The Last: Chapter Two

—- PART ONE: Names Known

“You didn’t bother to wait before disposing of the bodies? Didn’t Aelfred tell you I was coming?” Roger watched as a thin, middle-aged man with receding brown hair and no shirt rinsed his hands in a basin of water. The bowl sat on a rough-looking table on the outside of what would have normally been a common hut. This one, however, had a large smokestack constructed onto the thatched roof that was currently breathing out small plumes of grey smoke. The man’s hands slammed water into his face, which only caused the soot covering his body to run streams down his visage.

“He did,” the man replied, then blew the water forming around his mouth at the end of his scruff beard with a blast of air that splattered on the side of the witcher’s sleeve. Roger wrinkled his face and tried to ignore it.

“Then why have the bodies been…” Roger looked at the three, intricately designed urns sitting on the opposite end of the same rough rable, “…addressed.”

“Addressed?” the man asked without looking back. “Like a letter?”

“You know what I mean,” Roger muttered as he kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. “Listen, mister…”

Roger waited for the man to fill in the details of his name. He didn’t.

“… how are you supposed to perform whatever rites these are without knowing who the men were?”

“Know exactly who the men are,” the man covered in soot corrected. “Known them for a long time. Knew that the work on the mountain was no good - dangerous. Knew the stories of it.”

Roger walked over to inspect the urns more closely. They appeared to be made of older material that was worn and tarnished. It was certainly some kind of metal, but not an expensive one. Pressings that depicted scenes of skeletons on boats circled the containers.

“Don’t touch them!” the soot-covered man spun around and roared. It was so uncharacteristic of his previous demeanor that it made the monster hunter almost jump. Instinctively his hand snapped to his sword belt, but didn’t move any further when he saw the man wasn’t charging him. Roger slowly backed up and held both of his hands in the air.

“Not touching,” he assured as he looked up towards the sky, “Just admiring the craftsmanship.”

“Absolute shit,” the soot-man fired back. Roger wasn’t sure if it was regarding the comment or the construction of the containers. When the cremator had turned his back again, Roger’s eyes went back to the urns, but more to identify the metal as opposed to the narrative depicted on it. The dents in it and cracking of the color would indicate it was tin, or perhaps another blend of aluminum. Roger’s interest ended there, and he turned his attention to the information that was lost and sealed inside of it.

“So, what then?” Roger asked, almost inquiring unto himself about where to turn with his investigation as opposed to what the cremateu’s process was for their burial.

“So, I do what I need, and you fuck off,” the soot-man snatched a rag from the ground with the toes on his bare feet and tossed it into the air. His still-filthy hand grabbed it and used it to dry off what water his sputtering breath didn’t remove. “I need to send these men off before it’s too late.”

“Not all of them,” Roger interjected. The soot-man bristled and stopped mid-step without even bothering to turn around before he responded.

“What was that?”

“Not all of them,” Roger repeated nonchalantly. “Not the fourth man. And these three are going without some important pieces, it would seem.”

“Where you from?” the man with the heavy Skelligean accent interrogated and stepped closer with each sentence. “That accent. Obviously from the continent. Not the south.”

“The Kestrels,” Roger replied with his eyes still looking at the middle of the cremator and watching for any quick movements.

“No one is from the Kestrels.”

“Some are.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Not about this.”

The two men were lunging distance away from each other. Roger was resting his arm on one of his twin swords. Despite his relaxed look, he would be able to have it at the man’s throat in the blink of an eye if needed. The man covered in soot had his hands balled into fists so tight that it drained all the color from their knuckles.

“Well then, I don’t know of any customs from these mysterious mountain villages you claim to be from, but I do know that Redania and Kaedwen have some very specific ones. Ones that if your body were to turn up missing a hand, an eye, or more of your face than is already missing, then they would take great efforts to ensure it was done properly! Is there anything like that where you came from?”

Roger thought back to the mountains, where he watched the body of another boy his age carried like a sack of potatoes over a man’s shoulders in the stone hallway. He could hear Alzur arguing with someone down the corridor and through a partially opened wooden door, and assumed it was Cosimo. The two sorcerers had been fighting more and more lately. Quietly, he followed the man that was carrying the child’s body. His broad shoulders and long braid of black hair made him stand out immediately as Erland of Larvik: one of the “first five” - a legendary witcher amongst the orphans that had survived the trials. As the two twisted and turned through the corridors Roger began to lose not only sight but the sound of the witcher. However, what he could follow was the smell of the chemicals that they used during the trials that still lingered under the boy’s skin. It was a pungent and eye-watering aroma for someone with a sense of smell as keen as Roger’s.

Wafts of the offensive odor started to become stronger until Roger found himself standing in a large, circular room with a giant hole in the middle of the floor. There were no chairs, wall decorations, tapestries, or training equipment anywhere to be found. The only other thing on the walls other than more corridors was a torch stand that currently sat empty. He could tell that the smell was coming from inside of the pit. His ears picked up on a slight buzzing noise that also grew as he approached step by step.

