‘Oh!’ Ciri sniffed, and the dryad shifted suddenly.

‘Quiet. And they were upon them, yelling: “Have them, skin them! We’ll make muffs out of them, muffs!” And they set the hounds on the fox and the cat. And the cat darted up a tree, like every cat does. Right to the very top. But the hounds seized the fox! And before Reynard had time to use any of his cunning ways, he’d been made into a collar. And the cat meowed from the top of the tree and hissed at the hunters, but they couldn’t do anything to him, because the tree was as high as hell. They stood at the foot of the tree, swearing like troopers, but they had to go away empty-handed. And then the cat climbed down from the tree and slunk calmly home.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Nothing. That’s the end.’

‘What about the moral?’ Ciri asked. ‘Tales always have a moral, don’t they?’

‘Hey?’ Braenn said, hugging Geralt even harder. ‘What’s a moral?’

‘A good story has a moral and a bad one doesn’t,’ Ciri sniffed with conviction.

‘That was a good one,’ the dryad yawned. ‘So it has what it ought to have. You, moppet, should have scurried up a tree from that yghern, like that canny tomcat. Not pondered, but scurried up the tree without a thought. And that is all the wisdom in it. To survive. Not to be caught.’

The Witcher laughed softly.

‘Weren’t there any trees in the castle grounds, Ciri? In Nastrog? Instead of coming to Brokilon you could have skinned up a tree and stayed there, at the very top, until Kistrin’s desire to wed had waned.’

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Know what? I can’t stand you.’

‘That’s dreadful. Ciri, you’ve stabbed me in the very heart.’

‘I know,’ she nodded gravely, sniffing, and then clung tightly to him.

‘Sleep well, Ciri,’ he muttered, breathing in her pleasant, sparrow scent. ‘Sleep well. Goodnight, Braenn.’

‘Deárme, Gwynbleidd.’

Above their heads a billion Brokilon branches soughed and hundreds of billions of Brokilon leaves rustled.

IV

The next day they reached the Trees. Braenn knelt down and bent her head. Geralt felt the need to do the same. Ciri heaved a sigh of awe.

The Trees–chiefly oaks, yews and hickories–had girths of over a hundred feet, some much more. It was impossible to say how high their crowns were. The places where the mighty, twisted roots joined the vertical trunks were high above their heads, however. They could have walked more quickly, as the giants grew slowly and no other vegetation could survive in their shadows; there was only a carpet of decaying leaves.

They could have walked more quickly. But they walked slowly. In silence. With bowed heads. Among the Trees they were small, insignificant, irrelevant. Unimportant. Even Ciri kept quiet–she did not speak for almost half an hour.

And after an hour’s walk they passed the belt of Trees and once again plunged deep into ravines and wet beechwood forests.