The Witcher evaded the blow with a half-turn and slashed him viciously across the temple. Even before Novosad had fallen, Angoulême ducked forward with a short jab, her knife whistled in the air and Yirrel reeled away, the bone handle jutting from beneath his chin. The brigand dropped his sabre and jerked the knife from his throat with both hands, spurting blood, but Angoulême sprang up to kick him in the chest and knocked him to the ground. Meanwhile, Geralt had struck another bandit. Cahir hacked the next one to death; something shaped like a slice of watermelon dropped from the robber’s skull after a powerful blow of his Nilfgaardian blade. The last thug fled and jumped onto his horse. Cahir tossed up his sword, seized it by the blade and hurled it like a javelin, striking the brigand right between the shoulder blades. The horse neighed and jerked its head, sat hard on its haunches and stamped its hooves, dragging the corpse over the red mud, its hand tangled up in the reins.

The whole thing took less than five heartbeats.

‘Heeey!’ yelled somebody from among the buildings. ‘Heeeelp! Heeeelp! Murder, vicious killers!’

‘Troops! Call out the troops!’ shouted another miner, shooing away children who–as is the immemorial custom of all the world’s children–had appeared from nowhere to watch and get in the way.

‘Someone run and call the army!’

Angoulême picked up her knife, wiped and sheathed it.

‘Let them run, by all means!’ she shouted back, looking around. ‘What is it, quarrymen, are you blind or what? That was self-defence! They fell on us, the bloody thugs! Don’t you know them? Haven’t they done you enough harm? Haven’t they extorted enough from you?’

She sneezed loudly. Then she tore the purse from the belt of the still twitching Novosad and leaned over Yirrel.

‘Angoulême.’

‘What?’

‘Leave it.’

‘Why should I? It’s spoils! Short of money?’

‘Angoulême…’

‘You,’ a voice suddenly shouted. ‘This way, please.’

Three men stood in the open doorway to a barrack serving as the tool store. Two of them were heavies with low foreheads and closely-cropped hair, of undoubtedly limited intelligence. The third–the one who’d shouted to them–was a very tall, dark-haired, handsome man.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation preceding the incident,’ the man said. ‘I found it hard to believe you’d killed a witcher, thinking it empty bragging. I don’t think that now. Step inside.’

Angoulême drew an audible intake of breath. She glanced at the Witcher and nodded barely perceptibly.

The man was a half-elf.

The half-elf Schirrú was tall–well over six feet. He wore his dark hair tied on his neck in a ponytail falling down his back. His mixed blood was betrayed by his eyes, which were large, almond-shaped and yellowish-green, like a cat’s.