The leader was usually Percival Schuttenbach, the long-nosed gnome. No match for the dwarves in terms of height or strength, he was their equal in stamina and considerably superior in agility. During the march he never stopped roaming around and rummaging in bushes; then he would pull ahead and disappear, only to appear and with nervous, monkey-like gestures signal from a considerable distance away that everything was in order and that they could continue. Occasionally he would return and give a rapid report about the obstacles on the track. Whenever he did, he would have a handful of blackberries, nuts or strange – but clearly tasty – roots for the four children sitting on the wagon.
Their pace was frightfully slow and they spent three days marching along forest tracks. They didn’t happen upon any soldiers; they saw no smoke or the glow of fires. They were not alone, however. Every so often Percival spotted groups of fugitives hiding in the forests. They passed several such groups, hurriedly, because the expressions of the peasants armed with pitchforks and stakes didn’t encourage them to try to make friends. There was nonetheless a suggestion to try to negotiate and leave the women from Kernow with one of the groups, but Zoltan was against it and Milva backed him up. The women were in no hurry at all to leave the company either. This was all the stranger since they treated the dwarves with such obvious, fearful aversion and reserve, hardly ever spoke, and kept out of the way during every stop.
Geralt ascribed the women’s behaviour to the tragedy they had experienced a short time before, although he suspected that their aversion may have been due to the dwarves’ casual ways. Zoltan and his company cursed just as filthily and frequently as the parrot called Field Marshal Windbag, but had a wider repertoire. They sang dirty songs, which Dandelion enthusiastically joined in with. They spat, blew their noses on their fingers and gave thunderous farts, which usually prompted laughs, jokes and competition. They only went into the bushes for major bodily needs; with the minor ones they didn’t even bother moving very far away. This finally enraged Milva, who gave Zoltan a good telling-off when one morning he pissed on the still warm ashes of the campfire, totally oblivious to his audience. Having been dressed down, Zoltan was unperturbed and announced that shamefully concealing that kind of activity was only common among two-faced, perfidious people who were likely to be informers, and could be identified as such by doing just that. This eloquent explanation made no impression on the archer. The dwarves were treated to a rich torrent of abuse, with several very specific threats, which was effective, since they all obediently began to go into the bushes. To avoid laying themselves open to the appellation of ‘perfidious informers’, however, they went in a group.
The new company, nevertheless, changed Dandelion utterly. He got on famously with the dwarves, particularly when it turned out that some of them had heard of him and even knew his ballads and couplets. Dandelion dogged Zoltan’s company. He wore a quilted jacket he had weaselled out of the dwarves, and his crumpled hat with a feather was replaced by a swashbuckling marten-fur cap. He sported a broad belt with brass studs, into which he had stuck a cruel-looking knife he had been given. This knife pricked him in the side each time he tried to lean over. Fortunately, he quickly mislaid it and wasn’t given another.
They wandered through the dense forests covering the hillsides of Turlough. The forests seemed deserted; there were no traces of any wild animals, for they had apparently been frightened away by the armies and fugitives. There was nothing to hunt, but they weren’t immediately threatened by hunger. The dwarves were lugging along a large quantity of provisions. As soon as they were finished, however – and that occurred quickly, because there were many mouths to feed – Yazon Varda and Munro Bruys vanished soon after dark, taking an empty sack with them. When they returned at dawn, they had two sacks, both full. In one was fodder for the horses, in the other barley groats, flour, beef jerky, an almost entire cheese, and even a huge haggis: a delicacy in the form of a pig’s stomach stuffed with offal and pressed between two slats, the whole resembling a pair of bellows.
Geralt guessed where the haul had come from. He didn’t comment right away, but bided his time until a moment when he was alone with Zoltan, and then asked him politely if he saw nothing indecent in robbing other fugitives, who were no less hungry than them, after all, and fighting for survival just like them. The dwarf answered gravely that indeed, he was very ashamed of it, but unfortunately, such was his character.
