Chapter Text
The cries of a great city locked in a vicious fight for survival still resonated behind him. Roche no longer heard them. But he sensed them. No matter how much Vernon deceived and pushed his battered body to leave the precarious mountain paths quickly, he could not escape those cries, the same way one could perceive yet not escape the weight of their past. To not see the seen. Such path never suited him. Thus, he walked with those cries in the background, concentrated on the immediate needs. The commander of the Blue Stripes was being followed by the Kaedwen special forces and he knew it.
Some great artist must have taken a handful of blood from the soaked Loc Muinne streets and sprinkled the sunset with it. This blood crept into the stream of light that coloured the mountains crimson and cast glimmering streaks over his shoulders. A shielded spot appeared on his right seducing to sit down, lay his burning cheek against the cool surface of the stone and surrender his body into the clutches of the much-needed reprieve. Roche took the bait partially, leaning against the shielded spot where he wouldn’t be shot in the back so he could take a sip of water from his flask. Wishful thinking. It was empty, just like it was empty the last time he checked.
With the back of his hand, Roche wiped the grime and sweat out of his eyes. Either this was a cruel illusion of the slanted sunlight casting its unreliable shadows over the paths, or his pace had waned significantly. The outer defensive battlements, he had set as the last marker to reach, looked hardly closer than the last time Roche checked. Just thinking of walking towards them made every cut and bruise burn with renewed vigor. Damn sorcerer. Roche would have gladly killed him all over again along with the rapist Hog, those stupid Kaedweni swine called the King.
Not surprisingly, Dethmold wanted nothing to do with his balls being fed to him, thus, he cast a few incinerating spells, powerful enough to turn a full battlefield of the dead over in their graves, before the mighty army piled on the modest rescuer party. Roche was sure some plagued nekker must have spat into the oil solution that coated the general’s blade, which he got stabbed with. It burned. What’s worse, it was spreading lethargic weight all over his increasingly less cooperating body so the simple act of lifting his head was becoming a burden.
He had taken care of Temeria, now it was time to take care of himself hence who else would. When Roche pulled her out of the enemy clutches, Anais clung tight to his chest then to his leg and coat. It was surprisingly hard letting go of the girl’s hand to nudge her in Geralt’s direction who was going to escort her to John Natalis safely. Anais turned around and looked at Vernon with her huge, pleading eyes like he was the only person in the world who wasn’t going to cut her throat ear to ear for one political copper. Before they were gone, Roche swallowed and nodded to encourage her.
The commander would have preferred to deliver Anais personally into safe hands, but the assault on Kaedweni camp came costly. An unexplored wound in his side that he tended by stuffing a handkerchief into it was sapping his strength. Commander was in no shape to fight off an assault had another contender for the girl challenged him. That and there was no reason for him to meet Natalis personally. The old soldier was far too honest and had too much trouble on his hands to be covering for an outlawed man such as Roche.
The best course of action was to get out of the Loc Muinne before the protective wards locked him inside with some unfriendly head hunters and royal power that wanted him on the scaffold. It had taken all of his resourcefulness to get out of the chaos, however, his trail was picked up by the infamous Hoggewash.
In Henselt’s camp of the manure soaked slimeballs, Hoggewash firmly held his third place behind his King and Dethmold. There were rumours that children were disappearing near the taverns where his headhunting crew was staying. Some children were found weeks later with a few gold coins pressed into their hands, unable to speak. Yet, Hoggewash was too valuable for the King to worry about the fate of a few peasants, especially when some were nonhuman.
Unfortunately, Hoggewash was also the most competent tracker in Kaedwen. Of all the lackeys he was the one who survived the battle and now held the honor of hunting down a man worse than a poison-soaked thorn in Kaedwen’s side. Roche didn’t just murder, he humiliated them by exposing the girl’s capturers, and for that he was going to pay the price.
A few sickening, slurping sounds alerted the commander and he firmly planted his back to the wall, cautiously advancing around the next path bend. The way was blocked by two rotfiends. Their claws were tearing into corroding flesh, enjoying the spoils of war.
He couldn’t go back. Roche carefully examined his surroundings. There weren’t that many options to go around. He froze and stopped breathing when a dry twig crunched underneath his foot. One of the rotfiends paused his supper and rose up alert. Roche thought he would collapse from the lack of air when the monster resumed his task, encouraged to catch up to his buddy who was swiftly stuffing his face.
