A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

“My Goddess,” The Witcher swore. “You stupid fucking bastards. What have you done?”

I've talked before about the Witcher's facial expressions. About how you really have to concentrate if you want to catch what he's thinking. The smallest facial tick or shift of eye muscles can betray the smallest shift in his thinking. After a while of such minute study, watching someone else talk is like watching a play, acted out by different actors describing what the person's feeling.

The Witcher was not like that.

At some point in the future I mean to discuss whether or not a Witcher feels emotion and my own reasons as well as Kerrass' feelings on the matter but for the right here and now I will say this. I think that Witchers do indeed feel emotion. But whether because of their lifestyle or childhood or mutations, their emotional...compass I suppose is the best word for it, is slightly out of sync with the rest of us. Kerrass certainly feels emotion. He's pretty good at cold rage for example by which I mean that he controls it and lets it fuel him without letting it overwhelm him. But this was something I had never seen before.

His eyes widened suddenly, the pupils dilated and his mouth hung open while his breathing accelerated suddenly. This is relative you understand. For anyone else this could be describing someone who has just walked uphill but for Kerrass, it seemed to me that this was a massive shift in his emotional state. He took a step backwards, his foot automatically creeping for the position it would be in if he was taking up one of his sword stances. His left hand flexed.

Then he frowned, his eyes narrowed and his lips started moving silently. He caught up the medallion and peered at it, closer than I'd ever seen before. He hung it from his right hand and stared into the hissing cat's eyes.

Then he started to swear.

In several languages.

Never let it be said that Witchers are uneducated.

It had been a frustrating morning for me. The Witcher had ignored my appeals for information about who or what “Jack” was eventually telling me in an exasperated voice that he would tell me later and that “Now wasn't the time for conversations like that.” I had already ascertained that that particular tone of voice meant that he felt that the matter was closed.

We walked back into the village that was now well awake. The feeling of something strange going on deepened. A child had gone missing. Where was the group of men getting together to find the child? Where were the shouts and the people demanding that any Witch or suspected evildoer be hung from the nearest tree? Where was the mob with the burning torches and improbable farming equipment held as though they were weapons/?

Instead, people just went about their normal business.

Men worked on furniture. Thatch was repaired, wood was chopped. Children ran around and got in everyone's way.

As we walked through I caught a couple of girls eyeing the pair of us up before putting their heads together and giggling as some plot was hatched.

I found that I was on edge. My weight had moved towards the balls of my feet as though I was in some form of combat practice, I needed to wipe my palms on my trousers. I was getting ready for a fight.

The Witcher led me to a house near the edge of town. It was close to the woods but not remarkably so and was only on the edge of town because that was what the village was really. Near the edge of town and then a lot of barns, workshops and warehouses. Kerrass knocked and let himself in. We were obviously expected by the lady of the house, I would but her at about 25, long hair tied back and tucked under a headscarf. Her face looked haunted and tired but she somehow managed to summon a small smile for the pair of us. The man was tall and massively muscled but the muscle looked slightly off balance giving him a slightly strange way of moving. The muscles of a man that did hard physical labour all day without respite. His hands were heavily callused and he moved throughout the house as we were there, picking things up and moving them, perfunctory efforts to tidy and clean. I would have thought that he was angry but other than the fidgeting he seemed calm and friendly enough.

We were offered honeycakes.

I found myself wishing that I had brought my spear.

“Right then,” said my companion, “I wondered if you could go through the entire story again for my companion here and it would do me some good to listen to it as well in the cold light of day rather than just after rising.”

The woman just nodded. I noticed that she met the Witchers eyes easily and cleanly which not many people can do. She looked serene and collected as though.... I once spoke to a friend who had gone to prison for being drunk and disorderly. It was during a festival so he was not alone and the prison was crowded so he ended up sharing a cell with another man who was due to be beheaded in a couple of days. He told me that the man was quite calm and friendly, chatted freely and exchanged small talk about the world with my friend who said that the man looked at peace and calm. His only discontent was that the decision had been made so why was he waiting to be killed. Resigned, that's the word, she looked as though she was resigned to her fate. This was the way the world works and she just needs to learn to live with it.

She nodded as the Witcher spoke before her blood shot gaze turned to me.

I was wrong. It was simply that all the emotion had left the woman and she had nothing left. Her voice was thick and raspy as she spoke. She often had to clear her throat.