‘Unbridled altruism is a huge vice of mine,’ he explained. ‘I simply have to do good. I am a sensible dwarf, however, and know that I’m unable to do everyone good. Were I to attempt to be good to everyone, to the entire world and to all the creatures living in it, it would be a drop of fresh water in the salt sea. In other words, a wasted effort. Thus, I decided to do specific good; good which would not go to waste. I’m good to myself and my immediate circle.’
Geralt asked no further questions.
At one of the camps, Geralt and Milva chatted at length with Zoltan Chivay, the incorrigible and compulsive altruist. The dwarf was well informed about how the military activities were proceeding. At least, he gave that impression.
‘The attack,’ he said, frequently quietening down Field Marshal Windbag, who was screeching obscenities, ‘came from Drieschot, and began at dawn on the seventh day after Lammas. Nilfgaard marched with its allies, the Verdenian Army, since Verden, as you know, is now an imperial protectorate. They moved swiftly, putting all the villages beyond Drieschot to the torch and wiping out the Bruggian Army which was garrisoned there. The Nilfgaardian infantry marched on the fortress in Dillingen from the other side of the Yaruga. They crossed the river in a totally unexpected place. They built a pontoon bridge. Only took them half a day, can you believe it?’
‘It’s possible to believe anything,’ muttered Milva. ‘Were you in Dillingen when it started?’
‘Thereabouts,’ the dwarf replied evasively. ‘When news of the attack reached us, we were already on the way to the city of Brugge. The highway was an awful shambles, it was teeming with fugitives, some of them fleeing from the south to the north, others from the north to the south. They jammed up the highway, so we got stuck. And Nilfgaard, as it turned out, were both behind us and in front of us. The forces that had left Drieschot must have split up. I reckon a large cavalry troop had headed north-east, towards Brugge.’
‘So the Nilfgaardians are already north of Turlough. It appears we’re stuck between two forces, right in the middle. And safe.’
‘Right in the middle, yes,’ the dwarf agreed. ‘But not safe. The imperial troops are flanked by the Squirrels, Verdenian volunteers and various mercenaries, who are even worse than the Nilfgaardians. It was them as burnt down Kernow and almost seized us later; we barely managed to leg it into the woods. So we shouldn’t poke our noses out of the forest. And we should remain on guard. We’ll make it to the Old Road, then downstream by the River Chotla to the Ina, and at the Ina we’re sure to bump into the Temerian Army. King Foltest’s men must have shaken off their surprise and begun standing up to the Nilfgaardians.’
‘If only,’ Milva said, looking at the Witcher. ‘But the problem is that urgent and important matters are driving us on to the south. We pondered heading south from Turlough, towards the Yaruga.’
‘I don’t know what matters are driving you to those parts,’ Zoltan said, glowering suspiciously at them. ‘They must indeed be greatly urgent and important to risk your necks for them.’
He paused and waited, but neither of them was in a hurry to explain. The dwarf scratched his backside, hawked and spat.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ he said finally, ‘if Nilfgaard had both banks of the Yaruga right up to the mouth of the Ina in their grasp. And where exactly on the Yaruga do you need to be?’
‘Nowhere specific,’ Geralt decided to reply. ‘As long as we reach the river. I want to take a boat up to the delta.’
Zoltan looked at him and laughed. Then stopped immediately when he realised it hadn’t been a joke.
‘I have to admit,’ he said a moment later, ‘you’ve got quite some route in mind. But get rid of those pipe dreams. The whole of south Brugge is in flames. They’ll impale you before you reach the Yaruga, or drive you to Nilfgaard in fetters. However, were you by some miracle to reach the river, there’d be no chance of sailing to the delta. That pontoon bridge spanning the river from Cintra to the Bruggian bank? They guard it day and night; nothing could get through that part of the river, except perhaps a salmon. Your urgent and important matters will have to lose their urgency and importance. You haven’t got a prayer. That’s how I see it.’
Milva’s glance testified that she shared his opinion. Geralt didn’t comment. He felt terrible. The slowly healing bone in his left forearm and his right knee still gnawed with the invisible fangs of a dull, nagging pain, made worse by effort and the constant damp. He was also being troubled by overwhelming, disheartening, exceptionally unpleasant feelings, alien feelings he had never experienced before and was unable to deal with.
