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“Ye gods, but you’re a horse’s ass!” the mage snaps, and then everything is pain, blinding and deafening in its intensity, as bad as - worse than - the fucking Trials.
Lambert screams, and it comes out wrong. He tries to push himself to his feet, and his hands are wrong, and his hips are wrong, and he gets up on his feet for a moment and overbalances hard back onto his hands and - and feet, and usually that’s a very uncomfortable position but it’s the most natural way to stand now, somehow, someway.
He can’t see directly in front of him. He can’t feel his fingers. And there’s something stuck to his ass.
He tries to swear, and it comes out a sort of snorting noise. He tries to yell, and it’s a long angry trumpeting noise that he knows, he’s heard it before, every time -
Every time Eskel’s fucking stupid stallion gets pissed at a deer.
He drops his head and looks sideways at his hands, and yeah, they’re fucking hooves. He swings his head around - his neck is far, far too long - and yeah, that’s a fucking tail on his ass. Also his feet are hooves. Also he’s wearing a sort of...pack saddle, not really a riding saddle, with all of his bags hanging from it and his swords strapped to it.
As far as silver linings go, still having his stuff is a decent one, though of course he’s got no way to use any of it. Gods fucking damn all mages.
The mage who did this is gone, of course; Lambert figures she knew if she’d stuck around he’d have tried to trample her.
Alright. This is…bad, but not a complete fucking catastrophe, at least not yet.
He’s only about a week’s travel from Kaer Morhen. If he can make it there...if he can make it there, maybe one of the other witchers will be able to figure out what to do about this. Maybe Geralt’s stupid fucking witch will be able to turn him back.
It’s the best chance he’s got, anyhow.
*
Turns out learning to travel on four legs isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Lambert wants to run - well, gallop - just to get some of his anger out, but the first time he tries to go faster than a plodding walk, his legs tangle up and he nearly goes down in a heap. He knows exactly how dangerous a broken leg is to a horse - he’s not risking it. Dying alone in the wilderness might be how most witchers go out, but fuck it, Lambert’s going to die in battle if he can’t die in bed, and he’s certainly not going to die as a fucking horse.
Also, horses need a lot of food, and a lot of water, which Lambert knows, and it’s why he doesn’t have a fucking horse; feeding a witcher is hard enough without adding in a damn thousand-pound animal to look after. He has to keep stopping to graze, and drink, and graze again, and drink again. At least he can shit without stopping; that’s something. And his tail is pretty useful for getting rid of flies, once he gets the hang of having an entire new appendage.
He stays far away from any sign of people, because with his luck he’d end up being strapped to a cart or something and spend the rest of his life hauling cabbages around. Though hauling cabbages might be better than killing monsters, in the grand scheme of things.
It takes him almost two weeks of plodding and grazing and figuring out how to trot and grazing and figuring out that trotting for too long is exhausting and starting to get really fucking itchy under the damn harness and grazing some more gods fucking damn it before he reaches the foot of the Trail. It’s late in the day, and he’s certainly not going to try to climb the Killer in the dark, not when his night vision is fucking awful because apparently horses are supposed to sleep at night or something stupid like that, but there’s a campsite they all use, hidden off to one side of the path, so he heads for that.
And miracle of miracles, there’s someone there. Geralt.
Lambert whinnies. Geralt looks up and spots him, and his eyes narrow, and then he springs to his feet and comes over, hands spread wide, making a soft soothing sort of chirping noise. “Hey, boy,” he says when he reaches Lambert, holding out a flat palm with something on it - a bit of carrot. Lambert glares at him, but he takes the carrot as delicately as he can. No point mangling one of Geralt’s hands.
Carrot, it turns out, tastes pretty damn good when you’re a horse.
“Hey there, boy,” Geralt says again, stroking a hand down Lambert’s neck. “I don’t recognize you, but that’s a pair of witcher swords you’ve got on - oh, you haven’t been untacked in a while, that’s...that’s not great. Whose swords are these, hm?”
I’m a horse, idiot, Lambert wants to say. I can’t answer you. He snaps his teeth in Geralt’s direction, not really trying to bite, just showing his irritation. If a horse did that to him, he’d be tempted to whack its rump to make it behave.
But Geralt just steps back and waits until Lambert drops his head and holds still. His hands are very gentle as he takes the harness and saddlebags off of Lambert’s back, and then he steps away for a moment and comes back with a currycomb, and Lambert discovers that being curried down is fucking amazing. He stands there like a godsdamned idiot and lets Geralt brush all the sweat and loose hair and general grime away, and then lets himself be led over to stand near Roach. Geralt talks the whole time, too, which is fucking weird. It’s all gentle words, “There now, that must feel better, doesn’t it boy?” and “Shh, sorry, there’s a bit of galling here, I’ll get an ointment on that once we’re done,” and “You’re a very well-behaved fellow, aren’t you, my Roach could learn a few things from you, couldn’t she girl?”
Lambert’s never been called ‘well-behaved’ before, and isn’t sure he likes it, but the currycomb feels so good that he can’t bring himself to bite Geralt, or even just snap again.
Geralt gives him a bucket of oats and another carrot, too, and then goes and sits down by the fire and starts going through Lambert’s bags. Lambert snorts and stomps his foot at the rudeness. Those are his things.
