Of Blades and Blood | Witcher

xxvi. Theatre

She was floating three feet above her body. At least, that's what it felt like.

Her head was spinning when she woke up and her body swaying uncontrollably. She felt the wood beneath her first, then the rope taut around her wrists at her back. She was blindfolded. She heard horse hooves clomping through mud and something else creaking. A rough, calloused hand, gripped her right shoulder and slammed her into a back wall.

"Stay down, bitch," a man with a drawl said.

Then Alma felt something to her left. Soft skin. It was trembling. Another person, tied up. She perked her ears slowly and eventually heard the shaking, tiny breath of a woman.

Alma didn't dare speak or move. In part because her head was pounding and aching, but in part because she knew that it would get her in trouble. All the adrenaline in her body was running through without a forethought, and a sudden and deep worry took shelter in the pit of her body once she thought about Dettlaff and how mad he would be going right now.

On the other hand, she was as unsafe as she'd ever been. Unaware of how long she'd been out, where she was going, what she was going to. She was torn between wanting to save herself and knowing she needed help, wondering if Dettlaff could even find her.

Too many unanswered questions kept her stifled in her plots to break away.

The ride wasn't long, at least after she woke up. Eventually she and what sounded like one or two other women were taken out of the wagon, still blindfolded and tied up, and led some ways outside. Alma sensed their path curved as she felt cool air, and she could see in the lighting beyond the blindfold that it was still nighttime. She wondered again what Dettlaff was doing at that moment. Regis too. And Dandelion, who was the last friend she saw, dozing at one of his tables.

Their feet crunched gravel as Alma was being dragged by a rough man, feeling much taller and bigger than her, on her right. A door opened after a few minutes of walking, and they were all thrust through before Alma was stumbling down a set of stairs, all in rapid and overwhelming succession. Eventually the blindfold was ripped off, taking a few of her hairs too, and she regained her vision just as she was pummeling toward a stone floor.

The other women were shoved too, landing on either side of her. Then she saw the feet, some bare, of several other women. Then three pairs of boots in front of the trembling line.

The same rough arm from before grabbed her right arm, pulling her up. At last, Alma got a glance of him - a tall, burly human man with a thick, dark brown beard and slicked-back hair to his shoulders. Greasy. Smelled like sweat.

He shoved her in line with some other women. Alma suddenly realized there were three others where she was put, and the handful of other women were a couple of yards away, all human. The women Alma had been put with were elves. And one other half-elf, who had cropped light brown hair and blue eyes that refused to meet anyone's gaze, including Alma's. She was rugged and dirty.

"This is your training," the raspy voice of an old, slender man said. He had black eyes, like Regis' - but he had none of the warmth.

"T-training?" one of the humans asked. She was young, much younger than Alma. She had long, blonde, and curled hair and was dressed like the prostitutes of Novigrad.

The old man scratched his near-bald head and glared at her, stepping forward. Alma tensed as he raised a hand only for him to jab a finger into the woman's shoulder. Could have been worse, she thought. Although, it could get worse. Gods...

"Yes, and all of you are gonna know how to please a man!"

Alma grew cold all over, scanning the men who stood there. All of them were filthy and disgusting. Grimy human men, eyes feasting over them as those who hurt Alma in Maribor had done. Once again, she was at the whims of the worst men alive.