Chapter 9: Unleashing the Beast Within
The girl moved through the trees like a phantom, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet of decaying leaves. Her nightdress, once white, was smeared with dark earth and something that looked like sap. That beckoning gesture hung in the air long after she’d turned away, a silent command they had no choice but to follow.
“It’s a trap,” Thorn whispered, their voice tight. The crimson bled away from their eyes, replaced by a swirling, anxious lilac. “A painfully obvious one.”
“Doesn’t mean we can ignore it.” Geralt’s hand rested on the hilt of his silver sword. His medallion was a constant, humming vibration against his chest, a compass needle locked on the deepening corruption. “The leshen is arrogant. It’s showing off its control.”
They moved after the girl, keeping a distance of about twenty paces. The forest floor, which should have been a tangle of roots and undergrowth, seemed to smooth before her, creating a path. Behind them, the way closed up, branches twisting together like interlocking fingers.
The air grew colder, the dappled light taking on a greener, more sickly hue. The silence was absolute. No birds, no insects, not even the rustle of a leaf that wasn’t caused by their own passage or the leshen’s will.
Then, the girl stopped beside a massive, lightning-blasted oak. Its trunk was split open, a blackened cavity at its core. She stood motionless, a doll waiting to be wound.
A second figure emerged from the shadows of the great tree. A man, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in the remains of hunter’s leathers. Kael. His face was slack, his eyes the same empty black pools as the girl’s. In his hands, he held a rusted woodcutter’s axe, its head stained dark.
“Father…” The word was a dry croak from the girl’s mouth, but the voice was still the leshen’s multi-toned rasp.
“Daughter…” the thing inside Kael responded, the sound like grinding stones.
Thorn made a small, disgusted sound in their throat. “It’s putting on a puppet show. How quaint.”
The leshen ignored them, its attention funneled through its hostages. The hunter raised the axe, not in threat, but as a grisly exhibit. “This flesh resisted. The bond was offered. It chose to break.”
The girl lifted her arms, palms up. “This flesh is younger. More pliant. A strong root seeks young soil.”
Geralt took a slow step forward. “Let them go. Your quarrel is with me.”
A sound that might have been laughter rattled from both throats simultaneously, a horrific harmony. The trees around them groaned, their bark shifting, contorting. Knots in the wood elongated into rough semblances of screaming faces, of clawed hands.
“You are nothing,” the voices hissed. “A sharp stone soon dulled. The forest is patient. The forest is eternal. It will absorb your strength, as it absorbs all things.”
The ground beneath Thorn’s feet suddenly writhed. Thick, root-like tendrils, black and slick, erupted from the soil and wrapped around their ankles with the speed of striking snakes. They yelped, more in surprise than pain, and tried to pull free, but the roots tightened like iron bands.
At the same moment, the branches above Geralt came alive. They dropped like nooses, not to strike, but to entangle, weaving themselves around his arms, his sword arm pinioned to his side.
“Geralt!” Thorn’s shout was sharp with real alarm. They clawed at the roots, their fingers scraping against the rough, unyielding surface.
Geralt gritted his teeth, muscle bunched, but the living wood was impossibly strong. It wasn't just holding him; it was pulling, drawn taught by the ancient will of the tree it was part of. He could feel the individual fibers of his armor straining.
Thorn stopped struggling. A terrible calm settled on their features. Their eyes screwed shut. “It’s in the roots,” they gasped. “I can feel it… a consciousness, like a nest of worms. Cold.”
“Don’t,” Geralt commanded, knowing what was coming. “Thorn, don’t you dare.”
“Bad time… for a debate,” Thorn choked out.
A flicker of violet energy sparked at their fingertips where they touched the root. The root twitched, but held fast. Thorn’s face contorted with effort. The spark grew, flaring into a chaotic, sputtering aura that raced up their arms. It wasn't the controlled, precise magic they’d used in the keep; this was a raw discharge, a scream of power.