“I don't rightly know what to say. We didn't stay up late as he had tired himself out during the day doing chores and playing with his friends. We'd just started him doing some small jobs around the woodworks y'see so that he could get a good idea of what the work was like and he could settle into it when his time came. He protested a little for the form of things but it seemed as though he was actually relieved to be in bed if I'm honest. I went to wake him up in the morning and his shutters were...”

She choked then, her hand moving to her mouth. As I watched she almost literally swallowed what she was thinking.

“His shutters were open and he wasn't there.” She finished in a normal voice.

My companion nodded.

“Where were the two of you last night?” I always admired how he managed to ask these kinds of question without seeming to be accusing towards his subjects.

“I spent some time making a new shirt for the lad as he was growing so fast.”

Past tense, already the past tense. That was the problem. These two parents had already given up hope. As though it was simply a matter of fact.

“So I worked on that.” She went on. “Little Lucy woke up and had a bit of a fuss so I got her back to sleep, warmed myself some milk and then went to bed.”

“and your husband?”

“I was in the tavern last night along with everyone else.” The man's voice was gruff but at the same time I was expecting some anger. The questions needed to be asked but they did have a tendency to make parental figures a little bit cross on the possibility that they might have been neglectful. These two weren't Resigned was exactly the right word.

“What time did you get home last night?” Kerrass asked the man.

“I dunno,” He thought for a moment. “The two of you were still there though. I wanted to stay a bit longer but I've quite a bit of work to do before Winter properly settles down to it and I wanted to get a good start on things.”

The Witcher nodded.

“The shutters. Big heavy things I presume?”

“They have to be,” said the woman

“Bolted and latched?” The Witcher went on.

“By my own hand,” said the man.

“How long ago did you do that?”

“Maybe a month ago? Around the first frost.”

“I'm not from round here is that a usual time to be shuttering up?”

“It's a little early but with the young lass...”

“I see.” The Witcher nodded and thought for a moment.

“Are the shutters latched on the inside or the outside?”

“On the inside sir. If you lock them on the outside then young folk round here think it's a funny jape to open the shutters at night.”

The Witcher leant forwards.

“When you got home sir, was the house warm or was there any indication that the shutters were open?”

“No sir, the shutters were closed when I got home. It was too warm to be otherwise.”

“Big heavy bolts on your shutters?”

“Yessir,”

“Could your son have moved those bolts?”

The parents considered, looked at each other before the man shrugged. “It's possible. He's a strong lad.”

“But neither of you heard anything last night.”

“No, nothing. We didn't notice anything at all until we woke up this morning.”

The Witcher nodded and leant back. “Are you both sound sleepers?”

“Yes and no. We're always tired what with the little 'un but at the same time, when we do sleep.....”

“I see yes.”

Kerrass stared into space for a while. “One last question then, do you have a local Witch or Wise person. Maybe a Knowing one? Someone noticeably better with herbs and healing than anyone else?”

The woman paused for thought. “No sir I don't think so. Not in my memory at least. We're all quite good at treating injuries and have some knowledge of herbs. Can't help it being next to the woods and being near the sawmill.”

“Lumber work is not without it's dangers,” The man put in.

The Witcher nodded and frowned slightly.

“Do you mind if we have a look around?”

“Please do?” said the woman.

The man excused himself to go to work. Kerrass walked around the house once, with his hand to his chest and then again with the pendant out and held before his eyes.

I went and had a look at the boys alcove. It wasn't really a room, just an area off the main room big enough for a bed. A thin wooden wall cut it off from the rest of the house but there was no door. The bed was unmade, a mattress of straw and sawdust I did not doubt with some well worn and obviously much loved blankets and pillows. There were a couple of old toys, a wooden sword, a toy soldier and the ever present sewn toy bear that was missing an eye.

The Witcher joined me then and sniffed the air before tucking the pendant back into his jacket. Between us we checked under the mattress to find nothing. We tapped the floor which spectacularly failed to sound hollow and then we had a play with the shutters which were stiff and precisely as chunky as the owners said they were.

A brief experiment was had were I moved through to the parents sleeping area while Kerrass opened and closed the shutters and then in conference we agreed that we could possibly sleep through it being opened, but neither of us were tired parents or small boys and it was the middle of the day with outside bustling and noise rather than the depths of night.

