Petru Cobbin emerged from the companionway of the afterpeak, dragging Parlaghy—who could barely stay on his feet—by the collar. A sailor followed him carrying the girl, wrapped in a cloak. The other four deckhands stood steadfastly beside them, facing the Witcher. They were holding battleaxes, tridents and iron hooks.

“You can’t stop us, good sir,” rasped the tallest of them. “We want to live. The time has come to act.”

“Leave the child,” drawled Geralt. “Let the merchant go, Cobbin.”

“No, sir.” The sailor shook his head. “We’ll toss the body and the merchant overboard; that’ll stop the beast. Then we’ll get away.”

“And don’t you lot interfere,” wheezed another. “We’ve nothing against you, but don’t stand in our way. Because you’ll get hurt.”

Kevenard van Vliet curled up by the side and sobbed, turning his head away. Pudlorak also looked away resignedly and pursed his lips. He clearly wouldn’t react to his own crew’s mutiny.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Petru Cobbin, shoving Parlaghy. “Toss the merchant and the dead vixen overboard, that’s our only chance of escape. Out of the way, Witcher! Go on, boys! Into the boat with them!”

“What boat?” asked Addario Bach calmly. “Do you mean that one, perhaps?”

Javil Fysh, hunched over the oars of a boat, was rowing, heading for the broad water, already quite far from the Prophet. He was rowing hard; the oar blades were splashing water and strewing water weed around.

“Fysh!” yelled Cobbin. “You bastard! You fucking whoreson!”

Fysh turned around and raised his middle finger at them. Then took up the oars again.

But he didn’t get far.

In full view of the Prophet’s crew the boat suddenly shot up in a jet of water and they saw the toothy jaws of a gigantic crocodile, its tail thrashing. Fysh flew overboard and began to swim—screaming all the while—towards the bank, where cypress roots bristled in the shallows. The crocodile set off in pursuit, but the palisade of pneumatophores impeded its progress. Fysh swam to the bank and flopped down chest-first on a boulder lying there. But it wasn’t a boulder.

An enormous lizard-like turtle opened its jaws and seized Fysh by his upper arm. He howled, struggled, kicked, flinging mud around. The crocodile broke the surface and caught him by the leg. Fysh screamed.

For a moment, it wasn’t clear which of the two reptiles would catch Fysh—the turtle or the crocodile. But finally, both of them got something. An arm with a white, club-shaped bone sticking out of bloody pulp was left in the turtle’s jaws. The crocodile took the rest of Fysh’s body. A large red patch floated on the surface of the murky water.