His feet were hesitant to not only step near the edge but also to give his eyes the opportunity to see into the hole. Thankfully, the lack of light in the room didn’t allow for the contents of it to become visible.

“Your name is Roger, isn’t it?” a voice asked from one of the dark corridors behind the young adept. Roger spun around and instinctively grabbed for his practice sword that was currently sitting on top of his bunk several hundred feet away. He saw vague movement from the shadows, and the torch that had been missing from the stand burst to life in the glove of Erland. The legendary witcher slowly walked into the room and held his free hand up in a show of safety.

“Y-yes,” Roger stammered and looked at the stone floor of the room.

“Did you know him?” Erland followed up.

“A bit. We all know each other a bit.”

“Do you want to see? Is that why you came here? You want to know what those old men think of those whose lives are lost during their efforts?” Erland stopped moving and remained as still as a statue. The only movement was of his eyes as they inspected Roger, and from his shadow as the torchlight danced around him.

“Yes,” Roger said more confidently. “I want to see. I think.”

Erland stared at him for some time before finally speaking.

“I have carried many to this room,” he raised the torch and watched at the light illuminated the naked walls of stone. “It never gets easier, and I always swear to do better someday. Come here, Roger of…”

It took a moment to realize that Erland was looking for Roger to give him his surname, of sorts. Roger needed to provide the town that he was from, but he didn’t know. The Trial of Grasses had been so traumatic for him that he went for a long time without thinking about his home before. He had been too young to hang onto any meaningful memories that would anchor him to a location other than Castle Morgraig.

“Nowhere,” Roger filled in.

“Roger of Nowhere?” Erland echoed with a touch of disappointment in his tone. “You will need to correct that someday.”

The witcher walked to the edge of the pit and looked at Roger in the eye. Roger couldn’t bear to hold the gaze.

“Come here, Roger of Nowhere. Stand by me and understand.”

Roger felt more fear from that invitation than he had in entering the room in the first place. However, he had also not felt any kind of kinship with the other adepts that had survived the trials. A part of him was desperate for this kind of recognition. His feet moved before he even realized it, and he was suddenly standing next to Erland at the edge of the pit.

“Are you brave, Roger?” Erland asked as he held the torch behind his back.

“I don’t know,” Roger confessed.

“That is the correct answer,” the first of the five reassured the young boy. “Prepare to steady yourself, and know that once you see this you will never truly be young again.”

Erland stretched his arm out over the pit, but Roger lunged forward and clapped his hands around the older witcher’s, keeping the torch from being dropped.

“Why show me?” Roger asked, “Why show me if it’s so terrible?”

The boy looked up into the tired, yellow, and cat-like eyes of a man he had always considered a kind of hero. Now, he doubted if there were any to find in a place such as this. Erland spoke:

“You will rarely ever know all the machinations that work behind the scenes of the world around you. If you are someone who wants to live a life of ignorance and placate yourself as much as possible, then keep your hands on mine. However,” Erland leaned down while still keeping his hand, along with Roger’s, over the pit, “If you want to have a better understanding for what you are, your own strength, and the cost; then let go.”

Roger released his grip without a moment of hesitation. The torch fell from Erland’s hand and plummeted into the pit. As it dropped, it roared off of the stone walls that lined the pit as well as the room. The sound dissipated the further it fell, but the scene at the end of the fall screamed at Roger through his eyes.

Below was a mix of hollow sockets in decaying skulls and glazed-over eyes in rigid boys no older than Roger. Every single one of the dead bodies that lined the floor of the mass coffin punched at Roger’s emotions and mental stability. The number was far greater than he could have imagined, and the amount of decay he saw at varying heights showed that it was from a longer timeline than he originally thought. Some of the bodies seemed to still be trying to climb out of the hole. Others had obviously been long dead before they ever saw the room above. Finally, he saw the boy Erland had just been carrying.

Roger staggered backward and was unable to catch his breath. Erland did nothing to help him. The young witcher-adept’s hands slapped against the stone floor as he tried to focus on his breathing and create a rhythm that he could control. He was unable. Instead, his throat produced a wheezing and heaving that jolted randomly and often.

“Well? Is there!?” the cremator shouted as water flew from his short beard onto Roger’s gambeson.

The witcher’s head spasmed for a brief moment before looking at the soot-man’s eyes searching for where they had last left off.

“Yes. Forgive me for being rude,” Roger’s eyes continued to search the area around them as he sorted through the memories that had just flooded through his mind. “I lost myself for a moment.”

“Apparently” the cremator fired back as he grabbed a shovel and began scooping ash out of the bottom of his kiln that was attached to his house. Roger’s face grimaced as he realized that the kiln this man burned the bodies with was a part of where he lived. That means the smell that he was picking up around here was forever a part of this man’s life.

