Season of Storms

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  “And categorised you correctly?” Shevlov snorted. “As monsters? So, you were lucky. I jest. Because the matter is simple, it seems to me. When serving in the army I heard something quite different about witchers. They hire themselves out for everything: to spy, to guard, even to assassinate. They called them the ‘Cats.’ Trent saw this one here in Maribor, in Temeria. Meaning he’s a Temerian hireling, employed regarding the border posts. They warned me in Findetann about Temerian mercenaries and are promising a bounty for any caught. So, let’s take him in fetters to Findetann, turn him in to the commandant and claim the reward. Come on, tie him up. What are you waiting for? Are you afraid? He’s not offering resistance. He knows what we’d do to the little peasants if he tries anything.”

  “And who’s going to fucking touch him? If he’s a wizard?”

  “Knock on wood!” Ligenza spat on the ground.

  “Lily-livered cowards!” yelled Fryga, untying the strap of her saddle bags. “Yellow-bellies! I’ll do it, since no one here has the balls!”

  Geralt allowed himself to be tied up. He decided to comply. For the time being.

  Two ox wagons trundled out of the forest, wagons laden with posts and elements of some kind of wooden construction.

  “Someone go to the carpenters and the bailiff.” Shevlov pointed. “Send them back. We’ve sunk enough posts, it’ll suffice for now. We shall take a rest here, meanwhile. Search the farmyard for anything fit as fodder for the horses. And some vittals for us.”

  Ligenza picked up and examined Geralt’s sword, Dandelion’s acquisition. Shevlov snatched it out of his hand. He hefted it, wielded it and whirled it around.

  “You were lucky we came in force,” he said. “He would have carved you up no problem: you, Fryga and Floquet. Legends circulate about these witcher swords. The best steel, oftentimes folded and forged, folded and forged again. And they’re protected by special spells. Thus achieving exceptional tensile strength and sharpness. A witcher edge, I tell you, pierces armour plate and mail like a linen shift, and cuts through every other blade like noodles.”

  “That cannot be,” stated Sperry. Like many of the others, his whiskers were dripping with the cream they had found in the cottage and guzzled. “Not like noodles.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” added Fryga.

  “Difficult to believe something like that,” threw in Poker.

  “Really?” Shevlov assumed a swordsman’s pose. “Face me, one of you, and we’ll find out. Come on, who’s willing? Well? Why has it gone so quiet?”

  “Very well.” Escayrac stepped forward and drew his sword. “I shall face you. What do I care? We shall see whether … En garde, Shevlov.”

  “En garde. One, two … three!”

  The swords struck each other with a clang. The metal whined mournfully as it snapped. Fryga ducked as a broken piece of blade whistled past her temple.

  “Fuck,” said Shevlov, staring disbelievingly at the blade, which had broken a few inches above the gilded cross guard.

  “And not a notch on mine!” Escayrac raised his sword. “Ha, ha, ha! Not a notch! Nor even a mark.”

  Fryga giggled like a schoolgirl. Ligenza bleated like a billy goat. The rest guffawed.

  “Witcher sword?” snorted Sperry. “Cuts through like noodles? You’re the fucking noodle.”

  “It’s …” Shevlov pursed his lips. “It’s sodding scrap. It’s trash … And you …”

  He tossed away the remains of the sword, glowered at Geralt and pointed an accusing finger at him.

  “You’re a fraudster. An imposter and a fraudster. You feign to be a witcher, and wield such trash … You carry junk like this instead of a decent blade? How many good people have you deceived, I wonder? How many paupers have you fleeced, swindler? Oh, you’ll confess your peccadillos in Findetann, the starosta will see to that!”

  He panted, spat and stamped his foot.

  “To horse! Let’s get out of here!”

  They rode away, laughing, singing and whistling. The settler and his family gloomily watched them go. Geralt saw their lips moving. It wasn’t difficult to guess what fate and what mishaps they were wishing on Shevlov and company.

  The settler couldn’t have expected in his wildest dreams that his wishes would come true to the letter. And that it would happen so swiftly.

