Lady of the Lake

  Among the nobility of Vicovaro, sobbing and tears were not seen even among the women. It was considered tactless and a great dishonor. But in the Dyffryn house there were different traditions and they would not change. And had no intention of doing so.

  At ten years old, Cahir’s youngest brother, Aillil was killed in Nazair and was lying in the castle armory, due to custom and tradition he was not considered to be a grown man.

  He was not invited to a gathering of men over the open coffin, but was not allowed to sit silent alongside his grandfather Gruffyd, his father Ceallach, his brother Dheran or his uncles and cousins. Understandably, he was neither allowed to mourn and faint in with his grandmother, his mother, his three sisters or his aunts and cousins. Small Cahir preferred running around the walls and fighting with his peers from families who came with their parents for the funeral, burial and ceremony. Cahir was devoted to making mischief by the

  walls. He fought with the other boys who claimed their older brothers fought the bravest at Nazair and not Aillil aep Ceallach.

  ‘Cahir! Come to me, my son!’

  On the porch stood Mawr, the boy’s mother and her sister, Aunt Cinead var Anahid. His mother’s face was red and swollen from mourning and it frightened Cahir. It shook him that even such a comely woman, such as his mother, could look like a monster because of crying. He firmly decided that he would never cry, ever.

  ‘Remember, my son,’ Mawr sobbed, clutching her child to her breast so hard he could not breathe. ‘Remember this day. Never forget who put your dear brother Aillil to death. It was those damn Nordlings. Your enemies, my son. Be sure to hate them. Never stop hating that damn nation of murderers!’

  ‘I will always hate, mother,’ Cahir promised, somewhat surprised. First, his brother, Aillil had fallen fighting with honor. It had been a death worthy and enviable of a warrior. Why, then, spill tears for him? Second, it was no secret that Grandmother Eviva, Mawr’s mother, came from the Nordlings. His father in anger more than once had called his grandmother “she-wolf of the North”. Naturally, behind her back.

  But his mother now wanted...

  ‘I hate them!’ he cried enthusiastically. I hate them all! And when I’m big and I have a real sword, I’ll go to war and chop off their heads! You’ll see, Mother!’

  His mother took a deep breath and began to sob. Aunt Cinead steadied her.

  Cahir clenched his fists, shaking with anger. Anger and hatred towards those who had wronged his mother, making her so ugly.

  Bonhart’s blow smashed his temple, cheek and mouth. Cahir dropped his sword and stumbled; the Bounty hunter swung and slashed him between his neck and collarbone. Cahir fell at the feet of the marble goddess, his blood, like a pagan sacrifice, pooled at the base of the statue.

  Rumbling, the floor shook beneath their feet, a decorative shield fell to the floor with a crash. The corridor was filled with acrid smoke. Ciri wiped her face. The blond girl weighed on her like a millstone.

  ‘Faster... Run faster...’

  ‘I can’t,’ breathed the girl and sat down heavily on the floor. Ciri stunned, watched the blood oozing from her leg. She was pale as death.

  Ciri knelt and quickly took off her scarf and belt and tried to make a tourniquet. But the wound was large and deep, and very high on the leg, too close to the groin. The blood would not stop flowing.

  The girl grabbed her hand. Her fingers were as cold as ice.

  ‘Ciri...’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Angouleme. I did not believe... I did not believe that we would find you. But I followed Geralt... Because it was impossible not to follow. Did you know?’

  ‘I know. He is well.’

  ‘We found you... And I scoffed at Fringilla... Tell me...’

  ‘Don’t talk, please.’

  ‘Tell...’ Angouleme’s lips moved slower and with more difficulty. ‘Say, you’re still a princess... In Cintra... I’ll be rewarded, right? You’ll make me... a Countess? Tell me. Do not lie... Can you? Tell me.’

  ‘Don’t talk. Save your strength.’

  Angouleme sighed, suddenly leaned forward and rested her forehead on Ciri’s shoulder.

  ‘I knew...’ she said quiet clearly. ‘I knew a whorehouse in Toussaint was a better idea.’

  It took a long time before Ciri realized that she was holding a dead girl in her arms.

