The Path: A witcher's tale

Chapter 26

     The explosions seemed to come from nowhere, one second, everyone is making conversation and political deals, then the walls explode and rubble is flying at people, the next. When I had reached Anna past all of the rubble and I observed the crowd to see who managed to be shielded by the mages and that's when I heard someone crying for help from under a chunk of the wall.
     I followed the sound until I found out who exactly was stuck under the large stone, he was wearing a black frock with a sun emblazoned on the front and after inspection of his voice, I determined who it was. It was the Nilfgaardian who had disgraced me earlier. I looked at him and said "Well, look at what we have here, the high and mighty Nilfgaardian has to rescued by the lowly witcher. What do you have to say to that?" He looked up at me and hawked up some blood and said "Abaeth arse, vatt'ghern, abaeth me aep arse."
     I looked at the crowd and loudly announced, "The man under this stone is a filthy Nilfgaardian who insulted me earlier, and even now he cannot not get down from his high horse to ask me for help. So if anyone dares to help him, I will not hesitate to slit their throat right here, no matter who you are." "With what?" A mage asked haughtily. In one swift, fluid movement I drew a hunting knife I had sheathed in my boot and held it to his throat.
     "With this," I declared with the audible rage in my voice, "Anyone else got anything smart to say to me? No? Well then, let's start looking for the terrorists. Any mages who are adept healers, tend to the wounded, everyone who is capable of combat come with me." A few mages and Íbegard came with me as I led them to where it seemed the bombs detonated. I instructed the mages to use magic to lift the rubble if possible while Íbegard and I would sift through the rest and look for anything of interest. After some time, my medallion began to pulsate, at first it was barely perceptible and it began to grow stronger.
     I came across the ruptured casing of one of the bombs, it was cylindrical and made of silver, with runes etched along the tops, the inside smelled of wyvern oil and something unknown to me. I took it to one of the older sorcerers (at least he looked older) and I asked him what the runes meant. According to him, the runes formed a magic seal that would force the contents to react violently upon detonation, but it had to activated by a spell and from not too far away. This meant two things: the bomber had some experience with magic and they were nearby.
     It was once I figured that out when someone started bolting out of the room. I gave chase and pursued him quite a distance. I tackled him and looked him in the eyes, it was Íbegard, he set the bombs and detonated them. It made sense, elves did have a way with magic and he hated humans almost as much as the Scoia'tael. I asked him why, he simply said that he was paid to by an unknown benefactor, he just got a letter saying that he was to plant and detonate bombs around the banquet hall, in an attempt to kill all those present.
     I considered how he treated me before and I realized I was faced with an impossible choice: I was to either kill my comrade and bring his head to filthy diplomats, or let a terrorist run free. I looked at Íbegard in his fear stricken eyes, for even though he was a fine swordsman himself, he would have stood no chance against me, especially now that I can control my ability.
     I picked him up and then said to him, "Go, get out of my sight, but if I hear of another bombing done by a half-elf, I will personally hunt you down and eliminate you." He got his bearings and then said "So be it. Va fail Bloede Bleidd," as he ran into the distance.
     I returned to the assembly and prepared myself to face the wrath of an entire council mages. When they saw I came back empty handed, they rushed at me, a few with eyes blazing with rage. I drew my steel and casted Quen, if I was going down, I'm going to take a few of them with me. Right before they got to me, Anna stood between them and me and yelled at everyone to stop. She explained that maybe the bomber just escaped me and I could not keep up with them, along with other "possibilities." That seemed to put the matter to rest, but I saw various people giving me deathly looks and heard a few muttering under their breath.
     Anna then looked at me and said, "I've seemed to calm them down for now, but you have to leave, they might just turn you into a smear on the wall when I'm not looking, so I will teleport you away. Think of something and your thoughts will direct where you and your equipment will end up. I will find you and you can tell me what happened later." I thought to myself that I just wanted to go home and be in Karadine's warm embrace once again.
     With a spontaneous flash of light, I ended up at Toussaint at my house and to my surprise, I was right in front of Karadine, who was taking a bath at the time. She first slapped me for scaring her and then embraced me in relief. I felt her cool, electrifying skin against mine and I looked into her amber and violet eyes and said, "Damn, do I have a story for you."