The Pack Survives

by LordStark5

The year is 302 AC. Westeros is deep in the midst of the War of the Five Kings. One is dead, and another has seen the war turn on him so badly that he wishes he were so. Little does Robb Stark know his family is about to be the subject of a much bigger game though, with them being forced to align with unnatural powers to avoid destruction.

16. Geralt I

Geralt

Geralt was sitting across from Vernon Roche at the Seven Cats Inn. "How's the princess doing?"

"Anaïs is doing well," Roche replied. "She just turned six."

"Six already, huh?" Geralt remembered that the princess had been quite small the last time he had seen her, no more than two or three. Her older brother, Bousy, had been perhaps five or six, but he'd been dead for years.

Roche nodded. "We could use a warrior such as you, Geralt. I know how much you despise politics, but for the good of the realm, please consider it. Nilfgaard will be unstoppable if they do not face continued opposition in Temeria."

"I'm one man," Geralt pointed out. "Monsters are my specialty, not men."

The Commander of the Blue Strips seemed to disagree. "Together we proved your innocence in the assassination of Foltest, yes? We rescued Anaïs as well, didn't we? And we killed Dethmold. I need your help, Geralt. Together, we can win this war."

"I'm sorry, Vernon," he said. "You're better off trying to court the loyalties of Temeria's lords. You and Jan Natalis will do far more for Anaïs than I ever could."

"What are you going to do then, Geralt?"

He shrugged. "I've been looking for work, the same as always," he said. "Thought I should keep low after what happened on Skellige. Had some ideas for how I could fill my time, but nothing's materialized yet."

"Skellige?" Roche sounded impressed. "What were you up to there?"

"After we parted in Loc Muinne, with the witch hunts starting, Yen decided she wanted to get away as fast as possible- can't say I blame her, really. We weren't going to find safety in Nilfgaard, or in Redenia, and she didn't want to involve herself in Temeria either. So we decided to go to Skellige. We have a few connections there."

Vernon seemed amused by that. "You've got connections in Skellige? Since when?"

"We have a few thanks to our ward," Geralt explained. That was at least some of the reason. He figured it best to not talk about Yennefer's affair with Crach an Craite that had happened many years ago, or her subsequent adventures to Skellige when she was trying to find Ciri.

"You never mentioned you had a ward." Roche frowned as if making a connection. "Your file mentioned an ashen haired lass who took you and Yennefer away…"

"Yeah… Ciri's a real special lass," he said, nodding. "Didn't think it was worth mentioning, honestly. Ciri isn't just a random ward, Vernon, she's the rightful Queen of Cintra. Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe. The real Ciri, not the feigned girl who Emperor Emhyr var Emreis married."

"The Lion Cub of Cintra was your ward?" Roche asked, incredulously. "My, my, Geralt… you are full of surprises."

"I didn't take her as my ward for political reasons," Geralt said, wanting to set the record straight. "Ciri was my child surprise actually, supposed to be my ward and raised as a witcher, starting when she was six. But I only properly took her on a few years later, when she needed somebody to keep her safe after the Sack of Cintra." And being the rightful heir to Cintra is hardly important compared to what else she's inherited.

Roche seemed dumbfounded. "The rightful Queen of Cintra as your ward… how can I be certain that you aren't trying to put her on the throne right now, Geralt?"

The witcher shrugged. "Can't exactly say I'd know how to," he confessed. "Ciri's got friends in Skellige who might fight for her, I suppose. I guess you are right that if she were to press her claim to the Cintran throne, I would fight for her… at least to a point. And I know Yennefer, wherever she is, would come to fight for her claim too. But I don't think Ciri has any true interest in the throne." That was only partly true, he supposed. There was no telling what Emhyr's reaction would be to Ciri making an attempt to reclaim her birthright.

"That's a shame…" Roche said, gloomily. "Friends in Skellige… I'm sure there are Cintrans who would rise up for her. And Queen Meve of Lyria too, she would surely support Ciri's claim to the throne. Temeria would be safer with a kingdom to buffer between it and Nilfgaard."

And Ciri can give up whatever partner she has to marry King Kistrin of Verden too for good measure. Geralt shook his head. "Ciri's not like that, Vernon. She's a witcher, like me."

"Have you seen her since that day in Rivia?" the Temerian asked.

"No," Geralt lied. "Not even the slightest trace." Ciri had left Geralt and Yennefer on Avalon before they had even woken up, but he had seen her twice since then. The first time being when she had rescued him from the Wild Hunt, and brought her to Kaer Morhen, the second being when she and her friend Jon had found Geralt and Yennefer on Skellige. "Ciri's far far away, most likely."

Roche nodded. "I see…" Then he decided to change the subject. "Tell me more about what happened between you and Yennefer on Skellige."

"When we got to Kaer Trolde, King Bran had died."

"I had heard as much. But I take it you had some part in what followed?"

"I did. Crach an Craite requested that I help his children with the tasks they had taken on to prove their worthiness as the new ruler of Skellige. Cerys was attempting to lift the curse of Jarl Udalryk of Spikeroog, while Hjalmar was freeing the Isle of Undvik from an ice giant. Well, turns out the curse afflicting Jarl Udalryk was a hym, and I slew the ice giant with Hjalmar and his men."

"Quite the adventure, Geralt."

"That was only the beginning," he said with a chuckle. "After that, I took up a contract on a cursed lighthouse, which got me imprisoned by Madman Lugos Drummond due to what transpired afterward. I helped his son too, with his troubles, to pay my blood price, so we conquered the Cave of Dreams together." Geralt paused for a minute, reflecting on what he'd seen there. In the Cave of Dreams, they were faced with their greatest fears. His had been a nightmare that had plagued him since he'd regained some of his memories with the Wild Hunt. In that horrible dream, Ciri had been seduced by Eredin Bréacc Glas, the King of the Wild Hunt, and joined him in his conquest of worlds, bringing death and destruction with them wherever they went.

"Is something wrong, Geralt?" Roche interrupted.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm fine. Just thinking back." He decided against mentioning some of the lesser adventures he'd had, carrying out random contracts and slaying a few monsters and he explored the Isles. "At the feast for the jarls to determine who the new King would be, berserkers attacked. Cerys an Craite and I went to try and find out the truth of the conspiracy, and we found that King Bran's widow, Birna Bran, had been behind it, so she could take out as many claimants that would be a challenge to her son, Svanrige, as possible. Heh, suppose she got her way… after a sense. Once Cerys was chosen as queen, she married Svanrige not too long after to shore up support for herself. Birna didn't get to see it herself though- they chained her to a rock and left her to die. Quite a grim fate if you ask me."

