Time of Contempt (The Witcher) (44 page)

‘Mercy!’ screamed Skomlik, falling on his knees. ‘Spare my life! I have young children . . . Very young . . .’

The girl struck savagely, twisting at the hips. Blood splashed the whitewashed wall in a wide, irregular arc of crimson flecks.

‘I can’t stand little children,’ said the close-cropped girl, wiping blood off the fuller with a quick movement of her fingers.

‘Don’t just stand there, Mistle,’ urged the one in the scarlet headband. ‘To horse! We must fly! It’s a Nilfgaardian settlement; we don’t have any friends
here!’

The Rats sped out of the inn. Ciri didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t have time to think. Mistle, the close-cropped one, pushed her towards the door.

Outside the inn, among pieces of broken beer mugs and chewed bones, lay the bodies of the Nissirs who had been guarding the entrance. Settlers armed with lances were running up from the village,
but at the sight of the Rats bursting out of the inn they disappeared among the cottages.

‘Can you ride?’ yelled Mistle at Ciri.

‘Yes . . .’

‘So let’s go. Grab a horse and ride! There’s a bounty on our heads and this is a Nilfgaardian village! They’re all grabbing bows and spears! Jump on and follow Giselher!
Keep to the middle of the track and stay away from the cottages!’

Ciri hurdled a low fence, seized the reins of one of the Trappers’ horses, jumped into the saddle, and slapped the horse on the rump with the flat of the sword, which had never left her
hand. She set off at a swift gallop, overtaking Kayleigh and the flamboyant elf they called Iskra. She raced with the Rats towards the mill. She saw a man with a crossbow emerging from behind one
of the cottages, aiming at Giselher’s back.

‘Cut him down!’ she heard from behind her. ‘Have him, girl!’

Ciri leaned back in the saddle, forcing the galloping horse to change direction with a tug of the reins and pressure from her heels, and swung her sword. The man with the crossbow turned around
at the last moment and she saw his face contorted in terror. Ciri’s arm, which was raised to strike, hesitated for a moment, which was enough for the galloping horse to carry her past him.
She heard the clang of the bowstring being released. Her horse squealed, its croup twitched and it reared up. Ciri jumped, wrenching her feet from the stirrups and landed nimbly, dropping into a
crouch. Iskra, galloping up, leaned out of the saddle to swing powerfully, and slashed the crossbowman across the back of his head. He fell to his knees, toppled forward and fell headlong into a
puddle, splashing mud. The wounded horse neighed and thrashed around beside him, finally rushing off between the cottages, kicking vigorously.

‘You idiot!’ yelled the she-elf, passing Ciri at full pelt. ‘You bloody idiot!’

‘Jump on!’ screamed Kayleigh, riding over to her. Ciri ran up and seized the outstretched hand. The impetus jerked her, her shoulder joint creaking, but she managed to jump onto the
horse and cling to the fair-haired Rat. They galloped off, overtaking Iskra. The elf turned back, pursuing one more crossbowman, who had thrown down his weapon and fled towards some barn doors.
Iskra caught him with ease. Ciri turned her head away. She heard the mutilated crossbowman howl briefly and savagely, like an animal.

Mistle caught them up, pulling a saddled riderless horse behind her. She shouted something which Ciri didn’t hear properly, but understood at once. She let go of Kayleigh, jumped onto the
ground at full speed, and ran over to the horse, which was dangerously close to some buildings. Mistle threw her the reins, looked around and shouted a warning. Ciri turned around just in time to
avoid the treacherous thrust of a spear, dealt by a stocky settler who had appeared from behind a pigsty, with a nimble half turn.

What happened later haunted her dreams for a long time after. She remembered everything, every movement. The half turn which saved her from the spear blade placed her in an ideal position. The
spearman was leaning well forward, unable either to jump away or to protect himself with the spear shaft he was holding in both hands. Ciri thrust flat, spinning the opposite way in a half turn.
For a moment, she saw a mouth open to scream in a face with the bristle of several days of beard growth. She saw the forehead lengthened by a bald patch, fair-skinned above the line where a cap or
hat had protected it from the sun. And then everything she saw was blotted out by a fountain of blood.

She was still holding the horse by the reins, but the horse shied, howling, and thrashed around, knocking her to her knees. Ciri did not release the reins. The wounded man moaned and wheezed,
thrashing about convulsively among the straw and muck, and blood spurted from him as though from a stuck pig. She felt her gorge rising.

Right alongside, Iskra reined back her horse. Seizing the reins of the still stamping, riderless horse, she tugged, pulling Ciri – still clutching the reins – up onto her feet.

