The Path: A witcher's tale

Chapter 29

     I left Toussaint around midday, on a usual, calm Toussaint spring day, with the orioles, skylarks, and sparrows chirping in the sky and the cicadas and bees buzzing among the vines. Karadine walked with me to the stables and she stopped me right before we mounted our horses to ride our separate ways.
-"Andrezej," she said, "I want you to promise me that every winter, you'll try your damned hardest to get your ass back to me, I don't want to lose you," she quietly said to me as she came in for an embrace.
-I held her close to me and I deeply gazed into her amber and violet eyes and said, "I'll try, no guarantees though. Simply because of our profession, risking our necks is just part of the job, so we may have to get used to life without one another. But rest assured, I will always love you, no matter what."
-"Me too Andrezej, now come here and kiss me before you go...Now, try not to get killed witcher, I'll be waiting for you."
-"Same to you, my witcheress, now farewell, I'll see you by Midinvaérne or maybe even Samhain if I get here early." I had no idea how wrong I was.
     After a week of traveling on Wasp, I arrived at Novigrad in the dead of night and I was spotted by a captain of the Novigrad guard, who told me to wait till morning, the bastard. At dawn, he said he had a job for me, something was killing drunkards and whores out in the streets at night. Naturally, I agreed, I was only fulfilling my purpose after all, to kill monsters. I visited the morgue and observed the bodies, or more like what was left of them anyway. They were cut down to ribbons, but the strange thing was they none of the bodies had a single drop of blood on them, save for the blood-stained rags that used to be clothes. All of the victims were surrounded by the stench of wine, more specifically, cheap wine that can be easily acquired at a local tavern or inn.
     I sat down and reviewed the facts, all the victims were practically devoid of blood, suggesting a vampire, but the bodies were quite literally torn apart, eliminating higher vampires like Katakans, Alps, Bruxae, and the like, as they prefer the more delicate ways of drinking blood, whenever possible. But above all, the victims were alcoholics and were most likely intoxicated at the time of death, leaving the impression that this particular vampire liked alcohol, which is a quite common case. I then knew exactly what I had to do. Around dusk I went to the Golden Sturgeon, a portside inn near the site of the deaths. The innkeep looked at me with a glum, bearded face with bushy eye brows and said, "What'll it be master? Ye lookin' to forget the night or  are ye just lookin' to quench your thirst?"
-"Neither," I replied, "I need to get drunk off my ass on cheap wine, as soon as possible."
-"Wife left ye, or your lover was caught with another man?"
-"Wrong on both counts, it's just part of the job."
-"Wish I had a job like that," the innkeep muttered under his breath, as I began drinking.
-"You have no idea how wrong you are, my friend," I thought to myself.
     By the time I was seeing double and began stumbling, I went into the streets and tried to attract the vampire. I started yelling obscene phrases that I barely remember until my medallion started trembling and I heard a grating on the tiles of the roofs above me. "Get your arse down here and fight bitch!" I yelled to the vampire, while drawing my silver as he jumped off and landed right in front of me.
     Despite being drunk, I could make out that the monster was a fleder, a very strong lower vampire that is easily capable of tearing a man in half. The vampire hissed and bared its large and seemingly dull fangs, which were actually sharp as razors and could puncture skin with ease. I locked eyes with the monster and I made sure that the monster saw nothing but blind fury in my gaze. My hair then turned white and my eyes went red, and I swung like a madman, spinning and slashing, dodging and dicing, until I was a raging whirlwind of silver and death. The fleder tried its best to defend itself, clawing at me and trying to hold me down, but it was simply too slow. When I calmed down, my clothes was spattered with blood, both mine and the monster's and the vampire was cut to bits. The beast had nicked my thigh, barely missing my femoral artery.
     I made a makeshift bandage from my headband to try and stop the bleeding. I picked up what was left of the head, stuck it on a hook and went to wait outside the guard post. When dawn rolled around, as the guard captain went to make his rounds, I threw the head at his feet.
-"You did good witchman," he said as he tossed a pouch of coin at me.
-"That's it? You're not going to send me out on my arse after I collect my fee? You're not going to try to come up with an excuse to get your money back?"
-"Eh, why should I? You did a job and you earned your pay, just like any other fellow. Listen, I piss on the fact that you have cat eyes that shine at night, the fact that you're faster than most, that you are devoid of emotion. You're a just another man plying his trade, just like the rest of us, now don't forget about it."
-"Thanks, I won't," I said I strode away. It was high time I got on a boat, there's someone I had to see, in Skellige.