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It starts like a bad joke – a witcher walks into a bar and orders an ale, but he gets a drunkard shoved into his arms instead. The man reeks of alcohol and he can barely stand on his own. Lambert pushes him away, rather roughly, but the fucker clings to him and doesn’t let go. He came here to relax, he tells himself, not murder people and make new enemies.
“You’re a witcher,” the barmaid tells him before he can protest – not really a question. “Take your bard and go, please.”
Lambert does a double check and sure, the man he’s holding by the scruff of his questionable burgundy coat is Jaskier, Geralt’s annoying barker. His hair is longer now, and Lambert can’t remember seeing him with a hat before, but his eyes are still the same piercing blue, even muddled by lots of alcohol. Before Lambert can react, two Nilfgaardian soldiers come in and start checking patrons at the tables.
“Not mine,” Lambert still grumbles. “Jaskier, what the fuck did you do?” he hisses.
“Shh,” the bard mutters into his chest armor. “I’m inco… ingo… It’s a secret,” he ends up saying in a very slurred voice.
Lambert grabs him by the strap of his lute case, takes a bottle from behind the counter and exits through the side door before the soldiers spot them.
They relocate to a clearing not far into the woods, where Jaskier vomits into a bush and promptly falls asleep.
“Thanks for ruining my plans for the evening,” Lambert tells the unconscious man, but if he’s perfectly honest he doesn’t mind – taverns are noisy and he got free booze out of it. Then he notices the grapes on the label and he swears. “Stupid wine.”
He still takes a swig, but his heart is not into it.
*
Jaskier opens his eyes and quickly closes them again, groaning at the sun like it’s personally responsible for all his troubles. It’s still early enough and Lambert has nowhere to be, so he let the idiot sleep it off.
“Why are the Black fucks after you?” Lambert asks without preamble. From the way the bard startles, he hasn’t heard him approach. He looks at him blearily, patting the ground until he finds his ridiculous hat to shield his face. “Why were you out drinking instead of laying low?” Lambert continues, lowering his voice a little because Jaskier keeps wincing.
“I was drowning my sorrow after a lovely lady rejected my advances because she’s engaged, how stupid is that? I mean, marriage is not–”
“Jaskier?” Lambert cuts him off, his tone serious. “Why is Nilfgaard looking for you?”
“They want information,” Jaskier says with a frown. “About Geralt’s child surprise,” he adds under his breath.
Lambert raises an eyebrow at that. He vaguely remembers hearing that story from Geralt one winter; how he foolishly invoked the law of surprise only to discover the bride was pregnant. Jaskier doesn’t elaborate, so Lambert makes a mental note to ask again later.
“How would you like a job offer?” the bard says unexpectedly. It sounds like he’s joking, but he looks serious, more than what Lambert imagined from the songs and what little Geralt has told them over several winters at Kaer Morhen. Older and sadder maybe.
“You don’t look like you can afford my services.” Lambert nods at Jaskier’s lack of bags. Poor sap looks like he had a rough week.
“Oh I have coin,” Jaskier assures him, and he starts patting down his long coat, gathering a growing pile of various currencies from many hidden pockets. It’s impressive and Lambert laughs.
“Anything else?” he asks, suddenly curious. Jaskier taps his right boot – “a dagger” – and an inner breast pocket – “bread… A book or two…”
“Books are useless,” Lambert grumbles, and Jaskier pretends to be deeply offended by that, before he drops the act.
“So, what do you say about protecting me on my way to Oxenfurt?” the poet says, flashing a toothy grin, a bit too large, too eager. Desperate.
“You’re confusing me with another witcher, one with a penchant for lost causes,” Lambert says.
“I can assure you, you’re nothing alike,” Jaskier retorts.
Lambert braces for an insult, but instead, Jaskier starts counting on his fingers.
“For one, you make actual sentences when you speak, and you don’t grunt so much. Secondly, you haven’t punched me yet” – Lambert frowns at that. “And lastly I have a feeling you value coin more than silence.”
“Did you pay Geralt to let you follow him?” Lambert asks, confused. He thought they were friends, but Jaskier’s eyes shroud in distant pain and anger, and he doesn’t answer.
“I’ll need to take contracts along the way,” Lambert ends up saying, while thinking it is a bad idea. “And we’ll have to get you a horse.” It’s a long walk to the Pontar, even more so if they have to avoid Nilfgaard scum.
“Great!” Jaskier jumps to his feet. He sways a little, paling slightly – still hungover.
Lambert gathers the coins still on the ground, already regretting his decision. That was a fucking bad idea, the kind you take after a night of heavy drinking, but he feels awfully sober.
*
They reach a fork in the woods and as Lambert leads his horse to the left – to the north – Jaskier stops him, sounding outraged.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Uh?”