  They arrived at the crossroads. The highway leading westwards along the ravine was rutted by wheels and hooves; the carpenters’ wagons had clearly gone that way. As did the company. Geralt walked behind Fryga’s horse, tied to a rope attached to the pommel of her saddle.

  The horse of Shevlov—who was riding at the front—whinnied and reared up.

  Something suddenly flared on the side of the ravine, lit up and became a milky, iridescent globe. Then the globe vanished and a strange group appeared in its stead. There were several figures embraced and intertwined together.

  “What the devil?” cursed Poker and rode over to Shevlov, who was quietening down his horse. “What’s going on?”

  The group separated. Into four figures. A slim, long-haired and slightly effeminate man. Two long-armed giants with bow legs. And a hunched dwarf with a great double-limbed steel arbalest.

  “Buueh-hhhrrr-eeeehhh-bueeeeh! Bueeh-heeh!”

  “Draw your weapons!” yelled Shevlov. “Draw your weapons, stand your ground!”

  First one and then the other bowstring of the great arbalest clanged. Shevlov died at once from a bolt to the head. Poker looked down at his belly, through which a bolt had just passed, before he fell from his saddle.

  “Fight!” The company drew their swords as one. “Fight!”

  Geralt had no intention of standing idly by to wait for the result of the engagement. He formed his fingers in the Igni Sign and burned through the rope binding his arms. He caught Fryga by the belt and hurled her to the ground. And leaped into the saddle.

  There was a blinding flash and the horses began to neigh, kick and thrash the air with their forehooves. Several horsemen fell and screamed as they were trampled. Fryga’s grey mare also bolted before the Witcher could bring her under control. Fryga leaped up, jumped and seized the bridle and reins. Geralt drove her away with a punch and spurred the mare into a gallop.

  Pressed to the steed’s neck, he didn’t see Degerlund frightening the horses and blinding their riders with magical lightning bolts. Or see Bue and Bang falling on the horsemen, roaring, one with a battleaxe, the other with a broad scimitar. He didn’t see the splashes of blood, didn’t hear the screams of the slaughtered.

  He didn’t see Escayrac die, and immediately after him Sperry, filleted like a fish by Bang. He didn’t see Bue fell Floquet and his steed, and then drag him out from under the horse. But Floquet’s stifled cry, the sound of a rooster being butchered, lingered long.

  Until he turned from the highway and dashed into the forest.

  Mahakam potato soup is prepared thus: gather chanterelles in the summer and men-on-horseback in the autumn. If it is the winter or early spring, take a sizeable handful of dried mushrooms. Put them in a pan and cover them with water, soak them overnight, salt them in the morning, toss in half an onion and boil. Drain them, but do not discard the broth; instead be vigilant in removing the sand that has surely settled at the bottom of the pan. Boil the potatoes and dice them. Take some fatty bacon, chop and fry it. Cut the onion into half slices and fry them in the bacon fat until they almost stick. Take a great cauldron, toss everything into it, not forgetting the chopped mushrooms. Pour on the mushroom broth, add water as needs be, pour on sour rye starter to taste. (How to execute the starter may be found elsewhere in another receipt.) Boil and season with salt, pepper and marjoram according to taste and liking. Add melted fatback. Stirring in cream is a matter of taste, but heed: it is against our dwarven tradition, for it is a human fashion to add cream to potato soup.

  Eleonora Rhundurin-Pigott, Perfect Mahakam Cuisine, the Precise Science of Cooking and Making Dishes from Meats, Fishes and Vegetables, also Seaso
ning Diverse Sauces, Baking Cakes, Making Jam, Preparing Cooked Meats, Preserves, Wines, Spirits, and Various Useful Cooking and Preserving Secrets, Essential for Every Good and Thrifty Housewife

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Like almost all post stations, this one was located at a junction where two roads intersected. It was a building with a shingle roof and a columned arcade with an adjoining stable and woodshed, set among white-barked birches. It was empty. There seemed to be no guests, nor travellers.

