Chapter Text
No one returned.
It had taken hours for his vision to settle, hours more still for the thickness in his head to wane. Geralt listened as his pulse gradually cleared his ears--the slow hammering of it was constant, beating with a thrum behind his eyes. Time crept ever onward and, as the cold light of dawn started to drive the stars out, he cracked his eyes.
Elves moved quietly and the stone floors didn't bend under their weight. They were able to travel so quickly and so stealthily that he nearly missed their approach all together. He heard them when they entered the hall outside of his cell, but only just. The whistling wind hid them from his hearing, from the focus he tried to direct to that hall, until they were nearly at the door.
There were three sets of boots. Two of them wore metal armor and scabbards, the last wore nothing he could hear, not beyond the sounds of their footfalls on the floor. They came to the door and, for the first time, Geralt heard them open the latch that held it closed.
There hadn't been any lock.
"Hmm."
The door was thrown open and three armored elves entered in a rush, eyes darting and expressions steeled--he recognized the woman who came through first and she didn't bother glancing aside as she entered. Her gaze fell straight on him. Geralt stared back at her and, in that moment, he knew that she'd finally been given the order to do more than beat him with the club she held.
Time seemed to hold, in that moment after they had entered. They held each others eyes and he heard her suck in a steadying breath through her teeth. There would be no demand, no insults--she knew what he was, now.
That was why she had help.
The two who followed her--hardened soldiers with impressive scars and wary stances--they hadn't been caught up in that tangle, they had turned their attention to the edges of the room that were hidden by the door. They spent that bare moment unwisely, used it to scan the whole of the room before they looked to him. He wondered what they were searching for, what merited the wasted time, but in the end it didn't matter.
They should have drawn the swords at their sides instead.
That moment broke apart the very instant those elves turned to Geralt. Lyfia didn't flip her club this time, didn't posture, and charged forward to bring that club down with all of her strength. It was a move that left her open, that took all her force, that had both her hands bracing against the haft--it had been a good plan, to try a heavy blow like that while he was bound.
She was more efficient than he'd guessed she'd be. She might've had him, if his ties had been stronger or more numerous.
Geralt had been correct about how little effort it would have taken to break his bonds. The cord around his wrists snapped under the full flex of his arms and he twisted as she lunged, straining against the weight behind him. Her club swung past him and grazed his chest--he lunged forward, jolting the cord that tethered him with a splintering creak, and grabbed the haft of that club.
Lyfia snapped in Elder and drove her club forward into his lunge. It was a smart move and he lacked the balance to contest it. She shoved him back, hard, and he bent back over a curved wooden surface--a chest? In a flash she had a hand raised and her forearm swinging down to catch him across the face. Geralt jerked her weapon and here he found leverage--she lost her footing, desperate to keep a hold on that club, and Geralt's free hand grabbed her by the elbow. Her eyes were wide when he yanked her down and drove his forehead into her face.
Lyfia staggered back, and the smell of fresh blood filled the air.
The men she'd brought with her were soldiers but Geralt moved with monstrous speed and Lyfia had been a far sight faster than either of them. She attacked, he caught it, she shouted, and only then had they finally drawn their blades from the scabbards. Lyfia staggered, bleeding and disarmed, eyes glazed, and Geralt had her club before either elf could swing. The first brought his sword down in an arch and Geralt was able to deflect it aside--the club was ungainly and he was unaccustomed to it but it had its uses--he flipped it to his other hand, righted it, and when the second elf stabbed , he hooked it round his wrist and levered it up as he yanked back.
The elf shouted as the bones of his wrist snapped and, at once, Geralt was able to release the club an catch the sword he'd dropped. It hadn't even hit the ground before he caught it--a smooth outward arc of the blade carved a narrow furrow out of his chest plate and scraped the stone floor. The sound was grating and terrible, but it freed him of his bonds.
The armed soldier did manage to catch him in the side, then, with a stab to the gap of his armor. It glanced as Geralt freed himself and while it caught his stomach and cut a messy line across it, the sword hadn't managed to dive deep enough to do real damage. The elf drove it forward with force enough that the blade came out through the armor on Geralt's other side but, unfortunately, his attack brought him in close. Geralt wrapped his free arm around that elf's sword arm and held him in place as he cut it clean off at the elbow.
The limb hit the floor as Geralt finally stood. His legs were mostly numb--when Lyfia threw the dagger and it hit his thigh, he barely felt it connect. He looked back to find her crouched, teeth bared and face half covered in blood--her nose was still dripping. Geralt hesitated, then, because she did not reach for another dagger. The elf at his side, the one with the broken wrist, did not.