“It says,” Jaskier insists, pointing at the markings carved in a piece of wood recently nailed to a tree, “that the town has been hit by a plague! Now, I know that witchers are immune, but I’m not, so can we please not go that way?”
He doesn’t sound scared, mostly appalled that Lambert would even consider putting him in danger, despite knowing nothing about him. Trusty idiot, he thinks, as he steers his horse east, down the other path.
“Plagues are actually a good thing for witchers,” he tells the horrified bard. “It creates wraiths and attracts all sorts of necrophages. Good for business.”
“Unless everybody is dead and there is no one left to pay,” Jaskier points out.
Lambert doesn’t have a counterargument so he just huffs and grumbles something about cheap aldermen deserving all the rotfiends and ghouls a plague can bring.
Jaskier talks, but way less than Geralt has let him think. There is no “onslaught of poetry” or “uninterrupted litany of complaints.” Sometimes the bard pipes up excitedly about a particularly colorful bird or a nice tree, but those are rare in Southern Velen, and he mostly keeps silent and watches where he’s going to avoid the largest puddles.
It’s almost as if he’s wary of the witcher, as if he’s making sure he won’t get dumped in the next town because he is too annoying. He doesn’t smell scared, Lambert will give him that. Although he probably should have, given that Nilfgaard is apparently looking for him and they’re practically in enemy territory. The Black Ones have made it as far as Sodden – or so Lambert heard – where they were stopped by mages.
As they enter the swamp, Lambert slows down, listening to the sounds around them. There is a small group of humans somewhere on their right, and a pack of deer on their left. He can’t hear any signs of drowners or anything dangerous, so he keeps going and Jaskier follows.
The path is submerged and the puddles become one big marsh of mud and dirty water. Jaskier doesn’t whine, not really. He just suggests that they would go faster if he was riding, and Lambert agrees. The bard was clearly expecting a harsh rebuttal, and he looks surprised as he gets situated on Lambert’s horse. The cold water doesn’t bother him, and his boots are sturdy, not like the impractical things the bard is wearing.
“Is it a disguise?” he asks despite himself. “Or do you usually dress like that?”
Jaskier pretends to look wounded for a second. “It’s my spy outfit. I told you, I’m incognito.”
Right, a spy. That is a load of horseshit and Lambert tells him as much.
“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Jaskier says with a shrug.
Lambert is about to reply when they get attacked. Bloated drowners emerge from the swamp, smelling worse than rotten fish gut at the end of a hot day at a Novigrad market. He swears and takes out his sword. His horse whinnies but Jaskier keeps him in check. He doesn’t look overly panicked at least, so he probably won’t gallop away with all his belongings, Lambert thinks, as he launches himself into the fray.
There are many of them, but they are slow, stumbling over rotten branches, trying to grab him with their filthy claws. He hacks merrily until he hears a sharp yelp that has him turning his head to check on the bard. Stupid mistake – the bard is fine, he has plunged a dagger deep into the eye socket of the drowner who grabbed his leg. But it’s enough for a monster to get too close and sink its teeth into his arm, just below his shoulder pad. It breaks the skin and Lambert sees red.
“I will not” – hack – “get killed” – chop – “by a frigging” – grunt – “fish.”
He wipes his sword on his leg when the last drowner is cut to pieces and assesses the situation. His arm is bleeding profusely, and Jaskier is looking at him with wide eyes, like he’s expecting to get yelled at any second.
Lambert sighs, grips the wound with his other hand and leads the way. Jaskier babbles from where he sits on the horse, about potions and blood loss and that his ankle hurts. Lambert throws him a look and keeps walking until they’re out of the swamp.
*
It starts raining when they make camp in a dilapidated house. Lambert lets himself fall on a bare mattress covered in dust, and Jaskier brings in the saddlebags.
“Your horse is in the shed,” he says.
He takes off his ridiculous coat and flicks his wet hair out of his eyes.
“Where is your hat?” Lambert mumbles, and his voice sounds weird to his own ears.
“You don’t look so good,” Jaskier points out unhelpfully.
“Pass me a Swallow potion,” Lambert groans.
His arm is slick with blood but the wound is slowly starting to close on its own. He just needs something to take the edge off and he’ll be as right as rain.
“Which one is it?” Jaskier asks as he rummages through his belongings, vials clinking. “There are no labels…”
“Come on,” Lambert says as he tries to sit up and fails. “I thought you traveled with Geralt. It’s the yellow one.” Jaskier holds out a little vial of Golden Oriole and Lambert shakes his head. “Other yellow.”
He downs it in one gulp and then remembers that there is a human with him in the room. He can feel the potion take hold, making his skin look white and his eyes pitch black – turning him into a monster. But the bard just hovers close, not helping but not really impeding either.
