Time of Contempt (31 page)

The horse snorted, skittered a few paces sideways, fell back on its haunches, collapsed heavily on its side, kicked, stretched its neck out, and uttered a long neigh.

‘Rayla . . .’ wheezed Blaise, looking away. ‘Give me . . . Give me something. I’ve lost my sword . . .’

Rayla, looking at the smoke from fires rising into the sky, gestured with her head to an axe leaning against the overturned cart. Blaise seized the weapon and staggered. The left leg of his trousers was soaked in blood.

‘What about the others, Blaise?’

‘They were slaughtered,’ the mercenary groaned. ‘Every last man. The entire troop . . . Rayla, it’s not Nilfgaard . . . It’s the Squirrels . . . It was the elves who overhauled us. The Scoia’tael are in front, ahead of the Nilfgaardians.’

One of the soldiers wailed piercingly, and another sat down heavily on the ground, burying his face in his hands. Villis cursed, tightening the strap of his cuirass.

‘To your positions!’ yelled Rayla. ‘Behind the barricade! They won’t take us alive! I swear to you!’

Villis spat, then tore the three-coloured, black, gold and red rosette of King Demavend’s special forces from his spaulder, throwing it into the bushes. Rayla, cleaning and polishing her own badge, smiled wryly.

‘I don’t know if that’ll help, Villis. I don’t know.’

‘You promised, Rayla.’

‘I did. And I’ll keep my promise. To your positions, boys! Grab your crossbows and longbows!’

They didn’t have to wait long.

After they had repelled the first wave, there were only six of them left alive. The battle was short but fierce. The soldiers mobilised from Vengerberg fought like devils and were every bit as savage as the mercenaries. Not one of them fell into the hands of the Scoia’tael alive. They chose to die fighting. And they died shot through by arrows; died from the blows of lance and sword. Blaise died lying down, stabbed by the daggers of two elves who pounced on him, dragging him from the barricade. Neither of the elves got up again. Blaise had a dagger too.

The Scoia’tael gave them no respite. A second group charged. Villis, stabbed with a lance for the third time, fell to the ground.

‘Rayla!’ he screamed indistinctly. ‘You promised!’

The mercenary, dispatching another elf, swung around.

‘Farewell, Villis,’ she said, placing the point of her sword beneath his sternum and pushing hard. ‘See you in hell!’

A moment later, she stood alone. The Scoia’tael encircled her from all sides. The soldier, smeared with blood from head to foot, raised her sword, whirled around and shook her black plait. She stood among the elves, terrible and hunched like a demon. The elves retreated.

‘Come on!’ she screamed savagely. ‘What are you waiting for? You will not take me alive! I am Black Rayla!’

‘Glaeddyv vort, beanna,’ responded a beautiful, fair-haired elf in a calm voice. He had the face of a cherub and the large, cornflower-blue eyes of a child. He had emerged from the surrounding group of Scoia’tael, who were still hanging back hesitantly. His snow-white horse snorted, tossed its head powerfully up and down and energetically pawed at the bloodstained sand of the road.

‘Glaeddyv vort, beanna,’ repeated the rider. ‘Throw down your sword, woman.’

The mercenary laughed horribly and wiped her face with her cuff, smearing sweat mixed with dust and blood.

‘My sword cost too much to be thrown away, elf!’ she cried. ‘If you want to take it you will have to break my fingers! I am Black Rayla! What are you waiting for?’

She did not have to wait long.

‘Did no one come to relieve Aedirn?’ asked the Witcher after a long pause. ‘I understood there were alliances. Agreements about mutual aid . . . Treaties . . .’

‘Redania,’ said Dandelion, clearing his throat, ‘is in disarray after Vizimir’s death. Did you know King Vizimir was murdered?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Queen Hedwig has assumed power, but bedlam has broken out across the land. And terror. Scoia’tael and Nilfgaardian spies are being hunted. Dijkstra raged through the entire country; the scaffolds were running with blood. Dijkstra is still unable to walk so he’s being carried in a sedan chair.’

‘I can imagine it. Did he come after you?’

‘No. He could have, but he didn’t. Oh, but never mind. In any case, Redania – plunged into chaos itself – was incapable of raising an army to support Aedirn.’

‘And Temeria? Why didn’t King Foltest of Temeria help Demavend?’

‘When the fighting began in Dol Angra,’ said Dandelion softly, ‘Emhyr var Emreis sent an envoy to Vizima . . .’

‘Blast!’ hissed Bronibor, staring at the closed doors. ‘What are they spending so long debating? Why did Foltest abase himself so, to enter negotiations? Why did he give an audience to that Nilfgaardian dog at all? He ought to have been executed and his head sent back to Emhyr! In a sack!’