“What do they call you, hunter?” the man asked, surprising the witcher.

“Roger. Yours?”

“Ulvarr. Ulvarr an Erd,” he responded, tilting his chin up and standing with a posture that let Roger know this name had some kind of meaning to the islands - or at least Ulvarr.

“Ulvarr,” Roger said, acting showy and saying the name as if he were taking a sip of fine wine, “Like you, I am a professional. My profession is to discover what happened to these men. To find out what took their lives away from them and keep it from doing it to someone else.”

Ulvarr looked down and poked at the pile of ash in front of him with the shovel.

“Your job,” Roger continued, “Is to help those that have lost their lives pass on to the next. I understand that. You and I work for the same goal.”

Roger’s eyes softened and looked at Ulvarr’s face, “Peace for the dead.”

Ulvarr nodded and stabbed at the ground with the tip of his spade.

“The fourth man,” Roger didn’t waste even a moment, “You said that you knew these three here, but the fourth, missing man: who was he?”

The cremator breathed in deeply and drove the shovel deep into the pile of ash while exhaling.

“I don’t know, but I know these three…” Ulvarr waved his hand over the old metal urns on the table, “…called him ‘Packy.’”

“I’ve heard that,” Roger took a step closer to Ulvarr. “Did you know where he lived, or know anyone who knew where he lived?”

“I don’t, but I know where he spent his money.”

Roger’s interest piqued. He knew that a man had to eat, and a man had to drink, and a man had to sleep. Only two of those three things required coin, and the third could be tracked.

“Go on,” the witcher encouraged. “Even that would help.”

“Then what?” Ulvarr countered. “You gunna kill him? Hurt him? Is ‘Packy’ your killer? The little oddling is somehow capable of killing three other men in the state I saw their pieces in?”

The question confused Roger, and his head tilted to the side.

“Look at that,” Ulvarr mused and laughed, “He even turns his head like a shaggy red dog. If I were to piss on your leg would you tuck your tail, as well?”

Roger realized that the moniker of “shaggy red dog’ that Aelfred had given him back at the courtyard had spread. He shouldn’t have been surprised. As the main source of income for Svorlag, it shouldn’t have been a shock to see that the merchant also delt in gossip with any and everyone that he encountered. And what would be better gossip than a yellow-eyed, red-haired monster hunter brought to the island? He sighed, swaggered closer to the cremator, and rested his arm on one of his short swords.

“Oh, come off it,” Ulvarr said, squaring up at Roger as he approached, “I was only joking, you can go — hey now! That’s far enough!”

Ulvarr felt that Roger had stepped too close. The witcher knew what he was doing - the entire act of him moving forward was meant to provoke a reaction. If Ulvarr was more bark than bite then it would show in his skin and breathing. This would mean Roger immediately had the upper hand. If Ulvarr attacked Roger then it would be over before it even began. The only option for Ulvarr was to dismiss the move and continue to speak calmly. This was not a trait that he had shown a predetermination for at this point.

The soot-covered man shot a fist forward and aimed at the space between the witcher’s nose and mouth. From his own experience fighting on the island, this was the off-switch for most people. However, he found that his fist had somehow missed, and was now resting on the side of Roger’s neck. Ulvarr snapped his hand back and swung an elbow from his other arm. Roger’s head moved back slightly and made the cremator’s body twist uncomfortably as his weight hit nothing but air. A blinding light flashed before Ulvarr’s eyes with a crunch, a brief silence, and a sudden slam on the back of his head into the dirt.

For a moment, he felt peaceful. All of the fear and aggression that had caused him to made the first strike had dissipated, and he was perfectly content. Then his mind caught up with the state of his body, and panic began to set in remembering what had just happened. Finally, the pain charged up his nose and all the way through his head, and he felt the blood trickle into his throat from his nasal cavity. When he opened his eyes, his vision was blurred and doubled as if he’d downed an entire barrel of mead by himself.

“Wut?” he asked, dumbfounded and stuffy, “What did you do to me?”

Roger readjusted the headband over his eyes, sighed audibly, and leaned down to place his knee on Ulvarr’s chest.

“I believe…” he started, dramatically looking up to the sky and at their surroundings, “…that I have been more than polite. Especially given your childish attitude, and the fact that I was called here to help this village. I didn’t come looking for work. Do you understand the difference? I was summoned. And now I’m having to interact with an ungrateful grub that shovels the remnants of his village into small little jars. Doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?”

Ulvarr coughed and spit out blood that had accumulated into his throat.

“I’m glad we agree, as I am not a patient man - Ulvarr - and have need to rush,” he placed a sarcastic emphasis on the cremator’s name and flashed the Axii sign through his fingers, “Therefore, I need you to tell me everything you know about ‘Packy.’”

—- PART TWO: Gorm of the Pit

“Ulvarr told you that?” the man swollen and stuck in his chair from a lifetime of overeating asked.