Roche grimaced in agreement. "Doesn't sound pleasant," he concurred. "What about your Yennefer? How is she?"

"I… lost track of her on Skellige," he confessed. "She had some business she wished to carry out with me. But I was busy finding contracts and repaying favors that I didn't have time for her. By the time I looked for her, she was already gone. I haven't seen her since. Think I may have made her angry by not helping her with what it was she was planning." That had been several years back now, he realized.

"A shame," Roche said, "we could use her too."

"Heard anything from Triss?"

"No," Roche shook his head, "you?"

Geralt wished that he could say he'd heard anything from Triss. His one-time lover had fallen into the hands of Nilfgaardians not long after the death of King Foltest, and he and Yennefer had been powerless to save her. They'd been able to recover Princess Anaïs, but not Triss Merigold. Except as it turned out- Geralt had not needed to save Triss at all, as Letho the Kingslayer had rescued her without him. Geralt and Triss had reunited in the ruins of Loc Muinne, but after the chaos, they parted ways. He and Yen had gone on to their adventures in Skellige, Roche had taken his place within the Temerian resistance, and Triss had… well he hoped he could find out what she had done. "I've heard about things she's done recently," he admitted. "In Novigrad, it seems she's the second most important target to the witch hunters, only to Philippa Eilhart. That's part of why I can't agree to join your forces, Roche. I'm trying to find her."

"Mm," said the Temerian. "And is there anything I could do that would help you in that?"

He shrugged. "I could use some leads, I suppose. I suspect Triss might be avoiding me, or even outright hiding from me. I could use someone else to try and reach her." In all honesty, he wasn't even particularly sure why he specifically felt compelled to search for Triss now. After he and Yen had been taken from the Isle of Avalon, it felt like adventures were just getting thrown at him. Now it had been some time since he actually felt any sort of direction to go in. "Just looking for work, at the very least."

"Ah," Roche said, nodding. "The last I heard of Triss was that the mage hunters were offering handsome rewards for her head in Novigrad. Whether or not she's actually there… I do not know."

"That's the last I've heard as well," Geralt concurred.

Well if you ever do change your mind… I will have plenty of opportunities to offer you."

"Thanks Vernon."

Geralt and Roche parted ways with a hand-shake. Then Roche went to the stables to gather his horse and rode off, while Geralt remained at the inn. He began to look over the notice board, and felt amused by what he saw. Usually in wars, there were more opportunities for work. Both sides were always looking for soldiers of course, though Geralt chose to remain neutral, but invasions led to no shortage of people going missing and monsters too; usually necrophages like ghouls and grave hags or wraiths and other monsters born of improper burial practices. And it led to an increase in lords and other nobility now caring far more about some parts of their lands than they normally did, which drove awareness for some of the monsters that were plaguing them. In the past, he had normally taken those opportunities, though things seemed different now. There wasn't as much opportunity for work.

Within the past fifteen years there had been two separate large invasions of the North by the Nilfgaardians. In the first, Geralt had thought to look for wartime work, but things all started to change after the Sack of Cintra and the Battle of Sodden Hill, when he'd turned his attention towards finding Ciri as the war was starting to come to a close. After that, they'd retreated to Kaer Morhen, high in the Blue Mountains of Kaedwen, and by the time they emerged, the Northern Realms had already been quite thorough in the licking of their wounds in preparation for the Second Nilfgaardian War. During that war, his attention had been devoted towards finding Ciri again, rather than the normal wartime work of a witcher. Even though the kingdoms had been on the brink of war for several years now, and the Nilfgaardians had completely invaded Temeria, something about this time felt different to Geralt.

Maybe it was the witch hunts that had created even more mistrust in non-humans than ever. Maybe it was the constant state of war that it felt like the world had been for the past fifteen odd years. Or perhaps it had something to do with the ever shrinking population of his brethren.

Compared to Cintra before, Temeria had been taken and annexed by the Nilfgaardians with ease. There were some patriots who sought to rally behind Princess Anaïs, such as Vernon Roche, under the command of Constable Jan Natalis. But there were just as many, if not more, who had seen Princess Adda as the rightful heir to Foltest, which meant in turn bending the knee to Nilfgaard as she had given her hand in marriage to the Emperor. Through the wedding, Emhyr var Emreis had been able to take Temeria without even declaring war, as he proclaimed Adda to be the Queen of Temeria and all those who opposed her to be traitors. The other kingdoms did not fight with the Temerians against the Nilfgaardians, and without a unified front or their full power, they were helpless against the southern onslaught. Geralt and everyone else knew that it was only a matter of time before Emperor Emhyr marched from Vizima and began his invasions of Aedirn, Redenia, Lyria and Rivia, but for now all sides were at a standstill.

A man stepped up to the notice board. His hair and beard were fashioned in ways typical of Redenian rogues, and Geralt knew that if they met on the road, he'd probably assume this was a bandit of some kind. He took out a piece of paper and began to hammer it in.

The witcher read the paper as it was still being put up.

Let it be known that Olgierd von Everec shall pay a generous reward in gold, jewels and movable goods (subject to negotiation) to any man who descends into the Oxenfurt sewers and kills the beast which has infested them and taken to murdering the innocent, with an especial predilection for young maids. The task is best suited for a battle-hardened individual…

"Looking for a witcher?" he asked the man.

"Some sort of monster slayer, aye," the Redenian man said. "A witcher'll do."

"What kind of monster are we dealing with here?" Geralt wondered.

The man frowned. "Big, bad, ugly. Squats in the sewers. If you're interested, drop by the Garin Estate, ask for Olgierd von Everec. He's the one who ordered this to be posted."

Geralt stepped forward and took the notice before the man had finished posting it. Well well. Finally some work, he thought to himself as he read the full notice. "I'll be stopping soon," he promised the man.

He folded up the notice and put it in a pocket in his armor. Then Geralt retreated back into the inn.

Why not? he thought to himself. I need work somewhere. He sat in the Seven Cats Inn for a while. He reread the notice a few times, looking for any details he could find, until he felt as though he had sufficiently exhausted the paper.

