The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘Or by purulent gangrene from rotten teeth,’ Eskel nodded, apparently serious. ‘Except our teeth aren’t rotting.’

  ‘I wouldn’t make fun of the matter,’ said Vesemir.

  The witchers said nothing.

  The wind howled and whistled in the walls of Kaer Morhen.

  *

  The unkempt young man, as though horrified by what he’d done, dropped the shaft. The Witcher cried out in pain in spite of himself and bent over. The trident sticking into his stomach overbalanced him and when he fell onto his knees, it slid out of his body and fell onto the cobbles. Blood poured out with a swoosh and a splash worthy of a waterfall.

  Geralt tried to rise from his knees. Instead, he fell over on his side.

  The sounds around him resonated and echoed. He heard them as though his head was under water. His vision was also blurred, with distorted perspective and totally false geometry.

  But he saw the crowd take flight. Saw them run from the relief. From Zoltan and Yarpen holding battle axes, Wirsing holding a meat cleaver and Dandelion armed with a broom.

  Stop, he wanted to cry, where are you going? It’s enough that I always piss into the wind.

  But he couldn’t cry out. His voice was choked by a gush of blood.

  *

  It was getting towards noon when the sorceresses reached Rivia. Down below, viewed from the perspective of the highway, the surface of Loch Eskalott glittered with the sparkling reflections of the castle’s red tiles and the town’s roofs.

  ‘Well, we’ve arrived,’ stated Yennefer. ‘Rivia! Ha, how strange are the twists of fate.’

  Ciri, who had been excited for a long time, made Kelpie dance and take short steps. Triss Merigold sighed imperceptibly. At least she thought it was imperceptible.

  ‘Well, well.’ Yennefer glared at her. ‘What strange sounds are lifting your virgin breast, Triss. Ciri, ride on ahead and see if you’re already there.’

  Triss turned her face away, determined not to provoke or give any pretext. She wasn’t counting on a result. For a long time she had sensed the anger and aggression in Yennefer getting stronger the closer they got to Rivia.

  ‘You, Triss,’ Yennefer repeated scathingly. ‘Don’t blush, don’t sigh, don’t slaver and don’t wiggle your bum in the saddle. Do you think that’s why I yielded to your request, agreed to you coming with us? For a languorously blissful meeting with your erstwhile sweetheart? Ciri, I asked you to ride on ahead a little! Let us have a talk!’

  ‘It’s a monologue, not a talk,’ said Ciri impertinently, but she yielded at once under the menacing violet glare, whistled at Kelpie and galloped down the highway.

  ‘You aren’t riding to a rendezvous with your lover, Triss,’ Yennefer continued. ‘I’m neither so noble, nor so stupid as to give you the chance and him the temptation. Just this once, today, and then I’ll make sure that neither of you has any temptations or opportunities. But today I won’t deny myself that sweet and perverted pleasure. He knows about the role you played. And will thank you for it with his eyes. And I shall look at your trembling lips and shaking hands, listen to your lame apologies and excuses. And do you know what, Triss? I’ll be swooning with delight.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t forget what I did, that you would take your revenge,’ muttered Triss. ‘I accept that, because I was indeed to blame. But I have to tell you one thing, Yennefer. Don’t count too much on my swooning. He knows how to forgive.’

  ‘For what was done to him, indeed.’ Yennefer squinted her eyes. ‘But he’ll never forgive you for what was done to Ciri. And to me.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Triss swallowed. ‘Maybe he won’t. Particularly if you do your utmost to stop him. But he definitely won’t bully me. He won’t stoop to that.’

  Yennefer swiped her horse with her whip. The horse whinnied, jumped and cavorted so suddenly that the sorceress swayed in the saddle.

  ‘That’s enough of this discussion!’ she snapped. ‘A little more humility, you arrogant slut! He’s my man, mine and only mine! Do you understand? You’re to stop talking about him, you’re to stop thinking about him, you’re to stop delighting in his noble character . . . Right away, at once! Oh, I feel like grabbing you by that ginger mop of hair—’

  ‘Just you try!’ yelled Triss. ‘Just try, you bitch, and I’ll scratch your eyes out! I—’

  They fell silent, seeing Ciri hurtling towards them in a cloud of dust. They knew right away that something was afoot. And saw at once what it was. Before Ciri even reached them.

