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Lambert swung his sword through the last drowner’s neck and kept swinging at the unexpected projectile coming at his back. Metal clashed against metal in a distinctly knife-on-sword clang as he knocked the item down, but he kept his eyes on the thrower-- a cloaked human on the treeline, who seemed far too comfortable facing a toxic Witcher.
Another would-be assassin had caught up to him, then. Hopefully this one would be more creative than the last four.
The man raked his eyes up and down Lambert’s form, his eyes lingering over his bright red hair.
Lambert bared his teeth in an approximation of a grin. With the ichor dripping down his forehead and black toxins visibly pulsing through his veins, trying to look friendly was never going to be an option. “Not the Wolf witcher you were hoping for?”
“Perhaps.” The man’s cloak fluttered around him, concealing his hands. “Tell me where the White Wolf is, and I’ll let you be on your way.”
Lambert hummed and tilted his head. He didn't even consider selling out Pretty Boy and his Cub, but it did buy him the time to stretch out his senses, searching the woods for any other human heartbeats.
The lackbrain was alone, so either he was good or he was reckless. Neither was particularly concerning.
“Well?”
Lambert shifted his grip on his sword. “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Then I think we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”
The man flung a second and third knife, but Lambert rushed forward, knocking the knives aside with his quen. More knives followed, faster than any humans could probably react. Lambert batted them down like flies. The man managed to take a single step back before Lambert was in range.
His sword swung true, and the would-be assassin collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.
It was hardly any effort to add the body to the dead drowners and set the pile ablaze. The heat made sweat bead at his hairline, even as he turned away to rummage through his nearby pack. Once he’d detoxed and collected his new knives—poison-coated, so the assassin was only half a sheep-headed clod—, he leaned against a large tree, tearing into a strip of jerky and watching the bodies burn.
There was no way to know who had tipped off the assassin. The alderman that had contracted him for the drowners or anyone in the village could have pointed him out this way, or maybe someone had reported a Wolf witcher weeks back and the assassin had only now caught up, hoping the hunt would provide a distraction.
Whatever had happened, it didn’t change his plans.
Didn’t change the fact Geralt had five fewer assassins to worry about, either. Five assassins that hadn’t been smart enough to try to walk away when they realized that any Wolf witcher was the wanted Wolf witcher to anyone desperate enough for the reward money.
Once the bodies were down to an ashen pile of bones, Lambert shouldered his pack and headed back to the village. It wouldn’t do to give them a free hunt just because they might have tried to have him killed. He had a reputation to uphold.
The villagers moved out of his way as he strode toward the alderman’s house, but they didn’t seem any more concerned than usual.
The alderman looked alarmed at the state of him, but men with a little authority tended to react to him that way. The smaller-than-agreed-upon coin purse was further evidence he had no idea Lambert had just killed a man in the woods outside of his village.
Lambert raised his eyebrow and shifted to remove his pack. “I still have the notice, if you’d like to read the figure again.”
“Ah.” The alderman paled, and his heart rate spiked. “No, no, I trust your word… Master Witcher.”
He dug through a drawer for a moment before holding out a fuller coin purse.
Lambert took it and sketched the most sarcastic bow he could muster. “Pleasure doing business. If anyone passing through needs a witcher, I’ll be heading South.”
The man’s face flickered through more emotions than Lambert cared to parse, so he tucked away his payment and headed for the stables.
Even with the brown mare he'd chosen for its similarity to Geralt’s last Roach, it took several days to reach the major split in the road. As he’d promised, he turned South toward Lyria.
He honestly didn’t know where Geralt and Ciri and that backstabbing witch had fled. Trying to avoid Nilfgaard and the Northern monarchs didn’t leave a lot of options, but he would wager they would risk the North before Nilfgaard. Try to play the monarchs against each other, maybe.
Coën had taken the Temerian loop this season, intending to spread his own rumors of a pale-haired child traveling with a witcher. Geralt’s bard was based in Redania, so that area would be scoured regularly. The sorceress Merrigold had promised to scatter her own whispers about a violet-eyed sorceress where she could.