Geralt felt a little bad about not telling Roche everything. In truth, he'd given some serious thought to joining the Temerian army. It wasn't a thought he would readily admit to anyone, but it was one he gave a little more pause to than he ever would before. 'You claim to be neutral, Geralt, but you rarely are,' Yen had chided him, after Foltest's death. 'You've lifted curses on royals, aided in coups, even took the rightful heir of Cintra as your ward. And let's not get into all your royal… affairs.'

'What affairs?' he'd responded. 'I'm not…'

'Don't make me laugh, Geralt. It's not only royalty that I'm speaking of. All those sorceresses you've-' He had tuned out after that. But one line still stuck with him after all that time. What good is neutrality if you're always forced to choose?

Still, he just simply wanted to return to what he'd always done. Fighting monsters was his trade, and even if he did end up helping one side more than the other, he would be doing what he was meant to do. I'll take the job, he finally decided. He didn't have any doubt in his mind.

Geralt remained at the Seven Cats Inn for the rest of the evening. There was much to reflect on in his time since he'd returned to the Continent, stuff that he still had yet to fully process. But he didn't think he'd ever get through it alone.

He spent the night with a quite lovely young woman. She was the daughter of the innkeeper, who took an interest in Geralt after supper. Though he could feel the innkeeper's disapproving gaze, he hadn't stopped them when she took him to bed.

When he woke up the next morning, he had no choice but to leave her before she'd woken up. Geralt knew where Lord Garin's mansion was, but it meant a long day's ride. He gave the innkeeper's daughter a kiss, then set off on his horse, Roach.

The Seven Cats Inn was on the southern outskirts of Novigrad, just outside the city walls, while the Garin Estate was almost a day's ride into Temeria. Geralt knew a little bit about the history of their house even. The Garins had been among the most powerful houses in the now partitioned Kingdom of Emblonia, which were now the Riverside region in Redania and Pontaria in Temeria. The House of Garin had been among the most prominent houses to fall from grace at the time, owing to their location, and their estate had been auctioned several times. Yen had brought it up when they were together a few years back. It was facing an auction again, and she was considering making an effort to buy it so they could have a home together, but he'd talked her out of it. Now it seemed that this Olgierd von Everec had won the auction. That or he had claimed squatters rights.

Geralt was also fairly certain that he'd heard of the von Everecs before, though he knew considerably less about them than he did the Garins. Just from the name alone, he could deduce they were of Redenian nobility, and he suspected that if Olgierd had either bought the property or taken it, he might have been close to the king even. Since the events at Loc Muinne, King Radovid had been aiming to consolidate power as much as possible; claiming the Hengsfors League as part of Redania, sponsoring the witch hunts let by the Church of the Eternal Fire and the Order of the Flaming Rose and taking marrying Hierarch Hammelfart's sole daughter in a bid to win Novigrad's fealty once and for all. Now the young King of Redania- nicknamed, 'the Stern,' stood alone as the greatest power in the north, greater than Jan Natalis, Vernon Roche and the Temerian Resistance, Francesca Findabair and her elven city in Dol Blathanna, Saskia the Dragonslayer's Rebellion in Upper Aedirn, or even King Esterad Thyssen of Kovir. Based on that, he had no trouble imagining that Radovid had wanted to have his nobility expand their influence in less secure parts of his kingdom as a means to ensure its loyalty.

He took several stops on the way to eat. His mutations always had made his metabolism a fickle thing. While he could go for longer than a normal human without food in times of need, he was also hungry much more often and needed nourishment. So not only were the stops for Roach's sake, but for his own as well.

As it turned out, Geralt ended up riding too far north, and ultimately reached the village of Bowdon, which wasn't too far from the estate actually. From there, he was able to follow the signs that led to the Garin Estate, going along the road, until finally he could hear a small stream in the distance. Further on, that stream came up to the road, and then beyond that, eventually revealed to be a small moat that surrounded the land.

If it weren't for the signs though, Geralt probably would have missed the estate entirely. He had not been to many houses belonging to Redenian nobility, but they were usually larger than this. The wall around the estate was little more than a decorative brick fence, and the incredibly shallow moat offered little beyond decoration as well. Only a single lowered drawbridge offered an entrance to the land, though he certainly could have climbed over the wall if he had to, which led into a rather underwhelming inside.

There were some small gardens, but nothing particularly lavish, and the house itself looked much younger than he was expecting, in addition to being smaller. It had a simple charm to it, yes, though it was only two floors high, the first floor having stone constructed walls similar to the outer wall that surrounded the land, and a gable roof made of timber on top of that where the second floor would have been. He didn't detect anything underground with his witcher senses, which meant there likely wasn't a basement at all- perhaps a small cellar at most.

As he walked through the yard, he noticed a man standing on top of the deck. "Oi mate! Your mug's not familiar! Ah, what is it you want?" the man called down to him.

"Looking for Olgierd von Everec," Geralt responded, bluntly.

"Ah… that'd be inside."

Geralt walked the rest of the way through the yard and up the stone steps to the two-doored entrance. He could hear the revelries going on within already as he approached the door. Inside a man was knife throwing and had just managed a nearly perfect throw to hit the target when Geralt walked in, which caused a cheer from the dozen or so men and women gathered around. The target was a rather crude drawing of a monkey's face- one of many exotic creatures from the distant lands of Zerrikania- and the man turned and bowed to a woman who was sitting on a couch nearby.

Things got quieter as Geralt stepped into the middle of the room and the knife thrower took his seat beside the lady he'd just bowed to. Already, he could see that these people were nothing but trouble, but now he was too far in to back out. They looked both like nobility and outlaws, richly dressed but wearing things as was more typical of bandits around these lands. He thought at first he saw the man who'd posted the notice at the Seven Cats Inn, but realized there were two other men who looked exceedingly similar, and deduced they were probably brothers. He counted fourteen in total, nine men, five women.

"I'm looking for Olgierd von Everec," he announced to them.

"None here by that name," one of the men replied.

"Who are you?" Geralt wondered. "What are you doing here?"

"Who do you think we are?" the same man replied. He had a particularly thick and dark mustache, and hair that was shaved around the sides and grown out on the top, brushed to the left side of his face. "What's your guess?"

"By the looks of you," Geralt said, looking around, "you're cutthroats, or bandits. Probably took the estate, rather than buying it." Banditry if successful could lead to taking the possession of highborn things, he'd found in his experience, so he figured that was what they really were at their core.

"Well you're mistaken," the man said, laughing. "We're sons o' nobles, all."

One of the women let out a hearty laugh. "And daughters, too."

