Dandelion nervously withdrew his hand from the tarpaulin and pulled his hood further down over his face. Once again, Geralt quietly cursed the bard’s irrepressible curiosity.
‘Mir’me vara,’ mumbled Dandelion, raising his hand in a gesture of apology. ‘Squaess’me.’
‘No harm done,’ said the hawker, grinning. ‘But no looking in there, because there’s other goods in the wagon too. Not for sale, those, not for Seidhe. A special order, ha, ha. But that’s enough rabbiting . . . Show us the colour of your money.’
Here we go, thought Geralt, looking at the wagoner’s nocked crossbow. He had reason to believe the quarrel’s tip was barbed too – just like the arrows he’d been so proudly shown moments before – and would, after entering the belly, exit through the back in three or sometimes four places, turning the victim’s internal organs into a very messy goulash.
‘N’ess tedd,’ he said, trying to speak in a singsong way. ‘Tearde. Mireann vara, va’en vort. We’ll trade when we return from the commando. Ell’ea? Understood, Dh’oine?’
‘Understood,’ the hawker said, spitting. ‘Understood that you’re skint. You’d like the goods, you just don’t have the readies. Be off with you! And don’t come back, because I’m meeting important parties here. It’ll be safer if they don’t clap eyes on you. Go to—’
He broke off, hearing the snorting of a horse.
‘Damn it!’ he snarled. ‘It’s too late! They’re here! Hoods down, elves! Don’t move and button your lips! Kolda, you ass, put that crossbow down and fast!’
The heavy rain, thunder and the carpet of leaves had dampened the thudding of hooves, which meant the riders had been able to ride up undetected and surround the beech tree in an instant. They weren’t Scoia’tael. Squirrels didn’t wear armour, and the metal helmets, spaulders and hauberks of the eight horsemen surrounding the tree were glistening in the rain.
One of the horsemen approached at a walk and towered over the hawker like a mountain. He was of impressive height and was mounted on a powerful warhorse. A wolf skin was draped over his armoured shoulders and his face was obscured by a helmet with a broad, protruding nose-guard reaching down to his lower lip. The stranger was holding a menacing-looking war hammer.
‘Rideaux!’ he called huskily.
‘Faoiltiarna!’ replied the trader in a slightly quavering voice.
The horseman came even closer and leant forward. Water poured down from his steel nose-guard straight onto his vambrace and the balefully glistening point of the hammer.
‘Faoiltiarna!’ the hawker repeated, bowing low. He removed his hat and the rain immediately plastered his thinning hair to his head. ‘Faoiltiarna! I’m your man; I know the password and the countersign . . . I’ve been with Faoiltiarna, Your Lordship . . . Here I am, as arranged . . .’
‘And those men, who are they?’
‘My escort,’ the hawker said, bowing even lower. ‘You know, elves . . .’
‘The prisoner?’
‘On the wagon. In a coffin.’
‘In a coffin?’ The thunder partially drowned the furious roar of the horseman. ‘You won’t get away with this! Viscount de Rideaux gave clear instructions that the prisoner was to be handed over alive!’
‘He’s alive, he’s alive,’ the trader gibbered hurriedly. ‘As per orders . . . Shoved into a coffin, but alive . . . The coffin wasn’t my idea, Your Lordship. It was Faoiltiarna’s . . .’
The horseman rapped the hammer against his stirrup, as a sign. Three other horsemen dismounted and pulled the tarpaulin off the wagon. When they had thrown various saddles, blankets and bunches of harnesses onto the ground, Geralt actually saw a coffin made of fresh pine, lit by a flash of lightning. He didn’t look too closely, however. He felt a tingling in the tips of his fingers. He knew what was about to happen.
‘What’s all this, Your Lordship?’ the hawker said, looking at the goods lying on the wet leaves. ‘You’re chucking all my gear out of the wagon.’
‘I’ll buy it all. Along with the horse and cart.’
‘Aaah,’ a repulsive grin crept over the trader’s bristly face. ‘Now you’re talking. That’ll be . . . Let me think . . . Five hundred, if you’ll excuse me, Your Nobleness, if we’re talking Temerian currency. If it’s your florins, then it’ll be forty-five.’