“More or less,” Roger replied, scanning the handful of cottages that hugged the walled-off fighting pits of the village of Hov. Svorlag wasn’t even out of sight from this town. In fact, it had taken him less than ten minutes to walk there from the main port of the island. He wasn’t even sure why there were two separate towns to begin with. However, judging by the playful rivalry that bordered on serious between the members of the different villages, it must have been something deep-seated in their history.

“Packy. That little fuck,” the fat man before Roger said calmly, “Owes me quite a considerable sum. I’m guessing you’re here to try and collect on some of, if not all of what he owes me?”

“I’m not,” Roger replied, looking around at the three other men standing around them under the straw canopy that sat overhead. The witcher saw that all three of the armed thugs were trying to stare him down. He could feel their eyes inspecting the twin swords on the front of his belt and the silver sword on his back. The fat man wasn’t even looking at Roger, and was instead casually scanning two books at the same time. His large, tattooed hands were sweeping across the pages at a speed that made Roger wonder if he was even retaining the words. Over his shoulders was an intricate fur that had some pocks of brown throughout it. The pattern of which lead Roger to believe it was blood splatter he never bothered to wash out. Given what was going on over the fence next to them, he didn’t find it surprising.

“Then why are you here?” the disinterested, overweight overseer of the Hov fighting pits inquired, oddly spacing out his emphasis. The air that annunciated his words flared the hair from his oversized mustache. Roger didn’t feel many emotions, but there was a part of him - for a brief moment - that actually admired the grooming and look that this person had to their facial hair.

“Because, let’s say…” the fat man continued, not waiting for an answer, looking up to the ceiling and holding up a small knife that he was using to trace his place on the page, “… I was to help you find Packy…then I would be potentially cheating myself out of coin. Would I not?”

“I’m not interested in your financial relationship with the man,” Roger asserted, breathing in deep streams of air through his nostrils and avoiding the gaze of his guard. “I’m really not here to —”

“So then, if — “ the fat man stopped mid-sentence and his eyes lit up as he took his first look at Roger. His body inflated as if he were drinking in the sight of the red hair, beard, swords, and armor. He shifted back in his chair while sizing him up.

“Look at those yellow eyes. Boys! Do you see the color of the peepers on this ginger — oh…” he drew out the end of his sentence as his thoughts caught up with him, “…this is, the bloodhound. This is, the red dog that Aelfred has been bragging about all, over, the island.”

Roger’s nostrils widened realizing this moniker had spread further than his investigation had.

“Clenched jaw. Wide shoulders. I can only imagine your haunches!” he leaned forward and set his elbows on the table.

Roger stepped forward to meet the gesture. Immediately, the three guards’ hands slapped onto the hilts of their own short swords. He noticed the size of the blades based on their scabbards and figured they were more for quick stabbing work as opposed to any kind of outright duel. Roger’s were the same: functional, and dangerous.

“If you know that description of me, then you know why I’m here. You know I’m not here for your coin,” Roger placed his purpose before the five of them under the straw roof.

“Aye,” the man nodded and pointed at himself with both thumbs, “Being paid by someone else’s. So then, what does this monster hunting have to do with Gorm here?”

Roger opened his mouth to reply.

“More importantly,” Gorm interrupted, “What does monster-hunting have to do with my Packy? That man spends a lot of money here. Not just here, but at the places around it. Also mine.”

Leather fingers tapped across the pommel of Roger’s short swords. It was a sign of impatience and a realization that this man brokered information as others do in currency. Roger didn’t have much to barter with on the island. He sucked air through his teeth.

“Before I say anything, how can I know that you actually know where our ‘friend’ is?” Roger countered.

Gorm breathed in deeply. Roger didn’t let him exhale it.

“More importantly, how can I trust your information?”

Gorm’s chubby body wiggled in his chair as he overexaggerated his pleasure at the question.

“I get so bored, witcher. So, bored. You might find that surprising, given that my job is to run the fighting pit, amongst other, tasks. Do you have any idea, how much, money, I could earn shouting about a fight between a witcher and…and…oy!” Gorm snapped his fingers at the man over his right shoulder. “What could we put up against a witcher?”

The armed man whose gaze had softened since hearing Gorm utter the word ‘witcher’ whispered something hastily into the fat man’s ear. Gorm closed his eyes, folded his hands, and nodded slowly as the words bounced through his canal. He smiled. Roger didn’t.

“Here is where I have arrived, slayer,” Gorm said opening his eyes and looking towards the ceiling. “You give me a fight, and I will give you the same general area that I’ve been searching for Packy, and also some information that you would have never gained beforehand.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re not,” Gorm responded. “You have to fight first. Give me - no - give Hov, my humble little village, the fight of a lifetime, and I will give you Packy, and also Packy’s pact.”

“Packy’s pact?”

