The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  Daniel Etcheverry, the Count of Garramone, who had put a brave face on it until then, howled like a wolf. Before he clenched his jaws from the pain, Shani quickly slipped a peg of linden wood between his teeth.

  *

  ‘Your Royal Highness! Lord Constable!’

  ‘Talk, lad.’

  ‘The Volunteer Regiment and the Free Company are holding the defile near Golden Pond . . . The dwarves and condottieri are holding fast, although they’re awfully bloodied . . . They say Adieu Pangratt’s dead, Frontino’s dead, Julia Abatemarco’s dead . . . All of them, all dead! The Dorian Company, which came to relieve them, is slaughtered . . .’

  ‘Reserves, my lord constable,’ Foltest said quietly, but clearly. ‘If you want to know my opinion, it’s time to send in the reserves. Have Bronibor throw his infantry at the Black Cloaks! Now! Forthwith! Otherwise they’ll dismember our lines, and that means the end.’

  Jan Natalis didn’t answer, now observing the next liaison officer rushing towards them from a distance on a horse spraying flecks of foam.

  ‘Get your breath back, lad. Get your breath back and speak concisely!’

  ‘They’ve breached . . . the front . . . the elves of the Vrihedd Brigade. Graf de Ruyter informs Your Graces that . . .’

  ‘What does he inform us? Talk!’

  ‘That it’s time to save your lives.’

  Jan Natalis raised his eyes heavenwards.

  ‘Blenckert,’ he said hollowly. ‘May Blenckert come now. Or may the night come.’

  *

  The ground around the tent trembled beneath hooves, and the tent walls, it seemed, billowed from the intensity of the cries and the neighing of horses. A soldier rushed into the tent, followed close behind by two orderlies.

  ‘People, flee!’ the soldier bellowed. ‘Save yourselves! Nilfgaard is vanquishing our army! Destruction! Destruction! Defeat!’

  ‘Clamp!’ Rusty withdrew his face before the stream of blood, a potent and vivid fountain squirting from an artery. ‘Clamp! And a compress! Clamp, Shani! Marti, do something, if you would, about that bleeding . . .’

  Someone howled like an animal right beside the tent, briefly, stopping abruptly. A horse squealed, something hit the ground with a clank and a thud. A crossbow bolt punctured the canvas with a crack, hissed and flew out the other side, fortunately too high to threaten the wounded men lying on stretchers.

  ‘Nilfgaaaaaard!’ the soldier shouted again, in a high, trembling voice. ‘Gentlemen medics! Can’t you hear what I’m saying? Nilfgaard has breached the royal line, they’re coming and murdering! Fleeeee!’

  Rusty took a needle from Marti Sodergren, and put in the first suture. The man being operated on hadn’t moved for a long time. But his heart was beating. Visibly.

  ‘I don’t want to diiiieee!’ yelled one of the conscious wounded. The soldier cursed, dashed for the exit, suddenly yelled, crashed backwards, splashing blood, and tumbled onto the dirt floor. Iola, kneeling by the stretchers, leaped to her feet, and stepped back.

  It suddenly went quiet.

  Not good, thought Rusty, seeing who was entering the tent. Elves. Silver lightning bolts. The Vrihedd Brigade. The notorious Vrihedd Brigade.

  ‘A field hospital,’ the first of the elves stated. He was tall, with a pretty, oval, expressive face with large, cornflower blue eyes. ‘Treating the wounded?’

  No one said anything. Rusty felt his hands begin to tremble. He quickly handed the needle to Marti. He saw Shani’s forehead and the bridge of her nose pale.

  ‘So what’s this about?’ said the elf, drawling his words menacingly. ‘Why do we wound our foes over there on the battlefield? Over there in the fighting we inflict wounds so men will die from them. And you treat them. I observe an absolute lack of logic here. And a conflict of interests.’

  He stooped over and thrust his sword almost without a swing into the chest of the casualty on the stretcher nearest the entrance. Another elf pinned another wounded man with a half-pike. A third casualty, conscious, tried hard to stop a thrust with his left arm and the heavily bandaged stump of his right.

  Shani screamed. Shrilly, piercingly. Drowning out the heavy, inhuman groaning of the mutilated man being murdered. Iola, throwing herself onto a stretcher, covered the next casualty with her body. Her face blanched like the linen of a bandage and her mouth began to twitch involuntarily. The elf squinted his eyes.

  ‘Va vort, beanna!’ he barked. ‘Or I’ll run you through along with this Dh’oine!’

