‘Don’t say anything. Save your strength.’
Angoulême sighed, suddenly leaned over forward and rested her brow against Ciri’s shoulder.
‘I knew . . .’ she said quite clearly. ‘I knew that a brothel in Toussaint would be a better fucking way of making a living.’
A long, long time passed before Ciri realised she was holding a dead girl in her arms.
*
She saw him as he approached, being led by the lifeless looks of the alabaster caryatids holding up the arcades. And suddenly understood that flight was impossible, that it was impossible to escape from him. That she would have to face him. She knew it.
But was still too afraid of him.
He drew his weapon. Swallow’s blade sang softly. She knew that song.
She retreated down the wide corridor, and he followed her, holding his sword in both hands. Blood trickled down the blade, heavy drops dripping from the cross guard.
‘Dead,’ he judged, stepping over Angoulême’s body. ‘Well and good. Your young blade has also fallen.’
Ciri felt desperation seizing her. Felt her fingers gripping the hilt so tightly it hurt.
She retreated.
‘You deceived me,’ drawled Bonhart, following her. ‘The young blade didn’t have a medallion. But something tells me somebody will be found in this castle who wears one. Someone like that will be found, old Leo Bonhart stakes his life on it, somewhere near the witch Yennefer. But first things first, viper. First of all, us. You and me. And our nuptials.’
Ciri got her bearings. Describing a short arc with Swallow she took up her position. She began to circle him, quicker and quicker, forcing the bounty hunter to move around on the spot.
‘Last time,’ he muttered, ‘that trick wasn’t much use to you. Well? Can’t you learn from your mistakes?’
Ciri speeded up. She deceived and beguiled, tantalised and hypnotised with flowing, soft movements of her blade.
Bonhart whirled his sword in a hissing moulinet.
‘That doesn’t work on me,’ he snarled. ‘And it bores me!’
He shortened the distance with two rapid strides.
‘Play, music!’
He leaped, cut hard. Ciri spun around in a pirouette, jumped, landed confidently on her left foot, and struck at once, without assuming a position. Before the blade had clanged on Bonhart’s parry she had spun past, smoothly moving in under the whistling blow. She struck again, without a back swing, using an unnatural, unorthodox bend of the elbow. Bonhart blocked, using the momentum of the parry to immediately slash from the left. She was expecting that, and all she needed was a slight bend of the knees and a sway of her trunk to move her whole body aside from under the blade. She countered and thrust at once. But this time he was waiting for her, and deceived her with a feint. Not meeting a parry, she almost lost her balance, saving herself with a lightning-fast leap, but his sword caught her arm anyway. At first she thought the blade had only cut through her padded sleeve, but a moment later she felt the warm liquid in her armpit and on her arm.
The alabaster caryatids observed them with indifferent eyes.
She drew back and he followed her, hunched, making wide, sweeping movements with his sword. Like the bony Death Ciri had seen on paintings in the temple. The dance of the skeletons, she thought. The Grim Reaper is coming.
She drew back. The warm liquid was now dripping down her forearm and hand.
‘First blood to me,’ he said at the sight of the drops splattering star-like on the floor. ‘Who’ll draw the second blood? My betrothed?’
She retreated.
‘Look around. It’s the end.’
He was right. The corridor ended in nothingness, in an abyss, at the bottom of which could be seen the dust-covered, dirty and smashed up floorboards of the lower storey. This part of the castle was destroyed, there was no floor at all. There was only a framework of load-bearing timbers: posts, ridges and a lattice of beams.
She didn’t hesitate for long. She stepped onto a beam and moved backwards along it, without taking her eyes off Bonhart, watching his every move. That saved her. For he suddenly charged her, running along the beam, slashing with rapid, diagonal blows, whirling his sword in lightning-fast feints. She knew what he was counting on. A wrong parry or mistake with a feint would have upset her balance, and then she would have fallen off the beam, onto the smashed up woodblocks of the lower floor.
This time Ciri didn’t let the feints deceive her. Quite the opposite. She spun around nimbly and feinted a blow from the right, and when for a split second he hesitated, cut with a right seconde, so quickly and powerfully that Bonhart rocked after parrying. And would have fallen if not for his height. He managed to hold on to a ridge by reaching up with his left hand, keeping his balance. But he lost concentration for a split second. And that was enough for Ciri. She lunged, hard, fully extending her arm and blade.
