt'ghern," she said, and pointed to the treeline where Harry had come from. He turned slowly, and saw emerging from the trees, the leshen, on its knees and wreathed in fire, but still moving with purpose. "The poor thing is soon to die. But, he's giving me one last chance to kill you."

She holstered her elven cutlass and drew a smaller, but equally curved, dagger.

"Prefer something more... personal?" asked the witcher, not letting any fear show as the roots reached up and ensnared his sword arm as well.

Nimlaë smiled. "No. You're simply too skilled; I don't want help from a forest spirit to kill you. I want to do that on my own."

"Cut me loose, then."

"Again, no," said the dryad, stepping close enough that Harry wouldn't have been able to hit her with the blade of his sword even if his hands were free. "I want to kill you on my own, but I've others to look after, now that you've destroyed our only protection. So, I won't kill you."

They stood nearly face-to-face, and he could feel her breath mingling with his own. "But you've a lesson to learn, and I won't mind if you're slowed down."

And then the world went off-kilter, up was down, the earth was the sky, and he was falling. Dully, it registered to the witcher that he'd been yanked off the ridge by the leshen's system of roots, and the pulsing pain in his foot suggested the leshen might have broken has ankle while doing so. He knew the earth was coming up to meet him quickly, and there was no way he's remain conscious once he hit ground. His only hope, at this point, was that the leshen would be dead before it could kill him.

The last thing he saw before he felt a jolt of pain and darkness, was Nimlaë looking over the ridge, smiling serenely at his falling body.

IV.

He awoke slowly, in a bed, and not in a forgotten forest clearing. His vision was still blurry, but he saw a curtain of black and a shock of red above him.

"He's waking," a male voice said distantly.

"Is he?" another asked, feminine, this time.

"Heart rate has picked up. He's waking," and as if to prove it, the red blob kneeled closer to him, and two sharp raps crashed against his throbbing forehead. "Oi. Nimrod. Can you hear me?"

"Ugh," he moaned back, "not so loud."

"See?" said the red one. "He's fine."

Harry flopped back, and thought back to the last thing he remembered. A burning forest, a beautiful woman, and a raging monster:

"Wha... what happened to the woman?" his vision came into focus just in time to spy Ron's confused face:

"What woman?"

Harry shook his head; Nimlaë must have escaped before Harry was found. "What about the leshen? What happened to it?" he asked, and sat up.

"You don't remember?" asked the second voice. Harry turned to see the ealdorman's daughter, Asha, holding what looked to be a jar of some medicinal salve, judging from the pungent aroma emanating from it.

"No," replied the Bear School witcher, running a hand through his hair. "What are you doing here, Asha?"

"I was tending to your injury," she demurred, pointing a slender, salve-lathered finger at Harry's ankle, which was tender and swollen.

"I told her not to fret, that all you needed was a swallow and you'd be fine, but apparently she apprenticed under the old apothecary who lived here, and the ealdorman practically begged me to take her along to tend to your wounds," shrugged Ron. "He's a kind man, when you get to the pointy end of things."

Harry smiled faintly; Asha's, as well as her father's, kindness was misplaced, but that didn't make it any less endearing. "Thank you," he said to her.

"It's nothing at all," she smiled back.

"So, about the leshen?" Harry asked, focusing his attention back on Ron.

"Well, I killed it," said Ron with a grin, "but it was already mostly dead by the time I happened across it," he finished, and pointed at the nightstand next to Harry's bed; atop it was a thick leather pouch. Harry reached out and picked it up, feeling the hard ridges of solid coin.

"At least they keep to a deal, here," quipped Harry, setting it back down on the nightstand.

"Mhm," said Ron, "I was awoken by the fire raging in the forest; didn't think you would be the cause of it."

"Yeah, sorry. It was a desperation move. Leshens are tricky monsters; I knew they were weak to fire, but also knew that Igni could burn the whole forest down. Had to weigh my options."

Ron nodded. "Nearly burned yourself down, as well. When I found you, you were laying at the bottom of a gully, dead unconscious with the flames licking at your heels. Looked like you took a tumble."

"I did."

"What were you doing on the ridge?"

Harry exhaled sharply. "Scoia'tael. They were the ones behind the girls going into the forest." Asha gasped at the admission, and Ron looked troubled:

"How? Everything the butcher told us was consistent with a monster luring them into the forest."

"That's what I thought, at first. People being hypnotised, sounds like an open-and-shut case of a chort having taken residence in your forest, but it was Scoia'tael. They were led by this dryad."

