The tannery sat at the bend of the river where Ban Glean's good smells went to die. Even from the end of the lane, the stink reached them first: lime, rot, old urine, and the thick, sweet reek of hides left too long in the vats. The sign over the door had long since fallen off. The roof sagged and every window was either boarded shut or simply gone, leaving holes that stared out at the water.
"After you," Seb said, holding the door for her.
"What a gentleman."
"I like to think so."
Inside, rows of stone vats stood along the walls, full of something black that had once been tanning liquor and was now just a swamp. Rotted hides hung from the rafters and at the far end, a rickety stair climbed to a loft that looked as if it would collapse.
Ciri pressed her sleeve to her nose. "I take it back. This is a terrible place for a conversation."
"That's the point." Seb said.
"I'm going to smell like this for a week."
"That's a Witcher's life, you'll get used to it princess."
"Very funny." Ciri said.
They walked to the middle of the floor, under a shaft of grey light from a hole in the roof, and stopped. Seb pulled a loaf of bread from his coat, tore a piece off, and ate it slowly, looking at nothing in particular. Ciri leaned against a vat with her arms crossed and watched the door.
"Ten seconds," Seb murmured.
"Five."
The door creaked.
Three men slipped in, one after another. The big bald man came first, sword half-drawn, trying very hard to look as though he wasn't. The scarred one followed, breathing through his mouth. Last came the one in the green hood, crossbow in both hands, the string drawn, the bolt aimed somewhere in the vicinity of Seb's chest.
"That's far enough," the bald man said, trying for a dangerous tone.
"Is it?" Seb swallowed his bread. "Because you walked in here very confidently."
"Shut up. Hands where I can see them."
"They're right here."
"Slowly."
"I'm eating."
"Slowly."
Seb lifted his hands like a man indulging a child. The crossbowman's aim wobbled slightly. Ciri hadn't moved at all.
"We just want a word," the scarred man said, edging to one side. He had a flat, nasal voice and a brow scar that pulled the left side of his face into a permanent sneer. "A friendly word."
"That's why you've been trailing us across the market for an hour," Ciri said. "Because you're friendly, don't make me laugh."
"We didn't want to cause a scene."
"You followed us to an abandoned tannery. In what universe is that not a scene?" Ciri said with a smile.
The bald man shifted his grip. "We know who you are."
"Do you?" Seb asked, with real interest.
"You're him. The witcher. The one on the poster." He drew a folded sheet from inside his coat and snapped it open with a flourish. "Dark hair, cat eyes, mean-looking. Killed the kings, don't bother denying it."
Seb stared at the poster for a long moment. Then he took a step closer, tilted his head, and stared at it some more.
The drawing was, to put it kindly, a tragedy. The face on the page was long and horsey, with heavy brows that met over the nose and a jaw like a shovel. The nose itself had apparently been drawn by someone who'd once heard a description of a boar and run with it. Underneath, in careful capitals: WANTED FOR REGICIDE AND SORCERY. TALL. DARK. SCARRED ABOVE THE LEFT EYEBROW.
"I don't have a scar," Seb said.
"You might've covered it." The man said.
"With what? A hat?"
"Hair, maybe."
"My hair's not that long." He tapped the poster. "And what's this? Is that a fucking wart? Where does it say I have a wart?"
"That's... that's shading," the scarred man said uncertainly.
"It's a wart. It's a wart the size of a bean." Seb looked up, genuinely wounded. "How does this look like me? Tell me. Be honest."
"It's... it's a good likeness," the crossbowman offered, a little desperately.
Ciri made a strangled noise and bent double over the vat. She tried to hide it behind her hand, failed, and burst into helpless laughter.
"It's not really funny," Seb said.
"It's the nose," she gasped. "It's the nose, Seb."
"I have a perfectly respectable nose."
"You really don't, in this one."
"You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to help," Ciri wheezed, wiping her eyes. "Oh gods. A wart. They gave you a wart."
The three men exchanged uneasy looks. The plan, such as it was, seemed to be coming apart at the seams.
"Enough," the bald man snapped, recovering his scowl. "Stop laughing. We're taking you in. There's a bounty on the witcher, and the sorceress with him. A damn good one too." His eyes flicked to Ciri. "That'd be you, I take it."
Ciri stopped laughing. "I'm no sorceress."
"That's what they all say."
"Do I look like a sorceress?"
"They're pretty," the scarred man said, slightly dreamy. "Sorceresses. They're always pretty."
"That's the most insulting compliment I've ever received," Ciri said.
"Right," Seb said, and set what remained of his bread carefully on the lid of a vat. "That's enough of that."
The crossbow fired.
It was a stupid, panicked shot, and Seb didn't even bother to dodge. The bolt passed through the space where his shoulder had been, a flicker of faint heat in the air, and buried itself in a beam behind him. The crossbowman gaped. Then Seb was moving, a blur of grey cloak and boots, and the bald man's sword was suddenly a metre away, spinning end over end into a vat. The big man yelped, and Seb's fist found his stomach with a wet, solid thump. He folded in half, wheezing, and a knee to the face put him on the floor.