Lambert cleans the wound as best he can and decides it doesn’t need stitches – he isn’t very good at the whole sewing thing anyway. Jaskier watches silently, as his skin tingles and itches – Lambert can feel the flesh trying to knit together, while his blood coagulates.
Then the poet takes out a notebook and for a moment the only sounds in the drafty house are the scratching of the quill on the page and the light tapping of the rain on the roof.
“What are you writing about?” Lambert barks, a bit harsher than he intended.
“Geralt rarely lets me watch.”
Jaskier shrugs and glances at the gnarly bite on Lambert’s arm. Then he keeps writing, tongue sticking out in concentration.
“My wound is poetic inspiration?”
“It’s more of a scientific study,” Jaskier explains. “Oxenfurt books about witchers are full of nonsense and errors.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t trust books,” Lambert nods, and Jaskier lets out an offended gasp.
He falls asleep without meaning to, and when he wakes up with a grunt, he finds Jaskier fast asleep on the floor, curled up around his lute case in front of a dying fire. The rain has stopped and they should probably get going.
On a whim, Lambert picks up Jaskier’s notebook, open next to the sleeping bard. It’s covered in chicken scratch handwriting and Lambert only recognizes a few words – blood, fast, black. He’s not sure how he feels about a human writing about their secrets. It doesn’t seem safe at all. For a second he’s tempted to throw the thing into the fire, but he doesn’t. If Geralt trusts the fool, maybe he can too.
*
The road takes them through marshland and woods, all the way to a decent-sized town uphill.
“Too bad there are no jobs in the area,” Lambert says.
He’s low on alcohol for potions and he needs a farrier to look at his horse’s shoes. The notice board only has yellowed papers that look like they’ve been there for a season at least, so there is not much hope there.
“What about this one?” Jaskier says, looking over his shoulder.
He points at a small card with tiny letters on it. It doesn’t look like a contract offer, probably a merchant trying to advertise.
“What about it?” Lambert asks roughly.
“It says,” Jaskier reads, snatching the card from the board, “that a lord has a ghost problem.”
“I saw that,” Lambert grumbles.
“You clearly hadn’t.”
“I can do my own damn job,” he says, lashing out for the first time since the bard started following him.
An uncomfortable silence stretches for a little too long and Jaskier looks like a rabbit who spotted a wolf and isn’t sure if flight is the best response.
“Where does it say the lord lives?” Lambert finally asks.
Jaskier’s eyes flick to the card and he reads out loud, his voice a little too high, “Lord Daveen requests assistance at the castle of Raguran. Important reward for anyone successful in ridding him of the ghost that haunts the place. There are no such things as ghosts,” Jaskier remarks.
“Probably a wraith, or someone got cursed,” Lambert confirmed.
Nobility usually pays well, but they don’t seem to like Lambert’s style much – too many cuss words, too much blood on expensive carpets. But he needs the money.
“We’ll go tomorrow at dawn,” he finally says, and Jaskier beams excitedly, happy to be included in his plans.
“I’ll sing tonight – I think I can get Brionna to sell me a horse, a small one they can’t use for carriage.”
Lambert snorts, because of course the bard already knew the innkeeper by name, but he appreciates the initiative. They’ll go faster that way, even with a too small horse.
Velen is a sad place right now, and people are wary of strangers. But that night when Jaskier offers to sing songs for a few coins at the local tavern, spirits lift and all threats of war and invasion seem forgotten for a moment.
And that evening, as Lambert listens to the bard sing some nonsense about the dangers of drowners munching on a young couple bathing nude in a river, he can’t help but wonder what happened with Geralt. It’s clearly not his place to judge, and he’s not about to ask, but Jaskier seems to make a point of not singing anything White Wolf related, despite a few requests from the audience.
People are not rich, but they buy him drinks and give him a few coins, which prove enough for the gray gelding the innkeeper accepts to sell him. It must descend from a mule, because it’s slow and stubborn. Jaskier takes a shine to the stupid animal immediately.
*
The lord’s castle is an ugly brown thing perched atop a hill. Lumberjacks are cutting down trees in a nearby wood, and there are a few farms scattered around, but people are grim-looking and watch them ride on with vacant eyes. Lambert can’t tell if it’s because of the distant news of war, or a more local brand of horror.
As it turns out, it is possible to read and ride a horse, so Jaskier is mostly silent, only raising his head from time to time to make sure his horse stays on the path. There is no danger in those parts – the lord even sends a bunch of guards to escort them the rest of the way – but Lambert still feels on edge when he glances at the bard, totally absorbed by his book.