The roots binding them blackened and smoked. A sound, like the screech of tearing metal, echoed through the clearing as the magical feedback shot back through the leshen’s connection. The wooden nooses around Geralt spasmed, loosening for a fraction of a second.
It was all he needed.
He ripped an arm free, the sleeve of his jacket tearing. His silver sword flashed from its scabbard, a clean arc that severed the grasping branches. He pivoted, and with two more precise strokes, hacked through the roots coiling around Thorn’s legs.
Thorn collapsed to their knees, gasping, wisps of violet energy still dancing erratically around their hands before fading. The bandage on their palm was now stained with fresh blood. They looked up at Geralt, their eyes wide and frightened, the lilac hue washed out, almost gray. “It… it smelled that. It knows what I am.”
The puppeteered villagers had gone rigid. The leshen’s attention had shifted entirely. The black eyes of the girl and the hunter were now fixed on Thorn, a new, predatory curiosity replacing its earlier theatrical menace.
“Not human,” the voices whispered, a hungry edge to the rasp. “Not beast. A tree that walks without roots. A fire that burns without wood. You are… absence. You are poison.”
The ground began to tremor. This wasn’t just a few roots. The entire clearing was coming alive. The gnarled giants surrounding them leaned inward, their limbs transforming into bludgeons and spears. The leshen was done playing. It had sensed a rival anomaly in its domain, something it couldn’t immediately classify or control, and its response was pure, territorial annihilation.
Geralt hauled Thorn to their feet. “Can you run?”
Thorn took a wobbly step, their weight leaning heavily against him. “Define ‘run’.” Their attempt at levity was a thin veneer over sheer exhaustion.
The hunter, Kael, charged. The movement was unnervingly swift, a marionette jerked into violence. The axe swept down in a brutal arc. Geralt met it with his silver sword, the clash a sharp, ringing report that shattered the oppressive silence. The force was immense, numbing Geralt’s arm to the elbow. This wasn’t just a man; it was a vessel filled with the leshen’s raw power.
As Geralt parried a second blow, a branch, sharpened to a point, shot from a tree trunk like a ballista bolt, aimed at his side. He twisted away, the point grazing his armor. He was surrounded. The forest itself was his enemy.
“The fire!” Thorn yelled, fumbling in the satchel Geralt had given them. They pulled out a small tinderbox. “It doesn’t like fire!”
A root whipped out, striking the tinderbox from Thorn’s hand and sending it flying into the undergrowth. “It’s also… a quick study,” Thorn muttered, clutching their stinging hand.
The girl was moving now, not with violence, but with an eerie purpose. She walked toward Thorn, her head tilted. “The Old Man wants to see your roots,” she rasped. She reached out a small, pale hand.
Thorn backed away, but a wall of intertwined branches sprang up behind them, cutting off their retreat.
Geralt kicked the puppet-hunter hard in the chest, sending him staggering back, and spun toward the girl. He couldn’t cut her down. She was an innocent. The leshen knew it. It was using her as a perfect shield.
He changed tactics. Ignoring the girl, he lunged for the massive, blasted oak she had emerged from. This tree, this scarred ancient, felt like a nexus. He plunged his silver sword deep into the blackened cavity in its trunk.
A shriek that was both organic and supernatural tore through the forest, issuing from the mouths of the villagers and the very air itself. The attacking branches recoiled as if scorched.
The girl froze, her hand inches from Thorn’s face.
In the moment of stunned respite, Geralt saw it. Above the cavity, woven into the unharmed branches of the great oak, was a intricate structure of twigs, bones, and feathers—a crude, powerful totem. The leshen’s physical anchor to this part of the wood.
“Thorn! The nest! Above me!” he shouted, yanking his sword free from the wounded tree.
Thorn followed his gaze. Their eyes, burning with a final reserve of defiance, locked onto the totem. They didn’t have the strength for another spell. But they had one thing left.