This is when he saw a hidden ledge with what looked to be a faint path behind it. When he stood on his toes, the commander was barely able to reach it. Shit but that hurt. Roche saw stars and his side exploded in agony at the exertion of pulling himself upward. The noise produced by this exercise alerted his friends. Their claws tore through his boot and sunk into flesh as he heaved onto the plateau. Awakened by new pain Roche took a heavy swing with his sword at the ugly mug that appeared over the edge. As the creature’s head went rolling, the other pounced on his former pal to have a snack.
If he needed to provide the head hunters with good evidence that he was here, this was it. And now he was limp on a path that could hardly be called such. It was more of a crumbling ledge designed for the underfed elves to squeeze along, and narrower than the width of his foot in wide places.
Roche made not the worst distance when the treacherous terrain crumbled under his weight. At least it was not a cliff drop but a steep slope that helped Vernon take the swiftest way down, every sharp rock and prickly bush accounted for. In this rolling pandemonium Roche nonetheless spotted a clearing and a few shattered fortifications fences, their spikes facing the hill. Finding out what it felt like to be impaled would have made sense in completion of the day when he got stabbed, burned and chewed on by fiends.
The clearing was reached alarmingly fast. That’s where Roche crashed into something soft that stopped his breathtaking flight. The person he hit, was not nearly as thrilled by their encounter. Without much recuperation, Roche was thrown off whoever he had landed on and flipped onto his back quite violently. The ringing in his ears made it difficult to hear separate words, he only understood an angry tone. The commander wiped sticky dust out of his eyes with his sleeve. A sword blade slowly came into focus. Following the line along the arm holding it, a red bandana, pointy ears and a face, stone-set in fury, came into view.
Iorveth? What was he doing here? The elf seemed as perturbed as his arch-enemy.
“You seem to have this inborn talent for running into me when I’m not looking for you, yet when I go into trouble to make elaborate plans…” the elf ranted.
Happy to be of dire inconvenience, Roche wanted to spit out. In its place came out dry coughing prompted by the inhaled dirt and ash. An emotion Roche couldn’t decipher flickered across the elf’s face before it schooled into natural look of hatred. Iorveth looked roughened and dirty from his sudden ambush, the commander noted with petty satisfaction. At least he wasn’t the only one who looked like he got trampled by trolls.
If it hadn’t been for Iorveth’s flare for the dramatic, he could have skewed the Commander of the Blue Stripes at least a few times in the past. Even now he halted to deliver a gloating speech as if someone’s passing into the other world wouldn’t be complete without it. His blade was firmly planted at Roche’s throat without drawing blood.
“It would be a shame to waste such an opportunity,” Iorveth mused almost leisurely.
Picking mushrooms must have idled his brain if he found this to be a good spot for contemplation.
“You aren’t the first in line today,” Roche informed him poisonously, finding his voice with the coughed-out ash, hoarse as it was. Those few words scorched his throat.
The elf’s eyebrow twitched quizzically.
“Duck!”
Either he actually obeyed the warning or followed his remarkable instinct, but Iorveth switched weapons and leapt to a more favourable position before the splinters, caused by the bolt implanting itself into the spot where he stood not a moment ago, stopped flying. Minding wounded Roche, his attention focused on the other side of the clearing where a company of five men joined them uninvited.
Unlike greedy for their rewards head hunters who’d rush into battle, Hoggewash halted his unit at the threshold where a bow shot could be parried and raked the surroundings for surprises. Two of his men were pointing heavy crossbows at the elf’s chest. Realizing there were no additional scoia’tael hiding in the surroundings, his grin full of rotten teeth got downright twisted.
“Isn’t this my lucky day. One amoral son of an elven bitch ever dispossessed of home, and my favourite, the Temerian whoreson.”
Iorveth issued a string of curses in the direction where his bow was now pointing. In Elder Speech that list of the profound profanities almost sounded like poetry. Some of the words recognizable, hence the elf had directed them at Roche in the past.
“I prefer the elf to cut my throat.”
Vernon said it and realized he meant it. Ironic as it seemed, after a lifetime of bitter strife his nemesis had gained some kind of magical hold over his life. After the slaughter of so many nonhumans, was this some twisted form of justice for the other side? Yet, he sought no absolution.
There was the lightest shadow of surprise flickering across Iorveth’s face before he managed to glower at Roche without taking his gaze off his target.
