There were other scenes of war, but Geralt, Dandelion and Milva didn’t remember them. They had discarded them from their memories.
They had become indifferent.
Over the next two days they didn’t even cover twenty miles. It continued to rain. The earth, absorbent after the summer drought, sucked up water like a sponge, and the forest tracks were transformed into muddy slides. Fog and haze prevented them from spotting the smoke from fires, but the stench of burning buildings told them the armies were still close at hand and were still setting light to anything that would catch fire.
They didn’t see any fugitives. They were alone in the forest. Or so they thought.
Geralt was the first to hear the snorting of the horse following in their tracks. With a stony countenance, he turned Roach back. Dandelion opened his mouth, but Milva gestured him to remain silent, and removed her bow from where it hung by her saddle.
The rider following them emerged from the brush. He saw they were waiting for him and reined back his horse, a chestnut colt. They stood in a silence broken only by the beating of the rain.
‘I forbade you from riding after us,’ the Witcher finally said.
The Nilfgaardian, whom Dandelion had last seen lying in a coffin, looked down at his horse’s wet mane. The poet barely recognised him, as he was now dressed in a hauberk, leather tunic and cloak, no doubt stripped from one of the horsemen killed by the wagon. However, he remembered the young face, which hadn’t grown much more stubble since the adventure under the beech tree.
‘I forbade it,’ the Witcher repeated.
‘You did,’ the young man finally agreed. He spoke without a Nilfgaardian accent. ‘But I must.’
Geralt dismounted, handing the reins to the poet. And drew his sword.
‘Get down,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve equipped yourself with some hardware, I see. Good. There was no way I could kill you then, while you were unarmed. Now it’s different. Dismount.’
‘I’m not fighting you. I don’t want to.’
‘So I imagine. Like all your fellow countrymen, you prefer another kind of fight. Like in that tar house, which you must have ridden past, following our trail. Dismount, I said.’
‘I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.’
‘I didn’t ask you to introduce yourself. I ordered you to dismount.’
‘I will not. I don’t want to fight you.’
‘Milva.’ The Witcher nodded at the archer. ‘Be so kind as to shoot his horse from under him.’
‘No!’ the Nilfgaardian raised an arm, before Milva had time to nock her arrow. ‘Please don’t. I’m dismounting.’
‘That’s better. Now draw your sword, son.’
The young man folded his arms across his chest.
‘Kill me, if you want. If you prefer, order the she-elf to shoot me. I’m not fighting you. I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn . . . son of Ceallach. I want . . . I want to join you.’
‘I must have misheard. Say that again.’
‘I want to join you. You’re riding to search for the girl. I want to help you. I have to help you.’
‘He’s a madman.’ Geralt turned to Milva and Dandelion. ‘He’s taken leave of his senses. We’re dealing with a madman.’
‘He’d suit the company,’ muttered Milva. ‘He’d suit it perfectly.’
‘Think his proposition over, Geralt,’ Dandelion mocked. ‘After all, he’s a Nilfgaardian nobleman. Perhaps with his help it’ll be easier for us to get to—’
‘Keep your tongue in check,’ the Witcher interrupted the poet sharply. ‘As I said, draw your sword, Nilfgaardian.’
‘I am not going to fight. And I am not a Nilfgaardian. I come from Vicovaro, and my name is—’
‘I’m not interested in your name. Draw your weapon.’
‘No.’
‘Witcher.’ Milva leant down from the saddle and spat on the ground. ‘Time’s flying and the rain’s falling. The Nilfgaardian doesn’t want to fight, and although you’re pulling a stern face, you won’t cut him to pieces in cold blood. Do we have to hang about here all fucking day? I’ll stick an arrow in his chestnut’s underbelly and let’s be on our way. He won’t catch up on foot.’
Cahir, son of Ceallach, was by his chestnut colt in one bound, jumped into the saddle and galloped back the way he’d come, yelling at his steed to go faster. The Witcher watched him riding off for a moment then mounted Roach. In silence. Without looking back.
‘I’m getting old,’ he mumbled some time later, after Roach had caught up with Milva’s black. ‘I’m starting to develop scruples.’
