Work Text:
Geralt hears the cry about a mile off, a high-pitched yelp like an animal in pain. Could mean work, or could be another farmer beating his hound. Either way, he might as well investigate. He hasn’t seen another soul since noon and at the very least, it’ll give him something to think about besides his own sore feet.
He walks on, the road empty as ever this late in autumn. The cries get louder. After a while the path bends left and the cries come from the right. Geralt turns right and steps over underbrush with only a cursory glance at the ground. The footprints there are heavy, obvious, boots on the large size. Two men, he guesses, congratulating himself on the deduction.
Two men indeed. Geralt sees them first: tall, stringy saplings still gangly with youth. Both are armed, if those clumsy cudgels count as weapons.
At their feet lies the source of both their cries and their grins: a wolf with its paw caught in a trap. The tawny fur of its belly runs pink with blood. At the sound of his arrival, its yellow eyes flash up to meet his own.
Geralt stops. So do the two not-quite-men who can’t be older than eighteen, only a couple years behind Geralt. One of them sports a ratty mustache that gives his face a lean rodent look. The other boy is thicker, hairer.
“What’re you staring at?” the heavier one challenges. He tries on a cocksure smirk that belongs to a man four years older.
“Zandros.” The rodent-faced one bats his companion with the back of his hand. “That’s another witchman.”
Another, Geralt registers, and tucks the thought away. Now is not the time to ask questions.
Thick-boned Zandros spits at the ground. “So what?” He gives the wolf a kick to the ribs, too, setting off a flurry of useless snarls. “They’re always coming through here, begging after work. Like anybody asked ‘em.”
Brave words, but Geralt can hear the boy’s heartbeat. He’s still getting used to the rhythm of human hearts. To his ears they always sound nervous, but this one-- this one’s comically fast, like he’s on the verge of a hysterical episode.
Geralt could ask him if he needs to take a lie-down. He asks instead: “What are you doing to that animal?”
Rodent Face’s eyes skitter toward Zandros. Zandros sets his shoulders back to make up for Geralt’s extra years and height. “What, this your business all of a sudden?”
“Just asking,” Geralt says. He looks at the trapped wolf. “Wasn’t sure if you meant to ruin the pelt.”
The boys look down at the bloodied animal.
“Maybe I do,” Zandros growls, a child’s answer with a man’s hard glare. “Guess what. Nobody asked you.”
Geralt frowns. He’s tired. His shoulders are sore from carrying the weight of his armor. He’s walked ten hours today and hasn’t slept well in weeks and in his weariness, he finds one coherent thought: even an animal deserves better than this.
Geralt shrugs, more exaggerated than it could be. “Wanted to know if you’re actually an idiot, or just pretending to be.”
Rodent Face’s heart catches, Zandros’ speeds up. Little signs that Geralt’s getting used to. Now Zandros is all boxed shoulders and set jaw. “Think I’m scared of you, you… poxy freak?”
Zandros throws down the cudgel. Geralt feels his own shoulders loosen. Now this is something he understands-- the Bastion method of settling problems.
Zandros steps around the forgotten wolf. His shoulders are up, fists too. Geralt wants to grin. It’s like he’s back at Kaer Morhen.
Zandros throws the first punch. It’s human-slow. Geralt sidesteps, pivots, swings a hook that catches Zandros on the cheek. It’s a clumsy hit. To be fair, Geralt’s not really trying.
An opponent in Kaer Morhen would stumble at worst, catch his footing, and come back fast. Zandros flails boneless like a bull’s hit him. He collapses into the dirt on his belly and gets his elbows under him, but he doesn’t get up.
Geralt twitches. He’s still ready to throw punches and the adrenaline has nowhere to go. “That it?”
Zandros groans into the dirt. Rodent Face kneels next to him. His hands jitter pointlessly in the air.
Zandros gets up, finally, holding his hand to his face. “Fuckin’ freak,” he mumbles.
“Is it broken?” Rodent Face squeaks.
Zandros groans into his fingers.
Rodent Face turns quick terrified eyes to Geralt. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he can make himself look at Geralt and speak at the same time. “You didn’t have to break his face.”
“Didn’t break it,” Geralt says automatically.
“I think you did.”
Zandros just groans.
Geralt shifts his weight. “Shouldn’t’ve,” he mumbles. He means that one hit shouldn’t have been enough to break bone, but he sounds like a contrite child. It makes his guts twist. “He shouldn’t’ve attacked me,” Geralt says, louder. “He threw the first punch. You saw it.”
Rodent Face stands. One leg trembles and his heart rate’s nigh-apoplectic, but he makes himself meet Geralt’s gaze. “I saw you break his face.” The boy hesitates. With an effort he continues, voice high-pitched now but forceful: “What the hell is the matter with you? He didn’t do anything to you!”