Helplessness and resignation.
After two days, it stopped raining and the sun came out. The forests breathed forth mists and quickly dissipating fog, and birds began to vigorously make up for the silence forced on them by the constant rain. Zoltan cheered up and ordered a long break, after which he promised a quicker march and that they would reach the Old Road in a day at most.
The women from Kernow draped all the surrounding branches with the black and grey of drying clothing, and then, dressed only in their shifts, hid shamefacedly in the bushes and prepared food. The children charged around naked, disturbing the dignified calm of the steaming forest in elaborate ways. Dandelion slept off his tiredness. Milva vanished.
The dwarves took their rest seriously. Figgis Merluzzo and Munro Bruys went off hunting mushrooms. Zoltan, Yazon Varda, Caleb Stratton and Percival Schuttenbach sat down near the wagon and without taking a breather played Barrel, their favourite card game, which they devoted every spare minute to, including the previous wet evenings.
The Witcher occasionally sat down to join them and watch them play, as he did during this break. He was still unable to understand the complicated rules of this typical dwarven game, but was fascinated by the amazing, intricate workmanship of the cards and the drawings of the figures. Compared to the cards humans played with, the dwarves’ cards were genuine works of art. Geralt was once again convinced that the advanced technology of the bearded folk was not limited to the fields of mining and metallurgy. The fact that in this specific, card-playing field the dwarves’ talents hadn’t helped them to monopolise the market was because cards were still less popular among humans than dice, and human gamblers attached little importance to aesthetics. Human card players, whom the Witcher had had several opportunities to observe, always played with greasy cards, so dirty that before cards were placed on the table they had to be laboriously peeled away from the fingers. The court cards were painted so carelessly that distinguishing the lady from the knave was only possible because the knave was mounted on a horse. Which actually looked more like a crippled weasel.
Mistakes of that kind were impossible with the dwarves’ cards. The crowned king was really regal, the lady comely and curvaceous, and the halberd-wielding knave jauntily moustachioed. The colour cards were called, in Dwarven Speech, the hraval, vaina and ballet, but Zoltan and company used the Common Speech and human names when they played.
The sun shone warmly, the forest steamed, and Geralt watched.
The fundamental principle of dwarven Barrel was something resembling an auction at a horse fair, both in its intensity and the volume of the bidders’ voices. The pair declaring the highest ‘price’ would endeavour to win as many tricks as possible, which the rival pair had to impede at all costs. The game was played noisily and heatedly, and a sturdy staff lay beside each player. These staffs were seldom used to beat an opponent, but were often brandished.
‘Look what you’ve done! You plonker! You bonehead! Why did you open with spades instead of hearts? Think I was leading hearts just for the fun of it? Why, I ought to take my staff and knock some sense into you!’
‘I had four spades up to the knave, so I was planning to make a good contract!’
‘Four spades, ’course you did! Including your own member, which you counted when you looked down at your cards. Use your loaf, Stratton, we’re not at university! We’re playing cards here! And remember that when the fool has the cards and doesn’t blunder, he’ll even beat the sage, by thunder. Deal, Varda.’
‘Contract in diamonds.’
‘A small slam in diamonds!’
‘The king led diamonds, but lost his crown, fled the kingdom with his trousers down. A double in spades!’
‘Barrel!’
‘Wake up, Caleb. That was a double with a Barrel! What are you bidding?’
‘A big slam in diamonds!’
‘No bid. Aaagh! What now? No one’s Barrelling? Chickened out, laddies? You’re leading, Varda. Percival, if you wink at him again, I’ll whack you so hard in the kisser your eyes’ll be screwed up till next winter.’
‘Knave.’
‘Lady!’
‘And the king on the lady! The lady’s shafted! I’ll take her and, ha, ha, I’ve got another heart, kept for a rainy day! Knave, a ten and another—’
‘And a trump! If you can’t play a trump, you’d better take a dump. And diamonds! Zoltan? Grabbed you where it hurts!’
‘Do you see him, fucking gnome. Pshaw, I’m gonna take my staff to him . . .’
Before Zoltan could use his stick, a piercing cry was heard from the forest.