‘Aye, it can happen with old ’uns,’ said the archer, looking at him in sympathy. ‘A decoction of lungwort can help. But for now put a cushion on your saddle.’
‘Scruples,’ Dandelion explained gravely, ‘are not the same as piles, Milva. You’re confusing the terms.’
‘Who could understand your smart-arsed chatter? You never stop jabbering, it’s the only thing you know! Come on, let’s ride!’
‘Milva,’ the Witcher asked a moment later, protecting his face from the rain, which stabbed against it as they galloped. ‘Would you have killed the horse under him?’
‘No,’ she confessed reluctantly. ‘The horse hadn’t done anything. But that Nilfgaardian— Why in hell is he stalking us? Why does he say he has to?’
‘Devil take me if I know.’
It was still raining when the forest suddenly came to an end and they rode onto a highway winding between the hills from the south to the north. Or the other way around, depending on your point of view. What they saw on the highway didn’t surprise them. They had already seen similar sights. Overturned and gutted wagons, dead horses, scattered bundles, saddlebags and baskets. And ragged shapes, which not long before had been people, frozen into strange poses.
They rode closer, without fear, because it was apparent that the slaughter had not taken place that day. They had come to recognise such things; or perhaps to sense them with a purely animalistic instinct, which the last days had awoken and sharpened in them. They had also learned to search through battlefields, because occasionally – though not often – they had managed to find a little food or a sack of fodder among the scattered objects.
They stopped by the last wagon of a devastated column. It had been pushed into the ditch, and was resting on the hub of a shattered wheel. Beneath the wagon lay a stout woman with an unnaturally twisted neck. The collar of her tunic was covered with rain-washed streaks of coagulated blood from her torn ear, from which an earring had been ripped. The sign on the tarpaulin pulled over the wagon read: ‘Vera Loewenhaupt and Sons’. There was no sign of the sons.
‘They weren’t peasants,’ Milva said through pursed lips. ‘They were traders. They came from the south, wending from Dillingen towards Brugge, and were caught here. It’s not good, Witcher. I thought we could turn south at this point, but now I truly have no idea what to do. Dillingen and the whole of Brugge is sure to be in Nilfgaardian hands, so we won’t make it to the Yaruga this way. We’ll have to go east, through Turlough. There are forests and wildernesses there, the army won’t go that way.’
‘I’m not going any further east,’ Geralt protested. ‘I have to get to the Yaruga.’
‘You’ll get there,’ she replied, unexpectedly calm. ‘But by a safer route. If we head south from here, you’ll fall right into the Nilfgaardians’ jaws. You won’t gain anything.’
‘I’ll gain time,’ he snapped, ‘by heading east I’m just wasting it. I told you, I can’t afford to—’
‘Quiet,’ Dandelion said suddenly, steering his horse around. ‘Be quiet for a moment.’
‘What is it?’
‘I can hear . . . singing.’
The Witcher shook his head. Milva snorted.
‘You’re hearing things, poet.’
‘Quiet! Shut up! I’m telling you, someone’s singing! Can’t you hear it?’
Geralt lowered his hood; Milva also strained to listen and a moment late
r glanced at the Witcher and nodded silently.
The troubadour’s musical ear hadn’t let him down. What had seemed impossible turned out to be true. Here they were, standing in the middle of a forest, in the drizzle, on a road strewn with corpses, and they could hear singing. Someone was approaching from the south, singing jauntily and gaily.
Milva tugged the reins of her black, ready to flee, but the Witcher gestured to her to wait. He was curious. Because the singing they could hear wasn’t the menacing, rhythmic, booming, massed singing of marching infantry, nor a swaggering cavalry song. The singing, which was becoming louder all the time, didn’t arouse any anxiety.
Quite the opposite.
The rain drummed on the foliage. They began to make out the words of the song. It was a merry song, which seemed strange, unnatural and totally out of place in this landscape of death and war.
Look how the wolf dances in the holt.
Teeth bared, tail waving, leaping like a colt.
Oh, why does he prance like one bewitched?
The frolicking beast simply hasn’t been hitched!
Oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah-pah!