Lord Daveen is a middle-aged man who looks cunning and rich, and Lambert immediately dislikes him. He stares disapprovingly at Lambert’s dirty armor and greasy hair and offers very few details about his problem. He talks about “howling in the gardens at night,” “a large beast, like a dog, but ghostly” and “disappearing butlers.”
They agree on a pretty hefty sum, but only after the deed is done, and the lord insists that his scribe writes down the contract on paper. Nobles and their love for bureaucracy, Lambert thinks as he takes the quill the scribe is holding out for him – what happened to spitting in your hand and shaking on it?
He’s about to scribble his name at the bottom of the page when Jaskier stops him with a hand on his arm. His eyes have grown stormy and his expression is unreadable for a second.
“Are you fucking serious?” Jaskier says in an offended tone.
Lambert thinks he’s talking to him, but the poet marches up to the lord and stomps his foot, hands on his hips and chin held high. He looks furious.
“Care to explain,” he tells Daveen, “why there is a clause there, in tiny letters, stating that any property damage will be deducted from the final payment?”
“You backstabbing cunt,” Lambert says through clenched teeth.
The lord glares at him, annoyed that he brought someone along, but doesn’t set his guards on them. Smart man.
“Twenty percent now, and the rest once the ghost is killed,” Daveen says, “but the clause stays.”
Jaskier opens his mouth to reply something unsavory, but Lambert quickly agrees, silently fuming. He’s angry at himself for not seeing it, at the lord for trying that bullshit and at Jaskier for spotting it and making him look dumb.
But he smiles an ugly smile at the greedy lord and scribbles something unintelligible where the scribe tells him to sign. The quill scratches on the paper and nearly breaks in his hand.
*
“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” he tells Jaskier once they’re alone, instead of thanking him.
The bard is quiet and doesn’t reply anything, but the look he throws him is a bit sad, silently questioning. Lambert is still seething. That idiot lord has no idea what’s coming for him.
Everyone they meet seems terrified – of him, of the ghost dog, of the lord even… Lambert lets Jaskier do most of the talking. He doesn’t need more information anyway. He can see the claw marks on the southern wall, and the hole where they retreat to the sewers during the day. Not one ghost dog, but many – barghests, vicious creatures that travel in packs. Daveen probably tried something moronic, like asking a careless witch to summon the dogs, intending on using them as guard dogs, until it backfired and now the beasts are roaming free on the property.
It starts raining and Jaskier leaves him in the courtyard where the “apparitions” usually happen – the ‘no witchers allowed inside’ rule doesn’t seem to apply to bards. Lambert starts preparing a few bombs, then tries to meditate under the wood shed; nothing is likely to happen before nightfall anyway.
The rain is coming down in sheets, and he could retreat inside to wait, rules be damned, but he’s cranky and he doesn’t want to cause a scene and be forced to leave without completing the contract. The people working for Daveen don’t deserve to live in fear of getting eaten if they tardy too much at night.
Jaskier comes back with hot buns in a towel and apple cider in a jug. He perches himself on the damp logs under the shed and they eat in silence. Jaskier has his book out again, and Lambert can’t help but glance at him with curiosity.
“Want to borrow it?” Jaskier offers. “I’ve already read it once anyway, and I’m sure you’d like it.”
There is a dragon etched in the leather cover and Lambert squints at the title but the words are written with silly flourish and he can’t decipher anything.
“Books are stupid,” he growls, “all they tell are lies and false information.”
He goes back to his oils and his swords with a huff.
“This one is about a princess, who is held captive by a dragon at the top of a huge tower.”
“See, bullshit. Dragons don’t care about humans.”
“But it’s not as simple,” Jaskier continues, not minding the interruption. “The dragon is following the orders of the late king’s sister, the queen regent, who doesn’t want her to rule the land.”
“More plausible,” Lambert mutters. “Even if killing her would have been more efficient.”
“Then it turns out that the dragon is in fact a young lord, transformed by a mage, and he falls in love with the princess.”
“Oh, so it’s a book about bestiality? Kinky.”
Lambert grins and Jaskier laughs and hits him in the shoulder. The poet starts reading out loud after that, until night falls and it gets too dark for a human to see clearly. It’s a nice story, it has humor and the princess is feisty and wants revenge. Lambert likes her, he thinks, as he imagines the scenes in his mind.
He’s about to turn and tell Jaskier to go back inside when the growling and the scratching start. The bard looks at him with wide eyes and nods silently when Lambert tells him to stay put.
The rain hasn’t abated and it’s making the cobblestones of the courtyard slippery. But it’s a good thing, Lambert thinks as he readies his stance, that means no onlookers to worry about (except for the damn bard) and the beasts are less likely to spit fire at him.
