‘No!’ she cries. ‘Be gone! You are corpses!’
The King of the Wild Hunt laughs, the rotten teeth snapping above his rusted gorget. The skull’s eye sockets glitter lividly.
Yes, we are corpses. But you are death.
Ciri clung to the horse’s neck. She didn’t have to urge her horse on. Sensing the pursuing apparitions behind her, the steed thundered across the causeway at a breakneck gallop.
*
The halfling Bernie Hofmeier, a Hirundum farmer, lifted his shock of curly locks, listening to the sound of the distant thunder.
‘It’s a dangerous thing,’ he said, ‘a storm like this without any rain. Lightning will strike somewhere and then you’ve got a fire on your hands . . .’
‘A little rain would come in handy,’ sighed Dandelion, tightening up the pegs of his lute, ‘because you could cut the air with a knife . . . My shirt’s stuck to my back and the mosquitoes are biting . . . But I reckon it’ll blow over. The storm has been circling, circling, but for a while there’s been lightning somewhere in the north. Over the sea, I think.’
‘It’s hitting Thanedd,’ confirmed the halfling, ‘the highest point in the area. That tower on the island, Tor Lara, attracts lightning like nobody’s business. It looks like it’s on fire during a decent storm. It’s a wonder it doesn’t fall apart . . .’
‘It’s magic,’ said the troubadour with conviction. ‘Everything on Thanedd is magic, even the rock itself. And sorcerers aren’t afraid of thunderbolts. What am I saying? Did you know, Bernie, that they can even catch thunderbolts?’
‘Get away! You’re lying, Dandelion.’
‘May the lightning strike me—’ the poet broke off, anxiously looking up at the sky. ‘May a goose nip me if I’m lying. I’m telling you, Hofmeier, sorcerers catch thunderbolts. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Old Gorazd, the one who was killed on Sodden Hill, once caught a thunderbolt in front of my very eyes. He took a long, thin piece of metal, he hooked one end of it onto the top of his tower, and the other—’
‘You should put the other end in a bottle,’ suddenly squeaked Hofmeier’s son, who was hanging around on the veranda. He was a tiny little halfling with a thick mop of hair as curly as a ram’s fleece. ‘In a glass demijohn, like the ones Daddy makes wine in. The lightning whizzes down the wire into the demijohn—’
‘Get inside, Franklin!’ yelled the farmer. ‘Time for bed, this minute! It’ll be midnight soon and there’s work to be done tomorrow! And just you wait till I catch you, spouting off about demijohns and wires. The strap’ll be out for you! You won’t be able to sit down for the next two Sundays! Petunia, get him out of here! And bring us more beer!’
‘You’ve had quite enough,’ said Petunia Hofmeier angrily, gathering up her son from the veranda. ‘You’ve already put away a skinful.’
‘Stop nagging. Just look out for the Witcher’s coming. A guest ought to be offered hospitality.’
‘When the Witcher arrives I’ll bring some. For him.’
‘Stingy cow,’ muttered Hofmeier so that his wife didn’t hear. ‘All her kin, the Biberveldts from Knotweed Meadow, every last one of them is a tight-fisted, stingy, skinflint . . . But the Witcher’s taking his time. He went over to the ponds and disappeared. ’E’s a strange one. Did you see how he looked at the girls, at Cinia and Tangerine, when they were playing in the yard of an evening? He had a strange look about him. And now . . . I can’t help feeling he went away to be by himself. And he took shelter with me because my farm’s out of the way, far from the others. You know him best, Dandelion, you say . . .’
‘Do I know him?’ said the poet, swatting a mosquito on his neck, plucking his lute and staring at the black outlines of willows by the pond. ‘No, Bernie. I don’t know him. I don’t think anyone knows him. But something’s happening to him, I can see it. Why did he come here, to Hirundum? To be nearer the Isle of Thanedd? And yesterday, when I suggested we both ride to Gors Velen, from where you can see Thanedd, he refused without a second thought. What’s keeping him here? Did you give him some well-paid contracts?’
‘Not a chance,’ muttered the halfling. ‘To be honest, I don’t believe there was ever a monster here at all. That kid who drowned in the pond might have got cramp. But everyone started yelling that it was a drowner or a kikimora and we ought to call a witcher . . . And they promised him such a paltry purse it’s shameful. And what does he do? He’s been roaming around the causeway for three nights; he sleeps during the day or sits saying nothing, like a straw man, watching the children and the house . . . Strange. Peculiar, I’d say.’