The back of the house where the shutters opened out onto was equally as plain and ordinary. Grass, mixed with moss and general wild-flowers. I recognised Puffball amongst them but Herb lore wasn't in my syllabus at university. The bushes and brambles were quite thick and although I would allow myself to say that I had picked up some Woodscraft, I was by no means an expert and my clothes and hair seemed to get caught on everything. Unlike the Witcher who glided through the entire place thing as though he was made of smoke.

He gestured for me to stay back as he examined the floor carefully, staying well away from the area immediately beneath the window before examining the window ledge and edges. He beckoned me forward and I knelt to see what I was bid. Without his hints I wouldn't have seen what he had seen but I could see what was there when he pointed at it.

The child had clambered out of the window, catching a piece of clothing on a splinter before landing in the overgrowth where he had staggered and fell to his knees. Then he had stood up where I could imagine he had brushed the dead leaves and bits of twig from his trousers or smock and had strode off.

The Witcher followed the tracks, slowly and carefully. He would never pick anything up or move anything aside he would just peer at it, maybe taking a deep sniff. If he couldn't move through a gap in the branches that the child had moved through he would bid me wait for him there before moving through the undergrowth to find another way through and asking me to join him.

The child had walked in an easy curve keeping himself in sight of the village but sufficiently deep in the woods so that he would not easily be spotted by any wandering villagers. It wasn't very far before his tracks came to a path that led from the village to the woods. The Witcher frowned for a moment and told me to stay still before he used the path to go back to the village.

He came back, plainly thinking hard.

“The path peters out just before the edge of the village.” He said quietly, almost to himself. “There's even some heavy-duty bushes between here and the village itself that a strong adult could force their way through but they would lose some clothes and skin as they did so if they did it without an axe.”

I nodded and bent to look at the ground. “So not so much a path, more a track. Like a deer track or rabbit track when they use the same route over and over again.”

The Witcher nodded. “Lets go see where it leads.”

Before we did so we did a little scout around to see if the boy had continued off but his tracks vanished into the well worn track. As we looked we could occasionally see the odd scuff mark in the ground or a recently broken twig that told us that the child had indeed gone this way.

We followed. I felt the lack of my spear even more.

The track lead into the woods by a kind of meandering route, overall it went in one direction but by the same measurement it also often took detours that carried no reason behind it. Signs of civilisation were soon left behind us and I tried to think of the last time I had seen a woodcutters mark or signs of ground clearance.

We went slowly and carefully, testing each step and each movement. The Witcher would stop occasionally and pull out his medallion to examine.

I asked about making marks or tying some string to avoid getting lost despite the path.

He smiled at me. One of those smiles that were him telling me how naïve I was.

I didn't mind really as I was well aware how out of my depth I was.

“Not bad ideas if this were a normal wood.” He said, scratching his chin. “But if it's a letch or spriggan or some other kind of woodland spirit then it might take offence at us harming the trees. The string's a good idea but if it's a beast that abducts rather than just eats on the spot then it is certainly clever enough to cut a line of string. Don't worry though. We're moving in the same direction, the village is over there,” he waved. “We haven't gone very far at all and one of three things will happen. One, my medallion will twitch in which case we hide, or two... It attacks, in which case you run and I try and get a good look at it before I join you. Or three, we find the end of the path.”

“How reassuring,” I muttered.

He grinned nastily at me before we went on again.

As it turned out it was option three.

The path petered out becoming less and less clear. Something caught the Witcher's eye near the end of the path and he bade me wait. He crouched down and peered at a spot which was the same as the next bit to my eyes. Then he moved slowly forward before stopping. He stared at the ground for a long moment before equally as carefully gazing at the forest roof.

“Wait here,” he said before jogging off in a quick circle, bent close to the ground.

Then he did it again, much more slowly and carefully, moving individual forest flowers aside, fingering the moss and the twigs, all the while holding onto his medallion as though it was a life giving artefact.

Which for all I know it is.

Eventually, looking rather unsatisfied he rejoined me.

“So he stopped here,” he pointed “and waited. Maybe a minute, maybe two. He shifted his weight a little, fidgeting I suppose, kid like that. Then he went from standing utterly still to running. Full pelt in that direction.” He gestured again.

“Afraid of something?” I suggested.

“Or running towards something, or someone.” he countered, not arguing or refuting, just.... musing. “The problem with both theories,” he went on suddenly, “is that the tracks go on for maybe a dozen paces before vanishing. Just vanishing, from one step to the next.”

“So he was taken.” I said, “carried off by someone or something.”