The growling intensifies and they crawl out of the sewers with white froth at their mouths, eyes shining red in the dark. There are a lot of them, and they keep coming, baring their teeth at him but not yet attacking. “One ghost” and a clause not to make a mess… That lord is full of shit and Lambert is not paid enough.
He dodges the first leaping ghost easily and he buries his sword in the neck of the second. Thank fuck the bastards are solid and he doesn’t need to bother with Ydren to force them to take physical form – he was never really good with signs, he lacks the patience and the precision necessary.
He jumps back when one of the dogs hacks up a fireball in his direction, and he hears Jaskier gasp in his back. Stupid to have him here, stupid to worry about him; it’s the best way to get distracted and bitten once again. His arm doesn’t hurt anymore, but Lambert won’t be making that same mistake twice. Maybe that’s why Geralt is grumpy all the time – he cares too much and it must be clouding his judgment.
There are only three left now, and the ground is slick with dark ichor, making the puddles look black in the night. He guts one with a wide blow and impales another against the wall. His sword will need repairing after that, and these kinds of things are never cheap. For some reason it makes him even angrier and more determined to carry on with his initial plan to get back at the lord.
He circles around the last barghest, which growls menacingly but doesn’t attack. Time to see if the bard can be useful under pressure, he thinks with a smirk.
“Jaskier,” he says without taking his eyes off the monster. “Open the door to the hall and step aside.”
He’s half expecting Jaskier to stutter and protest or to flat out refuse to do it, paralyzed by fear, but he can hear shuffling in his back, footsteps in the puddles and then hinges creaking. Good bard.
He hopes Jaskier isn’t standing in the doorway, gawking like a fool, and positions himself with his back to the door. He waits until the ghost attacks and he rolls to the left, letting the beast barrel inside the hall.
Jaskier doesn’t scream and ask if he’s gone mad, he doesn’t say anything as he watches Lambert enter the richly decorated room, ready to execute the bloodiest, messiest kill of his whole career. When he’s done, there is ichor up the walls and entrails dangling from the chandelier on the ceiling. His drenched boots have tracked mud and blood all over the expensive carpets and the monster’s claws have left deep gouges in the wooden floors. A masterpiece of destruction, he muses, as he wipes his sword clean on an armchair before putting it back in his scabbard.
“You’re a maniac,” Jaskier finally says – nothing Lambert doesn’t already know, so he just nods.
“Grab some of these silver knives,” he tells the bard, pointing at a mahogany buffet painted with bloody streaks.
“Oh, so we’re stealing now too?” Jaskier remarks, but he helps Lambert loot the place and cutlery disappears into his many coat pockets.
Lambert’s only regret is that they have to flee on horseback and that he is not able to see the look on Daveen’s face the next morning. It would have made the whole thing even more satisfying, but he isn’t very keen on visiting the castle dungeons or having to face the lord’s guards.
*
“You do know I tried to change the opinion people have of witchers?” Jaskier tells him over drinks, a county over, after they peddled the junk they stole to less than regarding merchants. He doesn’t sound annoyed, just curious and vaguely amused.
For the best part of the night, he followed Lambert’s lead without too many questions, only lamenting that the rain was cold and that his butt hurt after riding for too long. For a moment, Lambert thinks he might even appreciate him.
“You didn’t do shit,” Lambert says rather unkindly, because he doesn’t want the bard to get silly ideas. “People hate us as much as the monsters they pay us to kill.”
“When they do pay you,” Jaskier remarks.
“Yes, that too.”
They eat in silence; this town doesn’t seem to appreciate entertainment of any kind, and everyone looks slightly haggard.
“What were you doing in Southern Velen anyway?” Lambert asks.
He still isn’t buying that spy story. Jaskier is too colorful – even in a disguise – and too loud to stay anywhere without annoying everyone and getting strangled or worse.
“I was in Verden, gathering intel on the king there. Then I followed a diplomatic caravan. We were attacked, I fled. Fell in and out of love. Got robbed. But I still need to report back in Oxenfurt.”
“You’re pulling my leg, right?” Lambert can’t tell if he’s telling the truth. “If I wanted to hear nonsense I would have asked you to sing.”
Jaskier beams like it’s a compliment.
“What about Geralt?” Lambert asks, and Jaskier’s smile disappears instantly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m mad at him for letting a friend down.”
“I don’t think we were friends.”
“You’re wrong,” Lambert insists, but he doesn’t elaborate. It’s more of a gut feeling anyway.
“So,” Jaskier changes the subject, trying to keep his tone lighthearted, “do you want to hear the rest of the princess’s story?” Lambert doesn’t answer and pretends to be busy with his armor. “You want to know how it ends, admit it, you’re hooked.”
He is too proud to admit it, but he’s glad when Jaskier pulls the book from his coat pocket and starts reading without waiting for his agreement.