“Know what we’ll do?” Zandros’ eyes shine bright and mean.
“What?” another voice says from the trees.
Everything in Geralt stops.
All three of them turn. Branches crunch, the underbrush shakes, and a man walks into view. That thick jaw, that dark hair, those yellow viper eyes-- Geralt must look a hundred times. Impossible.
“Go on,” Eskel says, with a dark scowl that Geralt’s never seen before. It’s Eskel’s voice. It’s him. “What’ll you do?”
The human boys shrink under his glare. The wolf whines and flattens its ears.
Eskel crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll tell you. You’ll leave. You’ll go home. And you’ll never bother another witcher again.”
“Think you own us?” Zandros mumbles. His voice is subdued but the mean light’s returned to his eyes. “Think you can do whatever you want.”
“Come on,” Rodent Face says. He puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“You’ll see.” Zandros lets Rodent Face turn him in the direction of the road. “You’ll fucking see.”
Their footsteps take a long time to recede.
Geralt sighs. Adrenaline still tingles in his hands. He wipes his palms on his trousers though there’s nothing to wipe off.
“Typical.” Eskel shakes his head. “I hear a little disturbance, come over here expecting trouble. And what do I find?”
“Sorry, Papa Vesemir.” Geralt crosses his arms too. “You still make threats like a twelve-year-old.”
“Better than fighting twelve-year-olds.”
They pretend to glare at each other for another moment.
Then: “Eskel.”
“Geralt.” The glower drops. This is the Eskel that Geralt knows. His smile hasn’t changed.
They crash together. Geralt closes his arms around the hardened, leaned-down body and inhales. Eskel smells like pine needles, clinging woodsmoke, armor soaked in old sweat. The scent of the Path. Beneath the miles of road dust, sweat, blood, there’s Eskel. Familiar. He’s thin blankets, sparring sessions, hours on the Killer, frost on the parapets, backbreaking days, sore nights. Kaer Morhen carried in bone and blood.
“Fuck,” Geralt mumbles over Eskel’s shoulder.
Eskel laughs, a long rolling laugh that Geralt feels even through their armor. It says everything at once. Geralt laughs, too, or he thinks he’s laughing in those coughed-out bursts from his lungs.
They part a few inches, enough to lift their chins off each other’s shoulders and press their foreheads together. Eskel’s forehead is damp with sweat, but it’s Eskel’s.
“Where the hell have you been,” Eskel growls.
“Working.”
That gets them chuckling again, this time in disbelief.
“Like hell, working.” Eskel’s eyes are half-closed. He breathes deep, huffing Geralt’s scent. “Bet you still get someone else to do your dirty work.”
“You’re right. I paid the monsters to play dead. They cooperated. Mostly.”
“Smart.”
Geralt lifts his hands to the back of Eskel’s head. His fingers curl against the familiar contours, root into hair that is still a brown so dark it’s nearly black. “Mm hm. Got one last tricky contract, though. I gotta track down some rogue witcher. Rumor has it he’s due back home.”
“That right? He late for supper?” Eskel’s hands frame Geralt’s waist. “Poor bastard. Bet he’s working overtime while his lazy brother slacks off.” Eskel can’t hold that look of disapproval. His face splits into his familiar wide grin. “Shit! Geralt! You’re here!”
“Don’t act so surprised!”
“I’m not. I knew you’d make it, long as you didn’t get too cocky. Or too heroic.”
They both go still.
“We made it,” Eskel murmurs. “We made it.”
Geralt laughs a little and pounds his palm against Eskel’s back. Eskel doesn’t loosen his hold.
They’re interrupted by a whine that dips into a snarl. The trapped wolf. They pull away at the same time.
“Hm,” Eskel hums, taking in the animal. “Looks like you’re all set up for the pelt business. One season, and you’re already done with the Path?”
“Not me. Found our two new friends going at it with those.” He nods at the cudgels that lie abandoned in the dirt.
Eskel eyes the cudgels, the trap, the stains in the wolf’s coat. “For kicks?”
“For kicks.”
Eskel grimaces. You know how they are, Geralt almost says.
“Not even full grown.” Eskel aims to sound casual, dismissive, but he’s no mummer. His pupils constrict and the words cover a snarl. “He’s just a yearling.”
“Yeah? Looks full grown to me.”
“Looks it, sure. Think what Kamil said.”
Geralt tries to think back. They’d spent a lot of time with Kamil in their last two years before setting off on the Path. He’d taken them into the valley for days at a time, showing them two centuries’ worth of wilderness knowledge. “‘Red spots, grave hot?’” Geralt guesses.
Eskel snorts. “It’s a wolf, not a mushroom. Nah, not that. ‘The nose knows.’”
Ah. Geralt takes the old advice and inhales. Eskel’s scent comes first and it almost dizzies him, the primitive blast of memory that Eskel embodies. All those years in Kaer Morhen, embedded in his scent.
