Chapter 83: Cahir's Arrival
POV: Adam
The battlefield erupted into chaos.
Earth walls had divided Cahir's army into three isolated pockets—fifteen soldiers in the eastern section, twenty in the west, and the remaining fifteen plus Cahir himself in the center. Professional coordination shattered in an instant, replaced by the primitive panic of men trapped between stone and steel.
I chose the eastern pocket first.
Fifteen Nilfgaardian soldiers formed a defensive circle, shields raised, swords ready. Their training showed in the discipline—no screaming, no breaking ranks, just cold efficiency as they prepared to die fighting.
"Don't have to kill them. Just have to stop them."
Earth answered my call. Stone projectiles erupted from the ground—not aimed at bodies but at weapons. Metal Sensing guided each shot with precision that training alone couldn't achieve. A sword spun away. A shield cracked. An axe tore from its owner's grip and embedded itself in the stone wall behind him.
"Surrender!" My voice echoed off the earthen barriers. "You've lost. Don't die for a battle already over."
Three soldiers dropped their weapons immediately. Smart ones. The rest hesitated, pride warring with survival instinct.
A sergeant made the decision for them. "CHARGE!"
Twelve men rushed forward. I met them with everything I had.
The first wave hit a wall of compressed air that sent them tumbling backward. The second found their footing transformed into ice-slicked stone, balance becoming memory. The third—the three still standing—faced earth pillars that erupted beneath their feet, launching them skyward before dumping them unceremoniously in a groaning pile.
[ Combat: 15 soldiers neutralized ]
[ XP: +150 ]
[ MP: 760/760 → 680/760 ]
Twelve seconds. Fifteen soldiers. No fatalities.
"Getting better at this."
—Scene Break—
POV: Geralt
The western pocket died screaming.
Geralt didn't enjoy killing humans—preferred monsters, simpler morality—but these soldiers had chosen their path. Swords drawn against Ciri meant swords drawn against him. No quarter asked. None given.
Silver sang through the first rank before they could organize. Aard scattered the second. Igni's flames turned the third into torches that ran shrieking before collapsing.
Lambert worked the pocket's opposite end with characteristic brutality. His twin swords created patterns that Geralt recognized from decades of shared training—the Kaer Morhen style, adapted for maximum lethality in confined spaces.
"Eight down!" Lambert shouted over the chaos. "How many you got?"
"Twelve." Geralt deflected a desperate thrust, countered with a stroke that opened the attacker from hip to shoulder. "Stop counting."
"Counting's fun." Lambert's blade found another throat. "Fourteen."
Twenty soldiers had entered this pocket. Eighteen lay dead or dying within two minutes. The remaining two dropped their weapons, fell to their knees, and begged for mercy that Geralt granted because killing surrendered men sat poorly in his stomach.
"Adam's rubbing off on me. Mercy used to be simpler."
Through the earthen walls, he felt vibrations that suggested more combat—Adam's section, hopefully going as well as his own.
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The mages found me before I could reach the central pocket.
Two Nilfgaardian battle-mages, robes singed from the chaos but power crackling around their hands. They'd climbed one of my earth walls, gaining high ground that gave them clear lines of sight across the battlefield.
Fire bloomed. A column of flame descended toward my position with speed that left no time for thought.
Earth Armor absorbed the first impact. Stone scales blackened, cracked, but held. The heat penetrated anyway—not enough to burn but enough to remind me that stone conducted temperature better than I'd like.
[ MP: 680/760 → 620/760 ]
[ Earth Armor: Damaged ]
Lightning followed fire. The second mage released a bolt that would have cooked me inside my own armor if I hadn't pulled water from the underground aquifer beneath us.
The water wall caught the lightning, conducted it harmlessly into the ground. Steam exploded outward, momentarily obscuring everyone's vision.
"Can't let them keep range advantage."
I dropped into the earth, let stone close over my head, traveled through compressed mineral toward the mages' position. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty—
I erupted beneath them.
Stone fist caught the fire mage in the stomach, doubled him over before he could cast. Ice formed around the lightning mage's hands, freezing them to uselessness before she could complete her gesture.
"Yield." I pressed earth pillars against both their chests, pinning them to the wall they'd climbed. "Or I compress these pillars and break your ribs."
The fire mage spat at me. The lightning mage considered her options, calculated odds, and sagged against her restraints.
"I yield," she said. "Torvald, yield. It's over."
Torvald the fire mage cursed in Nilfgaardian but stopped struggling.
[ Combat: 2 mages neutralized ]
[ XP: +100 ]
[ MP: 620/760 → 540/760 ]
I left them pinned—they'd keep until someone could properly restrain them—and turned toward the central pocket.
Where Cahir waited.
—Scene Break—
POV: Cahir
The trap had been perfect.