But Geralt doesn’t actually go through very much. Just enough to find Lambert’s journal - they all keep one, to record monsters and payments and bad encounters with the locals - and flip to the first page to find the name.
And then he puts the journal back in the bag, and closes the bag up very carefully, and comes over to Lambert, and leans his head against Lambert’s shoulder, and sobs.
Just once, a wracking horrible noise that Lambert’s never heard before and never wants to again; it sounds like it came from the bottom of Geralt’s soul, and holds such pain that a second such sob might actually be a fucking death-rattle. He swings his head around to stare at Geralt in disbelief. That - that noise? For him? For the scapegrace of Kaer Morhen, the youngest and least-wanted of their ramshackle brotherhood? For Eskel, sure, he knows Geralt would weep for Eskel, but - for him?
“Fuck,” Geralt rasps against Lambert’s shoulder. “Fuck, no.” And then he falls silent, one hand fisted in Lambert’s mane, shoulders shaking with silent, wracking grief.
Lambert stands there in blank astonishment, forgetting even to chew. He’s never imagined that Geralt might actually give this much of a shit about whether he lives or dies. He’d have guessed - well, he’d have guessed Geralt might raise a tankard of ale to a fallen brother, maybe; helped build the ceremonial empty pyre, even, because Geralt’s a traditionalist like that. But not actual grief, mourning so deep it looks like it fucking hurts.
Geralt straightens up at last, wiping at his eyes with the back of a hand. “Sorry about that, boy,” he murmurs, stroking the damp patch of fur on Lambert’s shoulder. “Just - well. Your witcher can’t have had you long; less than a year, yeah? So you might not’ve known him too well. Foul-mouthed little shit, he was.” He strokes Lambert’s nose gently. “Brave as a griffin, and smarter’n me by a fair ways, and loyal down to the bone, too.”
That’s...not the eulogy Lambert was expecting. Well, the ‘foul-mouthed little shit,’ sure, that’s fair enough; he is. But the rest of it? Since when does Geralt think he’s brave, or smart, or loyal? Since when does Geralt weep for him?
*
Lambert’s still puzzling over that as they make their slow way up the Trail. He’s carrying a very light load, Geralt being careful of the spots where the harness has rubbed him raw, and Roach is pulling a very full wagon, so Geralt never pushes them faster than Lambert can comfortably walk. And Lambert knows Geralt is weird about horses, but it’s one thing to sort of vaguely know your brother talks to his horse more than he does to any person except maybe Eskel, and another thing to suddenly be a horse, and therefore, apparently, be an appropriate conversation partner.
Geralt is funny. Who knew? He spends the whole trip up the Trail talking to Roach and Lambert about everything from the stones underfoot to the interesting variety of moss on the cliff walls, with dry asides that make Lambert want to laugh, except horses can’t. He makes puns, the fucker; since when does he make puns?
It takes them three days to make it to Kaer Morhen, and Geralt spends the whole trip fucking pampering Lambert. He fusses over him like a damned mother hen, smears ointment on the saddle galls at every stop, curries him each night until Lambert’s a fucking puddle of contentment, strokes Lambert’s ears and nose with hands so gentle it’s hard to believe they’re a witcher’s, and murmurs near-constant compliments and praise. He’s like that with Roach, too, though not quite so...extravagantly. Fucker’s so fucking weird about horses.
When they reach Kaer Morhen, Vesemir comes out to help, and pauses at the sight of Geralt leading two horses, raising an eyebrow in silent question.
Geralt says, quietly, “He’s...he’s Lambert’s.”
Lambert figures Vesemir will shrug and say something like, “Good riddance,” or “Eh, what a pity.” He’s never been Vesemir’s favorite, never golden-boy Geralt or good-son Eskel; he was a holy terror as a child and has never really grown out of it, and Vesemir’s more likely to swear at him than give him even a word of praise. Lambert’s always known that Vesemir would have preferred almost anyone else to have survived the pogrom and the Path.
But Vesemir’s face just sort of crumples, and he puts a hand out and braces himself on a wall like his knees are about to give out. “No,” he says hoarsely, like the word’s been ripped from his throat.
“He had all Lambert’s gear,” Geralt says grimly. “He’d been tacked up at least a week, maybe two. And he had Lambert’s swords.”
“No,” Vesemir says again, like a prayer, and turns away, shoulders shaking. Lambert stares. That’s - that’s not - Vesemir can’t be grieving him. Not stone-faced Vesemir.
Geralt steps forward and puts a hand on Vesemir’s shoulder, and Vesemir makes a low, keening sound and leans into the touch.
There’s a long, still, horrible moment, and then Vesemir straightens and nods gratitude to Geralt, and takes Lambert’s reins. He leads Lambert into a stall in the stables, untacks him and curries him and tends his hooves and the healing saddle-galls, and the whole time he is weeping, silent tears streaking his face and soaking into his beard.
Lambert doesn’t know what to make of that, at all.
Vesemir leaves him with a bucket of oats and a rack of hay and a full trough of water, and a warm blanket draped tenderly over his back, and he and Geralt go on up to the keep, leaving Lambert to Roach’s silent company and his own bewildered thoughts.