“You listened now. Packy’s pact,” Gorm was very pleased with his offer. He stroked the edges of his mustache, “For a fight that Hov will talk about for generations.”

“Again,” Roger stepped closer but noticed this time the guards didn’t make any moves to intimidate, “How can I trust what you’ll tell me? Assuming I make it out of this fight - should I even choose to do it.”

Gorm shrugged and pursed his bottom lip over his mustache. He then clucked his tongue, ‘Guess you can’t!”

The five men sat in silence. Roger continued to breathe through his nose and caught the scent of musky salt of sweat on the air. His eyes snapped between the faces of the guards, who were all looking nervously at each other and then back to the witcher. Gorm didn’t break eye contact with him once.

A handful of shouts burst over the spiked wooden posts that separated them from the muddy and bloody fighting pits of Hov. Roger had heard that they were opened in order to pass the time of a bored people, bring in coin from other islands, and give some restless bodies a chance to put some money - and information - into Gorm’s hands. The excited shouts quickly turned to groans as an impactful blow was levied. It was impossible to know by whom to whom, but it certainly signified the end of the match.

“Waste of time,” the witcher said, “You know what I am. No man you have could stand a chance.”

The witcher looked each of the bodyguards in the eyes and watched as their fortitude crumbled from his yellow stare. The collapse was silent and almost imperceptible. However, Roger was highly experienced in the art of combat, and more importantly the art of reading his opponents. If he so much as sneezed in their direction he was confident they would piss themselves.

“No, in that you are correct,” Gorm lowered his head and stared at Roger from under his brow. “But, you could fight ten men. You could fight ten men, in one match.”

“I’m not killing ten more for a supposed location of one man and a special agreement he had with some mystery person,” Roger snickered. “Like I said, waste of time.”

Roger turned his back and began heading towards the small wooden steps that had brought him up to Gorm’s platform out of the mud of Hov’s streets. He let his weight slam through his foot onto the first, then shifted his weight dramatically to the other and let it crash onto the second. It was important that he didn’t rush but also didn’t look as if he was purposely going slow.

“No killing!” Gorm shouted. Roger waved him off and stomped his third foot on the second-to-last stair before hitting the dirt road.

“No killing, and they can’t kill you. Ten men!” Gorm raised.

Roger stopped just short of the mud.

“That’s it?” he asked over his shoulder. “I just have to fight ten men at once without killing them, and they can’t kill me?”

Gorm unstuck himself from his ill-fitting leather chair and held out his hand to seal the deal, “I’ll even toss in, 10% of the earnings. One percent for, each man! What do you, say ‘red dog!?”

—- PART THREE: Seeing the Enemy

“Do I have to take off my shirt?” Roger asked the small, anxious man in front of him that hadn’t stopped smiling since he saw Roger.

“It’s n-not my request, master witcher!” he blurted out with an awkward chuckle. “It’s the r-rules of the t-t-t-t-t-”

Roger’s face squinted in discomfort and looked up towards the stands. He saw the same three guards that were sweating it out with Gorm moving amongst the crowd counting coin and yelling at the patrons packing the benches.

“-tournament!” the little man finally finished. He gave an awkward and pleading bow as he held out his hands for the witcher’s garment to be disrobed. Roger made a quick mental inventory of his gear that lay in pile next to his assigned helper. His armored bracers and shin guards, scale chest and shoulder guards, twin short-swords, silver sword, and boots were all neatly stacked on top of each other. The little man was someone who clearly took pride in his menial responsibilities in an otherwise blood-soaked and messy environment. Roger empathized. He tried not to let that feeling of appreciation get confused with his pity for the man’s gimped leg and crooked spine.

“Can’t hide weapons,” the crooked man offered.

“I understand. What’s your name?” Roger asked and began removing his shirt. As he pulled the frayed linen over his shoulders countless scars and blemishes became visible. Each told a story of the size of either claw or tooth and the depths of which they cut. Even the crowd seemed to quiet for a moment as they read the narrative that had been violently painted on the witcher’s torso. Roger tossed the shirt to his helper, who was too stunned to do anything other than let it fall over his face.

“Tate, master witcher!” he finally shouted from under the muffled weaves of the hunter’s sweat-stained garment.

“Tate,” Roger began, turning his focus to the opposite side of the pit, “What do I need to know about this fight?”

The crooked man wrung the shirt in his grip, “There’s ten of them.”

Roger wrinkled his face, “I can count, Tate. What do I need to know about this match? What does Gorm like to throw at his outside opponents?”

“You aren’t fighting Gorm, sir,” Tate suggested.

Roger grimaced, “You’ve been here for a while I’m guessing.”

“Eight years. Since it began, sir.”

“Gorm’s not betting on me, Tate. He’s going to bet on those ten men over there. More specifically, he’s going to bet against the crowd.”

“Why do you say that, master witcher?”