Alright, so maybe Olgierd von Everec really does keep company like you then. "So you gonna tell me who you are, precisely?"

"The Redanian Free Company. 'Wild Ones,' they call us- owing to the boar in our coat of arms," the woman responded.

A bunch of wild pigs, huh? Geralt thought he might have seen a notice or two mentioning the Wild Ones, maybe even a contract on them, though he wasn't certain. He could handle outlaws, particularly in smaller groups, but he was surrounded here and however crude or honed their skills were, their numbers would be too much. He decided it best to avoid offending them. "Someone told me I'd find Olgierd here," he said.

"Well then someone's made an arse of you," the mustached man replied.

"So maybe you can fix that and help me, brother," Geralt said, figuring it might be worth a shot to portray himself as not unlike them. He saw a few smiles around the room from people who were trying not to laugh.

"Somethin' tells me that you and me got different mams," the man answered.

A roar of hearty laughter rose from the Wild Ones.

When it quieted down, a bearded man who looked like one of the brothers who'd put up the contract stood up. "Alright Ungus, you've had your fun. I'm Olgierd. Tell me- what brings you here?"

Then another one of the Wild Ones stood up. "No, no. I'm Olgierd."

One of the prettier women stood up after that. "You? Not likely. I'm Olgierd."

They all laughed again.

Geralt hid his annoyance deep. "You folk are a hoot and all, and I'd love to stay for more laughs, but time's short. Here about the contract in the sewers of Oxenfurt, which Olgierd put up a bounty on. Need to talk to him about it."

"Whoa, shit just got serious," a third man said.

The bearded man waved away the remark. "Shit's always serious when dealing with a witcher, innit?"

"Why's that?" Geralt wondered. In truth, he did usually prefer his contracts be done with formality and honesty rather than veiled courtesy or unprofessionalism. But that didn't make shit always serious when dealing with witchers.

"They purge you lot of emotion, don't they?" Asked a fourth man, who'd been the second to claim to be Olgierd. "It's why you're always so stiff. Heh! You'd think they'd shoved a long stick up your arse."

Another wave of hearty laughter came.

"That's enough now," the bearded man said, "fun's up. I'll take you to see Olgierd now."

You were saying that just a minute ago too. The bearded Wild One began to go up the stairs, inviting Geralt to follow.

"A bit of advice, witcher," the man began to say as they were walking up the stairs, "once you meet Olgierd, try to pique his interest somehow."

Who does this Olgierd think he is, exactly? Geralt had dealt with plenty of contract-givers, who'd done plenty of things that annoyed him. Oh, there were contract-givers who wanted proof of his abilities in some way, or men like King Foltest who'd been difficult to know the true feelings of at times, but never had he been forced to earn the interest of a contract-giver. "I have to pique his interest? He's the one who put the contract out."

"Aye, but he don't need you to do it," the Wild One insisted, then pointed to a door as they stopped, "so you want the job- you gotta grab his attention. And he's one to be bored mighty quick."

Geralt rolled his eyes, then opened the door to the room which the bearded man gestured to. He stepped in, where a man was standing in front of the naked statue of a woman.

"Ataman, sir," the Wild One said, "you've a guest."

The man stepped away, and closed the door, leaving Geralt and this Olgierd alone. He noticed that Olgierd's attire was much more intricate and detailed than the others. Even if all of those down below were of nobility, they were not all of equal levels, it seemed. Olgierd had light red hair on his head, cut in the same way as most of the others wore it, shaved on the sides and grown out on top- brushed to the side. He had several silver rings on his fingers, wore golden earrings and had particularly thick hair on his arms as well, that was visible up until his arms were covered by his sleeves. This Olgierd von Everec did not turn around to face Geralt, but instead remained fixed on the statue.

"Do you know what kind of sculptures fetch the best prices?" He started with. "Statues of deities, busts of kings… and nudes. What have we here? The statue of a naked wench. What do you think of her?"

"Looks like an elven wench," he pointed out, having noticed the pointed ears of the woman. The woman depicted was shapely, and beautiful as elves were widely reputed to be. "Must say I prefer the works of Pax Gurnst though."

"Ah… the Koviri… Are you an Oxenfurt man, then?"

"No. But I know some people who graduated from there though." Jaskier always had something or another to say about the arts, even when Geralt wasn't interested in hearing about it.

"I used to like the work of Votticelli. The life he could breathe into a chunk of cold stone… but look at it now. It seems just like a rock. Perfectly portioned, smoothed to not have a flaw on its surface. Painfully perfect." Olgierd stepped forward and briefly caressed the statue's hair. "Lifeless and boring like a boulder on the roadside," he said, shoving it to the ground. On impact, the statue broke in several spots. Now the Redanian nobleman turned to look at it. "Looks a little more interesting now. Come now, let's go join the others for some refreshment."

Geralt followed Olgierd out of the room again, and onto the balcony that peered over the area where the Wild Ones were frolicking. "Long live the Ataman!" One of them called when he noticed the two men walking above.

"Long live the Ataman!" Another called out. "Long live Ataman Olgierd!"

"Long live the Ataman! Long live the Ataman!" The Wild Ones cheered in unison.

"Join us, Ataman Olgierd," one of them said once the cheering finally stopped.

Olgierd turned to Geralt. "Well, we can hardly refuse them now, can we?"

Well you could… "Lead the way."

The two men went downstairs again, where Olgierd took a particularly fancy couch for his own, which was a little distance from the others. "Fetch us some wine, dear, and a nibble or too," he said along the way to a young lady in a green dress who did not look like one of the Wild Ones at all.

Geralt decided he wanted to get this done as quickly as he could. "Monster in the sewers, know anything more?"

"I've no clue what it is," Olgierd said, studying Geralt, "only that it's deadly. I'd not have bothered were it not for it killing my cook. The way she prepared game… she had no equal."

Sounds like a load of shit. "That why she was in the sewers? To fetch game?"

Olgierd was taken aback. "Nay… she went to a fair with a sister or cousin- doesn't matter. Daft wench convinced her that a prince had transformed into a toad down in the sewers. And you know women- each craves a prince and will wad knee deep in shite to get him. Vissy was no different in that respect. Down she went- never to return. Wasn't the first either- it seems."

The young lady with the green dress came back with a platter of drinks and some snacks, then set them down on the table. One of the Wild Ones who Geralt hadn't seen before was standing behind her, and with a grin decided to slap her ass.

