Toss A Coin | Geralt of Rivia X OC | The Witcher FF

Chapter 49 - Banquet in Cintra, part four -

There was grumbling from the other side of the door which then opened. A man in armour knocked the knight out and made his way inside the hall. "Forgive my late intrusion, Your Majesty, and for the misunderstanding with your guards. Please! I come in peace. I need but one moment of your time." He kneeled in front of the Queen and Pavetta but didn't reveal his face by taking off his helmet.

"I am Lord Urcheon of Erlenwald, and I have come to claim your daughter's hand in marriage." Everyone gasped and I could quite tell how Pavetta felt about it. She looked shocked but wasn't afraid. "A knight of no renown from a backwater hamlet who dares to enter my court without revealing his face?" she asked and ordered the knight to take off his helmet. 

"I apologize, Your Majesty, a knights oath prevents me from revealing my face until the sounding of the twelfth bell." he answered but Eist didn't believe him. "Bollocks to that." he threw the helmet off of the knight's face to the ground. The guards pulled their swords and gasping was all around by the revealed face. He had no hair but spines on top of his head. His nose was like the one of an animal; he looked like a hedgehog.

"Witchers..." Calanthe spoke. "Kill it!" she demanded but both, Geralt and I refused to. "Whatever the price." she tried to convince us. "This is no monster." Geralt explained but Calanthe didn't want to listen, she still tried to order us around. Geralt said that a curse was upon the knight. 

"You're as useless as the rest of them." Calanthe cursed. "Slay this beast!" she ordered her guards who rushed towards him, to kill him. The knight fought back without his sword but then pulled it. "Lioness of Cintra, I come to claim what is rightfully mine!" he pointed his sword at the Queen. "Pavetta. By the Law of Surprise."

The guards took their swords and all attacked the knight since it was their order. He avoided killing any of them, he just injured them, to make them unable to fight. One of the guards managed to throw away his sword and make him fall to the ground, blood coming from his mouth. The guards surrounded him as he still laid on the ground. 

One of Calanthes men took his battling axe to kill him but Pavetta pleaded for him to not do that. Before that happened. Geralt rushed over to where the knight had lost his sword and cut the battling axe in half before it hit the knight, I forgot his name. You know that I never was and probably never will be good with names...

I looked around to find any weapon to help Geralt defending the man who once fought alone. The guard next to the table stood still, ready to draw his sword to defend the Queen. I stood up and took his sword from him and kicked him in the hollow of his knees so he wouldn't run after me.

Geralt looked at me and nodded as a thank you. We looked at the knight and he nodded as well and got back to his feet."Kill all three of them!" The Queen now ordered since we now were against her orders and therefore the enemy. The focus was now not to kill anybody but to protect the knight. I blocked their strikes and kicked them off to the ground where most of them stayed. Sometimes I had to slice their arms or even legs, rarely the chest, only in defence. 

One lunged at Geralt but I rushed over at him and almost cut off his arm. Geralt turned around and we were face to face. He frowned and straightened out his arm and his blade hitting a guard in the stomach. If not for him, I would have that sword in my chest now.

The guest started to draw daggers, threw candle holders or forks so they would stop Geralt, the knight and me. Eist took a chair and slammed it into one of the people in the front. "The Law of Surprise has been called." he was on our side. "You kill them," He rammed his fist into faces and guts and then also drew a dagger. "kill me." he defied.

Calanthe stood up and walked over to a guard that fell on the little stairs. She took his sword and kicked him away. The man growled in pain. Now the Queen fought with us, now that Eist was on our side as well, she couldn't let him get killed. Geralt's and Calanthe's blades almost crossed as she brought all of that to an end.

"Stop!" she yelled again and so everyone lowered their weapons. Pavetta got up and ran over to the knight. "Duny!" she called him. She embraced the man who returned it without hesitating. "I told you to stay away." she lectured him and held his face in her hands. It was silent and everyone looked at them surprised and shocked. Calanthe went over to them and gave them a questioning look.

Duny kneeled before Calanthe and let his weapon fall to the floor. "Your Majesty, the Witcher speaks the truth. I was cursed as a young boy. My whole life living a misery until the day that I saved your husband, King Roegner, from a certain death. By tradition, I chose the Law of Surprise as payment. Whatever windfall he came home to find... would be mine." he explained and Calanthe tensed up.

"Oh, the stupid bastard. Better you had let him die!" she growled. "You knew he'd come and you pushed Geralt to kill him." I said with my jaw clenched. "And you," the Queen looked at her daughter. "carousing with the beast that swindled your stupid father!" she raised her voice at the last part. "'Tis no swindle. Asking for payment with the Law of Surprise is as old as mankind itself."

"Don't lecture me, Eist." Calanthe growled at the man beside her. "It's an honest gamble. As likely to be rewarded with a bumper crop as a newborn pup. Or... a child of surprise." he kept lecturing the Queen. Pavetta took Dunys hand and she looked at her mother.