One of them picked up Geralt's sword in a movement like lightning. She had hair the color of honey, tied back with a headband of rushes. A quiver filled with arrows hung on her back.
The one that was the farthest away, near the hole, was fast approaching. Her clothing was indistinguishable from that of her companions. She covered her dusky brick-colored hair in a braided crown of clover and heather. Her bow remained lowered, but an arrow was already nocked.
‘T'en thesse in meáth aep Eithné llev?’ she asked, coming very close.
Her voice was extraordinarily melodic; her eyes were enormous and black.
‘Ess' Gwynbleidd?’
‘Aé… aesselá…’ he stammered. But the words of the Brokiloneon dialect that sang from the mouths of the dryads could not escape from his mouth and were bruised by his lips. ‘Does one of you speak the common tongue? I don't know much…’
‘An' váill. Vort llinge,’ she cut in.
‘I am Gwynbleidd, the White Wolf. Madame Eithné knows me. I have business with her. I have lived before in Brokilone. In Duén Canell.’
‘Gywnbleidd.’
The one with brick-red hair blinked her eyes.
‘Vatt'ghern?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘The witcher.’
The olive-haired one restrained her anger and lowered her bow. The one with brick-red hair watched Geralt with large eyes; her green-tinted face remained completely motionless, dead, as if she were a statue. That immobility did not allow him to judge the beauty of her features; the thought stumbled on her indifference, insensitivity, and even cruelty. Geralt silently reproached himself for his poor judgment in seeing false humanity in this dryad. He should have known that she was simply older than the two others. Despite their appearances, she was actually much, much older.
Silence hung over their indecision. Geralt heard Freixenet moaning, groaning, coughing. The one with brick-red hair had also heard, but her face remained impassive. The witcher put his hands on his hips.
‘There, in the hole,’ he said calmly, ‘is an injured man. Without help, he will die.’
‘Tháess aep!’
The olive-haired one drew her bow, directing the tip of the arrow directly at Geralt's face.
‘You want to let him die?’ he continued, without raising his voice. ‘To choke gradually on his own blood, so simply? In that case, it would be better to finish him.’
‘Shut up,’ the dryad barked, using the common tongue.
Even so, she lowered her weapon and released the tension of the string. She turned to the second with an inquisitive look. The one with brick-red hair nodded, indicating the hole beneath the tree stump. The olive-haired one ran to it, quickly, without a sound.
‘I want to see Madame Eithné,’ Geralt repeated. ‘I'm on a mission…’
Indicating the honey-haired one, the eldest said:
‘She will lead you to Duén Canell. Go.’
‘Frei… and the wounded man?’
The dryad looked at him, blinking her eyes. She continued to toy with the nocked arrow.
‘Nevermind that,’ she replied. ‘Go. She will take you.’
‘But…’
‘Va' en vort!’ she said curtly, her lips thinning.
Geralt shrugged his shoulders and turned to the honey-haired one. She seemed to him to be the youngest of the three, but he could be mistaken. He noticed the blue of her eyes.
‘Let's go.’
‘Very well,’ the honey-haired one responded. After a moment of hesitation, she returned his sword. ‘Let's go.’
‘What's your name?’ he asked.
‘Shut up.’
She made off quickly through the heart of the forest without giving him a glance. It was an effort for Geralt to follow her. The dryad was trying – deliberately, Geralt knew – to make the man she was guiding collapse finally into the brush, complaining, exhausted, unable to continue. Too young to know that he was a witcher, she was unaware that she was not dealing with a human.
The girl – Geralt understood that she was not a born dryad – stopped suddenly and turned. He saw her breasts heaving beneath her dappled garment; she was trying with difficulty not to pant.
‘Shall we slow down?’ he suggested with a smile.
‘Yeá.’ She gave him a grudging look. ‘Aeén esseáth Sidh?’
‘No, I'm not an elf. What's your name?’
‘Braenn,’ she replied, resuming the journey a little more steadily, without any intention of losing him.
They walked together then, one beside the other. Geralt caught the scent of her sweat: the ordinary perspiration of an ordinary girl. The sweat of dryads recalled the smell of crushed willow branches.
‘And what were you called before?’
She fixed her eyes on his. Her lips drew back suddenly. He thought that she would get angry or order him to shut up. She did neither.
‘I don't remember,’ she responded, hesitating.
He thought she was lying.
She didn't appear to be more than sixteen years old and could not have lived in Brokilone for more than six or seven years: if she had been taken in earlier, even as a small child or a newborn, he would not be able to recognize her as a human. Blues eyes and fair hair could also occur among the dryads. Dryad children, conceived in celebrated encounters with elves or humans, only inherited the natural qualities of their mothers and could only be born as daughters. It was exceedingly rare, and in general only in later generations, that a child was born with the eyes or the hair of an anonymous male ancestor. Geralt was nevertheless sure that Braenn did not possess a drop of dryad blood. That was of no great importance. By birth or not, she was now well and truly one of them.
‘And you?’ She watched him with suspicion. ‘What is your name?’
‘Gywnbleidd.’
She nodded.
‘Well then… Gwynbleidd.’
