‘Just try, Boholt. You’ll brighten up my day.’

‘Why, Yennefer?’ the dwarf asked reproachfully.

‘Perhaps I simply don’t like sharing, Yarpen?’

‘Well now,’ Yarpen Zigrin smiled. ‘That’s profoundly human. So human it’s almost dwarven. It’s nice to see familiar qualities in a sorceress. Because I don’t like sharing, either, Yennefer.’

He hunched into a short, very rapid backswing. A steel ball, appearing out of his pocket as if from nowhere, whirred through the air and smacked Yennefer right in the forehead. Before the sorceress had time to come to her senses, she was suspended in the air, being held up by Beanpole and Gar, and Yarpen was binding her ankles with twine. Yennefer screamed furiously, but one of Yarpen’s boys threw the wagon’s reins over her head from behind and pulled them tight, the leather strap digging into her open mouth, stifling her cries.

‘Well, Yennefer,’ Boholt said as he walked over, ‘how do you plan to turn me into a gelding now? When you can’t move a hand?’

He tore the collar of her coat and then ripped and wrenched open her blouse. Yennefer shrieked, choked by the reins.

‘I don’t have the time now,’ Boholt said, groping her shamelessly to the cackling of the dwarves, ‘but wait a little while, witch. Once we’ve sorted out the dragon, we’ll make merry. Tie her firmly to the wheel, boys. Both little hands to the rim, so she won’t be able to lift a finger. And no one’s to bloody touch her yet, my lords. We’ll sort the order out depending on who does a good job on the dragon.’

‘Beware, Boholt,’ Geralt, arms tied, said, softly, calmly and ominously. ‘I’ll follow you to the ends of the world.’

‘You surprise me,’ the Reaver replied, just as calmly. ‘In your place I’d keep mum. I know you, and I know I have to take your threat seriously. I won’t have a choice. You might not come out of this alive, Witcher. We’ll return to this matter. Gar, Beanpole, to horse.’

‘What bad luck,’ Dandelion snapped. ‘Why the hell did I get mixed up in this?’

Dorregaray, lowering his head, watched the thick drops of blood slowly dripping from his nose onto his belly.

‘Would you stop staring!’ the sorceress screamed at Geralt. She was writhing like a snake in her bonds, vainly trying to conceal her exposed charms. The Witcher obediently turned his head away. Dandelion did not.

‘You must have used an entire barrel of mandrake elixir on what I can see, Yennefer,’ the bard laughed. ‘Your skin’s like a sixteen-year-old’s, dammit.’

‘Shut your trap, whore’s son!’ the sorceress bellowed.

‘How old are you, actually, Yennefer?’ Dandelion asked, not giving up. ‘Two hundred? Well, a hundred and fifty, let’s say. And you’re behaving like…’

Yennefer twisted her neck and spat at him, but was wide of the mark.

‘Yen,’ the Witcher said reproachfully, wiping his spit-covered ear on his shoulder.

‘I wish he would stop staring!’

‘Not on your life,’ Dandelion said, without taking his eyes off the bedraggled sorceress. ‘I’m here because of her. They may slit our throats, but at least I’ll die happy.’