Roger looked around the audience in the benches lining the wooden walls. Half of them were drunk, and the other half were on their way to joining them, “Wouldn’t you want to bet on the new prize pig?”

Tate said nothing and nodded. Roger followed up, “Gorm is betting against their excitement. It profits more.”

“Yes,” Tate lowered his head, “I would imagine that he is. He prefers to bet - albeit anonymously - on the l-l-l-ess-f-f-favored.”

Tate shook his head violently from side to side and threw himself at Roger’s bare feet, “I shouldn’t have said that, I really shouldn’t have said that! Please don’t tell Gorm that I said that!”

Roger softly kicked Tate off of his shin and looked around the arena. He didn’t even see Gorm, let alone know if he had anyone listening to Tate, “Steady on.”

Tate wasn’t so easily reconciled, and Roger understood that Gorm had probably inflicted great pain during this man’s tenure at the pit. Or - at least - great humiliation, given his physical impairments. The man’s crooked spine writhed up and down as he begged for Roger’s discretion.

“Enough already,” Roger dismissed through a whisper, “Stand up, I won’t tell anyone, but you have to do me a favor.”

“Anything!” Tate sobbed.

“Tell me what is going to happen here. You took my swords, so is this going to be a fistfight? Are they going to all attack me at the same time? Are Gorm’s men going to throw these ten other men weapons at some point and kill me, regardless?”

Tate looked around the arena nervously, and then quickly snapped his focus to the ground.

“Gorm always wears a d-d-d-disguise in the crowd. You can never find him. You c-c-c-can sometimes find him, but only by the company he keeps,” Tate sputtered the words out like he was spilling water from a bucket.

“Why would he do that?” Roger inquired.

“T-tells a st-st-st-story,” Tate responded nervously, “D-d-distance makes him s-s-seem more powerful to the p-p-people. B-b-ut he can’t help himself. He loves the fight.”

Roger started to think about Gorm’s need to stay anonymous before his thoughts were interrupted.

“Your eyes, they are special, are they not, m-m-master witcher?”

“Different, yes,” he replied calmly, picking some dirt out from under his nails and sizing up the ten men on the other side of the pit. Most of them seemed to be around the same build: varying degrees of light skin and hair, combined with some unnecessary body fat from too much food or drink. Two of the ten were large enough for him to be wary of their strike. A normal man’s punch he could slip off of his body with a simple twist of his torso or turn of his cheek. A strong man’s punch, left unchecked, could do some damage after a while.

“In t-t-t-the crowd, there will be a woman with him. He will be within whispering distance of her in disguise.”

“I see several women already,” Roger nodded towards different areas of the filling mob surrounding them, and made a note of Tate’s disappearing stutter. “You’ll need to be more specific, and also explain how that will help me against what’s coming.”

Tate shook his head, “T-t-t-too much. I’ve said too much.”

The cripple spun around and snatched Roger’s gear up in his arms, “He will whisper to her when he becomes b-b-b-bored. He will whisper to her and to others around him.”

“How the hell will I be able to tell when he whispers from this distance - hey!”

Roger watched as Tate shuffled off with his gear behind a small wooden gate. The broken man didn’t run off fast enough to warrant Roger panicking, nor did his energy show that he was trying to sneak off with the gear. Instead, it looked as if he was diligently storing and securing his client’s goods.

The witcher shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and moved to walk towards the center of the arena and a group of - as promised - ten fighters. Five of the ten had formed a semi circle around the center of the arena. Regardless, he loped forward and stretched his arms behind his back.

“Alright,” Roger began, “How do we do this?”

None of the other men said anything. Instead, they nervously looked at each other and charged at the same time. Roger anticipated this would be their tactic, as attacking one at a time would mean a hit to the head. No one wanted a hit to the head, regardless of the odds.

The witcher’s feet moved before his mind did. He strafed left, then right, and started pulling the direction of the five men like he’d weaved a thread through them.

Utilizing his enhanced agility, he managed to turn an angry party of five men into a single line of disoriented fighters. The crowd roared with jeers and insults and Roger stepped into the guard of the first man. A panicked right hook was easily deflected by Roger’s left forearm, and he brought his right elbow slamming into the side of the poor man’s face.

The second man performed a flying front kick with little delay. Roger stepped into the kick and ducked. The man’s foot missed and flew over the witcher’s left shoulder before landing on top of it. Instead of breaking the leg at the knee, Roger fired his own knee up and brought it into the groin of his assailant. The low moan of the crowd could be heard all at once in empathy.

The noise of the watching mob reminded Roger that he should be on the lookout for the women in the crowd. His eyes snapped to find those without beards, and whose garments didn’t match the gender of those around them. Before he could, two of the men took advantage of his distraction and attacked at the same time from opposite sides.

The man on his left threw a leaping punch aimed at the witcher’s head, while the man on the right fired a low kick to his gut. Roger wondered if these two had fought together before, but quickly dismissed the train of thought in order to address the danger approaching him at a quickening pace.