They moved more slowly than before, but always with a certain velocity. Braenn, it was obvious, knew Brokilone well. If he had been alone, the witcher would not be able to maintain such a pace and remain on course. Braenn quickly reached the edge of the forest; she followed the winding and hidden paths, crossed ravines at an agile run across the fallen logs that served as bridges, waded bravely into the glossy expanses of marshes green with duckweed that the witcher had never dared to cross on his own, losing many hours or even days to get around them.
Braenn's presence alone did not protect Geralt from the wilderness. There were places where the dryad slowed her pace, advancing very carefully, feeling the ground, taking the witcher by the hand. He understood why: the pitfalls of Brokilone were legendary. There was talk of spiked pits, arrow traps, falling trees, the terrible ‘hedgehog’: a ball bristling with spines that was attached to a rope and fell unexpectedly, clearing all in its path. There were also places where Braenn stopped and whistled melodiously. Whistles then answered her from the brush. There were places, too, where she stopped, her hand resting on an arrow in her quiver, ushering Geralt into silence and waiting, tensely, for the source of sounds in distant thickets.
They had to make camp despite the efficiency of their pace. Braenn invariably chose a place at a height where gusts of hot air regulated the temperature. They slept on dried ferns, very close to one another: a dryad custom. In the middle of the night, Braenn snuggled tightly against him. Nothing more. He took her in his arms. Nothing more. She was a dryad. It was only for warmth.
They resumed their journey at dawn, when it was still nearly dark.
II
They crossed a meadow dotted with lesser wooded slopes, following the meandering of the misty valleys and leaving behind them the large grassy clearings and devastated forests.
Braenn stopped once more. She inspected their surroundings. Her attitude might indicate that she had lost her way, but Geralt knew that was impossible. Taking advantage of the pause, he sat on a fallen trunk.
He heard then a scream. Short. Strident. Desperate.
Braenn im
mediately went down on one knee and retrieved two arrows from her quiver. Taking one between her teeth, she slotted the second and drew her bow, aiming judiciously through the bushes.
‘Don't shoot!’ Geralt cried.
He leapt over the tree trunk and crossed through the mountains of vegetation.
In a modest clearing at the foot of a rocky escarpment, a small figure dressed in a gray jacket was cornered. Five paces from him, something was approaching slowly and disturbing the grass. Something dark brown and measured in yards. At first, Geralt thought that it was a snake, but he noticed the yellow legs, moving, hooked, and the plated segments of its long thorax. He realized that this was not a snake. It was much more dangerous.
Pressed against the tree, the little one was continuously making plaintive little cries. The long quivering antenna of the giant centipede, sensing odors and heat, rose up from the grass.
‘Don't move!’ shouted the witcher, stamping to divert the attention of the insectoid.
But the centipede did not react: its antennae were busy locating the scent of its next victim. The monster moved into action, curled itself in an 'S' and charged. Its bright yellow legs twinkled through the grass with the regularity of a galley's oars.
‘Yghern!’ Braenn cried.
In two bounds, Geralt reached the clearing. He broke into a run, drawing the sword from the sheath on his back. With a blow from his hip, taking advantage of his momentum, he pushed the petrified little one to one side and into a bramble bush. The insectoid began to quiver in the grass; it threw itself then at the witcher, raising up its front segments and snapping fangs that were dripping with venom. Geralt danced, leaping over the plated body of the monster and, turning, tried to strike at a vulnerable gap in the carapace with his sword. The monster was nevertheless too fast; the sword skidded over the chitinous armor without biting in, as if a thick carpet of moss was cushioning the blow. Geralt tried to escape, but not swiftly. With colossal force, the insectoid wrapped its abdomen around the legs of the witcher, who lost his balance. He tried to extract himself. Without success.
The centipede curved and tried to seize him with its forceps. In the process, it violently scraped the tree, coiling around it. At that moment, an arrow whistled over Geralt's head; it loudly pierced the animal's carapace, nailing it to the trunk of the tree. The centipede twisted, broke the arrow and escaped; but two other projectiles had already struck. The witcher kicked away from the abdomen and rolled to one side.
On one knee, Braenn shot arrow after arrow with incredible speed, and without missing the insectoid. It broke the shafts; but each additional arrow pinned it to the tree. The flat animal mouth, glistening and dark brown, gnashed its jaws; it snapped its mandibles at the places where the arrows pierced it, thinking stupidly that it could hit its enemy that way and wound him.
Geralt jumped aside and put an end to the fight with a single blow, hurling his sword through the air. The tree served the purpose of a chopping block.
Braenn approached slowly, her bow always drawn; she gave a kick to the thorax of the animal that continued to squirm in the grass and wriggle its legs; she spat.
‘Thanks,’ the witcher said, crushing the severed head of the centipede with his heel.
‘For what?’
‘You saved my life.’
The dryad looked at him. There was nothing in her expression, neither comprehension nor emotion.
‘Yghern,’ she responded, tapping the still-squirming carcass with her foot. ‘He broke some of my arrows.’
‘You saved my life and that of this little wood-nymph,’ Geralt repeated. ‘But by the devil, where has she gone?’