  ‘Get out of here!’ Rusty was beside Iola in three bounds, shielding her. ‘Get out of my tent, you murderer. Get back there to the battlefield. Your place is there. Among the other murderers. Murder each other there, if that is your will. But get out of here!’

  The elf looked down at the pot-bellied halfling shaking with fear, the top of whose curly mop reached a little above his waist.

  ‘Bloede Pherian,’ he hissed. ‘Toady to humans! Get out of my way!’

  ‘Not a chance.’ The halfling’s teeth were chattering, but his words were distinct.

  The second elf leaped forward and pushed the surgeon with the shaft of his half-pike. Rusty fell to his knees. The tall elf wrenched Iola away from the wounded man with a brutal tug and raised his sword.

  And froze, seeing, on the rolled up cloak under the injured man’s head, the silver flames of the Deithwen Division. And the insignia of a colonel.

  ‘Yaevinn!’ screamed an elf woman with dark hair woven into a plait, rushing into the tent. ‘Caemm, veloe! Ess’evgyriad a’Dh’oine a’en va! Ess’ tedd!’

  The tall elf looked at the wounded colonel for a moment, then at the eyes of the surgeon, which were watering in terror. Then he turned on his heel and left.

  Once again the tramping of hooves, yelling and the clanging of iron could be heard from beyond the wall of the tent.

  ‘Have at the Black Cloaks! Murder!’ a thousand voices yelled. Someone howled like an animal, and the howling transformed into macabre wheezing.

  Rusty tried to stand up, but his legs failed him. His arms weren’t much use either.

  Iola, trembling with powerful spasms of suppressed tears, curled up by the stretcher of the wounded Nilfgaardian. In a foetal position.

  Shani was crying, not trying to hide her tears. But still holding the retractors. Marti was calmly putting in sutures, only her mouth moving in a kind of mute, silent monologue.

  Rusty, still unable to stand up, sat back down. He met the gaze of the orderly, huddled and squeezed into a corner of the tent.

  ‘Give me a swig of hooch,’ said Rusty with effort. ‘Just don’t say you don’t have any. I know you rascals. You always do.’

  *

  General Blenheim Blenckert stood up in his stirrups, stuck his neck out like a crane and listened to the sounds of the battle.

  ‘Draw out the array,’ he ordered his commanders. ‘And we’ll go at a trot at once behind that hill. From what the scouts say it appears that we’ll come out straight on the Black Cloaks’ right wing.’

  ‘And we’ll give them what for!’ one of the lieutenants, a whippersnapper with a silky and very spare little moustache, shouted shrilly. Blenckert looked askance at him.

  ‘A detachment with a standard at the head,’ he ordered, drawing his sword. ‘And in the charge cry “Redania!” Cry it at the top of your lungs! May Foltest and Natalis’ boys know that the relief is coming.’

  *

  Graf Kobus de Ruyter had fought in various battles, for forty years, since he was sixteen. Furthermore, he was an eighth-generation soldier, without doubt he had something in his genes. Something that meant that the roar and hubbub of battle, for everyone else simply a horrifying hullabaloo that drowned out everything else, was like a symphony, like a concert for a full orchestra, to Kobus de Ruyter. De Ruyter at once heard other notes, chords and tones.

  ‘Hurraaah, boys!’ he roared, brandishing his baton. ‘Redania! Redania is coming! The eagles! The eagles!’

  Fro
m the north, from behind the hills, rolling towards the battle, came a mass of cavalry, over which an amaranth pennant and a great gonfalon with a silver Redanian eagle fluttered.

  ‘Relief!’ yelled de Ruyter. ‘The relief’s coming! Hurraaah! Death to the Black Cloaks!’

  The eighth-generation soldier immediately noticed that the Nilfgaardian wing was wheeling around, trying to turn towards the charging relief with a disciplined, tight front. He knew he could not allow them to do that.

  ‘Follow me!’ he roared, wresting the standard from the standard-bearer’s hands. ‘Follow me! Tretogorians, follow me!’

  They struck. They struck suicidally, dreadfully. But effectively. The Nilfgaardians of the Venendal Division fell into confusion and then the Redanian companies drove into them. A great shout rose into the sky.

  Kobus de Ruyter didn’t see or hear it. A stray bolt from a crossbow had struck him straight in the temple. The nobleman sagged in the saddle and fell from his horse, the standard covering him like a shroud.

