The sorcerer came closer. He was holding a steel syringe with a long needle.

“I deceived you like a child in the clearing,” he hissed. “You turned out to be as naive as a child. The Witcher Geralt of Rivia! Although his instinct didn’t mislead him he didn’t kill, because he wasn’t certain. For he’s a good witcher and a good man. Shall I tell you, good witcher, what good people are? They’re people whom fate hasn’t blessed with the chance of profiting from the benefits of being evil. Or alternatively people who were given a chance but were too stupid to take advantage of it. It doesn’t matter which group you belong to. You let yourself be tricked, you fell into a trap, and I guarantee that you won’t get out of it alive.”

He lifted the syringe. Geralt felt a prick and immediately acute pain. A stabbing pain that darkened his eyes, tensed his entire body, a pain so dreadful that only the greatest effort stopped him from screaming. His heart began to beat frantically and, compared to his usual pulse—four times slower than that of a normal person—it was an extremely unpleasant sensation. Everything went black, the world spun around, blurred and dissolved.

He was dragged away in the glow of magical balls dancing over the bare walls and ceilings. One of the walls he passed was covered in patches of blood and was hung with weapons. He saw broad, curved scimitars, huge sickles, gisarmes, battleaxes and morning stars. They were all streaked with blood. They were used in Yew Trees, Arches and Rogovizna, he thought lucidly. They were used to massacre the charcoal burners in Pinetops.

He had gone quite numb, had stopped feeling anything, he couldn’t even feel the crushing grip of the hands holding him.

“Buueh-hhhrrr-eeeehhh-bueeeeh! Bueeh-heeh!”

He didn’t realise at once that what he could hear was merry chuckling. Whoever was dragging him was clearly enjoying the situation.

The hunchback walking in front with the crossbow was whistling.

Geralt had almost lost consciousness.

He was shoved down roughly into an upright chair. He could finally see who was dragging him, crushing his armpits with their huge hands.

He remembered the giant ogre-dwarf Mikita, Pyral Pratt’s bodyguard. These two resembled him a little, they could just about have passed for close relatives. They were of similar height to Mikita, reeked similarly, like him had no neck, and like him their teeth protruded from their lower lips like wild boars’ tusks. Mikita was bald and bearded, however, while these two didn’t have beards. Their simian faces were covered in bristles and the tops of their egg-shaped heads were adorned with something like tousled oakum. Their eyes were small and bloodshot, their ears large, pointed and horribly hairy.