“Well, do you know?”
The witcher wrapped himself in his blanket.
“You obviously have your own theory,” he growled. “But don't strain yourself, I know what you're thinking. That it makes no sense to save Ciri from the fate that was written from her birth. Because Ciri, once saved, will be ready to order her servants to throw us down the steps of the palace. Let's leave it. Ok?”
Dandelion opened his mouth, but Geralt did not give him time to speak.
“The girl,” he said, his voice becoming more agitated. “Was not kidnapped after all, by a dragon or an evil sorcerer, she was not bought from pirates for a ransom. She does not sit in the tower, in a dungeon or in a cage, she is not tortured or dying of hunger. On the contrary, she sleeps on damask sheets, eats on silver plates, wears silk and lace, adorned with jewelry, and soon a crown. In short, she's happy. And an evil witcher, who once accidentally put a lot of harm in her way, is determined to spoil, destroy, to trample her happiness, with his shoes full of holes, which he inherited from some elf. Yes?”
“That is not what I meant,” grumbled Dandelion.
“He's not talking to you.” Milva emerged suddenly from the darkness, and after a moment's hesitation she sat down next to the witcher. “That was for me. These were my words that I hurt him so much with, the words that I spoke in anger, not thinking... Forgive me, Geralt. I know how it feels when a claw is pressed into a fresh wound. Please, do not be angry. I won't do it again. Will you forgive me? Do I have to beg for forgiveness?”
Without waiting for an answer or his consent, she took him firmly by the neck and kissed him on the cheek. He held her shoulders tightly.
“Come closer,” he coughed. “And you too, Dandelion. Together... for more warmth.”
They were silent for long time. In the clear, burning sky, the clouds shifted, obscuring the twinkling stars.
“I want to tell you something,” Geralt said finally. “But swear that you will not laugh at me.”
“Tell me.”
“I had strange dreams. In Brokilon. At first I thought it was delirium, something messing with my head. I did after all receive a few blows to it while I was on Thanedd. But even the last few days I am still dreaming the same dream. Still the same.”
Milva and Dandelion were silent.
“Ciri,” he took a moment, “does not sleep in the palace under a brocade canopy. She's riding on horseback through some dusty village ... The villagers point fingers. They call her a name, which I do not know. The dogs bark. She is not alone. There are others. There's a girl with short hair holding Ciri's hand... and Ciri smiles at her. I don't like that smile, and I don't like her harsh makeup... But what I dislike most is that death follows in their footsteps.”
“Where is she then?” Milva purred hugging him like a cat. “Not in Nilfgaard?”
“I do not know,” he said with difficulty. “But I dreamed the same dream several times. The problem is, I do not believe in such dreams.”
“Well you are stupid then. I believe in them.”
“I do not know,” he repeated. “But I feel something is happening. Before her is fire, and after her death. I have to hurry.”
At dawn it started raining. Not like the previous day, when the storm was accompanied by a strong, but short-lived downpour. The sky was dark and veiled by a lead curtain. It started drizzling, finely, evenly, and annoyingly so.
They rode to the East. Milva lead. When Geralt turned her attention and said that the Yaruga was to the South, the archer insulted him and reminded him that she was the guide and she knew what she was doing. They spoke no more. In the end, it was important that they made progress, the direction was not significant.
They rode in silence, wet, cold, shrinking in their saddles. They kept to the forest paths, moving adjacent to the roads, cutting off the highways. As they travelled in the thicket, they heard hooves and the clatter of armor on the road. They avoided the tumult of battle roars in a wide arc. They passed villages devoured by fire, reduced to smoking red rubble, and settlements which had not been more than squares of scorched black earth, smothered in the acidic stench of debris washed by rain. Frightened flocks of crows fed on corpses. They passed groups of villagers bent under the weight of their packs, fleeing the war and escaping their burned homes, only responding with their dull, mute faces, painted in disbelief, their eyes empty, full of terror and misery.
