Crossroads of ravens, p.2
Crossroads of Ravens, page 2
“Why, you motherfucker!” yelled one of Carleton’s horsemen, unsheathing his sword and urging his steed forward. “I’ll—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. The rider called Preston Holt raised one hand and made a short gesture. The air howled and whistled; the peasants covered their ears. The horseman screamed, flew from the saddle, and fell heavily and inertly before the hooves of his companions. Their horses shied, neighed, stamped their hooves, shook their heads; one reared up. The now riderless horse darted between the cottages, kicking and bucking.
A deathly silence descended.
“Anyone else?” asked Preston Holt, raising a gauntleted hand. “Anyone inclined to challenge me? Play the hero? No? I thought as much. I bid you farewell, gentlemen. Is the young witcher mounted?”
“I am,” Geralt replied.
“Then let us ride. Follow me.”
The Upper March set the mark of its border on the River Gwenllech. It is known that the ambition of the margraves there is still to make incursions into the valleys of the Dragon Mountains, hence they used to call their domain “cismontane,” as though it would soon enlarge to include the “tramontane” part, once the elves were driven deeper into the mountains. Nonetheless, the years pass by and nothing of the kind transpires.
Baldwin Adovardo, Regni Caedvenie Nova Descriptio
The Kingdom of Kaedwen was known throughout the inhabited world for its cold and capricious weather. Enclosed from the north by the barrier of the Dragon Mountains, and from the east by the great massif of the Blue Mountains, the land suffered from erratic and frequent visitations of air masses causing long and bitter winters, cold springs and short, rainy summers. As regards autumn, it varied—once sunny, warm and pleasant—once nothing of the kind.
Now, in the month of March, called “Birke” by the elves, the snow still remained here and there in ravines and hollows, while white patches lay in depressions in glades. The ice still covered some puddles and dykes in yellowing sheets. Although the sun gave off some warmth, when frosty winds blew from the mountains, they stung no less than in January.
Geralt had set off from Kaer Morhen the day before the Equinox. That was the custom of witchers. It was thus practised because after the winter monsters were at their hungriest, and so vicious that folk in villages and settlements were inclined to indulge in the hiring of a witcher, even though during the hungry gap they had eaten their stores and were practically destitute. But Geralt never got the chance to be hired. For things went as they went; barely two days’ ride from the mountains and bang! the peasant and his daughter, the marauders, the bald enforcer with the rotten teeth, wham, bam, and here we are. He had found himself being judged by Alderman Bulava of Neuhold, and then being rescued from that and the threat of being lynched by soldiers from the nearby fort by the strange white-haired individual with two swords on his back, riding a black horse, whom Geralt was now following.
“I suggest,” said the strange individual, turning around in the saddle, “that we ride together for a time. Captain Carleton may still want to hang you; it was apparent he wants it very much. He isn’t stupid enough to come after me, but you, alone, could be an easy target. So, if my company doesn’t bother you—”
“Not a bit,” said Geralt hurriedly, urging on his dun mare. “Gladly… I… I am—”
“I know who you are. Did your hair turn white after the mutations? After the Transformations? Loss of pigment, like I had?”
“Aye… But how—”
“How did I know there was someone like you there? Because I follow what goes on up there in the Stronghold. And it reached my ears that some wunderkind called Geralt had finished his training and was soon to venture abroad.”
“But Vesemir—”
“Never mentioned me? He never let slip the name ‘Preston Holt’? I’ll explain: Vesemir and I have been moving in different orbits, so to speak, for some time. If you know what I mean.”
Geralt didn’t actually know what an orbit was, but nodded wisely.
They rode on for a while in silence. Side by side.
“So, you set off from Kaer Morhen,” Preston Holt said finally. “You perhaps didn’t have the best beginning, but that’s the way it is with beginnings. In any case, I don’t mean to chide you. Quite the opposite; I had a look at that marauder’s body and your cuts may be considered faultless. Unnecessary, perhaps; ill-considered, perhaps; inelegant, perhaps—but actually faultless.”