"The women from Brokilon are in on this, too!?" Asha exclaimed, and Harry held up a hand for silence:

"She said she wasn't of Brokilon. I don't know if I believe her, but I didn't see any other dryads, just elves."

"Elves? You're sure?" Ron asked.

"I'm bloody well sure," Harry snapped back, losing his patience for a short moment, "two elven snipers, Scoia'tael, I killed them. You must have found their bodies."

"Don't bite my head off, I'm just trying to get facts down," Ron said. "There was little else there but fire, and anything that was there has been burned to ash by now. You're lucky I even came by in time to rescue you, let alone find the corpses of two elven archers."

"Either way, they were led by a dryad, named Nimlaë. She had this flute, and when she played it, things would suddenly bend to her will. She could control the leshen through it. That's why all the lads who went into the forest looking for the girls never made it back. She'd have the leshen specifically attack them."

"A flute that can control a monster?"

"And people, too. She has 'power over all things natural'. Surprise, surprise, it didn't work on a mutant," said Harry, "apparently she got it from a djinn."

"A djinn," deadpanned Ron, looking as sceptical as Harry imagined he must have when Nimlaë told him the same thing.

"Her words, not mine," repeated the other witcher with some mirth. "But whether she really received it from a djinn, or not, that flute has power. I saw it with my own eyes with the girls."

"The girls?"

"The ones that had gone missing. They were completely under her control. I imagine they must have left with her."

"What?" asked Ron. "No, no, they couldn't have been with her. We found them."

Harry's blood ran cold. "You what?"

"Yeah, some ways away from the fire, after the whole thing had calmed down. One of the boys from the village found them; they claimed it was the leshen that lured them. That somehow it spoke to them, and they were powerless to resist."

"And you believed them?"

Ron's eyes narrowed. "Not especially, no, but it's a plausible story. We still don't know much about leshens, particularly one as old and powerful as the one here."

"Where are they now?"

"The townsfolk gathered in pig farmer's barn to throw a party," replied Asha, "it's something like tradition whenever someone returns from a long journey. My da' suggested to do the same now that all the girls are back, safe and sound."

"A party?" Harry questioned. "How long have I been out?"

"The better part of a day," replied Ron.

"Give me a swallow," said Harry quickly, face pale and drawn.

Ron pulled a vial filled with orange liquid from a pouch on his belt and handed it to Harry, but again, looked troubled by his compatriot's expression; Asha looked equally worried as Harry gulped down the contents of the potion he'd been handed:

"What's going on, Master Witcher?" she asked hurriedly.

"That flute was powerful; it did things I can't explain. There's no way the girls could suddenly break free from Nimlaë's grasp, and there's no way she'd just let them go. Those girls have come back into town for a reason, and there's probably a whole Scoia'tael unit out in that forest still. They're planning something."

"And you intend to find out what's going on?"

"Yes," Harry nodded, rising to dress and ready his weapons after the swallow had taken full effect, "if for nothing else than to meet that dryad again."

Ron snorted. "What? Fallen in love?"

His jest was met with a blush from Asha and a low chuckle from Harry. "You could say that. Though, our affair will likely end an unhappy one. Let's go. Asha, you come too. Show us where the pig farmer's barn is."

Asha nodded, and led the two witchers out from Harry's room in the inn and made there way toward the outskirts of town.

V.

The trio arrived at a large stable of barn, adapted easily to hold a hundred or more people, which ostensibly included the whole populace of Rohg.

"Hans, the pig farmer," Asha had explained, "uses this stable to store hay, tools, and spirit usually. There's another barn way at the other end of his property, where the hogs stay, which is why we use this stable for gatherings."

Music blared from inside, and through the open barn doors, Harry, Ron, and Asha could see that wives and husbands, boys and girls, all danced in the centre of the building. The girls who had been missing sat at a crude table on a dais overlooking the dancing throng.

Ron sighed in relief. "Look, everything's fine."

Asha nodded. "There's nothing at all wrong here."

Harry squinted, and shook his head. "For now," he said first, then he turned and observed to his left. "We're quite close to the forest."

"Hans likes it that way; it's far enough from the main village that the hogs aren't a nuisance," explained Asha.

"Uh-huh," he replied. "I should like to wait here for a time longer. Just to be sure."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll wait, but let's at least have a conversation or mingle among the crowd or something. I'd rather not sit out here like a voyeur," he said, drawing a tinkling laugh from the ealdorman's daughter.

"You can mingle fine out here. Have a conversation with Asha, or something," said Harry dully, as the three sat on a makeshift bench not far away from the doors to the barn.

