He caught up with the monster and jumped, pinning down one of its rear limbs with his heel. If he hadn’t jumped aside immediately he would have lost a leg—the grey creature twisted around with extraordinary agility, and its curved pincers snapped shut, missing him by a hair’s breadth. Before the Witcher could regain his balance the monster sprang from the ground and attacked. Geralt defended himself instinctively with a broad and rather haphazard swing of his sword that pushed the monster away. He hadn’t wounded it, but now he had the upper hand.

He sprang up and fell on the monster, slashing backhand, cleaving the carapace of the flat cephalothorax. Before the dazed creature came to its senses, a second blow hacked off its left mandible. The monster attacked, brandishing its limbs and trying to gore him with its remaining mandible like an aurochs. The Witcher hacked that one off too. He slashed one of the idr’s pedipalps with a swift reverse cut. Then hacked at the cephalothorax again.

* * *

It finally dawned on the idr that it was in danger. That it must flee. Flee far from there, take cover, find a hiding place. It only lived to kill. In order to kill it must regenerate. It must flee… Flee…

* * *

The Witcher didn’t let it. He caught up with it, stepped on the rear segment of the thorax and cut from above with a fierce blow. This time, the carapace gave way, and viscous, greenish fluid gushed and poured from the wound. The monster flailed around, its limbs thrashing the ground chaotically.

Geralt cut again with his sword, this time completely severing the flat head from the body.

He was breathing heavily.

It thundered in the distance. The growing wind and darkening sky heralded an approaching storm.

* * *

Right from their very first encounter, Albert Smulka, the newly appointed district reeve, reminded Geralt of a swede—he was stout, unwashed, thick-skinned and generally pretty dull. In other words, he didn’t differ much from all the other district clerks Geralt had dealt with.