Stephen Hulin

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘Someone is approaching in a hurry!’ - Spintop indicated with her whip. ‘Isn't that Fysh?’

  ‘Yes, that's him in person,’ Shevlov covered his eyes. ‘Order the freak taken from the cart and delivered. And you yourself, take a few of our boys, make a round in the region. There are peasants hiding at the clearings, they need to be made aware to whom they should pay the rent. And if someone resists - you know what to do.’

  Spintop smiled like a wolf, flashed her teeth. Shevlov felt compassion towards the settlers that he would visit. But he didn't care for their fate.

  He looked at the sun. We need to hurry, he thought. It would be good to have few more Temerian poles brought down before the noon. And ours placed.

  ‘Hey, you Burn, follow me. We will meet our guests.’

  There were two guests. One of them had a straw hat, a well-defined jaw, and his whole face black from a few days of stubble. The second was of strong of build, a giant even.

  ‘Fysh.’

  ‘Sergeant.’

  Shevlov snorted. Javil Fysh - not without a reason - alluded to their old acquaintance, from the time of their service in the regular army. Shevlov didn't like the memories of those times. He did not want to remember, neither Fysh, nor the service, nor the shitty non-commissioned officer pay.

  ‘Your free company,’ Fysh nodded at the village, from where shouts and crying could still be heard, ‘at work, I see? Punitive expedition? Will you burn?’

  ‘It's my business what I'll do.’

  I won't, he thought with regret, because he like to burn villages, the company also liked it. But it was not ordered. His orders were to correct the border, tax the peasants. Drive the opposing ones away, but do not touch the property. It will serve new settlers that will be assembled here. From the north where there is overcrowding even on fallows.

  ‘I captured your freak, and have her in custody,’ he announced ‘As ordered. Bound. It was not easy, if I knew it, it would have cost you more. But we agreed on five hundred, so five hundred it is.’

  Fysh gestured, the giant approached, gave Shevlov two purses. On his forearm he had a tattoo of a viper coiled into letter S around a dagger's blade. Shevlov knew this tattoo.

  A rider from the company showed up, with a prisoner. The freak had over her head a bag stretching to her knees, bound with a rope in such way that her hands were bound too. From under the bag stuck out legs, lean as sticks.

  ‘What is it,’ indicated Fysh. ‘My dear sergeant. Five hundred novigradian crowns, a big price for a cat in the bag.’

  ‘The bag is free,’ replied Shevlov coldly. ‘Just as this good advice is. Do not unbind the bag and look inside.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It's risky. She bites. And can put a spell on you too.’

  The giant pulled the prisoner onto his saddle bow. Calm up until this moment, the freak began struggling, kicking, and howling from the bag. It didn't do her much good, as the bag was successful at binding her.

  ‘How do I know,’ asked Fysh, ‘that it's for who I paid for? And not some random girl? Maybe even from this village?’

  ‘You say that I lie?’

  ‘Not in the least, no,’ Fysh mitigated himself, looking at Burn stroking handle of his axe hanging on side of his saddle. ‘I believe you Shevlov. I know that your word isn't smoke. We know each other, don't we? In good the old times...’

  ‘I'm in a hurry, Fysh. Duty calls.’

  ‘Farewell, sergeant.’

  ‘I'm curious,’ said Burn, looking at the group leaving. ‘I'm curious for what they need her for. The freak. You didn't ask.’

  ‘I didn't ask,’ he confirmed coldly. ‘Because you don't ask about such things.’

  He felt sorry for the freak a bit. He didn't care much for her fate. But he guessed that it would be miserable.

  In a world where death is the hunter, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions. It doesn't matter what the decisions are. Nothing could be more or less serious than anything else. In a world where death is the hunter, there are no small or big decisions. There are only the decisions that a warrior makes in the face of his inevitable death.

  Carlos Castaneda, The Wheel of Time

  Chapter Twelve

  On crossroads there stood a signpost, a pole with boards nailed to it, indicating the four directions of the world.