They're not in Kaer Morhen now. Geralt steadies himself in the smells of the moment, of woods, branches, dirt, wolf fur, blood-- and in the blood, a lighter, almost sweet note--
Geralt starts. “I smell it. Like the drowner’s cave.”
“Which drowner’s cave?”
“The one Andrik wanted to bomb at first.”
“Yeah! ‘Xactly.”
Geralt remembers the scent, even if the original memory has blurred over the years. A group of them had found a riverside cave that drowners must have abandoned years ago, about an hour’s hike southeast of the fortress. Geralt had entered first, crouched, head low, Eskel paused at the entrance looking in. They’d smelled that same nearly-sweet note. Then Geralt saw eyes that shone green when they caught the light from the Igni sign in his palm. He’d found wolf pups. They squeaked and squirmed toward him, too young to be afraid. They patted their tiny paws in a cushion of dull gray fur that their mother had piled into a nest.
“They smelled young,” Geralt murmurs.
“Like this one.”
Eskel gazes at the trapped wolf. Geralt knows the look. Eskel’s given it to lame horses, birds with broken wings… one time, a fawn that had caught itself in the brambles. A sure way to get Eskel’s attention: show him something wounded.
“You do Axii,” Geralt says. “I’ll get the trap.”
Eskel nods. A sure way to get Geralt’s attention: show him something Eskel needs. “Ready?”
Eskel makes the Sign, and Geralt swears his medallion trembles. The wolf’s panting fades. Its yellow eyes stare up at Eskel’s, blank and docile.
Geralt crouches down, fumbles with the trap, finds the release. The trap springs open and still the wolf lies there, staring up at Eskel. Eskel doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. His eyes narrow. He’s exerting some effort that Geralt can’t see but his medallion thrums once, twice. An erratic heartbeat.
The yearling wolf rises unsteadily to three paws. When he stands up his legs look awkwardly thin, his head smaller and narrower than it will one day be, if he survives. The wolf doesn’t look at Eskel. He turns toward the wilderness and limps into the trees on three slow jerking legs.
Eskel holds the Sign for as long as he can. The sweat’s even thicker on his forehead when he gusts out breath.
Geralt lets Eskel breathe before speaking up. “You didn’t need to lead it forward?”
“Nah. You just…” Eskel heaves another lungful of air. “...push out an image. A feeling. They’re animals. They don’t get words.”
“What image?”
Eskel straightens. His eyes dance away, light as his grin. “Pack.”
There’s a lightness in Geralt’s chest, like his heart breathing in. He coughs. “And now we’ve let a wild wolf loose. The locals aren’t gonna be too happy.”
“The locals can lick my codpiece.” Eskel kicks one of the cudgels into the underbrush. He fixes Geralt with the yellow eyes that had held the wolf in place. “Got a place to stay tonight?”
“Ye olde bedroll.”
“Thought so. Why don’t you camp with me tonight. I’ll make sure you don’t get mugged out here.”
“By who? The twelve-year-olds?”
They huff identical laughs, each casting a contemptuous glance in the direction of the road, where Rodent Face and Zandros went.
Geralt’s lip curls. “My knight in shining armor.”
Eskel grins. “Think you’re the knight here, Sir Haute-Bellegarde. Charging in to defend damsels in distress, even if they’re wolves...”
He trails off when he sees Geralt’s face. “Hey. Geralt?”
Geralt waves a careless hand. “Just beat. Let’s camp.”
“Right. Forgot you’re a geezer, old gray-hair.”
“Hmph. I’m gonna find that wolf pack. Then I’m gonna throw you to them.”
“Yeah, tough guy?” Eskel opens his arms wide. “C’mere and try it.”
They careen into a struggle of bone, lean muscle, armor, and muffled curses like they’re boys again. The hilt of Eskel’s sword slams into Geralt’s head in the tussle and Geralt grins it off. Eskel’s head almost collides with a tree trunk. They feint and charge until they’re bent over and huffing breath. There’s dirt and leaves in their hair. They look up at each other and grin, and the game is over.
Eskel stands up, shoulders still heaving. He jerks his head toward the deeper forest, and they set off.
Geralt expects the standard-issue canvas tent and one of Kamil’s firepit designs in a concealed clearing. When he spots the rigid lines of lumber through the trees, he automatically turns away, but Eskel bumps him with his shoulder. They walk toward it instead. As they approach, Geralt sees why: this house has been abandoned to the forest for a long time. The door’s missing, the beams are overgrown, half the roof’s gone. He sniffs for mold as they enter.
Eskel stands in the doorway to watch Geralt investigate. Ingrained training; he understands. Not much left from the original inhabitants. Eskel’s things line the floor: his bolster and unfurled bedroll, a whetstone and a polishing cloth, an empty cooking pan, a glass vial holding a single amber drop. The firepit’s a tripod design. Eskel preferred that setup in Kamil’s classes, too.
