Victor's mount was a dark brown gelding with a black mane and black hooves. Gentle and dull-witted, it was ideal for a beginner like him. Victor had named it Faithful after its appearance. Vesemir said that when they brought it back from the farm outside the mountains where it had been boarded, it had been plowing a field and had taken to the work well.
With the now-slimmed-down bear slung across its back, Faithful was led by Victor into the castle, through the courtyard and straight into the kitchen.
Victor removed the bear's hide and spread it out to dry. Then he salted most of the meat, intending to air-dry it in a couple of days. Finally, he rewarded Faithful with a handful of oats. The carnivore lying across its back seemed to have bothered it quite a bit.
Footsteps approached. That rhythm wasn't Vesemir's!?
"Hey, you must be Victor," Eskel said.
Victor turned around. The face ruined by several long scars would have been enough to make someone scream in terror if they had seen it unexpectedly at night—or if they were less brave and experienced. But it didn't scare Victor.
He merely smiled. "That's right, I'm Victor. Are you Eskel or Lambert? You can't be Geralt, since you don't have white hair." He washed his hands in a basin, then stood and stepped closer.
Eskel smiled too, though it was an ugly smile. "That's right, I'm not Geralt. I'm just an ordinary witcher. I don't hunt dragons, call kings my brothers, or sleep with sorceresses... I'm Eskel."
Victor held out his right hand, the one that had been hovering near his sword hilt ever since their conversation began. "Victor. You can call me Vic, too."
Eskel reached out and shook his hand, speaking in a friendly tone. "Lambert came back with me. He's busy bragging to Vesemir. Would you mind having two more people share in your spoils and cooking?"
"It would be my pleasure."
That night, the roast bear meat smelled delicious, and the gathering was in high spirits. For a while, Lambert seemed a little hesitant, but after thinking it over, he finally decided to break the bad news now, even if it would ruin the evening.
"About Geralt and Ciri... I've got some news. Bad news, though..."
Lambert's opening drew everyone's attention, since the two people he mentioned mattered to them all.
"In early April, Geralt and Yennefer finally found Ciri. That lines up with the time you said she returned to Kaer Morhen, Vesemir. Looks like she found them as soon as she teleported there.
"Then the three of them spent months on a journey of revenge. Ciri seems to have had a pretty rough time while she was on the run.
"After that, they split up for a short while.
"On September 24, Geralt and Dandelion arrived in Rivia. He was supposed to meet Ciri and Yennefer at the Cock and Hen inn.
"Unfortunately, the next day a riot against the nonhuman races broke out in Rivia. Geralt was stabbed with a pitchfork during the unrest and died at the hands of the mob. Yennefer arrived shortly afterward, but she also died from exhaustion while trying to heal Geralt.
"Ciri, Merigold, and Dandelion witnessed their deaths.
"Afterward, Ciri carried their bodies onto a small boat and disappeared into Lake Eskalott, following a unicorn that suddenly appeared."
Lambert finished in a grave, serious tone. The hall fell silent. Then Eskel burst out laughing, filling the hall with cheerful laughter.
"Hahaha! That story you made up doesn't sound believable! Yennefer dying of exhaustion—I don't know anything about sorceresses, so let's set that aside. But Geralt getting killed by a mob with a pitchfork, when he's that good with a sword? That's hilarious. I'll bet fifty crowns that before he got stabbed, he'd have slashed the other guy's throat at least twice, once on the left and once on the right."
"Hey! I didn't make it up, and I don't want to believe something like that could happen either," Lambert retorted.
"Especially the ending with the unicorn and the little boat on the lake. It's got all the affected flair of a third-rate bard," Victor added coolly.
"Damn it! I'll pass that comment on to Dandelion next time I see him," Lambert replied sourly, then took a swig of beer.
...The cheerful atmosphere abruptly vanished. Eskel lowered the tankard he had already raised to his lips.
"So... Dandelion told you this from personal experience?" Vesemir asked.
Lambert scowled, tipped his head back, and downed another mouthful of beer before banging his tankard on the table. "Yeah. When I ran into Dandelion in Vengerberg, he said he never wanted to set foot in Rivia again for as long as he lived, because the mob there had made his friend bleed."
All that remained in the air was the crackling of flames in the hearth as they consumed the wood.
After a moment, Eskel sighed. "...That's... hard to believe."
"Would some kind soul care to introduce me to this Dandelion?" Victor asked, pretending not to know. Of course he remembered Dandelion, Geralt's best friend, a notorious womanizer whose side quests in the game were almost never proper quests. And the improper ones were especially memorable.
"Geralt's good friend. He's a famous bard, composer, singer, and writer. He's written plenty of poems about the White Wolf, and they're often sung in taverns. If he's the one who said it, then it's probably true," Vesemir said in a low voice.
Then, as if he had thought of something, he began, "About Ciri..."
"It's all right, Vesemir," Victor interrupted softly. "I'm fine. I believe Ciri will be back soon."
Lambert jumped onto the table, raised his tankard, and shouted, "Few witchers get to die peacefully in bed, and I'm sorry the legendary White Wolf was no exception. Let's drink to him. May he rest in peace!"
They raised their tankards together. "May he rest in peace!"
Late at night... Victor closed the door and sat cross-legged before the hearth, lost in thought. His right hand mechanically stirred the cauldron, where the Vitality Decoction he would drink the next morning was brewing.
He had his own interpretation of Lambert's news. Ciri had won the battle at Stygga Castle, and her disappearance afterward probably meant she had crossed worlds again. Geralt and Yennefer certainly weren't dead—or at least, not completely dead. He hadn't spent hundreds of hours playing The Witcher 3 for nothing. The game had hinted at the White Wolf's death from another angle.
If only he'd read the books or played The Witcher 1 and 2 back then. Now he was like someone peering through a tube at a leopard: he knew fragments of the future, but the reasons behind them remained shrouded in mystery. He had no idea how to use his foreknowledge to gain an advantage.
In any case, sometime soon—though he had no idea when—he would have to face the Aen Elle, known in the books as the Wild Hunt. They weren't just enemies targeting Ciri; they were also the reason he had crossed into this world, and thus the obstacle to his sleeping peacefully.
A flash of seven-colored light appeared and vanished. He picked up a ladle and spooned the blue liquid into test tubes, one scoop at a time. There was no need to conceal the Vitality Decoction anymore. After refining the process, Victor could use traditional alchemy to make a product that looked very much like an "Unbelievable." He had also deliberately kept harmless impurities in the "Unbelievable," making the two decoctions look almost identical. The only real difference was something you could tell after drinking them.
His thoughts shifted again to the time he'd retrieved the unused bear traps. He had seen a faint line of footprints. Someone had clearly been watching over him in silence while he fought the bear, then slipped away once the battle was decided. The thought made him feel both good and bad.
Being protected wasn't the problem. The problem was that he hadn't noticed the other person's presence at all. That was awful. If they'd been an enemy instead of a friend, it meant he could be ambushed with ease. He needed to find a way to make up for his poor perception.
His goal: leave Kaer Morhen next spring...
Before you continue