WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

005. a price on power..

The back of a hand hit the table.

Sylvain's hand burst through the front of the soldier's belly, under his armour plate, pierced through flesh, dug through intestines and grabbed onto his stomach.

The shock was a sweet aroma to be embrace by any Arcapan blood remained.

Sylvain pulled out everything in the path of the stomach, hanging a net of organs and muscles out of the knight with fish gobbled eyes, lifeless glass on buckling knees. The king bit onto that web of death unsaturated with the carnage despite all smiles.

Azaras gazed sympathetic down at the much pigged hand pinned beneath hers and her smile was alcohol in its own because intoxicating, even those who did not like the yellow they found into her eyes, now applauded. The whole tavern turned into a cheer.

The battlefield was grave-quiet in the end, Sylvain but a mere stone solitary representing death itself for the hill drenched under Creyden's walls, which have seen none spirit worse than that of the king whose crown was burried in the insides of corpses. So foul, the ravens that brought the night stayed away from the prey cut open to the air.

A night above the tavern, dissputed into a certain diffusion of the chaos, especially after they have taken advantage of the foolish pockets of all the drunk fools. Jaskier has returned and presented Azaras, by standing besides her table, with a pouch filled with coins. "We did formidably well."

Azaras dug her right hand into the open and into a palm which burned as much as her face, giving an overall feeling of hotness which opened the first buttons of her blouse, she scooped five coins. Those five round pieces landed beside the pouch and she gestured towards Jaskier.

"For your soap," she reminded him with a sigh when his confusion took a break and faded him into the general chatter of the room. While Azaras leant back, she left no time for commentaries, but instead dug herself deeper into a fairness imprinted into her being, from her upbringing, something becoming a mutant would have never wiped clean from her memory. "It's not enough though."

"It's more than enough," Jaskier laughed. He took his five coins gratefully and dropped then in the only pocket of his pants that he knew was not compromised in any way. "Did Eskel forget to tell you the monster hunting business is not very successful anymore? Even with the growth of monsters, you did plenty for just one day..."

"I beat some men and shattered their ego," Azaras looked up at Jaskier with a faint smile. "It felt amazinf, surely, but I was supposed to end monsters today, not toxic masculinity."

"That's a monster anyhow."

Unnoticed to the normal senses of Jaskier, but loud enough to be picked up by Azaras' on edge calmness, another man sat down at her table, across from her, placing his joined hands on the surface and leaning over them. "I've been watching you tonight."

Wrinkles of age became brighter from under the green fluff on top of the man's hat, shadowing his face. Indeed, he was a frail elder, hardly stock to take the challenge, barely looking touched by the effect of spirits from the tavern, but instead dressed in such fine clothes that Jaskier at least, immediately understood he had plenty of coins to be stupid about spending.

"Trying to tell if you are a Witcher or a fraud," the man continued, secretive and hushed in tone.

Azaras' own voice remained loud and clear, her assertiveness unbothered with the trails of suspicion. "So which is it then?" she crossed her arms at her chest.

The man sniffed away the curiosity, distinguished it from hostility and straightened up in his seat, "I need help with a monster." The tavern's supple wench stepped heavily around their table just then, and in a hope to avoid another client, she did not notice knocking over Azaras' sword.