The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  A group of horsemen came riding out from a gap in the trees on the other side of the clearing. Whistling and whooping, they circled the farmstead at a gallop and then burst into the yard. The riders were armed, but weren’t in identical uniforms. Quite the contrary, in fact – they were all dressed differently and haphazardly, and their weaponry and tackle gave the impression of being assembled at random. And not in an armoury, but on a battlefield.

  ‘Thirteen,’ Percival Schuttenbach said, making a quick tally.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Neither Nilfgaard, nor any other regulars,’ came Zoltan’s assessment. ‘Not Scoia’tael. I think they’re volunteers. A random mob.’

  ‘Or marauders.’

  The horsemen were yelling and cavorting around the farmyard. One of them hit the dog with a spear shaft and it bolted. The girl with the plaits ran outside, shouting. But this time her warning had no effect or wasn’t taken seriously. One of the horseman galloped up, seized the girl by one of her plaits, pulled her away from the doorway and dragged her through the puddle of muck. The others jumped off their horses to assist the first, dragging the girl to the end of the farmyard. They tore her shift off her and threw her down onto a pile of rotten straw. The girl fought back ferociously, but she had no chance. Only one of the marauders didn’t join in the fun; he guarded the horses, which were tied to the fence. The girl gave a long, piercing scream. Then a short, pained one. They heard nothing after that.

  ‘Warriors!’ Milva said, jumping to her feet. ‘Fucking heroes!’

  ‘They aren’t afraid of the pox,’ Yazon Varda said, shaking his head.

  ‘Fear,’ Dandelion muttered, ‘is a human quality. There’s nothing human in them any longer.’

  ‘Apart from their innards,’ Milva rasped, carefully nocking an arrow, ‘which I shall now prick.’

  ‘Thirteen,’ Zoltan Chivay repeated gravely. ‘And they’re all mounted. You’ll knock off one or two and the rest will have us surrounded. And anyway, it might be an advance party. The devil knows what kind of bigger force they belong to.’

  ‘Do you expect me to stand by and watch?’

  ‘No,’ Geralt said, straightening his headband and the sword on his back. ‘I’ve had enough of standing by and watching. I’m fed up with my own helplessness. But first we have to stop them from getting away. See the one holding the horses? When I get there, knock him out of the saddle. And if you can, take out another. But only when I get down there.’

  ‘That leaves eleven,’ the archer said, turning to face him.

  ‘I can count.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten about the smallpox,’ Zoltan Chivay muttered. ‘If you go down there, you’ll come back infected . . . Bollocks to that, Witcher! You’re putting us all at risk . . . For fuck’s sake, she’s not the girl you’re looking for!’

  ‘Shut up, Zoltan. Go back to the wagon and hide in the forest.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Milva declared hoarsely.

  ‘No. Cover me from here, you’ll be helping more if you do that.’

  ‘What about me?’ Dandelion asked. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘The same as usual. Nothing.’

  ‘You’re insane . . .’ Zoltan snarled. ‘Taking on the entire band? What’s got into you? Want to play the hero, rescuing fair maidens?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Go to hell! No, wait. Leave your sword. There’s a whole bunch of them, so it’d be better if you didn’t have to swing twice. Take my sihil. One blow is enough.’

  The Witcher took the dwarf’s weapon without a word or a moment’s hesitation. He pointed out the marauder guarding the horses one more time. And then hopped over the tree stumps and moved quickly towards the cottages.

  The sun was shining. Grasshoppers scattered in front of him.

  The man guarding the horses saw him and pulled a spear from its place by his saddle. He had very long, unkempt hair, falling onto a torn hauberk, patched up with rusty wire. He was wearing brand-new – clearly stolen – boots with shiny buckles.

  The guard yelled and another marauder appeared from behind the fence. He was carrying a sword slung from a belt around his neck and was just buttoning his britches. Geralt was quite close by now. He could hear the guffawing of the men amusing themselves with the girl on the pile of straw. He took some deep breaths and each one intensified his blood lust. He could have calmed himself down, but didn’t want to. He wanted to have some fun himself.

  ‘And who might you be? Stop!’ the long-haired man shouted, hefting the spear in his hand. ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘I’ve done enough standing and watching.’

  ‘Whaaat?’