He didn’t even flinch as Swallow’s blade passed with a hiss across his chest and left arm. He immediately countered so viciously that had Ciri not turned a back somersault the blow would probably have cut her in half. She hopped onto the adjacent beam, dropping onto one knee with her sword held horizontally over her head.
Bonhart glanced at his shoulder and raised his left arm, already marked by a pattern of wavy crimson lines. He looked at the thick drops dripping downwards into the abyss.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You do know how to learn from your mistakes.’
His voice trembled with fury. But Ciri knew him too well. He was calm, composed and ready to kill.
He leaped onto her beam, whirling his sword, went for her like a hurricane, treading surely, without wobbling, or even looking at his feet. The beam creaked, raining down dust and rotten wood.
He pushed on, slashing diagonally. He forced her backwards. He attacked so quickly she couldn’t risk a leap or a somersault, so she had to keep parrying and dodging.
She saw a flash in his fishy eyes. She knew what was afoot. He was driving her against a post, to the truss beneath the ridge. He was pushing her back to a place from where there was no escape.
She had to do something. And she suddenly knew what.
Kaer Morhen. The pendulum.
You push off from the pendulum, you take its momentum, its energy. You take its momentum by pushing off. Do you understand?
Yes, Geralt.
All of a sudden, with the speed of a striking viper, she went from a parry to a cut. Swallow’s blade groaned, striking against Bonhart’s edge. Simultaneously Ciri pushed off and jumped onto the adjacent beam. She landed, miraculously keeping her balance. She took a few quick, light steps and leaped again, back onto Bonhart’s beam, landing behind his back. He spun around in time, made a sweeping cut, almost blindly, to where her leap should have carried her. He missed by a hair’s breadth, and the force of the blow made him stagger. Ciri attacked like a lightning strike. She lunged, dropping onto one knee. She struck powerfully and surely.
And she froze with her sword held out to the side. Watching calmly as the long, slanting, perfectly straight slit in his jacket began to well up and brim a dense red.
‘You . . .’ Bonhart staggered. ‘You . . .’
He came for her. He was already slow and sluggish. She eluded him by leaping backwards, and he lost his balance. He fell onto one knee but did not plant his other on the beam. And the wood was now wet and slippery. He looked at Ciri for a second. Then he fell.
She saw him tumble onto the parquet floor in a geyser of dust, plaster and blood, saw his sword fly several yards to one side. He lay motionless, spread out, huge and gaunt. Wounded and utterly defenceless. But still terrible.
It took some time but he finally twitched. Groaned. Tried to raise his head. He moved his arms. He moved his legs. He crept to a post and propped his back up against it. He groaned again, feeling his bloodied chest and belly with both hands.
Ciri leaped down. And fell beside him onto one knee. As softly as a cat. She saw his fishy eyes
widen in fear.
‘You won . . .’ he wheezed, looking at Swallow’s blade. ‘You won, witcher girl. Pity it wasn’t in the arena . . . It would have been some spectacle . . .’
She didn’t reply.
‘It was I who gave you that sword, do you remember?’
‘I remember everything.’
‘Surely you won’t . . .’ he grunted. ‘Surely you won’t finish me off, will you? You won’t do it . . . You won’t finish off a beaten and defenceless man . . . I know you, after all, Ciri. You’re too . . . noble . . . for that.’
He looked long at her. Very long. Then she bent over. Bonhart’s eyes widened even more. But she just tore from his neck the medallions: the wolf, the cat and the gryphon. Then she turned around and walked towards the exit.
He lunged at her with a knife, sprang at her dishonourably and treacherously. And as silent as a bat. Only at the last moment, when the dagger was about to plunge up to the guard in her back, did he roar, putting all his hatred into the bellow.
She dodged the treacherous thrust with a swift half-turn and leap, swung her arm and struck quickly and widely, powerfully, with a full swing, increasing the power with a twist of the hips.