“So it would seem. The problem with that is that there is no other sign. None.”

He stared into space and blew out a long slow breath.

“I'm not boasting but I would count myself amongst the top ten trackers in the northern kingdoms.”

He said. “There are spells that can do better, can show the past of an area but other than that, Witchers and elven hunters are the best at tracking something and Witchers are better than elves at spotting monster sign. It's what we're trained for after all.”

He shook his head as if to shake off a thought.

“He came here. He skirted the village and then followed the path.” He looked over at me. “Why would someone do that. Throw some ideas at me.”

“If he was a bit older I would say it was an assignation with a girl.”

“I agree, or I would if it was a bit warmer, surely a hayloft would be better for that at this time of year. Why else?”

“If not to meet someone then....I don't know.... to retrieve something that he'd lost. He followed past landmarks to find it.”

The Witcher nodded thoughtfully before shaking his head.

“No, his tracks would have moved around the area as he searched. He stood in one place.”

“So that means that coming out to finish a chore left undone is out as well. There would be something here to.... Well... Chore.”

The Witcher nodded agreement.

“So,” he decided, “The child came out here to meet someone. It was a clandestine meeting as he left in secret and skirted the village rather than walking through openly. He followed a track. A track that, in my judgement, many others have followed before. H reached the destination, in this case the end of the track, then he waited. One minute, two minutes. Then he sees something....”

“Wait,” I said. “He only waited two minutes. How often have you gone to meet someone and they're only one or two minutes either side of you. His...” I waved my hand for inspiration, “friend or enemy was waiting for him but was hidden from view. Where they could see him but he couldn't see them.”

“Good,” The Witcher rubbed his hand. “That's good thinking. Whoever, or whatever took the boy could sense or see his approach. Can't test any kind of 'sensing'. Could you stand where he did and crouch a little?”

I did so and the Witcher disappeared for a lot longer before returning shaking his head.

“Nothing,” he said. “No-one was watching from the bushes. We can be all but certain of it.”

I nodded, a little disappointed.

“So he waited.” The Witcher started. “Then something made him move. He went from stock still to full pelt running as well.”

“He saw something.” I said, “A monster?”

“Or someone he was waiting for,” The Witcher went on. He thought. “The tracks don't match up with something terrifying. Fear is a paralytic. People stagger, torn between the instincts of fight or flight. You get scuff-marks.”

Kerrass wasn't happy with this though, I could tell.

“No we can't be certain of that, whether he was running to something, or away from something,” he decided. “Then the boy disappears.”

“Or was taken.” I put in.

“But there are no tracks.” The Witcher stated again. “Even wraiths leave sign if you know what you're looking for. Noon-wraiths scorch the earth, night wraiths freeze it but the ground is evenly frozen. Any other wraith would leave grave-dust of which there is none.”

“So what else could do it? A flying monster?”

“No blood-spatter,” The Witcher said simply. “Believe me, there would be blood-spatter. Plus the canopy of the woods is unbroken with no other stock being taken, no local sheep or goats. It wasn't a flying monster.”

“A wood spirit, the spriggans you spoke of.”

He shook his head. “They leave sign, The child would be here if a woods spirit was dissatisfied with them.”

He frowned.

“Vampire?” he said aloud, “No, it would have to be an elder with a mist-form and again there would be a corpse. Not a Witch as the medallion would give sign of that which means....”

He petered off.

“My God,” He swore, “You stupid fucking bastards. What have you done?” He took his medallion out, and peered at it.

“I didn't know you were religious,” I said, making a joke,

“Shut up,” he said.

I found that my hands were sweating and I wanted to urinate. I realised in a detached sort of way that I was becoming terrified.

“That's it, he muttered. “That's it,”

“My God,” He swore again following it with several more curses in languages that I didn't know but could recognise their intent.

“Run,” he said. “Back to the village, now, do not stop. Do not look back. I am right behind you.”

“Wha...?”

“RUN,” he screamed at me, physically turning and pushing me as his sword leapt into his hands.

I had never seen him like this and I answered his order as best as I could, sprinting down the tracks as fast as I could.

It was only a small track though and I wasn't looking, Branches whipped at me, the cold air stinging my face and causing my eyes to tear up. I stumbled but the Witchers strong hands hauled me up by the collar and pushed me onwards. His terror was palpable and it fed my own like throwing lantern oil on a fire.

We ran and we did not look back.