Dandelion suddenly laughed, took his lute from under his wet mantle, and – ignoring the hissing from the Witcher and Milva – strummed the strings and joined in at the top of his voice:
Look how the wolf is dragging his paws.
Head drooping, tail hanging, clenching his jaws.
Oh, why is the beast in such a sorry state?
He’s either proposed or he’s married his mate!
‘Ooh-hoo-ha!’ came the roared response from many voices close by.
Thunderous laughter burst out, then someone whistled piercingly through their fingers, after which a strange but colourful company came walking around a bend in the highway, marching in single file, splashing mud with rhythmic steps of their heavy boots.
‘Dwarves,’ Milva said under her breath. ‘But they aren’t Scoia’tael. They don’t have plaited beards.’
There were six of them, dressed in short, hooded capes, shimmering with countless shades of grey and brown, the kind which were usually worn by dwarves in foul weather. Capes like that, as Geralt knew, had the quality of being totally waterproof, which was achieved by the impregnation of wood tar over many years, not to mention dust from the highway and the remains of greasy food. These practical garments passed from fathers to oldest sons; as a result they were used exclusively by mature dwarves. And a dwarf attains maturity when his beard reaches his waist, which usually occurs at the age of fifty-five.
None of the approaching dwarves looked young. But none looked old either.
‘They’re leading some humans,’ muttered Milva, indicating to Geralt with a movement of her head a small group emerging from the forest behind the company of dwarves, ‘who must be fugitives, because they’re laden down with goods and chattels.’
‘The dwarves aren’t exactly travelling light themselves,’ Dandelion added.
Indeed, each dwarf was heaving a load that many humans and horses would soon have collapsed under. In addition to the ordinary sacks and saddlebags, Geralt noticed iron-bound chests, a large copper cauldron and something that looked like a small chest of drawers. One of them was even carrying a cartwheel on his back.
The one walking at the front wasn’t carrying anything. He had a small battle-axe in his belt, on his back was a long sword in a scabbard wrapped in tabby cat skins, and on his shoulder sat a green parrot with wet, ruffled feathers. The dwarf addressed them.
‘Greetings!’ he roared, after coming to a halt in the middle of the road and putting his hands on his hips. ‘These days it’s better to meet a wolf in the forest than a human. And if you do have such bad luck, you’re more likely to be greeted with an arrow in the chest than a kind word! But whoever greets someone with a song or music must be a sound fellow! Or a sound wench; my apologies to the good lady! Greetings. I’m Zoltan Chivay.’
‘I’m Geralt,’ the Witcher introduced himself after a moment’s hesitation. ‘The singer is Dandelion. And this is Milva.’
‘’Kin’ ’ell!’ the parrot squawked.
‘Shut your beak,’ Zoltan Chivay growled at the bird. ‘Excuse me. This foreign bird is clever but vulgar. I paid ten thalers for the freak. He’s called Field Marshal Windbag. And while I’m at it, this is the rest of my party. Munro Bruys, Yazon Varda, Caleb Stratton, Figgis Merluzzo and Percival Schuttenbach.’
Percival Schuttenbach wasn’t a dwarf. From beneath his wet hood, instead of a matted beard, stuck out a long, pointed nose, unerringly identifying its owner as one of the old and noble race of gnomes.
‘And those,’ Zoltan Chivay said, pointing at the small group of humans, who had stopped and were huddled together, ‘are fugitives from Kernow. As you can see, they’re women and children. There were more, but Nilfgaard seized them and their fellows three days ago, put some of them to the sword and scattered the others. We came across them in the forest and now we’re travelling together.’
‘It’s bold of you,’ the Witcher ventured, ‘to be marching along the highway, singing as you go.’
‘I don’t reckon,’ the dwarf said, wiggling his beard, ‘that weeping as we go would be any better. We’ve been marching through the woods since Dillingen, quietly and out of sight, and after the army passed we joined the highway to make up time.’ He broke off and looked around the battlefield.
‘We’ve grown accustomed to sights like this,’ he said, pointing at the corpses. ‘Beyond Dillingen and the Yaruga there’s nothing but dead bodies on the roads . . . Were you with this lot?’
‘No. Nilfgaard put some traders to the sword.’
