Chapter 3: Preparations

"Hmm, sliced clean by something sharp… Interesting."

Zeilin hunkered down beside the wolf carcass, his eyes picking over the wounds.

Five days. That’s how long it had been since the elder’s reported attack. All Zeilin had found so far were a few gnawed cow bones deeper in the woods. Tooth marks told a clear story: wolves and wild dogs. Told him bugger all about his actual quarry.

Years on the Path had taught him one thing: most monsters, barring corpse-eaters like ghouls drawn by the stink of death, didn't stray far from their lairs. The cow was long gone, but if he could find fresher signs of whatever did this, he might still get a read on the beast.

The ground told a clearer tale here. One wolf had been torn into, eaten. The others? A single, clean slash across the throat. Quick, efficient. No wasted motion. The attacker knew its business, a practiced killer.

Zeilin closed his eyes, running through the usual suspects. Wyvern? Too messy. Ghoul? Claws, not blades. Werewolf? Savage, not surgical. None of them fit this… almost artistic butchery.

He checked the dead wolves’ teeth and claws. Bone dry. The pack hadn’t laid a fang or claw on their killer. He pushed aside the blood-caked fur on one of the larger wolves. Underneath, the tell-tale orange-black downy fur. Not just any wolf, then. A warg.

Wargs were nasty bastards, almost as fierce as the white wolves up in the Skellige highlands. A trained soldier would think twice before tangling with one alone, never mind a warg leading a pack of nearly ten. And this pack, something that would make hardened mercenaries detour, had been wiped out with ease. Zeilin mentally nudged the threat level up a few notches.

Warg meat was decent eating, true, and he’d taken contracts for them before. But his Griffin medallion hung cold against his chest. No magic here. So, not a Witcher. Besides, what Witcher would bother hunting down a pack of wolves just for a meal? We’ve got better things to do. Usually.

His gaze shifted. Amidst the cleanly dispatched wolves, one carcass was a mess. The edible parts had been hacked off, crude and desperate. Looked like some starving amateur had gone at it with a dull knife. A stark contrast to the lethal grace evident in the other kills. Even to Zeilin, who wasn't exactly a master chef, this wasn't a hunter dressing a kill. This was someone starving, grabbing whatever meat they could, fast and ugly. And right beside the mangled corpse, amongst the wolf prints, he found them: human footprints.

"Just a hunter, then? No… can't be." Zeilin looked up, following the line of prints deeper into the woods. They weren't pressed deep. He knelt, splaying his fingers to measure one. Light. The person couldn't be much over one-eighty in height, and weighed less than a grown man should. It had rained north of the Pontar a few days back. The ground was still soft. His own boots sank deeper. So, a light-bodied humanoid. But who in their right mind, unless they were built like a brick shithouse, would venture into these woods alone to hunt, especially now? Ever since the Conjunction of the Spheres, fifteen hundred years back, the full moon meant trouble. Other worlds bled into this one, energies spiked, monsters got bolder. Sometimes you could even see the Wild Hunt tearing across the sky. Not a time for a sensible human to be out for a stroll, let alone hunting.

Zeilin straightened, closing his eyes again, sifting the facts. Used tools. Humanoid shape. Light build. Swift, deadly attacks. Ate its kills… A foglet? They had strong arms, sharp claws that could cut like a blade. They used the mist, struck fast, and if the first hit wasn't fatal, they’d vanish back into the murk to try again. The signs pointed that way. If the tracks had been more chaotic, more bestial, he’d have leaned towards a werewolf.

"Right. Whatever it is, best oil the blade." Zeilin fumbled with the potion pouch tied at his waist. It was crammed with vials – decoctions, potions, oils. With a familiar clink of glass, he pulled out a small bottle, half-filled with a viscous, dark green muck. Damn thing was nearly empty. Ghouls and nekkers had been crawling out of the woodwork lately. More than once, he’d been flagged down by some terrified peasant begging him to clear monsters out of their turnip patch. Usually settled for a full waterskin or a hunk of bread as payment for those little jobs. They rarely had coin to spare, poor sods.

He remembered, about a month back, in Ard Carraigh, Kaedwen’s capital. He’d just finished his Northern Realms Gwent deck, was on a winning streak, lost in the game. Then some sorcerer, called himself "Yang," a right pain in the arse, dragged him out of the tavern. Gave him some kind of magical jolt – ‘therapy,’ he called it – then packed him off south, towards Mahakam, to sort out some ‘trouble.’ A prickling unease settled in Zeilin’s gut. This contract felt… connected, somehow.

"Damn it. Have to find an herb merchant tomorrow. Need to brew more of this shite," Zeilin grumbled, popping the cork. He carefully, evenly, spread the oil over his silver sword. Two swords, every Witcher carried. Silver for monsters. Steel for men who acted like monsters. Daggers, crossbows, other toys? Personal preference.

When the blade was coated, the vial was bone dry. Zeilin scowled at it, then, with a shrug, upended it and scraped the last dregs onto the steel. Could always brew more oil. Couldn't brew a new life if he got himself killed. Not even the Archmages on Thanedd could fix stupid. Priorities.

After stowing the empty vial, he fished out another bottle – pale purple liquid this time. Tawny Owl. Verbena, crab spider venom, and a splash of dwarven spirits. Kept a Witcher going when the fight dragged on, or the tracking took days. Witchers had been known to hunt for days on end. Never heard of one collapsing from sheer exhaustion, though. His old Griffin School master, "The Elder" they called him, used to say, "Successful hunting ain't just about timing your strike, boy. It's about being able to run like a scared rabbit when things go sour." Zeilin had never raced a rabbit after a swig of Tawny Owl… But he fancied he could have it spitted and roasting before the damn thing even knew it was in a race.

He threw back the potion, swallowing fast before the godawful bitterness could register properly. A quick rinse with water from his canteen. He tossed the empty vial onto the leaf litter, smacked his lips. The bitter tang lingered, but it wouldn’t slow him down. "Alright, you bastard," he muttered, his hand resting on the pommel of his freshly oiled silver. "Let's see what you really are."