They fell silent again, watched a herd of cattle being driven onto a mountain pasture and the cowherd running from cow to cow in order to warm his frozen little feet in fresh, warm cowpats. The cowpats didn’t warm him up much, but the running did.
“They’re driving cows, though the grass is barely peeping out of the ground,” observed Holt. “It’s a sign the season’s begun and you’ll have no difficulty finding work, Geralt. The villages will soon be willing to pay for their herdsmen and livestock to be protected. Let’s ride over there into the birchwood, near the opening of the sough.”
“The opening of the what?”
“The sough. That open channel there leads to a sough, a tunnel once used to drain water from a mine. We are—as you no doubt know—in the part of the Kingdom of Kaedwen called the Upper March. The wealth of the Upper March is mines: mainly salt, but also silver, nickel, zinc, lead, lapis lazuli and others. At least that’s how things were; today most mines are close to being worked out. Nothing lasts for ever.”
Geralt didn’t comment.
“Do you see that hill up ahead? It’s called Podkurek, that’s how it appears on official maps. And it came about because around a hundred years ago a peasant named Podkurek quite by chance dug up there a nugget of silver the size of a large cabbage. A mine was established here right away, extending into the mountainside. Large amounts of silver and galena, which is lead ore, were mined. But the deeper the miners dug, the more problems they had with water. There are more soughs like this one, you’ll see them. Finally, the costs of drainage made the entire extraction unprofitable. The miners moved to other places. They left a labyrinth of corridors and goafs, now partly flooded. And now the best part: the abandoned and flooded mine has been occupied and taken over by roving cynocephaly. I imagine you know what they are, don’t you?”
“Cynocephaly,” recited Geralt, after taking a deep breath, “are small creatures resembling dog-headed monkeys. They are gregarious and live underground in the dark. They’re dangerous in packs—”
“Infernally dangerous,” interrupted Preston Holt. “And quite often torment the amateur miners that come here to dig in the slopes of Podkurek in search of silver, which you can still find here. Look, there’s the proof of my lecture: those light patches over there are the canvas sheets of wagons and tents. We’re heading right for a camp of intrepid diggers. The first this spring.”
The intrepid diggers greeted them initially with a delegation armed with shovels and stout cudgels. The menacing expressions of the welcome party sent a simple message: get out of here, strangers, we was ’ere first. Their expressions soon softened, however, when they saw that the newcomers weren’t unwanted competitors. Indeed, joy appeared on their previously unfriendly faces.
“Goodness me, thank the gods!” cried the chief digger, hiding behind his back a mattock, which only a moment earlier he had been twirling warningly. “Thanks be to the gods! Goodness me, why it’s the Most Honourable Witcher! And because we heard you were in the neighbourhood, we were meaning to send word to you. But instead, you arrive out of nowhere, out of nowhere!”
“That is my custom,” said Preston Holt, straightening up in the saddle. “To appear from nowhere to help those in need. For I am a witcher.”
In the meantime, several lamenting women had joined the diggers. The clamour became louder and louder and more and more incoherent. Preston Holt began to call for order using his voice and gestures. It was some time before it became possible to discern what it was all about and what the diggers and the women were trying to express.
“We’re in need of a witcher!” called the chief digger, brandishing his mattock. “Those underground creatures what live under the mountain carried off a boy! They attacked, seized him and dragged him into the abyss! Who will rescue him now, if not you?”
“It’s not two weeks ago,” said Holt, “that I warned you to stay well away from the shaft and the gallery. Well? Didn’t I tell you? To dig on the other side of the mountain? The cynocephaly have seized a boy, you say? How old? Five? When was it? Ah, the day before yesterday? Why, you didn’t hurry to send word to me. Dismount, Geralt.”
Preston Holt got off his horse. Geralt couldn’t help noticing it caused him difficulty. And that his left leg was very lame. With a gesture, he shooed away the women who were surrounding him, wailing. He spoke for a while to the chief digger and then tugged Geralt by the sleeve.