  ‘Does the name Ciri mean anything to you?’

  ‘I’ll—’

  The marauder was unable to finish his sentence. A grey-fletched arrow hit him in the middle of his chest and threw him from the saddle. Before he hit the ground, Geralt could hear the next arrow whistling. The second soldier caught the arrowhead in the abdomen, low, right between the hands buttoning up his fly. He howled like an animal, bent double and lurched back against the fence, knocking over and breaking some of the pickets.

  Before the others had managed to come to their senses and pick up their weapons, the Witcher was among them. The dwarven blade glittered and sang. There was a savage craving for blood in the song of the feather-light, razor-sharp steel. The bodies and limbs offered almost no resistance. Blood splashed onto his face; he had no time to wipe it off.

  Even if the marauders were thinking about putting up a fight, the sight of falling corpses and blood gushing in streams effectively discouraged them. One of them, who had his trousers around his knees since he hadn’t even had time to pull them up, was slashed in the carotid artery and tumbled onto his back, comically swinging his still unsatisfied manhood. The second, nothing but a stripling, covered his head with both hands, which the sihil severed at the wrists. The remaining men took flight, dispersing in various directions. The Witcher pursued them, softly cursing the pain that was once again pulsing through his knee. He hoped the leg wouldn’t buckle under him.

  He managed to pin two of them against the fence. They tried to defend themselves by holding up their swords. Paralysed by terror, their defence was woeful. The Witcher’s face was once again spattered with blood from arteries slashed open by the dwarven blade. But the remaining men made use of the time and managed to get away; they were already mounted. One of them fell, however, hit by an arrow, wriggling and squirming like a fish emptied from a net. The last two spurred their horses into a gallop. But only one of them managed to escape, because Zoltan Chivay had suddenly appeared in the farmyard. The dwarf swung his axe around his head and threw it, hitting one of the fleeing men in the centre of the back. The marauder screamed and tumbled from the saddle, legs kicking. The last one pressed himself tight to his horse’s neck, cleared the pit full of dead bodies and galloped towards the gap in the trees.

  ‘Milva!’ the Witcher and the dwarf both yelled.

  The archer was already running towards them. Now she stopped, frozen, with legs apart. She let her nocked bow fall and then began to lift it up slowly, higher and higher. They didn’t hear the twang of the bowstring, neither did Milva change her position or even twitch. They only saw the arrow when it dipped and hurtled downwards. The horseman lurched sideways out of the saddle, the feathered shaft protruding from a shoulder. But he didn’t fall. He straightened up and with a cry urged his horse into a faster gallop.

  ‘What a bow,’ Zoltan Chivay grunted in awe. ‘What a shot!’

  ‘What a shot, my arse,’ the Witcher said, wiping blood from his face. ‘The whoreson’s got away and he’ll be back with a bunch of his mates.’

  ‘She hit him! And it must have been two hundred paces!’

  ‘She could have aimed at the horse.’

  ‘The horse isn’t guilty of anything,’ Milva panted with anger, walking over to them. She spat and watched the horseman disappear into the forest. �
��I missed the good-for-nothing, because I was a mite out of breath . . . Ugh, you rat, running away with my arrow! I hope it brings you bad luck!’

  The neighing of a horse could be heard from the gap in the trees, and immediately afterwards the dreadful cry of a man being killed.

  ‘Ho, ho!’ Zoltan said, looking at the archer in awe. ‘He didn’t get very far! Your arrows are damned effective! Poisoned? Or enchanted perhaps? Because even if the good-for-nothing had caught the smallpox, the plague wouldn’t have taken its toll so quickly!’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Milva said, looking knowingly at the Witcher. ‘Nor the smallpox. But I think I know who it was.’

  ‘I think I do too,’ the dwarf said, chewing his moustache with a canny smile on his face. ‘I’ve noticed you keep looking back, and I know someone’s secretly following us. On a chestnut colt. I don’t know who he is, but since it doesn’t bother you . . . It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Particularly since a rearguard can have its uses,’ Milva said, looking at Geralt meaningfully. ‘Are you certain that Cahir’s your enemy?’

  The Witcher didn’t reply. He gave Zoltan his sword back.

  ‘Thanks. It cuts nicely.’