‘Not Nilfgaard,’ said the dwarf, shaking his head and looking at the dead with an indifferent expression. ‘Scoia’tael. The regular army don’t bother pulling arrows out of corpses. And a good arrowhead costs half a crown.’
‘He knows his prices,’ Milva muttered.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘South,’ Geralt answered immediately.
‘I advise you against it,’ Zoltan Chivay said, and shook his head again. ‘It’s sheer hell, fire and slaughter there. Dillingen is taken for sure, the Nilfgaardians are crossing the Yaruga in greater and greater numbers; any moment now they’ll flood the whole valley on the right bank. As you see, they’re also in front of us, to the north. They’re heading for the city of Brugge. So the only sensible direction to escape is east.’
Milva glanced knowingly at the Witcher, who refrained from comment.
‘And that’s where we’re headed; east,’ Zoltan Chivay continued. ‘The only chance is to hide behind the frontline, and wait until the Temerian Army finally start out from the River Ina in the east. Then we plan to march along forest tracks until we reach the hills. Turlough, then the Old Road to the River Chotla in Sodden, which flows into the Ina. We can travel together, if you wish. If it doesn’t bother you that we make slow progress. You’re mounted and I realise our refugees slow the pace down.’
‘It doesn’t seem to bother you, though,’ Milva said, looking at him intently. ‘A dwarf, even fully laden, can march thirty miles a day. Almost the same as a mounted human. I know the Old Road. Without those refugees you’d reach the Chotla in about three days.’
‘They are women and children,’ Zoltan Chivay said, sticking out his beard and his belly. ‘We won’t leave them to their fate. Would you suggest we do anything else, eh?’
‘No,’ the Witcher said. ‘No, we wouldn’t.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it. That means my first impressions didn’t deceive me. So what’s it to be? Do we march as one company?’
Geralt looked at Milva and the archer nodded.
‘Very well,’ Zoltan Chivay said, noticing the nod. ‘So let’s head off, before some raiding party chances upon us on the highway. But first— Yazon, Munro, search the wagons. If you find anything useful there, get it stowed away, and pronto. Figgis, check if our wheel fits that little wagon, it’ll be jus
t right for us.’
‘It fits!’ yelled the one who’d been lugging the cartwheel. ‘Like it was made for it!’
‘You see, muttonhead? And you were so surprised when I made you take that wheel and carry it! Put it on! Help him, Caleb!’
In an impressively short time the wagon of the dead Vera Loewenhaupt had been equipped with a new wheel, stripped of its tarpaulin and inessential elements, and pulled out of the ditch and onto the road. All their goods were heaved onto it in an instant. After some thought, Zoltan Chivay also ordered the children to be loaded onto the wagon. The instruction was carried out reluctantly; Geralt noticed that the children’s mothers scowled at the dwarves and tried to keep their distance from them.
With visible distaste, Dandelion watched two dwarves trying on articles of clothing removed from some corpses. The remaining dwarves rummaged around among the wagons, but didn’t consider anything to be worth taking. Zoltan Chivay whistled through his fingers, signalling that the time for looting was over, and then he looked over Roach, Pegasus and Milva’s black with an expert eye.
‘Saddle horses,’ he said, wrinkling his nose in disapproval. ‘In other words: useless. Figgis and Caleb, to the shaft. We’ll be hauling in turn. Maaaaarch!’
Geralt was certain the dwarves would quickly discard the wagon the moment it got well and truly stuck in soft, boggy ground, but he was mistaken. They were as strong as oxen, and the forest tracks leading east turned out to be grassy and not too swampy, even though it continued to rain without letting up. Milva became gloomy and grumpy, and only broke her silence to express the conviction that the horses’ softened hooves would split at any moment. Zoltan Chivay licked his lips in reply, examined the hooves in question and declared himself a master at roasting horsemeat, which infuriated Milva.
They kept to the same formation, the core of which was formed by the wagon hauled on a shift system. Zoltan marched in front of the wagon. Next to him, on Pegasus, rode Dandelion, bantering with the parrot. Geralt and Milva rode behind them, and at the back trudged the six women from Kernow.
The Saga of the Witcher Page 77
