Chapter 81: Planning the Ambush
POV: Adam
The war room occupied a natural cavern that dwarven engineers had shaped into something between council chamber and command center. Maps covered every horizontal surface—tunnel networks, surface terrain, troop movement projections. Colored stones marked friendly positions in blue, enemy estimates in red.
A lot of red stones.
"Fifty soldiers confirmed." Yarpen moved pieces across the main map with practiced efficiency. "Two mages, both battle-trained. Cahir himself leads, with three lieutenants commanding sub-units." He tapped a narrow valley surrounded by mountain ridges. "They're camped here. Three days march from our perimeter."
"And our forces?" Geralt's question came flat, professional.
"Twenty dwarven warriors, all veterans. Four witchers if we count Adam's abilities. Plus whatever earthbending nonsense the Stone-Sense decides to pull." Yarpen's grin showed teeth. "Not enough for direct assault. More than enough for ambush."
I studied the map, letting Seismic Sense extend into the stone table itself, reading its grain while my mind worked through tactical options.
"The valley they're camped in—does it have tunnel access?"
"Three entrances. All sealed generations ago, but we know where they are."
"Then we don't fight there." I picked up a red stone, moved it to a different position. "We fight here. The Broken Ridge. Tunnel network runs directly beneath it, multiple exit points, defensible positions on both sides."
"That's two days further from our hold."
"Exactly. Cahir's not stupid—he won't attack fortified dwarven positions directly. But if he thinks Ciri's traveling through that area, heading away from safety..." I traced a route on the map. "He'll pursue. Split his forces to cut off escape routes. Walk right into kill-zones we've prepared."
Silence stretched. Lambert broke it with characteristic bluntness.
"You want to use her as bait."
"I want to use the idea of her as bait." I kept my voice steady despite the cold knot forming in my stomach. "Illusions. Decoys. Make Cahir think she's running scared, draw him into terrain that favors us."
"And if it fails?" Geralt's question carried weight beyond simple tactical concern. "If he catches actual Ciri instead of illusory Ciri?"
"Then I'll be there." The words came before I could second-guess them. "Real me, in the real fight, making sure the trap springs before anyone gets close to her."
—Scene Break—
POV: Ciri
"I want to help."
The words dropped into the planning session like stones into still water. Every head turned toward her—Geralt's expression cautious, Lambert's amused, Adam's carefully neutral.
"You are helping." Adam's diplomatic tone didn't match the worry bleeding through their bond. "Your presence here lets us—"
"Lets you use me as bait from a safe distance while you risk your lives." She stepped forward, inserting herself into the tactical discussion she'd been excluded from. "I'm not a porcelain doll, Adam. I have powers. I can fight."
"You can also teleport instinctively when threatened." Geralt's interjection came flat, emotionless. "Create dimensional rifts that attract exactly the attention we're trying to avoid."
"I've learned control—"
"Have you? When was the last time stress triggered an unplanned phase?"
The silence answered for her. Three days ago. Nightmare about the Hunt. She'd woken up halfway through her bed, molecular structure briefly overlapping with stone in a way that still made her nauseous to remember.
"The Hunt senses Elder Blood activity," Geralt continued. "Every time you use your powers, you send a signal. Right now, they're tracking us slowly because you've been careful. Start teleporting around battlefields, and that changes."
"So I'm supposed to hide while everyone I care about fights for me?"
"Yes." Adam's hand found hers. Through their bond, she felt his fear warring with his determination—fear of losing her, determination to protect her regardless of cost. "That's exactly what you're supposed to do. Because if anything happened to you, none of this—" He gestured at the maps, the planning, the alliance they'd built. "—none of it would matter."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to rage against the cage of protection they kept building around her. But the truth in his eyes, the love that drove his overprotectiveness—how could she fight that?
"I'll stay back." The words tasted like surrender. "But I want an escape route. Something I can use if everything goes wrong. Don't ask me to sit in a box waiting to see if you live or die."
"Agreed." Geralt moved pieces on the map, marking a position slightly removed from the main ambush site. "Stone bunker, underground, with tunnel access to three different exit points. Lambert guards you. If the fight goes badly, you run."
"And if it goes well?"
"Then you get to say 'I told you so' at the victory feast."
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The information leak required careful staging.
We released one of the captured scouts—the youngest, the one who'd seemed most frightened during interrogation. Fed him false information about Ciri's movements: she'd been spotted three days south, traveling with minimal escort, heading toward the Broken Ridge pass.
Dwarven rangers tracked him from a distance, confirmed he reached Cahir's camp, reported the news. Twenty-four hours later, Cahir's forces began moving.
"He took the bait." Yarpen's report came via messenger bird, arriving as we finalized tunnel preparations. "Fifty soldiers marching hard, trying to intercept before she crosses the ridge."
"Then we move." I rolled up the maps, tucked them into carrying cases. "Everyone knows their positions?"
Geralt nodded. Lambert cracked his knuckles. Yarpen's dwarves shouldered weapons with the quiet efficiency of people who'd waited too long for action.
"Remember the objective." Geralt's voice carried to every warrior present. "Neutralize, not exterminate. We want Cahir alive if possible—his cooperation solves problems his death only complicates. But if it comes to killing..." He let the sentence hang unfinished.
We marched into the tunnels as afternoon light faded above. Behind us, Mahakam's forges burned on, indifferent to the violence we carried toward men who'd done nothing worse than follow orders from a desperate superior.
"War changes everything. Even good intentions become weapons."
But Ciri's safety demanded this confrontation. And I'd learned, somewhere in the months since Cintra's fall, that protecting what mattered sometimes meant becoming something harder than I'd been before.
The tunnels swallowed us whole, and somewhere ahead, Cahir marched toward the trap we'd prepared.
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