A bucket full of blood.
Ciri wiped her face, looked down at her hand, taken aback. Her palm was wet. The girl sniffed and wiped the tears with her sleeve.
Neutrality? Indifference? She wanted to scream. A witcher looking on indifferently? No! A witcher has to defend people. From the leshy, the vampire, the werewolf. And not only from them. He has to defend people from every evil. And in Transriver I saw what evil is.
A witcher has to defend and save. To defend men so that they aren't hung on trees by their hands, aren't impaled and left to die. To defend fair girls from being spread-eagled between stakes rammed into the ground. Defend children so they aren't slaughtered and thrown into a well. Even a cat burned alive in a torched barn deserves to be defended. That's why I'm going to become a witcher, that's why I've got a sword, to defend people like those in Sodden and Transriver – because they don't have swords, don't know the steps, half-turns, dodges and pirouettes. No one has taught them how to fight, they are defenceless and helpless in face of the werewolf and the Nilfgaardian marauder. They're teaching me to fight so that I can defend the helpless. And that's what I'm going to do. Never will I be neutral. Never will I be indifferent.
Never!
She didn't know what warned her – whether it was the sudden silence which fell over the forest like a cold shadow, or a movement caught out of the corner of her eye. But she reacted in a flash, instinctively – with a reaction she had learnt in the woods of Transriver when, escaping from Cintra, she had raced against death. She fell to the ground, crawled under a juniper bush and froze, motionless. Just let the horse not neigh, she thought.
On the other side of the ravine something moved again; she saw a silhouette show faintly, hazily amidst the leaves. An elf peered cautiously from the thicket. Having thrown the hood from his head, he looked around for a moment, pricked up his ears and then, noiselessly and swiftly, moved along the ridge. After him, two more leaned out. And then others moved. Many of them. In single file. About half were on horseback – these rode slowly, straight in their saddles, focused and alert. For a moment she saw them all clearly and precisely as, in utter silence, they flowed across a bright breach in the wall of trees, framed against the background of the sky – before they disappeared, dissolved in the shimmering
shadows of the wild forest. They vanished without a rustle or a sound, like ghosts. No horse tapped its hoof or snorted, no branch cracked under foot or hoof. The weapons slung across them did not clang.
They disappeared but Ciri did not move. She lay flat on the ground under the juniper bush, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. She knew that a frightened bird or animal could give her away, and a bird or animal could be frightened by any sound or movement – even the slightest, the most careful. She got up only when the woods had grown perfectly calm and the magpies chattered again among the trees where the elves had disappeared.
She rose only to find herself in a strong grip. A black, leather glove fell across her mouth, muffled the scream of fear.
'Be quiet.'
'Geralt?'
'Quiet, I said.'
'You saw them?'
'I did.'
'It's them…' she whispered. 'The Scoia'tael. Isn't it?'
'Yes. Quick back to the horses. Watch your feet.'
They rode carefully and silently down the slope without returning to the trail; they remained in the thicket. Geralt looked around, alert. He did not allow her to ride independently; he did not give her the chestnut's reins; he led the horse himself.
'Ciri,' he said suddenly. 'Not a word about what we saw. Not to Yarpen, not to Wenck. Not to anybody. Understand?'
No,' she grunted, lowering her head. 'I don't understand. Why shouldn't I say anything? They have to be warned. Whose side are we on, Geralt? Whose side are we against? Who's our friend and who's our enemy?'
'We'll part with the convoy tomorrow,' he said after a moment's silence. 'Triss is almost recovered. We'll say goodbye and go our own way. We have problems of our own, our own worries and our own difficulties. Then, I hope, you'll finally stop dividing the inhabitants of this world into friends and enemies.'
'We're to be… neutral? Indifferent, is that right? And if they attack…'
'They won't.'
'And if-'
'Listen to me.' He turned to her. 'Why do you think that such a vital load of gold and silver, King Henselt's secret aid for Aedirn, is being escorted by dwarves and not humans? I saw an elf watching us from a tree yesterday. I heard them pass by our camp during the night. The Scoia'tael will not attack the dwarves, Ciri.'
'But they're here,' she muttered. 'They are. They're moving around, surrounding us…'
'I know why they're here. I'll show you.'
He turned the horse abruptly and threw the reins to her. She kicked the chestnut with her heels and moved away faster, but he motioned for her to stay behind him. They cut across the trail and reentered the wild forest. The witcher led, Ciri following in his tracks. Neither said anything. Not for a long time.
'Look.' Geralt held back his horse. 'Look, Ciri.'
'What is it?' she sighed.
'Shaerrawedd.'
In front of them, as far as the woods allowed them to see, rose smoothly hewn blocks of granite and marble with blunt corners, worn away by the winds, decorated with patterns long leached out by the rains, cracked and shattered by frost, split by tree roots. Amongst the trunks' broken columns flashed white, arcades, the remains of ornamental friezes entwined with ivy, and wrapped in a thick layer of green moss.
'This was… a castle?'
'A palace. The elves didn't build castles. Dismount, the horses won't manage in the rubble.'
'Who destroyed it all? Humans?'
'No, they did. Before they left.'
'Why?'
'They knew they wouldn't be coming back. It happened following their second clash with the humans, more than two hundred years ago. Before that, they used to leave towns untouched when they
retreated. Humans used to build on the foundations left by the elves. That's how Novigrad, Oxenfurt, Wyzima, Tretogor, Maribor and Cidaris were built. And Cintra.'
'Cintra?'
He confirmed it with a nod of the head, not taking his eyes off the ruins.
'They left,' whispered Ciri, 'but now they're coming back. Why?'
'To have a look.'
'At what?'
Without a word he laid his hand on her shoulder and pushed her gently before him. They jumped down the marble stairs, climbing down holding on to the springy hazel, clusters of which had burst through every gap, every crevice in the moss-covered, cracked plates.
'This was the centre of the palace, its heart. A fountain.'
'Here?' she asked, surprised, gazing at the dense thicket of alders and white birch trunks amongst the misshapen blocks and slabs. 'Here? But there's nothing there.'
'Come.'
The stream feeding the fountain must have changed its course many times, patiently and constantly washing the marble blocks and alabaster plates which had sunk or fallen to form dams, once again changing the course of the current. As a result the whole area was divided up by shallow gullies. Here and there the water cascaded over the remains of the building, washing it clean of leaves, sand and litter. In these places, the marble, terracotta and mosaics were still as vibrant with colour, as fresh as if they had been lying there for three days, not two centuries.
Geralt leapt across the stream and went in amongst what remained of the columns. Ciri followed. They