A prince is trying to rescue the captive princess, but he’s a dumbass. She ends up rejecting his advances, as well as the dragon-turned-human’s and decides to fight on her own. Good for her. Lambert is a bit disappointed that no one is fucking yet, be they dragons or not, but he doesn’t really mind. The battle descriptions are poetic but precise enough to have him holding his breath and shaking his head in turn.
That night, sleeping arrangements are a quick affair – they’re too poor to afford two beds and too tired to really care. The mattress is narrow and lumpy, but Jaskier falls asleep almost immediately, and Lambert wonders for a while if that spy bullshit is real, or if he’s just desperate enough to accept help from a witcher.
*
On the road after that, Jaskier doesn’t offer to sing anymore, and he keeps his lute hidden away in his gelding’s saddlebags. It makes sense, now that they are moving north and people might recognize him, but for some reason, Lambert finds it disheartening. He’s enjoyed the bawdy rhymes and the nonsensical twists on Geralt’s hunts.
The bard still writes in his notebook whenever they stop, and Lambert asks if it’s a song about Daveen’s misfortune. Jaskier smiles and hands him the notebook.
“See for yourself,” he says, and he gets up to fetch some water from the stream below their camp.
His penmanship is awful, and the letters blur together as soon as Lambert lays his eyes on the page, twisting and mocking him. He wonders if Jaskier is doing it on purpose or if he just hasn’t realized that Lambert can’t read.
Because that’s what it is, no matter how he tries to fool himself by blaming the handwriting. He opened Jaskier’s book once, hoping to learn more about the princess’s fate, but the neat lettering could have been Elder script as far as he was concerned. Damn book could keep its secrets anyway – that story was silly and would probably end with the princess marrying either of her suitors, and Lambert didn’t care at all. Or so he told himself.
Jaskier comes back with water, his sleeves rolled up and his shirt half open. He looks way too defenseless to be the spy he says he is, and way too happy for someone on the run from a whole army. Maybe he is just using him, like he used Geralt before. Spinning lies and making it look like he likes his company, but really mocking his inferiority.
He all but throws the notebook back and Jaskier barely catches it.
“Sorry if it’s not accurate enough for your tastes,” the poet grumbles with a frown, smoothing the pages before they can crease. Like he really believes that Lambert could decipher anything he wrote. “I’m not sure if I want to keep the lighter tone and humor, or make it darker and have a ghost dog kill Daveen,” Jaskier blabbers, not sensing the animosity, or choosing to ignore it.
“I don’t care,” Lambert says, and he turns to feed the fire and set the water to boil.
“I thought you’d be thrilled to have a song made about you…”
“Well I’m not,” he lies.
He busies himself with the food and angrily chops carrots for longer than necessary. He dumps the vegetables in the pot and finally looks at Jaskier again. The bard is sitting on the grass, looking at his open notebook like he thinks he can fix the song. His eyes shine a little and Lambert feels bad somehow. Jaskier wasn’t even mocking him after all.
“Maybe you could sing it to me?” Lambert tries.
The bard hasn’t touched his lute in days, afraid it would draw attention, but there is no one around.
“Why, I thought you didn’t like it,” Jaskier mumbles with a frown.
“I can’t read.”
There is a silence that stretches a bit too long for comfort. Jaskier definitively has unshed tears in his eyes now. Silly bard. Lambert thinks about all his past failures, made even more evident by Jaskier’s presence alongside him. He usually doesn’t care much and manages on his own just fine.
“I thought witchers received a formal education in Kaer Morhen. Geralt…” Jaskier starts, like he doesn’t believe him despite the evidence.
“Yeah, it didn’t take on me,” Lambert spits dejectedly, as he stands up and kicks at dirt.
He recalls countless hours in the keep library, trying to copy stupid letters, unable to make his hand do what he wants. Reading attempts were even more frustrating and everyone gave up on him, focusing on combat tactics instead. After all, you could be illiterate and kill monsters just fine.
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says.
“Don’t be. Like I said, I don’t care.”
“You clearly do, I haven’t seen you that upset before,” Jaskier points out.
Lambert feels anger and frustration slowly recede and he sits back down.
“You’re a constant reminder of my own limitations,” he says truthfully, “and I hate it.”
“I could try and–” Jaskier says, but Lambert cuts him off before he can offer to teach him, or something equally silly.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get you to Oxenfurt and you can go back to being a poet or a spy or whatever.”
They eat in silence as night falls on the woods around them. For the first night in a while, Jaskier doesn’t read to him. Lambert tries to pretend he doesn’t miss it, but sleep refuses to come.