The last bramble bush was there and we ran through it. I don't think I could have done it again in cold blood. The bush was huge, viciously spiky and it certainly drew blood, I heard cloth tear and I yelped in the sudden and bright pain that tore at my flesh but I got through and nearly staggered into the arms of a burly wood-cutter.

The Witcher was maybe a step behind me.

“Get away from him,” he snarled at the wood-cutter. “Get away from him or I swear by all that's...”

The poor man fled before the wild-eyed Witcher, whose rage and terror was a physical thing, battered at the people around us.

“What the fuck?” I managed but I was winded.

“Where's your spear?” He asked.

“At the inn,”

“Good,”

He leant back and took a deep breath, visibly grabbing hold of himself and pulling his mind back from madness. When he opened his eyes he was my companion again. Reasonable, distant and collected. But something flickered in his eyes, like a spark that was buried in an almost dead hearth-fire.

“What the hell?” I managed still gasping for breath and taking stock of my ruined clothing.

“Jack,” Kerrass whispered, almost to himself. “Jack was the clue. Not him but someone....”

“Who is Jack?” I demanded.

I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect the next thing.

He moved, so quick it was a blur.

He grabbed me by the collar and hissed

“Don't ask me that,” his voice was quiet. “Don't even think that, until we're a good two days ride away. Ask me then and I'll tell you what I know. But don't ask me that. Don't even think that.”

He let me go.

“For now,” he went on. “This isn't Jack. Not his style. For your souls sake.... Put him from your mind.”

He took another breath.

“Excuse me friend,” he said to the nearby woodcutter who was still shaking like a leaf. “Could you

tell me where the Head-man is?”

“H-He's m-meeting with the village council sir.”

“Where's that?”

“The inn sir, please don't...”

“I'm sorry about that friend, I was out of sorts and quite, quite terrified.” The Witcher smiled a little ruefully. “I'll buy you a beer later to make up for it.”

The man perked up a little.

“Incidentally,” The Witcher went on, conversationally. “Could I borrow your axe?”

The Witcher actually whistled as we walked through the village, axe on his shoulder as though what we were doing was perfectly normal. The change in his attitude was jarring, from fierce and murderous terror and rage to the good cheer of a man going for a stroll.

With a large axe swinging easily in his hand.

Not that I knew what we were doing, but something about my companion's demeanour suggested that there was going to be violence. In the ways of villages everywhere people started to find chores to do outside where they could see what was happening, which of course made the whistling even louder.

We got to the door of the inn where the Witcher took the time to take a couple of practice swings with the axes, grunting as he did so.

“You know, you've still got your sword on right?”

“Mmm? Oh yes, but that wouldn't really make my point.”

“Which is?”

“Which is how angry I am,” His voice was deadpan and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. “Be ready for violence.”

One of the first lessons that Kerrass gave me about fighting was that to be ready for violence was to be ready to strike hard and strike first. This was so that the bastard never got a chance to get in another swing at you and if there's any doubt then put your thumb through his eye.

So it was going to be that kind of conversation with the Headman.

I rocked my head from side to side and rolled my shoulders out before nodding.

The Witcher nodded back and opened the door.

“Hello everyone.” He said loudly. Big, obviously fake smile plastered all over his face.

“Uhh, Hello Master Witcher, can we help you?” The head man was sitting at one end of a set of tables that had been pushed together, stools and chairs had been arranged and most of them were occupied. There were also a couple of guys at the bar but that was it. The innkeeper was polishing cups near the end of the bar closest to the meeting and seemed to be taking part while at the same time taking drink orders. There were a number of big burly men, similar to the father of the missing boy as well as several slighter men who were surrounded by slates and papers. I moved past the Witcher and sat at the bar, catching the barman's eye and pointing to a barrel that contained some ale.

“Yes, as a matter of fact you can.” Kerrass played with the axe, swinging it around so that the air whistled and I saw more than one pair of eyes note it's presence. The innkeeper poured my drink, watching Kerrass carefully. “You can tell me what it is that lives in the woods.”

The reaction of the people in the room was instant and profound. People shifted weight, leaned back and took breaths.

“You can also tell me,” the Witcher went on, “Which idiot it was decided to sell out the entire village to something like that?”

“Mast Witcher sir,” The Head man tried, “I hardly think that this is the time or...”