Lambert had been traveling openly as a Wolf witcher in Aedirn long enough that his own rumors had beat him to towns a few times, so heading South to Lyria made sense. With any luck, he could convince a few more assassins that Geralt was hiding in the mountains or trying to loop through Toussaint to bring the fight straight to Emhyr.
It was exactly the sort of noble shit Geralt would try.
Hopefully, Ciri would be a better influence on him.
Lyria was no different from Aedirn: good towns and shitty ones, easy hunts and ones that let Lambert flex his skills and strategies. He took out an arachas, a noonwraith, two mercenaries hoping to ransom him to Geralt or some shit, and so many foglets he wondered how many seasons it’d been since a witcher took this route. It was far outside of the usual Wolf Paths, but he stuck to his plan.
In Rivia, the alderman mentioned strange noises a fisherman had noticed further up the river.
Lambert led his nameless horse to the stable, paying a small stableboy to take care of her during his hunt. The lad took his coin almost absently as he stared at Lambert’s medallion. He seemed to shake himself before he gathered the horse’s reins.
“What?”
The boy glanced back at him and led the horse into a clean stall, turning her around. “A few days ago Szymon, the tavernkeep, he told the stablemaster a Wolf witcher was in the area. I wasn’t expectin’ to meet you, is all.”
Lambert grunted. It’d be kind of funny to find out Geralt had been hiding in Rivia all this time, but Lambert wouldn’t take that bet. Geralt may have terrible senses of humor and self-preservation, but there weren't enough escape routes here.
Lambert had been idly planning to loop back North after clearing out Rivia. With rumors of his own presence beating him to towns again, heading North was for the best.
“Take care of her.” He nodded to the horse, and the boy straightened.
A chat with the fisherman all but confirmed a small kikimora nest in the soft ground near a bend in the river.
As dusk approached, Lambert checked his armor, oiled his sword, and armed himself with as many bombs as he could carry without affecting his range of motion. Full of toxins, he followed the river, watching for the ground to collapse underneath him, but he heard the workers first.
The first bomb blew a leg off each of the two workers. They shrieked, and the lone warrior charged straight into Lambert’s igni. The second bomb dazed the queen, and Lambert lost himself in the fight.
He spun close, slicing at legs and backing away to hurl short bursts of igni at screeching insectoids that thought sinking their fangs into his arm might be a tasty way to spend the evening.
Four kikimoras never stood a chance.
The queen went down with a piercing screech and a sword in her side. The sword squelched as he yanked it free and hurled a silver throwing knife at the figure in the trees before he’d consciously registered the threat.
The figure side-stepped the knife, moving into the rising moonlight. The beams caught on the figure's Wolf medallion.
“Nice fighting, little wolf.”
Lambert flinched back, nearly up-ending himself in the soft ground. “What the fuck.” His sword dipped. “Eskel?”
Maybe-Eskel offered that little half-smile he’d learned when his old smile kept reopening the fresh wounds on his face. He yanked Lambert’s knife out of a tree and pressed the flat of the blade against his bare forearm.
Lambert rocked on his toes. Not a doppler, then, but there were other possibilities. “What happened over the winter?”
“I couldn’t make it back before the Trail closed. Broken leg.” Probably-Eskel frowned. “I left Geralt a message in our usual place.”
Lambert’s laugh was a brittle, ugly thing. “He’s been a little distracted lately. Fuck.” He pulled at his hair, shaking his head. It was foolish to believe this, more so because of how much he wanted it to be true. The Eskel at Kaer Morhen, could that have been the trick? And they'd missed it with everything else going on. “Where the hell have you been?”
Eskel twirled the dagger as he slid it into his belt, and Lambert choked. He’d made Eskel promise to teach him that move after his first year on the Path. A trainer had complimented him on picking fewer fights that Winter, but really, he’d hidden away when he could to practice the twirl and make it his own.
“I’ve been chasing rumors of a Wolf witcher in the area.”
Lambert huffed and scrubbed at his jaw.
Eskel took a step forward, but he kept his arms wide and his hands open. “What's happened?”
With a shaky breath, Lambert lowered his sword tip to the ground. “Fuck, Esk, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”