‘That’s cheap,’ snorted the horseman, smiling eerily behind his nose-guard. ‘Come closer.’
‘Watch out, Dandelion,’ hissed the Witcher, imperceptibly unfastening the buckle of his mantle. It thundered once more.
The hawker approached the horseman, naively counting on the deal of his life. And in a way it was the deal of his life, not the best, perhaps, but certainly the last. The horseman stood in his stirrups and drove the point of the hammer down with great force onto the hawker’s bald crown. The trader dropped without a sound, shuddered, flapped his arms and scraped the wet carpet of leaves with his heels. One of the men rummaging around on the wagon threw a leather strap around the wagoner’s neck and pulled it tight; the other leapt forward and stabbed him with a dagger.
One of the horsemen raised his crossbow quickly to his shoulder and took aim at Dandelion. But Geralt already had a sword – one of those thrown from the wagon – in his hand. Seizing the weapon halfway down the blade, he flung it like a javelin and hit the crossbowman, who fell off the horse with an expression of utter astonishment on his face.
‘Run, Dandelion!’
Dandelion caught up with Pegasus and leapt for the saddle with a desperate bound. The jump was a tad too desperate, however, and the poet was a tad too inexperienced. He didn’t hang onto the pommel and tumbled to the ground on the other side of the horse. And that saved his life, as the blade of the attacking horseman’s sword cut through the air above Pegasus’s ears with a hiss. The gelding shied, jerked, and collided with the attacker’s horse.
‘They aren’t elves!’ yelled the horseman in the helmet with the nose-guard, drawing his sword. ‘Take them alive! Alive!’
One of the men who had jumped down from the wagon hesitated on hearing the order. Geralt, however, had already drawn his own sword and didn’t hesitate for a second. The fervour of the other two men was somewhat cooled by the fountain of blood which spurted over them. He took advantage of the situation and cut one of them down. But the horsemen were already charging at him. He ducked under their swords, parried their blows, dodged aside and suddenly felt a piercing pain in his right knee. He could feel himself keeling over. He wasn’t hurt; the injured leg, which had been treated in Brokilon, had simply crumpled under him without warning.
The foot soldier aiming for him with the butt of a battle-axe suddenly groaned and lurched forward, as though someone had shoved him hard in the back. Before he fell, the Witcher saw an arrow with long fletchings sticking out of his assailant’s side, driven in to halfway up the shaft. Dandelion yelled; a thunderclap drowned out his cry.
Geralt, who was hanging on to one of the cartwheels, saw a fair-haired girl with a drawn bow dashing out of an alder grove. The horsemen saw her too. They couldn’t fail to see her, because at that moment one of them tumbled backwards over his horse’s croup, his throat transformed into a scarlet pulp by an arrow. The remaining three, including the leader in the helmet with the nose-guard, assessed the danger immediately and galloped towards the archer, hiding behind their horses’ necks. They thought the horses’ necks represented sufficient protection against the arrows. They were mistaken.
Maria Barring, also known as Milva, drew her bow. She took aim calmly, the bowstring pressed against her cheek.
The first of her attackers screamed and slid off his horse. One foot caught in the stirrup and he was trampled beneath the horse’s iron-shod hooves. Another arrow hurled the second from his saddle. The third man, the leader, who was already close, stood in the saddle and raised his sword to strike. Milva did not even flinch. Fearlessly looking straight at her attacker, she bent her bow and shot an arrow right into his face from a distance of five
paces, striking just to the side of the steel nose-guard and jumping aside as she shot. The arrow passed right through his skull, knocking off his helmet. The horse did not slow its gallop. The horseman, now lacking a helmet and a considerable part of his skull, remained in the saddle for a few seconds, then slowly tipped over and crashed into a puddle. The horse neighed and ran on.
Geralt struggled to his feet and massaged his leg which, though painful, for a wonder seemed to be functioning normally. He could stand on it without difficulty and walk. Next to him, Dandelion hauled himself up, throwing off the corpse with a mutilated throat which was weighing down on him. The poet’s face was the colour of quicklime.
Milva came closer, pulling an arrow from a dead man as she approached.
‘Thank you,’ the Witcher said. ‘Dandelion, say thank you. This is Maria Barring, or Milva. It’s thanks to her we’re alive.’