With a grunt of effort, they snatched the hunter’s fallen axe from the ground. It was heavy, unwieldy in their hands. They took two stumbling steps and hurled it end over end.
It wasn’t a clean throw. The axe handle clipped a branch, spinning wildly, but the heavy blade struck true, tearing through the center of the twig-and-bone nest.
The shriek this time was one of pure agony. The leshen’s control snapped. The girl and the hunter collapsed to the ground like discarded sacks, the blackness vanishing from their eyes, leaving them blank and unconscious.
The animated trees shuddered and fell still, reverting to mere wood.
The silence returned, but now it was the silence of shock, of a wound inflicted.
Geralt stood panting, his sword held ready. Thorn slumped against a tree, their breath coming in ragged, painful-sounding drags.
A new sound began. A slow, methodical crunching of footsteps, heavier than any human’s, approaching from the deepest part of the wood. The crunch of something walking on dry branches and old bones.
The leshen wasn’t going to use puppets anymore. It was coming itself.
Geralt moved to stand between the sound and Thorn, his silver sword glowing faintly in the diseased green light. “Get behind me,” he said, his voice low and steady. “This is going to get loud.”
The crunching footsteps halted. For three heartbeats, the only sound was the ragged pull of Thorn’s breathing. Then the shadows between the trees directly ahead coalesced, drawing substance from the rot and the ancient wood itself.
It stood eight feet tall, a grotesque sculpture of weathered bone, twisted branches, and matted fur. A stag’s skull, antlers branching into leafless twigs, served as its head, empty sockets fixed on them. This was no puppet. This was the root of the sickness, the ancient heart of the wood given malignant intent.
It moved, and the sound was of old trees settling into their own graves. Geralt met its charge, silver sword a blur. Steel met hardened wood with a sound like splitting stone. He was faster, his blows precise, shearing through limbs that sought to grab and crush.
A branch, sharp as a pike, shot from its chest. Geralt twisted, the point ripping through his leather jerkin and drawing a line of fire across his ribs. He grunted, circling, looking for an opening in its armored form.
Thorn crawled toward the two unconscious villagers, their own pain a distant scream under the adrenal rush. They placed a hand on the girl’s forehead, then the hunter’s chest. Their touch was light, a whisper of energy that sought to soothe ravaged nervous systems, to coax dormant life back to the surface. It was a delicate, draining effort.
The leshen ignored them, its entire world narrowed to the shining silver that threatened its existence. It swung a massive arm, and Geralt ducked under it, driving his sword deep into the joint where branch met torso.
The creature recoiled, that bone-grinding shriek tearing from it again. It slammed a foot down, and the ground erupted at Geralt’s feet. Thick roots burst upward, not to bind, but to impale.
He vaulted back, but one root caught his thigh, a deep, gouging tear. He stumbled, his leg buckling for a critical second.
The leshen capitalized. It reared back, a spear-like limb forming from its core and launching forward with terrifying speed. It was aimed straight for Geralt’s heart. There was no time to dodge.
Thorn saw the lethal thrust. There was no thought, only instinct forged in the keep’s oppressive dark. They abandoned their healing, lunging sideways with a final, desperate surge of strength.
They slammed into Geralt’s side, shoving him out of the path of the sharpened wood. There was a wet, sickening sound as the limb meant for him pierced through Thorn’s shoulder instead.
The force lifted Thorn off their feet for a moment before they crumpled, a strangled cry caught in their throat. The leshen’s weapon retracted, slick with dark blood.
Geralt’s world snapped into a hyper-focused silence. He saw Thorn fall. He saw the blood. The cold calculus of the hunt evaporated, replaced by a different kind of focus.
He came up from his stumble in a low crouch, his yellow eyes burning. He ignored the pain in his leg, the burn in his side. There was only the enemy.
He charged, not away from the leshen’s reach, but directly into it. He let a grasping branch wrap around his left arm, the wood creaking as it tightened. He let it pull him closer.