  ***

  Dawn found him where he had fallen, thrown by the portal, on grass wet with dew, in a bush near a swamp or lake full of birds, which with quacking and gaggling woke him up sharply from a deep and exhausting sleep. At nigh he had drank a witcher's elixir, that he had providently always had on him, in a silver tube , that was hidden in a pouch sewn into his belt. The elixir, called Golden Oriole, was thought of as a panacea particularly efficient in fighting all kinds of poisonings, infections, and the effects of many toxins and venoms. Geralt saved himself with Golden Oriole more times that he remembered, however drinking the elixir never had effects like now. For a full hour after ingesting the elixir he fought with cramps and a strong gag reflex, fully aware that he can't let himself vomit. In effect although the fight was won, he had fallen into a deep asleep from exhaustion. This sleep probably brought on by a mix of scorpion venom, the elixir, and the journey through portal.

  As to the journey, he was not sure what had happened, how and why the portal opened by Degerlund had thrown him here - in a swampy wasteland. He doubted that this was the effect of s purposeful wizard's action. A simple teleport malfunction was more probable, something that he was afraid would happen for over a week now. That which he heard of many times, and even witnessed a few times - when portal instead of transporting it's user where it was supposed to go, threw them into a completely different place, an absolutely random one.

  When he came to his senses, he held his sword in his right hand, and in clasped in his left hand, a piece of cloth, which in the morning he identified as being a sleeve of a shirt. The cloth was cut cleanly – as if with a knife. It had no traces of blood, so the teleport hadn’t cut the hand, just the wizard's shirt. Geralt wished that it hadn’t been only the shirt.

  The worst portal malfunction, that had forever discouraged him from teleportation, Geralt had witnessed at the beginning of his witcher career. Among upstarts, rich nobles, and golden youth it was then fashionable to teleport from one place to another, and some wizards provided such entertainment for an enormous sum of gold. One day – the witcher had been at the place – a fan of teleportation had showed up from a portal cut precisely in half vertically. He looked like an open double bass case. And then everything had fallen and flowed out of him. The fashion for teleports noticeably dropped after this accident.

  In comparison to something like that, he thought, landing in a wetland is simply luxury.

  He wasn't yet fully restored, he still felt vertigo, and nausea. There was however no time for rest, He knew that portals left traces, and sorcerers had their ways to find where a portal was going. On the other hand, if this was - as he suspected – a defect portal, tracing its end point was almost impossible. But still, staying too long near the landing place was not prudent.

  He started into a brisk march, to warm himself and liven up. It all began with swords, he thought, splashing through puddles. How did Dandelion put it? A band of unfortunate chances and unlucky incidents? At first I lost my swords. Barely three weeks pass, and I lose my mount. Roach was left at Pine Copse, unless she has been found and appropriated by someone, will be eaten by wolves. Swords, horse. What now? It's scary to even think of that.

  After an hour of his journey through the wetland he made it to drier lands, and after another hour he arrived at a beaten road. And after half an hour on the road he came to a crossroads.

  ***

  On crossroads there stood signpost, a pole with boards nailed to it, indicating the four directions of the world. All of the boards were covered with bird shit and full of holes left by bolts
. Every passer-by it seemed felt obliged to shoot at the signpost with his crossbow. Therefore to read the signs, it was necessary to get closer.

  The witcher got closer. And deciphered the directions. The board pointing east - as deduced by the sun’s position - was labeled Chippira, the opposite direction was Tegmond. The third board pointed to Findetann, and the fourth no one knows where as the label was smeared with tar. Despite this Geralt knew roughly where he was.

  The teleport had thrown him out in between two rivers, or rather two branches of the Pontar river. The southern branch, because of its size had even been given a name - it was listed on many maps as Embla. And the country – a rather small one - lying between the branches was named Emblonia. That what it used to be named. It quite long ago ceased to be. The Kingdom of Emblonia ceased to exist about a half century ago. And there were reasons for that.

  In the majority of kingdoms, duchies, and other forms of authority and social communities in lands known to Geralt, things were going rather smoothly. The system was from time to time limping, but it nonetheless functioned. In the vast majority of communities the ruling class ruled, instead of just stealing, interrupted only by alternation between hazard and debauchery. The social elites were only in a small percent comprised of people who thought that hygiene was a prostitute's name, and gonorrhea was a bird from the family of larks. Farmers and workers only in a small part lived thinking only of today and today's vodka, totally unable to grasp with their vestigial minds such abstract ideas as tomorrow and tomorrow’s vodka. The priests in their majority weren't tricking people out of their money, nor corrupting minors. Psychopaths, weirdos and idiots didn't strive for positions in government and administration, but were occupied by destroying their own family lives. Village fools sat in villages, behind barns, and not trying to act as tribunes. This was so in majority of countries.