*
Eskel gets back to Kaer Morhen a week later, and Lambert spends that whole week being baffled. Geralt and Vesemir both dote on him, spending hours grooming him and talking to him, checking his hooves and the nearly-healed saddle galls almost compulsively. They both sneak him carrots and bits of apple whenever they think the other isn’t looking, and take any given opportunity to stroke his ears and nose, and generally treat him like he’s some sort of priceless treasure instead of a smallish and rather ugly stallion.
Both of them also spend the week telling stories - to a horse - about Lambert himself. And they’re not nasty stories, either, not ‘aren’t we lucky that bastard’s not here to make trouble.’
Vesemir tells stories of Lambert’s climbing exploits, of the horrible alcohol he’s brewed, of the pranks he’s played - tells them and weeps, silent tears dripping into the straw as he braids Lambert’s mane. Geralt tells stories of the hunts they’ve been on together, wyverns and harpies in the mountains around Kaer Morhen, of Lambert’s creativity with bombs, of long evenings playing Gwent in front of the fire - tells them with his arms wrapped around Lambert’s neck, with affection so obvious in his voice that even Lambert can’t pretend it’s anything else.
It’s utterly bizarre.
Eskel gets back late in the afternoon, and Geralt and Vesemir are busy fixing the roof, so Eskel makes it into the stables before they reach him. He stands there looking at Lambert curiously for a moment, and then goes about putting Scorpion into a stall and piling his bags by the door to be carried up to the keep when he’s done caring for the horse, and he’s halfway through grooming Scorpion when Geralt slips in through the door and leans on the stall gate in front of Lambert, offering an apple slice. Lambert eats it, because apples are fucking good when you’re a horse.
“Vesemir get a new horse?” Eskel asks, and Geralt winces.
“No,” he says miserably, and Eskel turns and raises both eyebrows. “Finish with Scorpion.”
“Alright,” Eskel says, sounding very confused, and finishes getting Scorpion groomed and settled before he comes over to join Geralt, bumping their shoulders together. “What’s the big secret, Wolf?”
Geralt swallows. “He’s Lambert’s horse,” he says quietly. “Lambert...wasn’t with him.”
Eskel goes white beneath his tan, and sways so drastically that Geralt has to catch him before he falls. Lambert whickers with worry. “No,” Eskel says, like he’s pleading with Geralt or the gods. “No, that - that can’t be right -”
“He had Lambert’s swords,” Geralt rasps.
“Fuck,” Eskel says, and his legs buckle, and he goes to his knees on the dusty stable floor, hands covering his face as he sobs. Geralt drops to the ground beside him, winding his arms around Eskel’s shoulders and curling around him like he wants to shield Eskel from the world, and Lambert hangs his head over the stall door and nudges at them both, like that’ll fucking help somehow.
He didn’t think it would hurt them like this, to believe him dead. He didn’t think they’d grieve so - so desperately. Maybe it’s just that there are only four Wolves left in the world, so far as any of them know, and the loss of even one of their number is consequently enormous, but - the stories. The weeping. The way they’ve been looking after Lambert-as-a-horse so...tenderly.
He hasn’t figured out yet if it would be better to let them keep thinking Lambert’s just a horse, or to somehow tell them who he is, maybe by scratching his name in the dirt or something like that, since apparently the curse isn’t the sort of thing their medallions can detect.
The thing is, he didn’t hear anything about how this curse might be broken.
If he knew how to break it, sure, he’d do his fucking damnedest to communicate somehow, to let them know who he is and how to cure him. Especially now that he’s reasonably sure they’d go through fire and flood to find the cure, if it was something simple like hen’s teeth or succubus tears. But since he doesn’t have any idea how to break it…
Well, he’s going to be a horse until he dies, most likely, and there’s no fucking point making his brothers miserable about it.
Eskel finally stops weeping, and wipes his face on his sleeve, and gets slowly to his feet to lean on the door to Lambert’s stall and pet Lambert’s nose with a shaking hand. “What’s the horse’s name, then?”
“No idea,” Geralt says. “Weirdest thing - he doesn’t show up in Lambert’s journal at all.”
“Bastard probably just called you ‘Horse,’” Eskel murmurs to Lambert. “Fuck. Fuck.” He dashes a hand across his eyes. “I need to get very drunk, Wolf.”
“Yeah,” Geralt says. “We saved the last of Lambert’s mead for you.”
“Ah fuck,” Eskel says, and leans his forehead against Lambert’s for a minute. Lambert stands there quietly, entirely unsure how to react. “Fuck,” Eskel whispers again after a little while. “I was so sure he was gonna outlive both of us, Wolf.”
“Yeah,” Geralt agrees, which - what? Just - what? They thought Lambert - scapegrace Lambert, youngest and wildest and least of the Wolves - would outlive golden-boy Geralt and the fucking dragon of Kaer Morhen himself?
“Right,” Eskel says, and strokes a hand over Lambert’s mane as he straightens. “I need that drink now.”
Geralt nods and leads him away, and Lambert stands there in the warmth of the stable and wonders what the fuck he’s been missing all these years, because apparently it’s been a lot.
*
Geralt and Eskel and Vesemir must draw up a roster or something, because they take it in turns to come and groom Lambert and feed him and take him out into the courtyard to let him stretch his legs. And Eskel, too, talks whenever he is tending Lambert, telling him stories about…well, about himself. About the time he brought in a whole damn sturgeon from his fishing trip, and the way Eskel snuck down once and discovered Lambert’s secret painting spot and has never told anyone about it, and the apparently adorable way Lambert spends most of every winter bundled up in furs because it’s cold and his hair sticks up like a bird’s fluff.
