‘You aren’t drawn to them, Geralt of Rivia. I’m neither blind nor deaf. It wasn’t at the sound of their name you pulled out that pouch. But I surmise . . . ’
‘There’s no need to surmise,’ the Witcher said, without anger.
‘I apologise.’
‘There’s no need to apologise.’
They reined back their horses just in time, in order not to ride into the column of bowmen from Caingorn which had suddenly been called to a halt.
‘What has happened?’ Geralt stood up in his stirrups. ‘Why have we stopped?’
‘I don’t know.’ Borch turned his head away. Véa, her face strangely contorted, uttered a few quick words.
‘I’ll ride up to the front,’ the Witcher said, ‘to see what’s going on.’
‘Stay here.’
‘Why?’
Three Jackdaws was silent for a moment, eyes fixed on the ground.
‘Why?’ Geralt repeated.
‘Go,’ Borch said. ‘Perhaps it’ll be better that way.’
‘What’ll be better?’
‘Go.’
The bridge connecting the two edges of the chasm looked sound. It was built from thick, pine timbers and supported on a quadrangular pier, against which the current crashed and roared in long strands of foam.
‘Hey, Beanpole!’ yelled Boholt, who was driving the wagon. ‘Why’ve you stopped?’
‘I don’t know if the bridge will hold.’
‘Why are we taking this road?’ Gyllenstiern asked, riding over. ‘It’s not to my liking to take the wagons across the bridge. Hey, cobbler! Why are you leading us this way, and not by the trail? The trail continues on towards the west, doesn’t it?’
The heroic poisoner of Barefield approached, removing his sheepskin cap. He looked ridiculous, dressed up in an old-fashioned half-armour probably hammered out during the reign of King Sambuk, pulled down tightly over a shepherd’s smock.
‘The road’s shorter this way, Your Majesty,’ he said, not to the chancellor, but directly to Niedamir, whose face still expressed thoroughly excruciated boredom.
‘How is that?’ Gyllenstiern asked, frowning. Niedamir did not even grace the cobbler with a more attentive glance.
‘Them’s,’ Sheepbagger said, indicating the three notched peaks towering over the surrounding area, ‘is Chiava, Great Kestrel and Harbinger’s Fang. The trail leads toward the ruins of the old stronghold, and skirts around Chiava from the north, beyond the river’s source. But we can shorten the way by takin’ the bridge. We’ll pass through the gorge and onto the plain ’tween the mountains. And if we don’t find no sign of the dragon there, we’ll continue on eastwards, we’ll search the ravines. And even further eastward there are flat pastures, where there’s a straight road to Caingorn, towards your lands, sire.’
‘And where, Sheepbagger, did you acquire such knowledge about these mountains?’ Boholt asked. ‘At your cobbler’s last?’
‘No, sir. I herded sheep here as a young ’un.’
‘And that bridge won’t give way?’ Boholt stood up on the box, and looked downwards at the foaming river. ‘That must be a drop of forty fathoms.’
‘It’ll ’old, sir.’
‘What’s a bridge doing in this wilderness anyhow?’
‘That there bridge,’ Sheepbagger said, ‘was built by trolls in the olden days, and whoever came this way had to pay them a pretty penny. But since folk seldom came this way the trolls were reduced to beggary. But the bridge remains.’
‘I repeat,’ Gyllenstiern said irately. ‘We have wagons with tackle and provender, and we may become bogged down in the wilderness. Is it not better to take the trail?’
‘We could take the trail,’ the cobbler shrugged, ‘but it’s longer that way. And the king said ’e’d give ’is earteeth to get to that dragon soon.’
‘Eyeteeth,’ the chancellor corrected him.
‘Have it your way, eyeteeth,’ Sheepbagger agreed. ‘But it’s still quicker by the bridge.’
‘Right, let’s go, Sheepbagger,’ Boholt decided. ‘Forge ahead, you and your men. We have a custom of letting the most valiant through first.’
‘No more than one wagon at a time,’ Gyllenstiern warned.
‘Right,’ Boholt lashed his horses and the wagon rumbled onto the bridge’s timbers. ‘Follow us, Beanpole! Make sure the wheels are rolling smoothly!’
Geralt reined back his horse, his way barred by Niedamir’s bowmen in their purple and gold tunics, crowded on the stone bridgehead.
