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Jaskier stared in disbelief as the innkeeper dropped the coins back on the counter. “No good.”
“No good?” the bard repeated. “You've got to be kidding me It was fine a few days ago.”
“Crown's no good here,” the innkeeper repeated. He leaned onto the bar, the muscles in his shoulders bulging from the change in position. “This is Kaedwen.”
“Ah—yes, yes, I know that,” Jaskier held a finger up. “But it only take three of your ducats to equal one Redanian crown, everyone knows that. You said it was five ducats per night, so you can take two crowns and keep the extra to cover the difficulty of changing currency.”
The innkeeper snorted. “Ye already owe me for three days, bard.”
Jaskier spluttered. “Three days? I paid in advance!”
“You didn't.”
“I did! It's right there in your ledger book,” he snapped. He snatched up the book from the end of the counter “I paid you five crowns, which is equal to fifteen ducats, so I'm all paid up for...three....”
His voice trailed off. He'd opened the ledger book where the tattered ribbon marked the latest page, fully intent on exposing the innkeeper's scheme, but his familiar signature wasn't there. The pages were filled with the innkeeper's sloppy scrawl and the marks of his guests, but Jaskier's name was nowhere to be seen. In fact, an entire page had been torn out, leaving nothing but a ragged edge behind.
“Yer not in the book,” the innkeeper sneered.
Jaskier closed the ledger and placed it on the counter, then rested both hands on the scarred leather. There had to be a way out of this. Geralt was supposed to meet him here yesterday, but obviously the Witcher had gotten caught up in his own business along the way. Jaskier should have had enough money to wait for his friend, even without supplementing his purse by performing to the inn's other customers (he'd been barred from playing here, for some reason, or he'd have plenty of the blasted ducats to pay for his stay).
“Well,” he hedged, “perhaps one of the merchants in town would be willing to exchange my coin. Give me five minutes, and I'll be back with enough for the last three nights and a half dozen more.” Or, rather, he'd slip out of town and wait in the wilds for Geralt's arrival. Surely, surely the Witcher would be happy to lend his aid...this time it wasn't even Jaskier's fault!
He backed away from the counter, only to hit a solid mass behind him. For one, fleeting moment he thought Geralt had turned up in the nick of time...but rough hands seized him by the arms and slammed him forward onto the counter.
“Yer not goin' anywhere 'til you pay yer tab,” the inkeeper snarled. He twisted one meaty hand in Jaskier's hair and twisted his face up.
“I have money,” Jaskier protested weakly. He was down to eight crowns, including the two still on the counter, plus a handful of coppers but that was more than enough to cover his tab.
The innkeeper jerked his head to one side and rough hands hauled Jaskier away from the counter and onto his feet. He was spun around to face his captor, and caught a brief glimpse of a scarred face before a fierce backhand sent him crashing to the ground. He tried to push himself up but a kick from a hobnailed boot caught him under the ribs. Jaskier curled around himself, coughing and groaning, and then the boot was descending again and again.
His ribs, his shoulder, his back...his bones creaked and his skin bruised and tore under the assault. He didn't know if he should cover his head with his arms to protect his face or keep his hands tucked up to his chest to save his delicate fingers.
Breathless from pain, Jaskier could do little more than whimper when a hand caught him by the collar and picked him up enough for the scarred man to leer into his face. “'E's kind of small,” the scarred man called over to the innkeeper.
The innkeeper was already beside them, stripping Jaskier of his coin pouch and any other valuables on his person. “Don't worry. The salt mines are always in need of a new canary,” the innkeeper retorted. “Take 'im to the cellar. Pascar'll be by in a day or so, he always pays for fresh blood.”
With a grunt, the scarred man hauled Jaskier up to his feet. The bard stumbled against the rough treatment, though an oath from his captor and a blow to his kidney had him trying to stay upright. “Please...” he tried again. The words wouldn't quite come—please don't do this, I have friends coming for me, we can pay whatever you want.
“Stuff it, songbird,” the scarred man growled. They reached the door to the cellar and stopped just long enough for the bigger man to thrust it open and shove Jaskier down the wooden stairs.
For a moment, Jaskier considered turning on his captor. He was no match for the man, obviously, but something inside him quailed at giving up without a fight.
The moment was gone far too soon, however, as the scarred man followed on the bard's heels and struck him down again. Jaskier tried to roll away—he was smaller, he might be faster, if he could reach the door—but a rough boot slammed down on his hip and ground him into the dirt of the cellar floor.
“Now you just stay down here, nice and quiet,” the scarred man said. He pinned Jaskier's hands together in one meaty palm while he fumbled for a piece of rough cording that was tangled in the slats of an old crate. “Haskins'll take it outta my cut if I have to beat you black and blue and Pascar only pays half for ya.”