"You son of a..." the scarred man started, drawing a knife.
Ciri's dagger flicked past Seb's hip and slammed into the knife's handle, spinning it out of his hand. He stared at his empty palm. Then Seb's forearm caught him across the throat, drove him back against a vat, and a punch that was carefully not lethal broke his nose with a sound like a dropped plate.
The crossbowman had fumbled for a fresh bolt. He got it halfway to the groove before Ciri closed the distance, calmly plucked the weapon from his hands, and hit him in the stomach with the stock. He sat down hard and stayed down.
It was all over in perhaps fifteen seconds.
The bald man lay on his side, groaning and clutching his ribs. The scarred man sat propped against the vat, blood running freely down his chin, glaring and sniffling at the same time. Seb crouched beside him, wiped his knuckles on the man's own sleeve, and picked the poster up off the floor.
"Let's try that again," he said pleasantly. "Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent us," the scarred man mumbled, thickly. "Gods, my nose."
"I'll ask again."
"It's the truth. Nobody sent us. We saw you in the tavern! And you had the hair and the, uh, the face."
"The nose is wrong, you said that already," Ciri said.
"We figured you were him, or you were close enough." He spat blood. "There's three thousand crowns on the witcher's head. Redania's posted it, Temeria too, even Lyria. And two thousand more for the sorceress. It's not a small thing, miss. Every guard from here to Novigrad is looking, and half the mercenaries on the road besides. A man could buy a farm."
"Or a very small estate, an abandoned castle even." the bald man wheezed, from the floor.
Seb and Ciri exchanged a glance. The humor drained out of the room.
"All of them," Ciri said quietly. "All four kingdoms."
"Looks that way."
"And you were going to do what, exactly?" Seb asked the scarred man. "Haul a witcher into a garrison, three of you? With that?" He nodded at the crossbow.
"We had a plan."
"Following an armed Witcher is always a terrible plan."
The scarred man didn't argue. Seb stood, tucked the poster into his coat, and looked down at the three of them. They weren't killers. They were just three tired, hungry men who'd seen a chance at a different life and tried to take it. He sighed.
"Get up," he said. "Go home. If I see you following me again, I won't be this gentle, again that fool on the poster is not me."
"You're letting us go?" the bald man said, astonished.
"You're not a threat, you're just an annoyance."
They scrambled to their feet with as much dignity as they could muster, which was not much. The scarred man grabbed his knife, the bald man his sword, and they limped toward the door, supporting each other, muttering.
Only the third man didn't move.
He was still sitting where Ciri had left him, the crossbow dropped beside him, his hood pushed back. Without it, he looked young, maybe thirty, with a thin, anxious face and sunken eyes ringed with sleeplessness. His hands were shaking. He wasn't looking at Seb. He was looking at the floor.
"Jory," the bald man said from the doorway. "Come on."
"Go ahead."
"What?"
"I said go."
The others hesitated, then left. The door creaked shut behind them. Jory sat there for a long moment, breathing, then raised his head.
"I'm not here for the bounty, Master Witcher." he said. His voice cracked. "I mean, I was, at first. They talked me into it. But I wasn't, really. When you were in the tavern.. I thought, if he's a witcher, then maybe..." He swallowed. "I've been trying to ask you for two hours. I couldn't work up the nerve."
Ciri's expression softened. "Ask what?"
"My sister's boy," Jory said. "Halvar. Oskar's lad. The woodcutter's son. He's been gone six weeks, and nobody will help us. Not the guards, not the reeve, nobody. The garrison turned back the search party on the second day, said the woods were closed. We've been going out by night, my brother-in-law and I, with torches. We found nothing. We keep finding nothing." His voice broke completely. "He's fourteen. He's got a bad leg. He doesn't even know how to fight."
"Jory," Seb said gently.
"I don't care if you're the one on the poster." The words poured out of him now, tumbling over each other. "I don't care if you killed ten kings. I don't care about the bounty, I don't care about any of it. Please. If you can find him, if you can just look, I'll give you everything I have. It isn't much. I have a good knife, it's yours."
Ciri looked at Seb. Seb looked at Ciri.
"We were going to take it anyway," Seb said.
Jory blinked. "You were?"
"We saw the notice on the board. The one for twenty crowns."
"That's... that's all we could scrape together."
"Keep your knife." Seb crouched, offering a hand. After a moment, Jory took it, and Seb hauled him to his feet. "Take us to your brother-in-law. Tell him a witcher's coming. And if anyone asks, we didn't meet here."
"Where did we meet?"
"At a tavern. We had a drink."
"Right." Jory scrubbed his sleeve across his face and laughed. "Gods bless you Witcher."
Seb said. "Go now, Jory."
/-\
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