The leshen, its target suddenly compliant, leaned in for the kill.
Geralt’s silver sword flashed upward. He didn’t aim for the body. He aimed for the neck of the stag skull.
The blade bit deep into the ancient bone and the woven twigs beneath. There was a resonant crack, the sound of the world breaking.
The leshen froze. A network of green light flickered across its form, then died. The stag skull tilted, then tore free from the body, hitting the forest floor with a dull thud.
The monstrous structure of wood and bone shuddered and then collapsed inward, falling apart into a harmless pile of debris and decay.
Geralt didn’t watch it fall. He was already moving, wrenching his arm free from the now-lifeless branch.
He dropped to one knee beside Thorn. The wound was bad, a deep puncture that wept blood freely, staining their tunic a violent crimson. Their skin was paper-white, their breath shallow.
Then Thorn stirred, a grimace of pure agony twisting their features. Their eyes fluttered open, the vibrant lilac drowned out by a haze of pain. “Told you… I’m full of surprises,” they slurred, trying to smile.
Geralt said nothing. He ripped a length of cloth from his own shredded jerkin, his movements efficient and hard. He packed it against the wound, applying pressure.
Thorn’s hand, trembling, came up to stop him. “Leave it.” Their voice was faint but clear. “Save your energy. We need to move.”
They nodded weakly toward the east. “Listen.”
Through the ringing in his ears, Geralt heard it. Muffled voices, the crack of a branch under a heavy boot. The villagers were close, their torches casting a flickering orange glow through the trees. They were stumbling blindly, but their path was unmistakable.
They were heading directly for the clearing. For the remains of the leshen. For their unconscious families.
And for the Witcher and his monster, kneeling over them.
The torchlight was getting brighter, painting the trees in shifting shades of orange and menace. Geralt’s grip tightened on Thorn’s arm. “We have to move. Now.”
He tried to stand, to pull them both up, but his wounded leg gave way entirely. A sharp grunt escaped him as his knee buckled, sending him stumbling against a tree trunk. The gash in his thigh wept fresh blood, a hot, insistent throb that mocked his urgency.
Thorn’s hand, cold and startlingly quick, clamped over the torn leather and flesh. “Stubborn man,” they hissed, their voice thin. A pulse of warmth, faint but focused, spread from their palm. It wasn’t the chaotic flare from before, but a precise, desperate thread of energy. The bleeding stopped. The torn muscle knit itself together with a sensation like crawling ants.
They pulled their hand back, looking even paler. “See? Easier. Quicker.” Their eyes, a dull and exhausted lilac, met his. “Now stop falling over.”
Geralt hauled them upright, his own leg now steady, and slung their good arm over his shoulders. Their weight was a worrying lightness. He half-carried, half-dragged them away from the clearing, away from the approaching voices and the two unconscious forms on the ground.
The woods swallowed them, the darkness a welcome shield. Behind them, a shout of discovery echoed, followed by a confusion of voices. They didn’t look back. Thorn leaned heavily into him, each step a shallow breath. After a few minutes of silent, grueling progress, they let out a pained chuckle.
“So,” Thorn murmured, their head lolling against his shoulder. “This confident stride… does it have a destination? Or are we just admiring the local flora until I bleed out?”
Geralt adjusted his grip, his gaze scanning the impenetrable dark ahead. “No.”
The trees began to thin, their gnarled forms giving way to skeletal shrubs. The thick scent of decay and damp earth was stripped away, replaced by the dry, gritty taste of dust. The ground underfoot softened from root-tangled soil to loose, shifting sand.
They broke through a final line of withered pines and stopped. The world fell away into a vast, moonlit expanse of desolation. It was as if a giant had scraped the land bare, leaving only dunes and rocky outcrops under a cold, indifferent sky. The forest at their backs felt like a memory.
Geralt’s gaze swept the barren horizon, his witcher senses parsing the empty air for water, for life, for threat. He found nothing but wind and silence.
