The White Werewolf || Season One: Ties That Bind

Chapter Seventy-Two

Dragon Mountains, 1262

Jaskier sat by the side of the road, plucking out a verse on his lute as Robin tended to the horses while they waited for Geralt. He was searching for a monster in a cave nearby.

I'm weak, love, and I am wanting
If this is the path I must trudge
I'll welcome my sentence, give to you my penance
Gorgeous garroter, jury, and judge

He frowned and tilted his head. "Lovely garroter?" he asked. "Gorgeous garroter?" He looked at Robin and the men standing beside her who had hired Geralt. "Which do you prefer? Lovely? Gorgeous? Is the whole metaphor landing, or is it too cerebral?"

Robin frowned back at him. "You said this was a song about me and Geralt?" she clarified.

"Yes," he confirmed. "A love song for the ages."

"Well, then I object to being called a garroter," Robin decided. "I understand where you're going with it, but if this song is going to give me yet another reputation, I'd like it to be a nice one."

Jaskier wrinkled his nose and resumed plucking, now trying to solve two vocabulary problems.

"It's been an hour," one of the men protested. "Let's get on before the beast gets hungry again."

"But we made a deal," the other reminded him.

"We made a deal with a living witcher," the first retorted. "No sense in hanging around to pay a dead one."

The first man moved to Roach and began taking the saddlebags off of his back. "Bollocks," Jaskier muttered, standing up. "Oi! No. No, no, no! No!"

Robin waved a hand blithely. "I've got it, Jas." She gestured at the saddlebags. "Put them back. Now."

"Or you'll what?" the first man taunted her. "Have your bard sing us to death?"

Suddenly, an older, shorter, but very stately man emerged from the brush on the side of the road. "Perhaps you didn't hear the lady," he announced.

"Sorry, who are you?" Jaskier wondered, immediately distracted as two tall, fierce warriors arrived to flank the newcomer.

Robin watched curiously. There was something odd about the confident interloper, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what.

"Move along, old man," the first man demanded.

He merely shook his head. "Do as the mage asks or I'll be forced to draw my weapons."

Robin's brow furrowed. He could have simply heard Jaskier's songs and therefore known who she was. Or he could just naturally tell that she had magic, which meant he might be more dangerous than the two idiots currently plaguing them.

The first man squinted, which wasn't surprising, since their supposed rescuer appeared to have no weapons on him at all. "What weapons? I see no steel here."

He pushed the shorter man and one of the warriors immediately snapped his neck.

"Oh!" Jaskier exclaimed, hiding his face.

A fireball appeared in Robin's hand as she watched.

"Steel won't be necessary," the killer commented.

At that moment, the decapitated head of a creature was thrown into the dust beside them. Robin immediately smiled. "Geralt," she murmured.

The witcher emerged, slightly dusty, slightly bloody, but none the worse for wear. He smiled back at her, then spotted the remaining man with his saddlebags. "I believe those are mine," he observed.