The Son of Calanthe
The dwindling sun cast a flush of lurid gold on the hilltop. A man with lesser eyes would have been stung blind by the glare but Geralt could see the shapes struggling plain enough, even from a distance away.
And his ears picked up on the racket even quicker.
"Fuck!" One of the shapes called, doubling over.
"Got him! Little shit. Hold his ankles you halfwit."
"Bastard got a tooth. Ploughin' noose is too good for you, you ratty blonde fuck!" The first, rotund shape spoke, standing upright and wiping it's jaw, presumably of blood.
Geralt spotted four of them surrounding one. Shapes in various shapes of huge and husky, shirtless and tattooed or wearing matted furs and leather. All of them surrounding another shape which was small, whose crown was gilded straw, and who's voice was breaking with ever squealing plea.
"Ah come on fellas. Ain't you overreactin' just a smidge? Was only a few crowns. Didn't even manage to swipe 'em!"
"Won't be talking your way outta this brat. We know it was you swiped our haul a fortnight past. You been bleedin' us copper by copper for months. An' it's time you paid up."
The boy started to answer, but the words came out as a stifled gag. They'd gotten a rope around his neck. Before long they'd string him up and a new fruit would sprout on the tree. Then it would shrivel and die and hang black and rotting on a bowing branch.
Don't get involved.
Vesemir's words of wisdom passed through his mind, but once more he couldn't follow them. This was the reason he'd passed through the Trial of Grasses, the only reason he or any others of his caste existed in the first place.
Witchers killed monsters. These ones by steel.
Of course it needn't come to that right off. He trotted nearer, reaching the hill's summit, and cleared his throat just as they were readying the noose. The men all turned in surprise, hands on their blackjacks, whilst the boy simply gawked with wide eyes. By Geralt's reasoning those had more to do with the noose fastened around his throat than surprise. They went along well with his purpling face and kicking limbs.
"The fuck is this now?" The portly one with the bloodied pate spoke up. As he was the only one who wore a proper blade, Geralt reasoned he was the leader of sorts. The biggest, fattest and meanest of the lot, and odds were the only one with even a smattering of greymatter if Geralt were to guess. That was usually the way of things with this crowd.
"Funny I was about to ask the same thing. Odd to find people out this far from town so late. Something tells me you're not out here to watch the sunset."
"Oh what gave us away? Was it the steel or the hanging noose? What's it to you grey-hair? And what brings a Witcher 'round these parts to start with eh?" One of the others spoke up.
"Oh don't be thick Mors. Only one thing that brings a Witcher anywhere. Didn't your nan e'er sing you the song? Heartless cold, paid in coin o' gold an' that tripe? Well you won't find none here. Ain't exactly rolling in orens ourselves, in case the state o' our dress weren't a tipoff." The fat one said.
"Really I thought lord's men like yourself would earn a modest living."
"Lord's men." One of them spat o'er his shoulder, "Don't have no lord no more. He's that one right there you see?"
He pointed to the once corpulent body of a man, still clad in the faded and weathered tatters of one highly born. Judging by the rate of decomposition he'd been hanging there a while. The crows had been hard at work but they'd only made a small headway on his girth. Odds were he'd be feeding them a while yet.
"Only lord 'round these parts is that Nilfgaardian brat, and I'll sway from those branches 'afore I bare my bum for a black 'un."
"I see, so if it isn't on the Nilfgaardian's orders you're just taking justice into your own hands? A gaggle of righteous grave-robbers, never thought I'd see the day."
The men all exchanged wary glances and began clutching at their pockets. Some had filled them with a helping of Novigrad crowns and Temerian orens. The fat man's pouch housed a pearl necklace Geralt was willing to wager had once dangled from the neck of the plump merchant's wife who swung above them. the frayed edges of a few Gwent cards protruded from the pantaloons of the bearded bandit skulking in the back.
"Oi ain't like they're buried. Don't have graves to rob." That last one spoke up.
"I see so as enterprise's go looting corpses is above ground so long as the corpses are. An interesting theory. I wonder if the Nilfgaardians share it."
"Oi come on now. You're Rivian ain't ya? A Northerner, wouldn't really sell out your own to a black un' would ya?"
"Depends on the northerner. And on your definition of justice? Does it include hanging a fourteen year old boy for, I dunno picking your pockets, tying your shoelaces in a knot…" Geralt said.
"Don't have laces to tie. Don't have shoes neither. Dirt poor you see, so you can imagine us bein' a tad bit upset that this shite decides to steal coin we earned by the honest swat o' our brow."
