‘Hold on!’ he shouted, catching the poet by his elbow and drawing him closer to his own back. ‘Hold on, Dandelion!’
‘They’ve killed me!’ the poet howled, impressively loudly for a dead man. ‘I’m bleeding! I’m dying!’
‘Hold on!’
The hail of arrows and quarrels, which was raining down on both armies and had proved to be so disastrous for Dandelion, was also their salvation. The armies under fire seethed and lost momentum, and the gap between the front lines which had been about to draw together remained open just long enough for the heavily snorting horse to whisk the two riders out of the trap. Geralt mercilessly forced his steed to ride hard, for although the trees and safety were looming up in front of them, hooves continued to thunder behind them. The horse grunted and stumbled, but did not stop and they might have escaped had not Dandelion suddenly groaned and lurched backwards, dragging the Witcher out of the saddle with him. Geralt unintentionally tugged on the reins, the horse reared, and the two men tumbled to the ground among some very low pines. The poet thudded onto the dirt and lay still, groaning pathetically. His head and left shoulder were covered in blood, which glistened black in the moonlight.
Behind them, the armies collided with thuds, clangs and screams. But despite the raging battle, their Nilfgaardian pursuers hadn’t forgotten about them. Three cavalrymen were galloping towards them.
The Witcher sprang up, feeling a swelling wave of cold fury and hatred inside him. He jumped out to meet their pursuers, drawing the horsemen’s attention away from Dandelion. But not because he wanted to sacrifice himself for his friend. He wanted to kill.
The leading rider, who had pulled ahead, flew at him with a raised battle-axe, but had no way of knowing he was attacking a witcher. Geralt dodged the blow effortlessly and seized the Nilfgaardian leaning over in the saddle by his cloak, while the fingers of his other hand caught the soldier’s broad belt. He pulled the rider from the saddle with a powerful wrench and fell on him, pinning him to the ground. Only then did Geralt realise he had no weapon. He caught the man by the throat, but couldn’t throttle him because of his iron gorget. The Nilfgaardian struggled, hit him with an armoured gauntlet and gashed his cheek. The Witcher smothered his opponent with his entire body, groped for the misericord in the broad belt, and jerked it out of its sheath. The man on the ground felt it and howled. Geralt fended off the arm with the silver scorpion on the sleeve that was still hitting him and raised the dagger to strike.
The Nilfgaardian screamed.
The Witcher plunged the misericord into his open mouth. Up to the hilt.
When he got to his feet, he saw horses without riders, bodies and a cavalry unit heading away towards the battle. The Cintrans from the camp had dispatched their Nilfgaardian pursuers, and had not even noticed the poet or the two men fighting on the ground in the gloom among the low pine trees.
‘Dandelion! Where were you hit? Where’s the arrow?’
‘In my head . . . It’s stuck in my head . . .’
‘Don’t talk nonsense! Bloody hell, you were lucky . . . It only grazed you . . .’
‘I’m bleeding . . .’
Geralt removed his jerkin and tore off a shirtsleeve. The point of the quarrel had caught Dandelion above the ear, leaving a nasty-looking gash extending to his temple. The poet kept bringing his shaking hand up to the wound and then looking at the blood, which was profusely spattering his hands and cuffs. His eyes were vacant. The Witcher realised he was dealing with a person who, for the first time in his life, had been wounded and was in pain. Who, for the first time in his life, was seeing his own blood in such quantities.
‘Get up,’ he said, wrapping the shirtsleeve quickly and clumsily around the troubadour’s head. ‘It’s nothing. Dandelion, it’s only a scratch . . . Get up, we have to get out of here fast . . .’
The battle on the field raged on in the dark; the clatter of steel, neighing of horses and screams grew louder and louder. Geralt quickly caught two Nilfgaardian steeds, but it turned out one was sufficient. Dandelion managed to get up, but immediately sat down again, groaned and sobbed pitifully. The Witcher lifted him to his feet, shook him back to consciousness and hauled him into the saddle.