The curved dagger flashed in Geralt's periphery and he managed to parry it aside before it caught him across the face. It clipped his hair as he leaned away--he bit out a hiss as the blade through his armor cut back into his stomach and he was forced to step back as he drew it back out. The pain had distracted him--the soldier kicked the club back to Lyfia and by the time he had drawn that sword free, he faced two armed opponents.
The room stank of blood. He could hear the racing of their hearts, all save the elf behind him, who had fainted and whose heart beat weaker with each passing thrum. It was Lyfia who lunged first, her club in hand and her footwork fast--her face had already started to swell and he could taste the fear on her. The soldier at her side didn't wait, he went low as she struck high.
Geralt blocked her with one blade, had planned to parry with the other, but she was deft with that club and a twist of it had the blade shifting in his grip, too slick with blood to prevent it. She yanked it aside and swung in for a kick.
She was the greater threat between the two opponents and Geralt made a decision. The elf at his side carved his dagger against Geralt's armor, drove it through in a cut that was deeper than he'd have liked. Geralt let him and, when it was embedded between the studded leather and the Witcher's flesh, he flipped the other sword and drove it down through the soldier's neck. The man fell limp and Geralt stumbled back as Lyfia's kick caught him right across the long sword wound.
Geralt abandoned both blade as he stumbled, freed both hands, and left Lyfia unbalanced. She had to cast the sword aside, sling the one she'd tangled in the curve of her club to the ground, and when she did, Geralt lunged and struck her with his fist. He caught her in the throat and her eyes went wide as she was knocked back. Her grip on her club didn't falter, but he could see where she choked, where her breathing went tight.
She pulled her club around, swung it, but went wide.
Geralt knocked her back with another blow to her torso--the rest of her air was driven from her, then, and she gaped as he grabbed her head round her ears and pulled her down as he drove his knee up.
She hit the ground alive, but unconscious, and her club tumbled from her fingers. It clattered to the stone floor and then it was quiet once more.
Adrenaline had driven the numbness from his legs and fingers and, as he stood, he began to feel his injuries. He pulled the dagger from his thigh--a short thing that had only held on because the end had a hooked curve. He tossed it aside and eyed the much larger, curved blade that was caught in his side, buried in the leather of his armor. That wound had cut deeper than he liked, he could already feel how it would part when he drew the blade out.
"Fuck," he hissed and left the dagger in as he searched himself. He hadn't yet taken stock--they'd taken all of his weapons, all of his belts, the pouch he wore on his hip. The only things he'd been left with were his armor and his medallion. His first task, then, had to be retrieval of his equipment and the potions he'd brought. Until then, he would have to leave that blade in place and that...for so many reasons, was less than ideal.
Geralt knelt and, with a sharp yank, pulled the blade from the elf who'd gifted him his newest dagger. The body fell in a heap once it was free and he swung the steel once to knock the worst of the blood from it. It splattered messily but, when he walked from that cell, the blade had only scattered beads and streaks of gore upon it. He wiped what remained on the outside of his leggings and hoped he wouldn't soon be leaving a trail of his own.
The hall beyond the cell was empty and the only sounds that greeted him as he stepped out into it were distant and came from below. There was a yard somewhere to the south--the north end, by the sounds of it, was windward. Geralt didn't relish the idea of meandering through an open area with an injury and, if pressed, he would have guessed any steps on the windward side of the mountain would be sparsely populated.
He headed north--or planned on it, and started moving with that steel sword in one hand and his other braced against the dagger buried near his hip. The doors in his hall were sparse, the rooms beyond were dark and smelled of damp and mold. None had been opened in some long time and, unfortunately, that complicated matters.
If the other prisoners were not kept here, then he had to find them. His cell had been awash in blood before he could find the scent of the woman who came to him last night. Without Cat, he couldn't track something so faint, not against wind and crowds. He could follow the path of those soldiers, Lyfia and the two he'd killed, but that was not a guarantee he would find anything--what if he followed their steps back and found himself in a guardhouse? In a training yard?
Geralt knew how fast, how dangerous he could be. He knew how hard it would have been for anyone here to face him in single combat...but now he had a messy wound and unfamiliar weapons. If he ran into any substantial force, this would become either a massacre or his tomb.
Unfortunately, he didn't have a better idea, and the scent of those soldiers had come from the end of the hall he had already decided to check.
Fine--he decided, with a sigh, that he might as well retrace their paths, so long as they didn't tread somewhere too risky.