  But the kingdom of Emblonia was not in majority. It was a minority in each aforementioned aspect. And many more.

  So it fell into decline. And eventually vanished. Its powerful neighbors, Temeria and Redania made sure it happened. Emblonia although a politically unbelievable creation, was not without its merits. It lay in the valley of the Pontar, which deposited silt carried by floods for centuries. And from the silt was formed alluvial soils - an extraordinarily fertile and agriculturally efficient soils. Under the rule of Emblonian kings they quickly became overgrown with flood-meadows, in which one could sew little and gather less. Temeria and Redania at the same time experienced a significant increase in population, and agriculture became vital. Emblonian alluvial soils tempted. So the two separated by a river kingdoms, without much ceremony simply divided Emblonia between them, and erased its name from maps. The part annexed by Temeria was called Pontaria, and the one that came to Redania was called Riverside. Hordes of farmers were brought to the silts. Under the supervision of efficient managers, and as a result of varied crop rotation and amelioration, the area, although small, soon became an agricultural Cornucopia.

  Soon conflicts arose. The better harvest the pontarian silts had, the more violent the conflicts became. A treaty setting a border between Temeria and Redania included certain points that could be interpreted, and the maps attached to the treaty were useless, as cartographers had botched the job. And the river itself added to the problem, after longer periods of rain it could change and shift its bed to two or even three miles away. And in such a way the Cornucopia became a bone of contention. The plans of dynastic marriages and alliances had to be abandoned, diplomatic notes began, then customs wars and trade retorsions. Border conflicts had grown in force, bloodshed seemed unavoidable. And finally it came to that. And then it came to bloodshed regularly.

  In his journeys in search of work, Geralt usually avoided territories, in which armed conflicts were often, because it was hard to find jobs in such places. Getting to know once or twice regular soldiers, mercenaries and marauders, farmers were convinced that the werewolves roaming the region, strigas, trolls under the bridge or barrow wights are a generally small problem, and a small threat, and that they didn’t want to spend money on witchers. That there are more important things, for example rebuilding a hovel burned down by soldiers, and buying new hens to replace the ones that were stolen and eaten by soldiers. For this reason Geralt barely knew Emblonia - or, according to newer maps, Pontaria and Riverside. In particular he had not a clue as to which of the indicated places was nearest, and which direction to go from the crossroads to leave the wasteland and get to any civilization as soon as possible.

  Geralt chose Findetann, which was to the north. In this general direction was Novigrad, where he had to go, if he was to recover his swords before the fifteenth of July.

  After an hour of brisk march he ran straight into that, which he wanted to avoid

  ***

  In the proximity of the clearing there were farmer's buildings, a thatched hut and a few shacks. The fact that something was going on there was announced by the loud bark of a dog, and the mad sounds of birds. A child's shout and a woman’s cries. Cursing.

  He approached, cursing in his mind his bad luck and his doubts.

  There were feathers floating everywhere, one of the armed soldiers was tying a fowl to his saddle. A second was hitting a farmer lying on the ground with a whip. Another was struggling with a woman in torn clothes with a child clasped to her.

  He came nearer, without ceremony nor words and caught the lifted hand with the whip and twisted it. The soldier howled. Geralt pushed him towards the shack's wall. Having caught him by the collar he pulled the other soldier away from the woman and threw him at the fence.

  ‘Go away,’ he announced shortly. ‘Now!’

  He quickly drew his sword out of its scabbard to make sure he was treated in the proper way for the circumstances. And to give a strong reminder of the consequences of behaving improperly.

  One of the soldiers laughed loudly. The second followed him, drawing his sword.

  ‘Who do you attack, tramp. Are you looking for death?’

  ‘Go away, I said!’

  The soldier binding the fowl turned away from his horse. And turned out to be woman. Quite pretty, even despite the evil half opened eyes.