Geralt was surprised by what Olgierd did next. "Hey! Leave her be!" he told the man, who cautiously stepped away. "Is that any way to treat the lord of the manor's daughter?" Then the ginger outlaw returned his attention to Geralt. "So, the contract. Will you take it?"

"Consider the beast gone."

"Confident," Olgierd said, smiling, "bring me its head and the reward shall be yours. In the meantime, it grows late, and it's a full day from here to Oxenfurt. Why don't you stay the night? Herodore can tend to your horse as punishment for harassing dear Emilith."

Geralt sat down. Redania was safer to travel than Temeria was, but that still didn't make travel at night while alone the safest either. He decided that he would stay.

"Perhaps you should know my mates a little better," Olgierd suggested. "How many do you know?"

"I know the name of one," he said, pointing to the man with the mustache. "That one's name is Ungus. Suppose I now know the name of Herodore too."

"Ah…"

"What's the name of the man who showed me upstairs?" Geralt wondered.

"That would be Helmut Mercidolt. Not sure where his mother got the name from, but he's got two brothers, Roxo and Rudi. Roxo's the one who you met when you took the contract."

"So you were expecting me?" Geralt said.

"I was. Didn't know you'd be here so soon though."

"What about the others?"

"Adela over there in red is certain that it was in fact Adela who was Falka's daughter, and recently lost her man. She might have a job for you once you complete this one- finding and killing the men who killed him."

"Not interested," Geralt said, bluntly. "I don't take contracts on humans."

"Fine, fine. The two ladies over there, cuddling up to each other are Stephanie Mebalt and Lanne. Don't have any delusions of getting in bed with either one of them," Olgierd said, pointing. "Yasmin and Gorvet are siblings, come from up north. City called Blaviken, sure you've heard of it."

"Very funny." Though it had been many years, perhaps the most common nickname that he was known by was The Butcher of Blaviken. In these parts especially, knowledge of the story was not too hard to come by.

"Man over there in green is Zorin. There's Ellen, Floris, Roman… Baldur over there is from Skellige, not Redania- took a good deal of convincing to let him in. And Robbert."

"That all of you?"

"Some of us have died," Olgierd said, only sounding a little saddened by the fact. "Got a couple off doing something else."

There was one woman who Olgierd had not told him the name of, who walked over to him. "And my name is-"

"-Olgierd von Everec, I remember," he interrupted. "That's what you told me."

The real Olgierd let out a small chuckle. "That's Elli," he said as the young woman sat down in Geralt's lap. "Think she wants you to entertain her for the night. I'll leave you to it."

Olgierd von Everec stood and walked away, leaving Geralt with Elli still sitting in his lap. "Your Ataman order you to do this?" Geralt asked.

"No," she said, looking almost offended. "Never had a witcher before. Wanted to know what it's like." He decided she was the prettiest of the ladies he'd seen among Olgierd's company. She only wore a single pendant necklace and earrings for jewelry, to go with her plain white blouse that had a low neckline. "I want you to entertain me for the night."

"And how's that? You want me to take you upstairs and-"

"-shag me till midmorning? Later, witcher. First, let's have fun."

"What's the celebration about?" He asked, looking at her blue-grey eyes. "Something important going on?"

"Ataman Olgierd's new saber arrived," Elli answered, "but it's not too much more than the usual round here. I figured it was more worth celebrating you, the brave witcher who'll slay the beast that prowls the sewers."

"Uh huh. So…"

"First we drink," Elli said, standing up from Geralt's lap and getting two mugs of beer. She gave one to Geralt, and kept the other for herself. "Cheers!"

"Cheers," he said, considerably less enthused. He drank the Redanian brew, which was meant to taste better, even if it wasn't as strong as other beers, taking it all in with just a few gulps. When he set the mug down, completely empty, Elli looked impressed.

"Well well," she said, smiling. She invited Geralt over to a table. "Come on, let's play poker."

"Not looking to lose money," Geralt informed her. "Would prefer to keep it, in fact."

"Then don't lose," Elli retorted.

They played poker with the two siblings from Blaviken, Yasmin and Govert. Luckily, Geralt was dealt some lucky hands early, which won him enough coin to play cautiously the rest of the night without losing any, while the man Govert almost immediately lost all of his coin and was ultimately replaced by Roman Ertalop, who Geralt still couldn't have said anything about by the end of the night.

After that, Elli invited him to a knife throwing competition. Unfortunately, knife throwing was not a skill he'd honed often enough and he finished third out of five, behind Baldur Darce, the Skelliger and Elli herself.

The rest of the night was less distinguishable. He proved to be a champion of arm-wrestling, and they got to see some tricks put on by Ellen Auvoff. It was past midnight when they all finally started to go to bed, as the festivities moved outside in respect of those who were taking their leave of the night.

He retreated to Elli Fetalen's bedchamber that night, where she showed him a splendid time. When it was done, his naked lover for the night was laying next to Geralt, whose urges had been satisfied. "Perhaps you could take me with you to Oxenfurt," Elli suggested. "I can help you fight the monster in the sewers."

"No," he said, bluntly shaking their head. "What happened tonight between us will stay here. You cannot help me fight the monster in the sewers." Oddly, he found himself thinking back to what he had told King Foltest after he insisted on going with Geralt to attempt to lift Princess Adda's curse. "In the sewers, I cannot have my focus break, even for a second. That can be the difference between life or death. I must work alone in this."

Elli Fetalen stared at him with disappointment. "Well maybe you can return to me once it's done?"

"I'll give it thought," he promised, though he doubted it would come to pass. After he was done with this monster, he wanted to never see Olgierd von Everec and his Wild Ones again.

"You nervous about fighting the beast down there?" she asked him.

"Not at all," he answered. "Fighting monsters is what I was trained to do. We're not supposed to feel nervous about anything."

"Aye… you witchers aren't supposed to feel anything are you?" she said. "So how's it you succumbed to my charms?"

"They don't take all the feelings from us," he responded.

"Ah… so it's just some of them, then, eh?" Then she moved on top of him.

He clasped her shoulders with his hands, but didn't use it to push her off. Instead he just used it to pull her closer.

Geralt wanted to dream of Elli when he fell asleep. But it wasn't her that he dreamt of. It was Yennefer.

They were fighting together atop a snow-covered mountain, him with a sword and her with her magic, against a strange orb… a djinn, he recognized, like the one he and Yennefer had faced off with all those years ago in Rinde. Strangely, they were fighting on… a ship, atop the snow covered mountain, but it was only half of a ship.

