“Toruviel started it,” bleated the devil. “She kicked him when he was tied up, as if she’d lost her mind—”

With a gesture, the elf ordered him to be quiet. At his command, the other Seidhe dragged the witcher and Dandilion under the pine tree and fastened them to the trunk with belts. Then they all knelt by the prostrate Toruviel, sheltering her. After a moment Geralt heard her yell and fight in their arms.

“I didn’t want this,” said the sylvan, still standing next to them. “I didn’t, human. I didn’t know they’d arrive just when we—When they stunned you and tied your companion up, I asked them to leave you there, in the hops. But—”

“They couldn’t leave any witnesses,” muttered the witcher.

“Surely they won’t kill us, will they?” groaned Dandilion. “Surely they won’t…”

Torque said nothing, wiggling his soft nose.

“Bloody hell.” The poet groaned. “They’re going to kill us? What’s all this about, Geralt? What did we witness?”

“Our sylvan friend is on a special mission in the Valley of Flowers. Am I right, Torque? At the elves’ request he’s stealing seeds, seedlings, knowledge about farming… What else, devil?”

“Whatever I can,” bleated Torque. “Everything they need. And show me something they don’t need. They’re starving in the mountains, especially in winter. And they know nothing about farming. And before they’ve learned to domesticate game or poultry, and to cultivate what they can in their plots of land… They haven’t got the time, human.”

“I don’t care a shit about their time. What have I done to them?” groaned Dandilion. “What wrong have I done them?”

“Think carefully,” said the white-haired elf, approaching without a sound, “and maybe you can answer the question yourself.”

“He’s simply taking revenge for all the wrong that man has done the elves.” The witcher smiled wryly. “It’s all the same to him who he takes his revenge on. Don’t be deluded by his noble bearing and elaborate speech, Dandilion. He’s no different than the black-eyes who knocked us down. He has to unload his powerless hatred on somebody.”

The elf picked up Dandilion’s shattered lute. For a moment, he looked at the ruined instrument in silence, and finally threw it into the bushes.

“If I wanted to give vent to hatred or a desire for revenge,” he said, playing with a pair of soft white leather gloves, “I’d storm the valley at night, burn down the village and kill the villagers. Childishly simple. They don’t even put out a guard. They don’t see or hear us when they come to the forest. Can there be anything simpler, anything easier, than a swift, silent arrow from behind a tree? But we’re not hunting you. It is you, man with strange eyes, who is hunting our friend, the sylvan Torque.”

“Eeeeee, that’s exaggerating,” bleated the devil. “What hunt? We were having a bit of fun—”

“It is you humans who hate anything that differs from you, be it only by the shape of its ears,” the elf went on calmly, paying no attention to the sylvan. “That’s why you took our land from us, drove us from our homes, forced us into the savage mountains. You took our Dol Blathanna, the Valley of Flowers. I am Filavandrel aen Fidhail of Silver Towers, of the Feleaorn family from White Ships. Now, exiled and hounded to the edge of the world, I am Filavandrel of the Edge of the World.”