The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

‘Me too,’ the Witcher said, stretching. ‘And there are only a few hours left until the dawning of the murderous sun. But before sleep overcomes us . . . Regis, in the name of science and the spread of knowledge, puncture some other myths about vampirism. Because I bet you’ve still got at least one.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The vampire nodded. ‘I have one more. It’s the last, but in no sense any less important. It is the myth behind your sexual phobias.’

  Cahir snorted softly.

  ‘I left this myth until the end,’ Regis said, looking him up and down. ‘I would have tactfully passed over it, but since Geralt has challenged me, I won’t spare you. Humans are most powerfully influenced by fears with a sexual origin. The virgin fainting in the embrace of a vampire who drinks her blood. The young man falling prey to the vile practices of a female vampire running her lips over his body. That’s how you imagine it. Oral rape. Vampires paralyse their victims with fear and force them to have oral sex. Or rather, a revolting parody of oral sex. And there is something disgusting about sex like that, which, after all, rules out procreation.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ the Witcher muttered.

  ‘An act crowned not by procreation, but by sensual delight and death,’ Regis continued. ‘You have turned it into a baleful myth. You unconsciously dream of something like it, but shy away from offering it to your lovers. So it’s done for you by the mythological vampire, who as a result swells to become a fascinating symbol of evil.’

  ‘Didn’t I say it?’ Milva yelled, as soon as Dandelion had finished explaining to her what Regis had been talking about. ‘It’s all they ever have on their minds! It starts off brainy, but always comes back to humping!’

  The distant trumpeting of cranes slowly died away.

  The next day, the Witcher recalled, we set off in much better humour. And then, utterly unexpectedly, war caught up with us again.

  They travelled through a practically deserted and strategically unimportant country covered in huge, dense forests, unappealing to invaders. Although Nilfgaard was close at last, and they were only separated from the imperial lands by the broad waters of the Great Yaruga, it was difficult terrain to cover. Their astonishment was all the greater because of that.

  War appeared in a less spectacular way than it had in Brugge and Sodden, where the horizon had glowed with fires at night, and during the day columns of black smoke had slashed the blue sky. It was not so picturesque here in Angren. It was much worse. They suddenly saw a murder of crows circling over the forest with a horrible cawing, and soon after they happened upon some corpses. Although the bodies had been stripped of their clothing and were impossible to identify, they bore the infallible and clear marks of violent death. Those people had been killed in combat. And not just killed. Most of the corpses were lying in the undergrowth, but some, cruelly mutilated, hung from trees by their arms or legs, lay sprawled on burnt-out pyres, or were impaled on stakes. And they stank. The whole of Angren had suddenly begun to reek with the monstrous, repulsive stench of barbarity.

  It wasn’t long before they had to hide in ravines and thick undergrowth, for to their left and right, and in front and behind them, the earth shook with cavalry horses’ hooves, and more and more units passed their hideout, stirring up dust.

  ‘Once again,’ Dandelion said, shaking his head, ‘once again we don’t know who’s fighting who and why. Once again we don’t know who’s behind us or who’s ahead of us, or what direction they’re headed. Who’s attacking and who’s retreating. The pox take it all. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I see it like this: war is no different to a whorehouse with a fire raging through it—’

  ‘You have,’ Geralt interrupted. ‘A hundred times.’

  ‘What are they fighting over?’ the poet asked, spitting violently. ‘Juniper bushes and sand? I mean, this exquisite country hasn’t got anything else to offer.’

  ‘There were elves among the bodies in the bushes,’ Milva said. ‘Scoia’tael commandos march this way, they always have. This is the route volunteers from Dol Blathanna and the Blue Mountains take when they head for Temeria. Someone wants to block their path. That’s what I think.’

  ‘It’s likely,’ Regis admitted, ‘that the Temerian Army would try to ambush the Squirrels here. But I’d say there are too many soldiers in the area. I surmise the Nilfgaardians have crossed the Yaruga.’

  ‘I surmise the same,’ the Witcher said, grimacing a little as he looked at Cahir’s stony countenance. ‘The bodies we saw this morning carried the marks of Nilfgaardian combat methods.’

