Chapter Text
It was the smell that woke him up fist. A rotting damp smell, accompanied by a equally shitty looking room. Coming to Lambert’s in a crumbling small stone cell, with moss patches scattered around. There are three stone and one wall of thin brittle metal bars block off a small hallway. Not hearing anyone he relaxes slightly, his head is killing him. He wants to just barge out of here, but he needs to take stock first.
Waking up in a cell is not a new experience.., but having no idea why he was, is a new one. Last Lambert remembered he had just finished up a contract and was heading back into the woods to go set up camp. No villagers running out of town or mages trying to curse him, at lest last he remembered.
He’s bound with chain, that has clearly seen better days. Not brittle but he’s fairly confident that with a little work he can get out. Even in this current pose, His hands are bound behind his back attached to the back wall. While his legs are shackled together also lettered to the wall. He’s so close to the wall that he’s forced to stay sitting on his knees.
Going to open his mouth he’s stoped,… Well It doesn't matter who the kidnappers are now, they are going to get a beating.
He has a damn muzzle on! Like he’s some kind of mindless animal, that would bite them inset of cutting them to pieces. But now, he may just bite them, just for the hell of it.
Thinking of his gear, he looks around. And nothing.The bastards probably sold it and took his coin, not that there had been much. This year had been shit from start to finish. The only thing left worth anything is the chain around his neck, still holding his Witcher medallion.
They stripped him down to pants and boots. ‘Amateurs.’ Shifting his foot, he feels it, the knife hidden in the boot. Aiden had given him the knife. It's small, gilded and mostly decretive. But he still kept it.
‘Brilliant,' he thinks. ‘Truly brilliant, these guys are.’ The medallion is still, so no magic. If a mage had been involved, he’d be glowing, gagged, or unconscious by now.
He strains against the chains. They creak, already giving. Muffled human voices drift closer.Then a door opens, and footsteps start down the stairs.
A scrawny human comes into view, barely armored, cloth breastplate reinforced with cheap leather. Lambert almost laughs.
“Hey!” the guard shouts over his shoulder. “The mutt’s awake!”
Two more men follow, with one staying back. The other, a tall human with too much confidence, steps forward and kneels in front of him. Lambert wrinkles his nose, a Mage has been here, or more accurately, on him. This sent smelling faintly of chaos.
“Hello, mutt,” the man says pleasantly. “I’ve done the world a favor by taking you in. So let’s not make this harder than it has to be and give me what I want.”
Lambert snorts. “Bold words for someone kneeling.”
The man’s smile tightens. “Your Information, and maybe whatever coin you’ve hidden away.”
He smiles and tilts his head. “You really think if I had something valuable, I’d still be chained in your cellar?”
The man’s expression sour’s, his anger now covering the faint smell of chaos.
“Careful,” the guard behind him mutters. “It’s still a Witcher.”
“Was,” the tall man says. “He’s bound, unarmed, and outnumbered, even Witchers can die.”
Lambert sighs. “You people always say some stupid shit.” The chains snaps.
In the same instant, Lambert’s foot comes up, knife sliding free. He grabs the kneeling man by the collar and opens his throat in one clean motion. Blood sprays hot and wide, catching the other two full in the face.
They scream, blinded and panicking. He’s already moving, but he can help but chuckle.
By the time they manage to draw their swords, it’s over. The poor grip and poor stance. No training worth mentioning, against a pissed wolf.
Lambert wipes his blade on the tall man’s cloak and eyes the fallen weapons. He takes the best-looking, but still not great sword, and turns toward the stairs.
“Gods,” he mutters, standing up. “I want this season to be over.”
…. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. ….
From the basement, he emerges into what looks like an old storage house. It’s crammed with random shit. Broken crates, overturned boxes, tools long past useful. Its scattered like the place was abandoned in a hurry.
He lifts his head and takes a slow breath. The smell of chaos is stronger now. The mage was here, and recently. He needs to get move if he doesn’t want to end up fighting one basically naked.
But beneath the stench of blood and magic, something else catches his attention.
“…Huh?”
Blood, mixed with faint chaos and a sharp unmistakable sent. The smell of another Witcher. They could be injured, that would explain why they haven’t called out yet. Lambert strains, focusing. A heartbeat its fast and light, but alive.
For all his usual assholery, he finds himself hoping like hell it’s another Witcher. The other possibilities are far worse. He really doesn’t need another fight right now.
He scans the storage room one last time, then moves toward the door. Outside, the light of a setting sun greets him.
The landscape tells him nothing useful. Wet forest, thick with leaves and rot. Not the plains he’d been riding through earlier, and definitely not the thin pine forests or snowy stretches of northern Kaedwen.
“Hey!” he calls. “I know you’re there. What’s going on?” Only silence answers him.
Except a horse, huffing somewhere nearby. He files that away for later.
He steps fully outside.
“Hello! The bastards are dead!”…Still nothing.
More boxes sit outside the building, stacked careless and half-open. Clearly, theft wasn’t something these idiots worried about. Lambert wonders just how far he is from anything resembling civilization.
He rounds the corner of the house and stops short. A small paved courtyard. And in the center of it, a metal crate. A small crate. Too small for most Witcher and a cat would be biting the bars and yowling by now, if able.
‘Gods”, his brothers are never going to let him live this down if he ends up with another cat.
He can make out a shape inside. It's human enough, but he keeps his sword loose at his side. He has no need for mage fuckery right now.
“Come on, Wicther” he says, quieter. “You alive?”
The shape shifts. A face peeks up to look at him and Lambert feels the air leave his lungs.
….
…
..
It’s a fucking kid.