He wakes up with a start. Something leapt across his face, something small and hairy! And there, another one is sitting on his chest, staring at him. Filled with sudden dread, his heart misses a beat. Reflexively, he pushes it off with a vicious wave of his hand and scrambles to his feet as fast as he can, terrified. Then he gazes around through the near darkness, trembling from the dank cold in his threadbare rags, and from fear. They are everywhere. Smaller ones and big, fat ones. Scuttling and scurrying about on their short legs, their small, beady black eyes piercing the dark of the sewers, squeaking and sniffing and probing the air on their incessant search for food. Rats, hundreds of rats. He has heard stories of children who were bitten by them and died, their scrawny corpses being devoured by the hungry monsters.
He cannot stay here. Yet where can he go? It is unusually cold outside for winter in the City of Golden Towers. Sleet covers the streets and soldiers are looking everywhere for the ragtag homeless children living on the streets of the capital. But not to feed them and find a warm place for them to stay so they would not freeze or starve to death, no. To clap them in iron and make them work in the imperial mines or quarries until they drop dead from exhaustion. Better to die down here eaten by rats than work for just a minute for the hated Usurper who destroyed his family, his life. But he does not want to die. He wants revenge. Let the rats come. He has a knife. He will kill them all.
And he tries. Soon, blood is everywhere, dripping from his knife, from his hands, smeared across his face, his tattered clothes are drenched with it. However, there are millions of the beasts, a never-ending flood of dark grey bodies with gnawing teeth lusting for his flesh. He kicks and flails about and starts to scream.
Suddenly, the ground shakes beneath his feet. Somebody is calling his name. He recognises the voice. With a gasp, he force his eyes to fly open.
"There are no rats here, son, don't worry, I checked. Here, have another cup of tea, tea always helps. And then go back to sleep."
Regis. Gods, he is not in the sewers of Nilfgaard. That was long, long ago when he was just a little boy. He survived the rats then, all alone. And now he has friends, good friends. Cahir takes a deep, shuddering breath. Then he drinks the tea Regis holds out to him. The vampire is right, a nice cup of hot herbal tea does help.
"Thank you," he whispers, then lies back again in the straw and shuts his eyes. He is not alone. There are no rats. Regis would not lie to him, no.
"Come closer, idiot," a voice whispers not far from him and a warm hand sneaks toward his. Milva. They have slept huddled up together before for warmth, but thanks to the fire and the straw, it is not cold in the shed.
"This is an order, Nilfgaardian!" the archer adds sternly when he hesitates.
Right, order is order, even though he is not a Nilfgaardian. He moves closer to her and she puts her arm around him.
"Don't get any ideas, though, it's just so you won't scream like a little girl again in your sleep and wake everybody up," she says. Then she snuggles up even closer to him and gives him a peck on the cheek. "Good night, Cahir. And if there's a rat, I'll wring its scrawny neck and roast it on a spit for you."
As Milva never brags and is a woman of her word, he believes it. And soon he falls sound asleep in her arms, the horrible nightmare thoroughly forgotten.
They leave at first light after a quick breakfast. For once it promises to be a nice early spring day. Geralt's knee feels fine.