‘By the gods, voivode,’ choked the priest Willemer. ‘He is an envoy, don’t forget! An envoy’s person is sacrosanct and inviolable! It is unfitting—’

‘Unfitting? I’ll tell you what’s unfitting! It is unfitting to stand idly by and watch as the invader wreaks havoc in countries we are allied to! Lyria has already fallen and Aedirn is falling! Demavend will not hold Nilfgaard off by himself! We ought to dispatch an expeditionary force to Aedirn immediately. We ought to relieve Demavend with an assault on the Jaruga’s left bank! There are few forces there. Most of the regiments have been redeployed to Dol Angra! And we’re standing here debating! We’re yapping instead of fighting! And on top of that we are playing host to a Nilfgaardian envoy!’

‘Quite, voivode,’ said Duke Hereward of Ellander, giving the old warrior a scolding look. ‘This is politics. You have to be able to look a little further than a horse’s muzzle and a lance. The envoy must be heard. Emperor Emhyr had reason to send him here.’

‘Of course he had reason,’ snarled Bronibor. ‘Right now, Emhyr is crushing Aedirn and knows that if we cross the border, bringing Redania and Kaedwen with us, we’ll defeat him and throw him back beyond Dol Angra, to Ebbing. He knows that were we to attack Cintra, we’d strike him in his soft underbelly and force him to fight on two fronts! That is what he fears! So he’s trying to intimidate us, to stop us from intervening. That is the mission the Nilfgaardian envoy came here with. And no other!’

‘Then we ought to hear out the envoy,’ repeated the duke, ‘and take a decision in keeping with the interests of our kingdom. Demavend unwisely provoked Nilfgaard and has suffered the consequences. And I’m in no hurry to die for Vengerberg. What is happening in Aedirn is no concern of ours.’

‘Not our concern? What, by a hundred devils, are you drivelling on about? You consider it other people’s business that the Nilfgaardians are in Aedirn and Lyria, on the right bank of the Jaruga, when only Mahakam separates us from them? You don’t have an ounce of common sense . . .’

‘Enough of this feuding,’ warned Willemer. ‘Not another word. The king is coming out.’

The chamber doors opened. The members of the Royal Council rose, scraping their chairs. Many of the seats were vacant. The crown hetman and most of the commanders were with their regiments: in the Pontar Valley, in Mahakam and by the Jaruga. The chairs which were usually occupied by sorcerers were also vacant. Sorcerers . . .
Yes
, thought Willemer, the priest,
the places occupied by sorcerers here, at the royal court in Vizima, will remain vacant for a long time. Who knows, perhaps for ever?

King Foltest crossed the hall quickly and stood by his throne but did not sit down. He simply leaned over, resting his fists on the table. He was very pale.

‘Vengerberg is under siege,’ said the King of Temeria softly, ‘and will fall any day now. Nilfgaard is pushing northwards relentlessly. The surrounded troops continue to fight, but that will change nothing. Aedirn is lost. King Demavend has fled to Redania. The fate of Queen Meve is unknown.’

The Council was silent.

‘In a few days, the Nilfgaardians will take our eastern border, by which I mean the mouth of the Pontar Valley,’ Foltest went on, still very softly. ‘Hagge, Aedirn’s last fortress, will not withstand them for long, and Hagge is on our eastern border. And on our southern border . . . something very unfortunate has occurred. King Ervyll of Verden has sworn fealty to Emperor Emhyr. He has surrendered and opened the strongholds at the mouth of the Jaruga. Nilfgaardian garrisons are already installed in Nastrog, Rozrog and Bodrog, which were supposed to have protected our flank.’

The Council was silent.

‘Owing to that,’ continued Foltest, ‘Ervyll has retained his royal title, but Emhyr is his sovereign. Verden remains a kingdom but, de facto, is now a Nilfgaardian province. Do you understand what that means? The situation has turned about face. The Verdenian strongholds and the mouth of the Jaruga are in Nilfgaard’s hands. I cannot attempt to cross the river. And I cannot weaken the army stationed there by forming a corps which could enter Aedirn and support Demavend’s forces. I cannot do that. Responsibility for my country and my subjects rests on me.’

The Council was silent.

‘Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, the imperator of Nilfgaard,’ said the king, ‘has offered me a proposition . . . an agreement. I have accepted that proposition. I shall now present this proposition to you. And you, when you have heard me out, will understand . . . Will agree that— Will say . . .’

The Council was silent.

‘You will say . . .’ concluded Foltest. ‘You will say I am bringing you peace.’

‘So Foltest crumbled,’ muttered the Witcher, breaking another twig in his fingers. ‘He struck a deal with Nilfgaard. He left Aedirn to its fate . . .’

‘Yes,’ agreed the poet. ‘However, he sent his army to the Pontar Valley and occupied and manned the stronghold at Hagge. And the Nilfgaardians didn’t march into the Mahakam pass or cross the Jaruga in Sodden. They didn’t attack Brugge, which, after its capitulation and Ervyll’s fealty, they have in their clutches. That was without doubt the price of Temeria’s neutrality.’