  The exhausted grey mare stumbled, walking stiffly and unsteadily, her head hanging almost to the ground. Geralt led her and handed the reins over to the stable lad. He looked about forty and was bent over under the burden of his years. He stroked the mare’s neck and examined his hand. He looked Geralt up and down, then spat right between his feet. Geralt shook his head and sighed. It didn’t surprise him. He knew he was at fault, that he’d overdone it with the gallop, and over difficult terrain, what’s more. He’d wanted to get as far away as possible from Sorel Degerlund and his minions. He was aware that it was a woeful justification; he also had a low opinion of people who drove their mounts into the ground.

  The stable lad went away, leading the mare and muttering to himself. It wasn’t difficult to guess what he was muttering and what he thought. Geralt sighed, pushed the door open and entered the station.

  It smelled agreeable inside and the Witcher realised he hadn’t eaten for more than a day.

  “There’s no horse,” said the postmaster, emerging from behind the counter and anticipating his question. “And the next mail coach won’t be here for two days.”

  “I could use some food.” Geralt looked upwards at the ridge and rafters of the high vault. “I’ll pay.”

  “We have none.”

  “Oh, come, postmaster,” came a voice from the corner of the chamber. “Does it behove you to treat a traveller so?”

  In the corner, seated at a table, was a dwarf. Flaxen-haired and flaxen-bearded, he was dressed in an embroidered, patterned maroon jerkin, embellished with brass buttons on the front and sleeves. He had ruddy cheeks and a prominent nose. Geralt had occasionally seen unusually shaped, slightly pink potatoes at the market. The dwarf’s nose was of an identical colour. And shape.

  “You offered me potato soup.” The dwarf glared sternly at the postmaster from under very bushy eyebrows. “You surely won’t contend that your wife only prepares one portion of it. I’ll wager any sum that it also suffices for this gentleman. Be seated, traveller. Will you take a beer?”

  “With pleasure, thank you,” replied Geralt, sitting down and digging out a coin from the hiding place in his belt. “But allow me to treat you, good sir. Despite the misleading impression, I am neither a tramp nor a vagrant. I am a witcher. On the job, which is why my apparel is shabby and my appearance unkempt. Which I beg you to forgive. Two beers, postmaster.”

  The beers appeared on the table in no time.

  “My wife will serve the potato soup shortly,” grunted the postmaster. “And don’t look askance at what just happened. I have to have vittals ready the whole time. For were some magnate, royal messengers or post to arrive … And were I to run out and have nothing to serve them—”

  “Yes, yes …”

  Geralt raised his mug. He knew plenty of dwarves and knew their drinking customs and proposed a toast.“To the propitiousness of a good cause!”

  “And to the confusion of whoresons!” added the dwarf, knocking his mug against Geralt’s. “It’s pleasant to drink with someone who observes custom and etiquette. I am Addario Bach. Actually Addarion, but everyone calls me Addario.”

  “Geralt of Rivia.”

  “The Witcher Geralt of Rivia,” declared Addario Bach, wiping the froth from his whiskers. “Your name rings a bell. You’re a well-travelled fellow and it’s no wonder you’re familiar with customs. I, mark you, have come here on the mail coach, or the dilly, as they call it in the South. And I’m waiting for a transfer to the mail coach plying between Dorian and Tretogor in Redania. Well, that potato soup is here at last. Let’s see what it’s like. You ought to know that our womenfolk in Mahakam make the best potato soup, you’ll never eat its like. Made from a thick starter of black bread and rye flour, with mushrooms and well-fried onions …”

  The post station potato soup was excellent, rich with chanterelles and fried onions, and if it was inferior to the Mahakam version made by dwarven women then Geralt never found out in what respect, as Addario Bach ate briskly, in silence and without commenting.

  The postmaster suddenly looked out of the window and his reaction made Geralt do likewise.

  Two horses had arrived outside the station, both looking even worse than Geralt’s captured mount. And there were three horsemen. To be precise, two men and a woman. The Witcher looked around the chamber vigilantly.

  The door creaked. Fryga entered the station. And behind her Ligenza and Trent.

  “If it’s horses—” The postmaster stopped abruptly when he saw the sword in Fryga’s hand.

  “You guessed,” she finished his sentence. “Horses are precisely what we need. Three. So, move yourself, bring them from the stable.”

  “—you want—”

  The postmaster didn’t finish that time, either. Fryga leaped at him and flashed a blade before his eyes. Geralt stood up.

