Deep in the night, you could still see it from the village's raised platform—the cemetery bonfire burning bright and steady in the distance.
Wearing iron armor, Victor sat by the fire in meditation. Angoulême was armored too, dozing lightly inside the altar ruin with her back against the wall. The two horses had been led farther away for safety. Teddy stayed, though—paired with Catherine, they became eyes in the sky and ears on the ground, which let Angoulême relax without having to stay on edge every second.
The new silver sword still wasn't finished, so Victor was using a steel sword Yoana had forged earlier. It wasn't the perfect custom fit, but it was miles better than the one he'd brought from Vizima. Necrophage Oil was spread evenly along the blade, and the sword lay across his knees.
Autumn had settled in. The air had turned chilly.
"Vic, have you ever seen a grave hag before?"
"No."
"…Me neither."
"Relax. If we handle it the right way, this will be over quickly."
"You said that last time too…"
"…"
Suddenly, Catherine let out a piercing hawk scream, and Teddy exploded into frantic barking—so loud and desperate it sounded downright inhumane.
Victor opened his eyes to greet their "pretty girl"—
The grave hag.
The bonfire threw her figure into sharp relief. Long hair draped over her shoulders. Her eyes were big and strangely vivid. Her skin looked slick. Her fingers were long. Her chest was full, and she was barely clothed at all.
By the Plague—thanks to Lambert's brand-new "pretty girl" standard, once you'd seen her, there was no such thing as "not a pretty girl" left in the world. Victor would even dare to say that compared to her, Eskel could qualify as a "pretty girl."
"Thief… he stole skulls… my skulls! If you want them… dig your own…" Her voice was hoarse, the words slurred and half-chewed.
Sword in hand, Victor rose, lowered his visor, and set himself into a steady plow guard stance, all focus fixed on the monster in front of him.
A gust hissed through the trees, leaves rasping against one another.
The grave hag stared at the witcher's apprentice. They held each other for a heartbeat longer—then she opened her mouth.
Crack.
Victor snapped his torso back. Something struck his faceplate.
Without armor, that would've punched a hole straight through his face. She was faster than he'd expected—maybe because it was his first time hunting without drinking Blizzard, and he wasn't used to the pace.
The firelight flickered. Her tongue shot out and reeled back like a viper tasting the air.
Victor tried to close the distance—one step forward and his shoulder rang with a hard clang as she jabbed him again. He turned his head and saw the impact spot: slightly dented, already darkened. This armor wasn't going to sell well anymore.
That tongue moved too fast. Looks like only a full witcher—or someone in a Blizzard-enhanced state, with the kind of reflexes that could swat away a flying bolt—would have a chance of chopping it off mid-strike.
Claws and steel traded for a few quick exchanges. Victor got a rough measure of the gap between them, then began to give ground slowly, letting out a calm sigh.
"I really didn't want to use this move!"
Finally hearing the signal phrase, Angoulême—who'd been stuck behind the altar ruin, able to do nothing but panic—rolled her eyes and moved to trigger the traps.
She still couldn't understand why the boss had chosen that line as the code. They'd spent the entire afternoon setting this up specifically to use this move. And the signal was "I really didn't want to use this move!" It made absolutely no sense.
First came the heavy crossbow rig. Angoulême tracked the target, adjusted the angle—
Clack!
She slammed the lever down.
A shriek tore the night open. The bolt hit dead center, punching through the grave hag's chest and bursting out her back in a spray of blood mist.
Wounded badly, she kicked off the ground and lunged for Victor with terrifying speed—but Victor was ready. He twisted aside at the last instant, letting her fly past him.
Snap.
She hit the pitfall trap. The grave hag dropped through the hay cover and plunged straight down into a bed of long nails and a bear trap. The mechanism went off in a chain of harsh, snapping clacks—an encounter that would make anyone who heard it wince and anyone who listened too long feel ill.
Victor pulled a bomb from his herb pouch—a Dancing Star—and tossed it into the pit. Fire had always been good medicine for necrophages.
The explosion boomed. Flames danced. A dying howl rose up.
Credit where it was due—she really was a "pretty girl." Even at that point, she managed to leap out of the pit, though she came out burning, shrieking and flailing wildly across the cemetery.
