The road had warned him long before the battlefield came into view.

Geralt slowed Roach without thinking, the leather reins tightening slightly in his gloved hand as his nose wrinkled beneath the familiar, unwelcome scent. It wasn’t rot alone — he’d smelled rot a thousand times, on battlefields, in swamps, in crypts where the dead refused to stay buried. This was sharper. Bitter. Metallic and sour, like herbs burned too long in an alchemical furnace.

It clung to the back of his throat the same way the decoctions had during the Trial of the Grasses — that dry, poisonous taste that never really left a witcher once he learned to recognize it.

His medallion trembled against his chest.

Not the steady vibration of a monster nearby. Not the warning hum of magic either.

Something else.

Geralt exhaled slowly.

“Damn it…”

He knew that scent. Or rather — he knew what kind of creature carried it. Not a monster. Not exactly. Another witcher. But not one of the Schools he knew.

The wind shifted, carrying smoke across the road ahead, thin grey strands crawling low over the ground before rising toward the dull, cloud-choked sky. Geralt urged Roach forward at a walk, eyes narrowing as the shapes ahead began to form through the haze.

Broken wheels half-sunk in mud. Armor scattered like shed skin. Bodies — human, monster, hard to tell at first — piled in uneven heaps across what had once been a battlefield. Old war banners lay trampled into the dirt, their colors long gone to ash and rain. Whatever fight had started here hadn’t ended cleanly.

And it hadn’t ended recently.

But the monsters… Geralt’s gaze moved over the carcasses as he rode past, and recognition came one by one. Grave hags. Drowners. A rotfiend split clean down the spine. Something larger burned almost beyond shape, blackened bone showing through cracked flesh. All dead. All cut with precision. He swung down from the saddle before the smoke grew too thick, boots landing softly in the mud. The medallion at his throat vibrated again — a faint, uneven tremor that made the chain rattle quietly against his armor.

No monster nearby.

And yet it wouldn’t stop.

Of course it wouldn’t.

Because the last time it had done that without reason… was last winter.

Geralt’s eyes hardened slightly as the memory surfaced — the political meeting, too many nobles in one room, Roche standing beside him looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

And across the hall — That pendant.

Not Wolf. Not Griffin. Not Bear. Something he hadn’t seen before. Something Vesemir had spoken about only once, late at night, after too much drink and too much silence. A school that shouldn’t have existed. A madman’s attempt to make witchers stronger. More mutations. More experiments. He could smell the alchemy before he even saw them. Monster tissue. Distilled mutagens. Herbs burned too hot. Potions that should never be mixed.

It clung to the air around the battlefield like poison.

And it clung to them.

Geralt stopped walking.

A few steps ahead, half-hidden by the drifting smoke, a figure bent over one of the corpses. Another grave hag lay split open beside them, its limbs twisted wrong, black blood soaking into the dirt.

The witcher — {{user}} — grabbed the creature by the arm and dragged it toward the pile without hurry, boots leaving deep prints in the mud. The movement was efficient, almost careless, like someone used to cleaning up after a fight alone.

Most of the bodies in the pile were already burning. The fire wasn’t strong anymore, only embers and slow smoke curling upward, wrapping around them like a curtain. Geralt stopped a good few steps away, boots sinking slightly in the wet ground. Then they turned. Just a little. Just enough that their eyes caught the light through the smoke.

Geralt held their gaze, face as unreadable as stone.
He grunted.

“Mm.” Another moment passed before he added, almost under his breath:

“Wind carries your alchemy a mile off.” Geralt’s eyes stayed on them, steady and unreadable as stone while the smoke curled between them.