  ‘They’re all as bad as each other,’ Milva snapped, unexpectedly taking the side of the young Nilfgaardian. ‘And don’t look daggers at Cahir, because now you’re bound by the same, bizarre fate. He dies if he falls into the Blacks’ clutches, and you escaped a Temerian noose a while back. So it’s no use trying to find out which army is in front of us and which behind, who are our comrades, who are our enemies, who’s good and who’s evil. Now they’re all our common foes, no matter what colours they’re wearing.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Strange,’ Dandelion said, when the next day they had to hide in another ravine and wait for another cavalcade to pass. ‘The army are rumbling over the hills, and yet woodmen are felling trees by the Yaruga as if nothing was happening. Can you hear it?’

  ‘Perhaps they aren’t woodmen,’ Cahir wondered. ‘Perhaps it’s the army, and they’re sappers.’

  ‘No, they’re woodmen,’ Regis said. ‘It’s clear nothing is capable of interrupting the mining of Angren gold.’

  ‘What gold?’

  ‘Take a closer look at those trees,’ the vampire said, once again assuming the tone of an all-knowing, patronising sage instructing mere mortals or the simple-minded. He often acquired that tone, which Geralt found somewhat irritating. ‘Those trees,’ Regis repeated, ‘are cedars, sycamores and Angren pines. Very valuable material. There are timber ports all around here, from which logs are floated downstream. They’re felling trees everywhere and axes are thudding away day and night. The war we can see and hear is beginning to make sense. Nilfgaard, as you know, has captured the mouth of the Yaruga, Cintra and Verden, as well as Upper Sodden. At this moment probably also Brugge and part of Lower Sodden. That means that the timber being floated from Angren is already supplying the imperial sawmills and shipyards. The northern kingdoms are trying to halt the process, while the Nilfgaardians, on the contrary, want to fell and float as much as possible.’

  ‘And we, as usual, have found ourselves in a tight spot,’ Dandelion said, nodding. ‘Seeing as we have to get to Caed Dhu, right through the very centre of Angren and this timber war. Isn’t there another bloody way?’

  I asked Regis the same question, the Witcher recalled, staring at the sun setting over the Yaruga, as soon as the thudding of hooves had faded into the distance, things had calmed down and we were finally able to continue our journey.

  ‘Another way to Caed Dhu?’ the vampire pondered. ‘Which avoids the hills and keeps out of the soldiers’ way? Indeed, there is such a way. Not very comfortable and not very safe. And it’s longer too. But I guarantee we won’t meet any soldiers there.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We can turn south and try to get across a low point in one of the Yaruga’s meanders. Across Ysgith. Do you know Ysgith, Witcher?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever ridden through those forests?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The calm in your voice,’ the vampire said, clearing his throat, ‘would seem to signify you accept the idea. Well, there are five of us, including a witcher, a warrior and an archer. Experience, two swords and a bow. Too little to take on a Nilfgaardian raiding party, but it ought to be sufficient for Ysgith.’

  Ysgith, the Witcher thought. More than thirty square miles of bogs and mud, dotted with tarns. And murky forests full of weird trees dividing up the bogs. Some have trunks covered in scales. At the base they’re as bulbous as onion
s, thinning towards the top, ending in dense, flat crowns. Others are low and misshapen, crouching on piles of roots twisted like octopuses, with beards of moss and shrivelled bog lichen hanging on their bare branches. Those beards sway, not from the wind though, but from poisonous swamp gas. Ysgith means mud hole. ‘Stink hole’ would be more appropriate.

  And the mud and bogs, the tarns and lakes overgrown with duckweed and pondweed teem with life. Ysgith isn’t just inhabited by beavers, frogs, tortoises and water birds. It is swarming with much more dangerous creatures, armed with pincers, tentacles and prehensile limbs, which they use to catch, mutilate, drown and tear apart their prey. There are so many of these creatures that no one has ever been able to identify and classify them all. Not even witchers. Geralt himself had rarely hunted in Ysgith and never in Lower Angren. The land was sparsely populated, and the few humans who lived on the fringes of the bogs were accustomed to treating the monsters as part of the landscape. They kept their distance, but it rarely occurred to them to hire a witcher to exterminate the monstrosities. Rarely, however, did not mean never. So Geralt knew Ysgith and its dangers.