Lambert had wondered, occasionally, why Eskel used to smile just a little every time he glanced over at Lambert huddled by the fire. He’d thought it was mockery. Apparently it was just amusement at his hair. There’s a fucking reason he usually slicks it back, gods damn it.
Though the fact that Eskel always thought it looks cute and wanted to touch it…that’s news. So’s the fact that Geralt liked listening to Lambert’s rants about alchemy, and that Vesemir always wanted to hug him when he got back from the Path but never dared, lest that be the straw that broke the proverbial horse’s back and kept Lambert from ever coming back again.
Gods damn.
If Lambert knew how to break this fucking curse -
But he doesn’t. And he’s pretty sure the only thing worse than mourning him to his damn face would be for his brothers to be trying desperately to cure him despite not knowing how.
So he just…eats his damn oats and hay, and lets his brothers curry him and braid his mane and weep on him, and wonders what the fuck he’s going to do come springtime. There’s not a chance in hell that either Geralt or Eskel will bring him out on the Path - they have their own horses, after all, and with the way they’re grieving, they’re hardly going to want to take the chance of him getting killed. So he’s probably going to be staying in Kaer Morhen with Vesemir, which on the one hand means he’ll be mostly romping about in the meadows behind the keep, eating grass and being lazy all day, except when Vesemir needs some help hauling supplies up from the village at the base of the mountain…but Lambert suspects that’s going to get boring as fuck really damn quickly.
On the other hand, or rather hoof, it’s not like he can go back out on the Path himself. A horse can’t exactly kill anything more dangerous than maybe a nekker. A drowner if he was really lucky. And of course he wouldn’t be able to negotiate contracts, or…well, do anything, actually. Except get horse-napped and taken off to be someone’s work-nag, and probably gelded into the bargain, since he’s nowhere near handsome enough as a horse to be taken as some sort of purebred stud.
So.
Fuck that fucking mage anyhow.
At least there are carrots. Lambert is a lot more easily placated with carrots than he ever was when he was walking around on two legs.
The winter wears on. Lambert makes friends with Roach - mostly by sharing his carrots with her - and reaches a sort of uneasy truce with Scorpion, who is dubious about another stallion in his territory but willing to deal with it if Lambert doesn’t do anything to irritate him. Geralt and Eskel and Vesemir continue to be absurdly affectionate, and Lambert - well, he’s a horse, so they don’t expect him to be a prickly bastard, so he can get away with things like draping his head over their shoulders in the best approximation of a hug that he can manage, or snuffling at their pockets for carrots to make them laugh, or nibbling on their hair to make them squawk and flail and call him a terrible bastard of a horse, just like his owner, why would they ever expect Lambert to get any other type of horse anyhow?
Which, to be fair, if Lambert had ever bought himself a horse, it would probably have been a cranky bastard, so that’s accurate.
…Maybe this is why most other witchers do buy horses. Not to mirror their personalities, no, but to have someone to talk to who will just listen. And maybe beg for carrots or apple slices. But just…not expect anything of them but grooming and food and occasional burdens to bear.
Lambert’s pretty sure that even if his curse ever does get broken, though, he won’t be buying a horse of his own. He’d spend the whole time worrying the nag was some other cursed asshole. How could you even tell, after all? Apparently his curse is strong enough or subtle enough that it doesn’t even set off his brothers’ medallions.
But that’s assuming it ever gets broken, and Lambert still has no idea how that might happen, so…at this point, the question’s pretty moot.
He is very bored by midwinter, though. The novelty of being a horse has long since worn off, and while he definitely appreciates the time his brothers are taking with him - the grooming, the exercise, the stories - whenever they’re not around, he’s stuck standing there in a comfortable stall with plenty of food and nothing to do.
He wants his alchemy lab. He wants to spar with his brothers. He wants a terrible old bestiary to mock. He wants -
Fuck it, he wants to be human again, or as close as a witcher ever gets.
It makes him irritable, and he feels a bit bad about nipping at Geralt’s sleeves and sidling away from Vesemir’s hands and pretending to stomp on Eskel’s feet, but he’s bored stupid, alright?
It’s Eskel who says, “He’s probably not used to standing about all day,” and starts bringing him out on hunting expeditions. Not for monsters, of course, but they’ve always got to go out for fresh meat or wood or even some of the weirder herbs that grow up in the cave system above the keep. Lambert takes care to be extremely cooperative while Eskel is tacking him up, and doesn’t even toss his head at the bit.
“You want to work, don’t you, boy?” Eskel murmurs. “Yeah, I get that. I get pretty twitchy over the winter, too.”
That’s news to Lambert, actually. He’s always thought Eskel was utterly calm by nature. But apparently that’s just a really good facade.
If it didn’t come at the price of his whole godsdamned life, he might even be willing to thank that fucking mage for this - for the chance to learn so much more about his brothers. To learn how much he’s been missing, for so many years. He’s always been so sure there must be insults and derision lurking in everything his brothers say and do that he’s never actually stopped to wonder if that’s true, and now it turns out it just…isn’t.
It’s a lot to think about.