  ‘In the right hands,’ the dwarf said, grinning. ‘I’ve heard tales about witchers, but to fell eight in less than two minutes . . .’

  ‘It’s nothing to brag about. They didn’t know how to defend themselves.’

  The girl with the plaits raised herself onto her hands and knees, stood up, staggered, and then tried ineffectually to pull down her torn shift with trembling hands. The Witcher was astonished to see that she was in no way similar to Ciri, when a moment earlier he would have sworn they were twins. The girl wiped her face with an uncoordinated movement, and moved unsteadily towards the cottage. Straight through the puddle of muck.

  ‘Hey, wait,’ Milva called. ‘Hey, you . . . Need any help? Hey!’

  The girl didn’t even look towards her. She stumbled over the threshold, almost falling, then grabbed the door jamb. And slammed the door behind her.

  ‘Human gratitude knows no boundaries,’ the dwarf commented. Milva jerked around, her face hardened.

  ‘What does she have to be grateful for?’

  ‘Exactly,’ the Witcher added. ‘What for?’

  ‘For the marauders’ horses,’ Zoltan said, not lowering his gaze. ‘She can slaughter them for their meat; she won’t have to kill the cow. She’s clearly resistant to smallpox and now she doesn’t have to fear hunger. She’ll survive. And in a few days, when she gathers her thoughts, she’ll understand that thanks to you she avoided a longer frolic and these cottages being burnt to the ground. Let’s get out of here before the plague blows our way . . . Hey, Witcher, where are you going? To get a token of gratitude?’

  ‘To get a pair of boots,’ Geralt said coldly, stooping down over the long-haired marauder, whose dead eyes stared heavenwards. ‘These look right for me.’

  They ate horsemeat for several days. The boots with the shiny buckles were quite comfortable. The Nilfgaardian called Cahir was still riding in their tracks on his chestnut colt, but the Witcher had stopped looking back.

  He had finally fathomed the arcana of Barrel and even played a hand with the dwarves. He lost.

  They didn’t speak about the incident in the forest clearing. There was nothing to say.

  Mandrake, or Love Apple, is a class of plant from the Mandragora or nightshade family, a group including herbaceous, stemless plants with parsnip-like roots, in which a similarity to the human form may be observed; the leaves are arranged in a rosette. M. autumnalis or officinalis, is cultivated on a small scale in Vicovaro, Rowan and Ymlac, rarely found in the wild. Its berries, which are green and later turn yellow, are eaten with vinegar and pepper, while its leaves are consumed raw. The root of the m., which is a valued ingredient in medicine and herb lore, long ago had great import in superstitions, particularly among the Nordlings; human effigies (called alruniks or alraunes) were carved from it and kept in homes as revered talismans. They were believed to offer protection from illnesses, to bring good fortune during trials, and to ensure fertility and uncomplicated births. The effigies were clad in dresses which were changed at each new moon. M. roots were bought and sold, with prices reaching as much as sixty florins. Bryony roots (q.v.) were used as substitutes. According to superstition, m. was used for making spells, magical philtres and poisons. This belief returned during the period of the witch hunts. The charge of the criminal use of m. was made, for example, during the trial of Lucretia Vigo (q.v.). The legendary Philippa Alhard (q.v.) was also said to have used m. as a poison.

  Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume IX

  Chapter Three

  The Old Road had changed somewhat since the last time the Witcher had travelled along it. Once a level highway paved with slabs of basalt, built by elves and dwarves centuries before, it had now become a potholed ruin. In some places the holes were so deep that they resembled small quarries. The pace of the march dropped since the dwarves’ wagon wove between the potholes with extreme difficulty, frequently becoming stuck.

  Zoltan Chivay knew the reason for the road’s desperate state of disrepair. Following the last war with Nilfgaard, he explained, the need for building materials had increased tremendously. People had recalled that the Old Road was an almost inexhaustible source of dressed stone. And since the neglected road, built in the middle of nowhere and leading nowhere, had long ago lost its importance for transport and served few people, it was vandalised without mercy or restraint.

  ‘Your great cities,’ the dwarf complained, accompanied by the parrot’s screeched expletives, ‘were without exception built on dwarven and elven foundations. You built your own foundations for your smaller castles and towns, but you still use our stones for the walls. And yet you never stop repeating that it’s thanks to you – humans – that the world progresses and develops.’