Swallow swished and cut, cut with the very tip of the blade. There was a hiss and a squelch and Bonhart grabbed his throat. His fishy eyes were popping out of his head.
‘Didn’t I tell you,’ Ciri said coldly, ‘that I remember everything?’
Bonhart goggled even more. And then fell. He overbalanced and tumbled over backwards, raising dust. And he lay like that, huge, as bony as the Grim Reaper, on the dirty floor, among broken woodblocks. He was still clutching his throat, tightly, with all his might. But although he squeezed hard, his life was draining away fast between his fingers, spreading out around his head in a great, black halo.
Ciri stood over him. Without a word. But allowing him to see her clearly. So as to take her image, her image alone, with him where he was going.
Bonhart glanced at her, his gaze growing dull and blurred. He was shivering convulsively, scraping his heels over the floorboards. Then he uttered a gurgle of the kind a funnel gives just before it empties.
And it was the last sound he made.
*
There was a bang, and the stained-glass windows exploded with a thud and a clink.
‘Look out, Geralt!’
They jumped aside just in time. A blinding flash of lightning ploughed up the floor, chips of terracotta and sharp shards of mosaic wailed in the air. Another flash of lightning hit the column the Witcher was hiding behind. The column broke into three parts. Half the arcade broke off the vault and crashed onto the floor with a deafening boom. Geralt, lying flat on the floor, shielded his head with his hands, aware of what poor protection they were against more than ten tons of rubble. He had prepared himself for the worst, but things were not too bad. He got up quickly, managed to see the glow of a magical shield above him and realised that Yennefer’s magic had saved him.
Vilgefortz turned towards the sorceress and pulverised the pillar she was sheltering behind. He roared furiously, sewing together a cloud of smoke and dust with threads of fire. Yennefer managed to jump clear, and retaliated, firing at the sorcerer her own flash of lightning, which, nonetheless, Vilgefortz deflected effortlessly and with sheer contempt. He replied with a blow that hurled Yennefer to the floor.
Geralt rushed at him, wiping plaster from his face. Vilgefortz turned his eyes towards him and a hand from which flames exploded with a roar. The Witcher instinctively shielded himself with his sword. The rune-covered dwarven blade protected him, astonishingly, cutting the stream of fire in half.
‘Ha!’ roared Vilgefortz. ‘Impressive, Witcher! And what say you to this?’
The Witcher said nothing. He flew as if he’d been rammed, fell onto the floor and shot across it, only stopping at the base of the column. The column broke up and fell to pieces, again taking a considerable part of the vault with it. This time Yennefer wasn’t quick enough to give him magical protection. A huge lump broken off from the arcade hit him in the shoulder. The pain paralysed him for a moment.
Yennefer, chanting spells, sent flash after flash of lightning towards Vilgefortz. None of them hit the target, all harmlessly bouncing off the magical sphere protecting the sorcerer. Vilgefortz stretched out his arms and suddenly spread them. Yennefer cried out in pain and soared up into the air, levitating. Vilgefortz twisted his hands, exactly as though he were wringing out a wet rag. The sorceress howled piercingly. And began to spin.
Geralt sprang up, overcoming the pain. But Regis was quieter.
The vampire appeared out of nowhere in the form of an enormous bat and fell on Vilgefortz with a noiseless glide. Before the sorcerer could protect himself with a spell, Regis had slashed him across the face with his claws, only missing his eye because of its tiny size. Vilgefortz bellowed and waved his arms. Yennefer, now released, tumbled down onto a heap of rubble with an ear-splitting groan, blood bursting from her nose onto her face and chest.
Geralt was now close, was already raising the sihill to strike. But Vilgefortz was not yet defeated and did not mean to surrender. He threw off the Witcher with a great surge of power and shot a blinding white flame at the attacking vampire, which sliced through a column like a hot knife through butter. Regis nimbly avoided the flame and materialised in his normal shape alongside Geralt.
‘Beware,’ grunted the Witcher, trying to see how Yennefer was. ‘Beware, Regis—’
‘Beware?’ yelled the vampire. ‘Me? I didn’t come here to beware!’
With an incredible, lightning-fast, tiger-like bound he fell on the sorcerer and grabbed him by the throat. His fangs flashed.
