Geralt shied away from hitting women. He didn’t, however, have any reluctance when it came to somebody who had the shoulders of a wrestler, a belly like a netted pork roast and calves like a discus thrower, and on top of that who farted like a mule. He pushed the commandant away and smashed her hard in the jaw. With his favourite right hook.

The others froze, but only for a second. Even before the commandant had tumbled onto the table, splashing beans and paprika sauce around, they were on him. He smashed one of them in the nose without thinking, and hit another so hard her teeth made a cracking noise. He treated two to the Aard Sign. They flew like rag dolls into a stand of halberds, knocking them all over with an indescribable crash and clatter.

He got hit in the ear by the commandant, who was dripping sauce. The other guard, the one with the rock-hard bust, seized him from behind in a bear hug. He elbowed her so hard she howled. He pushed the commandant onto the table again, and whacked her with a haymaker. He thumped the one with the smashed nose in the solar plexus and knocked her to the ground, where she vomited audibly. Another, struck in the temple, slammed her head against a post and went limp, her eyes immediately misting over.

But four of them were still on their feet. That marked the end of his advantage. He was hit in the back of the head and then in the ear. And after that in the lower back. One of them tripped him up and when he fell down two dropped on him, pinning him down and pounding him with their fists. The other two weighed in with kicks.

A head-butt in the face took out one of the women lying on him, but the other immediately pressed him down. The commandant—he recognised her by the sauce dripping from her. She smacked him from above in the teeth. He spat blood right in her eyes.

“A knife!” she yelled, thrashing her shaven head around. “Give me a knife! I’ll cut his balls off!”

“Why a knife?” yelled another. “I’ll bite them off!”

“Stop! Attention! What is the meaning of this? Attention, I said!”