Ron made a face. "What a bore he is, am I right, Asha dear?" he asked. "Handsome but empty-headed, and dull, dull as dishwater. Not like me."

"Ah, yes," mocked Harry, still paying attention to the girls at the table in the barn, "the epitome of wit and adventure, you are."

"It's good of you to acknowledge that," Ron smirked.

"Mhm," Harry replied blandly.

"Could you at least pretend to be bothered?"

"Mhm."

Ron exhaled in disgust. Realising he would gain absolutely nothing from sparring with his disinterested compatriot, he struck up a conversation with Asha about her apprenticeship with the apothecary.

"I didn't know you were a healer's apprentice."

"Oh, yes," replied the girl with a sunny smile. "The woman who taught me was born here but was in a wealthy enough family that they were able to scrounge up the money for her to attend the University at Oxenfurt..." Harry tuned her out.

What on earth was that dryad planning? The girls seemed to be enjoying themselves and looked relatively healthy and sound of mind, nothing like the walking dead they were the night before. The more he observed them, the more he thought it a possibility that they had somehow broken free of the flute's influence.

But, wait, thought the witcher, if they're free of Nimlaë, why did they lie about the leshen taking them captive?

"What's it like to be a witcher?" Asha asked Ron.

"Well," replied the redhead with a laughing cadence to his voice, "sometimes it's the greatest, most exhilarating job in the world. Other times I'd rather be shoveling shit out of the canals in Novigrad."

It occurred to Harry to simply walk into the stable and tell the ealdorman that the girls were lying about who had taken them captive, but he immediately quashed that urge. Ultimately, going down that route would stake his word against the word of the recently returned. A mutant versus young daughters and sisters who had lived in the town their whole lives; he'd never win that fight.

"What about you, Harry?" the ealdorman's daughter asked.

"What?" asked the black-haired witcher, drawn from his musings.

"What do you think of being a witcher?"

"If not for the Law of Surprise, I could have been many things. Ultimately, I kill things for a living and that's the long and short of it. It's neither good nor bad; it just is."

Asha shook her head and laughed.

Harry blinked, perplexed at her behaviour. "What?"

"It's a terrible answer you gave, Master Witcher."

Harry grunted in annoyance, and went back to watching the girls, only to realise, that three out of the ten girls had disappeared from their seats. His eyes scanned for them, but couldn't spot them, his ears searched for them, and heard them coming outside, through another exit that he couldn't see from his perch.

The witcher thought about getting up, but then another girl left, and then another, and another. The other townsfolk where too caught up in their wild revelry to notice them leaving, and when one was stopped, she simply said something about needing fresh air and they let them pass. Soon, all the girls were outside the barn, loitering at the doors.

"Ron," he said lowly.

Ron ignored him in favour of talking to Asha.

"Ron," Harry said, more urgently this time.

"What?" the wolf-school witcher asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

"Something's happening," the other witcher replied, indicating the four girls who conversed quietly amongst themselves just outside the massive doorway.

"Four girls having a conversation, is what it loo-" Ron stopped dead, and grasped something at his chest. Momentarily, Harry felt it, too. His medallion began vibrating against his sternum like it might when facing down an army of wraiths.

And then the song came; high, lilting, and yet somehow mournful. Harry's body tensed in anticipation. Nimlaë was nearby. Harry looked to his right, and saw Asha, completely still; her eyes looked forward sullenly, unseeing. The girls by the door tensed as well, and then moved in a jerky fashion, over to the doors. With two girls grasping either door, they heaved it shut; one grasped a discarded wooden board afterward, and shoved it between the door.

Ron said it first. "Oh, shit."

The two witchers jumped up in hopes of running to the girls, but instantly had to take cover, when from the forest, a barrage of arrows came at them. Harry instinctively grabbed the unresponsive Asha by the shoulders and dove behind the bench they'd been sitting on. Ron followed behind, and kicked it over so the three could use it as cover from any incoming arrows.

While the witchers cowered behind the bench, several arrows peppered another series of targets: the bales of hay that had been moved out of the barn and placed against its side to make room for the party. Within moments, they were burning.

"Fire arrows?" Ron asked.

"Must be," grunted the other witcher, as the flames spread to the barn.

"They're trying to burn the villagers!? Why? Why now?" Ron shouted as an arrow just barely missed him when it went flying over the bench.

"It might have to do with the leshen."

"What!?"

"The dryad said that the leshen protected them in the forest. She said she would let me go if I promised not to harm it. When I said no, she had her archers and then the leshen itself attack. Maybe she thinks that without the leshen to defend them, she has to go on the offensive before they come back?"