“Or was it that you're all in on it? Did you all do it? Did you all wake up one morning and decide that the occasional child sacrifice was a worthwhile price to pay for whatever it was that you all got in return for it? You sick fucks,” The Witcher's cold fury washed over the room. Most of the people there went red in the face, outraged sputtering and some mouths opened to shout obscenities. One of the men at the bar rose to leave but the other had gone pale. The barman moved to a very specific area of the bar, one of his hands sank below the counter.

I noted it carefully, I've never met an innkeeper in the world who didn't have a club or some other kind of defensive weapon hidden under the bar.

The general noise level rose to a point where the Witcher couldn't talk or shout over the din. It then became obvious why he had wanted the axe.

It came up in a swing, behind the shoulder and whistled back down with incredible speed and force before it was driven into the middle of the meeting table.

Which split.

Spilling everyone's slates, papers and drinks onto the floor and all over the attendees.

The barman reacted first but I had been waiting for that and drove my still mostly full tankard into the man's temple.

He collapsed as though he had just folded up.

The man at the bar pulled a hatchet from his belt and stared at me. I through the remains of the tankard at his head making him duck.

Unfortunately for him this gave me enough time to grab the bar stool I was sitting on and smash it over his head.

He too collapsed.

The Witcher drew his sword.

I had forgotten that it was still the silver one. Where his steel sword was made out of meteorite iron and therefore had an ugly black, unpleasant kind of look. The silver sword shone in the firelight and somehow, despite how well it was oiled, the sound of it being drawn echoed in the room.

The silence was suddenly total, broken only by the groaning of the barman. I wondered if I had killed the other man but he seemed to stir a little.

Something started to drip ominously into the silence.

“Being a Witcher is a tough job.” Kerrass said in his cold, raspy killer's voice, “We make it look easy because if we weren't good at it then we would all be dead. For the most part it's a simple thing. There's a nest of Nekkers that needs destroying or a Griffin that needs murdering or something. But sometimes it gets complicated. You know what the biggest reason is that Witchers die?

“No?

“Then I'll tell you,

“It's because fuckwits like you try to keep things from us.

“'Save us from the Witch,' they say forgetting to tell us that they were the ones that summoned the Witch in the first place.

“'kill that Wyvern' they say without mentioning that it's actually the local princesses favourite pet dragon.

“On a smaller scale the problem comes when we're not given fully complete information. Does the Forktail have green eyes or red eyes? Does the Griffin have grey tail feathers or brown? If so we need separate potions to deal with that.

“I can see that you want to know what the point is for all of this.

“This morning you tell me that another person has gone missing, this time a child. My companion and I leap into action. We investigate, we track and question. We enter the forest. We find a track, a track obviously left by many other people. A track so deep that it's impossible to conceive that anyone who has lost a loved one would not find it. We follow the track and we find some clues. Shall I tell you what those clues are?

“The child vanished. It wasn't done by magical means. There are no tracks or blood traces or clothing scraps or anything to indicate any kind of monster or human or non-human assailant. The canopy is not broken so it wasn't a flying creature so what was it? There are only two possibilities, the first is that it's an elder vampire that can assume a mist form. However just because a vampire could turn itself into mist does not mean it could turn it's prey into mist, besides, why would it bother? There is it's quarry, chomp chomp, mmmm lovely blood, move on. See my earlier comments. Also, I have some experience with Elder vampires. Believe me when I say that they are very good, and very keen, to police their own. People going missing on a semi-regular basis from the same place? Awfully sloppy of a vampire to let that shit go. So I discount that theory.

“You understand that I'm just thinking aloud at this point.

“That means that there is only one theory left.

“That something else lives in the woods. Something you, or someone summoned for reasons that I could care less about. Something non-magical but extremely powerful in it's own right. Something so old and rare that my medallion doesn't react to it. Maybe it was summoned so that the woods would never run out of lumber. Maybe it was so that their family would always survive, or maybe it was for the good of the village as a whole given the other clues.

“I think it's the last option.

“What were those clues?

“The track that the victims have followed. A track so ingrained that this must have been going on for years and that the numbers of victims are far from small.

“The fact that no notice has been posted for a Witcher or similar to deal with the problem. We learn about it from local gossip. You are obviously not poor judging by some of your clothing, the scale of the works and your ability to hire on work crews so a Witcher or Sorceror of some kind would not be out of your price range... So why haven't you sent off for one?

“How lethargic everyone is about a missing child. In any other village or town that I've ever visited, a missing child results in everyone being rousted out. Crowds arrive from nowhere to help in the search. Saving a child means that we all get to feel better about ourselves. But you lot have already

given the child up for dead.