The Witcher’s mare snorted.
The earth shuddered. The mountains trembled, the jagged edge of the rock wall beside them became blurred against the sky, and the wall itself suddenly spoke with a dull, but audible rumbling.
‘Look out!’ Boholt yelled, now on the other side of the bridge. ‘Look out, there!’
The first, small stones pattered and rattled down the spasmodically shuddering rock wall. Geralt watched as part of the road they had followed, very rapidly widening into a yawning, black crack, broke off and plunged into the chasm with a thunderous clatter.
‘To horse!’ Gyllenstiern yelled. ‘Your Majesty! To the other side!’
Niedamir, head buried in his horse’s mane, charged onto the bridge, and Gyllenstiern and several bowmen leapt after him. Behind them, the royal wagon with its flapping gryphon banner rumbled onto the creaking timbers.
‘It’s a landslide! Get out of the way!’ Yarpen Zigrin bellowed from behind, lashing his horses’ rumps, overtaking Niedamir’s second wagon and jostling the bowmen. ‘Out of the way, Witcher! Out of the way!’
Eyck of Denesle, stiff and erect, galloped beside the dwarves’ wagon. Were it not for his deathly pale face and mouth contorted in a quivering grimace, one might have thought the knight errant had not noticed the stones and boulders falling onto the trail. Further back, someone in the group of bowmen screamed wildly and horses whinnied.
Geralt tugged at the reins and spurred his horse, as right in front of him the earth boiled from the boulders cascading down. The dwarves’ wagon rattled over the stones. Just before the bridge it jumped up and landed with a crack on its side, onto a broken axle. A wheel bounced off the railing and plunged downwards into the spume.
The Witcher’s mare, lacerated by sharp shards of stone, reared up. Geralt tried to dismount, but caught his boot buckle in the stirrup and fell to the side, onto the trail. His mare neighed and dashed ahead, straight towards the bridge, dancing over the chasm. The dwarves ran across the bridge yelling and cursing.
‘Hurry, Geralt!’ Dandelion yelled, running behind him and looking back.
‘Jump on, Witcher!’ Dorregaray called, threshing about in the saddle, struggling to control his terrified horse.
Further back, behind them, the entire road was engulfed in a cloud of dust stirred up by falling rocks, shattering Niedamir’s wagons. The Witcher seized the straps of the sorcerer’s saddle bags. He heard a cry.
Yennefer had fallen with her horse, rolled to the side, away from the wildly kicking hooves, and flattened herself to the ground, shielding her head with her arms. The Witcher let go of the saddle, ran towards her, diving into the deluge of stones and leaping across the rift opening under his feet. Yennefer, yanked by the arm, got up onto her knees. Her eyes were wide open and the trickle of blood running down from her cut brow had already reached her ear.
‘Stand up, Yen!’
‘Geralt! Look out!’
An enormous, flat block of stone, scraping against the side of the rock wall with a grinding, clattering sound, slid down and plummeted towards them. Geralt dropped, shielding the sorcereress with his body. At the very same moment the block exploded, bursting into a billion fragments, which rained down on them, stinging like wasps.
‘Quick!’ Dorregaray cried. Brandishing his wand atop the skittering horse, he blasted more boulders which were tumbling down from the cliff into dust. ‘Onto the bridge, Witcher!’
Yennefer waved a hand, bending her finger
s and shrieking incomprehensibly. As the stones came into contact with the bluish hemisphere which had suddenly materialised above their heads they vaporised like drops of water falling on red-hot metal.
‘Onto the bridge, Geralt!’ the sorceress yelled. ‘Stay close to me!’
They ran, following Dorregaray and several fleeing bowmen. The bridge rocked and creaked, the timbers bending in all directions as it flung them from railing to railing.
‘Quick!’
The bridge suddenly slumped with a piercing, penetrating crack, and the half they had just crossed broke off, tumbling with a clatter into the gulf, taking the dwarves’ wagon with it, which shattered against the rocky teeth to the sound of the horses’ frantic whinnying. The part they were now standing on was still intact, but Geralt suddenly realised they were now running upwards across a rapidly tilting slope. Yennefer panted a curse.
‘Get down, Yen! Hang on!’
