Lambert hadn’t slept in thirty hours. No one would blame him if he slept through the night, but he settled into the meditation pose and maintained the final vigil.

* * *

The flier promised fifty orens and a free ticket on the single weekly ship to Wrentbel Isle to wipe out a nest of drowners harassing the local ferryman. Without the ferry, the inhabitants’ only option for travel was the ship, and that left them stranded for a week. When the ship landed, Lambert headed toward the ferry crossing to check the drowner numbers before making the trek to the ferryman’s house. If the drowner nest was too big, he was getting back on the ship and the villagers could deal with the price of his ticket. That’d serve them right for being cheap..

He passed a group of women with laundry in baskets. They stopped gossiping and stared at him as he passed. When they were out of normal ear shot, one said, “Those things got into my chickens last night. At least now we can finally replace them and start getting eggs!”

“Easier for you than what poor Jovan will have to do. He’ll have to take his donkey to the mainland for breeding after losing the foal. What about you, Senka? Senka?” The woman nudged the heavily pregnant woman trudging alongside her.

“Uh? Oh. Our chickens are fine, but I can’t sleep—” Senka trailed off as the smiths began their hammering.

The river stank of algae and rot, foul even for drowners. Lambert's skin prickled as he crossed the shallows to reach the nest. There were no tracks, no signs of movement, and the birds had gone silent. But the nest was tiny. Only three drowners, and he shook off the prickling sense of dread. He’d do the job for thirty orens. Fifty on offer gave him a nice buffer in case they shafted him on the pay.

Satisfied with that, Lambert headed off to meet the ferryman. Shouting reached his ears. A male voice with a threatening tone. Angry. Berating someone. Lambert swallowed back the urge to meddle. No one wanted a witcher’s help in these cases. After what happened to Geralt the year before…. Lambert shook his head. He was here for a contract and nothing more.
The man’s house stood on the riverbank—too close for safety, but the job required the risk. Real glass shone in the windows. A sturdy fence bordered a tidy garden and an empty chicken coop.
A boy of about six cowered among the cabbages as a tall, broad man loomed over him. “Worthless, useless boy! If you damage another plant, you won’t walk for a week. Do you understand?”

The boy whimpered and curled tighter under the protection of his arms.

The man reached for him, and Lambert saw a flash of his own father’s meaty hand reaching for him as he lay curled on the ground. He banged the gate open. The noise drew the man’s attention away from the boy.

“What do you—” His tone changed to friendly. ”—Oh. A witcher, eh?”

“You have a contract on offer?”

The man glanced between Lambert and the boy, as if gauging whether Lambert would have something to say. Lambert swallowed the rage bubbling inside him.

He wasn’t here to rescue kids.

He focused on the man’s face, resolutely ignoring the bruises and the trickle of blood from the boy’s lip as he dragged himself up and started pulling weeds.

The man waved Lambert inside. The contract was solid, and the man showed off the fifty orens. Lambert signed and stalked out to the river. The boy was still pulling weeds. His thin arms trembled with fright or exhaustion. Lambert tried not to think about the kid.

At the river, Lambert made short work of the visible drowners. He held vigil through the night, waiting for stragglers to show themselves. For fifty orens, he’d better do a good job. A wailing sound—too low for wind, too wet for an animal—echoed off the water. He stood and strained his ears. Nothing. Just the creak of reeds. He hated nights like this. A baby cried throughout the remainder of the night in the ferryman’s home. No more drowners appeared and shortly after dawn, he declared the nest clear. The baby had at last stopped crying with the first light, and the ferryman hadn’t stirred yet, so Lambert trekked to the village at the island’s center. The market was opening, and he bought a pasty and a cup of tea.

“You the witcher?” the vendor asked as Lambert ate.

“Yes.”

“You look more like a man than I expected.”

“Hmm.”

“Did you get the drowners?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Belrand has been a beast since they shut him down.” The man’s voice dropped to a mutter. “Not that he’s much better when he’s working.”

Lambert finished his food and walked back to the ferryman’s home. The man, Belrand, met him in the garden. A large bucket banged against the boy’s shins as he struggled to carry it from the river to the half full bucket to a laundry tub. Belrand held out the purse, and Lambert counted it, hoping the man had shorted him so he’d have an excuse to punch the bastard in the face.

The entire fee was there. Lambert gritted his teeth and shook Belrand’s hand.

“It’ll take until evening to set the ferry up. Come back then.”

“Sure. I’ll be in the market if you’re ready early.”

“I won’t be.”

Lambert walked away, doggedly not looking back. He’d spend time in the market. This isle was famed for its blacksmiths and shale craftsmen. When the ferry worked, people came from miles around to have their items repaired or commissioned. He had some repairs he needed completed and orens burning a hole in his pocket.

