‘Oh, hell,’ he said. ‘Oh, bloody hell. It… it can’t be!’

‘What?’ Dorregaray asked, riding up. Beside him Yennefer, dismounting from the Reavers’ wagon, pressed her chest against the rocky block, peeped out, moved back and rubbed her eyes.

‘What? What is it?’ Dandelion shouted, leaning out from behind Geralt’s back. ‘What is it, Boholt?’

‘That dragon… is golden.’

No further than a hundred paces from the gorge’s rocky entrance from which they had emerged, on the road to the northward-leading canyon, on a gently curving, low hill, sat the creature. It was sitting, arching its long, slender neck in a smooth curve, inclining its narrow head onto its domed chest, wrapping its tail around its extended front feet.

There was something inexpressibly graceful in the creature and the way it was sitting; something feline, something that contradicted its clearly reptilian origins. But it was also undeniably reptilian. For the creature was covered in distinctly outlined scales, which shone with a glaring blaze of bright, yellow gold. For the creature sitting on the hillock was golden; golden from the tips of its talons, dug into the ground, to the end of its long tail, which was moving very gently among the thistles growing on the hill. Looking at them with its large, golden eyes, the creature unfurled its broad, golden, bat-like wings and remained motionless, demanding to be admired.

‘A golden dragon,’ Dorregaray whispered. ‘It’s impossible… A living fable!’

‘There’s no such thing as a bloody golden dragon,’ Gar pronounced and spat. ‘I know what I’m talking about.’

‘Then what’s sitting on that hillock?’ Dandelion asked pointedly.

‘It’s some kind of trickery.’

‘An illusion.’

‘It is not an illusion,’ Yennefer said.

‘It’s a golden dragon,’ Gyllenstiern said. ‘An absolutely genuine, golden dragon.’

‘Golden dragons only exist in fables!’

‘Stop that, all of you,’ Boholt suddenly broke in. ‘There’s no point getting worked up. Any blockhead can see it’s a golden dragon. And what difference does it make, my lords, if it’s golden, lapis lazuli, shit-coloured or chequered? It’s not that big, we’ll sort it out in no time. Beanpole, Gar, clear the debris off the wagon and get the gear out. What’s the difference if it’s golden or not?’

‘There is a difference, Boholt,’ Beanpole said. ‘And a vital one. That isn’t the dragon we’re stalking. Not the one that was poisoned outside Barefield, which is now sitting in its cave on a pile of ore and jewels. That one’s just sitting on its arse. What bloody use is it to us?’

‘That dragon is golden, Kennet,’ Yarpen Zigrin snarled. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it? Don’t you understand? We’ll get more for its hide than we would for a normal treasure hoard.’

‘And without flooding the market with precious stones,’ Yennefer added, smiling unpleasantly. ‘Yarpen’s right. The agreement is still binding. Quite something to divide up, isn’t it?’

‘Hey, Boholt?’ Gar shouted from the wagon, where he was clattering amongst the tackle. ‘What shall we equip ourselves and the horses with? What could that golden reptile belch, hey? Fire? Acid? Steam?’