It was all madness, until Yen finally seemed to take control of the djinn, encasing it in a magical casing of her own. "Got you!" she cried triumphantly.

But Geralt only watched, saying nothing.

"Your master died before uttering his last wish! I cannot capture you! We can struggle like this for eternity, or I can release you! If you do one thing for me!"

He didn't know if she really could keep this up for eternity. But knowing Yen, she would keep it up for a damn long time.

There was an inhuman cry of anguish from the djinn.

"Do you see the spell that binds us?" the raven-haired sorceress continued to ask.

Another cry from the djinn.

"Only a djinn can remove another djinn's spell! Remove this one, and you'll be free!"

The djinn said something else… something that seemed a little more coherent, despite it not being in any language that Geralt knew. Whether Yennefer knew what it meant or not, he didn't know… but she suddenly let go, releasing the djinn, which disappeared in a cloud of mist.

The stormy skies suddenly cleared. As he walked over to Yen, he pointed that out, while she was leaning on part of the rail. "Yes… it's all over," she agreed.

"You look dazed," he told her. "We should go sit down."

"I'm fine, just a bit…"

Geralt put his arms around her, and walked her over to a part of the ship's side where there wasn't a rail, which made for a decent spot to sit. They sat there for a little while, with the spell that had once bound them gone forever. Somehow in this dream, he'd known that this was her plan. That this was the job she'd asked for his help in.

"Feeling a little better?" he finally asked.

"I told you, I'm fine," she insisted.

"Don't need to play tough in front of me. That was a hard fight. Maybe not as hard as the last time we tamed a djinn, but…"

Yen was amused by that. "Half of Rinde suffered that time. Now… I'm just a bit tired," she said smiling. After a pause, she said, "Thank you for coming, Geralt. I'd have had a much harder time of it on my own."

"Well I never could say no to you," he said, reminiscing.

"Mmm… perhaps that will change now," she replied, with a more serious expression.

"Feel anything? That anything is… different?"

The sorceress thought about it. "I expected… I don't know what I expected actually. A bit of vertigo, perhaps." She looked out at the mountains ahead briefly, then back to Geralt. "I thought… you'd become a stranger to me… I'd look at you and not feel a thing. But it's not like that at all. Nothing's changed."

Now it seemed like she was waiting for him to tell her if he felt like something had changed. But it didn't. He'd loved her even before he'd made the wish to bind them together, that was why he had done it. All that had happened since, their cycle of reunion and breaking apart, sharing Ciri together, being broken apart on Thanedd, finding each other at Stygga, dying together and being taken to Avalon… he couldn't forget any of that. He didn't see how that would change things now. "I still feel the magic too," he replied. "I still love you, Yen."

When she smiled, something seemed different about it. He'd said and done things that had made her happy of course, but he'd never seen a look of pure joy like this which he had caused himself. He was reminded of her and Triss reuniting with each other, or when he told her about how Ciri had freed him from the Wild Hunt, or her laughing at the jokes of Zoltan Chivay and Jaskier. It was the brightest smile he'd seen on her face since… well only several days earlier when they had given Ciri her witcher's medallion.

She kissed him right on the cheek then, an awfully greedy kiss too. He wanted her then, right there at the top of the world, no matter how cold it was, or how tired they felt after that fight. But she seemed to be restrained after that.

"I lied to you, Geralt," she told him, with a look of fear on her face then. "I didn't tell you something that I should have…"

He looked at her with confusion. He'd come to accept Yen's secrets after the time they'd shared on Avalon. He knew that if she wanted him to know something, she'd tell him, and had come to trust her reasons for not wanting him to know particular pieces of information. Even still, through all of this, he couldn't think of a single time in all their misadventures when she might have betrayed him either. When it came to the djinn, nothing she'd done contradicted what she told him earlier. "Yen… what do you mean?"

"Do you remember when we were back in Flotsam?" she asked. "There were those two scholars, tried to get us to take some concoction they made…"

"Yeah…" Geralt had turned them down immediately, figuring they were either trying to poison them or running some kind of scam. "Did you talk to them?"

"Well yes," she agreed. "They told me what the potion was. It was supposed to restore the fertility of those who had been sterilized through magic, effective in both a sorceress like myself, and a witcher like you."

"You took it, didn't you?" he asked. He had wondered if she might have been wanting to use this chance to hunt down a djinn to get her fertility back again, rather than to undo his last wish. She'd been wanting to restore her ability to have children for many years now after all, and that didn't seem to have changed since Avalon. The only issue was that he didn't know of anyone who she had slept with apart from himself since Flotsam.

"And… you did too," she told him, with a quiet voice. I drank it myself, first, didn't see any harmful effects, and they told me the change wouldn't be immediate… so I gave it to you too, slipped it in something you were drinking when you weren't paying attention. "I… worried you would say no, and… well I wanted to… I wanted for us…"

"You wanted me to be the father of your children?" Geralt guessed. He would have been angry at her over this before. She'd given him a potion like that without his knowledge, with unknown and potentially devastating consequences. But he saw things as she did too, he saw her desire… the fact that she had wanted him to do it too… "You came here to tell me that I might be fertile now, because of a potion we took a while back?"

She shook her head. "I wanted to bring you here too… tell you that… I think it's worked, Geralt. I think we are… I'm…"

Pregnant.

"Yen…" he said, suddenly feeling completely unsure of himself. "You're…"

She gave him a firm nod. Tears were starting to form in her eyes. "I brought you here because… because I couldn't bear the thought that I'd… forced this on you, Geralt. I broke our trust, and… I wanted to give you the chance to… to… go if you wanted. I should have told you the truth from the beginning… but… I wanted it… so… so bad." She sniffed then. "If you want, I'll… take you back to Kaer Trolde… or Kaer Morhen or wherever, and… I'll stay away. I won't burden you with… something you didn't ask for." Then she looked away and began to cry, setting her hands in her lap, close to her stomach, but not quite touching it.

All those years that I figured she'd never find a way. That she'd never be able to do the impossible. With Ciri… it felt like maybe we had done it together, but… she still managed to do it literally too. His mutations made tears impossible, and had always muted his emotions. But if there ever had been a moment when he wished that he could cry, it was this. Not to cry to express himself, but perhaps to cry with her, to show how he cared.

Instead, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer. Then he set his hand on the cheek that was further away and made her head turn towards him, so that they were making eye contact.

