“That was a warning,” said the Witcher, when the hubbub on deck had quietened down. “A warning and a challenge. Or rather a demand.”

“We would free the girl,” Addario Bach added astutely. “Of course we would. But we can’t free her if she’s dead.”

Kevenard van Vliet groaned and clutched his temples. Wet, dirty and terrified, he no longer resembled a merchant who could afford his own ship. More an urchin caught scrumping plums.

“What to do?” he moaned. “What to do?”

“I know,” Javil Fysh suddenly declared. “We’ll fasten the dead wench to a barrel and toss her overboard. The vixen will stop to mourn the pup. We’ll gain time.”

“Shame on you, Mr. Fysh.” The glove-maker’s voice suddenly hardened. “It doesn’t do to treat a corpse thus. It’s not civilised.”

“And was she civilised? A she-elf, on top of that half an animal. I tell you; that barrel’s a good idea…”

“That idea could only occur to a complete idiot,” said Addario Bach, drawing out his words. “And it would be the death of us all. If the vixen realises we’ve killed the girl we’re finished—”

“It wasn’t us as killed the pup,” butted in Petru Cobbin, before Fysh—now scarlet with anger—could react. “It wasn’t us. Parlaghy did it. He’s to blame. We’re clean.”

“That’s right,” confirmed Fysh, turning not towards van Vliet and the Witcher, but to Pudlorak and the deckhands. “Parlaghy’s guilty. Let the vixen take vengeance on him. We’ll shove him in a boat with the corpse and they can drift away. And meanwhile, we’ll…”

Cobbin and several deckhands received the idea with an enthusiastic cry, but Pudlorak immediately dampened their enthusiasm.

“I shan’t permit it,” he said.

“Nor I.” Kevenard van Vliet was pale. “Mr. Parlaghy may indeed be guilty, perhaps it’s true that his deed calls for punishment. But abandon him, leave him to his death? I will not agree.”

“It’s his death or ours!” yelled Fysh. “For what are we to do? Witcher! Will you protect us when the she-fox boards the craft?”

“I shall.”

A silence fell.

The Prophet Lebioda drifted among the stinking water seething with bubbles, dragging behind it garlands of water weed. Egrets and pelicans watched them from the branches.

* * *

The leadsman in the bow warned them with a cry. And a moment later they all began to shout. To see the rotten wreck, covered in climbing plants and weed. It was the same wreck they’d passed an hour before.

“We’re sailing around in circles.” The dwarf confirmed the fact. “We’re back where we started. The she-fox has caught us in a trap.”

“There’s only one way out.” Geralt pointed at the left offshoot and the whirlpool seething in it. “To sail through that.”

“Through that geyser?” yelled Fysh. “Have you gone quite mad? It’ll smash us to pieces!”