Dandelion didn’t have to look or turn around. The entire horizon was striped with columns of smoke. It was thickest to the north and the west, where the armies had set fire to the forests. Smoke was also rising into the sky in many places to the south, where they had been heading when the battle had barred their way. And during the hour they had spent on the hill, smoke had also started rising to the east.
‘However,’ the archer began a moment later, looking at Geralt, ‘I’d really like to know what you intend doing now, Witcher. Behind us we’ve got Nilfgaard and a burning forest, and you can see for yourself what’s in front of us. So what are your plans?’
‘My plans haven’t changed. I’ll wait for this scrap to finish and then I’ll head south. Towards the Yaruga.’
‘I think you’ve lost your mind.’ Milva scowled. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? It’s as clear as the nose on your face that it’s not some leaderless band of mercenaries, but something called war. Nilfgaard and Verden are on the march. They’re sure to have crossed the Yaruga in the south and probably the whole of Brugge and possibly Sodden are in flames—’
‘I have to get to the Yaruga.’
‘Excellent. And what then?’
‘I’ll find a boat, I’ll sail downstream and try to make it to the delta. Then a ship— I mean, hell, some ships must still sail from there—’
‘To Nilfgaard?’ she snorted. ‘So the plans haven’t changed?’
‘You don’t have to go with me.’
‘No, I don’t. And praise the Gods for that, because I don’t have a death wish. I’m not afraid, but mind you: getting yourself killed is no claim to fame.’
‘I know,’ he replied calmly. ‘I know from experience. I wouldn’t be heading that way if I didn’t have to. But I have to, so I’m going. Nothing’s going to stop me.’
‘Ah,’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘Listen to this hero, his voice like someone scraping a sword across a shield. If Imperator Emhyr could hear you, I’m sure he’d be shitting his britches in terror. “To my side, guards, to my side, my imperial regiments, oh woe is me, the Witcher’s heading for Nilfgaard in a rowing boat, soon he’ll be here to take my crown and life from me! I’m doomed!” ’
‘Give over, Milva.’
‘I won’t! It’s time someone finally told you the truth to your face. Fuck me with a mangy rabbit if I’ve ever seen a stupider clod! You’re going to snatch your maid from Emhyr? The same maid Emhyr has got lined up as his Imperatoress? The girl he snatched from Thanedd? Emhyr’s got long hands. They don’t let go of what they seize. The kings stand no chance against him, but still you fancy yours?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You’re heading for Nilfgaard,’ Milva repeated, shaking her head in mock sympathy. ‘To fight the Imperator and rescue his fiancée. But have you thought about what might happen? When you get there, when you find Ciri in her imperial apartments, all dressed in gold and silk, what will you say to her? Follow me, my darling. What do you want with an imperial throne? We’ll live together in a shack and eat bark during the lean season. Look at yourself, you lame scruff. You even got your coat and boots from the dryads, stripped from some elf who died of his wounds in Brokilon. And do you know what’ll happen when your maid sees you? She’ll spit in your eye and scorn you. She’ll order the imperial guard to throw you out on your ear and set the dogs on you!’
Milva was speaking louder and louder and she was almost shouting by the end of her tirade. Not only from anger, but also to be heard over the intensifying noise of battle. Down below, scores – or even hundreds – of throats were roaring. Another attack descended on the Bruggian infantry. But this time from two sides simultaneously. Verdenians dressed in greyish-blue tunics adorned with a chequered pattern galloped along the causeway, while a powerful cavalry force in black cloaks dashed out from behind the ponds, striking the defenders’ flank.
‘Nilfgaard,’ said Milva tersely.
This time the Bruggian infantry had no chance. The cavalry forced their way through the barricades and ripped the defenders apart with their swords. The standard with the cross fell. Some of the infantrymen laid down their arms and surrendered; others tried to escape towards the trees. But as they ran a third unit emerged from the trees and attacked; a mixed band of light cavalry.
‘The Scoia’tael,’ Milva said, getting to her feet. ‘Now do you understand what’s going on, Witcher? Do you get it? Nilfgaard, Verden and the Squirrels all at once. War. Like it was in Aedirn a month ago.’