  Eight generations of de Ruyters who had fallen fighting and were following the battle from the beyond nodded in acknowledgement.

  *

  ‘It could be said, captain, that the Nordlings were saved by a miracle that day. Or a coincidence that no one could have predicted. Admittedly Restif de Montholon writes in his book that Marshal Coehoorn made a mistake in his assessment of the enemy’s strength and plans. That he took too great a risk, splitting up the Centre Army Group and setting off with a cavalry troop. That he took on a risky battle, not having at least a threefold advantage. And that he neglected reconnaissance, he didn’t uncover the Redanian Army arriving with reinforcements.’

  ‘Cadet Puttkammer! Mr de Montholon’s “work”, which is of doubtful quality, is not included in this school’s curriculum. And His Imperial Highness deigned to express himself extremely critically about the book. Thus you will not quote it here, Cadet. Indeed, it astonishes me. Until now your answers have been very good, positively excellent, and suddenly you begin to discourse about miracles and coincidences, while finally you take the liberty of criticising the leadership abilities of Menno Coehoorn, one of the greatest leaders the Empire has produced. Cadet Puttkammer – and all the rest of you cadets – if you’re seriously thinking about passing the final exam, you’ll listen and remember: at the Battle of Brenna no miracles or accidents were at work, but a conspiracy! Hostile saboteur forces, subversive elements, foul rabble-rousers, cosmopolites, political bankrupts, traitors and turncoats. A canker that was later burned out with white-hot iron. But before it came to that, those base traitors tangled up their own nation in spider webs and wove a snare of scheming! It was they who inveigled and betrayed Marshal Coehoorn then, deceived him and misled him! It was they; scoundrels without faith or honour . . .’

  *

  ‘Whoresons,’ repeated Menno Coehoorn, without taking the telescope from his eye. ‘Common whoresons. But I’ll find you, just wait, I’ll teach you what reconnaissance means. De Wyngalt! You will personally find the officer who was on the patrol beyond the hills to the north. Have all of them, the entire patrol, hanged.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ouder de Wyngalt, the marshal’s aide-de—camp, clicked his heels together. He could not know that right then Lamarr Flaut, the officer from the patrol, was dying, trampled by horses of the secret reserves of the Nordlings who were attacking the flanks, the reserves he hadn’t uncovered. Neither could de Wyngalt know that he only had two hours of life left.

  ‘How many of them are there, Mr Trahe?’ Coehoorn still didn’t take the telescope from his eye. ‘In your opinion?

  ‘At least ten thousand,’ replied the commander of the 7th Daerlanian dryly. ‘Mainly Redania, but I also see the chevron of Aedirn . . . The unicorn is also there, so we also have Kaedwen . . . With a detachment of at least a company . . .’

  *

  The company was galloping, sand and grit flew from beneath hooves.

  ‘Forward, you Duns!’ roared centurion Halfpot, drunk as usual. ‘Attack, kill! Kaedweeen! Kaedweeeen!’

  Dammit, but I’m dying for a piss, thought Zyvik. I should have gone before the battle . . .

  Now there might not be a chance.

  ‘Forward, you Duns!’

  Always the Duns. Wherever things are going wrong, the Duns. Who did they send as an expeditionary force to Temeria? The Duns. Always the Dun Banner. I need a piss.

  They arrived. Zyvik yelled, turned around in the saddle and slashed backhand, destroying the spaulder and shoulder of a horseman in a black cloak with an eight-pointed silver star.

  ‘The Duns! Kaedweeen! Fight, kill!’

  The Dun Banner Standard struck Nilfgaard with a thud, a clatter and a clank, amidst the roars of soldiers and the squeals of horses.

  *

  ‘De Mellis-Stoke and Braibant will cope with that relief,’ said Elan Trahe, the commander of the 7th Daerlanian Brigade calmly. ‘The forces are balanced, nothing has gone wrong yet. Tyrconnel’s division is counterbalancing the left wing, Magne and Venendal are managing on the right. And we . . . We can tip the scale, sir—’

  ‘By striking the line, going in after the elves,’ Menno Coehoorn understood at once. ‘By striking at the rear lines, sowing panic. That’s it! That’s what we shall do, by the Great Sun! To your companies, gentlemen! Nauzicaa and the 7th, your time has come!’

  ‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled Kees van Lo.

  ‘Lord de Wyngalt.’ The marshal turned around. ‘Please muster the adjutants and the guard troop. Enough inactivity! We’re going to charge with the 7th Daerlanian.’

