The Witcher: My Own Path

When I entered the main road leading to the city cemetery, I saw something I never expected to see in broad daylight to this almost in the centre of the district, a huge monster tearing people apart. My first thought was, fortunately, that the situation was taking place near the guard barracks, so that the guards could seize the monster, so that the civilians could escape and so that support could arrive from around the city dungeon, but I was wrong, and very wrong. The civilians escaped, but the guards were completely out of control, these people were terrified and there was no one to take charge. Three were already lying dead, one stood paralysed with fear, another was being devoured alive and two were waving their halberds blindly and shouting curses, probably thinking the monster would burn with shame from the sheer number of insults. I had to do something, I knew these people, I had trained with them for the last two years, they may not have been role models, however they were decent, but most importantly, this was an opportunity! An opportunity I had been waiting for to further prove myself and increase the legend of me.

I reached under my cloak with my right hand pretending to reach for my sword, thanks to the 'Benefactor' for the dimensional pocket, with my left I shrugged my hood so that everyone would know my face and I rushed towards the creature. As I got closer and closer, more and more doubt gripped me.

The monster was huge, at least three metres tall, extremely massive and muscular, with sickly white-gray skin, its entire body covered in black veins. Great pointed spikes on its back and head, arms long reaching almost to the ground and hands ending in sharp and long claws, legs thick and strong. a Graveir!

As I ran, I formed a plan in my head on how I could save these three fools, but I realised something, I couldn't use any external power techniques such as push or power lightning, I could only rely on internal ones, increasing my speed and strength. I hope that's enough, because if not then I'm dead. Damn, why did it have to be exactly a Graveir…

When I was about four metres away from the monster, I noticed that it was injured and they weren't human-inflicted wounds, they were claws! Well, sure enough, now everything is explained. The Graveir is a very territorial monster, if I remember correctly, and if it has left its territory, it means that someone bigger and stronger has banished it, or a group of smaller ones. Fuck, it means so much that something much worse is lurking in the graveyard!

I poured power into my own body and accelerated hard, knelt as low as possible and slid under the monster, when I was behind it, I turned a hundred and eighty degrees and cut the tendon of its already injured leg, so as to slow it down as much as possible and restrict its movements.

The monster roared with pain and rage and turned towards me. The guard it had held in its right paw and devoured was already dead, but this was the last time it could do him any good. He threw it in my direction, the power had already alerted me to the danger, so I easily dodged the poor man by leaping to the right side and doing a roll.

I looked at the two guards behind the monster, they were still standing with their legs shaking and waving their weapons senselessly, the third must have come back to his senses because he started to run away. Now that the Graveir was focused on me, the other two had time to escape and call for reinforcements. Crossbows! I needed someone with crossbows, I had to tell them!

''Run away you fools!'' I shouted with all my might so that everyone could hear.

People are peculiar creatures, even when they were terrified, but they had opportunities to still watch something interesting, they would do it. That's why I knew that my whole fight would be watched by a lot of people, I had to be a hero, saving as many lives as possible, showing that I was, able to sacrifice myself for them, like a knight with a pure and valiant heart and the fight had to be long and difficult.

''Bring Captain Ryzz and the crossbowmen and I will stop this monster! Don't let people get close, I don't want anyone else to die!''

I could see the hope and joy in their eyes that they would survive, I didn't have to shout a second time as they turned on their heel and gave a leg up. Now it was me and the monster, I had to be careful as the Graveir of the corpse species had highly poisonous claws. I could probably handle the poison, but I didn't want to take any chances. If I had been alone in some remote area, I could have dealt with it fairly quickly, but now I had to put on a great show until Ryzz arrived. I couldn't kill him myself; I was a child in the eyes of many, talented but still and a monster of this type has a strong body, strong skin and stamina, even a squad of guards had been destroyed by him. It will be tiring, but I have to pretend to rely on my smaller size and agility. 

He was approaching me, so I was not indebted to him, in two quick steps I was, from him to draw my weapon, I took a strong swing and cut him from the right side, he wanted to block my sword, with his left paw risking injury, and with his right to deal me a fatal blow. It was fortunate that during the forging of this sword I had coated it with silver, thus cutting off its two claws, distracting it. I quickly did a low pirouette, overlapping him from the side and cut once more, this time under the ribcage. He screamed even more furiously, but I did not give him time to deliver another blow. I held on to his back, spinning around, getting as if in a dance hurting his legs. I was slowly starting to get worried; I could feel fatigue gripping me, my power was leaving me and my aching muscles were making it difficult to focus. Luckily for me, out of the corner of my eye I could see movement in the distance, a whole squad of crossbowmen, that is about seven people were running towards me with Captain Ryzz in the lead. When they were close enough to hear me, out of breath I shouted as hard as I could.

