RUSELM'S BESTIARY
CHAPTER FOUR ─ RISE OF THE WHITE WOLF

GERALT FORCED DOWN another potion, all too used to the acrid taste that washed over his tongue and coated the back of his throat. Almost immediately after he had swallowed, the effects were coursing through his veins and sharpening his eyesight, giving him the best vision to see even in the darkness night blanketed over the tireless land. The starry sky was clear, full moon shining down on the open field before him as he barreled into the greensward and ran like hell to the epicenter before planting his feet, turning and facing the monster that had dared follow a witcher into an even arena.

He had nothing left but to hang fire while the brute caught up to him. The waiting gave Geralt a chance to catch his breath, at the very least.

And the ground rumbled slowly underfoot, one solid temblor of the earth after the other. Even the most negligible tremors felt like earthquakes to the witcher's sensitive faculties. Shake, shake, shake. The walking pattern of the troll easily gave away his position, though every so often the ground would quake even more to indicate that the beast had tripped and fallen over something. This particular troll was, as Geralt had come to find out, as clumsy as they came.

The monster could track him by his smell alone, which Geralt's plan relied on, but the troll was dumb and fat and slow; quite a poor excuse for a sentient being if Geralt had ever seen one and he had seen a lot. Most trolls were slightly above the level of this particular one's intelligence, and the witcher had tried reasoning with it but even that was beyond the troll's simplest capabilities. To put it simply, he was extremely stupid.

However, all of these disadvantages worked in the witcher's favor. This monster would be an entirely effortless kill. He'd get paid for taking care of the pest, everyone would go home happy and, most importantly, he would be mercifully paid, for once, in exchange for a job well done. Business as of late had been tough. Even after saving that stupid Nazairian, Geralt knew he should've taken that life debt and exchanged it for coin. Instead, he'd had to go and be magnanimous as if he had the authority to be.

How would he live otherwise? Nothing in any region was free, especially not for a witcher.

Geralt situated his feet into a wider platform, left foot farther back than the right, his shoulders down and chin held high. He braced himself, sword in the low guard position down and the pommel level with his hips, the gleaming tip of the steel sword at eye-level. And then he became absolutely still.

He had to wait for it.

The troll, whose name he had learned to be Boshe, wouldn't have been plastered all over the proclamation at the crossroad between Balès and Blaviken if he hadn't developed a taste for the flesh of innocent children who happened upon his bridge. The villagers of both country towns had made the right decision in seeking help for the trouble that was plaguing them for the past year. Their children were disappearing, their youth were being devoured and it was, for once, not worth the price of the troll repairing the bridge he had built.

Because Geralt had been turned down before for that very reason. He would offer his services to the townspeople, asking how much he would get for the troll under the bridge who terrorized and made travelers pay his toll; they'd be appalled. They'd tell him it was far cheaper to pay the troll's toll than to manage the upkeep of the bridge themselves. Besides, they told Geralt, the troll loves his bridge! It's his work of supreme craftsmanship. And it was for this reason that the witcher was beginning to feel neglected.

For once in what felt like an eternity (besides saving that rather handsome man from the warg mere days ago) Geralt was needed again and it was time for him to do his job. As a monster slayer he was taught how to put down the brutes he went after, but he had also been taught the value of giving them second chances and of curing them where possible. In lieu of the slaying, Geralt had talked with Boshe for nearly an hour but the troll either didn't care what he had to say or he was just too dimwitted to be reasoned with.

Nobody would be able to say he hadn't tried, at least.

The part that comes after reason is gone is the killing. And Geralt is very good at killing. He always has been. He did not relish it, as some witchers did, but he took it as a necessary action that would prevent a lot of evil in the world if he weren't there to put an end to it. There were certain ways you had to justify the things you did in order to make yourself feel more human.

Rumbling under his feet, Geralt could feel the troll coming ever closer, trembling step by step. Trolls are vaguely humanlike in their appearance and in the sense that they were sentient enough and intelligent enough (generally) to have a coherent conversation with but the resemblances don't necessarily end there. Most have the taste for human flesh, or had, as Geralt keeps finding, and trolls mate for life in the way that eagles or other birds do. They can speak the common tongue, though not very colorfully, and they love—more than living itself—building bridges.

According to legend, trolls are creatures born of earth and their body is made of rock. These same legends say they hate sunlight, which kills them by turning them into inanimate stone, so inferring that trolls can only subsist at night.

Utter bullshit, Geralt wanted to scoff at the thought.

Trolls prefer day to night. Why? Because they're so clumsy and foolish that they stumble on the littlest of things like pebbles or stones in the dark and they spill their beloved vodka everywhere. Their skin, in contrast with the legends, is hard like stone but it is not stone. They are not of the earth in the sense that they are composed of earth. Beneath their stonelike skin are muscles and bones and a heart that pumps blood throughout their body.

Despite the things those full of nothing but spite would say, trolls also have feelings. They aren't very adept at expressing them, but they do exist. And the only thing they love more than their precious bridges? Their alcohol, a fondness Geralt had no problem relating to. They were particularly engrossed with the strongest brews, possibly because their bodies are so large that only colossal quantities of the most potent alcohol, which they sometimes take as their toll, can affect them.

Boshe reeked of Temerian vodka, which Geralt was sure was his favorite. He could smell it even without his enhanced senses from more than a mile away.