Thankfully, Eskel doesn’t want to move any faster than an easy amble; it would be too easy for Lambert to step through a hole in the snow and break his damn leg if he tried to trot, and he’s pretty sure he still has no idea how to canter. Maybe in the spring, once he’s out in the meadow, he can work on that.
That first time, they stop in a small clearing, and Eskel leaves Lambert there while he slinks down to the streambank and comes back half an hour later with a deer slung over his shoulder, which he drapes over Lambert’s saddle to carry home. It’s heavy, but not too bad, and Lambert feels like he’s at least done something with his day, even if his horse-instincts are really not fond of the smell of blood. And Roach and Scorpion hate going out in the snow, so the next time one of the Wolves needs to go out, Lambert whickers and prances and tries to snatch Roach’s bridle out of Geralt’s hands, until Geralt sighs and tacks him up, instead.
Lambert ends up dragging back most of a tree that time, but it’s better than being bored. He would help with the wood-chopping, too, if he had hands, but as it is he dances away from Geralt’s attempts to untack him until Geralt throws his hands in the air and gives up, and then amuses himself by learning to rear and using his hooves to smash the smaller branches off the tree’s trunk.
Geralt watches this curiously for a little while, head cocked to the side. “Well, I guess Lambert had you long enough to start giving you war-training,” he says at last, and starts hauling away the branches Lambert has broken off and chopping them into smaller pieces.
Lambert’s feeling quite warm and rather pleased with himself by the time he finally lets Geralt lead him away from the tree and untack him, and makes contented noises at Geralt while the witcher curries him and strokes his nose and murmurs compliments about how strong and dangerous he is, how well-trained and agile. It’s good to feel like he can do something, even if he’s still a fucking horse.
Vesemir takes him out next, up to the caves where the mosses and mushrooms grow, and Lambert wanders idly after the old man while Vesemir fills the panniers hooked to his saddle with various mild-to-moderately-toxic plants and fungi, and daydreams about all the interesting alchemy he could do with them. Vesemir strokes his mane on the way back down the mountain. “Glad to see you don’t try to eat anything you oughtn’t, boy,” he murmurs.
Lambert puts his ears back and huffs. He’s not going to try to eat toxic mushrooms. Sure, they smell decent, but he knows perfectly well what they do to an unmutated human, and he’s willing to bet they wouldn’t be much better for an unmutated horse.
…Is he an unmutated horse? How the hell would he even tell? Unless he wants to try to get into some sort of tug-of-war contest with Scorpion or something, which would probably piss the stallion off.
Well, he can’t see in the dark - and wasn’t that a fucking miserable thing to discover - so he’s probably just…a horse. With a witcher’s mind, but still, a horse.
Fucking mages.
Once they’ve figured out that Lambert wants to go and be useful, the other Wolves bring him out on little expeditions at least once a week, and that does help, honestly. It helps a lot. He’s at least got something to think about that isn’t the four walls of his stall or how much he wants to be able to talk or use his hands or even just hug his brothers. Fuck, if he’d just gotten his head out of his own damn ass, he could’ve been hugging them for years. They wouldn’t have scoffed at him, wouldn’t have called him a weakling for wanting it.
He knows that now. Now that it’s too fucking late.
*
It’s late winter when he goes out with Eskel again, for the fourth or fifth time now, to see if they can’t find another deer or two.
They find a deer. And then they find a fucking boar, or rather, the damn thing comes out of the undergrowth while Eskel is field dressing the deer and distracted by the scent of blood, and it charges right at Eskel.
Lambert knows Eskel can defend himself, is the thing. He knows Eskel’s Quen is strong enough to fend off an army, and his Igni is like a fucking dragon’s flame. He knows that.
But what he sees is his brother down on his knees and helpless as the boar charges, and Lambert cannot let Eskel be hurt. He just can’t. Not now that he knows - now that he knows how fucking much Eskel cares.
He goes for the boar.
It’s a stupid, stupid thing to do, and he knows it, and he does it anyway.
The boar is not expecting to have a horse get between it and its intended victim, but it’s just as happy to turn its tusks on Lambert. Lambert rears and kicks out at it, trumpeting rage, and the boar whirls and snaps at him, and then Eskel is there too, sword in his hand and Quen glowing around him, and it’s a fucking mess is what it is -
And Lambert’s back hoof goes into a hole hidden beneath the snow.
He has just time to think, Fuck, and then there’s an awful snap and he screams, high and horrible, and Eskel shouts and blasts the boar back with an Aard that sends it into a tree hard enough to break the trunk - the boar doesn’t get back up - and drops his sword as he scrambles to Lambert’s side.
“No, no, fuck no -”
Lambert has gotten his balance on three legs and is panting in agony. Fuck, this doesn’t feel like breaking a bone as a witcher. This is much, much worse. He can understand why horses die of this. Just the shock of it is almost enough to send him to his knees, and if he goes down, he’s not sure he’ll get back up again.
“Gods, Geralt is going to kill me,” Eskel is murmuring, running his hands over Lambert’s neck and sides like he’s trying desperately to calm him down. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Gods, boy, why’d you do that?”
Because I’m a fucking idiot and I couldn’t risk you getting hurt, Lambert wants to reply, but of course he can’t.
“How the fuck am I going to get you home, boy?” Eskel whispers, sounding like he’s near tears. Lambert braces himself and limps forward, step-step-step-hop. It’s not comfortable, and it’s not going to be fast, but he’s a stubborn bastard. He made it through the Trials, he made it through the Path. He’ll make it back to Kaer Morhen. Step-step-step-hop. Step-step-step-hop.