“Well, young witcher,” he said. “It’s time to help people in need, the victims of monsters. For we have just been hired.”
“If the cynocephaly took the boy the day before yesterday,” grunted Geralt, “the chances are slim that he’s still—”
“Alive? Yes, it’s doubtful. But perhaps we’ll at least find him… Hmm… It’ll give the mother the chance to bury whatever is left… Why the hesitation, young Geralt? Not long ago, you waded in to defend a maiden’s virtue and hack a man to death without a second thought, and now you hesitate?”
“Have I said anything?” said Geralt, shrugging. “Am I hesitating? I am not.”
The remains of a wooden construction, probably a drainage treadmill, had survived on the mountainside. A shaft was gaping there, partially collapsed, exposing a precipice.
“A shaft of the mine remains,” Holt explained, “and an adit, look, it’s over there. Both of them lead to a higher working. The working is curved, because it runs parallel to a seam which is completely mined out. From here there’s a slope running downwards, leading to a lower working, which is even more crooked, with numerous side tunnels. Lower down is one more gallery, but it’s completely flooded. The cynocephaly occupy that lower gallery, or drift. There might also be some holes down there, connected up to natural caves.
“Here’s the plan: I can’t get down below with this leg, so I shall head outside the gallery, make a racket there and draw the cynocephaly to me. You are our only hope. You’ll descend the shaft to the drift, and from there down the slope road. There you have a chance to find… what needs to be found. With a bit of luck. Which I wish you, lad. See you at the top.”
“Perhaps first I should,” said Geralt, taking a risk, “check out…”
“Do what?” said Holt grimacing. “Ah, I understand. There’s no point in… checking anything out. Drink the elixir, grab your medallion and get down to the shaft.”
“With all respect,” blurted out the chief digger, who was standing alongside, “but this buck seems a mite too young… Will he cope? We thought you, Master Holt, would go down. In person—”
Preston Holt turned around and glanced at him. The digger cringed and started mumbling something. Which he didn’t complete.
The drift had a high roof. Geralt could easily walk upright, with still a few spans of clearance above his head. Everywhere water was dripping down the walls: nothing could be heard apart from the sound of the falling drops. He sped up, wanting to reach the slope road as soon as possible, before Holt raised a hullabaloo near the gallery, as promised.
Deep caverns were visible in the walls of the working, what was left after the deposits of ore had been mined. In one of the caverns, he saw a strange brick building—or rather, the remains of one. He couldn’t know they were the ruins of an ancient shrine.
Of all social groups, it was the miners who continued to believe in gods the longest—something Geralt also didn’t know. Working in conditions of unremitting danger, they had to believe that some kind of providence was watching over them and that prayers offered to it would guarantee their safety. As one might easily guess, experience soon proved that their prayers were useless, that roof-collapses and firedamp explosions happen as often to believers as they do to non-believers. But the miners believed anyway, built chapels, lit candles and prayed. For a long time. But not for ever. Good sense, as usual, finally prevailed.
The corridor began to rapidly fall, and he was now in the slope road. He listened out, though still heard nothing but water dripping.
He felt he was close to the lower drift when it started.
A large stone came whistling from the darkness and brushed his hair. After the first one, more came flying, some of them finding their target. One struck Geralt in the head and knocked him off balance, and the cynocephaly fell on him from all sides, howling ferociously and barking, scratching and biting. It was impossible to count how many of them there were, they were scampering around too quickly. Geralt yanked his sword from the scabbard, only to lose it immediately—two of the creatures held him fast, and a third knocked the weapon from his hands with a blow of a large lump of rock. The creature held the captured sword aloft and roared triumphantly, opening its doglike jaws wide.
The triumph was premature, as Geralt threw off the two assailants, grabbed a stone and heaved it, hitting the cynocephalus straight in the teeth. The cynocephalus dropped the sword, Geralt leaped forward, seized the weapon before it fell, and slashed the creature that was struggling with the stone caught in its mouth. He hacked up the next two with swift blows. And fled towards the shaft. Behind him came the sound of ferocious barking and rocks were flying—with some of them finding their targets again. One hit him in the back of the head—he saw a flash and an explosion of stars lit up the working. Another stone struck him in the lower back and almost knocked him over. Twice the cynocephaly caught up with him, digging their teeth into his calves, with only his leather leggings protecting him from serious injuries. One leaped and bit him painfully above the knee where the legging ended. Geralt didn’t slow down to kill it.