“Hm.” Geralt strokes his chin. He once saw a group of four noblemen in Hengfors use the gesture simultaneously and now it comes out whenever he wants to look fancy. “I’ll give it eight out of ten for rustic charm.”
“‘Rustic charm?’”
“That’s what rich people call it.”
Eskel snorts as he settles himself down on the dirt floor, resting his back against the stone remnants of the hearth. “Who’ve you been getting contracts from?”
“Folk who can afford it. Aldormen. An alchemist. And once, a group of lords planning a banquet.” Geralt sits down with his legs splayed in front of him, one boot close enough to nudge Eskel’s thigh.
“A group of lords.” Eskel whistles. “That’s what I’m doing wrong. Heard there was work in Aldersberg. Let’s just say you can smell that city from miles off. Kept to the country roads after that, but-- not many lords hanging out in barley fields.”
“I’m telling you.” Geralt bobs his foot to tap Eskel’s leg. “Stick to the cities. The contracts pay better. And then you could afford a haircut.”
Eskel ruffles the loose mop that flops down to his chin. “You don’t like it?”
Geralt smiles. “Just saying,” he answers without answering, “you could work the streets with that look.”
Eskel offers a tentative smile in return, his dark brows furrowed.
“Ha. Right, you didn’t go to cities. Let’s just say they’ve got brothels. And sometimes the workers strut around outside to advertise.”
Eskel blinks at him. Then his eyebrows unfurrow and his pupils blow wide.
“Ha! I, ah.” Eskel clears his throat violently. “Uh. Was more thinking I had to look older. Folk kept calling me ‘boy.’ Asking where my master was. Hard to make a living that way, you know?”
“Get enough to get by?”
“I didn’t starve. Heh! Tell you what... I did this one job for a piss-poor village. Some folk didn’t have a pot to piss in, know what I mean? So after I took care of their trouble, I called the Law of Surprise.”
“Oooh. Say your prayers first?”
“Maybe I should’ve. Aldorman looks around his cottage, and absolutely nothing’s different. He’s too poor to own animals, so no foals or pups. Wife’s too old. So he looks at the hearth and he goes: ‘That’s stew! My wife never makes stew!’”
“That was your payment? A Stew of Surprise?”
Eskel opens his arms grandly. “Gonna argue with destiny, brother?”
“Hope the contract wasn’t trouble. Or that his wife’s secretly a master chef.”
“Just a wraith. The contract, I mean.” Eskel shrugs as if either of them had seen a wraith before leaving Kaer Morhen. He’s still a poor mummer. The smile growing on his lips is genuine, though. “Bagged something a lot bigger the week after.”
“Yeah? Like what-- endrega?”
“Bigger.”
“Fleder?”
“Show you.”
Geralt sits up straighter as Eskel fetches something from his pack. He swaggers back and hands over his prize with a hint of flourish. It’s a piece of broken-off animal horn.
Geralt turns the trophy in his hand. “So you killed some farmer’s bull.”
“What?” Eksel’s shoulders drop. “That’s not a bull horn. Smell it.”
Geralt taps it with his fingers, brings it to his nose experimentally. “Smells like… a bull horn.”
“That’s a damned fiend horn, Geralt. Sucker was huge. It could’ve walked up to Kaer Morhen and taken a peek over the walls. Damn, if I had a horse… Had to leave the whole damned head to rot. You should’ve seen the size of it.”
Geralt sniffs the horn again. “Wait, I’m picking up something. Smells like… bullshit.”
Eskel snatches the broken-off horn with one hand and smacks Geralt upside his head with the other. “Ahh, you’re bullshit. You’ve never even seen a fiend, have you?”
“That makes two of us.”
Eskel huffs as he tucks the horn back into his bag. He flops back down next to Geralt and rolls onto his hip to look at him. “Alright then, big bad witcher. What’d you bag?”
Geralt doesn’t look at him.
“Hey. Geezer. Starting to lose your memory?” Eskel pokes Geralt’s leg.
“Ah.” Geralt gives his head a jerk. “Mostly nekkers and drowners. Folk can’t tell the difference between a drowner and a water hag.”
“Right? Almost lost my face to a water hag. Folk just say ‘water demon’ and you figure…”
“Yeah, you figure...”
Their eyes wander to the unlit firepit.
“That fiend.” No jest in Geralt’s voice this time. “Must’ve paid well, eh? Even without the head. Folk don’t know a nekker from a drowner, but if they see something that big stomping around…”
“Nah. Didn’t pay a crown.”
“What?”
