Lower Velen was located on a mountainside. It was a small, insignificant village in the vast southern Velen. Carson, the village chief, was basking in the afternoon sun outside his house like usual. He was looking at the row of fields in the village, where the villagers were toiling at. Some were loosening the soil, while some were spreading fertilizer around.
The carrots, chillies, and turnips were growing in plentiful amounts, and the golden liquid only made them look livelier. “Another bountiful year, and all thanks to the magical acorns the ladies gave us.”
It had been more than six months since the spring banquet on Bald Mountain. The villagers had turned the magical acorns into oil and fed the land with it. They were still as magical as usual. Carl touched his right ear and closed his eyes to think. The wrinkles on his head deepened. “It’s time to pick the ladies’ sacrifice again. What should I make this year? And who should I pick?”
Carson still could not figure it out no matter how long he took. He drew a deep hit from his pipe and puffed out smoke from his nose. It was then he saw a few silhouettes appearing behind that wall of smoke he just blew. Five strangers on horses slowly approached the village.
***
“Who are you people?” Carson stopped them at the entrance. Lower Velen would never receive any guests for months on end in most cases. Five of them showing up at once was rare. To make things weirder, these guests were sturdily built. They were also equipped with two swords. The look in their eyes was different from anything Carson had seen. The look in their eyes reminded him of experienced hunters and beasts like vipers and falcons. He frowned.
“Hello sir, we’re travelers who came from the swamp in the east.” The youngest visitor smiled at him and looked at the wooden sign at the entrance. “We’re witchers who go around these lands. Do not worry. We only kill monsters, not humans.”
Carson took a step back and looked at their pendants cautiously. He froze up the moment he saw Felix’s pendant. “A Cat? What business do you have with my village?”
“We just have a question for you. Have you seen any crows passing through your village?”
“Crows? There’s no crows in my village!” Carson raised his voice. “You have to leave now. You’re not welcome here.”
Carson’s shout alerted the young men in the village. They came holding hoes, scythes, and pitchforks. The villagers surrounded the witchers, obviously loath to see them here. The witchers found it odd, however. Most people would never threaten them with violence no matter how much they disliked witchers, especially when there were five of them there. That was basically a death wish.
What makes them so confident?
Tension started rising in the air, and Felix was already holding the hilt of his blade. He was in a hurry, and patience was not something he had in abundance. Carl’s missing, and the kidnapper led us here to this village. The villagers aren’t even scared of us. Why’d the kidnapper lead us here? Are they playing with us? Or do they want us to kill everyone here? Felix’s eyes gleamed crimson for a moment. His knuckles were getting white from holding the hilt of his blade too tightly. Serrit and Auckes were tensing up as well. They could start fighting at any time.
Letho and Roy exchanged looks. “Calm down, Vulture,” Roy said, then he turned to the villagers. “Villagers, we bear you no ill will, or we wouldn’t have come through the entrance in the first place.” He looked into Carson’s eyes. “We would have ambushed you at night if we were actually here for your lives.” He smirked. “Your wives and children would wake up to see you dead if that were the case.”
Roy’s warning spread fear across the villagers, as if by magic. However, it riled up some of the more aggressive villagers instead. “I’ll kill you!” a villager with thick chest hair roared. His eyes widened, and he thrusted his pitchfork ahead at Roy. Roy, however, was not fazed. He stared at the villager and allowed his attack to go through.
The yellow shield around him broke into pieces, but the pitchfork could not penetrate the armor, no matter how hard the villager tried. The man noticed an eerie silence falling around him, and he gulped. He gave the other villagers a weird look, as if he were asking, ‘Why’d you guys stay back?’
“You’d better think long and hard before you attack,” Roy said. “Your pitchfork isn’t nearly as sharp as my swords, and you’re not nearly as tough as the monsters we have to deal with. I can defeat you easily. Wanna try?”
The villagers took a step back and tossed their ‘weapons’ away.
“What do you want, witchers?”
“An answer.” Roy took the dagger from Felix and showed it to them. “It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the crows, but you must have seen this dagger before. Now calm down. This is a token the ladies gave us. They guided us here. I think they must have some message for us.”