‘It’s a raid,’ Geralt said, shaking his head. ‘A plundering raid. Only horsemen, no infantry . . .’
‘The infantry are capturing forts and their garrisons. Where do you think those plumes of smoke are coming from? Smokehouses?’
The bestial, dreadful screams of people fleeing only to be caught and slaughtered by the Squirrels drifted up from the village. Smoke and flames belched from the roofs of the cottages. A strong wind was swiftly spreading the fire from one thatched roof to another.
‘Look at that village going up in smoke,’ muttered Milva. ‘And they’d only just finished rebuilding it after the last war. They sweated for two years to put up the foundations and it’ll burn down in a few seconds. That’s a lesson to be learned!’
‘What lesson would that be?’ asked Geralt brusquely.
She didn’t answer. The smoke from the burning village rose up to the top of the cliff, stung their eyes and made them water. They could hear the screams from the inferno. Dandelion suddenly went as white as a sheet.
The captives were driven into a huddle, surrounded by a ring of soldiers. On the order of a knight in a black-plumed helmet the horsemen began to slash and stab the unarmed villagers. They were trampled by horses as they fell. The ring tightened. The screams which reached the cliff top no longer resembled sounds made by humans.
‘And you want to travel south?’ asked the poet, looking meaningfully at the Witcher. ‘Through these fires? Where these butchers come from?’
‘Seems to me,’ Geralt replied reluctantly, ‘that we don’t have a choice.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Milva said. ‘I can lead you through the forests to the Owl Hills and back to Ceann Treise. And Brokilon.’
‘Through those burning forests? Through more skirmishes like this?’
‘It’s safer than the road south. It’s no more than fourteen miles to Ceann Treise and I know which paths to take.’
The Witcher looked down at the village perishing in the flames. The Nilfgaardians had dealt with the captives and the cavalry had formed up in marching order. The motley band of Scoia’tael set off along the highway leading east.
‘I’m not going back,’ he retorted. ‘But you can escort Dandelion to Brokilon.’
‘No!’ the poet protested, although he still hadn’t regained his normal colour. ‘I’m going with you.’
Milva shrugged, picked up her quiver and bow, took a step towards the horses and then suddenly turned around.
‘Devil take it!’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been saving elves from death for too long. I can’t just let someone go to his death! I’ll lead you to the Yaruga, you crazy fools. But by the eastern route, not the southern one.’
‘The forests are burning there too.’
‘I’ll lead you through the fire. I’m used to it.’
‘You don’t have to, Milva.’
‘Too right I don’t. Now to horse! And get a bloody move on!’
They didn’t get far. The horses had difficulty moving through the undergrowth and along the overgrown tracks, and they didn’t dare use roads; the hoofbeats and clanking could be heard everywhere, betraying the presence of armed forces. Dusk surprised them among brush-covered ravines, so they stopped for the night. It wasn’t raining and the sky was bright from the glow of fires.
They found a fairly dry place, wrapped themselves in their mantles and blankets and sat down. Milva went off to search the surrounding area. As soon as she moved away, Dandelion gave vent to the
long-suppressed curiosity that the Brokilonian archer had aroused in him.
‘That’s a comely girl if ever there was one,’ he murmured. ‘You’re lucky when it comes to the female of the species, Geralt. She’s tall and curvaceous, and walks as though she were dancing. A little too slim in the hips for my taste, and a little too sturdy in the shoulders, but she’s very womanly . . . And those two little apples in the front, ho, ho . . . Almost bursting out of her blouse—’
‘Shut it, Dandelion.’
‘I happened to bump against her by accident on the road,’ the poet dreamed on. ‘A thigh, I tell you, like marble. Methinks you weren’t bored during that month in Brokilon—’
Milva, who had just returned from her patrol, heard his theatrical whispering and noticed their expressions.
‘Are you talking about me, poet? What are you staring at as soon as my back’s turned? Has a bird shat on me?’
‘We’re amazed by your archery skills.’ Dandelion grinned. ‘You wouldn’t find much competition at an archery tournament.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before, and the rest.’
‘I’ve read,’ Dandelion said, winking tellingly at Geralt, ‘that the best archeresses can be found among the Zerrikanian steppe clans. I gather that some even cut off their left breast, so it won’t interfere when they draw the bow. Their breast, they say, gets in the way of the bowstring.’
