Work Text:
“So witcher,” the woman, barely more than a girl really, finishes her story anxiously, “will you take the contract?”
Lambert, slumped over the table across from her, poking listlessly at a plate of eggs and hungover literally beyond human comprehension—White Gull being infinitely less forgiving than even the strongest vodka—has not been listening. What he has been doing is trying to get his pickled brain to cough up an answer regarding where the fuck it’s left him. The last thing he coherently remembers is him and Coën, travelling together on their way back to Kaer Morhen for the winter, bumping into the Caravan just outside of Ard Carraigh and Aiden goading them into having a drink together to celebrate the end of another successful (read: survived) season on the Path. But this is definitely not Ard Carraigh.
“Sir?” she asks again, wringing her hands.
“Shh. M’thinking,” Lambert slurs. About a half an hour ago, the nervous lady currently sitting across from him had pried him out of the haystack he’d been passed out in and lured him to this tavern with the promise of breakfast and work. On that short trek, Lambert had gotten a good look at pretty much the entire town: about two dozen houses, a trading post and a tavern… nothing terribly distinctive. At least the place is surrounded by the familiar evergreens of the Blue Mountain foothills, so he can’t be that far off course. But while he has his swords, he is noticeably missing his pack and his coin purse (not to mention Coën) and showing up at Kaer Morhen with nothing but steel, silver and the shirt on his back is a good way to ensure Vesemir never lets him hear the end of it. Maybe he should have been listening more closely to her contract after all.
“Sorry,” he mumbles as he manhandles a rubbery egg into his mouth and chews, “one more time, from the top.”
“We were beset by a horrible monster last night!”
Lambert winces as her voice spikes in pitch. “Horrible monster. Right. You seen it?”
She shakes her head fervently. “No, thank the Goddess, but we heard it! A horrible sound! A wailing, bestial thing! And breaking our fences!”
Well, that doesn’t narrow it down too much. “When did this start?”
“Just yesterday, the day after the full moon.”
The day after the full moon? That can’t be right… they’d bumped into Aiden when the moon was still waxing on the sixth… unless… “What day is it?”
She blinks in confusion, but answers, “Today? The fourteenth of November.”
Eight fucking days. He’d lost eight fucking days. He was going to murder Aiden. “Anything gone missing? Sheep? Chickens?” Children? he doesn’t ask aloud.
“Pies!”
Lambert stares at her for a second, waiting for her to admit that this is all a joke and she is just having him on, but the stress lines wrinkling her forehead and the tension in her jaw tell him that she is deadly serious. “Pies?” he finally asks incredulously.
She nods. “Yes. And some other foodstuffs from the barn. But it was the pie that scared mama the worst! Right off the windowsill! To think! It was that close!”
“Lady,” Lambert groans. “Broken fences and nicked food at this time of the year mean bear, not monster. They’re all stupid with trying to put on their winter weight. Just—”
“I’ve lived in Lundy my whole life”—Lundy! He was right; he was only slightly off course!—“and I’ve never seen a bear that leaves tracks like these!”
Lambert sighs and pushes himself up from the table. Annoyingly, the floor sways slightly before settling. “Okay, okay, let’s go look at the animal tracks.”
The walk is mercifully short, Lundy isn’t big enough for anything to be far, and soon Lambert is crouching in the slightly frozen mud beneath the infamous windowsill, trying to get his uncooperative eyes to focus. Immediately, and somewhat resentfully, he has to admit that the woman is correct: these are not bear tracks. They look humanoid, but no sane man would be walking barefoot in the below freezing weather. A large nekker? A small ogre? He follows the tracks away from the house and towards a small shed in the backyard with a small plume of smoke rising from the chimney.
“What’s in there?” he asks, nodding a head toward the shed. “Food?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “The charcoal kiln.”
The tracks unerringly lead to the shed, and, as he can get closer, he is sure he can hear something moving in there. Whatever it is was probably just looking for a warm place to sleep, but it’s awake now and it knows he’s out here. He slowly reaches back for his silver sword, making sure he keeps himself between the door and his employer. Maybe, with any luck, it’s not hostile and he can just spook it— A single, perfectly clear footstep preserved in the frozen mud catches Lambert’s attention and he suddenly has to try very hard not to break into a grin. A right foot missing the two smallest toes and with a crooked first metatarsal from a poorly healed break: he knows exactly what he’s hunting now.
Leaving his sword where it is, he clears his throat and turns with affected solemnity. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to clear the area.”
She clutches the amulet at her neck. “Is it dangerous?”
“It can be,” Lambert begrudgingly admits, “but I don’t think it’ll cause me any trouble if I go in alone.”
“What is it?”
Lambert has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “A Griffin.”
“A griffin?!?”
“But just a small one, don’t worry. I’ll chase it off.”
Lambert waits until she has fled to the safety of her house before throwing the door open and drawling, “Morning, Coën. How’re you feeling this fine day?”
The Griffin witcher looks up at him pathetically, bloodshot yellow-green eyes the only part of him not black with soot. “Lambert!” he hisses despondently, “I don’t know where any of my clothes are!”
“C’mon,” Lambert pulls him to his unsteady feet. “I know a nice haystack you can hide in while I collect your bounty and buy you some pants.”
“My what?”
“And if you squawked a bit while we walked, that’d really help my case.”
The indignant sputtering noises Coën makes at that suggestion hardly sound anything like an actual griffin, but, luckily for Lambert, the lady from Lundy doesn’t know the difference.