He reached the shaft under a hail of rocks, climbed up the remains of a ladder, dived out onto the surface, fell to the ground and lay there. For some time.
“Well, well,” said a voice. “You’re out. And without any serious injuries even. I see blood is dripping from a few places. But it’s not gushing anywhere, and that’s something. I’m full of admiration.”
Preston Holt stood over him, gnawing on a roasted chicken leg.
“Seriously?” Geralt grunted, still lying on the ground. “Give over! You were meant to be in the gallery… Making a racket… To distract—”
“Indeed?” said Holt, tossing the bone away. “Oh, yes. Forgive me, I completely forgot.”
Geralt swore. His mouth still close to the ground.
“That’s not all,” said Holt, licking his fingers. “They aren’t paying us anything. Because the boy turned up. Came home. He’d simply wandered off, and as usual the diggers put the blame on the cynocephaly. Get up, young Geralt. Witcher Geralt. Let me help you. Can you walk? Then let’s go. As I said, we won’t get paid. But they’ll feed us and put us up for the night. The girls will dress your cuts. If you ask politely, then maybe one of them will be nice to you.”
They set off in the direction of the camp and the steaming cauldrons. Witcher Geralt had difficulty walking.
Some young women dressed his wounds in several places and fed him. And the diggers let them stay the night. Holt in a tent and Geralt in a wagon.
One of the girls came to Geralt in the night and was nice. But only nice, only a little, and nothing more. And left soon after.
At dawn, Geralt scrambled out of the wagon and began to saddle his mare, still hissing with the pain. Holt surprised him in the middle of it.
“Why such haste?” he asked, rubbing an eye. “Wait. They’ll serve us breakfast and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Seriously?” Geralt muttered through his teeth. “And perhaps I’m not so sure I want to go anywhere with you. Perhaps I prefer to head off by myself.”
Holt leaned against the trunk of a birch tree and looked up at the sky. It was clear, quite cloudless.
“I understand your attitude perfectly,” he said. “But I had to, with the emphasis on ‘had to,’ test you out at the start, assess what you’re like in action.”
“I mightn’t have got out of there alive.”
“But you did.”
“No thanks to you. So now I’m—”
“I invite you to ride alongside me at least until noon,” Holt interrupted. “Which translates, rounding it up and calculating the time of day, into five to six furlongs. The time and the distance will suffice, I believe, for you to get the anger you feel towards me out of your system and look at the world more soberly. And then I’ll have an offer for you.”
“What kind of offer?” asked Geralt, squinting.
“Six furlongs. Noon.”
It was indeed close to noon when the sky suddenly turned black from wings and there was a noisy fluttering of feathers and a loud cawing. Dozens—if not hundreds—of black birds rose from the ground and the branches of nearby trees and flew off.
“Ravens,” gasped Geralt. “So many ravens! Impossible! Ravens don’t fly in flocks! Never!”
“Doubtless,” Holt agreed. “So many ravens at one time is an extraordinary thing, I’m astonished myself. Doubtless we are witness to an remarkable occurrence. And we find ourselves in quite an extraordinary place. If you noticed.”
“A crossroads.” Geralt looked around. “A convergence of ways.”
“A crossroads. A symbolic place. Four roads leading to the four points of the compass. A place of choice and decision. Which you will have to take, Geralt. Witcher Geralt.”
The ravens had alighted on the upper branches of trees. They were cawing, observing the riders.
“Three of the roads, including ours, are the roads of a solitary witcher. They are the destiny you chose by setting out from Kaer Morhen. If you ride along one of those three roads, if that is your decision, we part company. If, however, you choose the fourth way, you will come to hear my offer.”