They rode to the East, through the fire and smoke, drizzle and mist, and before their eyes scrolled the horrific tapestry of war. The dreadful images.
The image of a hoist, a black line sticking out among the ruins of burned villages. From the pole hung a naked corpse. Head down. Blood from his torn belly and groin dripped onto his chest and face, coagulating in patches on his hair. On the back of the corpse could be seen the rune Ard. Cut with a knife.
“An'givare.” Milva said, pushing away the damp hair from the nape of her neck. “The Squirrels have been here.”
“What does an'givare mean?”
“Informer.”
The image of a horse, a gray-white horse with a black flank. The horse walked unsteadily along the edge of the battlefield, dodging between the piles of corpses and spears fixed in the ground, neighing quietly, chillingly, dragging his entrails behind him from his open belly. They could not finish him - in addition to the horse on the battlefield, there were stragglers wandering, stripping the bodies.
The image of the girl, arms outstretched, lying near the burnt bypass, naked, bloodied, her glassy eyes staring at the sky.
“They say that war is a thing of men,” Milva growled. “But they have no mercy for women, they have to have their fun. And they are called heroes... bastards.”
“You're right. But it will change.”
“I changed. I ran away from home. I did not want to sweep and scrub the floor of a cottage. I did not want to wait for them to come, set fire to the cottage, and degrade me on the floor I...”
She did not finish. She urged her horse onwards.
And then there was the image of the village. Dandelion vomited everything he ate that day, which was only half a biscuit and a sardine.
In the village, the Nilfgaardians – or maybe the Scoia'tael – had settled accounts with a number of prisoners. The number of dead was impossible to determine, or even to approximate. To get rid of them hastily, not only were arrows, swords and lances used, but also lumberjack equipment they had found on site - axes, saws and long handsaws.
There were other images, but Geralt, Dandelion and Milva no longer remembered them. They had expelled them from memory.
They became indifferent.
For the next two days they travelled only about twenty miles. It was still raining. After the summer drought, the land was now soaked with water and the forest paths had turned to mud slides. The heavy mists and fog took away their opportunity to observe the smoke of the fires, but the stench of burning indicated that the troops were still close and still burned everything in sight.
They had not seen any refugees. They were alone among the trees in the forest. Or so they thought.
Geralt first heard the whinny of a horse following them. With a stony face, he turned Roach. Dandelion opened his mouth, but Milva passed him a silent gesture, she took her bow from the quiver on her saddle.
The intruder emerged from the bushes. He saw that they were waiting for him and stopped his horse, a chestnut stallion. They stood there frozen in silence, which was broken only by the sound of rain.
“I forbade you to follow us,” said the witcher finally.
The Nilfgaardian, who Dandelion last saw in a coffin, was wet from the rain and his eyes were hidden by his soaked hair. The poet barely recognized him. He was clad in chain mail, a leather jacket and overcoat, without a doubt taken from one of the people killed next to the hawker's cart. Dandelion noted, however, the youth of his face, which was recognizable from their adventure near the beach, despite the beard that was just emerging from his chin.
“I
have forbidden you to follow,” repeated the witcher.
“I am forbidden,” finally admitted the youngster. He spoke without a Nilfgaardian accent. “But I have to.”
Geralt jumped from his horse and handed the reins to the poet. He drew his sword.
“Get down,” he said calmly. “I see you have already managed to procure a piece of iron. That's good. I could not kill you when you were helpless. Now it's different. Dismount.”
“I will not fight you. I do not want to.”
“I thought so. Like all your countrymen, you prefer a different kind of fight. Such as the kind in the village, which you must have passed, following our trail. Dismount, I said.”
“I am Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach.”
“I did not ask you to introduce yourself. I ordered you to dismount.”
“I will not dismount, I have no desire to fight.”
“Milva,” the witcher nodded at the archer. “Do me a favor, kill the horse he's sitting on.”
“No!” The Nilfgaardian raised his hand before Milva had a chance to place an arrow on her string. “No, please, I will dismount.”
