And narrowed his pupils into vertical slits, two narrow lines.

In order to maintain the illusion, he screwed his eyes up a little, pretending to be blinded.

Levecque leaped, spun, keeping his balance by extending his dagger hand out sideways, and struck with a simply impossible bend of his wrist, upwards, aiming at the Witcher’s crotch. Geralt shot forward, spun, deflected the blow, bending his arm and wrist equally impossibly, throwing the killer backwards with the momentum of the parry and slashing him across his left cheek with the tip of his blade. Levecque staggered, grabbing his face. The Witcher twisted into a half-turn, shifted his bodyweight onto his left leg and cleaved open his opponent’s carotid artery with a short blow. Levecque curled up, bleeding profusely, dropped to his knees, bent over and fell headfirst onto the sand.

Geralt slowly turned towards Junghans. Junghans, contorting his wrinkled face in a furious grimace, took aim with his bow. The Witcher crouched, gripping his sword in both hands. The remaining mercenaries also raised their bows, in dead silence.

‘What are you waiting for?’ the forester roared. ‘Shoot! Shoot hi—’ He stumbled, staggered, tottered forwards and fell on his face with an arrow sticking out of his back. The arrow’s shaft had striped fletchings made from a pheasant’s flight feathers, dyed yellow in a concoction of tree bark.

The arrows flew with a whistle and hiss in long, flat parabolas from the black wall of the forest. They flew apparently slowly and calmly, their fletchings sighing, and it seemed as though they picked up speed and force as they struck their targets. And they struck unerringly, scything down the Nastrog mercenaries, knocking them over into the sand, inert and mown down, like sunflowers hit with a stick.

The ones who survived rushed towards the horses, jostling one another. The arrows continued to whistle, catching up with them as they ran, hitting them as they sat in the saddle. Only three managed to rouse their horses to a gallop and ride off, yelling, their spurs bloodying their mounts’ flanks. But not even they got far.

The forest closed up, blocking the way. Suddenly the sandy highway, bathed in sunlight, disappeared. It was now a dense, impenetrable wall of black tree trunks.

The mercenaries, terrified and stupefied, spurred their horses, but the arrows flew unceasingly. And hit them, knocking them from their saddles among the hoof-falls and neighing of the horses, and screams.

And afterwards a silence fell.

The wall of trees blocking the highway shimmered, became blurred, shone brightly and vanished. The road could be seen again and on it stood a grey horse and on the grey horse sat a rider–mighty, with a flaxen, fan-shaped beard, in a jerkin of sealskin with a tartan, woollen sash.

The grey horse, turning its head away and champing at the bit, moved forward, lifting its fore hooves high, snorting and becoming agitated by the corpses and the smell of blood. The rider, upright in the saddle, raised a hand and a sudden gust of wind struck the trees’ branches.