The rest of the bridge grated, cracked and sagged into a ramp. They fell with it, digging their fingers into the cracks between the timbers. Yennefer could not hold on. She squealed like a little girl and dropped. Geralt, hanging on with one hand, drew a dagger, plunged the blade between the timbers and seized the haft in both hands. His elbow joints creaked as Yennefer tugged him down, suspended by the belt and scabbard slung across his back. The bridge made a cracking noise again and tilted even more, almost vertically.
‘Yen,’ the Witcher grunted. ‘Do something . . . Cast a bloody spell!’
‘How can I?’ he heard a furious, muffled snarl. ‘I’m hanging on!’
‘Free one of your hands!’
‘I can’t . . . ’
‘Hey!’ Dandelion yelled from above. ‘Can you hold on? Hey!’
Geralt did not deign to reply.
‘Throw down a rope!’ Dandelion bellowed. ‘Quickly, dammit!’
The Reavers, the dwarves and Gyllenstiern appeared beside the troubadour. Geralt heard Boholt’s quiet words.
‘Wait, busker. She’ll soon fall. Then we’ll pull the Witcher up.’
Yennefer hissed like a viper, writhing and suspended from Geralt’s back. His belt dug painfully into his chest.
‘Yen? Can you find a hold? Using your legs? Can you do anything with your legs?’
‘Yes,’ she groaned. ‘Swing them around.’
Geralt looked down at the river seething and swirling among the sharp rocks, against which some bridge timbers, a horse and a body in the bright colours of Caingorn were bumping. Beyond the rocks, in the emerald, transparent maelstrom, he saw the tapered bodies of large trout, languidly moving in the current.
‘Can you hold on, Yen?’
‘Just about . . . yes . . . ’
‘Heave yourself up. You have to get a foothold . . . ’
‘I . . . can’t . . . ’
‘Throw down a rope!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘Have you all gone mad? They’ll both fall!’
‘Perhaps that’s not so bad?’ Gyllenstiern wondered, out of sight.
The bridge creaked and sagged even more. Geralt’s fingers, gripping the hilt of his dagger, began to go numb.
‘Yen . . . ’
‘Shut up . . . and stop wriggling about . . . ’
‘Yen?’
‘Don’t call me that . . . ’
‘Can you hold on?’
‘No,’ she said coldly. She was no longer struggling, but simply hanging from his back; a lifeless, inert weight.
‘Yen?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Yen. Forgive me.’
‘No. Never.’
Something crept downwards over the timbers. Swiftly. Like a snake. A rope, emanating with a cold glow, twisting and curling, as though alive, searched for and found Geralt’s neck with its moving tip, slid under his armpits, and ravelled itself into a loose knot. The sorceress beneath him moaned, sucking in air. He was certain she would start sobbing. He was mistaken.
‘Careful!’ Dandelion shouted from above. ‘We’re pulling you up! Gar! Kennet! Pull them up! Heave!’
A tug, the painful, constricting tension of the taut rope. Yennefer sighed heavily. They quickly travelled upwards, bellies scraping against the coarse timbers.
At the top, Yennefer was the first to stand up.
VII
‘We saved but one wagon from the entire caravan, Your Majesty,’ Gyllenstiern said, ‘not counting the Reavers’ wagon. Seven bowmen remain from the troop. There’s no longer a road on the far side of the chasm, just scree and a smooth wall, as far as the breach permits one to look. We know not if anyone survived of those who remained when the bridge collapsed.’
Niedamir did not answer. Eyck of Denesle, standing erect, stood before the king, staring at him with shining, feverish eyes.
‘The ire of the gods is hounding us,’ he said, raising his arms. ‘We have sinned, King Niedamir. It was a sacred expedition, an expedition against evil. For the dragon is evil, yes, each dragon is evil incarnate. I do not pass by evil indifferently, I crush it beneath my foot . . . Annihilate it. Just as the gods and the Holy Book demand.’
‘What is he drivelling on about?’ Boholt asked, frowning.
‘I don’t know,’ Geralt said, adjusting his mare’s harness. ‘I didn’t understand a single word.’
‘Be quiet,’ Dandelion said, ‘I’m trying to remember it, perhaps I’ll be able to use it if I can get it to rhyme.’
‘The Holy Book says,’ Eyck said, now yelling loudly, ‘that the serpent, the foul dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, will come forth from the abyss! And on his back will sit a woman in purple and scarlet, and a golden goblet will be in her hand, and on her forehead will be written the sign of all and ultimate whoredom!’
