“I won’t give you the best,” continued Brehen, known as the Cat of Iello. “And I won’t share. You won’t go to Vizima, White Wolf. You won’t snatch the reward from me. Rumour has it that Vesemir has passed sentence on me. You have the opportunity to carry it out. Let’s leave the inn. Out into the yard.”

“I won’t fight you.”

The man with the cat medallion leaped up from behind the table with a movement so fast it was blurred. A sword snatched up from the table flashed. The man caught one of the priestesses by the hood, dragged her from the bench, threw her down on her knees and put the blade to her throat.

“You will fight with me,” he said coldly, looking at Geralt. “You’ll go out into the courtyard before I count to three. Otherwise the priestess’s blood will bespatter the walls, ceiling and furniture. And then I’ll slit the others’ throats. One after the other. Nobody is to move! Not an inch!”

Silence fell in the inn, a dead silence, an absolute silence. Everybody stopped in their tracks. And stared open-mouthed.

“I won’t fight you,” Geralt repeated calmly. “But if you harm that woman you will die.”

“One of us will die, that’s certain. Outside in the yard. But it isn’t going to be me. Your famous swords have been stolen, rumour has it. And you’ve neglected to equip yourself with new ones, I see. Great conceit indeed is needed to go and steal somebody’s bounty, not having armed oneself first. Or perhaps the famous White Wolf is so adept he doesn’t need steel?”

A chair scraped as it was moved. The fair-haired girl stood up. She picked up a long package from under the table. She placed it in front of Geralt and returned to her place, sitting down beside the clerk.

He knew what it was. Before he had even unfastened the strap or unwrapped the felt.

A sword of siderite steel, total length forty and one half inches, the blade twenty-seven and one quarter inches long. Weight: thirty-seven ounces. The hilt and cross guard simple, but elegant.

The second sword, of a similar length and weight: silver. Partially, of course, for pure silver is too soft to take a good edge. Magical glyphs on the cross guard, runic signs along the entire length of the blade.

Pyral Pratt’s expert had been unable to decipher them, demonstrating his poor expertise in so doing. The ancient runes formed an inscription. Dubhenn haern am glândeal, morc’h am fhean aiesin. My gleam penetrates the darkness, my brightness disperses the gloom.

Geralt stood up. And drew the steel sword. With a slow and measured movement. He didn’t look at Brehen. But at the blade.

“Release the woman,” he said calmly. “At once. Otherwise you’ll perish.”