Geralt's Arc

Chapter 14 of 17

They started down the pass, but Rain lasted only a hundred steps. Her knees folded. Geralt caught her arm before she hit the snow. She had healed his shoulder twice and spent the last of her power doing it. Now she leaned on him, gray-faced, barely able to lift her feet. He glanced down the white slope where Malachar's tracks led. The mage had magic again. If he turned and struck now, Rain could raise no shield, and Geralt could not guard them both. "Leave me," Rain said. "Chase him." "No." Geralt slung her arm over his shoulders. "You can't stand. I'm not leaving you on an open slope for him to burn." "Then he escapes." "He escapes today. Not forever." Geralt took her weight and started walking. Every gust off the peak stung the wound she had just closed. He kept his eyes moving, watching the rocks below for a raised hand, a flash of light. None came. Malachar was running, not hunting. That was the only luck he had. The descent took hours. Rain drifted in and out, muttering, her heels dragging useless lines in the snow. Twice she stopped breathing evenly and Geralt shook her awake. By dusk the slope leveled into pine, and lamplight showed through the trees. A weathered two-story building sat at the edge of a road, a signboard swinging over its door. Warmth and voices spilled from the common room below. Geralt shouldered the door open. The room went quiet. Men stared at his white hair, his golden eyes, the swords on his back. He ignored them. He carried Rain to a bench by the hearth and set her down close to the fire. Her purple eyes half opened. "You should have gone after him," she whispered. "I know what I chose." He pressed a cup of hot broth into her hands and wrapped her cold fingers around it. "Drink. Warmth first. Your power comes back with rest. Not on a mountain." She drank. Color crept back into her face. Geralt paid the keeper for a room above and a fire in the grate. He carried her up the narrow stairs and laid her on the bed. Then he sat by the door with his steel sword across his knees, facing the window, and did not sleep. By morning Rain could stand. She tested her hands over a candle flame. A small light answered her, weak but steady. "It's returning," she said. "Give me a day. Then I can shield us both." Geralt rose and looked out the window toward the marsh road east. "He's reached his tower by now. The runes there gave him back his magic once. He'll try to raise it again." "Then we go to the tower." Rain flexed her fingers. "Together this time. Rested." Geralt sheathed the steel. The choice had cost him Malachar's trail. But Rain lived, and her power was coming back. The hunt was not over. It had only moved to the marsh.