Thorn leaned their head against his chest, closing their eyes. The steady thud of his heart under their ear was a anchor in the dizzying void. They breathed in, slow and deep, ignoring the fire in their shoulder and the deeper ache of their drained magic.
The wind whipped across the open expanse, carrying fine grains of sand that stung their faces. It was a complete and sudden change from the oppressive closeness of the woods, this emptiness feeling just as threatening. Geralt’s enhanced sight picked out the faint, dark line of a rocky outcrop maybe half a mile to the east.
“There,” he said, his voice rough. “We head for those rocks.”
Thorn didn’t argue. They just nodded, their body a tense line of suffering leaning against him. Each step was a conscious effort, a fight against the drag of the sand and the leaden weight of their own body.
They moved in a grim silence, broken only by the crunch of their footsteps and Thorn’s increasingly labored breathing. The temporary fix on Geralt’s leg held, but it was a stark reminder of their collective fragility. The legendary Witcher and the ancient creature, brought low by a sentient tree and a mob with pitchforks.
After what felt like an age, the rocks resolved into a low ridge, a scar on the face of the desert. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Geralt scanned the formation, his eyes catching on a deeper shadow nestled between two large boulders. He guided Thorn towards it, the promise of cover a powerful lure.
It was a cave, or more accurately, a shallow overhang eroded into the stone. It was barely ten feet deep, but it was shelter from the wind and prying eyes. He helped Thorn ease down onto the sandy floor, their back against the cool rock.
“Let me see the shoulder,” Geralt said, his tone leaving no room for refusal.
Thorn winced as he probed the edges of the wound. The flesh around the puncture was already an angry, inflamed red, and a feverish heat radiated from their skin. The leshen’s touch was clearly toxic.
“It’s fine,” Thorn murmured, their eyes closed. “Just need a minute.”
“You’re burning up.” He pulled the waterskin from his belt and handed it to them. “Drink. Slowly.”
Thorn took a small sip, the water seeming to revive them a little. Their gaze, though clouded with pain, grew more focused. “The villagers. They’ll find the girl and the hunter.”
“They’ll take them home,” Geralt said, unpacking his limited medical supplies. “They’ll also find the leshen’s remains. That might buy us some goodwill. Or convince them we’re even more dangerous.”
“Optimist,” Thorn breathed, a ghost of a smile touching their lips. Their eyes shifted, the lilac deepening with a flicker of their old self. “You realize we just turned their terrifying forest demon into a pile of kindling for them.”
Geralt didn’t answer. He was cleaning the wound with a methodical, detached efficiency. The gash on his own ribs was already clotting, a minor concern compared to Thorn’s state. He worked quickly, applying a poultice from his kit before binding it securely with a clean strip of cloth.
His task complete, Geralt moved to the mouth of the overhang, his silhouette a dark cut-out against the star-dusted sky. He was listening, watching for any sign of pursuit from the tree line now invisible in the dark.
Thorn watched him, the silence stretching between them. It was different from the tense quiet of the forest. This was the stillness of exhaustion, of a battle survived but a war still looming.
Thorn’s voice was soft, almost lost in the wind. “You could have left me back there. When I pushed you. The spear was meant for you.”
Geralt remained facing the darkness, his broad shoulders tense. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“It’s a fair point.” They shifted, trying to find a comfortable position and failing. “You’re not… obligated.”
“I said,” Geralt turned, his yellow eyes catching the faint light, “don’t be an idiot.”
A real, weary smile touched Thorn’s face then. They leaned their head back against the stone, their body finally yielding to the deep, bone-marrow weariness. The adrenaline had burned away, leaving only the raw ache of their wounds and the chilling memory of the leshen’s voice in their mind. The cave floor was cold and unforgiving, but it was solid. It was hidden.
The wind moaned outside, but here, under the rock, it was just the sound of their breathing. The immediate danger had passed. They had found shelter. For now, that was enough.