Blood of Elves

I'll stand on the Hill again. Because if I don't, it will make the sacrifices made the first time futile and unnecessary.'

'I'll stand beside you!' shouted Ciri shrilly. 'Just wait and see, I'll stand with you! Those Nilfgaardians are going to pay for my grandmother, pay for everything… I haven't forgotten!'

'Be quiet,' growled Lambert. 'Don't butt into grown-ups' conversations-'

'Oh sure!' The girl stamped her foot and in her eyes a green fire kindled. 'Why do you think I'm learning to fight with a sword? I want to kill him, that black knight from Cintra with wings on his helmet, for what he did to me, for making me afraid! And I'm going to kill him! That's why I'm learning it!'

'And therefore you'll stop learning,' said Geralt in a voice colder than the walls of Kaer Morhen. 'Until you understand what a sword is, and what purpose it serves in a witcher's hand, you will not pick one up. You are not learning in order to kill and be killed. You are not learning to kill out of fear and hatred, but in order to save lives. Your own and those of others.'

The girl bit her lip, shaking from agitation and anger.

'Understood?'

Ciri raised her head abruptly. 'No.'

'Then you'll never understand. Get out.'

'Geralt, I-'

'Get out.'

Ciri spun on her heel and stood still for a moment, undecided, as if waiting – waiting for something that could not happen. Then

she ran swiftly up the stairs. They heard the door slam.

'Too severe, Wolf,' said Vesemir. 'Much too severe. And you shouldn't have done it in Triss's presence. The emotional ties-'

'Don't talk to me about emotions. I've had enough of all this talk about emotions!'

'And why is that?' The magician smiled derisively and coldly. 'Why, Geralt? Ciri is normal. She has normal feelings, she accepts emotions naturally, takes them for what they really are. You, obviously, don't understand and are therefore surprised by them. It surprises and irritates you. The fact that someone can experience normal love, normal hatred, normal fear, pain and regret, normal joy and normal sadness. That it is coolness, distance and indifference which are considered abnormal. Oh yes, Geralt, it annoys you, it annoys you so much that you are starting to think about Kaer Morhen's vaults, about the Laboratorium, the dusty demijohns full of mutagenic poisons-'

'Triss!' called Vesemir, gazing at Geralt's face, suddenly grown pale. But the enchantress refused to be interrupted and spoke faster and faster, louder and louder.

'Who do you want to deceive, Geralt? Me? Her? Or maybe yourself? Maybe you don't want to admit the truth, a truth everyone knows except you? Maybe you don't want to accept the fact that human emotions and feelings weren't killed in you by the elixirs and Grasses! You killed them! You killed them yourself! But don't you dare kill them in the child!'

'Silence!' he shouted, leaping from the chair. 'Silence, Merigold!'

He turned away and lowered his arms defencelessly. 'Sorry,' he said quietly. 'Forgive me, Triss.' He made for the stairs quickly, but the enchantress was up in a flash and threw herself at him, embracing him.

'You are not leaving here alone,' she whispered. 'I won't let you be alone. Not right now.'

They knew immediately where she had run to. Fine, wet snow had falien that evening and had covered the forecourt with a thin, impeccably white carpet. In it they saw her footsteps.

Ciri was standing on the very summit of the ruined wall, as motionless as a statue. She was holding the sword above her right shoulder, the cross-guard at eye level. The fingers of her left hand were lightly touching the pommel.

On seeing them, the girl jumped, spun in a pirouette and landed softly in an identical but reverse mirror position.

'Ciri,' said the witcher, 'come down, please.'

It seemed she hadn't heard him. She did not move, not even a muscle. Triss, however, saw the reflection of the moon, thrown across her face by the blade, glisten silver over a stream of tears.

'No one's going to take the sword away from me!' she shouted. 'No one! Not even you!'

'Come down,' repeated Geralt.

She tossed her head defiantly and the next second leaped once more. A loose brick slipped beneath her foot with a grating sound. Ciri staggered, trying to find her balance. And failed.

The witcher jumped.

Triss raised her hand, opening her mouth to utter a formula for levitation. She knew she couldn't do it in time. She knew that Geralt would not make it. It was impossible.

Geralt did make it.

He was forced down to the ground, thrown on his knees and back. He fell. But he did not let go of Ciri.

The magician approached them slowly. She heard the girl whisper and sniff. Geralt too was whispering. She could not make out the words. But she understood their meaning.

A warm wind howled in the crevices of the wall. The witcher raised his head.

'Spring,' he said quietly.

'Yes,' she acknowledged, swallowing. 'There is still snow in the passes but in the valleys… In the valleys, it is already spring. Shall we leave, Geralt? You, Ciri and I?'

'Yes. It is high time.'

Upriver we saw their towns, as delicate as if they were woven from the morning mist out of which they loomed. It seemed as if they would disappear a moment later, blown away on the wind which rippled the surface of the water. There were little palaces, white as nenuphar flowers; there were little towers looking as though they were plaited out of ivy; there were bridges as airy as weeping willows. And there were other things for which we could find no word or name. Yet we already had names for everything which our eyes beheld in this new, reborn world. Suddenly, in the far recesses of our memories, we found the words for dragons and griffins, mermaids and nymphs, sylphs and dryads once more. For the white unicorns which drank from the river at dusk, inclining their slender necks towards the water. We named everything. And everything seemed to be close to our hearts, familiar to us, ours.

Apart from them. They, although so resembling us, were alien. So very alien that, for a long time, we could find no word for their strangeness.

Hen Gedymdeith, Elves and Humans

A good elf is a dead elf.

Marshal Milan Raupenneck

CHAPTER FOUR

The misfortune behaved in the eternal manner of misfortunes and hawks – it hung over them for some while waiting for an appropriate moment before it attacked. It chose its moment, when they had passed the few settlements on the Gwenllech and Upper Buina, passed Ard Carraigh and plunged into the forest below, deserted and intersected by gorges. Like a hawk striking, this misfortune's aim was true. It fell accurately upon its victim, and its victim was Triss.

Initially it seemed nasty but not too serious, resembling an ordinary stomach upset. Geralt and Ciri discreetly