"Coin you earn looting the corpses of the dead."
"Oh come down off your high fucking horse mate. What's the fouler way o' livin? Lootin' corpses like we do or makin' 'em like you do?" One of the bandits chimed in.
"Either way hanging the boy for stealing your ill-gotten gains doesn't seem a hanging offense. Couldn't you just take your coin back. Come on if not for his sake have a care for the poor tree. How much more weight do you think it can carry before it starts losing branches?" Geralt asked.
"I tend to think of it as less a burden on the tree. More a favor to the crows. Isn't much meat on this 'un sure, but they need to eat to don't they? See this is both a fine administration o' justice an' doin' our part to balance the local ecosystem." The fat one spoke up.
Geralt colored himself mildly impressed. The fat one both knew the words "administration" and "ecosystem" and could use them correctly in a sentence. He found the argument as a whole however significantly less compelling.
"Trust me the carrion birds are about the only creatures in all Velen who don't go to sleep hungry. And dress it up however you like. It's still infanticide you're plotting."
"What? This gangly fuck a young 'un. Don't make me laugh. Sure his head don't reach high off the ground, but 'ave you heard him speak. Squeaks like a field mouse with a broken paw. I'll give you this much though, not much o' a man seein' as he's not got a stray hair on that dainty white mug o' his. Tell you what, hows about we lift his trousers, see if he shouldn't be wearing a skirt instead. Killin' a man's one thing, killin' a wee lass is another.
That drew a chorus of guffaws from the other bandits, while the boy loosened his noose enough to speak. His cheeks had ripened to a ruby red with shame and fury.
"Oi I already got one tooth you swollen hog. 'Nother word an' I'll try for the whole fuckin' set."
"You'll do what?" The fat man asked, deep laughter rumbling up from his belly, "Would you get a load o' this. Balls must've dropped while we wasn't lookin'. Wasn't he pissin' his drawers just seconds ago?"
"Course that don't bode so well for you. Not one bit."
"See if you's a fella we'll have no qualms hangin' ya."
"So how's about this. We'll send you off, just so long as you leave your stones with us." The fat man said, pulling out a cleaver. "A girl 'round your age will have started bleedin' by now anyways. That alright with you grey-hair?"
Geralt rolled his eyes, his hands forming the sign of Axii.
"It's a thought but I've got a better one. You'll leave this kid here, get yourselves soused, play some cards, find a nice whore. I don't know, just get out of here."
There was a swirl of white light, and the bandits all got a misty, dazed look in their eyes as the sign took hold. Ordinarily Geralt might've had the boy give them back their gold, but they'd finally tried his patience. He'd ridden a long way south for this, through clouds of blackflies and mosquitoe. Through hordes of wolves that came on him relentless no matter how many he cleaved with his steel. Through flocks of harpies that flitted just beyond his crossbow's reach.
His tolerance for such annoyances had reached it's end. They were lucky he'd not drawn steel and had done with it.
The bandits gave a drowsy nod as one and began shambling off.
"Yeah witchyman's right. I know this place 'round about Oreton. There's this fine ginger there. Spreads her legs for you for only three coppers or thereabouts."
"I know the one. Yeah gents, let's clear out. Leave the boy lie." The fat one said in a drunken slur.
They unceremoniously deposited the boy at the base of the tree and began ambling off. As they wandered off Geralt could hear them arguing about how precisely they wanted to spend the night. Some liked the sound of a bellyful of ale with that nude ginger splayed out on them. Others like the thought of a cool glass of rye and a few rounds of cards. Odds were they'd find neither. They were marching in the vague heading of the Nilfgaardian encampment, and Nilfgaardian officers tended to take a dim view of looting.
Their ill-gotten gains would fall as overripe fruit from some tree somewhere before long.
"Bloody pig-fuckers." The boy said, from where he lay on the ground.
He made for a sorry sight. He was small and ungainly looking with fresh pubescence. His golden hair was long, wild and greasy, and his eyes flowed with tears of shame coursing along the red, puffy pathways left by earlier tricklings of fear. The same fear that had, as the bandits had said, dampened his trousers, and filled the air with the distinct bitterness of urine.
"You alright?" Geralt asked, trotting closer to the boy.
The boy stifled a few sniffles and then got on his feet, straightening out his shoulders and evening his voice with a clear of the throat.
"Aye. A few cuts an' bruises is all. An' me neck's sore as shite for obvious reasons. Still I've not asphyxiated so by my thinking I owe you a debt o' gratitude." The boy said, turning to face him.
