System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 226
Late at night, the streets of Vizima lay utterly empty. Not a soul could be seen, even the patrolling guards had vanished.
A shrill scraping suddenly came from a street corner. A hunched figure dragged a stretcher forward with the stubborn endurance of an ox. Two unconscious men, drenched in blood, were strapped to it, and with his other hand the figure supported a one-armed man.
He was bearing the weight of three grown men by himself. Sweat poured off him as he walked, his chest heaving violently, each breath as heavy as air forced through a broken bellows.
“Master ... maybe you should put us down first.” The knight he was supporting managed to say the words weakly, then his face twisted from the pain.
“We fought the Fleder together, that makes us comrades.” Sweat ran into the Witcher’s eyes. He blinked hard against the sting and showed the knight a weak smile. “You take me for the sort who leaves comrades behind?”
“Comrades?” Mars looked dazed. He had never imagined he would be acknowledged by the Butcher of the Sewers. The Witcher did not seem nearly so hard to deal with as the tales claimed.
“Hold on a little longer, we’re almost there.”
“Mmh...”
Before the Witcher’s strength gave out, he finally saw those familiar faces. Four burly men came rushing down from upstairs and carried them into the room.
...
“How bad are they?”
“They won’t die.” Berengar took off his white apron and blood-soaked leather gloves. “Those two with the broken limbs...”
“Yagon and Zerlin.”
“I’ve set the bones and stitched the wounds. Give them a few months and they’ll recover. The last one is the worst off, several ribs broken, but he was lucky. The fractures are clean, no need to clear out splinters, and his organs weren’t hit, no internal bleeding either.” Berengar sighed. “Pity the conditions here are so poor. I could only treat him as best I could and keep him alive. Tomorrow, you must have Princess Adda bring in a more skilled physician to treat him. Better still, have the Lady of the Lake do it herself.”
Roy said with heartfelt gratitude, “I never thought that besides being a master smith, you’d be this skilled at treating the wounded too.”
“I wouldn’t call it mastery. A mercenary gets hurt often enough, and after enough years of that, you pick up a bit of first aid.” Berengar swept his gaze over the Witchers gathering around. “Now tell us, kid, what exactly happened down in the sewers? How did they end up hurt this badly?”
...
The Witchers stood around a long table. On it lay two mangled, hideous heads, taken from the two Fleders.
Their jaws hung wide, showing uneven saw-like teeth. Their long tongues had been dragged out of their mouths, knotted, and hung beneath their chins. Their scarlet eyeballs looked like halves of rotten pomegranates. Perhaps they had suffered too much before death, they had died without ever closing their eyes.
Letho ran a hand over the horns atop one Fleder’s head. His palm slid down along the horn, the whole skull feeling tough as rawhide, covered too in lizard-like keratin. When he reached that blood-soaked maw split nearly to the ears, he inspected the teeth the way one might inspect a horse’s mouth.
“Judging by the teeth, this Fleder was under five years old. The other was over twenty. Running into both of them, your luck stinks worse than Kovir’s salted fish.” The bald Letho looked his disciple over again from top to bottom, making sure he was not missing any limbs, then said with unmistakable relief, “How in blazes did you pull it off? Three useless White Rose knights in tow, and you killed two Fleders. That’s a miracle.”
“I’d wager those three brothers didn’t last five seconds.”
“Fleders are one of the enemies I hate most, fast and strong.” Kael folded his arms over his chest, face grave. “Put me in that spot and one careless mistake would have me dead in the gutter too.”
“A remarkable feat, well done, Roy.” Orin, full of admiration, squeezed the young man’s shoulder. “Defeating a Fleder before turning twenty, far as I know, no one in our School has managed it, not even Master Ivar.”
“Killing two in one go, among all Witchers, you’re this.” He raised a thumb.
In an instant, all eyes turned to the young companion. He was slumped in a wicker chair, gently and rhythmically stroking the little dog’s warm belly and soft back. Griffin narrowed its eyes in comfort, whiskers trembling as it let out little huffing sounds.
“To start with, there was only one Fleder,” Roy explained. “I followed Letho’s advice, struck first with Dragon’s Dream and badly wounded it, then joined forces with the three Knights of the White Rose and finished it off.”
“Four against one, with the initiative,” Letho murmured. “If the coordination is good enough, bringing down a juvenile Fleder isn’t impossible. Fleders are among the lowest breeds of lesser vampires, and usually not blessed with much wit. But that second brute is another matter.”
“It came late, only showed itself after its little brother died, then crippled the three knights in one stroke. And I...” Roy paused, looking down at the little beast, his voice softening. “Griffin saved my life. That’s the only reason I managed to kill that beast in return.”
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