There were no guards stationed at the end of the hall. He heard no heartbeats, smelled no leather or elven sweat--there was just wind and pine. He leaned around the corner--the hall emptied onto a short landing, carved from the rock as it all had been, and then there was an abrupt, perilous fall beyond it.
Wherever he was, whether it was a stronghold or simply an elven village, the whole of it seemed to have been cut into and from the living stone. A set of stone stairs wound along the side of the mountain, down toward the base of the standing rocks. It was a long flight and a long fall, and the way the wall turned he couldn't tell when or where the next landing would open.
The sun hadn't risen yet, not in earnest. He had a few minutes before it did, before the last stars vanished and sunlight spilled over the horizon. Geralt moved quickly down the stone steps; the wind cut up the mountain side and whistled past him, strong and cold with the edge of weight that heralded rain.
He passed one landing and another, each with bent halls and doors set into the wall, each opened to the other side, and each carried a different series of small noises and distant scents. The wind absorbed most everything. It should have made it harder for him, but it only narrowed his searching. Three landings, four, five--he took the steps quickly and the bottom grew near. The base of the standing stone was shrouded by trees and brush. When he moved into the wake of those trees, at the very base of the steps, he caught the soldiers' scent again.
Geralt tracked that scent with swift steps but, to his frustration, the wound at his hip had stretched during his haste down the stairs. His hand pressed in further, holding the blade tucked between two fingers rather than by the handle, but he could feel it saturating his shirt. He needed his potions before the dagger could be driven deeper or pulled free.
"Do we have any more lavender?"
The voice brought him up short and he stopped. He'd heard a dozen or more whispers and distant voices speaking Elder as he took the steps, each muffled by the wind or the walls, but this was the only voice he'd heard speaking common. It was the woman who had tried to treat his face.
The hall at the base of the stairs went deep into the stones and branched out like a maze. Geralt had been following one side, tracking the soldiers' steps, but that voice had spoken as he passed a split in the hall. She was on the other side of the wall but with an edge of clarity that stone walls rarely afforded--an open door? He hesitated at the junction.
Geralt debated whether to find his pack or the other prisoners first. He would have to lead two of them clear from this place, he needed a vial of Swallow...but he also didn't know if his pack was at the soldiers' point of origin. He huffed a heavy breath, pressed his hand more tightly into his side, and veered off down the branching passage. He could already feel the blood welling between his fingers.
"There--please put that there--"
On Geralt's approach he slowed his steps again--the open door yawned down the hall and, unfortunately, the angle of his approach meant he couldn't see into the room until he was at the threshold. He heard steps, two pairs of feet walking inside, and the light crackle of a burning hearth. One set moved close enough to the doorway that their shadow cast out into the hall. The Witcher drew close to the door, as silently as he was able, and whoever stood close enough that they cast shadows had not moved off.
It was a risky decision, but he was low on time. With only a quick pause to review the sounds of the room, Geralt moved rounded the corner and stepped through. He released his wound and reached as he moved, grabbed the figure by the door and, to his consternation, discovered that the woman he wanted was not the person he had grabbed. The elf in his hands froze with panic, heart-rate spiking and breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts behind Geralt's bloody hand.
The room wasn't nearly as sparse as the cell Geralt had been held in. It was wide, had a myriad of tables and containers filled with herbs, flowers, and powders. The scent was enough to overwhelm him and Geralt felt ill. The elf in his arms had been sorting flowers into a wooden pail--the prisoner woman was standing over a basin of water, rinsing something he could not see. On a far table, near the corner, there was a basket filled with small bottles, the sort she had brought to his cell.
Beside that basket was his belt and pouch. It had been opened.
The elf in his arms drew a breath, remembered to struggle, and Geralt hadn't the time or energy to wrestle with them. He shifted them quickly, as quickly as he could, and flipped the sword in his other hand. He brought the pommel down across the back of their neck and the panicked elf went slack as he knocked them unconscious. Geralt dropped them and, as they crumpled in a heap at his feet, the human woman across the room startled at the sound.
She whipped around, a wide-mouthed bottle clutched in her soapy hands and when she saw him a blind panic gripped her. Her eyes went round and her grip failed as a tremor crept through her hands. Geralt couldn't make it across the room to catch the bottle as she dropped it, but the way she'd sucked in a breath, the terror on her face, meant he had to get to her--the bottle dropped and shattered with a loud, glassy pop. Not a moment later, the shards crunched beneath his boot. Geralt lunged to press his hand across her mouth before she could scream.