“Now you should count yourselves as fortunate. Very fortunate indeed that I reasoned this out before harm came to either my companion or myself. I don't know what he'd do but I suspect it would go along some lines that he would pack up his gear, head to the nearest city and alert the authorities. Probably not to much result but he's the sort of person that wouldn't let it go and people would investigate. Knowing him, some form of scholarly type. Unfortunately for you, if a man can afford to spend his life as a scholar then he tends to be quite important. How long before one of these important men goes missing?

“As for him? If something had happened to him I would have drowned this place in blood.” There was a brutal simplicity to the statement that made it all the more threatening.

“There is a third option,” said one of the younger men. He had pulled himself to his feet and drawn a knife. “Something could have happened to both of you.”

The Witcher rolled his eyes, calmly moved towards the young man, grabbed his knife arm and slammed the pommel of his sword into the back of the young man's head.

“Please,” he said scornfully as he bent to pick up the knife. “You people would only suffer from the trying.” He stared at the knife in disgust before driving it into the wall and applying pressure until the blade snapped.

“So now I have questions that I require answers to. After which I will decide whether or not I'm going to kill everyone here. Francis?” he said to me, “Could you bolt and then jam the door so we can talk uninterrupted.”

I nodded and set about my task.

“So my questions are this,” Kerrass went on. “What lives there? Who summoned it? Why? And What was it's price? There may be follow up questions. Then I will want to know whether you still want my help? If not, we ride away. If you do then we will discuss pricing based on your answers to my earlier questions.”

His eyes seemed to blaze for a moment.

“The earlier questions are non-negotiable.”

The Head man nodded miserably and righted a table. The Witcher sat. I found a couple of tankards and poured the three of us some ale, leaving some money on the counter and propping up the bar man. I left the other man that I had struck where he was, the innkeeper had been hospitable to me and therefore deserved my help. It would later astonish me as to how easily I had made that distinction.

The Witcher sat. I noticed that he had taken a stool. Even allowing for the fact that he had sheathed his sword, it didn't look any the less threatening.

“So what is it?” he said after taking a long drink from his tankard.

“I will admit to not rightly knowing.” The man looked as though he had aged twenty years in the last five minutes. “I don't know what it is, all I can tell you is the story of what happened.”

The Headman was the next person to take a long swallow of ale from his tankard. I got up and filled a large jug of ale figuring that it would save on shoe leather if I didn't have to keep getting up and going to get more beer. The Inn-keeper was beginning to look a little more awake and nodded as I told him that this round was to be put on the head-man's tab.

“All village headmen get told this story but at the same time the story's not a secret and the job has run in my family since these events.

The village was just getting going, making a good living off cutting trees down and then selling off the wood. I don't know why the village was established here but I do know that the majority of that wood was sent off to one of the local towns to aid in that town's being built. Suddenly and for no readily apparent reason we got a case of wood-rot, you know what that is?”

We both shook our heads.

“It's a disease amongst trees and we still don't know what causes it. Some people claim it's something to do with insects and some other people claim that it's spiritual, a curse or whatever. In short, the trees we were cutting down turned out to be rotten. More and more it happened. We worked harder and harder but there was less and less to show for it. Things were getting desperate. Clients were threatening action which in those days involved soldiers and heads on spikes. Money and food was running out and things were going badly for everyone.”

He took another drink.

“It sounds relatively minor as I say it now but at the time it was serious. Some people were leaving the village declaring that it was a bad investment. It was a just a cycle of ruin. Less money, less food. Less food, worse health. Worse health, less strength. Less strength, less wood. Less wood, less money. The village was desperate and in the way of such things it was the village headman that took the blame.

“I can well imagine how desperate the man must have been to see things through and get his people out of trouble. I sometimes think about what I would have done in his place.

“One night something snapped in the man. He took his youngest son into the trees.

“It seems alien now that a man would do that to his own child but the man was desperate and those were different times. A parent reasons that their child is suffering and there's nothing to be done. Removing the child means that there is one less mouth to feed. One less suffering voice. He wasn't the first to take that option but as it turned out, that wasn't what he was doing.

“He went out into the trees at dusk. He came back a day later but he looked as though he had been gone for several more days without food and water. He had a fever and was shivering. The local herb-woman cared for him and he returned to health but the village didn't care.

