System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 247: A Soul Trapped in Stone
The sun slanted westward, and the sky darkened. The five Witchers split into three groups and moved through Ard Cerbin on separate errands.
“Crow feathers, the remains of the Heart of the Tree, a black mare ... for a ritual this eerie, it feels less like resurrection and more like we’re about to loose a devil,” Letho said. He and Roy were sitting their horses side by side, his expression grave. “Kid, if we gather all the things that ugly thing needs to come back, won’t it bring disaster down on us? Has the Elder Blood warned you?”
“I’m certain the Heart of the Tree is not a ‘devil.’” Roy stared out toward the black stretch southeast of Ard Cerbin. Night was the time beasts were most active, yet this time they lay quiet in the grass and did not attack the Witchers as they had by day.
That was because all of them had smeared themselves with green sap drawn from the Heart of the Tree’s roots. It gave off a faint scent of crushed plants, like some token of safe passage, enough to turn the maddened beasts aside.
“But it’s no kindly thing either. Even if it truly belonged to an ancient druidic circle, and I admit that much, certain texts do clearly record that Velen once had a druid circle, the creature described the three sisters as utter evil, and that doesn’t quite match what we’ve seen...”
The bald Letho looked out toward the sun sinking below the horizon and raised a different point. “We’ve both seen what Downwarren is like. The Ladies of the Wood demand Offerings from the villagers, true, but they also grant them rich crops, fruit that cures sickness, and protection from the endless beasts and monsters of Velen. In a way, the three sisters are fair, maintaining a bloody but fragile balance. If that balance is broken, what better thing will stand in its place?”
“Letho, those old hags abducted Karl. They need to learn one thing, Witchers are not so easy to bully.”
“Freeing the Heart of the Tree isn’t the only way.” Letho rubbed his smooth chin, still clinging to his view. “A hateful unknown creature, one imprisoned for centuries ... if it regains its freedom, it’ll surely seek revenge, and that will bring terrible disaster on this no-man’s-land.”
“To strike at the Three Hags by releasing some other horror, kid, that is no good path.”
Roy sighed, the line between his brows tightening and then easing.
“All right. Truth be told, I do have another measure prepared. Just as you said, the three sisters are no good thing, and the Heart of the Tree can’t be trusted entirely either, so...”
His tone turned abruptly cold, and a gleam flashed through his dark-gold pupils. “Do you remember the ruby the Lady of the Lake gave us? Then this is how we’ll do it ... you’ll be the one to use it...”
...
The moon rose high into the sky.
Not long after, the Witchers rode out from Ard Cerbin. After beating back a pack of Drowners that had spooked the horses in the Velen marsh, they came to a low hill ringed by three oak trees.
Under the night sky, the moonlight revealed a greenish stone stele standing at the very center of the slope.
It was oval in shape, plain and cold, steeped in the weariness of ages. Its surface was full of cracks, and from those cracks tufts of wild grass thrust stubbornly out.
Roy crouched down and ran his fingers over a number of rough, twisted symbols cut into the stone: irregular triangles, stars, moons, and a few spare strokes sketching crude yet vivid wild beasts. Some old form of carving.
He could not make any sense of them.
“What does it say?” Roy glanced at bald Letho.
“These symbols are a script made by the druidic circles. The Viper School never kept that branch of lore, and I never learned it either. I can’t read it. But I’d wager anything this is the gravestone of the Heart of the Tree.”
Their eyes drifted together toward the bare earth before the stone.
“Angoulême, Lady Heart of the Tree, it was you who asked us to dig up your grave, so don’t blame us, don’t blame us...”
The two of them drew steel swords and began turning the earth. Before long, they unearthed a set of remains, then with some effort pieced the scattered bones into a rough human shape.
There were clear signs of limbs and a skull, yet from either side of the jaw jutted sharp canine teeth unlike any human’s, and from the tips of the finger bones extended long, shriveled nails. Most striking of all was the size, the skeleton was extremely small, less than a third that of a normal human.
Remains of an unnamed creature
??
“You see? Those are not human bones at all.” The caution in bald Letho’s eyes deepened.
“Could it be an old person? Is that possible?”
Letho shook his head with certainty. “I’ve seen plenty of remains, including men and women over eighty. Most of them were bent double, half-hunched, with bad bone decay and twisted frames, but never like this. This skeleton is simply too small, and there are no signs of missing pieces or extreme weathering.”
“Does it look like dwarf, halfling, dwarf, or goblin bones?”
“They don’t have canines that sharp.” Letho said. “And whether dwarf, halfling, goblin, or dwarf, all of them have far fewer ribs than this thing.”
“Then what in hell was buried here? Not human, yet carrying out the role of a druid?” Roy found himself puzzled as well. Could it be that the so-called ancient druids had been some other nonhuman intelligent race?
No record of such a people existed in the texts, and he had certainly never seen one.
“Perhaps only one of those druids who’ve lived several centuries and hoarded enough learning could answer that.”
The two Witchers exchanged a few more quiet words, gathered up the remains, and swiftly returned to Ard Cerbin.
At nearly the same time, elsewhere, the Witcher of the Cat School, Flavius, had found a crow’s perch among the thick branches of the great banyan and plucked several jet-black feathers from it.
And on the western grasslands of Ard Cerbin, near Crookback Bog, the Kael brothers had used Axii to bewitch a black mare dozing on its feet.
The three Witcher groups returned one after another with their piece of the ritual, entered the cave again, and stood before the Heart of the Tree.
“Witchers, you’ve gathered everything, haven’t you? Then what are you waiting for? Begin the ritual at once.”
The Heart of the Tree’s voice trembled with irrepressible excitement as she wound her gray-brown roots around the body of the black mare.
Like a python sizing up prey.
The mare seemed to sense something. She snorted in agitation and shifted her hooves in little nervous steps.
“Lady Angoulême, we do have everything,” Roy said, drawing the bundle of remains from his saddlebag and holding it up in one hand, “but before we begin the ritual, there are still a few questions we’d like to ask.”
“Speak.” The Heart of the Tree sounded anxious.
“Lady Angoulême, do you remember the conditions we named before?”
“We’ve come this far, and you still refuse to trust me?” The Heart of the Tree said irritably. “Very well, I’ll repeat myself. Once I am free, I will help you slip past the eyes and ears of the three sisters and infiltrate their stronghold on Bald Mountain, to teach them a bitter lesson.”
The Heart of the Tree said it solemnly. “But mark this well, do not expect too much of me. Killing any one of those old hags is not realistic. Their own sorcery is formidable enough, and besides, they can summon great numbers of monsters from another world, even call upon the Wild Hunt.”
“The Wild Hunt?” The four Viper School Witchers all stiffened. None of them had expected to hear that familiar name from the Heart of the Tree, the lifelong enemy of the Viper School. They knew exactly how terrifying the Wild Hunt could be.
“So you know of those ghostly riders who fly the skies? I’ll tell you plain, the high ranks of the Wild Hunt attend the night feast the three sisters hold each year, and long dealings have left them on rather good terms.” The Heart of the Tree sighed. “If you would kill the three sisters, then first you must pass through the Wild Hunt. With your present strength, and forgive me for saying so, I do not think you can.”
Roy’s thoughts churned. So far as he knew, the three sisters held a night feast on Bald Mountain every spring, entertaining the powerful creatures of Velen while receiving sacrifices from the peasants under their sway, handsome boys and beautiful girls.
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