Swords and Berries
Geralt was late to the bridge by three hours. Taking down the drowner by the river took him longer than he'd expected because one drowner ended up being four. When the man who had hired him saw that the trouble wasn't caused by one monster, he paid the Witcher three times as much as they had agreed.
There was a man lying in the streets and Geralt was a little surprised no-one was helping him. Town drunk maybe? No. He wasn't drunk. Geralt would have smelled alcohol on him. So, the Witcher crouched down and checked the man's pulse. He wasn't dead. That's something.
The man hummed as he stirred at Geralt's touch. He rolled over, holding his head. The deep bruising on the side of his face made Geralt scowl. "What happened to you?"
"Fuckin' bard," he growled.
"What?"
"A...a bard. He knocked me out against that barrel." He pointed. "By the gods. He's stronger than he looks."
"Where did he go?"
"I don't fucking know. I wanna beat his ass." The man started to get off the ground. Geralt helped him up by grabbing the collar of his shirt and lifting him off the ground.
"What was his name?"
"J-Jaskier. What the-"
"Did he have a blonde girl with him?"
"Yeah. Fiona. Look, I don't know where he went. I tried talking to the damned bard, said the girl looked like the dead princess of Cintra, and he knocked me out." Bryan's legs flailed uselessly at the knees.
Geralt dropped Bryan and turned away, ignoring the questions yelled at his back. The only thing the Witcher had on his mind was where the two went. Roach was nowhere to be seen, so at least Jaskier had followed his instructions. That would also make them easier to track.
He headed in the direction of the bridge, getting the feeling that the man would have gone past the bridge rather than back the way they came.
"Jaskier?" Ciri tried again. She was sitting on the floor of the cave they'd found and were hiding in until Geralt found them. The cave was deep enough to protect them from the elements while being too shallow for there to be hiding animals in the depths.
The man, however, had been pacing back and forth while pulling at his growing hair. He knew Geralt would find them but the question of how and when was a totally different matter. He hadn't said much but instead nodded mindlessly when Ciri asked if she could play around with his lute. She wanted something to do and Jaskier wasn't in the mood for chatting.
"Yes?" He finally turned to the teen. "I'm sorry."
"Where are we?" Ciri asked.
Jaskier sighed. "I'm not sure. A few miles outside of the town we left. There's enough distance between us and the town that Bryan won't be a problem."
"Who is he?"
"Bryan?"
Ciri nodded, looking up at him with her wide teal eyes.
Jaskier sighed and sat across from the girl. "He went to the same college as I did for a couple of years. We were rivals for a while. Both of us were aspiring bards and everyone knew it was going to be either him or myself to raise up on top.
"The fool went to a feast held by a knight in his nearby manor and got drunk beyond belief. When he got back to the campus he got it into his mind that it would be wise to rape the headmaster's daughter. He's lucky he wasn't killed. Anyway, as a result of his assault, he was expelled from the college."
