System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 256: The Scapegoats of the Castle
In a haze, Aveline saw a pair of beastlike eyes. The emotion within them was complicated, and it drew her back from the abyss of pain.
A trace of life returned to Aveline’s face.
The young man in the crowd gave her a strange sense of familiarity. His brows, his nose, his lips, all of them seemed known to her, yet also very different from the face in her memory. For a moment, she could not place him.
In truth, it had been more than half a year since she had last seen the Witcher. Back then Roy had not yet passed the Trial of the Grasses. Now, after the catalysis of mutagenic potions and that period of violent growth, the Witcher’s face and build had changed markedly.
He had grown a great deal taller. His features had become sharper, his skin finer, his appearance more elven, and his bearing more settled.
Who was he, exactly? Aveline’s delicate brows knit together.
Several burly men appeared one after another beside the young Witcher. When Aveline’s gaze swept across the broadest of them, the one with the gleaming bald head, realization dawned on her face.
Letho, Letho of the Viper School. Which meant the familiar young man beside him, the apprentice forever at his side, was,
“Roy...” Aveline’s red lips moved. She whispered the name so softly it was almost nothing, as though from another lifetime.
The boy who used to call her Sister Aveline, the quarter-elf.
“He’s grown this much already...”
...
“Kid,” Letho asked in a low voice at his companion’s ear, “what are you planning to do? Are we stepping in or not?”
Bald Letho’s gaze swept over the three prisoners on the pyres, and he added with dry thoughtfulness, “That Amos fellow gave you trouble, true enough, annoying sort. But I remember Aveline treated you well, fussed over you the whole road, hated to part...”
“And Aaron’s two children were the ones she took to the Temple of Melitele. Wonder how those little ones are doing now.”
That elven girl, once bright as a flower, now looked like an eggplant struck by frost, drained of all spirit.
Her friends beside her were in no better shape. Kantila, the wild knife-fighter, kept her head lowered in silence, and the jester wore a hollow, numb expression, like a shell already emptied of its soul.
For all their misery, onlookers still kept throwing rotten vegetables and refuse at them, shouting filth all the while.
Criminals. Freaks. Hags.
No one stopped it. Everyone was enjoying the spectacle.
How had The Sea Scorpion’s Enigma troupe fallen so low?
“Do I step in or not?” Roy muttered under his breath, almost to himself. The people suffering on those pyres were acquaintances he had once traveled with. To stand entirely aside, he could not manage that. “Looks like I really am the sort who can’t stop meddling.”
“Roy, you know these poor wretches?” Orin and Kael threw him curious looks.
“More or less friends...” Roy pressed his lips together. But only Aveline had been close with him. The others had no tie to his companions, and he had no right to demand their help.
“So what are you dithering for?” Orin snapped at once and strode toward the raised platform. “Roy, are you really going to sit there and watch your friends suffer?”
The others followed. The Cat School Witcher too, leading Karl by the hand, grey-green eyes glinting coldly.
The Viper School had helped him in Velen. Now that it was his turn to act, he was not going to hang back.
Before the pyres, the officer in charge tightened his grip on a black leather whip and snapped his wrist, about to act, when five large men suddenly entered his sight. His expression changed at once. “Hold it ... Who the devil are you? Do you know no rules at all? If you’re here to gawk, stand off to the side like everyone else.”
Several soldiers around him closed in immediately, hands on the swords at their waists as they confronted the Witchers.
The crowd, delighted by any chance of trouble, shrieked and jeered encouragement, seeming to long for a fight to the death right there and then.
“Easy, soldier. We’re not here to cause trouble.” Orin frowned, stopped where he was, and spread his hands to show he meant no harm. “Could we speak with the prisoners for a few moments?”
The officer sneered. “And who exactly are you? What do you take an execution ground for, a bathhouse or a tavern? These are condemned criminals. You think you can see them just because you ask? Stop making trouble and get out of my way.” He waved them off impatiently, then lashed the whip through the air.
With a sharp crack, it flashed across the air like lightning. Along its spread-out length opened pairs of hooks, glinting like the legs of a centipede. The three prisoners on the pyres stiffened at once, terror flooding their faces. They clearly knew that whip all too well.
Roy clenched his jaw. He could almost picture that lash tearing flesh from Aveline and the others, again and again without mercy.
“Lord Dillon, if you don’t let us get close, how are we supposed to be of service to the baron?”
“Young man?” A trace of wariness appeared in the officer’s eyes, then surprise. “How do you know my name?”
“That’s not important.” Roy glanced back at his companions. They all gave him a subtle nod of encouragement. “What matters is that if you want to catch the criminal who harmed young master Aryan, you need to speak with these three witnesses.”
“My apologies, but I’ve received no confirmed word that anyone has accepted the baron’s contract. I cannot let you through.” The officer still planted himself stubbornly in Roy’s path.
“If you truly don’t trust me, then come with me afterward and let us pay our respects to Baron La Valette together. Will that do?” Roy paused, his eyes moving across the ring of soldiers nearby. “Or are you worried I’ll spirit the prisoners away under the noses of this many armed men?”
The officer stared at him for a full ten seconds. Only when Roy stepped closer and showed him the Temerian envelope did his expression shift. He slowly moved aside and opened a path for Roy. “Since you have a guarantee from someone in the capital, then speaking to the prisoners is permissible. But be quick about it, and behave yourself. If you try anything improper, we’ll have no choice but to send you to the coroner. Understood, Witcher?”
“Of course.” Roy nodded, then said to the others, “Watch Vyrt for me. I’ll be back soon.”
The soldiers began driving the crowd back. Roy went up alone to stand before Aveline.
The elven girl was bound fast to the pyre with coarse, hard ropes. The cords bit into flesh, distorting her slender shape.
Roy remembered the faint scent of flowers that used to cling to her. Now there was only the thick reek of sweat and blood mingled together.
The pale-yellow coat she wore had clearly been on her for far too long. Whips and other instruments had torn it into strips until it scarcely covered her at all, exposing broad patches of bruised skin and ugly wounds, fresh ones split open and bleeding, old ones dried and scabbed over.
Only her face had escaped whole. Even that was now smeared with grime and dirt.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.