Geralt had to give it to him, he was a good actor, putting on the semblance of dignity even with his eyes puffy from crying and his trousers sopping heavy with his own piss. One less traveled and experienced might've even found himself taken in. Unfortunately for the lad Geralt had spent too long in the company of one Julian Alfred Pankratz viscount de Lettenhove to be taken in by such blustering affectations of bravado.
No matter how well feigned.
"Now I suspect you might be hankering for a reward or somesuch. Sadly as my thievery might attest I've naught to pay you with but for my undying gratitude."
"You sure of that? By the sound of things you've come into some money recently." Geralt countered.
"Less than you might think I'm afraid. Those louts were only slightly less broke than I. 'sides which I'm afraid I can't part with that gold. Savin' it for my future prospects you see. I've no kin you see an' round these parts either you're self-sufficent or you walk the trail o' treats. So forgive me my stinginess mister…" The boy spoke.
"Geralt of Rivia."
"Right an' I'm the long lost son o' Queen Calanthe, been hidin' out in Velen e'er since the Black 'Uns took Cintra, an I'm countin' coppers so as to finance the liberation o' my ancestral homeland."
"Really?" Geralt asked wryly.
"Sure thing." The boy laughed. "Would be nice wouldn't it, bein' all cozy with Cintrian Royalty?"
Geralt privately noted the irony but decided not to comment. The boy's belief was irrelevant so long as he was in Midden before sundown. And preferably as far away from this corpse-laden hill as possible. Here the dusking sun stabbed his eyes in rays of dying gold. Here the flies hung in clouds around maggot-filled corpses. And here the air stank of death and piss.
He'd be glad of his trip to Midden, reasoning that even with a name so flattering as that it couldn't be one tenth as bad.
"Well does his majesty require an escort back to Midden? You do live there right" Geralt asked.
"No I live in a hollow out in the bogs. Better for hidin' from black 'uns, though I must suffer the company o' badgers an' toads."
"You always this much of a wiseass?" Geralt asked.
"No I'm loads worse. But seein' as I owe you a life debt I'm being polite.
Geralt half snarled in answer, beginning to wish he'd taken Vesemir's advice.
This boy was a strange one, no doubt about that. A sort of sneaky cunning lived in his eyes, the same as dwelled in the eyes of Novigrad cutpurses. His golden hair flashed in the waning sunlight, and framed a fair mug which wore the telltale smirk of someone up to no good.
"Fine does the heir of Cintra want a ride back to his manor house or would he rather walk back damp trousers and all?" Geralt asked.
The boy flushed a little, eying the damp stain that had spread across his trousers. He was standing bow-legged, far from a model of princely dignity. So he nodded his head and took Geralt's hand as he pulled him onto Roach's back.
Wiping a line of sweat from his bow, Geralt coaxed Roach back into a gallop down the muddy trail. The horse's hooves squelched in the mud and splashed through the many puddles which had formed in its grooves. It was only a short ride now to Midden, perhaps a half hour or so down the path, and the rolling grasses of the marsh's edge flew past ina blur. The boy hung on for dear life, but otherwise seemed to be enjoying himself.
"So White Wolf or no you is a Witcher ain't ya?" The boy asked.
"What gave me away? Was it the cat's eyes or the wolf's head medallion?" Geralt asked.
"Heh, now who's bein' the wiseass." The boy quipped back. "Anyways it's funny to see one o' your guild stop by in Midden. Only ever had one o' you lot through before. This one wore a cat I think, five or so years back. Killed the griffin that made off with old man Rekke an' three o' his steers. Nasty business that. Luckily we don't seem to get many monsters round these parts. Not since old lady Glenmore took up roost a few years back. Monsters 'round here have been right tame ever since."
Geralt watched and listened with some slight curiosity. It seemed the terror and fear of the boy's near hanging had loosened tongue as well as bladder. The words wouldn't stop flowing, one after another it was downright mesmerizing the giddy energy he could sneak int every word. An oddity certainly, every bit of him. He'd done away with the hat customary on young boys in the northern realms, letting the golden tangle of his hair spill free in the wind.
"You know you'll lose your ears to the frost come winter." Geralt pointed out.
"My hair's plenty long to compensate. 'Sides which that hat makes me look like a proper dunce."
"Most boys your age wear one." Geralt countered.
"Well then most boys my age look like proper dunces don't they?"