‘Into the saddle!’ she yelled. ‘Get out of here!’

Ciri fought back nausea and jumped into the saddle. There was blood on the sword, which she was still holding. She struggled to overcome the desire to throw the weapon as far away as she
could.

Mistle rushed out from between some cottages, chasing two men. One of them managed to get away, leaping over a fence, but the second, hit by a short thrust, fell to his knees, clutching his head
in both hands.

Mistle and Iskra leapt into a gallop, but a moment later pulled up their horses, bracing themselves in their stirrups, because Giselher and the other Rats were returning from near the mill.
Behind them rushed a pack of armed settlers, yelling loudly to summon up their courage.

‘After us!’ yelled Giselher, riding past at full speed. ‘After us, Mistle! To the river!’

Mistle, leaning over to one side, tugged on her reins, turned her horse back and galloped after him, clearing some low wattle fences. Ciri pressed her face against her horse’s mane and set
off after her. Iskra galloped along beside her. The speed blew her beautiful, dark hair around, revealing a small, pointed ear decorated with a filigree earring.

The man wounded by Mistle was still kneeling in the middle of the road, rocking back and forth and holding his bloody head in both hands. Iskra wheeled her horse around, galloped up to him and
struck downwards with her sword, powerfully, with all her strength. The wounded man wailed. Ciri saw his severed fingers fly up like woodchips from a chopping block and fall onto the ground like
fat, white grubs.

She barely overcame the urge to vomit.

Mistle and Kayleigh waited for them by a gap in the stockade; the rest of the Rats were already far away. The foursome set off in a hard, fast gallop, and hurtled across the river, splashing
water which spurted up above the horses’ heads. Leaning forward, pressing their cheeks against the horses’ manes, they climbed up a sandy slope and then flew across a meadow, purple
with lupines. Iskra, riding the fastest horse, took the lead.

They raced into a forest, into damp shade, between the trunks of beeches. They had caught up with Giselher and the others, but they only slowed for a moment. After crossing the forest and
reaching moorland, they once again set off at a gallop. Soon Ciri and Kayleigh had been left behind, the Trappers’ horses unable to keep pace with the beautiful, pedigree mounts the Rats were
riding. Ciri had an additional difficulty; she could barely reach the big horse’s stirrups, and at a gallop was unable to adjust the stirrup leathers. She could ride without stirrups as well
as she could with, but knew that in that position she would not be able to endure a gallop for long.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, Giselher slowed the pace and stopped the leading group, letting Ciri and Kayleigh catch up with them. Ciri slowed to a trot. She still couldn’t shorten
the stirrup leathers, since there were no holes in the straps. Without slowing, she swung her right leg over the pommel and switched to side-saddle.

Mistle, seeing the girl’s riding position, burst out laughing.

‘Do you see, Giselher? She isn’t only an acrobat, she’s a circus rider, too! Eh, Kayleigh, where did you happen upon this she-devil?’

Iskra, reining back her beautiful chestnut, skin still dry and raring to gallop on, rode over, pushing against Ciri’s dapple grey. The horse neighed and stepped back, tossing its head.
Ciri tightened the reins, leaning back in the saddle.

‘Do you know the reason you’re still alive, you cretin?’ snarled the elf, pulling her hair away from her forehead. ‘The peasant you so mercifully spared released the
trigger too soon, so he hit the horse and not you. Otherwise you’d have a quarrel sticking into your back up to its fletchings! Why do you carry that sword?’

‘Leave her alone, Iskra,’ said Mistle, stroking the sweaty neck of her mount. ‘Giselher, we have to slow down or we’ll ride the horses into the ground! I mean, no
one’s chasing us right now.’

‘I want to cross the Velda as quickly as possible,’ said Giselher. ‘We’ll rest on the far bank. Kayleigh, how’s your horse?’

‘He’ll hold out. He’s no racehorse, but he’s a powerful beast.’

‘All right, let’s go.’

‘Hold on,’ said Iskra. ‘What about this chit?’

Giselher looked back, straightened his scarlet headband, and rested his gaze on Ciri. His face and its expression somewhat resembled Kayleigh’s; the same malevolent grimace, the same
narrowed eyes, the thin, protruding lower jaw. He was older than the fair-haired Rat, though, and the bluish shadow on his cheeks was evidence that he was already shaving.

‘Yeah, true,’ he said brusquely. ‘What about you, wench?’

Ciri lowered her head.