"A solid theory," said Ron, as he lifted the unresponsive girl and hefted her over his shoulder. "One of us needs to get her out of here. I'll try and hurry back."

Grimacing, Harry nodded. "Go. Be quick. I'll try and stop the fire before it gets worse."

Both witchers cast Quen shield on themselves and darted out from their cover, Ron back towards town, and Harry toward the smoking barn. The people inside were starting to take note of the fire, and as expected, they rushed for the exit. Harry could hear the frantic sounds of footsteps, and then pounding at the door when they realised it had been closed and they'd been locked inside. The girls stood at a safe distance, and looked on at the burning building with serene smiles upon their pale faces.

Harry darted for the doors, but was stopped cold as the fire arrows intended for the barn were now aimed for him. Harry danced away from the arrows, and kept moving to avoid being hit; he heard footsteps some twenty paces behind him in the direction Ron had left, and hoped the witcher would now be coming, but instead, he saw three guards, dressed in varying degrees of armour, and one with a wooden buckley, the Cintrian Lions painted crudely across it. They, too, had a vacant look in their eyes like the girls and Asha, and drew weapons the moment they had the witcher in their sights.

He deftly avoided a spiked cudgel aimed for his head, and Harry dived out of the way of an incoming arrow, that struck one of the attacking guards in the meaty flesh of the thigh. He stumbled over with a cry of pain, but Harry still found himself faced with the shield-bearing guard, and his friend. Quickly moving through a set of signs, Harry cast the sign of Aard at the two, causing the shield to splinter and break, and the other guard fell to the ground, right in front of Ron, who had just returned from his mad dash.

"I've got them," the redheaded witcher shouted to Harry, "you get the villagers out of that barn!"

Harry turned toward the burning barn and sprinted toward it, only to hear something strange and then be lifted in the air. The air erupted all around him, and the doors blew outward, belching flame with smell of brimstone and burnt flesh. Harry rolled quickly to his side, and stood, only to be greeted by a warzone. Mangled, burned bodies huddled in a mass near the exits, and closer the smell lingered, mixing with that of rancid alcohol. He listened for a heartbeat, and found none. All were dead. A fat, bubbling belly indicated the innkeep had been there, and the ealdorman, and even Jonas-the-butcher had been there. All were gone. An entire village wiped out in one fell swoop.

Harry followed the smell of alcohol and found a group of charred and exploded barrels.

So, that was cause of the explosion, then.

"I suppose vodka's not always the answer to everything, then," that familiar voice said. Harry turned to his side, and saw Nimlaë emerge from the forest with a unit of Scoia'tael, numbering seven in all.

"Why?" asked Ron, standing up. "What was the point of that!?"

Nimlaë smiled serenely at Harry. "You should have known there would be consequences for killing that leshen. That we'd have to retaliate before the dh'oine came and smoked us out of the forest and into our graves. And now you know. Lesson learned."

"And you should know there are consequences for behaving like a brute," another voice accused, male, but not Harry's or Ron's. In the other direction, where the guards had come from, a nondescript man in a traveling cloak came humping up the gentle slope.

Ron looked perplexed. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"Master Mirror?" Harry questioned. "Go. Run. You shouldn't be here."

"Oh, Harry, Harry," chided the merchant, "I think you'll find soon enough that I am exactly where I belong. Isn't that right, Nimlaë?"

The Scoia'tael responded by drawing their blades and their bowstrings back, but Nimlaë looked stricken, as pale as her green-tinged skin could be. The merchant lowered his hood and revealed that unremarkable face of his once more, and smiled. It wasn't a smile of joy, it wasn't even a smirk, or wry grin. There was something off about it, and Harry very suddenly felt unnerved by this man who possessed no exceptional feature.

"Hey, Harry, who is th-" Ron asked to Harry's side, and then stopped suddenly.

Because Master Mirror clapped, twice. And the world froze.

Nothing seemed different at first, but then, Harry realised he, the merchant, and the dryad were the only ones still moving. Ron had frozen, standing over one of the downed guards, who also stayed frozen in that position. In the other direction, none of the Scoia'tael moved, blinked, or even breathed.

"What's going on?"

The merchant placed his hands behind his back and faced Harry. "This is the face of time."

"What?"

"We exist in a vacuum, a pocket dimension, right now. At this moment, nothing in the world is moving. Well, nothing but for us. Be proud, Master Witcher, you've been given an honour so few receive. And you, my sweet Nimlaë," he said, addressing the dryad now, "the time has come to depart."