‘Some poet must have dreamed that up,’ Milva snorted. ‘He sits down and writes twaddle like that, dipping his quill in a chamber pot, and foolish people believe it. Think I use my tits to shoot with, do you? You pull the bowstring back to your kisser, standing side on, like this. Nothing snags on the bowstring. All that talk of cutting off a tit is hogwash, thought up by some layabout with nothing but women’s bodies on the brain.’
‘Thank you for your kind words about poets and poetry. And the archery lesson. Good weapon, a bow. You know what? I think the arts of war will develop in that direction. People are going to fight at a distance in the wars of the future. They’ll invent a weapon with such a long range that the two sides will be able to kill each other while completely out of eyeshot.’
‘Twaddle,’ Milva said bluntly. ‘A bow’s a good thing, but war’s all about man against man, a sword’s length apart, the stouter one smashing the weaker one’s head in. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how it’ll always be. And once that finishes, all wars will finish. But for now, you’ve seen how wars are fought. You saw it in that village, by the causeway. And that’s enough idle talk. I’m going to have another look around. The horses are snorting as though a wolf was sniffing around . . .’
‘Comely, oh yes.’ Dandelion followed her with his gaze. ‘Mmm . . . Going back to the village by the causeway and what she told you when we were sitting on the cliff— Don’t you think there’s something in what she says?’
‘About?’
‘About . . . Ciri,’ the poet stammered slightly. ‘Our beautiful, sharp-shooting wench seems not to understand the relationship between you and Ciri, and thinks, it seems to me, that you intend to woo her away from the Nilfgaardian Imperator. That that’s the real motive behind your expedition to Nilfgaard.’
‘So in that regard she’s totally wrong. But what’s she right about?’
‘Take it easy, keep your cool. Nonetheless stare the truth in the face. You took Ciri under your wing and consider yourself her guardian, but she’s no ordinary girl. She’s a princess, Geralt. Without beating about the bush, she’s in line for the throne. For the palace. And the crown. Maybe not necessarily the Nilfgaardian crown. I don’t know if Emhyr is the best husband for her—’
‘Precisely. You don’t know.’
‘And do you?’
The Witcher wrapped himself up in a blanket.
‘You’re heading, quite naturally, towards a conclusion,’ he said. ‘But don’t bother; I know what you’re thinking. “There’s no point saving Ciri from a fate she’s been doomed to since the day of her birth. Because Ciri, who doesn’t need saving at all, will be quite ready to order the imperial guard to throw us down the stairs. Let’s forget about her.” Right?’
Dandelion opened his mouth, but Geralt didn’t let him speak.
‘ “After all,’ he continued in an even harsher voice, ‘the girl wasn’t abducted by a dragon or an evil wizard, nor did pirates seize her for the ransom money. She’s not locked in a tower, a dungeon or a cage; she’s not being tortured or starved. Quite the opposite; she sleeps on damask, eats from silverware, wears silks and lace, is bedecked with jewellery and is just waiting to be crowned. In short, she’s happy. Meanwhile some witcher who, by some unfortunate fate happened upon her, has taken it upon himself to disrupt, spoil, destroy and crush that happiness beneath the rotten old boots he pulled off some dead elf.” Right?’
‘That’s not what I was thinking,’ Dandelion muttered.
‘He wasn’t talking to you,’ Milva said, suddenly looming up from the darkness and after a moment’s hesitation sitting down beside the Witcher. ‘That was for me. It was my words that upset him. I spoke in anger, without thinking . . . Forgive me, Geralt. I know what it’s like when a claw scratches an open wound. Come on, don’t fret. I won’t do it any more. Do you forgive me? Or should I say sorry by kissing you?’
Not waiting either for an answer or permission she grabbed him powerfully by the neck and kissed him on the cheek. He squeezed her shoulder hard.
‘Slide nearer.’ He coughed. ‘And you too, Dandelion. We’ll be warmer together.’
They said nothing for a long time. Clouds scudded across a sky bright with firelight, obscuring the twinkling stars.
