The cavern was filled with dismembered corpses of nekkers when Roy was done with them. The boy’s clothes, pants, and leather armor were drenched in blood, and even his face was caked with clumps of flesh. He tried taking a whiff of his scent, and all he could smell was the stench of sweat and blood.
He wanted to clean himself up, but Letho stopped him. “Don’t waste any water, boy. We’re going to be here for at least a week. Every drop counts.” The witcher was wiping his sword, and he was in the same situation as Roy. Letho looked more like a bloody butcher than a dignified witcher, but he didn’t mind.
“I can take the stench, but at least let me wash my hands.” Roy thought about having to eat his meals with his hands caked in flesh, and that disgusted him.
“Do as you wish.” Letho turned around and went back to his sword. “Nekker blood is worse than horse piss, but at least you won’t die from thirst.”
“Alright, I get it.” Roy relented. Thirst was a more pressing matter than hunger, and that made water all the more valuable. “Fine, it’s just a week. I’ll take it.”
“Honestly, you look more like the part now, boy,” Letho commented. “You can’t call yourself a witcher if you can’t handle some stink.” He wanted the boy to accept the circumstances more easily, so he gave an example. “Have you ever heard about zeugls?”
“I’ve seen that in your notes. It’s a type of necrophage that looks like ooze.” Roy got distracted and said from memory, “It gorges on decaying flesh, corpses, and waste products. They live in sewers, swamps, and places that are humid and squalid.”
“I have a story to tell.” Letho frowned as he recalled one particularly bad memory. “I was twenty years old back then, just graduated from Gorthur Gvaed. There I was, exploring the world in my hunt for monsters and fame. It was a tough journey, but eventually, I got a request. My quarry was the zeugls living around Alba. I tracked them down, of course, and know what I saw? Heaps of decaying, bloated corpses and the shit of every living being you can think of. And also mountains of waste products that oozed poison. The whole place was just one big stinkhole filled with putrid water.” Letho looked disgusted. “The stench was unbearable. Even a shithole would be better than that place.”
“Did you jump into that stinkhole then?” Roy noticed something, and he just had to feel smug about it.
Letho closed his eyes melancholically. “I had to. I managed to kill the zeugls and complete the request, but no matter how many times I bathed, the stench just wouldn’t come off. No woman would come near me for a whole year.”
“A whole year?” Roy was stupefied. “That stench lasted for a whole year?”
“Technically, Serrit and Auckes can still smell it until today.”
“Oh god.” Roy stiffened up, and suddenly the stench of the flesh on him smelled a lot better.
“I wasn’t the exception. I’ve run into nearly ten witchers in my life.” Letho continued, “All of them are elites of their school, and all of them have had to jump into a zeugl nest before.” Roy had a bad feeling about what was to come, and Letho confirmed it. “I think every witcher has to go through that rite of passage once if they want to grow.” Letho gazed at Roy. “You should jump into a shithole once to train yourself if you can’t get a zeugl request.”
“Alright, I get it!” Roy shouted, stopping Letho from telling him any further tales of the past. He was already feeling uneasy from the story. “I’m not going to waste any water, so stop it with the shithole! There are still some nekker hearts left. I’ll deal with them!”
Letho stared at Roy quietly and smirked.
***
Since they couldn’t tell morning from night in the cavern, Letho and Roy made quiet estimations and took watch in shifts. Eventually, they had already spent a day in Smiack. It had been more than a week since Roy had had his first potion, so Letho administered the second dose. The pain wasn’t comparable to what he’d felt with the first dose, and Roy endured it quietly without passing out. He suffered no side effects, though he sweated buckets, and his muscles felt sore.
He then meditated and woke up feeling refreshed, as if the pain the day before had just been a bad dream. At the same time, the blood and flesh caked on him had congealed throughout the night.
Letho moved around to see how much strength he’d recovered. His stamina was all back, and the wounds from the nekker fight were starting to heal, so he could move around no problem. He told Roy, “Take Gwyhyr and chop up two, no, three corpses.”
“Chop up?” Roy was getting fearful of the witchers’ ideas. “Are you trying to feed the flesh to me?”
“No, but I won’t stop you if you want to try.”
“Save it for yourself.” Thanks to Massacre, chopping up a small humanoid corpse was an easy task for Roy. He cut the corpses into fist-sized clumps of meat and split them into four packages kept in the tent cloth. Their paralyzing poison had congealed and been slathered onto the swords as well as three of the packages of meat.
Letho took the last package and poured it all onto Roy, covering even his hair in the rancid flesh. The fuck? Roy was surprised, to say the least. What the fuck is this? The flesh smelled worse than the feces in a shithole, and Roy started roaring, but then he came up with a possible reason for Letho doing that. “Alright, I know what you’re trying to do, but at least warn me next time. This is one crazy plan.”