Eskel leans his head back against the hearth. “Dumbest thing. Aldorman kept insisting it was elves behind the deaths and disappearances. Had himself convinced they were off hiding in the woods, picking off folk. I told him about the tracks, claw marks, lair full of bones. Told him to head there, gut the carcass, and fish his people out of the guts if he wanted. Nah. He said…”
Eskel stares at the firepit. Geralt tilts his foot against Eskel’s thigh. Eskel’s hand drifts down to cup Geralt’s calf.
Eskel’s lip quirks. “Said I was a worthless, lying, elf-loving mutant and ran me outta town. So that was that.” He gives Geralt’s leg a decisive pat. “Anyway. You hungry?”
“Damn right,” Geralt lies. “I was waiting for you to ask.”
Kamil would be proud. Eskel gets his waterskin, knows where to find Geralt’s without instruction, and disappears out the gaping doorway. By the time he returns with full skins, Geralt’s built a roaring fire. It sputters thick plumes of white smoke and there’s a faint high whistle as it burns. Geralt lines up the other deadfall where the fire can dry it out.
They talk, more than either of them has talked to anyone these past seven months. The barley’s cooked and eaten and they still haven’t moved. Geralt rolls his shoulders. They’re permanently sore from the weight of the chainmail. He catches Eskel’s head turn away a second before their eyes meet, which means Eskel noticed.
“Ugh,” Eskel says. He stands up, makes a big show of stretching, and reaches for the buckles of his own brigandine. “Think we’re good for the night. I’m taking this shit off.”
“Tsk. This early in the night?” Geralt reaches for the strap around his waist. “Gonna tell Javor when we get home.”
“Ha! Tell him I took his advice seriously. Slept in my boots every night for eight months, even in my bedroll.”
“Especially in your bedroll. All those nekkers out there trying to chomp your toes.”
“Nekkers. Remember his ‘special weapon’ for ‘em?”
“Why would you need a special weapon for nekkers?”
Eskel’s brindandine has a lot more straps than Geralt’s got. He still has the bottom two to unbuckle. “You don’t, but he told Dimmy they can’t stand apple juice. Said it melts ‘em like acid.”
“Did Dimmy believe him?”
“What do you think?”
Geralt sighs. The chainmail’s finally off and his shoulders feel as if they can float. “Why do they let Javor talk to trainees?”
“Remember how they look, coming in off the Path?” Eskel groans as he shrugs the brigandine off his shoulders. “Poor bastards could use a laugh.”
“Think that’ll be us?”
“Nah.” Eskel grins. “We’ll come up with something better. I’ll tell the kids that brothels are places where you re-plate your sword.”
“In a way, you’re right.”
Eskel takes a second to get the innuendo. “Ha! Aren’t you a fucking jester?”
“I’m a man of many talents.”
“I remember.”
They both grin down at their remaining buckles.
When leather and metal’s piled neatly into separate places on the wall, and they’ve sighed and wiggled their spines and rolled their hips to savor the simple joy of being unencumbered, Eskel rummages through his bags again. He pulls out a bundle of old linen, which falls away to reveal a glass bottle. Something light brown and translucent sloshes inside.
“We survived our first year on the Path.” Eskel hoists the bottle aloft. The liquid sloshes inside. “I say we celebrate.”
Geralt squints. “Starka?”
Eskel grins. “Plenty of time for White Gull when we get home. Tonight’s a special occasion.”
No arguing with that. Geralt settles himself on the ground, his shoulder coming into light contact with Eskel’s. Without armor, the warmth of his brother’s body is a comforting presence. He’s still holding the bottle. The first taste is like licking burning wood, the first swallow is like drinking the flames. It’s perfect.
They pass the bottle back and forth and they’re both properly bleary when Eskel lands a wobbly finger on Geralt’s forearm. “What’s this?”
Geralt looks down at the raised whorls there. “Nekker. Was looking for a campsite in the dark and thought I got lucky when I found a cave. Turns out there was a nekker nest in the back.”
“Ohhh ho ho.” Eskel leans into Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt has to brace himself against the ground to hold them both upright. “Getting sloppy there, witcher.”
“Like you didn’t get hit,” Geralt says with a touch of pique.
“Sure did.” Eskel rolls up the sleeve of his linen shirt. There’s an ugly ring of scar tissue on his shoulder. “Drowner bite. So busy taking care of the three in front of me, I forgot to watch my back.”
Until this year, they’ve been present for each other’s scars. This is a new game, and they grin with the novelty of it. Geralt straightens his leg and points to three parallel streaks on his calf. “Wraith.”
“A wraith! There?”
“I tripped and fell over.”
Eskel tilts his own leg and points to an ugly ridge down his shinbone. “Scraped it against a rock while chasing down dinner. Didn't look where I was going.”
