Chapter 95: Waiting for the Wolf

Berengar hated witchers.

He had long since grown sick of the scorn and misery tied to the name.

Sick of clawing out a living by crossing blades with monsters in the wilderness.

Not everyone was born for battle. Not everyone found meaning in bloodshed and sharpened steel. Some people simply were not made for this trade.

So he buried his identity as deeply as he could. Even hauling cargo in Vizima was preferable if it meant living like an ordinary man.

A great deal of his hatred toward witchers came from the fact that, as a child, he himself had been handed over like livestock.

Given away by his parents to the witchers.

From that moment on, his life had no longer belonged to him.

And now, today, he had learned that he had unknowingly worked for slavers.

He had sensed something wrong inside that shipment. Every instinct had warned him.

But because he did not want trouble, he carried it anyway.

The betrayal of his own conscience churned in his stomach hard enough to make him retch.

He knew exactly what slaves became.

That was why his mind could now so vividly picture what would happen to those children.

Humiliation. Conditioning. The slow stripping away of dignity, until even the notion of being human disappeared.

Like dogs.

Like he himself had once been during the Mutations.

Berengar staggered forward, shoving past Lannor, and threw himself toward a loose floor tile.

His bare fist smashed against the stone hard enough to split skin and spray blood.

Then he ripped out a gleaming steel sword hidden beneath it.

“You’re investigating this, aren’t you?!”

The old witcher turned with gritted teeth and roared at Lannor.

Two pairs of cat eyes locked together. One cold and steady. The other burning with rage and bloodlust.

“Take me with you.”

Lannor had already thought Berengar’s face looked a little long when they first met. Now, with his teeth clenched so hard the muscles bulged against his jawbones, he resembled a maddened baboon.

But even the strongest baboon could not kill an armed man.

Berengar, meanwhile ... he had probably killed enough people to populate an entire village.

“If you walk outside right now waving that sword around, the city guard will beat you half to death and throw you in prison within the hour. Or just cut you down where you stand.”