One of the elves screamed, and blood spurted into Cahir’s face. Another Scoia’tael reeled and fell to his knees, his fingers clutching his mutilated belly. The remaining elves leapt back and scattered all around the courtyard, swords flashing.

They had been attacked by a white-haired fiend, who had fallen on them from a wall, from a height that would have broken a normal man’s legs. It ought to have been impossible to land gently, whirl in an impossibly fast pirouette, and a split second later begin killing. But the white-haired fiend had done it. And the killing had begun.

The Scoia’tael fought fiercely. They had the advantage, but they had no chance. A massacre was played out before Cahir’s eyes, wide with terror. The fair-haired girl, who had wounded him a moment earlier, had been fast, had been unbelievably lithe, had been like a mother cat defending her kittens. But the white-haired fiend who had fallen amongst the Scoia’tael was like a Zerrikan tiger. The fair-haired maid of Cintra, who for some unknown reason had not killed him, seemed insane. The white-haired fiend was not insane. He was calm and cold. And killed calmly and coldly.

The Scoia’tael had no chance. Their corpses piled up on the slabs of the courtyard. But they did not yield. Even when only two of them remained, they did not run away, but attacked the white-haired fiend once more. The fiend hacked off the arm of one of them above the elbow as Cahir watched. He hit the other elf with an apparently light, casual blow, which nonetheless threw him backwards. It tipped him over the lip of the fountain and hurled him into the water. The water brimmed over the edge of the basin in ripples of crimson.

The elf with the severed arm knelt by the fountain, staring vacantly at the blood gushing from the stump. The white-haired fiend seized him by the hair and cut his throat with a rapid slash of his sword.

When Cahir opened his eyes the fiend was standing over him.

‘Don’t kill me…’ he whispered, giving up his efforts to rise from the ground, now slippery with blood. His hand, slashed by the fair-haired girl, had gone numb and did not hurt.

‘I know who you are, Nilfgaardian,’ said the white-haired fiend, kicking the helmet with the hacked-up wings. ‘You have been pursuing her doggedly and long. But now you will harm her no more.’

‘Don’t kill me…’

‘Give me one reason. Just one. Make haste.’

‘It was I…’ whispered Cahir. ‘It was I who got her out of Cintra. From the fire… I rescued her. I saved her life…’

When he opened his eyes, the fiend was no longer there. Cahir was alone in the courtyard with the bodies of the elves. The water in the fountain soughed, spilling over the edge of the basin, washing away the blood on the ground. Cahir fainted.