The Sun Shines Differently

Cullen at the Edge of the World

The witcher stepped through the doorway. As chatter of the tavern died down there was only the thunk of his boots against the floorboards and the plip when another drop of blood fell from the heads he carried. A moment later, the bard flitted in behind him.

"Cullen of Honnleath returns!" the bard started grandly. "Having vanquished your devil -"

Cullen plunked the three heads down on the table. "Not a devil." He tapped one of the horns on the goatlike head. "A sylvan, or so he called himself."

"A horned devil," the bard insisted. "With metal balls!"

"And he wasn't eating your crops, he was stealing them for the local elves."

"Pointy knife-eared bastards," the bard agreed sourly. He looked decidedly worse than when he'd left the tavern that morning. There was blood on his forehead where the skin split and his face was asymmetric from the swelling on one side of his jaw. "Come down from their palaces just to steal the work of honest people and assault us... Almost killed me, would've, if I hadn't the luck of riding along with a witcher when our paths crossed."

"I've never encountered a sylvan before," Cullen continued. "That was likely the only one around these parts, so you won't have to worry about that further. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about your elf problem." He picked up one head. "This one," he said, "she's probably no older than you, Jaskier. They've been breeding up there in your mountains, increasing their numbers again."

Jaskier stared at the slack expression, the half-lidded lifeless eyes. "I thought elves were ageless."

Cullen shook his head. "We're all born, and elves are no special exception." He reached out and stuck his hand into the jaw, pulling it apart. The cracked lips tore a little. "You can tell by the teeth," he said. "Bit hard to be sure on one so malnourished, but you see here..." He pointed at the back, turning it a bit so the others around the table could see. "Humans and half-elves both have wisdom teeth and these here have barely crowned. I'd say twenty years at the latest, born long after the Great Cleansing. Now," he said, addressing the crowd as a whole, "You have two options. I can put out a call, try to gather other witchers to deal with this, but it'll take some time. There's not many of us and there's monsters wherever we go. What I suggest is we gather up the men of Posoda and head up there now, put an end to this before it gets any further."

"I mean..." the young man who'd first hired Cullen said. "Haven't you dealt with it? The thieves are dead."

"These thieves are dead," Cullen corrected. He prods the sunken cheeks. "If they weren't sharing your stolen grain, you think they'd look like this? No, the whole community up there was in on it. And sooner or later, the rest of the lot comes down to murder you in your beds."

"That's, uh...Well...I suppose..."

Cullen reminded him, "They tried to kill you, Jaskier, just for being human."

"Been saying it for years," piped up a grandfatherly looking man from the corner. His face was a kindly mass of laugh lines but his expression now was dark. "Should've finished the job. Us or them, lad."

Cullen nodded and gave him an approving smile. "Exactly, good sir. Exactly. And the facts of the matter is, they haven't any other choice and so we're left with no other choice ourselves. There's nothing but rocks up there. The only way they'll survive is retaking this land. Now," he said, his hand twisting in a complex pattern by his side, "either we take the fight to them or you wait for them to come down to burn your fields and butcher your children first. I think you all know what the right choice is."