  She saw him coming, watched by the dead eyes of the marble caryatids lining the arcade. She finally realized that escape was impossible that she could not escape him. That she would have to face him. There was no other choice.

  But she was still scared.

  She drew her weapon. Swallow’s edge softly sang as she pulled it from the sheath. She knew this song.

  She retreated into a wide corridor, he followed her, holding his sword in both hands, blood trickled down the blade, heavy drops dripped onto the floor.

  ‘Dead,’ he said, stepping over the body of Angouleme. ‘Good. The boy also went down.’

  Ciri felt overwhelmed by desperation. Her fingers tightened painfully on the hilt. She retreated.

  ‘You lied to me,’ Bonhart drawled. ‘The boy had no medallion. But something tells me that here in this castle is someone wearing a medallion. There will be someone old Leo Bonhart will find near the sorceress Yennefer. But first things first, viper. You and me. And our engagement.’

  Ciri decided. She twirled Swallow and moved into position. She moved in a semicircle around him, going faster, forcing the Bounty hunter to rotate on the spot.

  ‘The last time,’ he said, ‘this trick was useless. Don’t you know how to learn from your mistakes?’

  Ciri quickened her pace. The soft flowing movements of her sword were meant to disorientate and mesmerize. Bonhart turned and spun his sword.

  ‘This doesn’t work on me,’ he spat. ‘I’m bored by it!’

  He took two quick steps to shorten the distance.

  ‘Music, maestro!’

  Bonhart jumped and launched an attack, Ciri dodged with a pirouette, jumped and landed safely on her left leg and immediately struck. Even before her blade hit Bonhart’s, she was spinning around him and launching a smooth cut. She struck again, without expansion, from an unexpected and unusual bending of her elbow. Bonhart parried and used the momentum to attack from the left. Ciri saw it coming and with a slight bend of her knees she avoided the blade, but only by an inch. She went quickly on the attack, chopping and cutting. But Bonhart was waiting this time and deceived her with a feint. Unable to stop, and nearly off balance, Ciri was only saved by a lightning jump, but did not prevent the reach of Bonhart’s sword to her shoulder. At first she thought that the blade had only cut through the padded sleeve, but after a moment she felt warm liquid run down her arm.

  The marble caryatids watched them with indifference.

  Ciri retreated, but he stayed behind her, stooped over and flicking his sword from side to side like a scythe. Like a Grim Reaper, Ciri had seen in a fresco in the temple. The dance of Death, she thought. He approaches like the Grim Reaper.

  She retreated. Hot, wet blood was running down her arm and onto her hand.

  ‘First blood to me,’ he said, looking at the trail of drops, which had been left behind on the floor. ‘Who will get the second, my princess?’

  She retreated.

  ‘Look closely. This is the end.’

  Bonhart was right. The hallway ended suddenly at an abyss. This wing of the castle was damaged and the floor had collapsed. Leaving of the structure – columns, timbers and beams. Downstairs on the ground was littered with debris.

  Ciri hesitated. She moved onto a horizontal beam, and kept retreating from him. Bonhart’s eyes watched her every move. It saved her. Abruptly, he lunged at her, running across the beam, his sword flashing with cuts and feints. She knew his intention. One bad parry or any other error and she would lose her balance and fall down to the broken lower floor.

  This time Ciri was not fooled by his feints. Just the opposite. Bonhart
skillfully cut from the right. Seeing her rival hesitate a split second, she launched a new blow to his right hand, so fast and strong that Bonhart rocked the beam. He would have fallen if not for his height. He stretched his left hand and caught hold of an overhead beam, keeping his balance. But he briefly lost his concentration. And for Ciri that was enough. She launched a powerful cut, straining her sword arm to its maximum length.

  He did not even flinch when Swallow’s blade, with a whistle cut him from his chest to his left shoulder. He immediately struck back with such force that if Ciri had not jumped back, the blow would have split her in half. She jumped to an adjacent beam, falling into a kneeling position and raised her sword horizontally above her head.

  Bonhart looked at his shoulder and raised his left hand, down which already ran a scarlet trickle. He watched the drops falling down into the abyss.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Now I know you can learn from your mistakes.’