Milva yanked an arrow from another of the dead bodies and examined the bloody arrowhead. Dandelion mumbled incoherently, bent over in a courtly – but somewhat quavering – bow, then dropped to his knees and vomited.
‘Who’s that?’ the archer asked, wiping the arrowhead on some wet leaves and replacing it in her quiver. ‘A comrade of yours, Witcher?’
‘Yes. His name’s Dandelion. He’s a poet.’
‘A poet,’ Milva watched the troubadour wracked by attacks of dry retching and then looked up. ‘That I can understand. But I don’t quite understand why he’s puking here, instead of writing rhymes in a quiet spot somewhere. But I suppose that’s none of my business.’
‘It is yours, in a sense. You saved his skin. And mine too.’
Milva wiped her rain-splashed face, with the imprint of the bowstring still visible on it. Although she had shot several arrows, there was only one imprint; the bowstring pressed against the same place each time.
‘I was already in the alder grove when you started talking to the hawker,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want the scoundrel to see me, for there was no need. And then those others arrived and the slaughter began. You messed a few of them up very nicely. You know how to swing a sword, I’ll give you that. Even if you are a cripple. You should have stayed in Brokilon till your peg healed instead of making it worse. You might limp for the rest of your life. You realise that, don’t you?’
‘I’ll survive.’
‘I reckon you will, too. I followed you to warn you, and to make you turn back. Your quest won’t come to anything. There’s a war raging in the south. The Nilfgaardian Army are marching on Brugge from Drieschot.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Just look at them,’ the girl said, making a sweeping gesture and pointing at the bodies and the horses. ‘I mean, they’re Nilfgaardians! Can’t you see the suns on their helmets? The embroidery on their saddlecloths? Pack up your things, and we’ll take to our heels; more of them may arrive any moment. These were mounted scouts.’
‘I don’t think they were just scouts,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They were after something.’
‘What might that be, just out of interest?’
‘That,’ he said, pointing at the pinewood coffin lying in the wagon, now darkened from the rain. It wasn’t raining as hard as it had been during the short battle, and it had stopped thundering. The storm was moving north. The Witcher picked up his sword from among the leaves and jumped onto the wagon, quietly cursing because his knee still hurt.
‘Help me get it open.’
‘What do you want with a stiff . . . ?’ Milva broke off, seeing the holes bored into the lid. ‘Bloody hell! Was the hawker lugging a live person around in here?’
‘It’s some kind of prisoner,’ Geralt said, levering the lid open. ‘The trader was waiting for these Nilfgaardians, to hand him over to them. They exchanged passwords and countersigns . . .’
The lid tore off with the sound of splitting wood, revealing a man with a gag over his mouth, his arms and legs fastened to the sides of the coffin by leather straps. The Witcher leant over. He took a good look. And again, this time more intently. And swore.
‘Well I never,’ he drawled. ‘What a surprise. Who would have thought it?’
‘Do you know him, Witcher?’
‘By sight.’ He smiled hideously. ‘Put the knife away, Milva. Don’t cut his bonds. It seems this is an internal Nilfgaardian matter. We shouldn’t get involved. Let’s leave him as he is.’
‘Am I hearing right?’ Dandelion asked, joining in from behind. He was still pale, but curiosity had overcome his other emotions. ‘Are you planning to leave him tied up in the forest? I’m guessing you’ve recognised someone you have a bone to pick with, but he’s a prisoner, by the Gods! He was the prisoner of the men who jumped us and almost killed us. And the enemy of our enemy . . .’
He broke off, seeing the Witcher removing a knife from his boot-top. Milva coughed quietly. The captive’s dark blue eyes, previously screwed up against the rain, widened. Geralt leant over and cut the strap fastened around the prisoner’s left arm.
‘Look, Dandelion,’ he said, seizing the captive’s wrist and raising his now-free arm. ‘Do you see the scar on his hand? Ciri did that. On the Isle of Thanedd, a month ago. He’s a Nilfgaardian. He came to Thanedd specifically to abduct Ciri and she wounded him, defending herself from being captured.’