It was reflex.
He understood that.
He was not a reassuring figure, he had appeared from nowhere, soaked in blood, holding a sword, and she hadn't seen him before he knocked out the elf by the door. Her shock had caused her to drop the bottle just as the sight of him had caused her to scream--and she did, with all the force of her lungs. His hand was firm against her face and the sound was muffled to nearly nothing. She screamed hard, her face turned red with the effort, and the firm hold he had on her did nothing to calm her down.
A long, terrible moment passed after that bottle fell, after she screamed. He kept her clutched close, still--Geralt turned his attention to the door but, even as he waited, no thunder of approaching boots resounded down the hall. The world beyond that door was still and silent. The only sounds in this room were the crackling of the small hearth and the panicked half-whimpering of the startled woman he was here to free.
Geralt turned his attention back to her and felt a confused, horrified whine against his hand. A tear rolled down her cheek and he steeled his expression. The hand he'd pressed over her mouth had been the same one he had covered the elf's with, the one he'd held his wound with. It was covered in his blood. Her eyes tracked to it and then to his hip. That side of his leggings had already been stained red halfway past his knee.
"Fuck," he hissed and pulled his hand away from her mouth. The smear of blood was livid and she backed away quickly, swiping at it almost frantically with her sleeve. She sucked down air in great gulping gasps and sagged back against the tub she'd been standing at. Geralt watched her as she dissolved into hyperventilating. She would calm, though not with his help he would wager, so he simply nodded and moved to the table alongside her to grab his pouch.
The bottles inside had been shuffled, but none were missing and none had been opened. He lacked the time to question that, now, and gripped a vial of Kiss. He pulled the stopper out of it with his teeth and, with his free hand, he gripped the blood-slick handle of the dagger in his hip. With a sharp pull the blade was free and, in the same breath he downed the acrid potion. It tasted of death, liquor, and bog water but, as he drank it, he felt it spread down his throat and bite into his stomach. It was painful bordering on excruciating, but the bleeding would slow to a halt in moments.
"Is--is he--did you?" The woman on the floor had control of her brearhing by the time he drank. Her voice had gone impossibly small and, when he looked back at her, he saw how she had paled, how her wide eyes had fixed on the unconscious elf by the door. Large patches of the fallen elf's clothing were stained with blood and Geralt sighed.
"No, the blood is mine," he told her and her gaze snapped to him.
"How--why--you're here--"
"I'm here for you," Geralt said, answered as best he could given how disjointed the question had been. She didn't move and he was briefly concerned she would faint. He disn't want to carry her out of here, but he would manage if he had to. Geralt pressed a hand against the gash at his hip--already the blood around the wound had gone sticky and solid.
"No one saw me come down here, and if that crash didn't alert them, nothing will," he said. He aimed for reassuring but he had never been very good at that. He heard her breath catch and turned his attention to his pouch. He swept the bottles back in and hauled the belt and bag off the table. He bent to retrieve the sword from the floor but, as he did, a strange sensation came over him. He shivered, or something like it, and his outstretched hand seized--the muscles up his arm tensed hard, jerking and goes tense and immobile in a cascade. His fingers closed hard enough that that the limb shivered with the force of it.
What the fuck?
Geralt grunted, strained his fingers and tried to open them again. They refused to move. Had the Kiss been tampered with? Had he mixed it wrong? His fingers bit into his palm, his arm shook and flexed, frozen in place. The sensation was so strange, so sudden that it took him a moment to notice the way his medallion jumped and jittered against his armor.
Magic?
He looked back up and saw the woman at his side. Her gown was the color of blood, her skin was pale and dirty, and her wide brown eyes had a wildness to them. She had pushed herself up, had stood. He could smell the weight of her terror, could see it in the shaking of her hands--hands that were extended toward him and gripped tightly into fists. At first, it didn't make sense, but the the pull of magic shimmered just on the edge of his vision--threads of crimson and shadow stretched the distance from her fists to his arm, to his legs. They warped the space between them, bent the air like folds in fabric--shit.
She was a sorceress? No, she didn't have the look of a sorceress. She was a hedge witch.
"You--you stay away from me--" Her voice trembled but her magic did not. Her fear had a tang of desperation.
She thought he was here to kill her.
Geralt tried to speak, but the moment he moved his jaw, it seized as well. The pull was tangled with his limbs, woven around him, between the pieces of him, like spider-silk around a fly. He tried to stand, to lean back, to grab that sword, but each flinch was denied and each denial pulled the web tighter, made the threads shine brighter and cut deeper where they wrapped around and into him. He was snared, and he could do little but stare at her as she stared at him, heavy tears rolling down her cheeks as she held him.