"Yen," he whispered quietly. "I'll… never leave you again." He slipped his hands under hers, and felt as she pushed them against her. "I can't let you do this alone. I won't let you do this without me… not if I could help it." After Avalon, Geralt had sometimes struggled to feel as though life was still worth living. Compared to the sheer bliss of the island, where nothing seemed to hurt, no grief needed to be felt, and where he and Yen were so happy together, being back in the world of the living had been unpleasant. But there, nothing changed, not for better, not for worse. One day, he'd be glad to return there, but for now… After all they'd been through, the betrayals, both suspected and real, the times they'd left each other with such anger and hate, every time they'd fought and loved, he couldn't bring himself to be angry with her now, even if he wanted to.

Geralt moved in for a kiss. When their lips met, it was like kissing her for the first time all over again. Her lips had a sweetness to him, that was unlike anything he'd ever known, and the ever-present scent of lilac and gooseberries hung in the air.

"I love you, Yen," he said as they broke apart. Things had changed for him, he realized. He loved her now more than ever.

She smiled then, with tears still streaming down her face. "Maybe we can… take this back to Kaer Trolde."

"No," Geralt said. For a second, he wanted to make love to her right there, aboard the ship on top of the world. But that wasn't it either. "Kaer Morhen," he said. "I want us to go to Kaer Morhen."

"Why?" Under a more normal circumstance, she would have probably been asking if he was planning on turning her into a witcher now, or asking what made him want to go to the old keep so badly. But her inquisition didn't reflect an unhappiness with the idea that he would have otherwise expected, just a curiosity.

"We'll have the castle all to ourselves for now," he said, smiling. That was probably the only reason that either of them needed, but he had more. "The world won't be able to find us there… don't have to worry about people deciding to hunt us down from the mainland like we do here on Skellige. We'll have all the peace we need to deal with a baby."

She was still crying, but she smiled too, as if she liked the thought.

"When our child is born… well no witcher's ever fathered a child before. Vesemir won't want to let it out of his sight. He'll want to see if we can continue the line of witchers through having children, and we'll all need to see them um… well the effects."

Yen looked at him carefully. "Would you… raise our child to be a witcher?" she asked, wiping away some of the tears on her face now.

He knew her well enough to know he couldn't give her a blunt yes in response. "We can train them like one… but I know you'll want to make certain they can be whatever they want to be, won't you?"

Once a long time ago, he'd thought Yennefer would make a terrible mother. But even regardless of what had happened with Ciri, there was something in how she smiled now in response to that which told him it wasn't true. "Maybe they'll be a mage," she said, smiling. "We won't be so far from Ban Ard… and a portal can get us to Aretuza real quick too…"

"Did you tell Ciri?" Geralt asked.

"No… I only merely hinted at it to Jon," she answered. "But when she comes back again… we'll have a little brother or sister for her." For just a second, it seemed like she tried to collect herself again. Then she broke into a fit of sobbing.

Geralt pulled her onto himself, so that he could hug her while they were still sitting. He kissed her once, then she buried her head in his chest. If he could have had a wish of his own from the djinn, it would have been for this moment to last forever. But as he hugged Yennefer tightly, he felt himself being called to wake.

He had to leave her.

As he woke up, he was still in bed with the Wild One who he'd fallen asleep with. He had loved her last night, but now he felt nothing for her. It was Yennefer he wanted now.

Is it true? Is that what Yennefer wished me to help her with? Was she planning all of that just to reveal she was pregnant with my child? The details made sense to him. There had been scholars in Flotsam who'd tried to get them to take a mysterious potion, and he remembered her having been gone for a couple of hours. He also remembered a little later that night, he'd drank a bit of water which had tasted funny, but he had dismissed it as simply having been an issue with Flotsam's water, rather than someone putting something in his drink. Yet where is she now?

He'd last seen her three years ago, and had so rarely thought about her since then. If she'd tried to hunt the djinn down all by herself…

Geralt felt something that he was not usually supposed to feel. Fear. He feared to learn what had happened to Yen, the same way he had after the Battle of Sodden. Only this time it was worse. So much worse.

In the time it had been since they had last seen each other, Geralt had slept with a fair amount of women, most recently the Elli who he was laying with now. Have any of them fallen pregnant with my child? And Yen… He thought back to her telling him that if he wanted, she would leave and take the child too, so that he wouldn't have to be bothered with them. Did she take me not going with her to mean that I wasn't interested? Did that djinn kill her? Did she manage to even succeed in her quest?

He decided he would go back to Skellige. He would need the coin from Olgierd to buy passage on a ship to the islands. He'd try to track her down there, see if anyone had seen her, and look for any other places she might have gone after that. Even if she was dead, he would find her. He'd find her and made sure she'd been laid to rest properly. If he couldn't find her, he'd get help. Ciri or Triss or somebody else would be able to help him find her. And if she was hiding from him, he'd make it clear that he wanted to be with her again.

That child… must be at least two years old now, he thought to himself. After years of wishing that he and Yennefer and Ciri had gotten more time together, the three of them all at once, he wouldn't let that same chance slip from him again.

Geralt slipped away from Elli Fetalen without waking her up. He gathered his things, said a word of parting to one of the Wild Ones who was sitting outside, and then departed with Roach for the city of Oxenfurt.

Finding his way back to Oxenfurt was considerably easier than it had been to find his way to the Garin Estate. It was a massive city for one, the cultural capital of all Redania and almost as large as the free city of Novigrad.

The most interesting part of the ride back was eavesdropping though.

"I heard that a black-haired witch has taken her place at Emperor Emhyr's side in Vizima," he heard a merchant saying to a customer as he passed. "Can't say which one… true, but you know how the Nilfgaardians are with sorcerers."

"Aye," agreed the customer. "You think it's true?"

"Probably," the merchant agreed, "the only question's which one. Ha! Which!"

The two men shared a hardy laugh. Geralt might have stopped to ask for details, but he figured that was sufficient. If it was true, Fringilla Vigo seemed the most likely candidate, since she was Nilfgaardian. Philippa in bed with the Nilfgaardians was a bit of an outlandish thought to Geralt, but he didn't think it was impossible either. He'd never told Yennefer the secret that he knew about Emhyr var Emreis, not out loud anyway, but she was fond of reading his mind… if she knew the secret, he doubted she'd ever be willing to support Emhyr. Yet it still seemed like a possibility that was perhaps worth exploring.