They both laugh, leaning their shoulders and then their whole body weight together until they’re holding each other up. Geralt lifts his right hand and points to a tiny sliver of a scar between his index finger and thumb. “Little girl in Novigrad. She asked for a crown. I gave her one. She asked for another. I said no deal. Then she bit me.”
Eskel lowers his chin into the slope of Geralt’s neck. His breath tickles. “Noble Sir Haute-Bellegarde. Always--”
“Don’t call me that.”
The tickle stops.
“Okay,” Eskel whispers into his neck.
The fire crackles; their hearts beat; they breathe-- Geralt into the air, Eskel into Geralt’s neck.
“My first monster,” Geralt says suddenly. “He--”
Geralt stops. He can’t. Not even with Eskel.
“Must’ve been three weeks on the Path,” Geralt tries again. “I was…”
The fire crackles; their hearts beat. Geralt pulls up his legs, rests his head on his arms and his arms on his knees. Eskel rests his chin on Geralt’s shoulder, brings up his own knee to lean against Geralt’s.
“I can’t sleep anymore.” Geralt’s murmuring into his legs, his eyes closed. “It’s like I can smell the blood, see the way they look when they…”
Eskel hums and presses his chin into Geralt’s shoulder twice, nodding without breaking contact. “When they die.”
Geralt nods against his arms.
Eskel shifts. His arm wraps tight around the slope of Geralt’s shoulders, a warm embrace.
“It’s alright,” Eskel murmurs.
Geralt turns his head side to side. “It’s not how they said it’d be.”
“No.”
They sit, heavy with a truth they can’t say.
“You ever feel like... like the blood won’t come off? Like contract to contract, it just. Builds.”
Eskel leans his forehead against the side of Geralt’s head. His voice is low and gentle. “That’s why we use soap, brother.”
Geralt tries to chuckle. “Oh. Is that where I went wrong.”
“Sure smells like it.”
Geralt sways into Eskel, jostling him with his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Geralt.”
“Mm?”
“It’ll be better.”
“How?”
“I dunno. It will.”
Geralt’s shoulders rise and fall, fall, fall. His head tilts by inches until his temple comes to rest against Eskel’s forehead. Eskel closes his eyes. They sit like that for a while.
Eventually Eskel clears his throat. “You know,” he says, lifting his head from Geralt’s shoulder, “all those scars we were showing off, and I still didn’t show you the best one.”
Geralt props his chin on his arms. “Oh yeah?”
“Look.”
Eskel points to a familiar scratch on his forearm. It’s from their Bastion days.
“Higher vampire,” Eskel says solemnly. “We fought all night, from dusk until dawn.”
Geralt tilts his head and give Eskel his best what the fuck glare.
Eskel raises his eyebrows as if he can’t believe it, either. “Count Vampire von… Suckingworth. Powerful son of a bitch.”
“Esk. You got that washing dishes. You dropped a plate and cut yourself with the shards.”
“No, no. He was, uh. Terrifying, yeah. Big red eyes and wings like a wyvern, but bigger.”
“I’m gonna punch you.”
Eskel doesn’t look down but he reaches blindly forward to restrain Geralt’s arms. “And he was being carried around by this big cloud of bats--”
The story stops because Geralt can’t take another second of it. He kicks and bucks, and then Eskel knocks him over and it’s a wrestling match.
They take a long time to settle. At some point Geralt flops onto his back and Eskel, panting, rests his head on Geralt’s chest.
“Okay,” Eskel slurs, “kinda sleepy now.”
Geralt reaches for Eskel’s head. It’s not where he thought it would be. Geralt paws at it vaguely. “Think we should set a watch? Wolf might come back.”
Eskel burrows his nose into Geralt’s stomach. “He won’t. Pack’s got him. Wolves take care of each other.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s what they do.”
Eskel says it so decisively that Geralt lets himself ease into his certainty. “Smart wolves,” Geralt mutters.
No response comes. Geralt leafs through the grit and road dust in Eskel’s hair. He closes his eyes and feels the weight of Eskel’s head on his chest, hears Eskel’s lungs pulling in breath. Despite the autumn chill, he’s warmer than he’s been in weeks.
“Eskel?”
“Hm?”
Geralt fights a sudden urge to close his arms around Eskel, hold him tight against the darkness above their heads.
“If you snore,” Geralt says at last, “I’m gonna Aard you.”
Eskel’s chuckle rumbles against Geralt’s ribs. “I’ll Axii you to punch yourself in the face.”
“Who needs signs. I’ll just punch you in the face.”
“Mm.”
“Esk. Should think about bedrolls.”
“Hrm. Autumn. Cold. Night.”
“Yeah,” Geralt says, a little regretful.
Eskel pulls himself upright and crawls to his own bedroll. Geralt finds his way to his own, and there’s a general shuffling of fabric before they both settle down.
