Geralt took advantage of the crew’s stupefaction. He snatched the dead girl from the deckhand and retreated towards the bow. Addario Bach stood beside him, armed with a boathook.

Neither Cobbin nor any of the sailors tried to oppose him. On the contrary, they all ran hastily to the stern. Hastily. Not to say in a panic. Their faces suddenly took on a deathly pallor. Kevenard van Vliet, huddled by the side, hid his head between his knees and covered it with his arms.

Geralt turned around.

Whether Pudlorak hadn’t been paying attention or the rudder—damaged by the vodyanoy—wasn’t working, suffice it to say that the cutter had sailed right under some hanging boughs and was caught among fallen tree trunks. The aguara took advantage of it. She leaped down onto the prow, nimbly, lightly and noiselessly. In her vulpine form. Previously he’d seen her against the sky, when she had seemed black, pitch-black. She wasn’t. Her fur was dark and her brush ended in a snow-white blotch, but grey prevailed in her colouring, particularly on her head, which was more typical of a corsac fox than a silver one.

She metamorphosed, growing larger and transforming into a tall woman. With a fox’s head. Pointed ears and an elongated muzzle. Rows of fangs flashed when she opened her jaws.

Geralt knelt down, placed the little girl’s body gently on the deck and retreated. The aguara howled piercingly, snapped her toothy jaws and stepped towards him. Parlaghy screamed, waving his arms in panic, tore himself away from Cobbin’s grasp and jumped overboard. He sank at once.

Van Vliet was weeping. Cobbin and the deckhands, still pale, gathered around Pudlorak. Pudlorak removed his cap.

The medallion around the Witcher’s neck twitched powerfully, vibrated and made its presence felt. The aguara kneeled over the girl, making strange noises, neither growling nor hissing. She suddenly raised her head and bared her fangs. She snarled softly and a fire flared up in her eyes. Geralt didn’t move.

“We are to blame,” he said. “Something truly ill has happened. But may no worse things occur. I cannot allow you to harm these men. I shall not allow it.”

The vixen stood up, lifting the little girl. She swept her gaze over them all. And finally looked at Geralt.

“You stood in my way,” she barked, clearly, slowly enunciating each word. “In their defence.”

He didn’t answer.

“I am taking my daughter,” she finished. “That is more important than your lives. But it was you who stood in their defence, O White-Haired One. Thus, I shall come looking for you. One day. When you have forgotten. And will be least expecting it.”

She hopped nimbly onto the bulwark and then onto a fallen trunk. And disappeared into the undergrowth.

In the silence that fell only van Vliet’s sobbing could be heard.