"But our deal was..."

"No less than three years after I give you that flute, and when the the Lions of Cintra lay broken," the Merchant pointed to the shield Harry had splintered with his Aard attack earlier. "And there, the Lions of Cintra lay, crushed and broken."

"What? No!" Nimlaë shouted. "That was not our deal!"

"I'm afraid it was. You may have meant the royal lineage, but that's not what you told me. Such a shame, because you dryads and elves can't speak frankly, because you must make a poem or a song out of everything, that our deal comes to a close. If it's any consolation to you, you've helped no one. All you've done is bewitched some girls and murdered their families. Such a kindness, that was, wasn't it?"

He raised up a hand, and the dryad doubled over in pain.

"No one will miss you, so there's no reason to be afraid," the merchant finished.

"Master Mirror, wait," Harry said, and the merchant stopped. "I don't know who, or what, you are, but she's mine to kill."

"No, Harry," said Master Mirror, "she's been mine far longer than you'll ever know."

The dryad collapsed to her knees as the merchant redoubled his efforts. She screeched and screamed, clawed at her face and throat, as her flesh peeled from her bones and her eyeballs melted into a blue-green goo. Nimlaë died in great pain, and only Harry, and the man who killed her, heard the woman's last howl before she dissipated into dust. By the end, the only thing left of her was a skeleton stripped bare and that flute which had caused so much pain.

Master Mirror went over and retrieved. "That so much could be accomplished with something so small," he said fondly, and began to walk away, in the direction of the forest.

"Master Mirror," Harry called, the merchant stilled. "Who are you?"

"Nameless," he repeated his answer from their conversation at the inn. "But maybe, Harry, just maybe, you may one day yet find out."

Harry felt coldness seep through him as the man said that.

"Don't worry, when time returns to you, those Scoia'tael will be long gone," Master Mirror said, raising his hands up and clapping twice more as Harry closed his eyes.

"-is guy?" Ron finished. "Wait. What? Where is everyone?"

Harry's eyes fluttered open. Harry and Ron stood alone, the Scoia'tael were gone, the guards were gone, the girls were gone; the only people left were themselves, and the dead. "Gone, it looks like."

"Gone where?"

Harry slid to the ground, back resting against the overturned bench he, Asha, and Ron had sat on before everything went to hell.

"I don't know," he replied, shuddering. "I don't know if I want to know." There were a great many things Harry confessed he didn't know, but he had learned one thing: today, he had seen the face of Evil.

Epilogue

"Where will you be taking her?" Harry asked, as he and Ron walked through the desolate town.

"Cintra. Says her aunt married into a well-to-do family there. And I might be able to take that dracolisk contract. You?"

"Going North. Temeria, Redania, don't care as long as it's not here," replied Harry, tossing the leather pouch of fifty ducats in his hands. "Might try Oxenfurt; there's no shortage of work to be had in the Gustfields this time of year."

Ron looked back on the empty town of Rohg. "We really fucked this one up, didn't we?"

"Mhm," Harry answered, as they hit the outskirts of the town, where two mares and Asha, with her red-rimmed eyes awaited. "Still, it's decent of you to take the girl to her family."

Ron smiled sadly at the girl. "It's the only kindness we can give her."

A/N: Holy shit that was long. And if I had more time to flesh things out, particularly closer to the end, it would have been even longer. The ending is probably why I'm not totally happy with this chapter, but it would have been really egregious if this had dragged on any further. Next chapter will be a framing chapter, followed by the next short story, in the vein of the earlier witcher books. So, after the framing chapter, is the next short story, featuring Harry and Hermione in Oxenfurt, hunting a djinn. Don't you just love deja vu?

Chapter Notes:

Master Mirror: If it wasn't obvious enough by now, he's Gaunter O'Dimm, better known as the main antagonist of Hearts of Stone.

Djinns: Both Harry and Ron seem sceptical of the existence of djinns, which is somewhat taken from The Last Wish short story, because Geralt doesn't seem to believe in them either, until Yennefer basically spells it out for him

Cerbin: The Dryad tells Harry to call her whatever he wants, after she spends her time shit-talking humans, and he proceeds to call her the name of the first king of Cintra. A+ in how to not give a fuck.

I really just like the idea of Harry and Nimlaë getting ready for this great big climactic fight in the vein of Geralt and Renfri in The Lesser Evil, and then Gaunter basically shows up and fucks shit up for no other reason than because he can.

Thanks for reading, a short chapter may be up soon, but the one with Harry and Hermione may take a little longer.

Geist.