Geralt lets his eyes close. The fire’s down to the steady warmth of coals. He can hear Eskel’s heart beating in the calm, slow rhythm he’d heard every night in Kaer Morhen, once the Trials let him hear it. The starka softens the edges of his perception. Everything’s bathed in a gentle glow.
He’s almost drifted off when Eskel rumbles: “‘night, Wolf.”
Geralt smiles, his eyes still closed. “‘night, Esk.”
He feels himself at a precipice. He floats gently down.
Sometime later, neither of them is awake to hear the tentative footsteps padding through the forest. There are ten of them, young men with cudgels, crude knives, one of them with a pitchfork. There are torches and hard, searching stares, and scowling faces.
The footsteps stop. One of them has heard something.
Their eyes widen. They all hear it now. As little as they know about witchers, they know that not even a yellow-eyed mutant could make that sound-- that guttural snarl.
From the dense shadows of the forest, something stands upright. Two lambent eyes shine from an impossible height and in the flash of torchlight, there’s a flash of huge bared fangs.
They scream and scatter like bleating sheep. The werewolf’s ears flick. She tilts her head and listens to their fleeing footsteps until the normal sounds of night insects return.
She could have done worse to them. Should have, even; the smell of that iron trap still lingers, its scent of old blood. She also knows what that would bring: another man-pack, more torches, worse than pitchforks, and under it all, the stink of terror. Let them run instead. Let them know whose territory this is.
That business resolved, she returns to the scent trail that had caught her interest. It takes her into the underbrush to a man-dwelling that has been abandoned for years. She stops, sniffs, peers inside the yawning doorway to the two witchers sleeping inside.
This, then, is the man-pack’s intended prey.
Her nostrils flare. She knows that scent, a blend of human with many tinges of other: hunters, killers. Witchers. The werewolf is not young. She knows that these two are her enemies.
Yet...
Yet, they are not the ones stalking her woods with their fangs bared. Yet, the man-pack hunts them, too.
A young wolf totters toward her from the brush. He looks nearly full-grown but his head is too narrow yet, his legs lean and awkward. He limps with one paw held tight to his body and he smells of dried blood. Now he leans against her and a low whine builds in his throat. She thrums back and delicately lowers one massive paw to his back.
Witchers. She has not seen one for several years, but she knows what they mean. She and her cubs cannot be safe because of them-- these hunters halfway between human and monster. Like the werewolf herself.
Perhaps that is why she tries to summon blood thoughts, hunt thoughts, and cannot.
Or perhaps it is the scent in the air beneath the notes of woodsmoke, mildew, metal. A scent of softness: puppy fur, uncalloused skin, vulnerability not yet hardened.
In a few years, these two may be her enemies. Tonight, they are little more than pups.
Her own pup bunts against her leg and whines.
Yes, the werewolf thinks. She remembers that word. Yes, she will let these pups sleep.
She does not leave yet. She watches them, listens to them breathing in the dark. Their heartbeats glacial, like hers.
What will they know when they wake? That their enemy came and left in peace?
No. They are young. They can learn the difference between an enemy and that which is not an enemy. It is common to give gifts in these circumstances, peace offerings. What can she offer these motherless whelps outside their den?
Her cub leans against her leg. She knows.
The werewolf gives what is hers to give, quietly and without fuss. Let these witcher pups find it in the morning, when she and her cubs have left for a territory far from here. Perhaps, if she meets them again, they will remember it.
When her work is done, the werewolf and her child pad silently east, toward the deeper wilderness. They leave the hunters to their yearling dreams.
In the night hours, crickets chirp; foxes slink by; owls with white, peering faces swoop down to carry off mice. The witchers sleep.
The hours pass, the sky brightens, and when the morning birds start singing, Eskel opens his eyes. He sits up, sways his neck left and right, yawns wide.
Geralt’s still sleeping. Unsurprised, Eskel sets about getting the pan and waterskins together for morning tea. He’s a step outside the ruined cottage when he stops. His nostrils flare.His viper pupils slit.
He backs his way inside the doorway. If he had hackles, they’d rise to spikes. Carefully, Eskel lays down the pan and waterskin and takes up his armor. It’s become an efficient process. In minutes, he is armed and armored and stepping carefully from the doorway.
Half an hour later, Eskel comes back and Geralt groans awake.
“Morning,” Geralt yawns.
Eskel’s silent.
Geralt looks at him, sees him armored, sword belt strapped on. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Think so. Lemme show you something.”
Geralt’s amber eyes clear. He rises, following Eskel. They look out at the same sight: a wide ring of animal fur spread in a circle just outside the cottage’s rotted doorway.
“What,” Geralt breathes.
“The nose knows,” Eskel grunts.
Geralt sniffs. That scent. He’s never smelled it before but it spirals through his mind, sends him lightning flashes of wolf teeth and monstrous claws.