Roger leaned back and dodged the punch, but caught the kick with his right hand on his hip. His elbow smashed into the top of it and forced gasps from the crowd. With an audible pop, the man screamed and fell to the dirt floor of their violent stage. Roger then turned and landed a lightning fast punch to the other man. The impact that reverberated through his arm let him know that the fighter wouldn’t get up anytime soon.

Dust bloomed and cascaded around the witcher and the remaining six men.

—-PART TWO: A Lesson

“Set a rhythm,” the waltzing accent of his sword instructor echoed in his head from his time as an adept.

“Feign an attack to force their defense. Roger! Attention!” Taliesin Bleddyn Yorath aep Lywelyn - a name that took Roger as long to pronounce correctly as it did to spell - closed the distance between the two them in the training field of Castle Morgraig. Roger had been paying more attention to the other members of the Order of Witchers that were watching them from the walls and grounds. It made him uncomfortable and his reflexes sticky imagining them judging his every move.

“Look at my hands, look at my body,” the armored sword-master commanded as he stopped mid-thrust, “Which way are you going to defend based on my position right now?”

Roger hesitantly moved his blade into a low guard and pivoted his body to absorb the incoming swing. His eyes flashed across the crowd of witcher adepts and masters to gauge their facial responses.

“Indeed!” Taliesin shouted, “That would be the correct move. Now I’m going to make this attack. Block it!”

Taliesin hopped back three steps causing his breastplate and armor to creak against the leather that was strapping it together.

“Here I come! Defend!”

Roger misplaced his feet as he watched Taliesin dive forward with his blade. In the time it took him to correct it he was barely able to get his sword into the low guard position. However, instead of feeling the impact of the swords colliding, he watched as the man that had been nicknamed “The Gryphon” stopped short of a full swing, leaned over Roger’s guard, and brought the hilt of his sword swiftly, but gently into his neck.

Roger’s heart rate skyrocketed, despite the mutations meant to control it. He felt surprised, embarrassed, and - finally - angry.

“Do you see, my nervous little candlestick?” The Gryphon asked using a nickname that Roger detested. It was a reference to his wavy shock of auburn-red hair that many said made him look like a skinny candle with a flame. Roger could smell the wine on the Gryphon’s breath that he’d been sipping since lunch. “I forced your movement. Of course you would block - no one wants a hit. That is the beauty of the feint - of setting your own rhythm. I set the rhythm and made you dance, and I knew exactly where you’d be and where I needed to move.”

Taliesin stood straight and sheathed his sword.

“You don’t always need magic to make someone do what you want. Sometimes you just need to make the right move to cause a reaction.”

As he turned to move back to his starting point Roger spoke up.

“Then there is no defense?”

“Pardon?”

“There is no defense against it. If I block I die. If I don’t block I die! What’s the point then?”

“Ah,” Taliesin smiled, “The young flame burns brighter. You have to interrupt mine and figure out how to make me dance to yours. Therein lies the importance of ‘mastery.’”

Roger shook his head and nervously looked around at the crowd. They all watched without emotion. All except Ivar: another one of the first witchers to survive the experiments. Instead, Ivar rubbed his discolored purple eye while inspecting the edges of his silver Flambarded sword. He had just returned to Morgraig for the first time in some months, and had spent much time discussing private conversations with the other “firsts.” No one really knew what they discussed or where he’d been, but he seemed to enjoy sitting quietly in the courtyard during combat training.

“I will show you how to confuse and misguide,” Taliesin directed the comment more to the people in the courtyard instead of just Roger. “A fight is not won from strength. A fight is won from knowledge, determination, and technique.”

“And this technique is the best?” Roger asked imprudently.

“So far!” the sword-master slammed his fist against his armored chest and held his head up high. “I live. That is proof enough for many. I can see you need more convincing, perhaps?”

Taliesin flourished his blade and made the sunlight flash around him from the metal. He dropped into a stance that Roger had not seen him practice with the others yet. Ivar looked up for the first time since they had begun.

“Protect yourself, candlestick!” The Gryphon smirked and fogged his blade with his breath as it set in a ready position next to his cheek, “Don’t let me put out that flame.”

—- PART FOUR: The Gaze

Roger didn’t bother feinting with the next two attackers. A lightning-fast fist to the tips of their chins was enough to plant them on the dirt floor of the arena. He hopped back three steps, much as his first instructor would do, and watched to see how the remaining four men would flow together in their attack.

Two of the men started to move to his sides in an attempt to surround him. This is the moment Roger was hoping for. He immediately dashed to the man on his right and levied a heavy knee to his chest. Isolating him was meant to line up his attackers again, and it worked. Roger spun and turned his hips to swing his shin into the next man’s liver. The poor bastard grunted, and that noise extended into a groan as the residual effects of the organ damage caused his body to collapse. Three left.

