Chapter 12: Hunt

A month passed after the start of the siege, during this time children were mostly learning how to live in the forest.

During this time they set up a camp in the woods where they live for now. Vesimir taught them how to hunt some wild animals and how to cook for themself. A lot of children walked out of the castle, but this time of the year was not particularly pleasant.

It is winter and the weather doesn't have mercy on anyone. Some of the children that escaped could not live in the cold for too long and died freezing to death, while others could not handle wild boar that they tried to hunt and end up as his meal instead.

Sadly Vesimir could not save them, he was only a single man and dealing with 40 kids was not an easy task in the woods.

Over the month there were 2 solid hunting parties that formed during their time. While they would be responsible for catching and killing the prey, others were responsible for preparing wood, cooking food and taking care of the camp.

Usually, the one to cook was Vesimir, since he was the one that had the most experience and others were not particularly good at this.

The first party consisted of 3 members, they were the strongest among their peers. Their party consisted of August, Geralt and Eskel and another party had a leader in face of Lambert and 4 other party members.

It was about the time for one of the parties to go for a hunt since they were running low on food and August's party volunteered to do the trip.

They walked through the woods in search of their prey, it took them about an hour before they were able to find clues of one of the animals being close. Tracking its path they were led into a small cave.

3 boys looked into each other eyes before nodding their heads agreeing to stay silent and continue their hunt.

They walked inside a cave. Cave itself was not big, it had a wide entrance that was about 5-7 meters, but the height was only about 1.5 metres. Because the boys were still small, they had no problem walking inside of the cave, but if they were to use weapons it would bring trouble.

They walked deeper and deeper into the cave. For them, there was no difference between dark and light, their eyes could see everything even in the darkest places.

If you were to look from the side, you would see nothing but yellow cats eyes that were looking around searching for its prey.

When they almost reached the end of the cave they spotted a wolf there.

Wolf sniffed the air before turning in the direction of the boys and stood in the defence stance ready to fight.

*Rrrrrrrrr*

All of the boys had almost no weapons, but they did have small knives that they were able to have in their possession during their stay in the Kaer Morhen, they were still not ready to wield Witcher swords, but it would not help them in such a close space.

Without wasting time August dashed at the wolf with his knife in his palm ready to deliver a deadly strike.

Eskel screamed at August as soon as he saw him move "Stop, Why do you act without giving us any sign!"

Complaints were completely ignored by August and by the looks of Geralt he had no interest in complaints that were coming from Eskel.

Wolf jumped on August with his claws ready to tear him apart, but with a quick direction change, August avoided the wolf's claws successfully attracting his attention on him.

While August was dodging wolf attacks, Geralt sneaked behind and stabbed his knife in the back of the wolf.

*Hoooooowwww* Howled the wolf.

His head turned around, and with angry eyes he looked at Geralt, jumping on him.

But just before Geralt was about to be pierced by the sharp fangs of the wolf, August launched himself into the wolf and inserted his knife in his chest.

Wolf missed his strike and fell to the stone floor, trying to gather up some strength to stand up and fight back. But before long something shiny flew past both Geralt and August and went right inside Wolfs' eye.

It was a knife of Eskel, he decided to end the wolf with a quick throw on his weapon, which looked cool, but a real fight could result in death, since leaving yourself without weapons is not a wise choice.

Both August and Geralt stared at Eskel with heavy eyes. To which Eskel shrugged his shoulders and inquired "What?"

To his disappointment, none of them answered, but just shook their heads which made Eskel quite annoyed.

They walked to the end of the cave only to see what wolf was hiding there.

On the stone floor lay several pups, with another big wolf that almost had no meat on her. Her bones could be clearly seen just by the raw looks you could tell that she is very weak.

Her steady, but rare breaths were the only indication of her being alive.

It was a mate of the wolf that they just killed. Now she and her pups were destined to die, they could not hunt, since they were too small and their mother gave most of her strength to feed her pups, till she collapsed to the ground losing almost all ability to move.

August silently walked to the mother and passed his knife right through her head, granting her a quick death with the least amount of struggle.

August thought to himself 'This is what life is. The strongest eat ones that are weaker. She gave all of her strength so her children can survive, but in the end, they are all doomed to the same end. I will grant them freedom'

He held his knife above pups and directed it towards them, before he could bring his dagger down his hand was caught by no one else, but Geralt. He stopped him from killing pups and looked down at them saying.

"They don't deserve to die"

August replied not understanding Geralt's reasoning "But they will die here anyway"

Geralt shrugged, but after a second of thinking, he took a pup in his hand placing it on his shoulder. He proceeds to pick up the next one and hand it over to August.

August looked in the eyes of Geralt and inquired "Why?"

He replied in a calm manner "Their parents gave their lives protecting them, they were destined to have a full family. We took that away from them, they don't deserve to die for our actions "

Saying that Geralt looked sad, it looks like it reminded him of himself.

He had parents that were supposed to love him and give him the love he deserved, but his parents didn't take the responsibility upon themself to love Geralt. No, they gave him away in the castle of Kaer Morhen, leaving nothing but vivid memories.

August took the pup in his hands and looked at him. The pup started to imitate bark, which sounded silent and funny since he was still too small for that.

Before long Eskel with a smile on his face walked past them to get a pup for himself, but when he saw that there were no left. He frowned at both of the boys and said "This is unfair"

Geralt showed a rare smirk and replied "Life is not fair"

They proceed to walk back towards the camp, carrying a wolf corpse along with them. Since Eskel was the one without a pup he was granted the noble role of carrying a corpse back.

When they walked out of the cave, suddenly August felt something. His gaze looked somewhere in the distance as a single tear run down his cheek. With longing eyes, he stood in one place looking at the distance.

He muttered something under his breath and gave out small smile.

Eskel seemed to notice the change in August, the sudden stupor and stare that went in the distance. He inquired "August, everything is alright?"

August moved his gaze on Eskel and back at the distance before shaking his head and replying "Let's go"

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