Cahir stood among his remaining soldiers—ten men, all veterans, all watching their commander for guidance that he couldn't provide. The earthen walls surrounding them rose fifteen feet high, smooth as glass, impossible to climb. Three exits existed, each blocked by dwarven warriors whose axes gleamed with eager anticipation.
"Outmaneuvered. Outfought. Out-thought."
The earth-shaper rose from the ground before him like a demon summoned from the deep. Stone armor covered him head to toe, scales interlocking in patterns that suggested both strength and flexibility. Eyes glowed faintly through the helm's slits—elemental energy leaking from a human vessel.
"Cahir aep Ceallach." The voice echoed strangely through stone. "Commander of the force hunting Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon. Your army's defeated. Your mages captured. Your soldiers surrounded."
"I have eyes." Cahir kept his voice steady despite the fear clawing his throat. "What do you want?"
"Surrender. Order your men to lay down arms. Come with us peacefully, and everyone lives."
Ten soldiers looked to Cahir. Ten families back in Nilfgaard depending on their safe return. Ten futures hanging on his next words.
"And my own family. Mother. Ana. What happens to them if I surrender?"
"I can't." The words tasted like ash. "You don't understand what you're asking."
"I understand you've been hunting a girl for months. A girl who never harmed you. A girl whose only crime is being born with power others covet."
"You think I want this?" Cahir's composure cracked. "You think I wake each morning eager to chase children across continents? I have orders. Orders with consequences I can't ignore."
"Everyone has orders. Doesn't make them right."
"Right has nothing to do with it." Cahir drew his sword—not attacking, just holding it between himself and the stone demon before him. "End this face-to-face. You want to protect her? Prove you're strong enough."
The earth-shaper considered. Behind him, Cahir glimpsed the white-haired witcher watching from atop an earth wall, silver sword still dripping Nilfgaardian blood.
"Your men surrender," the earth-shaper said finally. "Then we duel. Win or lose, they live."
"Done." Cahir turned to his soldiers. "Lay down arms. That's an order."
Weapons clattered against stone. Ten soldiers knelt, hands behind heads, faces reflecting relief and shame in equal measure.
Cahir removed his helm. Let his opponent see the face of the man he was about to fight.
"I'm ready."
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
Cahir moved like lightning given form.
His first strike came faster than my enhanced reflexes could track—only Earth Armor saved me, stone scales absorbing a blow that would have taken my head. The impact sent me stumbling backward, feet sliding on terrain I'd created.
"Level 40-plus. Geralt wasn't exaggerating."
I countered with an earth pillar aimed at his legs. He jumped it, twisted mid-air, brought his sword down in an overhead strike that cracked my shoulder armor and sent spider-web fractures spreading across the stone.
[ Earth Armor: Significant Damage ]
[ MP: 540/760 → 490/760 (repair cost) ]
"You're good." Cahir circled, sword ready. "Better than expected. But you're not a warrior. You're a mage wearing armor."
"I'm both." Water answered my call, whipping toward his ankles.
He dodged. Barely. The water froze against empty air instead of flesh, and Cahir used the moment to close distance again.
Three exchanges followed. Each one cost me—armor damage, MP drain, accumulated bruises from impacts that stone couldn't fully absorb. Cahir fought like a man with nothing to lose, pressing advantages with skill that decades of training had honed to lethal perfection.
But I had elements he couldn't match.
Air burst threw off his timing. Earth shifted beneath his feet. Water became ice traps he had to constantly navigate. I couldn't beat him in direct swordplay, but I could make every engagement a new problem to solve.
Stone encased his sword mid-swing. For one heartbeat, his weapon was useless.
I struck. Earth fist to his chest, followed by water wrap around his ankles, followed by air push that sent him sprawling.
He hit the ground hard. Rolled. Came up sword-first—stone shattering under the force of his recovery stroke—and met my follow-up attack with a parry that nearly disarmed me of my own stone blade.
[ MP: 490/760 → 420/760 ]
We separated, both panting.
"You fight well," Cahir said. Something had shifted in his expression—not defeat, but recognition. "But I cannot stop. Emperor holds my family—mother, sister. Stop hunting girl, they die."
The words hit harder than any sword.
"What?"
"My family." His sword lowered slightly—not surrender, just exhaustion. "Hostages in Nilfgaard proper. I succeed, they live. I fail..."
From the wall above, Geralt's voice carried down. "He's telling the truth. Can hear his heartbeat. No deception."
I stared at the man I'd been fighting. Not a monster. Not a fanatic. Just a father and son and brother, trapped between impossible choices.
"Killing him doesn't stop the hunt. Just condemns innocent people."
"Then let's find a third option." I let my stone blade dissolve. "One that saves everyone."
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