Of the three, a gargantuan brawler - even by Roger’s height - stood before him. Roger saw someone slamming their hand on the wooden wall of the fighting arena from the audience stands and shouting at the other two men. Something was being passed to them, but before Roger could identify it the brute with the bald head was already moving on him. The span of the man’s arms seemed to cover the entire field of view as he spread them out as wide as he could in a charging bear hug. Roger slowly lowered his shoulders.

In an instant he brought his fist up in a tight uppercut. He twisted his hips and swung his opposing shoulder back to add extra momentum to the attack. His knuckles crashed into the brute’s jaw with a blow so powerful it completely shifted the brute’s charging momentum from forward to up. Blood poured from his mouth and his jaw sat gaping as he slumped to his knees.

Before Roger could relax his muscles, the last two men sprung out to his sides from behind the large man’s incapacitated figure. Immediately, Roger took note of their agility. They weren’t the chubby brawlers that the first men had been. These were Gorm’s ringers. Roger decided to throw them off guard and bring to the fight to them. He ran forward and jumped off of the unconscious body of the giant in front of him. While in the air, he spun around in time to see both of the attackers pivoting and sprinting back in his direction. The crowd roared with the anticipation of their clash.

There was something about their movement that made Roger perk up and pay more attention. Instead of jumping around like hesitant yard dogs, these two dashed and charged like wolves. Their attacks were coordinated and precise as they circled looking for weakness. Roger found himself repositioning out of their lines of attack instead of setting up his own. The witcher could feel his heart rate accelerating. He smirked and stood his ground.

Both men slowed and matched each other’s pace for a few breaths. Without looking at the other, they charged with whatever weapons they had been passed to them. Roger could feel the tension of the crowd and hear their voices rising as the two ringers closed within lunging distance.

Roger’s fingers moved quickly and traced the lines of Aard in the air just below his waist. The blast from the minor spell slammed into the earth and sprayed dirt in the faces of the two attackers. One fell to the ground after losing his balance. The other peeled off and was desperately trying to clear the particles from his eyes as he jogged away. Roger immediately picked his target, and in two bounds landed a kick into the side of the downed man’s head. Without wasting a moment, he took off in a dead sprint towards the other. The last attacker’s fingers were rubbing his eyes raw, and he violently coughed out the dirt that had been stuck in his throat. As he turned to ready himself in a defensive stance, he saw that Roger had already closed the distance.

In the arena of Hov, there was always a silence before a final blow of a match was struck. For a moment, Roger heard nothing as his elbow closed the distance into the attacker’s face. A bone-crunching crack bounced off of the wooden walls and made the audience roar and groan with a mixture of pleasure and disgust. The witcher’s momentum had been so strong that despite the impact and weight of the other man, he continued forward and had to physically slow himself to a stop.

Finally, Roger was able to scan the crowd. Many were jumping up and down, cheering, or laughing with pleasure at the match. This included some women, which is what he was supposed to be looking out for per Tate’s information. Finally, he saw one woman sitting down in a violet dress draped with white fur. Her face was covered by a silk scarf, and a large man in a hood sat behind her whispering into her ear.

Roger was so focused on the sadness he saw in her eyes that he missed the rising cheers from the crowd. Two hands slammed around his own neck like a vice and lifted him into the air. He swung his legs to kick his new attacker and was able to spin his head around to see that the large man he thought he knocked out earlier was standing. His eyes were red and Roger noticed particles of blueish-white circling his nostrils. Roger was disappointed in himself that he missed the signs of Fisstech when he had closed the distance earlier. Even more so now that the life was being choked out of him.

The large man was spitting and grunting with drug-fueled rage as he squeezed the soft skin around Roger’s neck. Veins swelled across the brawler’s bald, red scalp, and he was muttering some gibberish that Roger couldn’t understand. With his last moment of consciousness, Roger traced the sign of Igni and clapped his palm into the brute’s chest. Flames burst from his torso and up into his black beard. His hands immediately let go of Roger’s neck as he sprawled onto the ground clutching his body. The witcher’s nostrils caught the smell of charred flesh and singed hair. He breathed it in to the deepest part of his lungs, and slowly walked behind the giant man’s desperate crawls and howls of pain.

Fisstech pumped through the brute’s blood and the pain of the burns only served to amplify his rage. With a bestial roar, he spun over on his back in an attempt to lunge upwards towards the witcher. Instead, Roger’s heel slammed into in his neck and pinned his head against the dirt. The monster hunter’s foot didn’t move or relent on pressure, and dark clouds overtook the gargantuan thug’s vision.

Roger’s gaze stayed fixed on the hooded man in the crowd, whose fingers had been pointing the veiled woman’s face in the direction of the fight. Many in the crowd were questioning whether Roger had killed the other man. Others were smiling and nervously laughing at the spectacle. Roger saw nothing but Gorm’s silver mustache smiling at him from under a dark hood behind a scared woman.