‘But it all came to nothing anyway,’ muttered Milva. ‘I sense something doesn’t add up here. If he kidnapped your Ciri for Nilfgaard, how did he end up in this coffin? Why was that hawker handing him over to the Nilfgaardians? Take that gag off him, Witcher. Perhaps he’ll tell us something.’
‘I have no desire to listen to him,’ he said flatly. ‘My hand is itching to stab him through the heart, with him lying there looking at me. It’s all I can do to restrain myself. And if he opens his mouth, I know I won’t be able to hold back. I haven’t told you everything.’
‘Don’t hold back then.’ Milva shrugged her shoulders. ‘Stick him, if he’s such a villain. But do it quickly, because time’s getting on. As I said, the Nilfgaardians will be here soon. I’m going to get my horse.’
Geralt straightened up and released the captive’s hand. The man immediately loosened the gag and spat it out of his mouth. But he said nothing. The Witcher threw his knife onto the man’s chest.
‘I don’t know what sins you committed for them to trap you in this chest, Nilfgaardian,’ he said. ‘And I don’t care. I’ll leave you this blade. Free yourself. Wait here for your own people, or escape into the forest, it’s up to you.’
The captive said nothing. Tied up and lying in that wooden crate, he looked even more miserable and defenceless than he had on Thanedd – and Geralt had seen him there on his knees, wounded and trembling with fear in a pool of blood. He also looked considerably younger now. The Witcher wouldn’t have put him at more than twenty-five.
‘I spared your life on the island,’ he said. ‘And I’m doing it again. But it’s the last time. The next time we meet I’ll kill you like a dog. Remember that. If you persuade your comrades to pursue us, take the coffin with you. It’ll come in useful. Let’s go, Dandelion.’
‘Make haste!’ Milva shouted, turning away at full gallop from the westward track. ‘But not that way! Into the trees, by thunder, into the trees!’
‘What’s going on?’
‘A large group of riders are heading towards us from the Ribbon! It’s Nilfgaard! What are you staring at? To horse, before they’re upon us!’
The battle for the village had been going on for an hour and wasn’t showing any signs of finishing soon. The infantry, holding out behind stone walls, fences and upturned wagons, had repulsed three attacks by the cavalry, who came charging at them from the causeway. The width of the causeway did not permit the horsemen to gain enough momentum for a frontal attack, but allowed the foot soldiers to concentrate their defence. As a result, waves of cavalry repeatedly foundered on the barricades, behind which the desperate but fierce soldiers were shooting a hail of quarrels and arrows into the mounted
throng. The cavalry seethed and teemed under this assault, and then the defenders rushed out at them in a rapid counterattack, fighting furiously with battle-axes, guisarmes and studded flails. The cavalry retreated to the ponds, leaving human and equine corpses behind, while the infantry concealed themselves among the barricades and hurled filthy insults at the enemy. After a while, the cavalry formed up and attacked once again.
And again.
‘Who do you think’s fighting whom?’ Dandelion asked once more, but indistinctly, as he was trying to soften and chew a piece of hard tack he had scrounged from Milva.
They were sitting on the very edge of the cliff, well hidden among juniper shrubs. They were able to watch the battle without being afraid anyone would notice them. Actually, they could do nothing but watch. They had no choice: a battle was raging in front of them and a forest fire was raging behind them.
‘It’s easy to identify them,’ Geralt said, reluctantly responding to Dandelion’s question. ‘They’re Nilfgaardian horsemen.’
‘And the infantry?’
‘The infantry aren’t Nilfgaardian.’
‘The horsemen are regular cavalrymen from Verden,’ said Milva, until then sombre and strangely taciturn. ‘They have the Verdenian checkerboard emblem sewn onto their tunics. And the ones in the village are the Bruggian regular infantry. You can tell by their banners.’
Indeed, encouraged by another small victory, the infantrymen raised their green standard – with a white cross moline – above the entrenchment. Geralt had been watching intently, but hadn’t noticed the standard before. It must have gone missing at the start of the battle.
‘Are we staying here for much longer?’ Dandelion asked.
‘Oh dear,’ muttered Milva ‘Here he goes. Take a look around! Whichever way you turn, it looks pretty shitty, doesn’t it?
The Saga of the Witcher Page 75