Geralt was the first to his feet. He swore as he ran, pain shooting through his knee. Zoltan Chivay rushed after him, seizing his sword wrapped in tabby cat skins from the wagon. Percival Schuttenbach and the rest of the dwarves ran after them, armed with sticks, while Dandelion, who’d been woken by the screaming, brought up the rear. Figgis and Munro leapt out of the forest from one side. Throwing down their baskets of mushrooms, the two dwarves gathered up the scattering children and pulled them away. Milva appeared from nowhere, drawing an arrow from her quiver while running and showing the Witcher where the scream had come from. There was no need. Geralt saw and heard, and now knew what it was all about.
One of the children was screaming. She was a freckled, little girl with plaits, aged about nine. She stood petrified, a few paces from a pile of rotten logs. Geralt was with her in an instant. He seized her under the arms, interrupting her terrified shrieking, and watched the movement among the logs out of the corner of his eye. He quickly withdrew and bumped into Zoltan and his dwarves. Milva, who had also seen something moving, nocked her arrow and took aim.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Geralt hissed. ‘Get this kid out of here, fast. And you, get back. But nice and easy. Don’t make any sudden movements.’
At first it seemed to them that the movement had come from one of the rotten logs, as though it was intending to crawl out of the sunlit woodpile and look for shade among the trees. It was only when they looked closer that they saw features which were atypical for a log: in particular, four pairs of thin legs with knobbly joints sticking up from the furrowed, speckled, segmented crayfish-like shell.
‘Easy does it,’ Geralt said quietly. ‘Don’t provoke it. Don’t let its apparent sluggishness deceive you. It isn’t aggressive, but it moves like lightning. If it feels threatened it may attack and there’s no antidote for its venom.’
The creature slowly crawled onto a log. It looked at the humans and the dwarves, slowly turning its eyes, which were set on stalks. It was barely moving. It cleaned the ends of its legs, lifting them up one by one and carefully nibbling them with its impressive-looking, sharp mandibles.
‘There was such an uproar,’ Zoltan declared emotionlessly, appearing beside the Witcher, ‘I thought it was something really worrying. Like a cavalryman from a Verdenian reserve troop. Or a military prosecutor. And what is it? Just an overgrown creepy-crawly. You
have to admit, nature takes on some pretty curious forms.’
‘Not any longer,’ Geralt replied. ‘The thing that’s sitting there is an eyehead. A creature of Chaos. A dying, post-conjunction relic, if you know what I’m talking about.’
‘Of course I do,’ the dwarf said, looking him in the eyes. ‘Although I’m not a witcher, nor an authority on Chaos and creatures like that. Well, I’m very curious to see what the Witcher will do with this post-conjunction relic. Or to be more precise, I’m wondering how the Witcher will do it. Will you use your sword or do you prefer my sihil?’
‘Nice weapon,’ Geralt said, glancing at the sword, which Zoltan had drawn from its lacquered scabbard wrapped in tabby cat skins. ‘But it won’t be necessary.’
‘Interesting,’ Zoltan repeated. ‘So are we just going to stand here looking at each other? Just wait until that relic feels threatened? Or should we withdraw and ask some Nilfgaardians for help? What do you suggest, monster slayer?’
‘Fetch the ladle and the cauldron lid from the wagon.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t question his authority, Zoltan,’ Dandelion chipped in.
Percival Schuttenbach scurried off to the wagon and soon returned with the requested objects. The Witcher winked at the company and then began to beat the ladle against the lid with all his strength.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Zoltan Chivay screamed a moment later, covering his ears with his hands. ‘You’ll break the fucking ladle! The beast’s run off! He’s gone, for pox’s sake!’
‘Oh yes,’ Percival said, delighted. ‘Did you see him? On my life, he showed a clean pair of heels! Not that he has any!’
‘The eyehead,’ Geralt explained calmly, handing back the slightly dented kitchen utensils to the dwarves, ‘has remarkably delicate, sensitive hearing. It doesn’t have any ears, but hears, so to speak, with its entire body. In particular it can’t bear metallic noises. It feels them as a pain . . .’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 78