In a different village, he caught part of a different conversation. "Heard there's bounties on more witches now, sir. You know, them Lodge of Sorceress whores. They got a few of 'em, aye, but they're lookin' for more now. Is it so?"

"It's true," agreed the other man, who seemed like a witch hunter from the Order of the Flaming Rose. For just a second, Geralt thought the witch hunter looked like the merchant who had been talking earlier. "We've bounties on the heads of Philippa Eilhart, Triss Merigold and Keira Metz. Damn women have probably fled far away from here though. We keep spotting Merigold in Novigrad, but no one's caught her. We'll get them in time."

"But the new bounties, who are they?" asked the first man.

"Lesser witches, mostly. We've caught several of the Lodge since they were revealed to us. Couple more we think we're getting close too… As of now, we've put a bounty on all the Lodge now, with a few exceptions."

"And what would those be?"

"Well… there were a couple that were Nilfgaardians. The black ones have to handle those. The ones we already captured have already had their bounties paid of course. The Queen of Dol Blathanna was one of them, so we haven't put a bounty on her yet, but the other elf, we did. And there was one who nobody's been able to verify the existence of."

"Really?" Now the first man seemed particularly interested. "A sorceress so secretive we don't even know if she exists?"

"Indeed. A woman named Cirilla of Vengerberg, the supposed daughter of Yennefer of Vengerberg. Yennefer was thought dead too, until she reemerged." The witch hunter leaned in close, talking like he was going to tell a secret, but Geralt could still hear it. "You know what I think is that it was Cirilla who died though, not Yennefer, and then Yennefer just went into hiding for a while to grieve."

Geralt rode out of earshot after that.

The witch hunts in light of the Summit at Loc Muinne had been a complicated matter for him. That had been why he and Yennefer had ultimately gone to Skellige to begin with, while Yen largely avoided the rest of the Lodge. Ciri was technically a part of their group as well, but she'd only ever attended one meeting, where they tried to force a new life on her, and on her trip to Rivia where she was supposed to say goodbye to him, a pogrom which had led to Geralt and Yennefer dying. Afterwards, Ciri had not bothered to go back to serve as the Lodge's pawn and give birth to Prince Tankred Thyssen's bastard son, instead going onto her own adventures.

He only knew the whereabouts of a few of the others. Triss had parted with him and Yen after the Summit of Loc Muinne, Philippa had managed to escape the clutches of the witch hunters not long after Summit too, Shaela had been almost exploded by her megascope until Geralt had saved her, and he didn't know where she'd gone after that, Sabrina had fled to Kaedwen, where she'd taken up the title of Queen of the Unicorn Dynasty, after King Henselt's death and Assire's corpse had presumably been disposed of sometime after the Summit too, for the sorceresses who had been present at Loc Muinne. He assumed Margarita was long dead after the witch hunters had sacked Aretuza. Ida and Francesca were probably minding their own business in the Valley of Flowers through all of this, which left just Fringilla and Keira, neither of whom Geralt had seen or heard from in years.

It was Yennefer that he focused on as he rode to the city. In fact, he could hardly take his mind off of her, silently taking inventory of people he might be able to ask for help. A sorceress would be good, preferably Triss, but if not, maybe he could find Keira who owed him a favor after he helped her during the Coup on Thanedd or Shaela. He didn't know where he'd find them though, but he probably could easily get an audience with Sabrina Glevissig. Roche had his own business, as they'd discussed the day before, but Zoltan and Jaskier were probably not up to anything too terribly important right now. He hated portals, and it wasn't exactly safe for Ciri with how she was being hunted, but if nothing else worked, he knew she'd be willing to search the world far and wide with him for Yennefer.

Getting into the city was a little bit tricky, and he had to deal with the Redanian soldiers who were patrolling the gate, but after that, Geralt was free. He had to leave Roach at a stables, then began looking around for an entrance into the sewers.

Ultimately, there was a well which already seemed to be used for getting down into the sewers though, as there were a couple of soldiers there, and a ladder leading down. "How big's this hunt for the monster in the sewers?" he asked as he approached.

"The Toad Prince," one of the soldiers said, "it's been pretty big… got a few of our boys down there now."

"Ah," said Geralt, "well, if you wouldn't mind, I'm here on a contract to hunt it."

"A contract?" replied a different soldier. "Who gave it?"

"Olgierd von Everec."

The three guards chatted in a quiet whisper then, discussing if they should allow Geralt to proceed or not. Geralt could hear every word they said, but feigned as though he couldn't.

"Since it's a contract by a nobleman, you may pass," said the second guard after their brief deliberation. "Provided, you are qualified for it."

"I'm a witcher," Geralt said, "hunting monsters is my trade."

"I told you," muttered the third guard. "Those swords, and 'is eyes… has to be a witcher."

Geralt went forward into the well, then began his descent. It was a pretty bad fall if one were to not have the ladder to climb down, and at the bottom, it was more ruin than sewer. At least at first.

It didn't take him long until he stumbled upon the first dead body. A long decaying human carcass, with signs of slash wounds, rather than being killed by a monster.

He kept going though, slowly walking through the underground system, as it slowly changed from cavernous ruins into a true sewer.

The second body he came across was much newer. A Redanian soldier with wounds on his face, slumped against a pillar. Dead. It looked much more apparent that it was killed by a monster of some kind. And it was fresh.

Slowly drawing his silver sword out, he realized that he was not the only human there. He could hear the rhythmic thumping of chest compressions.

"Oh no you don't!" a familiar woman's voice said, "Hear me? Don't you dare!" As he started to get around the corner, "Please don't do this to me."

"Shani?" he said, emerging.

"Geralt?" she replied, instantly looking up, clearly startled. She wore her usual attire, with a green vest over a white blouse, with a skirt and leggings. Her red hair was cropped short, as was her custom, though she had a bruise on her cheek.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Trying to save his life," she replied, turning back to the man who she was hunched over. "Help me!"

"He's dead, Shani. Calm down."

Shani was panting from exhaustion as she continued to make compressions. "There must be… something I can do to… help him," she said.

Geralt put a hand on her shoulder and tugged her away. "There's nothing," he insisted. He gathered that the man had been dead for a long enough time that there wasn't even hope of a revival- let alone considering how bad his wounds were.

"Dammit!" Shani shouted, with a groan after that. "All that for nothing…"

"You did all you could," he assured her. Now he could see just how covered in blood her sleeves and hands were.

"Thanks, Geralt…" she said, now facing him up. "It's uh… good to see you."

Author Notes:

Thanks for reading!