  Two swords and a bow, he thought. And experience, my witcher’s expertise. We ought to manage in a group. Especially when I’ll be riding in the vanguard and keeping close watch on everything. On the rotten tree trunks, piles of weed, scrub, tussocks of grass; and the plants, orchids included. For in Ysgith even the orchids sometimes only look like plants, but are actually venomous crab spiders. I’ll have to keep Dandelion on a short leash, and make sure he doesn’t touch anything. Particularly since there’s no shortage of plant life which likes to supplement its chlorophyll diet with morsels of meat. Plants whose shoots are as deadly as a crab spider’s venom when they come into contact with skin. And the gas, of course. Not to mention poisonous fumes. We shall have to find a way to cover our mouths and noses . . .

  ‘Well?’ Regis asked, pulling him out of his reverie. ‘Do you accept the plan?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Let’s go.’

  Something finally prompted me, the Witcher recalled, not to talk to the rest of the company about the plan to cross Ysgith. And to ask Regis not to mention it either. I don’t know why I was reluctant. Today, when everything is absolutely and totally screwed up, I might claim to have been aware of Milva’s behaviour. Of the problems she was having. Of her obvious symptoms. But it wouldn’t be true; I didn’t notice anything, and what I did notice I ignored. Like a blockhead. So we continued eastwards, reluctant to turn towards the bogs.

  On the other hand it was good that we lingered, he thought, drawing his sword and running his thumb over the razor-sharp blade. Had we headed straight for Ysgith then, I wouldn’t have this weapon today.

  They hadn’t seen or heard any soldiers since dawn. Milva led the way, riding far ahead of the rest of the company. Regis, Dandelion and Cahir were talking.

  ‘I just hope those druids will deign to help us find Ciri,’ the poet said worriedly. ‘I’ve met druids and, believe me, they are uncooperative, tight-lipped, unfriendly, eccentric recluses. They might not talk to us at all, far less use magic to help us.’

  ‘Regis knows one of the druids from Caed Dhu,’ the Witcher reminded them.

  ‘Are you sure the friendship doesn’t go back three or four centuries?’

  ‘It’s considerably more recent than that,’ the vampire assured them with a mysterious smile. ‘Anyhow, druids enjoy longevity. They’re always out in the open, in the bosom of primordial and unpolluted nature, which has a marvellous effect on the health. Breathe deeply, Dandelion, fill your lungs with forest air and you’ll be healthy too.’

  ‘I’ll soon grow fur in this bloody wilderness,’ Dandelion said sneeringly. ‘When I sleep, I dream of inns, drinks and bathhouses. A primordial pox on this primordial nature. I really have my doubts about its miraculous effect on the health, particularly mental health. The said druids are the best example, because they’re eccentric madmen. They’re fanatical about nature and protecting it. I’ve witnessed them petitioning the authorities more times than I care to remember. Don’t hunt, don’t cut down trees, don’t empty cesspits into rivers and other similar codswallop. And the height of idiocy was the visit of a delegation all arrayed in mistletoe wreathes to the court of King Ethain in Cidaris. I happened to be there . . .’

  ‘What did they want?’ Geralt asked, curious.

  ‘Cidaris, as you know, is a kingdom where most people make a living from fishing. The druids demanded that the king order the use of nets with mesh of a specific size, and harshly punish anyone who used finer nets than instructed. Ethain’s jaw dropped, and the mistletoers explained that limiting the size of mesh was the only way to protect fish stocks from depletion. The king led them out onto the terrace, pointed to the sea and told them how his bravest sailor had once sailed westwards for two months and only returned because supplies of fresh water had run out on his vessel, and there still wasn’t a sign of land on the horizon. Could the druids, he asked, imagine the fish stocks in a sea like that being exhausted? By all means, the mistletoers confirmed. For though there was no doubt sea fishery would endure the longest as a means of acquiring food directly from nature, the time would come when fish would run out and hunger would stare them all in the face. Then it would be absolutely necessary to fish using nets with large mesh, to only catch fully grown specimens, and protect the small fry. Ethain asked when, in the druids’ opinion, this dreadful time of hunger would occur, and they said in about two thousand years, according to their forecasts. The king bade them a courteous farewell and requested that they drop by in around a thousand years, when he would think it over. The mistletoers didn’t get the joke and began to protest, so they were thrown out.’