  His voice trembled with rage. But Ciri knew him to well. He was calm, focused and ready to kill.

  He jumped onto her beam his sword twirling and rushed at her like a storm, running confidently, without hesitation, not even looking at his feet. The beam creaked and dust trickled downwards. He pressed her with blows, forcing her to walk backwards. His attacks were so continuous that Ciri could not jump or spin; she simply had to stop the blows and try to avoid them.

  She noticed a glint in his fish eyes. She knew what it was.

  He was trying to corner her against a pillar, pushing her like a spider under a trestle. Pushing her to a point where there was no escape. She had to do something. And suddenly she knew what.

  Kaer Morhen. The Pendulum.

  ‘You’re not deflecting the pendulum, your deflecting yourself from it. You’re intercepting its energy, which you need in order to deal a blow. Do you see?’

  ‘Yes, Geralt.’

  Suddenly, swift as an attacking snake, she counterattacked. Swallow hissed through the air and collided with Bonhart’s sword. At the same time Ciri bounced and jumped to an adjacent beam. She landed, miraculously keeping her balance. She ran a few steps and lightly jumped again, back to the Bonhart’s beam, landing behind him. He turned just in time, slashing almost blindly where she had landed.

  He missed her by a hair; the strength of the blow staggered him. Ciri struck like lightning. She slashed from a lunge and again fell to her knees. The slash was powerful and accurate.

  He froze with his sword at his side. She watched the long, straight, smooth cut on his jacket start to ooze blood.

  ‘You...’ Bonhart shuddered. ‘You...’

  He lunged at her. However, it was slow and clunky. She escaped by jumping back and he could not keep his balance. He fell to one knee, but it slipped off the timber because the wood was slick with his blood. For a moment he looked at Ciri.

  Then he fell into the abyss.

  She watched as he fell to the floor, raising a geyser of dust, lime and blood. She saw his sword fall a few feet away from him. He lay motionless, with arms flung wide, tall and thin. Badly wounded and quite vulnerable. But still scary.

  It took a while, but he finally moved and groaned. He tried to lift his head. He moved his legs. He moved his hands. He crawled to a pillar and leaned against its foot. He moaned again and probed his bloody chest and abdomen with both hands.

  Ciri jumped. She landed a few feet away in a crouch, as softly as a cat. She saw his fish eyes widen in fear.

  ‘You won...’ he croaked, looking at Swallow’s blade. ‘You won, witcheress. It was a pity it was not in the arena... It would have been a spectacle...’

  She did not answer.

  ‘I gave you that sword, remember?’

  ‘I remember everything.’

  ‘Why me...’ he moaned. ‘You will not hurt or murder a defenseless man... You are too... noble.’

  She looked at him for a long time. A very long time. Then sent bent down, His fish eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. But she only tore the medallions from around his neck – the eagle, the cat and the wolf. Then she turned and walked towards the exit.

  He leaped at her with a knife in his hand, cunningly and treacherously. As quiet as a ghost. Only at the last moment, when his dagger was about to go into her back, did he scream. In it was all of his rage and hatred.

  She avoided the cowardly attacked with a half-turn and jumped away. She immediately shifted and struck, hard and strong, with her whole arm, strengthening the cut with a twist of her hips. Swallow whistled and cut with the tip of its blade. Bonhart clutched at his throat. Hit fish eyes bulged from their sockets.

  ‘I told you,’ Ciri said coldly. ‘I remember everything.’

  Bonhart stared at her wide-eyed. Then he fell.

  He fell backwards into the dust with billowed around him. He lay on his back, tall, skinny and a skeleton and squeezed his throat with all his might. But no matter how firmly he held, his life slipped out between his fingers and the layer of grey dust under his body grew wet and black.

  Ciri stood over him. Without saying anything. But ensuring that he saw. That this last image would be the image that accompanied him wherever he went.

  He looked at her with hardening eyes. He convulsively reared up, digging his heels into the ground. Then he gurgles like a funnel emptying.

  And that was the last sound he made.

  The stone walls trembled, beams cracked and glass poured from lead frames.