‘Ciri was right,’ whispered the Witcher. ‘Neutrality . . . Neutrality is always contemptible.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. But what about Kaedwen, Dandelion? Why didn’t Henselt of Kaedwen come to Demavend and Meve’s aid? They had a pact, after all; they were bound by an alliance. But even if Henselt, following Foltest’s example, pisses on the signatures and seals on documents, and the royal word means nothing to him, he cannot be stupid, can he? Doesn’t he understand that after the fall of Aedim and the deal with Temeria, it will be his turn; that he’s next on the Nilfgaardian list? Kaedwen ought to support Demavend out of good sense. There may no longer be faith nor truth in the world, but surely good sense still exists. What say you, Dandelion? Is there still good sense in the world? Or do only contemptibility and contempt remain?’

Dandelion turned his head away. The green lanterns were close. They were surrounding them in a tight ring. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now he understood. All the dryads had been listening in to his story.

‘You say nothing,’ said Geralt, ‘which means that Ciri was right. That Codringher was right. You were all right. Only I, the naive, anachronistic and stupid witcher, was wrong.’

Centurion Digod, known by the nickname Half-Gallon, opened the tent flap and entered, panting heavily and snarling angrily. The decurions jumped to their feet, assuming military poses and expressions. Zyvik dextrously threw a sheepskin over the small barrel of vodka standing among the saddles, before the eyes of the centurion had time to adjust to the gloom. Not to save themselves from punishment, because Digod wasn’t actually a fervent opponent of drinking on duty or in the camp, but more in order to save the barrel. The centurion’s nickname had not come about by accident; the story went that, in favourable conditions, he was capable of knocking back half a gallon of hooch, vigorously and with impressive speed. The centurion could polish off a standard soldier’s quart mug as if it were a gill, in one draught, and seldom got his ears wet doing it.

‘Well, Centurion, sir?’ asked Bode, the bowmen’s decurion. ‘What have the top brass decided? What are our orders? Are we crossing the border? Tell us!’

‘Just a moment,’ grunted Half-Gallon. ‘What bloody heat . . . I’ll tell you everything in a moment. But first, give me something to drink because my throat’s bone dry. And don’t tell me you haven’t got any; I can smell the vodka in this tent a mile off. And I know where it’s coming from. From under that there sheepskin.’

Zyvik, muttering an oath, took out the barrel. The decurions crowded together in a tight group and clinked cups and tin mugs.

‘Aaaah,’ said the centurion, wiping his whiskers and eyes. ‘Ooooh, that’s foul stuff. Keep pouring, Zyvik.’

‘Come on, tell us quickly,’ said Bode, becoming impatient. ‘What orders? Are we marching on the Nilfgaardians or are we going to hang around on the border like a bunch of spare pricks at a wedding?’

‘Itching for a scrap?’ Half-Gallon wheezed lengthily, spat, and sat down hard on a saddle. ‘In a hurry to get over the border, towards Aedirn? You can’t wait, eh? What fierce wolf cubs you are, doing nothing but standing there growling, baring your fangs.’

‘That’s right,’ said old Stahler coldly, shuffling from one foot to the other. His legs were as crooked as a spider’s, which befitted an old cavalryman. ‘That’s right, Centurion, sir. This is the fifth night we’ve slept in our boots, at the ready. And we want to know what’s happening. Is it a scrap or back to the fort?’

‘We’re crossing the border,’ announced Half-Gallon brusquely. ‘Tomorrow at dawn. Five brigades, with the Dun Banner leading the way. And now pay attention, because I’m going to tell you what was told to us centurions and warrant officers by the voivode and the Honourable Margrave Mansfeld of Ard Carraigh, who’d come straight from the king. Prick up your ears, because I won’t tell you twice. And they’re unusual orders.’

The tent fell silent.

‘The Nilfgaardians have passed through Dol Angra,’ said the centurion. ‘They crushed Lyria, and reached Aldersberg in four days, where they routed Demavend’s army in a decisive battle. Right away, after only six days’ siege, they took Vengerberg by means of treachery. Now they’re heading swiftly northwards, driving the armies back from Aedirn towards the Pontar Valley and Dol Blathanna. They’re heading towards us, towards Kaedwen. So the orders for the Dun Banner are as follows: cross the border and march hard south, straight for the Valley of the Flowers. We have three days to get to the River Dyfne. I repeat, three days, which means we’ll be marching at a trot. And, when we get there, not a step across the Dyfne. Not a single step. Shortly after, the Nilfgaardians will show up on the far bank. We do not, heed my words well, engage them. In no way, understood? Even if they try to cross the river, we’re only to show them . . . show them our colours. That it’s us, the Kaedwen Army.’