‘I know her!’ Dandelion said, delighted. ‘It’s Cilia, the wife of the Alderman of Sommerhalder!’
‘Quieten down, poet, sir,’ Gyllenstiern said. ‘And you, O knight from Denesle, speak more plainly, if you would.’
‘One should act against evil, O King,’ Eyck called, ‘with a pure heart and conscience, with head raised! But who do we see here? Dwarves, who are pagans, are born in the darkness and bow down before dark forces! Blasphemous sorcerers, usurping divine laws, powers and privileges! A witcher, who is an odious aberration, an accursed, unnatural creature. Are you surprised that a punishment has befallen us? King Niedamir! We have reached the limits of possibility! Divine grace is being sorely tested. I call you, king, to purge the filth from our ranks, before—’
‘Not a word about me,’ Dandelion interjected woefully. ‘Not a mention of poets. And I try so hard.’
Geralt smiled at Yarpen Zigrin, who with slow movements was stroking the blade of his battle-axe, which was stuck into his belt. The dwarf, amused, grinned. Yennefer turned away ostentatiously, pretending that her skirt, torn up to her hip, distressed her more than Eyck’s words.
‘I think you were exaggerating a little, Sir Eyck,’ Dorregaray said sharply, ‘although no doubt for noble reasons. I regard the making known of your views about sorcerers, dwarves and witchers as quite unnecessary. Although, I think, we have all become accustomed to such opinions, it is neither polite, nor chivalrous, Sir Eyck. And it is utterly incomprehensible after you, and no one else, ran and used a magical, elven rope to save a witcher and a sorceress whose lives were in danger. I conclude from what you say that you should rather have been praying for them to fall.’
‘Dammit,’ Geralt whispered to Dandelion. ‘Did he throw us that rope? Eyck? Not Dorregaray?’
‘No,’ the bard muttered. ‘Eyck it was, indeed.’
Geralt shook his head in disbelief. Yennefer cursed under her breath and straightened up.
‘Sir Eyck,’ she said with a smile that anyone other than Geralt might have taken as pleasant and friendly. ‘Why was that? I’m blasphemous, but you save my life?’
‘You are a lady, Madam Yennefer,’ the knight bowed stiffly. ‘And your comely and honest face permits me to believe that you will one day renounce this accursed sorcery.’
Boholt snorted.
‘I thank you, sir knight,’ Yennefer said dryly, ‘and the Witcher Geralt also thanks you. Thank him, Geralt.’
‘I’d rather drop dead,’ the Witcher sighed, disarmingly frank. ‘What exactly should I thank him for? I’m an odious aberration, and my uncomely face does not augur any hope for an improvement. Sir Eyck hauled me out of the chasm by accident, simply because I was tightly clutching the comely damsel. Had I been hanging there alone, Eyck would not have lifted a finger. I’m not mistaken, am I, sir knight?’
‘You are mistaken, Geralt, sir,’ the knight errant replied calmly. ‘I never refuse anybody in need of help. Even a witcher.’
‘Thank him, Geralt. And apologise,’ the sorceress said sharply, ‘otherwise you will be confirming that, at least with regard to you, Eyck was quite right. You are unable to coexist with people. Because you are different. Your participation in this expedition is a mistake. A nonsensical purpose brought you here. Thus it would be sensible to leave the party. I think you understand that now. And if not, it’s time you did.’
‘What purpose are you talking about, madam?’ Gyllenstiern cut in. The sorceress looked at him, but did not answer. Dandelion and Yarpen Zigrin smiled meaningfully at each other, but so that the sorceress would not notice.
The Witcher looked into Yennefer’s eyes. They were cold.
‘I apologise and thank you, O knight of Denesle,’ he bowed. ‘I thank everybody here present. For the swift rescue offered at once. I heard, as I hung there, how you were all raring to help. I ask everybody here present for forgiveness. With the exception of the noble Yennefer, whom I thank, but ask for nothing. Farewell. The dregs leave the company of their own free will. Because these dregs have had enough of you. Goodbye, Dandelion.’
‘Hey, Geralt,’ Boholt called, ‘don’t pout like a maiden, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. To hell with—’
Introducing the Witcher Page 35