Victor raised his weapon and cut her down "from the front"—one clean strike from shoulder to waist. Then he circled behind and aimed for the hollow of her knee, slicing across to sever the tendons.
Angoulême stepped out of the altar ruin just in time to see Victor plant a boot on the grave hag's back, measuring a thrust as if he might need help pinning her down—
Then Victor drove the blade in himself. The point punched through the back of her skull and out through her brow, nailing the monster to the ground.
As Angoulême approached, she heard Victor muttering to himself.
"So humanoid monsters are fine. Talking is fine too. It's just humans that aren't."
Angoulême glanced at the grave hag, blood flooding the earth. "Do we need to collect her blood?" She knew Victor was always short on alchemy materials.
"No. It's fine. Her blood isn't worth much." Victor drew a short knife and cut off the monster's ears. "Grave Hag Ear, though—that's good."
"Let's see how lucky we are this time."
He rolled the corpse over, then split her chest open with a wet sound and rummaged with clinical patience.
A moment later, he lifted up a small lump of something unspeakable. "Not bad. Grave Hag Mutagen."
Angoulême's face went gray. "You're kidding… witchers put that stuff into their bodies?"
"Of course not raw, and not by injecting it straight in. It gets processed first, through all kinds of scientific methods."
Angoulême just shook her head and decided she didn't want to talk anymore.
Victor pulled a face, gave up explaining, and kicked the hag's remains into one of the graves she'd dug up. Then the Phantom Troupe began cleaning up the cemetery's mess.
…
At first light, Victor and Angoulême strolled back toward the village with Teddy on a leash—two people and a dog, unhurried and calm. From afar, they could already see the village gate, where the ealdorman, the gravedigger, and a few brave villagers were waiting.
The cemetery was a decent distance from the village, but the distant howls and screams from last night had carried on the wind. Everyone wanted the result as soon as possible.
After half a night trapped inside armor, Victor had none of his earlier polish left. He walked straight up to them, lifted a blood-soaked cloth bundle high, and flipped back the wrapping.
"There. This was the monster. Pretty, isn't she?"
The villagers who'd been pretending to be brave turned ghost-white and stumbled backward the moment they saw the grave hag's head. The more timid ones outright fled—scrambling and tumbling back into the village.
Only the ealdorman and the gravedigger managed to stay mostly steady—one because he'd seen enough in his life, the other because he'd already glimpsed it from far away before.
Words became weak and useless in front of the "pretty girl." With shaking hands, the ealdorman produced a pouch of orens. Angoulême reached out from the side and took it.
Victor wrapped the head up again and set it on the ground. He didn't think anyone here would dare take it from him.
"Th-thank you… thank you, sir," the gravedigger and the ealdorman said together. This time, it sounded sincere.
"We're not 'sir' anything," Angoulême cut in loudly, correcting them without shame. "We're the Phantom Troupe. Remember it!"
No coin was ever worth it if you didn't even get your name.
And just like that, the contract ended.
The world, for the moment, returned to peace.
Victor shook his head and started toward the village—
"P-please… wait," the gravedigger asked, voice trembling. "Th-the child who was taken…?"
Victor turned and swept his gaze across their hopeful faces. "I found him. He was in the pot. Do you want a more detailed description?"
Everyone's faces blanched on the spot. The ealdorman waved both hands in front of his chest. "N-no. You've said more than enough."
Victor could feel it. Compared to before, the ealdorman, the gravedigger, and the villagers all looked at him differently now.
That look had a taste to it.
Fear—fear of witchers, or fear of the Phantom Troupe.
But after last night's life-and-death slaughter, those hostile looks felt small by comparison. Like Lambert once said:
"I don't give a shit."
…
In the blink of an eye, ten days passed. Fergus's forge shut its doors, and the Phantom Troupe left Lindenvale with Yoana and Fergus. A two-horse, four-wheeled covered wagon was packed full of tools and goods. Victor and Angoulême each rode a horse, and the four of them headed north.
The route was planned like this: cross the bridge, pass through Mulbrydale, then continue on to the border checkpoint.
One more thing worth mentioning—only a few days after they left, a group of ten knights rode into Lindenvale looking for a smith. They'd been sent by Baron Vserad, the ruler of Crow's Perch. He'd heard the name of Master Craftsman Fergus Graem and dispatched men to invite him.
Unfortunately, they arrived to an empty village and a cold forge.
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