Vilgefortz howled in horror and rage. For a moment it seemed as though it would be the end of him. But that was an illusion. The sorcerer had a weapon in his arsenal for every occasion. And for every opponent. Even a vampire. The hands that seized Regis glowed like red-hot iron. The vampire screamed. Geralt also screamed, seeing the sorcerer literally tearing Regis apart. He leaped to his aid, but wasn’t fast enough. Vilgefortz pushed the mutilated vampire against a column and shot white fire at him from close up out of both hands. Regis screamed, screamed so horribly that the Witcher covered his ears with his hands. The rest of the stained-glass windows exploded with a roar and a smash. And the column simply melted. The vampire melted along with it, fusing into an amorphous lump.
Geralt swore, putting all his rage and despair into the curse. He leaped at Vilgefortz, raising his sihill to strike. But failed. Vilgefortz turned around and struck him with magical energy. The Witcher flew the whole length of the hall and slammed into the wall, sliding down it. He lay like a fish gasping for air, not wondering what was broken, but what was intact. Vilgefortz walked towards him. A six-foot iron bar materialised in his hand.
‘I could have reduced you to ashes with a spell,’ he said. ‘I could have melted you into clinker like I did to that monster a moment ago. But you, Witcher, ought to die differently. In a fight. Not a very honest one, perhaps, but still.’
Geralt didn’t believe he’d be able to stand. But he did. He spat blood from his cut lip. He gripped his sword more tightly.
‘On Thanedd—’ Vilgefortz came closer, whirled the bar in a moulinet ‘—I only broke you a little bit, sparingly, for it was meant to be a lesson. Since it wasn’t learned, this time I’ll break you thoroughly, into tiny little bones. So that no one will ever be able to stick you back together again.’
He attacked. Geralt didn’t run away. He took on the fight.
The bar flickered and whistled, the sorcerer circled around the dancing Witcher. Geralt avoided the blows and delivered his own, but Vilgefortz deftly parried, and then steel groaned mournfully as it struck steel.
The sorcerer was as quick and agile as a demon.
He tricked Geralt with a twist of his trunk and a feigned blow from the left, and slammed him in the ribs from below. Before the Witcher could get his balanc
e and his breath back he was hit in the shoulder so hard he fell to his knees. He dodged aside, saving his skull from a blow from above, but could not avoid a reverse thrust from below, above the hip. He staggered and struck his back against the wall. He still had enough wits about him to fall to the floor. Just in time, because the iron bar grazed his hair and slammed into the wall, sending sparks flying.
Geralt rolled over, and the bar struck sparks on the floor right beside his head. The second blow hit him in the shoulder blade. There was shock, and paralysing pain; weakness flowed down to his legs. The sorcerer raised the bar. Triumph burned in his eyes.
Geralt clenched Fringilla’s medallion in his fist.
The bar fell with a clang, striking the floor a foot from the Witcher’s head. Geralt rolled away and quickly got up on one knee. Vilgefortz leaped forward and struck. The bar missed the target again by a few inches. The sorcerer shook his head in disbelief and hesitated for a second.
He sighed, suddenly understanding. His eyes lit up. He leaped, taking a swing. Too late.
Geralt slashed him hard across the belly. Vilgefortz screamed, dropped the bar, and staggered back, bent over. The Witcher was already upon him. He pushed him with his boot onto the stump of the broken column and cut vigorously, diagonally, from collarbone to hip. Blood gushed on the floor, painting an undulating pattern. The sorcerer screamed and fell to his knees. He lowered his head and looked down at his belly and chest. For a long time he could not tear his eyes away from what he saw.
Geralt waited calmly, in position, with the sihill ready to strike.
Vilgefortz groaned piercingly and raised his head.
‘Geraaalt . . .’
The Witcher didn’t let him finish.
It was very quiet for a long time.
‘I didn’t know . . .’ Yennefer said at last, scrambling out of a pile of rubble. She looked terrible. The blood trickling from her nose had poured all over her chin and cleavage. ‘I didn’t know you could cast illusory spells,’ she repeated, seeing Geralt’s uncomprehending gaze, ‘capable even of deceiving Vilgefortz.’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 192