"You won't even get paid--do you know that?" Her question was soft, hushed, and just this side of unhinged. Her hands shook as she held him in place, but where the threads cut into him like they'd been threaded on some strange needle, they didn't bite at her. "There's no gold in it--they've gone to kill him now--I haven't done anything! I didn't--I don't--why did you come for me?"
He couldn't answer, couldn't move, and he had no idea how strong she might be.
She was terrified of him...and knew what he was.
This was bad.
"I just--" her voice caught, went sharp as she swallowed around a sob. "I just wanted to help--they said they wou--I could go home, when it was done--I just--"
Her knuckles were white where she clenched her hands. Her arms strained as she pulled back toward herself, heaving a heavy weight. Geralt felt his bones creak as she moved him, stood him back up and unfolded him--his limbs fought against her, trying to hold tight in the shape she'd snared him in--she fought against her own hold over him, unwilling to release one spell as she wove the next. Everything was shuddering, splintering agony as she shoved his limbs into the right configuration to stand.
The shift gave him just a bit of freedom--the pull of the snare weakened as she moved him. It wasn't nearly enough to move an arm, to move and speak, but the more she puppeted him, the more of the threads holding him went slack. He strained against her and watched as she struggled, as her wide eyes darted over him, watching as he tensed and forced her spell to go taut.
"I just want to go home!" she snapped and Geralt felt a twinge of regret as he freed his left hand. His wrist popped and pain shot up his arm as he twisted, but he managed to form Aard--the sign pulsed the short distance between them and the witch was thrown back. The tub next to her upended with the force of Aard and a rush of water spilled across the stone. The wash water was slick and there was enough of it that it splashed to the wall before flooding back. It prevented her from keeping her feet beneath her as she staggered.
Geralt was thrown back as surely as she was, and the force of the sign nearly tossed him across the room. The threads went tight as steel wire, and cut into his skin, and dented his leather armor in a web of fine lines. The threads vibrated, strained with the distance before snapping en masse. Geralt stumbled immediately, dropping to a knee as all of his limbs released their tension at once. The witch hit the wall with a heavy, audible thump--her feet scrambled but she slid to the floor, coughing and shaking with the sudden recoil of her spell-work.
Geralt gritted his teeth and dove to retrieve the sword he'd left on the floor. The handle was wet but, at the very least, it was now wet with water rather than blood. He rose and all his joints protested, each aching with a glittering, new variety of pain--what a treat. He didn't know there were any varieties of that left to learn about. He drew a deep breath once he had finally regained his feet--the heady mix of herbs and remedies dazed him.
Remedies?
The witch coughed and shuddered against the wall and Geralt made a terrible error. His attention drifted and he let himself take in the room around them.
It was filled with dried or drying herbs, fresh flowers in buckets ready to be crushed or set out before the small hearth. Geralt looked up and found bundles of celandine hanging from pins driven into the stone ceiling. Elven healing didn't look like this, didn't smell like this--she--
She was a witch.
Geralt's attention snapped back to the far wall but the woman in red had reclaimed her feet. She was hunched over with one arm wrapped around her middle, clutching her side--the other had an open-fingered grip on the air in front of her. Her hair had fallen from its bindings and hung, half wet, around her face. It didn't manage to obscure the manic gleam in her eyes.
"I'm not--" Geralt began, speaking as quickly as he could, but the fingers of her extended hand closed and he was caught again. She swung her arm to the side, her whole face screwed up with the effort of it, and he was thrown through the air like a child's doll. He hit a shelf, knocked over a myriad of buckets and pails, and scattered flowers and herbs across everything in his wake. The snare around him went lax as he hit the floor by the door--the impact drove the air out of him, threatened to rip open the wounds on his torso that had just closed, but he held onto that sword. It was for comfort more than use, he realized, in the moment he lay prone on the floor.
He couldn't kill her.
He didn't want to, of course, but the longer he smelled the air in the room the more clear his task became. He couldn't kill her.
He needed her.
"Alva, wait--" Geralt wheezed as he reclaimed his breath. His ribs ached as he pulled himself up--the threads were still wrapped around him, he could still see them hanging limply over his limbs and glittering on the floor. The woman in red moved between him and the hearth. The space between them was cast in shadow and he watched those strands pull tight to her hand again.
Fuck.
"I have to go home!"