Geralt mounted behind the wounded poet and spurred the horse east, to where – above the already visible pale blue streaks of the dawn – hung the brightest star of the Seven Goats constellation.
‘Dawn will be breaking soon,’ Milva said, looking not at the sky but at the glistening surface of the river. ‘The catfish are tormenting the small fry. But there’s neither hide nor hair of the Witcher or Dandelion. Oh, I hope Regis didn’t mess up—’
‘Don’t tempt fate,’ Cahir muttered, adjusting the girth of the recovered chestnut colt.
Milva looked around for a piece of wood to knock on.
‘. . . But it does seem to be like that . . . Whoever encounters your Ciri, it’s as though they’ve put their head on the block . . . That girl brings misfortune . . . Misfortune and death.’
‘Spit that out, Milva.’
She spat obediently, as superstition demanded.
‘There’s such a chill, I’m shivering . . . And I’m thirsty, but I saw another rotting corpse in the river near the bank. Phooey . . . I feel sick . . . I think I’m going to throw up . . .’
‘There you go,’ Cahir said, handing her a canteen. ‘Drink that. And sit down close to me, I’ll keep you warm.’
Another catfish struck a shoal of minnows in the shallows and they scattered near the surface in a silver hail. A bat or nightjar flashed past in a beam of moonlight.
‘Who knows,’ Milva muttered pensively, cuddling up to Cahir, ‘what tomorrow will bring. Who’ll cross that river and who’ll perish.’
‘What will be, will be. Drive those thoughts away.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘I am. What about you?’
‘I feel sick.’
There was a lengthy pause.
‘Tell me, Cahir, when did you meet Ciri?’
‘For the first time? Three years ago. During the fight for Cintra. I got her out of the city. I found her, beset by fire. I rode through the fire, through the flames and smoke, holding her in my arms. And she was like a flame herself.’
‘And?’
‘You can’t hold a flame in your hands.’
‘If it isn’t Ciri in Nilfgaard,’ she said after a long silence, ‘then who is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
Drakenborg, the Redanian fortress converted into an internment camp for elves and other subversive elements, had some grim traditions, which had evolved during its three years of operation. One of those traditions was dawn hangings. Another was gathering all those under death sentences in a large, common cell, from which they were led out to the gallows at daybreak.
About a dozen of the condemned were grouped together in the cell, and every morning two, three – or occasionally four – of them were hanged. The others waited their turn. A long time. Sometimes as long as a week. The condemned were called Clowns. Because the mood around the death cell was always jolly. Firstly, at meals prisoners were served very thin, sour wine nicknamed ‘Dijkstra Dry’ in the camp, as it was no secret that they could enjoy it at the behest of the head of the Redanian secret service. Secondly, no one was dragged to the sinister, underground Wash House to be interrogated any longer, nor were the warders allowed to maltreat the convicts.
The tradition was also observed that night. It was merry in the cell being occupied by six elves, a half-elf, a halfling, two humans and a Nilfgaardian. Dijkstra Dry was poured onto a single, shared tin plate and lapped up without the use of the arms, since that method gave the greatest chance of at least some intoxication by the gnat’s piss. Only one of the elves, a Scoia’tael from Iorweth’s defeated commando, recently severely tortured in the Wash House, retained his composure and dignity and was busy carving the words ‘Freedom Or Death’ on a post. There were several hundred similar inscriptions on the po
sts around the cell. The remaining condemned convicts, also in keeping with tradition, sang the Clowns’ Anthem over and over again, a song composed in Drakenborg by an unknown author. Every convict learned the words in the barracks, as the song drifted to them at night from the condemned cell, knowing that the day would come when they would join the choir.
The Clowns dance on the scaffold
Rhythmically twitching and jerking
They sing their song
Of sadness and beauty
And the Clowns have all the fun
Every corpse will recall
When the stool’s kicked away
And his eyes roll up to the sun.
The bolt rattled, the key grated in the lock and the Clowns stopped singing. Warders entering at dawn could only mean one thing: in a moment the choir would be depleted by several voices. The only question was: whose?