Jaskier opened his mouth to reply, but slammed it shut again and nearly bit through his tongue as he fought back a scream when the scarred man twisted the rope viciously around his wrists. Then the man was climbing to his feet and—oh gods—hauling Jaskier across the cellar floor by his wrists. The rope cut into his skin cruelly, and the movement jostled the injuries he'd already endured.
“Here we are,” the scarred man announced. He looped the rope over the top of a sturdy rack that help ale casks and heaved on it. Jaskier whimpered as he was pulled up by his arms until he was sitting against the rack. Then the big man looped the rope around Jaskier's arms and wrists to bind him to the rack so that he was unable to stand, or even shift position without threatening to dislocate something.
Terror and pain were knotting up his voice in his throat, and the scarred man was crouching in front of him again. “Open,” the scarred man said, holding up a filthy rag he'd found on the cask rack. He siezed Jaskier's face with one hand and planted a fist in his stomach with the other. Jaskier gasped and choked in pain, and then the rag was shoved into his mouth so roughly he felt it hit the back of his throat.
“We'll be back in a day or so,” the scarred man said, pushing himself up to his feet. “You...you sit tight.”
* * *
Geralt knocked the dust from his boots as he entered the run-down inn. If he had known the place was in this bad shape he'd've arranged to meet Jaskier somewhere else.
“Good day to ye!” the innkeeper called from behind the counter. “If yer wantin' a room it's three ducats a night—'course if yer paying in Redanian crowns it'll be two crowns, on account of me needing to change 'em out down the road.”
“I'm looking for someone,” Geralt replied, cutting through the innkeeper's bluster. “Has a bard come through here?”
The innkeeper reddened. “Ah, n-no, no bards.” He fidgeted with a dirty rag in his hands and wiped in ineffectually across the scarred wood. “The baron outlawed 'em, y'see. One of 'em wrote a nasty little song about him a few years back, and now he can't stand the sight of 'em.”
Geralt stared at the man, then turned to study the room. He'd been due in this shithole two days ago, but a fight with a werewolf had left him laid up in a decrepit old barn half a day's ride from here. Jaskier wouldn't have left without him, not after two days. “Did anyone leave a message for me?”
The other man was staring at him now, as though the white hair and yellow eyes were finally sinking in. “Say...ain't you...”
With a grunt of annoyance Geralt twisted one hand in the innkeeper's collar and hauled him up onto the counter until they were eye-to-eye. “I'm meeting a friend here. Have you seen him?”
The man's face twitched and his eyes flickered to the side for a moment. “A...a friend?”
Geralt followed the man's gaze. A scarred man who had been lounging at the back of the inn's great room suddenly straightened to his feet, moving as though to intercept Geralt's path to the door to the wine cellar on the other side of the bar.
He didn't stand a chance.
Perhaps men like him were enough to waylay helpless travelers, but no one laid a hand on a Witcher and lived to tell the tale.
The inn's cellar was dim, but Geralt's eyes had no problem adjusting to the gloom. Even if his vision hadn't been good enough to see the drag marks in the floor, the room wasn't quite big enough to hide the body slumped against the rack of ale casks in the back corner.
“Jaskier,” Geralt breathed. He knelt at his friend's side, fury and concern twisting up in his stomach. The bard's face was pale beneath the dirt and bruises, his eyes closed in a fitful sleep. Geralt rested one palm against the bard's cheek and gently tugged at the rough gag that had been stuffed into his friend's mouth.
Jaskier came awake with a start, flinching away from the figure that knelt over him. “It's me, Jaskier,” Geralt said. He finally pulled the gag free and held his friend's gaze for a long few seconds, long enough for the disoriented panic in Jaskier's eyes to melt into relief.
“Geralt,” Jaskier wheezed. “Thank the gods.” His voice was rough and cracked. Given the state of his clothes it was apparent he'd been down here for more than a day, though Geralt would know more once his friend was safe and he could interrogate that thrice-damned innkeeper.
“I've got you,” he said as he tugged a knife out of his boot. The ropes binding Jaskier to the rack were cut through in an instant, and the bard toppled forward with a whimper of pain. Geralt braced him against his own shoulder, hoping his familiar presence would help Jaskier shake away the lingering fear of this place. “Are you hurt?”
“I can travel,” Jaskier replied quickly. Too quickly.
Geralt frowned at him. There was blood on Jaskier's doublet, and when he gently pushed the fabric away he hissed out a breath at the sight of torn and bruised flesh beneath. “Jaskier.”
“Please?” Jaskier grasped his wrist, his pale hands trembling. “I don't want to stay here.”
The Witcher heaved a sigh. “There's a barn about half a day's ride from here.”
“Anything is better than this place.”
“Right.” Geralt pushed himself back up to his feet, then bent down enough to sling one of Jaskier's arms around his neck. “Let's go get your money back first.”