‘I want to tell you something,’ Geralt said at last. ‘But promise you won’t laugh.’
‘Out with it.’
‘I had some strange dreams. In Brokilon. At first I thought they were ravings; something wrong with my head. You know, I got a good beating on Thanedd. But I keep having the same dream. Always the same one.’
Dandelion and Milva said nothing.
‘Ciri,’ he began a moment later, ‘isn’t sleeping in a palace beneath a brocade canopy. She’s riding a horse through a dusty village . . . the villagers are pointing at her. They’re calling her by a name I don’t recognise. Dogs are barking. She’s not alone. There are others with her. There’s a crop-haired girl, who’s holding Ciri’s hand . . . and Ciri’s smiling at her but I don’t like that smile. I don’t like her heavy make-up . . . But the thing I like least is that she leaves a trail of death.’
‘So where is the girl?’ Milva mused, snuggling up to him like a cat. ‘Not in Nilfgaard?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said with difficulty. ‘But I’ve had the same dream several times. The problem is I don’t believe in dreams like that.’
‘Well, you’re a fool. I do.’
‘I don’t know it,’ he repeated. ‘But I can feel it. There’s fire ahead of her and death behind her. I have to make haste.’
It began to rain at dawn. Not like the previous day, when the storm had been accompanied by a brief but strong downpour. The sky turned grey and took on a leaden patina. It began to spit with rain; a fine, even and drenching drizzle.
They rode east. Milva led the way. When Geralt pointed out to her that the Yaruga was to the south, the archer growled and reminded him she was the guide and knew what she was doing. He said nothing after that. After all, the most important thing was that they were under way. The direction wasn’t so important.
They rode in silence, wet, chilled to the bone, and hunched over their saddles. They kept to footpaths, stole along forest tracks, cut across highways. They disappeared into the undergrowth at the sound of thudding hooves of cavalry tramping along the roads. They gave a wide berth to the uproar of battle. They rode past villages engulfed in flames, past smoking and glowing rubble, and past settlements and hamlets which had been razed to black squares of burnt earth and the acrid stench of rain-soaked charred embers. They startled flocks of cro
ws feeding on corpses. They passed groups and columns of peasants bent beneath bundles, fleeing from war and conflagration, dazed, responding to questions with nothing but a fearful, uncomprehending and mute raising of their eyes, emptied by misfortune and horror.
They rode east, amidst fire and smoke, amidst drizzle and fog, and the tapestry of war unfolded in front of their eyes. So many sights.
There was a black silhouette of a crane projecting among the ruins of a burnt-out village, with a naked corpse dangling from it head downwards. Blood from the mutilated crotch and belly dripped down onto its chest and face, to hang like icicles from its hair. The Rune of Ard was visible on its back. Carved with a knife.
‘An’givare,’ Milva said, throwing her wet hair off her neck. ‘The Squirrels were here.’
‘What does an’givare mean?’
‘Informer.’
There was a grey horse, saddled in a black caparison. It was walking unsteadily around the edge of the battlefield, wandering between piles of corpses and broken spears stuck into the ground, whinnying quietly and pitifully, dragging its entrails behind it, dangling from its mutilated belly. They couldn’t finish it off, for on the battlefield – apart from the horse – there were also marauders robbing corpses.
There was a spread-eagled girl, lying near a burnt-out farmyard, naked, bloody, staring at the sky with glazed eyes.
‘They say war’s a male thing,’ Milva growled. ‘But they have no mercy on women; they have to have their fun. Fucking heroes; damn them all.’
‘You’re right. But you won’t change it.’
‘I already have. I ran away from home. I didn’t want to sweep the cottage and scrub the floors. I wasn’t going to wait until they arrived and put the cottage to the torch, spread me out on the very same floor and . . .’ She broke off, and spurred her horse forward.
And later there was a tar house. Here Dandelion puked up everything he’d eaten that day: some hard tack and half a stockfish.
In the tar house some Nilfgaardians – or perhaps Scoia’tael – had dealt with a group of captives. It was impossible even to guess at the exact size of the group. Because during the carnage they had not only used arrows, swords and lances, but also woodmen’s tools they’d found there: axes, drawknives and crosscut saws.
The Saga of the Witcher Page 76