“That's better. And now draw your sword, boy.”
The youngster crossed his arms over his chest.
“Kill me if you want. Or if you prefer, tell this elf to shoot me with her bow. I'm not going to fight you. I'm Cahir Mawr Dyffryn ... son of Ceallach. I want ... I want to join you.”
“I must have misunderstood. Repeat.”
“I want to join you. You're going in search of the girl, I want to help you. I need to help.”
“This is crazy,” Geralt turned to Milva and Dandelion. “He's suffering from insanity. We are dealing with a madman.”
“He will fit in with our company then,” Milva muttered. “He will fit in perfectly.”
“Think about his proposal, Geralt.” sneered Dandelion. “After all, he is a Nilfgaardian nobleman. Perhaps he will make it easier for us to get to...”
“Keep your tongue in check.” The witcher sharply interrupted him. “Go on, draw your sword, Nilfgaardian.”
“No, I will not fight. And I'm not Nilfgaardian. I come from Vicovaro, and my name is ...”
“I do not care what your name is. Draw your weapon.”
“No.”
“Witcher,” Milva leaned over in her saddle, and spat on the ground. “Time passes, and we are soaked to the bone. The Nilfgaardian does not want to stand against you and, although you put on a fierce air, I highly doubt you will kill him in cold blood. Are we going to have to stand here forever? I will put an arrow in his horse's belly and we can be on our way. He'll not be able to follow.”
Cahir, son of Ceallach, took one jump and caught his chestnut stallion, leapt into the saddle and galloped off, shouting at the horse to run faster. The witcher watched him for a moment, climbed onto Roach, and rode on. In silence. Not looking back.
“I must be getting old,” he muttered after a while, when Roach had caught up with Milva's black bay. “I am beginning to have scruples.”
“Aww well, it happens when you're old,” the archer looked at him with compassion. “A decoction of honey will help. In the meantime, put a pillow on your saddle.”
“Scruples.” Dandelion explained seriously, “This is not the same as hemorrhoids, Milva. You've got the wrong idea.”
“And who would have instantly understood your gibberish! And you talk constantly, you don't even know it! Go, go!”
“Milva,” the witcher asked after a while, protecting his face from the rain as he rode at a canter. “You really would have killed his horse?”
“No.” She admitted reluctantly. “The horse is not guilty. And even this Nilfgaardian... Why would he follow us? Why did he say he had to?”
“I'll be damned if I know.”
It was raining still, when the forest ended abruptly and they came to a road, winding through the hills from South to North. Or from North to South, according to their point of view. What they saw on the highway, did not surprise them. They had seen it all before. Carts overturned and shattered, dead horses, scattered packs, saddles and baskets. Broken forms, frozen in poses of strange shapes, which until recently had been human beings.
They rode closer, and without fear, because it was obvious that the massacre had not taken place today, but yesterday or the day before. They had already learned to recognize these things, and maybe they truly felt an animal instinct, which had been awakened and sensitized in them over the previous days. They had also learned to explore the battlefield, because sometimes, rarely, they managed to find among the belongings a little lunch or a sack of feed.
They stopped by the last column of the wagon, which had been struck by lightning and lay in the ditch, resting lopsided on its shattered wheel hub. Under the wagon lay a stout woman, her neck bent in an unnatural position. The collar of her cloak, soaked by the rain, had patches of clotted blood from her ear that had been torn away from the earring. On the tarp that covered the cart were the words: "Vera Loewenhaupt and Sons." But there was no trace of the word Sons.
“They were not peasants,” Milva said with clenched lips. “But merchants. They came from the South, from Dillingen on their way to Brugge, and they were attacked here. It's not good, witcher. I thought we could branch off to the South, but now I truly do not know what to do... Dillingen, and inevitably Brugge are in the hands of Nilfgaard, we will not reach the Yaruga that way. We must continue East, by Turlough. There, the forests are wild and deserted, the army will not go that way.”
“I'm not going further East.” The witcher protested. “I must reach the Yaruga.”