“Because none of the trees that were felled the following day were rotten. Energy was suddenly in everyone's mind. The trees weren't rotten. We examined that wood carefully to make sure that we weren't wrong because if the wood was rotten and those beams collapsed then their delivery would be worse than no delivery at all.

“But no, all the wood was fine, as it was the following day and the day after that. We rejoiced and fell to the work with new found fervour.

“A month went buy, food was bought, wood was sold, people came back and everything was right with the villages world again.

“Then a girl went missing. Fourteen years old she was, long blonde hair, the memory of history says that she was a beautiful girl, kind and well-spoken to everyone. Village men and boys were counting the days until she was of marriageable age.

“Her name was Amber,

“The story goes that the village searched and searched. The place was a lot different then. We had some good men then who knew the ways of the wild. Her tracks were easily found as the girl had never learnt to hide them herself. The trail was as you described. She went into the woods in a relatively straight line for a small distance, not very far at all. She seemed to wait for a while before simply vanishing.

“They assumed an assignation of some kind. A wandering noble or knight had seen the girl, noticed her beauty and spirited her off to have his way with her. The hunters didn't agree as there were no other tracks.

“The head-man, to his credit did not hide past this point and his story came out. He had been the grand-son of a man whom his father had fled when he was old enough to help found this village but one day the Grandfather came to find his Grandson and had given him a book. The old man turned out to be a priest of the Lion headed Spider cult.”

My companion hissed.

“When things had started to get really bad the book had been read and a solution had been found. He had walked into the woods and summoned...something. He described it as a dark form, a dark...man of some kind. He said that it seemed to struggle to find a shape.”

“A deal was struck,” my companion prompted.

“Yes. In return for one life a month, the village would be prosperous. That was the extent of the deal.”

“Not nearly defined enough.” The Witcher said.

“I agree. The creature chose the life so it couldn't be a volunteer for a start. Nor is the period regular, it's not on the fourth of every month for example. We don't know their fate and none have ever come back. There are other conditions as well.

“No-one who is born here is ever allowed to move away. We can leave on business trips or to court a spouse or something but we always have to come back. We're also not allowed to send off for help about the problem. The problem was a little commuted when work crews started to come in. No-one misses the odd lumberjack from out of town and they do just wander off sometimes or get into fights where a knife is pulled and they fight over women and things. It's horrible and yes, I am aware that that makes us guilty of murder but... The deal was made for us.”

The Witcher nodded. I was astonished that he seemed almost sympathetic.

“Has anyone tried to talk to this being since?”

“It's been tried, sometimes those expeditions come back. Sometimes they don't,”

“What happened to the book?”

The Head-man chuckled despairingly.

“When the headman confessed, the local Witch fled. She just packed up and went. The rest of the village flew into a rage, burnt the book and lynched the head-man. My ancestor was the man who put the noose round the man's neck.”

“And you've been living like this ever since.”

“Yes.”

The Witcher nodded and spent a long time staring into space.

“Will you help us?” The headman asked nervously.

“I am not sure I can,” said the Witcher honestly. “Such beings are exceedingly dangerous and there is no secure method of dealing with them. Sorcerers and Witches have more sense than to try and deal with them.”

He stared into space.

“I will try,” he said after a long time. “But something to think about. If I try and fail, or succeed for that matter, by which I mean that it kills me or I banish it, then there will be repercussions against you. It will probably kill my companion in revenge and you will feel it as well.”

The head-man nodded.

“You understand that this might also mean the Wood-rot comes back?”

The head man nodded.

“Can't you kill it?” he asked even though I thought he knew the answer,

“Such things can't be killed,” The Witcher said flatly. “Do you still want me to help?”

“Master Witcher. Twelve people a year doesn't sound like a lot, but it means that in the long term, every single person here knows that, barring accident or illness. None of us will die in our beds. We all end up taking that track into the woods. There is no grave-yard in the village. None of us have gone back to the earth or been burned in accordance with the holy flame meaning that we are damned by old religion and new. If you can break this curse then it will not matter. We have money, even taking away your fee which I already suspect will be considerable. We can make a new start elsewhere.”

“It may follow you.”

“Then it follows us.” The head-man said savagely. “But at least this way our children will have a chance.”

The Witcher nodded.

“I have a lot of thinking to do,” he said.

Kerrass went to where his gear had been stowed, took out his steel sword. Slung it on his back next to the silver one and walked out the door without saying another word.

We all watched him.

Unmoving.