It’s very late by the time they make it back to Kaer Morhen; Eskel is leading the way with an Igni blazing in his hand, illuminating the snow as he stomps a clear path for Lambert to limp along. Eskel is also, Lambert cannot help noticing, weeping quietly as he walks, which is -
Fuck. Lambert can’t think about that, not with all his concentration going to keeping himself steady on three legs.
Geralt and Vesemir come rushing out of the keep as soon as they catch sight of Eskel’s glowing Igni, and Geralt skids to a halt in the snow, staring at Lambert in raw horror.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Oh, fuck, no.”
“What happened?” Vesemir asks, practical as always, but there’s agony in his expression as he approaches Lambert. “And - hells, boy, don’t you have him under Axii?”
Eskel shakes his head. “He started for home without it, and he’s not - he’s being so good.”
Vesemir’s face crumples a little. “Let’s get him into his stall and rig a sling,” he says softly.
“What did happen?” Geralt asks, falling in beside Eskel and helping to stomp down a wider path for Lambert as Vesemir hurries ahead.
“A boar went for me,” Eskel says. “That reckless bastard got between us, fended it off, and then -” He swallows hard. “Stepped in a hole.”
“Fuck,” Geralt whispers.
Lambert’s pretty much holding himself up out of sheer stubbornness by the time they make it to the stables (step-step-step-hop, step-step-step-hop, and horses are not meant for this sort of motion, he can now attest), but Vesemir is waiting with a big canvas sheet he’s somehow rigged to the rafters, and between the three human-shaped witchers and Lambert’s own cooperation, they get him settled in a makeshift sling and he can take some of the weight off his three good legs. Geralt and Vesemir look over his bad leg carefully, and then Vesemir says, very quietly, “That’s not going to heal.”
“No,” Geralt whispers - not an agreement, just a blank refusal. “No, I won’t - I can’t -”
Lambert stares at the wooden planks of the stall and thinks about dying. It’s not exactly a new concept; witchers die all the time, sometimes even of stupid things like broken legs. But he -
He doesn’t want to die. He wants to get this fucking stupid curse fixed, and then he wants to hug his brothers and his old man, and then he wants to - to actually have all the conversations he apparently could have had, to have the friendships he apparently could have had, to go out on the Path knowing Kaer Morhen isn’t just a bleak shelter from a bleaker world but a home, gods damnit, somewhere he has people who care about him -
“My fault,” Eskel murmurs, putting a gentle hand on Lambert’s neck. Lambert cranes around to see that Eskel looks gutted, almost as if the boar really had gotten to him. “My fault, fuck, I’m so fucking sorry -”
He raises a hand and signs Axii, and the pain fades away. Lambert lets his head hang down in relief. Pain is worse in a horse body than in a witcher’s. He doesn’t like it at all.
“No,” Geralt says again. “No, I can - Yen can -”
“Your witch?” Vesemir asks. “He won’t hold out until spring, you know that.”
“No, I’ve a xenovox,” Geralt says. “For emergencies. Wait here.”
Lambert would give Geralt such a dubious look if it weren’t for the Axii keeping him calm and pain-free. There’s no way Geralt’s witch will come to Kaer Morhen for a horse. No sensible person would, unless maybe it was for one of those fancy purebred creatures that sell for more money than Lambert could make in a dozen good years out on the Path. Those get mage-healing, sure. But a scrubby little nag like Lambert? Nah. She’s going to laugh Geralt out of the keep.
Geralt is gone for quite a while. Vesemir fusses around with Lambert’s leg - Lambert would be paying more attention, but Eskel’s Axii hits like a fucking chort, and right now Lambert can’t quite focus on anything, really - and Eskel pets Lambert’s neck and whispers apologies like he thinks it’s his fault Lambert went and put himself in front of a fucking boar, and Lambert hangs there and wishes he knew how to fix this fucking curse, because he doesn’t want to die like this.
He doesn’t want one of his brothers to be the one to give the mercy stroke. It’ll hurt them as bad as it will him, he’s willing to bet, and he…really doesn’t want to do that to them. Even if they never learn that he wasn’t really a horse, that’s crueler than he’s ever cared to be.
“What the hell is so important I had to come all the way to this ice-locked ruin, Geralt?” a woman’s voice demands, and Lambert pricks his ears in surprise. She came? She actually came?
She’ll probably turn and walk away as soon as she sees him anyhow.
“It’s - my brother,” Geralt says. “Lambert.” He pushes open the door of the stables, ushering in a small figure wrapped in a fur cloak. “He didn’t come home this year. His horse did. And the horse broke his leg, and I can’t - it’s all we have left of Lambert - Yen, please.”
He looks about half a second from going down on his knees and begging, and the witch can clearly tell, from the expression of deep dismay on her face. She looks from Geralt to the trio in the stall, and her frown deepens.
She comes over slowly, and looks Lambert over, still frowning. “I thought you said Lambert didn’t have a horse,” she says after a few minutes of silent examination.
“He didn’t, until this year,” Eskel says.
“...So how’d the horse know how to get to Kaer Morhen, then?” the witch asks.
“Uh,” Eskel says. “...Geralt?”