''Captain I'll turn my back on you as soon as you get the chance, shoot, don't worry about me, people's lives and getting rid of this monster is the most important thing!''

Ryzz ordered the crossbowmen into position, and while they prepared, I cut and dodged, slowly turning the beasts in the opposite direction to the gunners. I was almost at my limit, panting loudly, no longer even paying attention to whether I had sufficiently exposed the monster's guard. Suddenly I heard the sound of the chords being released, the crossbows worked, turning the Graveir's back into a pin cushion, he winced in pain with his paws extended towards the sky and then fell to his knees. Now was my chance my moment of triumph, with the last of my strength I made a full turn with a dancing step, finding myself at the monster's right hand, I raised the sword high with both hands and cut from above, slashing, its nasty head like an executioner.

Black blood, gushed in all directions, and the great head rolled down the cobbled street, it was over. I had won. Not just the battle, but hopefully the hearts and minds of many!

I turned to face Ryzz and his crossbowmen, more and more people began to gather, wanting to see the monster and their hero up close. I fell to one knee, supporting myself on my sword in a dramatic pose. Ryzz shouted my name, quickly ran over to me and grabbed my arm, which he threw behind his head, helping me up.

''You did a great job my boy, I'm proud of you.''

I could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth.

''Nooo... it was thanks to you captain and these brave men that we were able to win, many of them gave their lives.''

I looked around the street, I now realised that there were more bodies lying there than those three guards, I counted about five souls in total. Probably a gravedigger and a random woman who had the misfortune of being near the barracks when the creature ran out of the graveyard, dragging the gravedigger with it.

Tears began to run down my cheeks.

''Sorry teacher, sorry I couldn't save them all, I was too weak too slow!''

''Shh, boy you did your best. You saved a lot of lives today, don't blame yourself.''

Damn, I'd almost forgotten, after all there's still something there, something that made such a powerful creature escape.

I looked discreetly around, all eyes were on me, there was a rather relative silence.

''Captain! I looked at him seriously, you have to evacuate everyone from here, we don't have time!''

''What is going on Tyr!?''

''This monster is a Graveir, a corpse-eater, very territorial, if it showed up all the way here in broad daylight it means that...''

''Someone chased it out of the territory, damn it!'' Ryzz finished for me.

''Brand get everyone out of here, Menc set up blockades here, don't let anyone near!''

''Boy, will you be able to...''

''Of course, Captain, I just need to get some rest.'' I replied with seriousness.

''Everyone except Brand and Menc gather here!''

There were a total of ten of us myself, Ryzz, seven crossbowmen and a guard who had escaped earlier. Brand and Menc were the two who verbally insulted the monster.

''Does anyone know what the hell is going on here, Tyr!''

''I'm not sure Captain, but I have some suspicions.''

''Tell me!''

''That Graveir we killed probably lived in the graveyard and dominated there, but I assume it was not the only one. Gullahs also congregate in such places, and as their numbers increased, so they decided to take over. They fought each other, as you can tell by the wounds on the body of the monster lying here, and he lost, and since the gates to the city were open, he chose, to our misfortune, to flee towards them.

''Are you sure it's a gullah?''

''I wouldn't bet my head on it.''

I walked over to Graveir's corpse and start examining his wounds.

''His wounds are quite shallow and not very big, but there are quite a lot of them, as if he was fighting several creatures at once. If I were to be honest, I'd put my bets on gules, so seventy per cent.''

''Tyr! I don't want to, question what you say and you know I trust you, but I need to be sure. If my men die just because you had a hunch....''

''I understand, Captain. And I don't hold it against you, I too, care about the safety of our people. I'm not a witcher so I'm not an expert, however, we live in a world filled with monsters and as soon as I learned to read, I did my best to gain as much knowledge as I could about the world and its dangers. The first things I read about were drowners and drowned people because I live close to a river and the second type of monsters were corpses because there are cemeteries in big cities and almost every day someone dies, so I had to find out how I could protect the ones I love.

Captain Ryzz looked at me with pride and the rest of the guard with admiration, probably because it didn't even occur to the fools to know anything about monsters.

''Well! How many do you think there are and how do you fight them?''