A few more tremors and Geralt could see, with squinted eyes, Boshe at the edge of the treeline before which sprawled the open field. The troll was at least two times bigger than Geralt; tall, thick arms and legs, his trunk as wide as the very trees he stood just slightly behind. Those beady eyes of his were staring hard; Boshe was thinking as if his life depended on it. Which it did. Thinking was something the witcher suspected he didn't do often (like how he'd suspected with the Nazairian in the case of the warg, something he still couldn't get out of his mind) unless to trick a child into coming closer so he could devour them.

Typical, Geralt thought to himself. He forced his inner voice to become silent. You think to commit murder and at no other time except to save your own skin.

Before he could make a single move, Boshe leaned down to pick up a large rock the size of a small boulder from behind the trees with both hands. He lifted it and began to spin around in the same spot, twirling on his heels and gaining momentum with every step until he was going faster and faster. The troll released the boulder and Geralt could suddenly hear it whining in the air as it hurtled closer.

"Shit."

Geralt rolled to his immediate left, moving in time to avoid being flattened by the flying rock. Boshe picked up another and repeated the process as Geralt sprang up onto his feet and sprinted as fast as he could to get to the troll before the fight got out of hand and the scales were tipped. Trolls, no matter how dumb or brutish, were still deadly and not to be underestimated. His countless years of training were finally coming into play as instinct and would be the deadly factor to end this fight the troll hadn't counted on.

Boulder flying over his head, Geralt was finally close enough to see the features of Boshe's ugly face.

Beady black eyes were glaring down at him, squashed nose barely visible on his face. Boshe was clearly unhappy. His hands were large enough to wrap around Geralt's head and smother him and his feet were far too pudgy and far too wide; making it no surprise that he tripped over any little nuisance and every little obstacle like every other troll of his gargantuan stature.

Geralt sneered at the troll. They were close enough for the witcher to reach out with the tip of his sword and touch Boshe's skin. Maybe pierce it if he tried hard enough.

"This is your last chance, Boshe. I don't have to kill you if you leave to never return. Go to the mountains, hide yourself away where people will never cross paths with you again."

Boshe grunted, a guttural sound that came from high in his throat. "No!" He shook his head. "No hide!"

"Then I will kill you," Geralt promised. He stated this as mere fact, heartbeat steady and true with his eerily quiet voice that caused many to shudder. He breathed in and out, nice and controlled. "Once we fight, I am not stopping until you're dead."

"I know." Boshe growled and jumped faster than a snake striking at Geralt, freakishly huge hands outstretched to grab the witcher from his spot. If he were to blink, the movement would be missed. The fight was suddenly on and somebody was going to die. It was not going to be Geralt, he knew that for sure. He would fight like hell before he let himself die.

Geralt rolled forward between the troll's legs, coming up just behind him with his sword at the ready. Boshe was too slow in the head to realize that Geralt had disappeared right from under him, and was looking about this way and that to discern where the witcher had gone off to. If he were a sadist, Geralt would find this part of the conflict enjoyable.

He wasn't.

He was rather tired, actually. The shadows under his eyes had grown deeper that each night passed without restful sleep and he had grown only more irritable still.

Wordlessly, Geralt spun around and thrust the tip of his steel sword deep into Boshe's spine. The edge of the blade, which he'd prepared before initially confronting the troll, was coated in a deadly venom taken from an arachas; a large spiderlike creature whose venom was extremely potent even to the touch. He'd been careful when prepping the blade but trolls, as the witchers had discovered countless decades ago, were especially susceptible to its devastating effects.

Boshe wailed from the pain, a low mournful howling which rivaled that of a wolf's, reaching his hands behind himself to claw helplessly at the blade lodged into his back before falling face down in the dirt with a heavy thud. He could no longer stand.

The arachas venom worked quickly and efficiently. The sword did its job of paralyzing him from the waist down, rendering his legs forevermore useless. And Geralt had but only a few moments to wait until the venom reached Boshe's heart and killed him, ending the troll's reign of terror and loathing. In a way, he felt a tug in the bottom of his stomach at seeing the troll crying like a baby from the pain. Despite how truly disgusting and evil Boshe was, Geralt couldn't bring himself to find pleasure at Boshe's expense.

He grimaced and, being volant, pulled the sword from Boshe's spine where it was faithfully lodged, the handle calling to him with soft whispers.

Geralt watched as blood, black in the darkness that shrouded the land with the sun below the horizon and the moon in its place, dripped from his blade and left round little droplets to absorb in the earth below his boots. He walked around Boshe's body to crouch near his head where the troll was trying to speak, his words a blubbering mess which only his witcher could even begin to comprehend.

"I - I..." Boshe was breathing heavily, eyes closed.

He leaned closer. Listened.

"I'm sorry... White Wolf." The troll opened his eyes and looked up at Geralt from the ground. There was an innocence in his eyes that hadn't existed just a few moments before; an innocence of his existence that stood at the core of his being. He was a simple creature, with terrible desires. His death would be equal to putting down a rabid animal. "I'm sorry."

The witcher considered Boshe's words.

He sighed a little sigh and nodded, once, then stood again. "I know." Geralt brought the tip of his sword to the space between Boshe's eyes, forcing the sword forward into his brain until the troll was dead. The killing was finally done.

He'd given Boshe one last mercy.

Time to return to Balès and collect his reward. Then it would be onward to Blaviken for him.