‘She helped me,’ chimed in Kayleigh. ‘If it hadn’t been for her, that lousy Trapper would have nailed me to the post . . .’

‘The villagers saw her escaping with us,’ added Mistle. ‘She cut one of them down and I doubt he survived. They’re settlers from Nilfgaard. If the girl falls into their
hands, they’ll club her to death. We can’t leave her.’

Iskra snorted angrily but Giselher gestured to her to be quiet.

‘She can ride with us,’ he decided, ‘as far as Velda. Then we’ll see. Ride your horse normally, maid. If you don’t manage to keep up, we won’t look back.
Understood?’

Ciri nodded eagerly.

‘Talk, girl. Who are you? Where are you from? What’s your name? Why were you travelling under escort?’

Ciri lowered her head. During the ride she’d had time to try to invent a story. And she had thought up several. But the leader of the Rats didn’t look like someone who would believe
any of them.

‘Right,’ pressed Giselher. ‘You’ve been riding with us for a few hours. You’re taking breaks with us, but I haven’t even heard the sound of your voice. Are
you dumb?’

Fire shot upwards in flames amid a shower of sparks, flooding the ruins of the shepherd’s cottage in a wave of golden light. As if obedient to Giselher’s order, the fire lit up
Ciri’s face, in order more easily to uncover the lies and insincerity in it.
But I can’t tell them the truth
, Ciri thought in desperation.
They’re robbers. Brigands. If
they find out about the Nilfgaardians, that the Trappers caught me for the bounty, they may want to claim it for themselves. And anyway, the truth is too far-fetched for them to believe.

‘We got you out of the settlement,’ continued the gang leader slowly. ‘We brought you here, to one of our hideouts. We gave you food. You’re sitting at our campfire. So
tell us who you are.’

‘Leave her be,’ said Mistle suddenly. ‘When I look at you, Giselher, I see a Nissir, a Trapper or one of those Nilfgaardian sons of bitches. And I feel as if I’m being
interrogated, chained to a torturer’s bench in a dungeon!’

‘Mistle’s right,’ said the fair-haired boy in the short sheepskin jacket. Ciri shuddered to hear his accent. ‘The girl clearly doesn’t want to say who she is, and
it’s her right. I didn’t say much when I joined you, either. I didn’t want you to know I’d been one of those Nilfgaardian bastards—’

‘Don’t talk rubbish, Reef.’ Giselher waved a hand. ‘It was different with you. And you, Mistle, you’re wrong. It’s not an interrogation. I want her to say who
she is and where she’s from. When I find out, I’ll point out the way home, and that’s all. How can I do that if I don’t know . . . ?’

‘You don’t know anything,’ said Mistle, turning to look at him. ‘Not even if she has a home. And I’m guessing she doesn’t. The Trappers picked her up on the
road because she was alone. That’s typical of those cowards. If you send her on her way she won’t survive in the mountains. She’ll be torn apart by wolves or die of
hunger.’

‘What shall we do with her, then?’ asked the broad-shouldered one in an adolescent bass, jabbing a stick at the burning logs. ‘Dump her outside some village or
other?’

‘Excellent idea, Asse,’ sneered Mistle. ‘Don’t you know what peasants are like? They’re short of labourers. They’ll put her to work grazing cattle, after
first injuring one of her legs so she won’t be able to run away. At night, she’ll be treated as nobody’s property; in other words she’ll be anybody’s. You know how
she’ll have to pay for her board and lodgings. Then in spring she’ll get childbed fever giving birth to somebody’s brat in a dirty pigsty.’

‘If we leave her a horse and a sword,’ drawled Giselher, without taking his eyes off Ciri, ‘I wouldn’t like to be the peasant who tried to injure her leg. Or tried
knocking her up. Did you see the jig she danced in the inn with that Trapper, the one Mistle finished off? He was stabbing at thin air. And she was dancing like it was nothing . . . Ha, it’s
true, I’m more interested in where she learnt tricks like that than in her name or family. I’d love to know—’

‘Tricks won’t save her,’ suddenly chipped in Iskra, who up until then had been busy sharpening her sword. ‘She only knows how to dance. To survive, you have to know how
to kill, and she doesn’t.’

‘I think she does,’ grinned Kayleigh. ‘When she slashed that guy across the neck, the blood shot up six foot in the air . . .’

‘And she almost fainted at the sight of it,’ the elf snorted.

‘Because she’s still a child,’ interjected Mistle. ‘I think I can guess who she is and where she learnt those tricks. I’ve seen girls like her before. She’s a
dancer or an acrobat from some wandering troupe.’