Geralt paused, he did have something of a point. The hats had a way of spoiling the dignity of those unlucky enough to wear them. And by the ratty state of his clothes and soot-smeared face this boy had little of that left to lose.
"In any case not all boys my age wear 'em. I'm fourteen as o' last spring. Plenty old enough to wear the hat iffin' it takes my fancy."
"True enough." Geralt answered. "You got a name."
"Can't imagine I'd 'ave worked my way through fourteen years o' living without one. It's Nils, why you interested?"
"How else am I gonna make sure you pay me back, sire?" Geralt asked.
"Aww, an' here I was thinkin' you was content with the gift o' my friendship."
Geralt glared.
"Funny I didn't think you were interested in being friends Nils."
"An' what gave you that impress-Agh!" Nils gasped in pain as Geralt took firm hold of his wrist and twisted it, pulling it away from his coin purse.
"Generally speaking friends don't rob one another. Unless Midden has a very different notion of friendship than I'm used to."
"Ehehehe" Nils laughed nervously, "Come on sir, was only goin' to nick a few crowns, no more'n five or so. Enough to live on for a span or so. I'm in the wrong clear as day, but do take mercy on a poor wretch o' my-Waaagh!"
Geralt roughly tossed the boy from the saddle and he splashed into a rather deep and muddy puddle, looking up at Geralt with wounded, nervous eyes of blue frost.
"Alright can see you're upset."
"Let's see you've robbed bandits and Witchers. Were you planning to try your luck with the Nilfgaardians next? You might end up back on the tree, and I'm not so sure I'll save you next time."
"Well my situation's a little like yours. My only trade's high risk 'an low reward, but it puts bread on the table, however moldy it might be. Sometimes I do things I ain't proud of but-." Nils started.
"Things like picking the pockets of the man who saved your life?" Geralt asked disdainfully, "You can find the way back to Midden yourself majesty. I'd hurry if I were you, it'll be nightfall soon and the wolves will scent a rat like you leagues away."
"W-Wait." Nils said getting to his feet, shaking, "Look I know I messed up but I swear I'm sorry I won't do it a-."
"Come on Roach."
With that Geralt cracked the reins and Roach exploded into a full gallop, pelting the fallen thief with thick clods of mud as the Witcher rode away. He took a final glance to see the boy struggling upright, caked head to toe in muck as he wiped away his flowing tears with muddied hands.
His thoughts towards him were a welter of lingering anger and cloying pity. Velen was after all the land of mud and misery. He could hardly blame the boy for doing what it took to survive the watery mires of No Man's Land. And in the grand scheme of things what he did wasn't so awful. He didn't send his own children or wandering orphans to the Crone's stewpots, nor did he hang children for picking pockets.
But if this was how he treated those who helped him before long he'd find himself in an iron cell or far worse. Best he learn his lesson now, by slinking bow legged into midden, trousers heavy and wet with piss, body caked in mud, face streaming with salty tears of shame. It would remind him not to do this again, as the next generous fool he crossed might not be so forgiving.
A forgiving Witcher. What's this world coming to?
It wasn't coming to anything, it was ending, changing into something new. The old one was dying away piece by piece, and soon there would be nothing left of the way things were.
This new world be it made by the King of the Wildhunt, the Emperor of Nilfgaard, or the Swallow's last flight, it seemed it had no place for Witchers. Their bloody trade was dying out and so were they.
A Witcher should have watched that boy choke to death, because he wouldn't be paid for saving him. Because as Geralt knew even some dullard with a pitchfork could fell a mighty Witcher if they'd enough dumb luck, and needlessly testing the ire of four grown men was an unnecessary risk. The boy's mother wouldn't have enough crowns to justify his risk, nor be willing to part with them if she did.
But he'd done it anyway, because his icy heart was starting to thaw or had done so long ago. Because more and more the monsters he killed wore helms and armor, and fought under the banner of kings. Because the time of the white light and white frost was nigh, and the time of Witchers was slowly marching to an end.
But it wasn't here yet. Velen would have its miseries in the new world. Geralt was sure. War would give way to something else just as awful and peasants and lords would wail piteously about their lot in life. But for now there was the war, there was the starving, and there were the monsters lurking in the woods and bog.
And though the world would pass him by before long, he was a Witcher still.
And there was only one thing a Witcher was good for.
Cracking the reins again, Geralt put all thoughts of the golden haired thief from his head as Midden's profile came into view.
He still had his bloody trade to ply, for whatever meager coin Velens' coppers could offer up.
And he would, just so long as the folk of Velen never ran shy of men to hang from trees.