Braenn carefully parted the thorn bushes, digging deeply with her arm through the spiny shoots.
‘It's as I thought,’ she exclaimed, extracting the small figure in a gray jacket from the brush. ‘Look at this, Gwynbleidd.’
It was not a dryad. Neither was it an elf, a sylph, a pixie, or a hobbit. It was the most human of little girls. Even within the territory of Brokilone: the place least conducive to such a being…
She had fair hair, mouse-gray, and large impetuous green eyes. She could not have been more than ten years old.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Where did you come from?’
She did not respond. Where have I seen her before? he thought. I have already seen her somewhere. Her or someone very like her.
‘Don't be afraid,’ he told her, looking embarrassed.
‘I'm not afraid,’ she muttered under her breath.
She was visibly cold.
‘We must eclipse ourselves,’ Braenn interrupted, inspecting their surroundings. ‘When one yghern appears, a second arrives, sometimes simultaneously. I don't have many more arrows.’
The little girl turned her gaze to the dryad, opened her mouth and rubbed it with the palm of her hand to wipe away the dust.
‘But by the devil, who are you then?’ Geralt repeated, staring at her. ‘What are you doing in… in this forest? How did you get here?’
The little girl bowed her head, sniffing.
‘Are you deaf? Who are you? I'm asking you. What's your name?’
‘Ciri,’ she confessed in a sniff.
Geralt turned. Braenn, who was checking her bow, furtively met his glance.
‘Listen, Braenn…’
‘Sir?’
‘Is it possible… Is it possible that she… that she has escaped you… that she has fled from Duén Canell?’
‘Sir?’
‘Don't play the fool with me,’ he said, getting angry. ‘I know that you take young humans. Did you yourself arrive in Brokilone by falling from the sky? I ask you: is it possible that…’
‘No,’ the dryad cut in. ‘I have never seen her before.’
Gerald watched the little girl. Her tousled ash-gray hair, littered with pine needles and leaves, nevertheless seemed clean: no odor of smoke, manure or grease. Her hands, while certainly dirty, were small and delicate, without scars or blemishes. The clothing she was wearing, a gray jacket with a red hood, betrayed no origin, but her ankle-boots were crafted from calf leather. She was decidedly not a country girl. Freixenet! the witcher remembered suddenly. This is the girl Freixenet was searching for! It was for her that he entered Brokilone.
‘Where are you from, little brat? I'm asking you.’
‘How dare you address me in that way?’
The little girl insolently raised her head and stomped her foot against the ground, but the soft moss cushioned the gesture.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the witcher, smiling. ‘There we are, Princess. In name only, because the outward appearance remains miserable. You come from Verden, don't you? You know there are people searching for you? Don't worry, I'll bring you home. Listen, Braenn…’
No sooner than he looked away, the little girl turned and ran.
‘Bloede Turd!’ yelled the dryad, grabbing her quiver. ‘Caemm 'ère!’
The little girl ran blindly, trampling the ground and stumbling over the dry branches.
‘Stop!’ Geralt cried. ‘Where are you, little pest?’
Braenn instantly drew her bow. The arrow whistled violently in a low arc; the point stuck loudly in a tree and ruffled the hair of the little girl, who recoiled and fell to the ground.
‘You idiot!’ the witcher growled angrily, approaching the dryad. Braenn nimbly pulled a new arrow from her quiver. ‘You could have killed her!’
‘This is Brokilone,’ she replied arrogantly.
‘And she is a child!’
‘And so?’
He noticed without allowing a word to escape that the arrow was fletched with tiger-pheasant feathers, painted yellow. He turned his back on her and plunged quickly into the wood.
Huddled at the foot of a tree, the little girl had lifted her head to look at the arrow planted in the trunk. She heard Geralt's footsteps, rising, but the witcher caught up to her with a rapid leap and grabbed hold of her hood. She turned her head to him, then stared fixe
dly at the witcher's hand. Geralt let go.
‘Why did you run?’
‘It's none of your concern,’ she replied, sniffling. ‘Leave me alone, you, you…’
‘Filthy brat,’ the witcher growled angrily. ‘This, this is Brokilone. The centipede wasn't enough for you? You won't last until morning in this forest. Don't you understand?’
‘Don't touch me!’ she said defensively. ‘You lackey! I am a princess, as you said yourself!’
‘You're nothing but a stupid little brat.’
‘I am a princess!’
‘Princesses don't wander all alone in the woods. Princesses don't sniffle.’
‘I'll order that your head be chopped off! Hers too.’
The little girl wiped her nose and shot a hostile look at the dryad who was approaching. Braenn burst out laughing.
‘Well, stop this crying,’ the witcher said curtly. ‘Why did you run, Princess? Where would you go? What are you afraid of?’
The little girl kept quiet, still sniffling.
‘As you wish.’ He murmured to the dryad: ‘We're going. If you want to be alone in the forest, that's your choice. But the next time a yghern attacks you, don't bother to scream, because it certainly is not befitting of a princess. Princesses know how to die without complaint, and how to blow their noses properly. Goodbye, Your Royal Highness.’