  Tongues of flame suddenly shot up over the thatched roofs of the now nearby suburbs and over the tiles and chimneys of the city, and smoke belched in billows. Screaming, like the distant buzzing of annoying flies, like the droning of angry bumblebees, reached the sorceresses’ ears. The screaming grew, it increased, counterpointed by single high-pitched cries.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on there?’ Yennefer stood up in the stirrups. ‘A raid? A fire?’

  ‘Geralt . . .’ Ciri suddenly groaned, becoming as white as vellum. ‘Geralt!’

  ‘Ciri? What’s the matter with you?’

  Ciri raised her hand, and the sorceresses saw blood dribbling over it. Along the life-line.

  ‘The circle has closed,’ said the girl, closing her eyes. ‘A thorn from Shaerrawedd pricked me, and the snake Ouroboros has sunk its teeth into its own tail. I’m coming, Geralt! I’m coming to you! I won’t leave you alone!’

  Before either of the sorceresses had time to protest, the girl had turned Kelpie around and galloped off at once.

  They had enough presence of mind to immediately urge their own horses into a gallop. But their steeds were no match for Kelpie.

  ‘What is it?’ screamed Yennefer, gulping the wind. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘But you know!’ sobbed Triss, galloping beside her. ‘Fly, Yennefer!’

  Before they had dashed among the shacks of the suburbs, before they were passed by the first fugitives fleeing the town, Yennefer already had a clear enough picture of the situation to know that what was happening in Rivia wasn’t a fire, or a raid by enemy troops, but a pogrom. She also knew what Ciri had felt, where – and to whom – she was rushing so quickly. She also knew she couldn’t catch up with her. There was no chance. Kelpie had simply jumped over the panicked people crushed together into a crowd knocking off several hats and caps with her hooves. She and Triss had had to rein in their steeds so abruptly they almost tumbled over their horses’ heads.

  ‘Ciri! Stop!’

  They suddenly found themselves amidst narrow streets full of the running and wailing mob. As she passed, Yennefer noticed bodies lying in the gutters, saw corpses hanging by their legs from posts and beams. She saw a dwarf lying on the ground being kicked and beaten with sticks, saw another being battered with the necks of broken bottles. She heard the shouts of the assailants, the screaming and howling of the beaten. She saw a throng clustering around a woman who had been thrown from a window and the glint of metal bars rising and falling.

  The crowd closed in, the roar intensified. It seemed to the sorceresses that the distance between them and Ciri had shortened. The next obstacle in Kelpie’s way was a small group of disorientated halberdiers, whom the black mare treated like a fence and jumped over, knocking a flat kettle hat off one of them. The others simply squatted down in fear.

  They burst into a square at full gallop. It was black with people. And smoke. Yennefer realised that Ciri, unerringly led by her prophetic vision, was heading for the very heart, the very centre of events. To the very core of the conflagrations, where murder was rampaging.

  For a battle was raging in the street she had turned towards. Dwarves and elves were fiercely defending a makeshift barricade, defending a lost position, falling and dying under the pressure of the howling rabble attacking them. Ciri screamed and pressed herself to her horse’s neck. Kelpie took off and flew over the barricade, not like a horse, but like a huge black bird.

  Yennefer rode into the crowd
and reined her horse in sharply, knocking a few people over. She was dragged from the saddle before she managed to yell. She was hit on the shoulders, on the back, and on the back of her head. She fell onto her knees and saw an unshaven character in a shoemaker’s apron preparing to kick her.

  Yennefer had had enough of people kicking her.

  From her spread fingers shot pale blue, hissing fire, cutting like a horsewhip the faces, torsos and arms of the people surrounding her. There was a stench of burning flesh and for a moment howling and squealing rose above the general commotion and hullabaloo.

  ‘Witch! Elven witch! Enchantress!’

  The next character leaped at her with a raised axe. Yennefer shot fire straight in his face. His eyeballs burst, seethed and spilled out onto his cheeks with a hiss.

  The crowd thinned out. Someone grabbed her by the arm, and she recoiled, ready to fire, but it was Triss.

  ‘Let’s flee from here . . . Yenna . . . Flee . . . from here . . .’