***
The meat was placed outside one of the tunnels, and they crawled into it. It was narrow and shabby, made out of nothing but mud. Letho had to curl up and move forward in an awkward pose that resembled how a nekker would move. Since Roy was around five feet five, he could move freely in the tunnel, and from time to time, he’d touch the walls of the tunnel. I wonder what’s on these walls. It’s smooth, bouncy, and warm.
He mumbled, “I have a feeling we’re walking through a monster’s mouth, and deep down there is it’s stomach. Can this really work?”
“Shut up. I can’t keep you safe this time if we can’t fool those bastards.”
They moved ahead, and then they looked at each other. It’s coming, they thought, and they hunkered down, holding their breath. Quiet footsteps came from ahead, and a nekker appeared from the corner a moment later. Its ears were pointy, its head bald, its teeth sharp, but it had something normal nekkers didn’t — red paint on its face. It was crawling ahead using all its limbs, not unlike a spider, but Roy was reminded of Gollum.
‘Nekker warrior
Age: Eight
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 7
Perception: 4
Will: 4
Charisma: 2
Spirit: 3
Skills:
Leap Attack Level 2: Has great leaping ability, allowing to attack from ten feet away. Can leap toward its target quickly, attacking it with its fangs and claws. Gains +1 in strength when leaping. Lasts thirty seconds.
Corpse Venom Level 4: Lives in places filled with corpses and decaying flesh. Thanks to that, its claws and fangs are imbibed with venom. Its attacks can weaken its target and cause bleeding.
Strength in Numbers (Passive): Whenever nekkers move in packs, they gain +1 in Dexterity and Will.
Evolve (Passive): Once a nekker warrior has consumed enough flesh over time, it will evolve into a nekker leader.
***
The nekker warrior noticed their movement, and it stared at them in uncanny confusion when it noticed the smell of its comrade on Letho and Roy. They stared at each other for a few moments, and the nekker accepted Roy as one of its own and left.
Roy kept his crossbow and took a whiff of the flesh on him. “I knew it. It thinks we’re one of them.”
“We can talk about that later. Let’s get out for now. This is the right way; it showed up from there after all. Its nest must be near, so we can set up bait there.”
“Okay.” They took out the meat from the package and backtracked, tossing the meat as they went. The bag of meat was laid out on the floor when they came out, and Roy heaved a sigh. “Will they take the bait? They should know it’s their brethren’s flesh, right?”
“Didn’t you notice it yesterday? Those nekkers were skin and bones. Obviously, this place doesn’t have any food, and the nekkers have been starving for a long time. They’re going to take the bait. This is too much of a temptation for them. Humans will kill their own when they’re dying from starvation, so why wouldn’t these monsters? Why do you think this place doesn’t have any beasts in it?”
Roy nodded. “But I don’t understand. How did we manage to fool them? Because of the flesh?”
“Drowners can’t see far, and the same goes for nekkers. They rely on their sense and smell and hearing to see things, not their eyes. All they can see is an outline. Since we’re covered in the flesh and blood of its kind, it should think we’re one of them if we stay some distance away.”
Roy was impressed by the trick Letho came up with. The witcher managed to turn the nekkers’ bodies into alchemy materials, camouflage, and poisonous bait. Even though he was wounded, he could still go against the monsters using his experience. I’m still too green. Books can’t tell me about this, he reminded himself.
“I’m still wounded, so take Gwyhyr with you. Don’t let even a single one escape.” They leaned against the cavern’s wall. Letho was holding his steel sword, while Roy was holding Gwyhyr. A short while later, they heard the rustle of footsteps coming from inside. Then out came a couple of nekkers. They approached the meat curiously, sniffing it for a moment before devouring it.
And then Roy heard the boom of footsteps as a group of pale nekkers darted out of the cave to pounce at their food. The nekkers gurgled in ecstasy as they crawled on all fours toward the meat, their putrid drool dripping onto the ground. The monsters licked the clumps of flesh and engorged on them greedily, oblivious to their bodies’ changes.
Thanks to the paralyzing poison, they were starting to become slower and slower, though they were still crawling out of the cave by instinct, for a bag of flesh was enticing them there. They stuck their heads out and looked down, ignorant to the danger about to befall them. Then they looked at their abnormally gigantic ‘brother’ in confusion. At the same time, Letho gave Roy a look, and the boy tensed, his fingers turning white.
There’s an opening. Roy took a deep breath and focused on the task ahead. He raised Gwyhyr high in the air and sliced down with all his might, executing the nekker before him. Blood spurted high into the air as the nekker’s head tumbled down to the heap of corpses, the last confusion still etched on its face.
At the same time, Roy kicked the headless body away to keep the entrance clear. Roy started to sweat from his neck, and his face turned scarlet with excitement. Never knew killing a monster could be that easy.