“You will reach it,” unexpectedly, she replied calmly. “But this is the safer route. If we move South from here, we will fall straight into the jaws of Nilfgaard. There's nothing to gain.”
“We will gain time,” he growled. “Going to the East will just waste it. I told you, I cannot afford to do that...”
“Quiet!” Dandelion piped up suddenly, turning his horse. “Stop talking for a moment.”
“What is it?”
“I hear ... singing.”
The witcher shook his head, Milva giggled.
“You're having hallucinations, poet.”
“Quiet! Shut up! Someone is singing, I'm telling you! Don't you hear it?”
Geralt pulled off his hood, Milva also pricked up her ears, and after a moment she looked at the witcher and nodded silently.
The troubadour was right. His musical ear had not betrayed him. That which seemed impossible, turned out to be true. Stood here in the middle of the forest, in the drizzle, with corpses scattered on the road, yet a happy song reached their ears. From the South, someone came, singing briskly and cheerfully.
Milva pulled the reins of her horse ready to flee, but the witcher gestured her to stop. He was intrigued. The singing that they heard was not menacing. Not the rhythmic, pounding voices of marching infantry or the cavalry's cocky song. The song that came did not raise anxiety. Quite the opposite.
The rain rustled the foliage. They began to distinguish the words of the song. It was a merry song, which in this landscape of war and death, was something alien, unnatural and totally inappropriate.
"By the woods can you see, wolf in all his might,
Grinning madly, wagging gladly, bouncing with delight.
My, oh my, what a sight! Why no melancholy?
Must be that still not wed, that is why so jolly!
Um-ta, um-ta, uhu-ha!"
Dandelion laughed suddenly, pulled out the lute from under his wet coat, and paying no attention to the hisses of Geralt and Milva, he plucked the strings and sang in a loud voice:
"In the grass can you see, wolf just limps along,
Looking down, awful frown, crying like a dog.
Why is this mighty beast so badly rampaged?
Must be that, freshly wed or lately engaged!"
“Hu-hu-ha!” Replied a chorus of many voices, sounding nearby.
A ro
ar of laughter rang out, someone whistled piercingly on their fingers, then from behind the bend in the highway emerged a strange, yet picturesque company, marching in single file, splashing the mud, with rhythmic stomps of heavy boots.
“Dwarves,” Milva said in an undertone. “But it's not Scoia'tael. Their beards are not matted.”
There were six of them. They were clothed in the usual dwarven attire, short, brown coats with hoods, in various shades of gray and shimmering bronze. Having over the years been impregnated with tar and dust on the roads, as well as oily food scraps, coats like that, Geralt knew, had the advantage of being completely water-proof. This practical piece of clothing was passed down from father to eldest son, so it was usually only worn by mature dwarves. A dwarf reached maturity when his beard reached his belt, which occurred usually at the age of fifty five years.
None of the approaching party looked younger than that. But not older.
“They're guiding humans,” Milva muttered, nodding her head at the huddled group emerging from the woods in the wake of the six dwarves. “They are refugees no doubt, they are carrying loaded bundles.”
“The dwarves are already loaded.” said Dandelion.
Indeed, each dwarf was hauling a pack, under the weight of which more than one man or even a horse would have buckled quite quickly. Besides the usual bags and sacks, Geralt saw locked caskets, a copper cauldron and what looked like a little small chest of drawers. One was carrying on his back the wheel of a cart.
The one walking at the head did not carry any luggage. He wore a small hatchet on his belt, a long sword in a scabbard on his back wrapped in deer skins, and on his shoulder a green parrot with wet and ruffled feathers. It was this dwarf that greeted them.
“Good day!” He bellowed, pausing in the middle of the road with his hands on his hips. “The times are such that it's better to meet a wolf in the forest than a man, and if it has to be, it is advisable to greet him with a crossbow than to welcome him with good words! But he who greets you with a song to music, that's your man! Or, woman, my apologies good lady! Hello, I am Zoltan Chivay.”