He bends closer. The fur bunched just outside the entrance is downy, dark gray, the dull fibers of a winter coat. They can see the indentations in the dirt where it-- she-- had walked. They’re shaped more or less like wolf tracks, but much bigger. And bipedal.
The trail’s a few hours old. Geralt relaxes the tension from his sore shoulders and slouches against the wall.
“...huh.”
“Yup. Know what else?” Eskel squints out the doorway. “I followed her tracks west and found a whole bunch of bootprints. Fresh ones, must’ve been made last night. At least eight of ‘em.”
“They came for us,” Geralt murmurs.
Eskel doesn’t look at him. He nods. “They tried, anyway. ‘Til someone gave ‘em a real good scare.”
Silence as they think through the implications.
“I don’t get it,” Geralt says finally. “Why?”
“Suppose someone’s grateful for your help yesterday. And…” Eskel squints at the circle of dull gray fur. “You remember the wolf den? The nest?”
Geralt does. They fall silent again.
Finally, Eskel stirs. “Well, Wolf.” His voice lifts as if to make the new nickname sound like a tease, but it fits too well. “C’mon. Let’s pack.”
Geralt rises. “Should we tell the village folk?”
Eskel raises his eyebrows. He’s only twenty, but his eyes already look old. “Tell ‘em what?”
They pack quietly and efficiently. Geralt dismantles the firepit and buries the still-warm coals. Eskel refills their waterskins and packs away the repair kit, the vials, the mostly-empty bottle of sorka. Geralt shrugs into his armor.
As they’re leaving, Eskel stops. Geralt watches his brother bend down to shove a handful of the gray nest-fur into his pocket. Geralt looks away.
Then they shoulder their packs and trudge north. They’ve nearly left the village when Geralt grabs Eskel’s arm.
“What?” Eskel asks.
“Think we should leave the road for awhile.”
Eskel flattens his lips. Whether or not he’s heard what Geralt heard, he follows Geralt’s lead.
They tromp into the woods, far enough that no one from the road can see them. Then they march north again, through underbrush that nobody’s cleared. Eskel tilts his head when he hears it, too: the restless clamor of the young men that have gathered on the main road, the nervous flutter of fingers on improvised weapons, the scent of a boy wearing a poultice for his shattered cheekbone.
Eskel looks at Geralt. Geralt meets his gaze.
Eskel’s eyes are old again. He huffs, nearly silent. Geralt nods. They shoulder their packs and move slowly, watching their footfalls so nothing snaps underfoot. The vigilante band doesn’t hear them.
They’re careful even after they’ve left the village boys behind. It’s past noon when they step onto the main road again.
They don’t say anything for a long time. Finally, Geralt shakes his head.
“What?” Eskel asks.
“Monsters. The Path.”
Eskel nods, understanding. “It’s not how they say it’d be.”
“Not one ploughing bit.”
“Well. Few more miles, and we’ll be home again. No more Path.”
“For a few months.”
They walk along in silence.
Eskel clears his throat. “So. What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when we get back?”
“What?”
“When we get back home and we don’t have to be wandering beggars anymore. What’re you gonna do first? Raid the kitchen?”
Geralt’s smile is slow, his eyes still distracted. “Wouldn’t wanna steal your job. No, I’m gonna…” He lifts his eyes toward the sky consideringly. “I’m gonna put my armor away for the winter. Then I’m gonna fall into the first unoccupied bed I see. Wake me up at the solstice.”
“Think they kept our beds open?”
Geralt’s smile deepens. “I wrote my name on it, didn’t I?”
“If anyone can read that chickenscratch. Me, I’m gonna see if there’s work I could do. Odd jobs ‘round the keep. See if I can build up credit with the stables and earn a horse for spring.”
“A whole horse? You’ll have to work a brothel after all.”
“You’ve got a dirty mind now, brother. How much time did you spend in those brothels, anyway?”
“Plenty. I had to. A brothel’s where you replate your sword.”
Eskel’s belly laugh echoes between the trees, and Geralt realizes that his face hurts. He’s smiling again. He hasn’t smiled this much in weeks.
The road echoes with their banter. Sometimes, as they’re talking, Eskel’s hand drifts down into his pocket. He runs his thumb through the softness he’s tucked away in there.
They keep it up as the hours pass, the talk of the Blue Mountains, the fortress, every rock and tree. Soon they’ll walk up that mountain path and see Kaer Morhen again. It seems so close now. There’ll be the sounds of trainees sparring in the courtyard, witchers chopping wood for the long winter, the clacking of the Pendulum. The smells of horses, sweat, worn leather, cheap soap, the potion-smells of the mages’ labs. At dinnertime, vegetable stew with dill. When they’re tired they’ll kick out whoever’s claimed their beds and laugh at the crude figures that Geralt once carved into the bedframes. They can see everything as they left it, everything so clear. They might as well be home.