“He showed up at the camp at the base of the trail,” Geralt says. “Hadn’t been untacked or groomed in days. I…” he trails off, frowning, and comes over to lean on the stall door. “I…huh. Maybe Axii?”
“Axii doesn’t work if you’re dead,” Eskel points out.
“And I don’t think even you could send a horse reliably to somewhere it had never been,” Vesemir puts in thoughtfully.
The witch rolls her eyes and sighs, and then puts one glowing finger squarely on Lambert’s forehead.
So, says a voice in his head that tastes like gooseberries and smells of lilacs. Are you, in fact, a horse?
Not in anything more than shape, Lambert replies.
Curse? the witch inquires. Lambert can feel her rifling through his memories with surprising gentleness. He thinks hard about the mage who cursed him, and the witch grimaces.
“He’s cursed,” she says bluntly. “What, none of you big bad witchers noticed?”
“He’s -” Eskel says. Geralt curses with astonishing creativity. Vesemir makes a choked little noise.
“He’s Lambert,” the witch confirms. Lambert nods.
There’s a long pause, and then Vesemir swears, long and vituperatively and in eight languages. Lambert is genuinely impressed - he didn’t know the old man knew that many curses. Eskel makes a sort of horrified noise and buries his face against Lambert’s neck, clinging to him tightly enough it’s a little uncomfortable even through the Axii’s forced calm. Geralt goes even paler than he usually is, and gains an unpleasant sort of greenish tinge around the edges.
“Why the fuck did none of our medallions react?” Eskel mutters against Lambert’s neck. The witch shrugs eloquently.
“It’s strong,” she says. “But for some reason I’ve never been allowed to investigate a witcher’s medallion, so I certainly don’t know what they do or don’t react to.”
“They usually react to magic,” Vesemir says thoughtfully. “But not to dopplers, so perhaps a full shapechange like this one confuses them.”
“Figure that out later. Can you break it?” Geralt asks. “Does he know the cure?”
If I knew the cure I’d have fucking done it, dumbass, Lambert thinks, and the witch snickers. Oh, she’s still listening.
“He doesn’t know the cure,” she says, “but it’s not actually a very well-made curse. Just strong. Get that Axii off him and get him laying down so he doesn’t hurt himself thrashing, and I’ll break it.”
The other three witchers help him lie down before Eskel lifts the Axii, for which Lambert is grateful - this position does not feel good with a broken leg. Well, no position feels good with a broken leg when you’re a fucking horse. But he only has to deal with the shuddering agony for a moment before the witch is kneeling down in the straw next to his head and raising her glowing hands, and then the broken leg becomes just one more note in the whole fucking symphony of pain that runs through his body. It’s like every single bone and muscle is being torn apart and re-formed.
Probably because they are.
It’s worse than the Grasses. At least the Grasses only alter what the victim already has, they don’t make the poor bastard into something a completely different shape. And horses are built different than people, their bones are different, their stomachs are different -
Lambert realizes he’s screaming with a human throat, and stops. There’s a shivering moment of silence.
And then someone hauls him up out of the hay and into an embrace so tight it makes his ribs creak, and a moment later there are two more pairs of arms wrapping around both of them, two more people pressed against him so tightly that he can’t even wiggle.
“Lambert you jackass,” Eskel mutters, squeezing even harder.
“...Horse’s ass,” Lambert gasps, wondering if he’s going to die by crushing.
Geralt lets out an ugly snorting laugh against Lambert’s ear. Vesemir sighs. None of them let go.
Lambert refuses to admit he’s leaking tears all over Eskel’s gambeson. He also refuses to acknowledge the fact that he’s pretty sure all the other witchers are crying, too. If none of them says anything about it, it’s not really happening and they don’t have to do anything about it, right?
It’s been at least ten minutes, and Lambert’s bare toes are starting to get cold, when the witch clears her throat and says, “So, what does a woman have to do to get a drink around here, anyway?”
Lambert is never going to tell her how grateful he is that she doesn’t say anything about three grown witchers hugging a fourth naked witcher while all of them weep all over everything.
They all disengage from their embrace, and Lambert pretends not to notice his fellow Wolves wiping their eyes on their sleeves, just as they pretend not to notice him dashing tears from his own eyes with the back of his hand.
“Get you inside before you freeze,” Eskel says gruffly, picking Lambert up like a fucking distressed damsel. Lambert would protest more, but he doesn’t want to limp barefoot across the icy cobbles of the courtyard, and Eskel is warm. Also his fucking leg is still broken, though it hurts a lot fucking less than it did when he was a damned horse.
“I’ll go get the splints,” Vesemir says, and hurries ahead as Geralt offers the witch his arm, like a a real fucking gentleman.
Half an hour later, Lambert’s leg is splinted, he’s wearing clothes - real clothes, fuck yes - and is wrapped up in a blanket in front of a roaring fire, and there’s a tray of stew and bread and White Gull sitting next to him. Geralt is dancing attendance on his witch on the other side of the hearth - Lambert can’t begrudge her the doting, given that she just saved his damned life and uncursed him - and Vesemir is fussing, in his own gruff way, which means he’s mostly pacing back and forth between Lambert and the kitchen, making sure Lambert’s bowl and mug never run dry.
Eskel is sitting next to Lambert, leaning against his shoulder, warm as the fire himself. He hasn’t gone more than a few feet away from Lambert since the witch broke the curse - it’s like he thinks if he gets too far away, Lambert might vanish.
