Chapter 81

After swallowing the Blood of the Sun, Roy and the Witcher walked the mine tunnels for who knew how long. With food and water nearly exhausted, they reckoned four days had passed in the dark; together they had spent nearly a week underground.

The Witcher’s broken leg had been lashed with two short swords and a strip of canvas, and Gwyhyr served as a walking stick; he could just about hobble along.

Fortunately, the journey was otherwise uneventful. Midway through the tunnels food ran so scarce even monsters could not survive.

A stale, long-dormant air began to stir through the caverns; they realized the exit was not far. The heavy black was lifting, daylight coming within reach.

...

“Shh—”

They had just crawled out of a narrow, confining passage into a wider cavity between tunnels when the Witcher raised a finger, silenced Roy, and snuffed the torch.

Roy followed the direction of his hand. At the mouth of the tunnel, a Nekker Warrior dragging twin foreclaws came into view.

Better fed than usual, its bulk was noticeably greater than the Nekkers they’d seen near the Smaerk Mine’s front, a hulking shape.

At first glance it was an ugly brute, body hunched, a pair of pale, oversized eyes gleaming with an eerie coldness in the dark, nostrils twitching like a hunting hound.

It scented the unfamiliar, and began to approach the Witcher and his apprentice.

A silver arrow sliced through the air with a whisper, pierced its skull, and it dropped without a sound.

System Notice: Killed Nekker Warrior, XP +30.

Roy retracted his hand crossbow, instinctively reaching to loot, but the Witcher pressed a hand to his shoulder.

Two ordinary Nekkers poured from the same tunnel.

What followed was horrifically gory.

They had not detected the Witcher and the boy hidden in the opposite dark passage; instead the corpses of their kin drew them in utterly.

One after the other they sniffed at the body, then suddenly lunged to feed—one tearing at the neck, the other gnawing at the thigh.

Nekker’s fine, razor teeth ripped the hide with ease, tearing away oval sections of veins and muscle, seizing the pieces like dogs, panting as they chewed twice, then, with a jerk of the head, the flesh slithered down their throats.

Finally a lizard-red tongue licked greedily, cleaning blood and shreds from the mouth, then they resumed their eating with wet, smacking noises.

In the black cave, the sounds of swallowing and tearing were unnervingly clear; blood and flesh flew, the sight unbearable.

The brutal feeding lasted some thirty seconds. The corpses were picked to pale bone in places, nearly a fifth of their flesh gone. Then the Nekkers stopped, dragged their spoils, and retreated into the tunnel behind them.

“Those beasts must have been starving,” Roy breathed, chilled. “Why didn’t they finish the meal?”

“Nekkers have a strict hierarchy ... cough cough,” the Witcher explained, “like lions or wolves. After a hunt the upper ranks eat first—Nekker Warriors, Nekker Alpha.”

“They gorge, then reserve a portion for the brood back at the nest; only afterward do the lower Nekkers get their fill. Those two didn’t dare eat too much, for fear of angering the higher-ups.” The Witcher drew a breath and considered, “Besides, they eat Nekker Warrior carcasses to evolve ... for these creatures, consuming the flesh of a higher grade aids their development.”