  Geralt did not comment.

  ‘But you don’t even know how to destroy things wisely,’ Zoltan griped, ordering yet another attempt to pull a wheel out of a hole. ‘Why can’t you remove the stones gradually, from the edges of the road? You’re like children! Instead of eating a doughnut systematically, you gouge the jam out with a finger and then throw away the rest because it’s not sweet any more.’

  Geralt explained patiently that political geography was to blame for everything. The Old Road’s western end lay in Brugge, the eastern end in Temeria and the centre in Sodden, so each kingdom destroyed its own section at its own discretion. In response, Zoltan obscenely stated where he’d happily shove all the kings and listed some imaginative indecencies he would commit regarding their politics, while Field Marshal Windbag added his own contribution to the subject of the kings’ mothers.

  The further they went, the worse it became. Zoltan’s comparison with a jam doughnut turned out to be less than apt; the road was coming to resemble a suet pudding with all the raisins gouged out. It looked as though the inevitable moment was approaching when the wagon would shatter or become totally and irreversibly stuck. They were saved, however, by the same thing that had destroyed the road. They happened upon a track heading towards the south-east, worn down and compacted by the heavy wagons which had been used to transport the pillaged stone. Zoltan brightened up, for he recognised that the track led unerringly to one of the forts on the Ina, on whose bank he was hoping to meet the Temerian Army. The dwarf solemnly believed that, as during the previous war, a crushing counter-attack by the northern kingdoms would be launched from Sodden on the far side of the Ina, following which the survivors of Nilfgaard’s thoroughly decimated forces would scurry back across the Yaruga.

  And indeed, the change in their trek’s direction once again brought them closer to the war. During the night a great light suddenly flared up in front of them, while during the day they saw columns of smoke marking the horizon to the south and the east. Since they were still uncertain who was attacking and burning an
d who was being attacked and burnt they proceeded cautiously, sending Percival Schuttenbach far ahead to reconnoitre.

  They were astonished one morning to be overtaken by a riderless horse, the chestnut colt. The green saddlecloth embroidered with Nilfgaardian symbols was stained with dark streaks of blood. There was no way of knowing if it was the blood of the horseman who had been killed near the hawker’s wagon or if it had been spilt later, when the horse had acquired a new owner.

  ‘Well, that takes care of the problem,’ Milva said, glancing at Geralt. ‘If it ever really was a problem.’

  ‘The biggest problem is we don’t know who knocked the rider from the saddle,’ Zoltan muttered. ‘And whether that someone is following our trail and the trail of our erstwhile, unusual rearguard.’

  ‘He was a Nilfgaardian,’ Geralt said between clenched teeth. ‘He spoke almost without an accent, but runaway peasants could have recognised it . . .’

  Milva turned to face him.

  ‘You ought to have finished him off, Witcher,’ she said softly. ‘He would have had a kinder death.’

  ‘He got out of that coffin,’ Dandelion said, nodding, looking meaningfully at Geralt, ‘just to rot in some ditch.’

  And that was the epitaph for Cahir, son of Ceallach, the Nilfgaardian who insisted he wasn’t a Nilfgaardian. He was not talked about any longer. Since Geralt – in spite of repeated threats – seemed to be in no hurry to part with the skittish Roach, Zoltan Chivay mounted the chestnut. The dwarf’s feet didn’t reach the stirrups, but the colt was mild-mannered and let himself be ridden.

  During the night the horizon was bright with the glow of fires and during the day ribbons of smoke rose into the sky, soiling the blue. They soon came upon some burnt-out buildings, with flames still creeping over the charred beams and ridges. Alongside the smouldering timbers sat eight ragged figures and five dogs, all busily gnawing the remains of the flesh from a bloated, partly charred horse carcass. At the sight of the dwarves the feasters fled in a panic. Only one man and one dog remained, who no threats were capable of tearing away from the carrion on the arched spine and ribs. Zoltan and Percival tried to question the man, but learned nothing. He only whimpered, trembled, tucked his head into his shoulders and choked on the scraps torn from the bones. The dog snarled and bared its teeth up to its gums. The horse’s carcass stank repulsively.