  ‘You do not value your life?’ it turned out that she could twist her lips in even less nice way ‘And maybe you are retarded? Maybe you can't count? I'll help you. You are only one, and there are three of us. It means that there are more of us. It means that you should turn your back and get the fuck out in giant leaps, as fast as your legs can go. For as long as you have them.’

  Go Away! I will not repeat myself.’

  ‘Oh! Three is a piece of cake for you. And twelve?’

  Hoofs beat all around. The witcher took a look. Nine mounted and armed. With spears pointed at him.

  ‘You scum! Drop your sword!’

  He didn't listen, he jump away to the shack's wall to have any form of protection for his back.

  ‘What's happening, Spintop?’

  ‘The settler was resisting,’ snorted the woman called Spintop. ‘He said that he would not pay as he had already paid, blah blah blah. We began to teach the simpleton a bit of reason, and suddenly this grey haired showed up, like from under the earth. A knight, it turns out, a defender of the poor and oppressed. Alone, yet he jumped at us.’

  ‘So jumpy?’ laughed one of the riders, pushing at Geralt with his horse and spear. ‘Let's see how he will jump when we jab him a few times.’

  ‘Drop your sword,’ ordered a rider in a beret with feathers, looking like a commander. ‘Drop your sword to the ground!’

  ‘Should we kill him, Shevlov?’

  ‘Leave him, Sperry.’

  Shevlov looked at the witcher from height of his saddle.

  ‘You will not drop your sword, will you?’ he appraised. ‘You're such a hero? Such a die-hard? You eat oysters with their shells on? And wash them down with turpentine? You kneel to no one? And you do nothing but stand in defe
nse of the victims? Are you so sensitive to wrongs? Let's check. Burn, Ligenza, Floquet!’

  The soldiers understood their commander immediately, it seems they were experienced in the matter, and had some exercises for such a procedure. They dismounted. One of them put a knife to the farmer’s neck, the other caught the woman by her hair, a third caught the child. The child started screaming.

  ‘Drop your sword,’ said Shevlov. ‘Now! Or else... Ligenza! Cut the farmer’s throat.’

  Gerald dropped his sword. They instantly jumped at him, pushing him against the boards. And threatened him with blades.

  ‘Aha!’ - Shevlov dismounted. ‘It worked!’

  ‘You're in trouble, defender of peasants,’ he added dryly. ‘You’ve interfered with and diverted the king's service. And I have a patent that enables me to put you under arrest and in court.’

  ‘Arrest,’ smirked the one called Ligenza. ‘And make more work for ourselves? Let's put a noose around his neck and the branch. And that's that!’

  ‘Or cut him to pieces, here and now.’

  ‘And I,’ said suddenly one of riders, ‘have seen him before. He's a witcher.’

  ‘A who?’

  ‘ A witcher. A warlock that kills monsters for money.’

  ‘A warlock? Yuck! Kill him before he casts his spell.’

  ‘Shut up Escayrac. Tell more, Trent. Where have you seen him, and upon what occasion?’

  ‘It was in Maribor. It was at the mayor's, who hired that one here to kill some monster. I can't remember what monster exactly. But I remembered him, by his white hair.’

  ‘Huh! If he attacked us, then someone had to have hired him!’

  ‘Witcher's are for monsters. They defend people only from monsters’.

  ‘Aha!’ Spintop shove her bobcat cap to the back of her head. ‘I said it! A Defender! He saw Ligenza beating the farmer with a whip, and Floquet preparing to rape the woman.’

  ‘And he qualified you accordingly,’ snorted Shevlov. ‘As monsters! You were lucky then. I was kidding. Because the matter, as I see it, is simple. When I served in the military I heard quite different things. They were being hired for all things, espionage, body-guarding, assassination even. They were called The Cats. The one here Trent saw in Maribor, in Temeria. It means that he is a Temerian mercenary, hired to get us, due to the border poles. I was warned at Findetann against Temerian mercenaries, and they promised a reward for any mercenary caught. So we will get him bound to Findetann, give him to the commandant, and get our gold. Go on, bind him. Why are you standing? Are you afraid? He will not resist. He knows what we would do to the farmers if he does anything.’