*
War hasn’t reached that part of the Continent yet, and the Nilfgaardian threat seems very far away, like a scary story you tell around the campfire. But Jaskier becomes more and more withdrawn the closer they get to crossing the Pontar. He probably thinks Lambert will abandon him first chance he gets – that was his initial plan, as he hates city folks and how bad everything smells there.
And yet he follows Jaskier all the way to Oxenfurt, a place packed with scholars and gods damn students. All they do is read and talk shit and it makes Lambert want to pick a fight with every group he overhears.
They settle at an inn and not at the university – it’s like Jaskier is delaying the moment he’ll have to step foot there. He’s skittish and Lambert catches him looking over his shoulder more than once. He doesn’t like it. Soft bard didn’t even blink in front of a pack of barghests, but his handler, whoever they are, seems to fill him with dread.
So he drinks – and a drunk Jaskier flirts with everyone in sight, men, women and halflings alike. It’s fascinating and a little bit sad how his wit and eloquence seem to be reduced to nothing the more alcohol he consumes.
Lambert goes to fetch more ale, and when he comes back, Jaskier is gone. His drink is still on the table, half empty, with his stupid book next to it. Did the idiot decide to leave with someone? Lambert tries to recall who it could have been, as he sits down with his two tankards.
And then he spots it. A folded piece of paper barely sticking out of the book, with something scribbled on it in blue ink. Spy shit, he thinks, as he glares at the words like they personally offended him. The first two words are easy enough to guess, “Meet me,” but the rest, the crucial part that says where the bard went when drunk out of his mind, is a blur. Could be a street, a place, another town even.
He lets out a frustrated huff. It’s not his place to meddle anyway, Jaskier can do whatever he wants. But he can’t shake the uneasy feeling in his guts, so he grabs a student by the collar and points at the words he can’t read.
“What does it say?” he growls.
“Why, are you hitting on me? Freak.”
The whole table erupts in laughter and Lambert shakes the man rather violently. Eyes flicker to the swords on his back. “Read.”
“Meet me on the docks, north of Old Lammar’s house. Come alone,” the kid says after just one look, and Lambert hates him for that.
“Fuck you, you degenerate book lovers,” he growls.
He lets go of the student and stomps outside with the book and the crumpled note tucked inside his chest armor. When people say to come alone, it usually means it’s a setup and you are walking into a trap. He hopes Jaskier knows that, as he pictures the bright-eyed bard stumbling down empty streets to his death.
*
Lambert hears heartbeats and voices before he can see them. The bard is babbling, his speech a little slurred, and yet he manages to sound cocksure and irritating. The other wants to know about Geralt, about a child, about the Black Ones, and Jaskier laughs and talks about some court intrigue instead. Lambert flinches when the telltale sound of a harsh slap rings through the night. Not what the angry man wanted to hear then.
There are two men with Jaskier. Lambert could take them both down without alerting the guards, but he’s not sure he wouldn’t be putting the wannabee spy at even more risk. His whole business with Geralt isn’t clear to him, and he can’t tell if Jaskier is protecting his brother or if he really doesn’t know shit. Maybe a mix of both.
“What good are you to the country if you can’t gather any information,” the angry man says, his tone clearly menacing.
“I gave you many things about the king…” Jaskier protests.
“Irrelevant now. Nilfgaard want that child, so we need to find it first.”
Jaskier tries to back away, but he can’t go far. Boots scratch on pavement, a knife is unsheathed. Lambert can hear how fast the bard’s heartbeat is going. Not good.
“What use do I have for you now?” the man says. “A liability, a failed project… Ah! Motherfucker!”
The yell is a surprise, and when Lambert finally steps out of the shadows he can see an enormous bald man, half kneeling and holding his groin. Good move. He nods at Jaskier, who opens wide eyes when he spots him.
“Get down!” Jaskier shouts.
Lambert doesn’t react fast enough to avoid the arrow that shoots from behind the bard. It grazes his leg and he jumps back, narrowly avoiding a second shot. He gets his steel sword out, whirls it menacingly. The man holding the crossbow swears and tries to reload in a panic while Lambert advances on him. The man is scared but fast, and another arrow flies his way before he can get close enough to strike.
Geralt would have pirouetted mid air, Eskel would have raised a powerful shield with Quen – and Lambert just stands there like an idiot and tries to parry a flying arrow with his sword. He misses and it slams right into his chest. He skids backward, his legs unsteady.
“Who goes there?” a booming voice demands. “Identify yourselves!”
Baldy and his henchman start running, hoping to disappear back into the city. The archer’s face meets a steel gauntlet and he makes a gurgling sound as he falls to the ground. Guards, just their luck. Lambert doesn’t want to fight guards tonight, they have shields and helmets and it’s a nightmare to get through their armor. His sword is already too dull as it is and he’s tired.
