Vysogota said nothing.

Had someone crept up to the shack with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof after nightfall, had they peered through the gaps in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening raptly to a story told by an ashen-haired girl in the dimly lit interior, her cheek disfigured by a nasty scar.

They would have seen a black cat lying on the girl’s lap, purring lazily, demanding to be stroked–to the delight of the mice scampering around the room.

But no one could have seen it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog, in the boundless Pereplut Marshes, where no one dared to venture.

CHAPTER SIX

It is well known that when a witcher inflicts pain, suffering and death he experiences absolute ecstasy and bliss such as a devout and normal man only experiences during sexual congress with his wedded spouse, ibidem cum ejaculatio. This leads one to conclude that, also in this matter also, a witcher is a creature contrary to nature, an immoral and filthy degenerate, born of the blackest and most foul-smelling Hell, since surely only a devil could derive bliss from suffering and pain.

Anonymous, Monstrum, or a description of a witcher

They left the main track leading along the Nevi valley and took a short cut through the mountains. They rode as quickly as the track would allow. It was narrow and winding, hugging fantastically-shaped rocks covered in patches of colourful moss and lichen. They rode between vertical rocky cliffs, from which ragged ribbons of cascades and waterfalls tumbled. They rode through ravines and gorges, across small rickety bridges over precipices at the bottom of which streams seethed with white foam.

The angular blade of Gorgon seemed to rear up directly above their heads. The peak of Devil Mountain was not visible, but shrouded in the clouds and fog cloaking the sky. The weather–as happens in the mountains–worsened in the course of a few hours. It began to drizzle bitingly and disagreeably.

When dusk fell, the three of them nervously and impatiently looked around for a shepherd’s bothy, a tumbledown barn or even a cave. Anything that would protect them from the weather during the night.

‘I think it’s stopped raining,’ Angoulême said hopefully. ‘It’s only dripping from the holes in the roof now. Tomorrow, fortunately, we’ll be near Belhaven, and we can always sleep in a shed or a barn on the outskirts.’

‘Aren’t we entering the town?’

‘Out of the question. Mounted strangers on horses are conspicuous and Nightingale has plenty of informers in the town.’

‘We were thinking about using ourselves as bait—’

‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘That’s a rotten plan. The fact that we’re together will arouse suspicion. Nightingale’s a cunning bastard and news of my capture has certainly spread. And if anything alarms him, it’ll also reach the half-elf.’

‘So what do you suggest?’