  I’ve heard her talking in a voice like that before, flashed a thought through Yennefer’s head. With lips like wood that not even a droplet of saliva can moisten. Lips that fear paralyses, that panic makes tremble.

  I heard her talking in a voice like that. On Sodden Hill.

  When she was dying of fear.

  Now she’s dying of fear too. She’s going to die of fear her whole life. For whoever doesn’t overcome the cowardice inside themselves will die of fear to the end of their days.

  The fingers that Triss dug into her arm seemed to be made of steel, and Yennefer only freed herself from their grasp with the greatest of effort.

  ‘Flee if you want to!’ she cried. ‘Hide behind the skirts of your Lodge! I have something to defend! I shan’t leave Ciri alone. Or Geralt! Get away, you rabble! Out of the way if you value your lives!’

  The crowd separating her from her horse retreated before the lightning bolts shooting from the sorceress’s eyes and hands. Yennefer tossed her head, ruffling up her black locks. She looked like fury incarnate, like an angel of destruction, a punishing angel of destruction with a flaming sword.

  ‘Begone, get you home, you swine!’ she yelled, lashing the rabble with a flaming whip. ‘Begone! Or I’ll brand you with fire like cattle.’

  ‘It’s only one witch, people!’ a resonant and metallic voice sounded from the crowd. ‘A single bloody elven spell-caster!’

  ‘She’s alone! The other bolted! Hey, children, take up stones!’

  ‘Death to the non-humans! Woe betide the witch!’

  ‘To her confusion!’

  The first stone whistled past her ear. The second thudded into her arm, making her stagger. The third hit her directly in the face. First the pain exploded intensely in her eyes, then wrapped everything in black velvet.

  *

  She came to, groaning in pain. Pain shot through both her forearms and wrists. She groped involuntarily, felt the thick layers of bandage. She groaned again, dully, despairingly. Sorry that it wasn’t a dream. And sorry that she’d failed.

  ‘You didn’t succeed,’ said Tissaia de Vries, sitting beside the bed.

  Yennefer was thirsty. She wanted somebody to at least moisten her lips, which were covered in a sticky coating. But she didn’t ask. Her pride wouldn’t let her.

  ‘You didn’t succeed,’ repeated Tissaia de Vries. ‘But not because you didn’t try hard. You cut well and deep. That’s why I am here with you. Had it only been silly games, had it been a foolish, irresponsible demonstration, I would have nothing but contempt for you. But you cut deeply. Purposefully.’

  Yennefer looked at the ceiling vacantly.

  ‘I shall take care of you, girl. Because I believe it’s worth it. And it’ll require a good deal of work, oh, but it will. I’ll not only have to straighten your spine and shoulder blade, but also heal your hands. When you slit your wrists you severed the tendons. And a sorceress’s hands are important instruments, Yennefer.’

  Moisture on her mouth. Water.

  ‘You shall live,’ Tissaia’s voice was matter-of-fact, grave, stern even. ‘Your time has not yet come. When it does, you will recall this day.’

  Yennefer greedily sucked the moisture from a stick wrapped in a wet bandage.

  ‘I shall take care of you,’ Tissaia de Vries repeated, gently touching her hair. ‘And now . . . We are alone here. Without witnesses. No one will see and I shan’t tell anyone. Weep, girl. Have a good cry. Weep your heart out for the last time. For later you won’t be able to. There isn’t a more hideous sight than a sorceress weeping.’

  *

  She came to, hawked and coughed up blood. Someone was dragging her across the ground. It was Triss, she recognised her by the scent of her perfume. Not far from them iron-shod hooves rang on the cobbles and yelling resounded. Yennefer saw a rider in full armour, in a white surcoat with a red chevron, pummelling the crowd with a bullwhip from a high lancer’s saddle. The stones being hurled by the mob bounced harmlessly off his armour and visor. The horse neighed, thrashed around and kicked.

  Yennefer felt she had a great potato instead of her upper lip. At least one front tooth had been broken or knocked out and was cutting her tongue painfully.

  ‘Triss . . .’ she gibbered. ‘Teleport us out of here!’

  ‘No, Yennefer,’ Triss’s voice was very calm. And very cold.

  ‘They’ll kill us . . .’

  ‘No, Yennefer. I shan’t run away. I shan’t hide behind the Lodge’s skirts. And don’t worry, I shan’t faint from fear like I did at Sodden. I shall vanquish it inside me. I’ve already vanquished it!’