The warders entered together. All were carrying ropes to tie the hands of the convicts being led to the scaffold. One sniffed, shoved his cudgel under his arm, unrolled a scroll of parchment and cleared his throat.
‘Echel Trogelton!’
‘Traighlethan,’ the elf from Iorweth’s commando corrected him softly. He looked at the carved slogan once more and struggled to his feet.
‘Cosmo Baldenvegg!’
The halfling swallowed loudly. Nazarian knew Baldenvegg had been imprisoned on charges of acts of sabotage, carried out on the instructions of the Nilfgaardian secret service. However, Baldenvegg had not admitted his guilt and stubbornly maintained he had stolen both cavalry horses on his own initiative to make some money, and that Nilfgaard had nothing to do with it. He had clearly not been believed.
‘Nazarian!’
Nazarian stood up obediently and held his hands out for the warders to bind. When the three of them were being led out, the rest of the Clowns took up the song.
The Clowns dance on the scaffold
Merrily twitching and jerking
And the wind carries their song
The chorus echoing all around . . .
The dawn glowed purple and red, heralding a beautiful, sunny day.
The Clowns’ Anthem, thought Nazarian, was misleading. They could not dance a jaunty jig, since they were not hanged from a gibbet with a cross beam, but from ordinary posts sunk into the ground. They didn’t have stools kicked from under them, but practical, low birch blocks, bearing the marks of frequent use. The song’s anonymous author, who had been executed the previous year, could not have known that when he composed it. Like all the other convicts, he was only acquainted with the details shortly before his death. In Drakenborg the executions were never carried out in public. They were a just punishment and not sadistic vengeance. Those words were also attributed to Dijkstra.
The elf from Iorweth’s commando shook the warders’ hands off, stepped onto the block without hesitation and allowed the noose to be placed around his neck.
‘Long li—’
The block was kicked out from under his feet.
The halfling required two blocks, which were placed one on top of the other. The alleged saboteur did not bother with any grandiloquent cries. His short legs kicked vigorously and then sagged against the post. His head lolled slackly on his shoulder.
When the warders seized Nazarian he suddenly changed his tune.
‘I’ll talk!’ he croaked. ‘I’ll testify! I have important information for Dijkstra!’
‘Bit late for that,’ said Vascoigne, the deputy commander for political affairs at Drakenborg, who was assisting at the execution, doubtingly. ‘The sight of the noose rouses the imagination in every second one of you!’
‘I’m not making it up!’ Nazarian appealed, struggling in the executioners’ arms. ‘I’ve got information!’
Less than an hour later Nazarian was sitting in a seclusion cell, delighting in the beauty of life. A messenger stood at readiness beside his horse, scratching his groin vigorously, and Vascoigne was reading and checking the report which was about to be sent to Dijkstra.
I humbly inform Your Lordship, that the felon by the name of Nazarian, sentenced for an assault on a royal official, has testified to the following: that acting on the orders of a certain Ryens, on the day of the July new moon this year, with two of his accomplices, the elven half-breed Schirrú and Millet, he did take part in the murder of the jurists Codringher and Fenn in the city of Dorian. Millet was killed there, but the half-breed Schirrú murdered the two jurists and set their house on fire. The felon Nazarian shifts all the blame onto the said Schirrú, denies and refutes any suggestion that he committed the murders, but that is probably owing to fear of the gallows. What may interest Your Lordship, however, is that prior to the crime against the jurists being committed, the said malefactors (that is Nazarian, the half-elf Schirrú and Millet) were hunting a witcher, a certain Gerald of Rivia, who had been holding secret meetings with the jurist Codringher. To what end, the felon Nazarian does not know, because neither the aforementioned Ryens, nor the half-elf Schirrú, did divulge the secret to him. But when Ryens was given the report concerning their collusions, he ordered the jurists to be destroyed.