  “Hey there!”

  All three of them turned towards him.

  “It’s you,” drawled Fryga. “You. Damned vagabond.”

  She had a bruise on her cheek where he’d punched her.

  “All because of you,” she rasped. “Shevlov, Poker, Sperry … All slaughtered, the entire squad. And you, whoreson, knocked me from the saddle, stole my horse and bolted like a coward. For which I shall now repay you.”

  She was short and slightly built. It didn’t deceive the Witcher. He was aware, because he had experienced it, that in life—as at a post station—even very hideous things could be delivered in quite unspectacular packages.

  “This is a post station!” the postmaster yelled from behind the counter. “Under royal protection!”

  “Did you hear that?” Geralt asked calmly. “A post station. Get you gone.”

  “You, O grey scallywag, are still feeble with your reckoning,” Fryga hissed. “Do you need help counting again? There’s one of you and three of us. Meaning there are more of us.”

  “There are three of you.” He swept his gaze over them. “And one of me. But there aren’t more of you at all. It’s something of a mathematical paradox and an exception to the rule.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning get the fuck out of here. While you’re still capable.”

  He spotted a gleam in her eye and knew at once that she was one of those few who could strike in quite a different place than where they’re looking. Fryga must only recently have begun perfecting that trick, for Geralt effortlessly dodged her treacherous blow. He outmanoeuvred her with a short half-twist, kicked her left leg out from under her and threw her onto the counter. She slammed against the wood with a loud thud.

  Ligenza and Trent must have previously seen Fryga in action, because her failure left them simply dumbfounded. They froze open-mouthed. For long enough to allow the Witcher to seize a broom he had spied earlier in the corner. First, Trent was hit in the face with the birch twigs, then across the head with the handle. And after that Geralt put the broom in front of his legs, kicked him behind the knees and tripped him up.

  Ligenza calmed down, drew his sword and leaped forward, slashing powerfully with a reverse blow. Geralt evaded it with a half-turn, spun right around, stuck out his elbow, and Ligenza—his momentum carrying him forward—jabbed his windpipe onto Geralt’s elbow. He wheezed and fell to his knees. Before he fell, Geralt plucked the sword from his fingers and threw it vertically upwards. The sword plunged into a rafter and remained there.

  Fryga attacked low and Geralt barely had time to dodge. He knocked her sword hand, caught her by the arm, spun her around, tripped her
with the broom handle and slammed her onto the counter again.

  Trent leaped for him and Geralt struck him very fast in the face with the broom: once, twice, three times. Then hit him with the handle on one temple, then on the other and then very hard in the neck. The Witcher shoved the broom handle between his legs, stepped in close, seized Trent by the wrist, twisted it, took the sword from his hand and threw it upwards. The sword sank into a rafter and remained there. Trent stepped back, tripped over a bench and fell down. Geralt decided there was no need to harm him any further.

  Ligenza got to his feet, but stood motionless, with arms hanging limp, staring upwards at the swords stuck high up in the rafters, out of reach. Fryga attacked.

  She whirled her blade, feinted, then made a short reverse stroke. The style was well-suited to tavern brawls, at close quarters and in poor lighting. The Witcher wasn’t bothered by lighting or the lack of it, and was only too familiar with the style. Fryga’s blade cut through the air and the feint wheeled her around so the Witcher ended up behind her back. She screamed as he put the broom handle under her arm and twisted her elbow. He yanked the sword from her fingers and shoved her away.

  “I thought I’d keep this one for myself,” he said, examining the blade. “As compensation for the effort I’ve put in. But I’ve changed my mind. I won’t carry a bandit’s weapon.”

  He threw the sword upwards. The blade plunged into the rafters and shuddered. Fryga, as pale as parchment, flashed her teeth behind twisted lips. She hunched over, snatching a knife from her boot.

  “That,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes, “was a singularly foolish decision.”

  Hooves thudded on the road, horses snorted, weapons clanked. The courtyard outside the station suddenly teemed with riders.

  “If I were you I’d sit down on a bench in the corner.” Geralt addressed the three of them. “And pretend I wasn’t here.”