  A great pile of compost, dung and waste in a recess of moss-covered walls rose up near the exit of the narrow street. It was a magnificent pile. A hill, one could say.

  The crowd had finally succeeded in seizing and immobilising the knight and his horse. He was knocked to the ground with a terrible thud and the mob crawled over him like lice, covering him in a moving layer.

  After hauling Yennefer up, Triss stood on the top of the pile of garbage and raised her arms in the air. She screamed out a spell; screamed it out with true fury. So piercingly that the crowd fell silent for a split second.

  ‘They’ll kill us,’ Yennefer spat blood. ‘As sure as anything . . .’

  ‘Help me.’ Triss interrupted the incantation for a moment. ‘Help me, Yennefer. We’ll cast Alzur’s Thunder at them.’

  And we’ll kill about five of them, thought Yennefer. Then the rest will tear us to pieces. But very well, Triss, as you wish. If you don’t run away, you won’t see me running away.

  She joined in the incantation. The two of them screamed.

  The crowd stared at them for a second, but quickly came to their senses. Stones whistled around the sorceresses again. A javelin flew just beside Triss’s temple. Triss didn’t even flinch.

  It isn’t working at all, thought Yennefer, our spell isn’t working at all. We don’t have a chance of casting anything as complicated as Alzur’s Thunder. Alzur, it is claimed, had a voice like a bell and the diction of an orator. And we’re squeaking and mumbling, mixing up the words and the intonation pattern.

  She was ready to interrupt the chant and concentrate the rest of her strength on some other spell, capable either of teleporting them both away, or treating the charging rabble – for a split second at least – to something unpleasant. But it turned out there was no need.

  The sky suddenly darkened and clouds teemed above the town. It became devilishly sombre. And there was a cold wind.

  ‘Oh my,’ Yennefer groaned. ‘I think we’ve stirred something up.’

  *

  ‘Merigold’s Destructive Hailstorm,’ repeated Nimue. ‘Actually that name is used illegally. The spell was never registered, because no one ever managed to repeat it after Triss Merigold. For mundane reasons. Triss’s mouth was cut and she was speaking indistinctly. Malicious people claim, furthermore, that her tongue was faltering from fear.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe that.�
� Condwiramurs pouted her lips. ‘There’s no shortage of examples of the Venerable Triss’s valour and courage; some chronicles even call her “the Fearless”. But I want to ask about something else. One of the legend’s versions says that Triss wasn’t alone on the Rivian Hill. That Yennefer was there with her.’

  Nimue looked at the watercolour portraying the steep, black, razor-sharp hill against a background of deep blue clouds lit from below. The slender figure of a woman with arms outstretched and hair streaming around was visible on the hill’s summit.

  The rhythmic rattle of the Fisher King’s oars reached them from the fog covering the surface of the water.

  ‘If anyone was there with Triss, they didn’t endure in the artist’s vision,’ said the Lady of the Lake.

  *

  ‘Oh, what a mess,’ Yennefer repeated. ‘Look out, Triss!’

  In a moment, hailstones, angular balls of ice the size of hen’s eggs, plummeted onto the town from the black cloud billowing above Rivia. They fell so heavily that the entire square was immediately covered in a thick layer. There was a sudden surge in the throng, people fell, covering their heads, they crawled one under the other, ran away, falling over, crowding into doorways and under arcades, and cowering by walls. Not all of them were successful. Some remained, lying like fish on the ice, which was copiously stained with blood.

  The hailstones pelted down so hard that the magical shield Yennefer had managed to conjure up over their heads almost at the last moment trembled and threatened to break. She didn’t even try any other spells. She knew that what they had triggered could not be halted, that they had unleashed by accident an element that had to run riot, that they had freed a force that had to reach a climax. And would soon reach that climax.

  At least so she hoped.

  Lightning flashed. There was a sudden peal of thunder, which rumbled on, and then gave a crack. Making the ground tremble. The hail lashed the roofs and cobblestones; fragments of shattering hailstones flew all around.

  The sky brightened up a little. The sun shone. A ray breaking through the clouds lashed the town like a horsewhip. Something escaped Triss’s lips; neither a groan nor a sob.