Lambert’s not going to say it’s sort of sweet, but…it’s sort of sweet.
“Well,” the witch says after a while, getting to her feet and dusting her hands off on her skirt. “This was thoroughly entertaining, but I have things to do that aren’t freezing my ass off in the back end of nowhere. I expect I’ll see you and your little warbler sometime this summer, Geralt.”
“Thank you, Yen,” Geralt says, looking much more like a puppy than the famed White Wolf.
Lambert swallows. “I owe you one, witch,” he says quietly.
She inclines her head regally. “I’ll take it out of Geralt’s hide,” she replies. “...You’re important to him. Stay alive, asshole. And don’t go pissing off any more transformation-happy mages.”
Lambert snorts. “I’ll do my best.”
She opens a portal with a flick of her wrist, goes up on her toes to kiss Geralt, and then steps through. It snaps shut behind her with a puff of lilac-scented smoke.
And then it is just the four Wolves left in Kaer Morhen.
There’s a long silence. Vesemir vanishes into the kitchen for a moment and emerges with a whole pitcher of White Gull, settling at last on the hearth between Lambert and Geralt. Lambert takes a deep breath.
“So,” he says. “Turns out you don’t all hate me.”
“You thought we what,” Eskel blurts. Vesemir visibly flinches. Geralt just looks at Lambert with big eyes like a damned kicked puppy.
“I mean, I didn’t blame you. I’m an asshole,” Lambert says, shrugging.
“You’re a fucking idiot is what you are,” Eskel snaps, and wraps his arms around Lambert’s shoulders, tucking his face against Lambert’s throat. “How are you so brilliant and also such a dumbass.”
“...Inherent skill?” Lambert suggests. He’s not entirely sure why he’s being hugged, but it’s sort of nice all the same. He’s spent a lot of winters being very quietly jealous of Geralt and Eskel draping themselves all over each other like puppies. Turns out it feels just as pleasant as it always looks.
Geralt still looks like a kicked puppy, though. Lambert sighs and holds out the arm that isn’t trapped between him and Eskel, and Geralt scrambles across the hearth and gloms onto him immediately, tucking his head into the crook of Lambert’s throat and mumbling something Lambert can’t make out but is probably just curses anyhow.
Vesemir takes an audible deep breath. “Thank you for coming home to us,” he says softly. “Even if you did not know we cared.”
Lambert looks over Geralt’s head to meet Vesemir’s level gaze, and for maybe the first time ever lets himself see the ancient pain in the old Wolf’s eyes. “I’m…really fucking glad I was wrong about that,” he says, just as quietly. And, because it seems this is a night for the sort of raw honesty they all avoid like hot coals during the light of day, “Might almost be willing to thank that fucking mage.”
“Why?” Eskel demands incredulously. Geralt lifts his head to give Lambert a look of sheer bewilderment.
“I thought you hated me,” Lambert says. “I never - fuck, I never realized you were funny, pretty boy. You’re fucking weird about horses, by the way, I’m still going to give you shit about that. I didn’t realize any of you thought my experiments were worth anything, or thought I was even any good. I didn’t think you’d care if I never made it home. Now - now I know better. That’s worth…” he trails off, shrugging. “Fuck. It’s worth a lot.”
Geralt tucks his head back into the crook of Lambert’s throat again, grumbling under his breath. Lambert takes his courage between his teeth and raises his hand to stroke it carefully over Geralt’s messy, pale hair, the way he’s seen Eskel do a thousand times.
Geralt sags against him like a string-cut puppet, humming happily deep in his chest. Eskel cuddles closer on Lambert’s other side, heavy and so very warm. Vesemir watches them all with a deep affection Lambert can finally let himself recognize.
…This isn’t going to last forever, this cozy peace. Lambert’s a prickly asshole, and by next week he’ll probably be arguing with Vesemir about mead recipes, and bitching at Eskel about his leg having healed enough that he can start sparring already, and teasing Geralt for being deeply weird about horses. But - it’ll never go back to the way it was, Lambert doesn’t think. His words will never have the vitriol they used to, and he knows their responses won’t be truly vicious, either. They’ll all have this to remember - this to come back to, whenever they like. They’ll all know, from now on, that they really do genuinely care. Or, at least, Lambert knows they care about him. They’ve told him, over and over this winter, in the stories they’ve related to his horse-self and the care they gave him and the grief they showed. In this moment, his brothers holding him so tightly, Vesemir watching him like he’s a miracle made flesh.
They deserve to know he cares, too, just as much.
“You’re -” he starts, and swallows, and makes himself finish the thought. “You’re home. All of you. You’re family.” Not by blood, nor truly either by choice, but by - by being there. By giving a shit about him, when no one else in the wide world does. When he didn’t even realize they did. When anyone with sense would have given up on him long ago.
“Yeah,” Eskel murmurs. “Our little brother.” Geralt nods, still humming contentedly.
Lambert’s never going to be able to call anyone his father without bitterness, but he meets Vesemir’s eyes again and gives him a crooked smile. “You too, old man.”
Vesemir smiles back, an astonishingly soft expression on his usually stern face, and nods wordlessly.
Lambert nods too, and then closes his eyes and lets himself doze off, warm between his brothers, truly home at last.