Chapter 22

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"Everyone grab the rope!" Yennefer commanded.

Without hesitation the witchers charged forward and seized the magic rope: the last bond they had with their lost comrades. Muscles tensed at the sudden forward pull.

"We have them!" Ciri cheered through the straining.  Her emerald eyes growing larger in anticipation.

Little by little they took ground.  The rope tense under the strain began to reemerge back into their realm.  Inch by inch they took back what was theirs.

"How much farther?"  Lambert groaned, catching another foot of rope around his arm.

"I can see something emerging now," Triss replied enthusiastically. Her auburn curls bounced from the effort and strain.

Indeed a dark mass had appeared on the other side of the bright barrier: albeit slightly distorted.  No one could make heads or tails of who it was.

"Pull!" No one cared who called out the commands.  Their minds had only one thing blazing through them.

Then the reward became more evident.  A hand, as if pushed against a foggy glass.  Then another.  

"Pull!"

Dark leather arm wraps.  Studded leather.  Then a torso became more visible. Large and built -- a mans.

"Pull!"

A second figure began to show more detail.  They were clinging to the first figure.  Their face obscured.

"I swear if that bastard of an elf somehow-"

"Shut up Lambert!" Geralt chided.  "We'll deal with that after."

Before Lambert could send back a snide retort the silvery rope gave a final tug and burst.  The sparks of magic that bound it together shot out, fizzling to nothing but air.   A solid wave of energy pushed out, which for normal humans would have toppled them immediately, however they were not ordinary people.   The witchers braced themselves and shielded their eyes from the bright burst: their cat pupils narrowing to the extreme.  Triss ducked behind Yennefer's aptly timed shield spell, with Ciri and Avellac'h simply bracing against the shockwave behind a toppled wooden shelf.

The burst's electric pulse was stark contrast to the now deathly silent room.

All went still.

Two bodies lay in the remains of the spell circle.   Both were positioned as if they were sleeping: prone and unmoving.  Both bloody and ragged.

As the final mist from the spell faded away to reveal the figures hands were interlocked.

"Cass! Eskel!"  Triss rushed forward only to be beaten by Ciri a half-second earlier. "Can you hear us?  Are they even alive?!"

Ciri placed a hand on Cass' arm.  "I -

"Come on old man don't just lie there."  Lambert gave Eskel's boot a rough kick. 

"Lambert that is enough." Vesemir frowned, displeased in the younger witcher's calloused manner.

Ignoring Vesemir's lecture Lambert gave Eskel's boot another good one. "We just brought your sorry ass back from oblivion.  The least you could do is get up."

A soft groan left his lips.  "I feel like I've been through 'the killer', and I mean before my training.  Go a little easy on me would yah."

"You son of a bitch you're alive," Lambert laughed.  

Yennefer tutted at his antics while Geralt placed a sneaky arm around her cinched waist, which received him an overly sensual sideways glance from the enchantress.

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