"We now return to our regularly schedu-... One and a half month late update!
Oops! Little late with this one. I finally got to work on part one of the multiverse saga, and this story kind of got moved to the back burner. Fear not though, for I've no intention of giving up on this thing before I've seen it to completion!"
— Asa the wizard
Chapter six: the art of speech
The witcher knew he was in deep. Perhaps he had been too hasty in his decision, perhaps it was not the decision itself but rather the lack of planning behind it.
Whatever the reason behind his position, he was in the position none the less, and so merely had to make the best of it.
He chose the window for his escape. being on the first floor, it seemed both the safest, and least likely to result in the unnecessary death of his attackers.
He grabbed a solid hard-wood chair and threw it at the window. As expected, the chair broke the window, yet left jagged shards of glass protruding from the frame.
This would be no problem.
The witcher took a running start towards the window, and jumped through it, tucking his limbs in an attempt to prevent cuts.
Yet in the end it seemed, cuts were inevitable. He took a deep gash to his left shoulder, and a smaller cut to his right thigh. Yet to a witcher, injuries like these were entirely superficial. Ignoring pain was something witchers were trained extensively in, it was a joke to think that a few glass cuts would be anything more than mildly annoying to clean.
Once the window had been cleared, the witcher landed on a small private porch behind the manner. It consisted of wooden planks suspended over a steep, near vertical, hill. The very latest novigrad style. The only conventional exit was back into the house.
Witcher or no, jumping off the porch was not an option. It was at least fifty feet down a near vertical incline. The very best outcome would be him walking away with several broken bones, and at worst he wouldn't be walking away.
He heard a commotion behind him, from the room he'd just exited.
From the sound of it, the guards had gotten through his minimal barricade.
The only thing keeping them from him now was a sharp-glass-heavy window frame. That didn't sit well with him in the slightest.
His options boiled down to either attempting to sneak by the guards no doubt converging on him now, or fighting them outright. At this point, a fight was beginning to seem inevitable.
He chose to fight them directly. Yet attempt to minimize casualties. A good decision as well, for no sooner had he made up his mind and drawn his steel sword than half a dozen guards came bursting out of his only exit.
This wasn't good. Witcher or no, the odds were stacked against him. The porch was to small to allow good maneuverability, yet at the same time still large enough that the guards could make good use of their superior numbers and flank him.
Five of the six guards were armed with standard one-handed swords, that, from what he could tell were made of mild steel. Yet the sixth, who seemed to be spearheading this attack, had a finely serrated sword of dimeritium. This one was also wearing heavy armor, going so far as a full visor. Besides swords two of the standard guards had round shields.
The one at the forefront stepped forward even further and spoke; "witcher, you have done nothing so wrong as to be deserving of death. Simply return what you have stolen, and I will allow you to walk free" he said. And as shocking as he found it, the witcher actually believed him. Which was only helped by the fact that the witcher could hear his heart-beat and breathing, which were both calm, like someone who hoped to resolve a situation with words rather than violence. They made a stark contrast to the jackrabbit-speed mess that was the other guards breathing.
One of the other guards stepped forward, he recognized this guard as the one who had stopped him at the gate. "tha's not your call to make pretty boy. —he said with all the charm of a dying bore— this'un here's got a lot more coming to him than a boot to the ass" he said with a tone somewhere between authority and sheer malice, a sadistic smile spreading across his face.
The knight, for the witcher had just realized exactly who this armored stranger was, shifted as if to respond to the gate-guard. But the witcher was faster. "Back off, dirt-fucker, Or I'll leave you face-down in your own entrails" said the witcher in a cold monotone, all the while giving of a practically tangible air of danger. For the time being, the newly-dubbed 'dirt-fucker' seemed to do as the witcher said.
"And you" the witcher said turning back to the knight; "Finally dredged my memory deep enough to remember you; Sir Orvrind. I thought I burned you to death Back in Temeria."
"Half to death, actually" said Orvrind, lifting his visor to show a terrible burn scar covering almost his entire left face.
"Not bad. But we'll compare scars later. For now, I just can't bring myself to leave without these" he said, indicating the bag of stolen valuables. "The count needed a monster dead, and a dead monsters just what he got. But I didn't see a single chipped crown out of the three-hundred that bastard owes me. All I want is to walk away from this with enough to hold up somewhere for the winter" said the witcher calmly, holding up his hands in what was meant to be a show of peaceful intent, but was somewhat undermined by the sword still in his right hand.
"Hmm" mused Orvrind aloud. He then sighed and said; "very well then. Take this and return the valuables to the guards." Orvrind then threw a coin-pouch that the witcher caught near-effortlessly in his left hand.
"Crown's?" Asked the witcher. "Florin's." replied Orvrind.
If the witcher wasn't mistaken, there was the equivalent of about two-hundred-and-fifty crown's in this pouch. Far more than he would have gotten from selling the valuables.
"Hmm..." the witcher thought aloud, before undoing the bag of valuables from his side, and throwing it to sir Orvrind.
"Something or another might be dented, but I swear everything I took is in that bag." the witcher assured, as he sheathed his steel sword at his hip.
The witcher then began walking towards the group of armed men, intent on getting answers. The lead guard was glancing him daggers. "So, what is it you want of me, Orvrind?" The witcher questioned.
"What? I never asked for assistance." Responded Orvrind.
"Nothing is free, least of all coin." The witcher deadpanned.
Orvrind sighed "you witchers were always cynical. At the very least, let us find more comfortable surroundings before conversing much further."
"Agreed." Replied the witcher.
And with that the two began to walk back to their horses.
But when he was about halfway across the courtyard, the witcher heard a strange sound. It was something familiar but he couldn't quite place it, It was a straining, hi-tension sound. It was extremely faint, if not for his super human senses, he wound never have heard it.
The witcher recognized the sound.
The witcher twisted, dodging backwards in a pirouette. A split second later a crossbow bolt shot through the air a couple inches from his chest. Too close.
The witcher carried his momentum and used it to draw a throwing knife. In the span of a half second, the witcher identified the arbalest on the second floor of the stables, and threw the knife. It sped through the air, hardly arcing at all before landing squarely in the arbalest's neck. He fell from his perch, landing facedown and driving the knife oven deeper. He was surely a dead man, and surely not the last.
"Heads are going to roll." The witcher spoke in a battle-hardened tone, laced with the promise of death.