  ‘Watch out, Geralt!’

  He dodged again at the last minute. Brilliant lightning ploughed a furrow in the ground, the air hissed with color, murderously sharp fragments from broken windows. Lightning hit the column, behind which the witcher hid. The column broke up into three parts. It broke from the roof and collapsed to the floor with a deafening crash.

  Geralt, lying flat on the floor, his head cupped in his hands, was aware of how miserable a shield this was from the falling debris. He prepared for the worst, but nothing happened. He jumped up and could see the glow of a magical shield around him, he realized Yennefer’s magic had saved him.

  Vilgefortz threw a bolt of lightning at the other column behind which the sorceress was hiding. He roared furiously and a cloud of dust and smoke appeared. Yennefer deftly slipped between them and retaliated with her own flash of lightning, which bounced off of the wizard with no visible effect. He answered with a crushing blow that knocked Yennefer to the ground.

  Geralt wiped the dust from his eyes and attacked. Vilgefortz turned his eyes towards him and pointed his arm, and from his hands roared fire. The witcher instinctively swung his sword. The dwarven blade, covered with runes, shielded him and but the stream of fire in half.

  ‘Ha!’ roared Vilgefortz. ‘Impressive, witcher! What do you say to this!’

  The witcher said nothing. He was hit by an invisible battering ram, flew backwards, fell on the floor and slid until he found the base of a buttress. A pillar flew apart and again tumbled from the roof. This time he did not have Yennefer’s protection. The heavy carved block struck him in the side, fortunately, not fully, but even so it hurt and completely paralyzed him.

  Yennefer chanted spells and threw them at Vilgefortz one after another. However, none of them hit, and they all bounced harmless off of the wizard’s magical shield. Vilgefortz suddenly spread his arms wide. Yennefer wailed in pain and started rising from the ground. The wizard clapped his hands together and his fingers started to shake and if squeezing a wet rag. The sorceress cried shrilly. And started to squirm.

  Geralt clenched his teeth in pain and rose to return to the fight. But he was overtaken by Regis.

  The vampire came flying from out of nowhere in the shape of a giant bat and rushed at Vilgefortz quietly. Before the sorcerer could raise a protection spell, Regis attacked his face with his claws; he missed the eye because it was so unnaturally small. Vilgefortz yelled and waved his arms in surprise. Yennefer freed from the spell, fell with a scream of surprise into a pile of rubble, blood spurting from he
r mouth and down her chin and breasts.

  Geralt was already close. He raised Sihil ready to deal a blow. But Vilgefortz had no intention of surrendering. He pushed the witcher with a powerful surge of energy and attacked the vampire with a dazzling white beam, which passed through a stone pillar like a hot knife through butter. Regis deftly evaded the beam and returned to his usual form. He materialized at Geralt’s side.

  ‘Be careful,’ the witcher grunted, trying to discern what was wrong with Yennefer. ‘Be careful, Regis...’

  ‘Be careful?’ said the vampire. ‘I? That’s not why I came here!’

  With an incredibly long and fast leap he reached the wizard and grabbed him by the throat. His vampire fangs glistened.

  Vilgefortz scream with rage and terror. For a brief moment, it appeared this was the end of him. But it was premature. The wizard had an arsenal of weapons for every occasion. And against every opponent – even vampires.

  The wizard hands grasped Regis and heated up like red hot irons. The vampire screamed. Geralt also cried out, seeing that the wizard was literally tearing the vampire. He jumped to his friend’s aid. But was too late. Vilgefortz pushed the vampire into a column, with both of his hands burning with white fire.

  Regis screamed.

  He screamed so loud that the witcher had to cover his ears with his hands. The remains of the windows shattered noisily. The column simply melted. And the vampire melted with it, turning into a shapeless stone.

  Geralt cursed furiously and desperately. He jumped forward and swung Sihil. The wizard turned and hit him with magical energy. The witcher flew the entire length of the hall, hit a wall on the other side and slid down it.

  He lay there gasping for air, like a fish out of water, wondering not what was broken, but what was whole.

  Vilgefortz walked towards him. In his hand materialized a six-foot-long iron rod.