The blacksmith was eager to please, glad that his business would be returning at last, and gave Lambert a fee that barely covered the materials.

He watched the shale workers turning their lathes to carve out armbands and rings. The work took time, but even he had to admit that the result was beautiful. His thoughts turned unbidden to his mother. She would’ve loved one of these. As a boy, he’d dreamed of giving her something from a market stall like this. He shook the thoughts away. He’d banished such thoughts decades ago. It was only seeing the boy that brought them to mind now, and he couldn’t interfere with the boy.

It would be beyond stupid.

Look where sticking his nose into other peoples’ business got Geralt.

Lambert had better things to do than to get mobbed and stabbed with a fucking pitchfork. And yet…

He found a shady spot to meditate and rest for a few hours. Sleep didn't come. Not with a boy's whimpers echoing in his memory.

Food drew him back to the town’s center after noon. He purchased a meat pie and ale and found the local gossips’ bench of old men whittling in the shade. They eyed him warily, but one made eye contact. “You cleared the drowners?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Can’t afford waiting on the ship for a week. My son had to sleep in a ditch when he went to the mainland last, waiting for the next one. No room at the inn, says they!” The man had wispy white hair and a scruffy beard, but he wore good quality clothes. Everyone on the island was dressed and housed better than the average village. Except the boy.

“Damn mainlanders,” another muttered. “Just taking the piss. Josef had coin.” This one was younger, his hair only peppered with grey, but his right leg ended mid-calf.

“Your ferryman will be back to work in a couple of hours.” Lambert hoped they’d naturally shift their complaints to Belrand.

“There’s another price-gouging good-for-nothing! Not like his father,” a third man said.

“Oh, aye. Oskar was a good man. Hard worker and fair.” The first man to speak up seemed to be their ring leader.

“Belrand isn’t a hard worker?” Lambert asked.

“He works well enough, but he charges triple what his father did.”

“And he’s not shy about using his fists if anyone complains,” the younger one added.

“If he’s so bad, why not replace him?”

They all three stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “He’s the ferryman like his father and his father before.”

“And his son will be when he’s gone?”

The three of them exchanged glances and said nothing. They all knew how Belrand treated his son, and how it would likely end.

“Or another of his sons. His wife—”

“Is dead,” the oldest said. “I think it’s time for you to move along, Witcher.”

Lambert tipped an imaginary hat to them and wandered back over to the smith. The whole village knew how Belrand treated his son and through cowardice or lack of care, they’d let him continue until he killed the boy. Just like his village would’ve done for him. Like they had for his mother after Barmin took him from her.

This boy had no one to leave behind.

The looks turned harder after his conversation with the old men, and Lambert wandered the village, bored as he waited. The houses were whitewashed in the main village. Painted flowers and curling vines adorned the posts and lintels. Fences bordered neat gardens and held chicken houses, much like the home of the ferryman, but maintained.

Empty chicken houses.

He stopped at a yard with several plump, happy birds strutting around. Faded red-brown stained the grain of the lintel above the door. Lambert entered the yard to examine it. He ran a finger over it and frowned. Not paint. And a pattern scratched the wood, fresher than the stain. Protective maybe. Chickens clucked peacefully inside the fence. The only ones left in town.

Uneasiness crept over Lambert. He backtracked to the next house with no chickens. No drowner tracks. He checked several others. No drowner signs, but something had been scratching at doors. Small gouges. Too small for a wolf, too ragged for a rat.

He returned to the drowner nest and followed their tracks. They hadn’t approached the village. What had kept them from the village?

The old men probably wouldn’t speak to him, but he hoped to find someone who would. The blacksmith waved him over as soon as he reached the village square.

“I’ve finished the work, Witcher.”

Lambert paid the man and put his repaired armor on. Best to be armored and have the price agreed on before pissing the man off. “So, the ferryman…"

The smith crossed his arms and leaned away. “What about him?”

“His wife. What happened to her?”

The man relaxed fractionally. “She passed last winter.”

“Must be hard, especially with an infant.”

“Infant? His boy is at least six.”

Yeah. That’s what Lambert had been afraid of. "Was it childbirth that killed her?”

“I don’t see how this is your business, Witcher. I have work to get to.” He turned back to his forge.

The shadows were growing long. The ferryman should be ready now, and Lambert took his leave of the village, berating himself. “It’s not your business. They hired you for the drowners. You killed the drowners. Be smart. Get on the ferry. Keep walking.”

Right. Right. Be smart. Don’t get murdered like Geralt. If the village wanted to blame the predation of a botchling on a pathetic clutch of drowners, and pay him well for it, that was their business. He rolled his shoulders, settling resolve to follow his own good advice.