***
Lower Velen was a sizable village with about a hundred families in it, and Carson’s house was in the centermost part of the village. “Are you sure the ladies gave you this holy relic, witcher?” Carson was observing the dagger and confirmed that it was the one in the north of the swamp.
“You can see it that way if you want.” Roy was standing beside the window, looking at the villagers who were going about their lives. Velen was Temeria’s poorest place, but the villagers looked surprisingly healthy. They were not scrawny or pasty like most malnourished villagers. In fact, they looked strong. “I’ll tell you what happened. The Lady of the Woods left a bloody message on that unfortunate bastard and led us here. We buried the guy, of course. You’re the chief here, Carson. Tell us how to take back the child she took from us.”
“The lady took your child away?”
“She stole him from us, to be precise! She stole my apprentice, an eight-year-old child, right under my nose!” Felix roared angrily. She kills her own people without any hesitation. I don’t think she’s going to be nice to my apprentice.
“You know nothing, witchers!” Carson retorted, “Not everyone is blessed with powers like you. Velen is a poor, dangerous place. We need someone to rely on if we want to survive. Half of these people would have died if not for the Ladies. They gave us the right to survive!” Carson’s voice was starting to tremble, and respect filled his eyes.
They sacrifice a few to save the many, huh? It was a decade earlier or so, but the situation was just like how Roy pictured. The people of this impoverished land enslaved themselves and called a trio of monsters their masters. I’m not wasting my time changing their minds. “What should we do after we bring the sacrifice back?”
“I’ll tell you about that when the time comes,” Carson said. “But be quick. Come back with the sacrifice tomorrow if you can.”
***
The witchers left in a hurry.
“I noticed something just now,” Letho said. “The women in the portrait… Their eyes were moving.”
“Carson got one point right,” Roy said. “Velen is their turf. They have a lot of ways to spy on us. Through that portrait, for example.”
“Are we actually going to do this?” Auckes looked frustrated. “I don’t like being ordered around.”
“I can’t do this alone, my friends. We’re dealing with a group of legendary creatures here.” Felix took off his sunglasses and gave his companions a pleading look. “Can I make a request? Please work with me and save Carl. As for the reward…”
“I wanna whoop your ass once after we get out of this alive.” Auckes wrapped his arm around Felix’s shoulder and held it tightly. “We’re not doing this to help you, Vulture. Carl is a nice kid. And…” He looked ahead coldly. “I’d like to meet these Ladies of the Wood.”
“You can whoop me ten times if you help me out.” Gratitude flashed in Felix’s eyes.
The other witchers exchanged looks. Since Auckes wanted to help, then they would as well.
“We’ll expose their fraud,” Serrit growled.
“I’d like to meet this ruler of Velen.” Letho looked indifferent.
Roy hesitated for a moment. The Ladies of the Wood were not powerful fighters per se. They were on par with the leshen in terms of power. The veteran witchers could defeat them in a fair battle if they wanted to. However, the problem was they knew a lot of spells, and their summoning trick was the hardest one to handle.
It won’t be easy defeating them on their own turf. Roy’s eyes glinted with cunning. “We’ll save Carl no matter what, but we won’t go with the crones’ plan. We need an exit strategy too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember that book? She Who Knows? The book spoke of the Ladies and the mother whom they sealed.” Roy looked to a hill standing far from where they were. “We’re ditching the swamp for The Whispering Hillock. We’ll go straight for The Mother and find out her daughters’ weakness.”
The witchers finally understood what he was getting at, but it was preposterous.
“Are you sure The Mother is real and not just some made-up entity?” Serrit crossed his arms and cocked his eyebrow. He did not believe the book.
“Yes. There’s a reason for Carl’s sleepwalking and the villagers’ unusual hostility against us.” Roy was sure. “And I have a feeling that a powerful magical entity is sealed beneath that hillock. It can only be The Mother. And this won’t be a wild goose chase either. The Whispering Hillock is a good hunting place with or without The Mother.”
The Viper School witchers had perfect faith in Roy’s prophetic abilities after they gained the blueprints for the Manticore and Viper equipment. They nodded in silence.
Felix could see that they had come to a decision, and he clenched his fists. “Then to the Whispering Hillock it is!”
***
***