“Play dead,” he hears Jaskier whisper, too low for anyone but a witcher.
There is no threat but the guards now. His chest hurts distantly, so Lambert decides to trust Jaskier’s charade and play along. It’s easy enough to crumple to the ground, pretend not to be breathing and lie there with his eyes closed.
The guards come, loud, maybe drunk. One of them kicks Lambert’s bleeding leg and spits on him. He wants nothing more but to jump to his feet and beat his ass, but he stays utterly still instead. He can hear Jaskier’s heartbeat, fast as a rabbit, somewhere on his left.
“What do you reckon? Drug deal gone bad?” one of the guards suggests.
“Don’t see no drugs,” another remarks.
“Should we call the gravedigger?” a third one asks. He sounds younger than the others. “We can’t leave him here.”
“Hey, everyone!” the first guard yells, his voice echoing in the dark alleyways near the harbor. “There’s a dead body here!” Then, in a quieter, mocking tone, “See? Nobody gives a fuck.”
They kick him again, in the hip this time, and Lambert considers grabbing his sword and slicing him open. But he doesn’t. Then they leave, dragging the unfortunate henchman away. Footsteps retreat. A dog barks in the distance. Jaskier’s heartbeat is still way too fast.
“You’re not actually dead, are you?” the bard finally asks, hovering close but not touching, like he’s scared he made a horrible mistake.
“Urg,” Lambert says as he opens his eyes.
He stiffly rolls into a sitting position. The arrow is still sticking out of his chest. It has pierced his armor where the plates meet. But he feels a lot less damp and sticky than he should have with such a wound. The only blood he can smell is coming from Jaskier’s split lip.
Lambert breaks the arrow shaft and unclasps his armor. Jaskier’s book falls to the ground, the arrowhead still deeply embedded in it. The bard lets out a breathy laugh and says, “Books aren’t that useless after all.”
*
Lambert says that he must be on his way, but he stays for the night – “to make sure the fat spy doesn’t try anything to avenge his bruised balls.” Jaskier just smirks like he’s proud of what he did and doesn’t argue.
He seems to like Lambert’s company, even though he has plenty of friends all over Oxenfurt. “Drink buddy, fuck buddy, old friend from the university, sworn enemy…” And he greets every single one of them. He’s safe here, Nilfgaard won’t try anything. Lambert should go. But he doesn’t.
The book is destroyed beyond repair. Pages torn, pieces missing, words shattered. For some reason Lambert finds himself very upset about it. It’s not even his, he doesn’t give a damn about the stupid thing. And yet, he can’t bring himself to throw it away – he just stares at it that night, while Jaskier is laughing at his own silly joke with a gaggle of young people who study Redanian literature or something. Lambert isn’t really paying attention. All that knowledge about fictional stories, stuck in libraries and the brains of very mortal people… It will vanish with the next fire, invasion or pogrom. It’s futile.
The students end up leaving around midnight, and Jaskier stays. He looks drunk and happy despite his torn collar and the bruise on his chin. Carefree for the first time in months. He winks at the innkeeper’s daughter, who giggles behind the counter.
“Dijkstra won’t have me killed,” Jaskier says when he mistakes Lambert’s somber look for worry. “He doesn’t trust me, but he needs me, I have too many connections.”
Lambert knows that he hasn’t talked to Geralt in months, and that if it’s his bargaining chip, it’s pretty flimsy, but he doesn’t say anything. Jaskier looks at the torn book between them on the table and frowns, a question written on his face. Lambert has been adamant he didn’t care about that story – about any books for that matter, and yet he can’t help but growl, an ugly sound that any other person would have mistaken for aggression. But not the silly bard. For some unfathomable reason he smiles a crooked smile and puts his hand on the book.
“I told you, I know it,” he assures. “I’ll tell you the rest, I promise.”
“You don’t have to,” Lambert mumbles quickly. It brings back confused memories about being a burden during studies at Kaer Morhen, and young witchers slowly getting bored or angry when they had to help him. “But you’re clearly in dire need of a bodyguard,” he adds with a snicker. “So I think I’ll stick around for a while.”
“I don’t need your protection,” Jaskier protests halfheartedly.
“Of course. And I don’t need to hear the end of your stupid dragon story,” Lambert offers, and Jaskier beams at him.
He doesn’t chase after the cute barmaid that night. They retreat to the stables because rooms are too expensive, and Jaskier tries to piece together the end of the damaged book from memory. It’s not as poetic as when he was reading it – he’s hesitating, improvising at times, but it’s even better that way in Lambert’s opinion.
The princess ends up not marrying anyone and she becomes an errant knight, bowing for no prince or lord.
“Good for her,” Lambert mutters, even if they both agree that it’s hardly a plausible ending.