  ‘They’re like that, those druids,’ Cahir agreed. ‘Back home, in Nilfgaard—’

  ‘Got you!’ Dandelion cried triumphantly. ‘Back home, in Nilfgaard! Only yesterday, when I called you a Nilfgaardian, you leapt up as though you’d been stung by a hornet! Perhaps you could finally decide who you are, Cahir.’

  ‘To you,’ Cahir said, shrugging, ‘I have to be a Nilfgaardian, for as I see nothing will convince you otherwise. However, for the sake of precision please know that in the Empire such a title is reserved exclusively for indigenous residents of the capital and its closest environs, lying by the lower reaches of the Alba. My family originates in Vicovaro, and thus—’

  ‘Shut your traps!’ Milva commanded abruptly and not very politely from the vanguard.

  They all immediately fell silent and reined in their horses, having learned by now that it was a sign the girl had seen, heard or instinctively sensed something edible, provided it could be stalked and shot with an arrow. Milva had indeed raised her bow to shoot, but had not dismounted. That meant it was not about food. Geralt approached her cautiously.

  ‘Smoke,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘Sniff it then.’

  The archer’s sense of smell had not deceived her, even though the scent of smoke was faint. It couldn’t have been the smoke from the conflagration behind them.

  This smoke, Geralt observed, smells nice. It’s coming from a campfire on which something is being roasted.

  ‘Do we steer clear of it?’ Milva asked quietly.

  ‘After we’ve taken a look,’ he replied, dismounting from his mare and handing the reins to Dandelion. ‘It would be good to know what we’re steering clear of. And who we have behind us. Come with me, Maria. The rest of you stay in your saddles. Be vigilant.’

  From the brush at the edge of the forest unfolded a view of a vast clearing with logs piled up in even cords of wood. A very thin ribbon of smoke rose from between the woodpiles. Geralt calmed down somewhat, as nothing was moving in his field of vision and there was too little space between the woodpiles for a large group to be hiding there. Milva shared his opinion.

  ‘No horses,’ she whispered. ‘They aren’t soldiers. Woodmen, I’d say.’

  ‘Me too. Bu
t I’ll go and check. Cover me.’

  When he approached, cautiously picking his way around the piles of logs, he heard voices. He came closer. And was absolutely amazed. But his ears hadn’t let him down.

  ‘Half a contract in diamonds!’

  ‘Small slam in diamonds!’

  ‘Barrel!’

  ‘Pass. Your lead! Show your hand! Cards on the table! What the . . . ?’

  ‘Ha-ha-ha! Just the knave and some low numbers. Got you right where it hurts! I’ll make you suffer, before you get a small slam!’

  ‘We’ll see about that. My knave. What? It’s been taken? Hey, Yazon, you really got fucked over!’

  ‘Why didn’t you play the lady, shithead? Pshaw, I ought to take my rod to you . . .’

  The Witcher, perhaps, might still have been cautious; after all, various different individuals could have been playing Barrel, and many people might have been called Yazon. However, a familiar hoarse squawking interrupted the card players’ excited voices.

  ‘’Uuuckkk . . . me!’

  ‘Hello, boys,’ Geralt said, emerging from behind the woodpile. ‘I’m delighted to see you. Particularly as you’re at full force again, including the parrot.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Zoltan Chivay said, dropping his cards in astonishment, then quickly leaping to his feet, so suddenly that Field Marshal Windbag, who was sitting on his shoulder, fluttered his wings and shrieked in alarm. ‘The Witcher, as I live and breathe! Or is it a mirage? Percival, do you see what I see?’

  Percival Schuttenbach, Munro Bruys, Yazon Varda and Figgis Merluzzo surrounded Geralt and seriously strained his right hand with their iron-hard grips. And when the rest of the company emerged from behind the logs, the shouts of joy increased accordingly.

  ‘Milva! Regis!’ Zoltan shouted, embracing them all. ‘Dandelion, alive and kicking, even if your skull’s bandaged! And what do you say, you bloody busker, about this latest melodramatic banality? Life, it turns out, isn’t poetry! And do you know why? Because it’s so resistant to criticism!’