The felon Nazarian further testified that his accomplice Schirrú stole some documents from the jurists, which were later delivered to Ryens at an inn called the Sly Fox in Carreras. What Ryens and Schirrú conversed about there is not known to Nazarian, but the following day the criminal trio travelled to Brugge where, on the fourth day after the new moon, they committed the abduction of a maiden from a red-brick house, on the door of which a pair of brass shears were affixed. Ryens drugged her with a magic potion, and the malefactors Schirrú and Nazarian conveyed her in great haste by carriage to the stronghold of Nastrog in Verden. And now a matter which I commend to Your Lordship’s close attention: the malefactors handed the abducted maid over to the stronghold’s Nilfgaardian commandant, assuring him that the said individual was Cyryla of Cintra. The commandant, as testified by the felon Nazarian, was greatly content with these tidings.
I dispatch the above in strict confidence to Your Lordship by messenger. I shall likewise send an exhaustive report of the interrogation, when the scribe has made a fair copy. I humbly request instructions from Your Lordship as to what to do with the felon Nazarian. Whether to order him stung with a bullwhip, so that he remembers more, or hang him according to regulations.
Your loyal servitor.
Vascoigne signed the report with a flourish, affixed a seal and summoned the messenger.
Dijkstra was acquainted with the contents of the report that evening; Philippa Eilhart by noon of the following day.
By the time the horse carrying the Witcher and Dandelion emerged from the riverside alders, Milva and Cahir were extremely agitated. They had heard the battle, as the water of the Ina carried the sounds a great distance.
As she helped lift the poet down from the saddle, Milva saw Geralt stiffening at the sight of the Nilfgaardian. However, she did not say anything – and neither did the Witcher – for Dandelion was moaning desperately and swooning. They laid him down on the sand, placing a folded-up cloak beneath his head. Milva had just set about changing the blood-soaked makeshift dressing when she felt a hand on her shoulder and smelled the familiar scent of wormwood, aniseed and other herbs. Regis, as was his custom, had appeared unexpectedly, out of thin air.
‘Let me,’ he said, pulling instruments and other paraphernalia from his sizeable medical bag, ‘I’ll take it from here.’
When the barber-surgeon peeled the dressing from the wound, Dandelion groaned pitifully.
‘Relax,’ Regis said, cleansing the wound. ‘It’s nothing. Only blood. Only a little blood . . . Your blood smells nice, poet.’
At precisely that moment the Witcher did something Milva would never have expected. He walked over to the horse and drew a long Nilfgaardian sword from the scabbard fastened under the saddle flap.
‘Move away from him,’ he snarled, standing over the barber-surgeon.
‘The b
lood smells nice,’ Regis repeated, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the Witcher. ‘I can’t detect in it the smell of infection, which with a head wound could have disastrous consequences. The main arteries and veins are intact . . . This will sting a little.’
Dandelion groaned and took a sharp intake of breath. The sword in the Witcher’s hand vibrated and glistened with light reflected from the river.
‘I’ll put in a few stitches,’ Regis said, continuing to ignore both the Witcher and his sword. ‘Be brave, Dandelion.’
Dandelion was brave.
‘Almost done here,’ Regis said, setting about bandaging the victim’s head. ‘Don’t you worry, Dandelion, you’ll be right as rain. The wound’s just right for a poet, Dandelion. You’ll look like a war hero, with a proud bandage around your head, and the hearts of the maidens looking at you will melt like wax. Yes, a truly poetic wound. Unlike an abdominal wound for instance. Liver all cut up, kidneys and guts mangled, stomach contents and faeces pouring out, peritonitis . . . Right, that's done. Geralt, I’m all yours.’
He stood and the Witcher brought the sword up against his throat, as quick as lightning.
‘Move away,’ he snapped at Milva. Regis didn’t twitch, even though the point of the sword was pressing gently against his neck. The archer held her breath, seeing the barber-surgeon’s eyes glowing in the dark with a strange, cat-like light.
‘Go on,’ Regis said calmly. ‘Thrust it in.’
‘Geralt,’ Dandelion spoke from the ground, totally alert. ‘Are you utterly insane? He saved us from the gallows . . . And patched me up . . .’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 92