He heard the shouting first. "... extortion money to a filthy fucking mutant!” Lambert ran toward the ferryman’s house. The sound of blows and more screaming about money grew louder.

Fuck.

All the resolve to leave forgotten, Lambert ran toward the sounds. The ferryman had the boy backed into a corner of the fence, stalking in front of him, swinging a belt from one hand as he berated the child. Lambert jumped the fence and slammed into the bastard, taking him to the ground. The man was bigger than Lambert and fought like a wild beast, but Lambert was faster, stronger, and more pissed off.

He pinned the bastard down and checked for the boy. He was out of sight. “You know the thing haunting this town isn’t drowners.”

“Drowners stopped the ferry,” he spluttered into the dirt.

“They didn’t kill the chickens. They didn’t cause the donkey's stillbirth. And they didn’t smear blood on the pregnant woman’s lintel.”

The ferryman kicked off another round of scuffling. When Lambert got him under control, one arm twisted behind his back, he said, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bastard! All you had to do was give it a name and a burial and you couldn’t even manage that!”

“What?”

“The babe you beat out of your wife! Where did you dispose of it?”

“Why do you care?”

“Unwanted and unburied. You made a botchling and you and this island are cursed until it’s dealt with.”

“Damn that woman! A curse upon me from the day I laid eyes on her!”

Lambert wrenched the man’s arm, dislocating his shoulder. He waited until the yelling stopped. “Did you treat her the way you do her son? How’s it feel to not be stronger? Huh? What should I break next? Where. Is. The. Baby?”

“By the water,” the ferryman gasped. “What does it matter? It’s dead and rotted!”

“No. It’s mutated into a monster that will never stop tormenting you and this island unless you claim and name it.”

“Fuck that.”

“We’ll do it the hard way, then.” He tied the bastard’s hands and feet and dragged him down to the water’s edge. Even with the sun clinging to the edge of the sky, the air shifted near the disposal site. Clammy air clung to his skin. Gnats floated, dead in place, like dust trapped in cobwebs. Lambert’s breath misted. He left the ferryman to marinate in the unnatural aura and hurried back to the home.

The boy was hiding in the loft, a ragged stuffed animal—a dog or maybe a goat, Lambert couldn’t tell—clutched to his chest.

Lambert approached him gently, keeping his movements slow and careful. “I’m Lambert. You’re coming with me when I leave.”

The boy’s breathing sped up and he trembled. “No, no, no, I’ll be good. I promise!”

“I know. And that’s why I’m taking you with me.”

“B-but my father…"

“He’s never going to hurt you again. I have a little more work to do, and then we’ll go. If you have anything you want to take, get it together. Anything of your mother’s you want. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded.

That covered, Lambert took stock of his supplies. He needed moon dust bombs and cursed oil for his blades. As prepared as he could be for facing the botchling, he returned to the ferryman. The man grew more panicked and vitriolic the longer they waited, but never wavered on rejecting the infant.

The thing burst from the earth with a shriek like tearing cloth. Its skin, purple and translucent, stretched tight over twitching limbs. Black eyes fixed on Lambert with desperate hunger. When cornered, wraiths bled out of the trees to answer its pleas. And when injured, it transformed, its limbs lengthened with sickening cracks. The thing’s mouth split wider than bone should allow. It hissed, a sound like a baby choking on its own spit.

When Lambert finally managed to put it down, he cast igni on the body to prevent it from reforming. As the body burned, he waited for the smoke to sting his eyes. It didn’t cleanse the foulness from the air. Nature remained silenced, not a cricket chirped, nor frog croaked.

The ferryman was, to Lambert’s annoyance, still alive. He left the man in front of the shallow grave with the burned botchling as evidence for the villagers to find, and returned to the boy. If justice existed in the world, the villagers would exact justice, but more likely he’d put a bounty on the heads of all remaining witchers in Temeria.

The child had a small bundle of items. “You got everything?”

The boy nodded.

Lambert took his hand and led him to the ferry.

The boy stopped and gazed back toward his home. He sniffled.

He refused to be as much of a bastard to this boy as Barmin had been to him. Lambert patted the boy’s shoulder. “It’s all right to take a minute to say goodbye.”

“Did you kill my father?” the boy asked, without shifting his eyes from the house.

“No. He’s alive.”

The boy turned to Lambert, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I don’t have to go back to him?”

“Never.”

With a nod, the boy strode onto the ferry.

“So what’s your name?” Lambert asked as he began pulling the ferry across the dark river.

“Leo.”

* * *

Lambert watched the pyre burn, keeping vigil to the last embers—long after the others had trailed away—until there was nothing left but ash and memory.