Chapter 72: The Dwarven Teacher
POV: Ciri
Two days of forest roads had worn everyone thin.
"Fiona" had become second nature now—the peasant disguise, the false name, the careful avoidance of anything that might mark her as Cintra's lost princess. But maintaining the mask exhausted muscles she hadn't known she possessed. Every interaction required calculation: Does this merchant recognize Calanthe's jaw in my face? Does that soldier notice how I grip a sword?
Adam walked beside her, practicing small earthbending gestures that wouldn't draw attention. Pebbles rose and fell in his palm. Dirt shifted patterns beneath his boots. Each manipulation came easier than the last.
He adapts so quickly.
The soulbond hummed agreement. Through their connection, she caught glimpses of his elemental perception—the way stone felt solid yet fluid to his senses, how earth wanted to move if given proper direction. When she'd touched his practice pillar yesterday, she'd almost understood.
Almost.
"Smoke ahead." Geralt reined Roach to a halt. "Burning wood. Metal. Blood."
Lambert had already drawn his sword. "Ambush or aftermath?"
"We'll see."
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The caravan came into view around the bend: three wagons, two burning, armed men scattered dead across muddy road. Bandits—I counted eight bodies wearing mismatched leather and bearing crude weapons. A dozen dwarves crouched behind the remaining wagon, crossbows tracking our approach.
"HOLD!" A thick voice bellowed. "State your business or meet the Maker with holes in your chest!"
Geralt raised both hands. "Travelers. We heard fighting."
"Fighting's done." The speaker emerged from behind the wagon—stocky, broad-shouldered, with an axe across his back and a beard that could house small birds. "Though we could've used help five minutes ago."
"Looks like you managed." I studied the battlefield. Eight bandits against what looked like seven dwarves, and the dwarves had clearly won despite being surprised. Tough people, mountain folk.
"Managing and winning are different flavors of survival, boy." The dwarf squinted at us. "I'm Yarpen Zigrin. And you lot have the look of people who've seen some road."
"Some," Geralt allowed.
Three more bandits burst from the treeline.
They'd been waiting. Patient. Counting dwarven casualties before committing their reserve force. Smart tactics—except they hadn't counted us.
My reaction preceded thought. Palms slammed earth as I dropped to my knees, and stone surged upward in a curved wall that caught two bandits mid-charge. The third stumbled around my barrier directly into Lambert's blade.
Geralt moved like water made sharp. His silver sword sang twice. Both dwarven crossbows thudded simultaneously.
Three seconds. Three more corpses.
Yarpen Zigrin stared at my earthen wall with eyes gone wide. "By Mahakam's deepest vein. What in the actual blazing hells was that?"
I let the stone sink back into road. "Earthbending."
"I can see that, boy. Question is how." He approached, reached out, touched the ground where my wall had stood. "Dwarves have worked stone for ten thousand years. We hear its song, we coax it gentle-like. But that—" He jabbed a finger at me. "That was command."
"It's a gift." I kept the explanation vague. "Recent discovery."
"Recent." Yarpen laughed, a booming sound that scattered birds. "Recent, he says. Like finding a diamond and calling it 'recent pebble.' Boy, you just moved mountain-bone like it was river-mud. That's not common. That's not even rare. That's legend."
—Scene Break—
POV: Lambert
Dwarves. Wonderful.
Lambert cleaned his blade while Zigrin's people stripped the dead bandits of valuables. Pragmatic folk, dwarves. Waste nothing, complain about everything, and never forget a slight or a favor.
The caravan leader hadn't stopped staring at Adam since the earth-wall trick. Not with fear—with interest. The kind of interest that preceded either opportunity or danger.
"Stone-magic," Yarpen mused, stroking his beard. "We've got stories, you know. Old tales about humans who spoke to earth. Most folk say they're just that—tales. Pretty lies for children." He circled Adam like a smith examining ore. "But here you stand."
"Here I stand," Adam agreed cautiously.
"Where you headed?"
"Mahakam, actually." Geralt's voice carried careful neutrality. "We'd heard it's secure territory. Good for... lying low."
"Lying low." Yarpen's laugh came harsher this time. "Two witchers, an earth-speaker, and—" His gaze swept to Ciri, lingered. "—a merchant's daughter. Running from something nasty, I'd wager."
"Nasty follows us," Adam admitted. "The kind that doesn't stop."
"The kind with frost in their hearts and cold fire in their eyes?" Yarpen's question carried weight beyond casual inquiry. "Dwarves hear things. Even deep in our holds, whispers reach us. Wild Hunt rides again, they say. Searching for something precious."
None of them answered. None of them needed to.
"Thought so." Yarpen nodded slowly. "Here's my offer, stone-speaker. Help guard my caravan to Mahakam Hold—three days' travel. In return, I'll vouch for you at the gates. Get you inside where humans rarely tread."
"Why?" Lambert couldn't stop the question. "You don't know us."
"No. But I know debts." Yarpen glanced at the dead bandits. "You saved my people, my goods, my life probably. Dwarves don't forget." He extended a hand to Adam. "Deal?"
Adam took it. "Deal."
[ QUEST ACCEPTED: Protect Yarpen's Caravan ]
[ Reward: Entry to Mahakam Hold ]
[ XP on completion: 200 ]
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
Three days transformed into education.
Yarpen talked constantly. His voice filled travel silences with stories of dwarven holds, mining traditions, stone-worship that predated human civilization. I absorbed it all—the way dwarves listened to rock for stress fractures, how they followed ore veins by intuition passed through generations, their belief that mountains possessed spirits worthy of respect.
"You bend earth like we dream of bending earth," Yarpen admitted on the second night, ale loosening his tongue. "What we spend lifetimes learning to sense, you simply do. There's masters in Mahakam who'll want to study that. Might even teach you what they know, see if their techniques work with your... gift."
"I'd appreciate any help." The tremor sense had grown stronger daily. I could feel camp heartbeats through thirty feet of soil now, identify individuals by their walking rhythm. "This power—it's new. I'm still learning limits."
"Limits are lies we tell ourselves." Yarpen poked the fire. "Stone has no limits. Only depth we haven't reached yet." He paused, stared into flames. "There's old magic in Mahakam. Places where metal sings and rock remembers. Maybe that's what your gift needs. Ancient stone to teach young power."
Ciri leaned against my shoulder, half-asleep. Her disguise had relaxed around the dwarves—they cared little for human politics, and princess or peasant meant nothing to people who measured worth by skill and honor.
"What's the catch?" Lambert asked from across the fire. "Mountain folk don't welcome strangers without price."
"The catch is trust." Yarpen met his gaze steadily. "Council will need convincing. They remember what humans built witchers from—what we lost to your experiments. Might take demonstration. Might take service. But stone-speaker here?" He nodded at me. "He's got something dwarves understand. Connection to earth doesn't lie."
I pressed my palm against cool dirt, feeling Mahakam's distant mountains through kilometers of bedrock. Something waited there. Old. Patient. Ready to teach.
"Almost home," I thought. "Or something like it."
Ciri's breathing deepened into sleep. I let tremor sense expand, cataloging every heartbeat within range: dwarves, witchers, horses, and one princess who'd trusted me with her survival.
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