“I prefer feeding you to the rotfiends.”
“Jealous he ranked my outlaw status higher than yours on his list of priorities?”
“Regicide is hardly an accomplishment to brag about.”
“You’d rather be the used and tossed tool of one.”
“Just like your washed-up country, die already.”
“Make me.”
“Any other urgent requests I shall rush to fulfill?”
“A cold glass of the crystal spring water please. My throat is killing me.”
“Maybe you should talk less.”
“I shall quietly endeavor bleeding to death while the two of you are deciding which one of you caught me.”
“Have you two forgotten I’m still here?” Hoggewash nearly stomped his foot in indignation, but quickly recovered his cool hence his quarry had nowhere to go. “In any case, there be no killing each other. I get paid trice for bringing you both alive to the court.”
“Typical greedy human.”
“He’s greedy all right,” Roche confirmed. He must have suffered a severe head injury he wasn’t aware of due to the other stinging wounds distracting him because he found himself giddy taunting Hoggewash with Iorveth by his side. “The ladies at the whorehouse said he always wanted his prick in two holes for the price of one while it wasn’t worth the mold it’s made out of.”
“Enough of this talk!” Hoggewash shouted. “The other one’s not crawling away anywhere. Capture the slippery elf first!”
This was the battle cry Iorveth needed. His shot went over the heads, upsetting a wasp nest that flopped onto the head of one of the arbalists. The crossbow bolts met no better fate than sheer dishonor of missing completely. Iorveth was already on the other side of the glade cutting the throat of the other man who tried to shoot him.
An acquired lifetime of wisdom informed Roche it wouldn’t be too dishonourable to run away given the circumstances. This fine plan got thwarted by nearly losing consciousness just for trying to get up in a hurry. He fell back with a gasp taking deep breaths to control the spiralling out of control pain and then tried again slowly, first raising himself to his elbows and willing the world to quit wavering.
Always in the thick of fighting, Roche never had the chance to observe Iorveth fight from the sidelines. There was savage grace in the way the elf moved, significantly outclassing his opponents in speed and agility. There was something contagious in the wild abandonment and passion, something mesmerising and something he had no business admiring.
The torn-up leg protested vehemently when Roche got up on one knee. The handkerchief was no longer sufficient in holding back the flood that was rapidly increasing the red blotch on his coat. He was rooting for Iorveth who performed a masterful undercut of one of the battlement platforms. A pile of trash, including a huge sack of sand collapsed atop of Hoggewash and knocked him down, hopefully for good.
The fighting shifted closer towards him. Gritting his teeth, Roche grabbed onto the fence and pushed himself to a standing position where he remained heavily leaning onto the wooden structure. He refused to get killed like a helpless sheep lying there in his own pool of blood. At least he could meet death standing, straight preferably.
Iorveth wasn’t faring that well any longer. He was tossed against the fence a few steps away from Roche like a rag doll by a huge head hunter who carried a giant hammer. Luckily that hammer was disposed of, but his bearhug was capable of strangling a moderate sized barn.
Hoggewash wasn’t going to be kept out of the battle much longer either. Too bad a sack of sand wasn’t enough to kill a sack of shit. Heaving like a hog that sat too long on an anthill, Hoggewash shrugged the offending rubble off and unhurriedly stalked his struggling opponent. The head hunter was calculating the best blow to capture his prey alive. Iorveth either didn’t see or couldn’t react to the danger behind him with Hoggewash’s second strangling him.
Roche stood still as a statue measuring the distance between them. Too far. Was his leg going to support such a jump? He wasn’t sure. Grim smile twisting his features, Hoggewash got closer, then closer, then he took another step posed to land the finishing blow.
That’s when Roche lunged. His mace made the most satisfactory impact with the opponent’s thick skull. Fresh blood splattered across his face.
The retaliation that followed was excruciating. Another drop of the ardent pain adding to the pool of agony where the blade cut into his flesh deflecting the blow off Iorveth. One grave wound more, one less, mattered little when your head was about to be cut off. Darkness crept around his vision. His fingers dug into the elf’s shoulder grounding him to the fading reality where he sensed a swish of the elven blade finishing off the opponent.
“I’m next,” Roche thought, clinging onto the consciousness just to be there for the final blow. In the haze of the dancing shadows came securing sensation of a muscular arm wrapping around his waist and another over his shoulders. Then the blessing of an oblivion.