  Ouder de Wyngalt paled slightly, but immediately regained control.

  ‘Long live the Emperor!’ he cried, and there was almost no tremor in his voice.

  *

  Rusty cut, and the wounded man wailed and scratched the table. Iola, bravely fighting giddiness, was taking care of the tourniquets and clamps. Shani’s raised voice could be heard from the entrance to the tent.

  ‘Where? Are you insane? The living are waiting to be saved here, and you’re marching in with corpses?’

  ‘But this is Baron Anzelm Aubry himself, Madam Medic! The company commander!’

  ‘It was the company commander! Now it’s a corpse. You only managed to bring him in one piece because his armour is watertight! Take him away. This is a field hospital, not a mortuary!’

  ‘But Madam Medic—’

  ‘Don’t block the entrance! Look there, they’re carrying one that’s still breathing. Or at least he looks like he’s still breathing. Because it might just be wind.’

  Rusty snorted, but immediately afterwards raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Shani! Come here at once!

  ‘Remember, you chit,’ he said through clenched teeth, bending over the mutilated leg, ‘that a surgeon can only take the liberty of cynicism after ten years of experience. Will you remember that?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rusty.’

  ‘Take the raspatory and strip off the periosteum . . . Blast, it would be worth anaesthetising him a little more . . . Where’s Marti?’

  ‘She’s puking outside the tent,’ said Shani without a trace of cynicism. ‘Puking her guts out.’

  ‘Sorcerers!’ Rusty took hold of a saw. ‘Instead of thinking up numerous awful and powerful spells they would be better thinking up one. One that would enable them to cast minor spells, for example anaesthetising ones, without difficulty. And without puking.’

  The saw grated and crunched on bone. The wounded man moaned.

  ‘Tighten the tourniquet, Iola!’

  The bone finally gave way. Rusty tidied it up with a small chisel and wiped his forehead.

  ‘Blood vessels and nerves,’ he said mechanically and needlessly, because before he had finished the sentence the girls were already putting in the sutures. He removed the severed leg from the table and threw it down onto a pile of other severed limbs. The wounded man hadn’t roared or moaned for some time.

  ‘Fainted or dead?’r />
  ‘Fainted, Mr Rusty.’

  ‘Good. Sew up the stump, Shani. Bring on the next one! Iola, go and find out if Marti has puked everything up.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Iola very quietly, without raising her head, ‘how many years of experience you have, Mr Rusty. A hundred?’

  *

  After a quarter of an hour of strenuous marching and choking on dust, the yells of the centurions and decurions ceased and the Vizimian regiments spread out in a line. Jarre, gasping and gulping in air through his mouth like a fish, saw Voivode Bronibor strutting before the front on his beautiful armoured steed. The voivode himself was also in full plate armour. His armour was enamelled in blue stripes, making Bronibor look like a great steel—plated mackerel.

  ‘How are you, you dolts?’

  The rows of pikemen answered with a rumbling growl like distant thunder.

  ‘You’re issuing farting sounds,’ the voivode noted, reining his armoured horse around and directing him to walk before the front. ‘That means you’re feeling good. When you’re feeling bad, you don’t fart in hushed tones, but you wail and howl like the damned. It’s clear from your expressions that you’re spoiling for a fight, that you’re dreaming of battle, that you can’t wait to get your hands on the Nilfgaardians! Right, you Vizimian brigands? Then I have good news for you! Your dream will come true in a short while. In a very short while.’

  The pikemen muttered again. Bronibor, after riding to the end of the line, turned around, and spoke on, rapping his mace against the ornamented pommel of his saddle.

  ‘You stuffed yourselves with dust, infantry, marching behind the armoured troops. Up until now, instead of glory and spoils, you’ve been sniffing horses’ farts. And even today, when a great battle is upon us, you almost didn’t make it to the field. But you managed it, so I congratulate you with all my heart. Here, outside this village, whose name I’ve forgotten, you will finally show how much worth you have as an army. That cloud you see on the battlefield is the Nilfgaardian horse, which means to crush our army with a flanking strike, shove us and drown us in the bogs of this little river, whose name I have also forgotten. The honour of defending the breach that has arisen in our ranks has fallen to you, celebrated Vizimian pikemen, by the grace of King Foltest and Constable Natalis. You will close that breach, so to speak, with your breasts, you will stop the Nilfgaardian charge. You’re rejoicing, comrades, what? You’re bursting with pride, eh?’