‘Or maybe,’ came a second voice, with even more unnatural articulation, ‘we kill him? Haaaa?’ The barbegazis babbled in a noisy chorus. One of them, as large as a mature pumpkin, rolled closer and closer and snapped its teeth right by Geralt’s heels. The Witcher stifled the curse pressing itself against his lips and walked on. Water dripped from the stalactites, jingling with a silvery echo.

Something seized his leg. He refrained from pushing it roughly away.

The strange creature was small, not much larger than a Pekinese dog. It resembled a Pekinese a little, too. At least, its face did. The rest of it was like a small monkey. Geralt had no idea what it was. He had never seen anything like it.

‘Wi-tcha!’ sang the almost-Pekinese, in a high-pitched voice, but quite distinctly, clutching Geralt’s boot. ‘Wi-tch-tcha. Ba-stard!’

‘Get off,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Get off my boot or I’ll kick your arse.’

The barbegazis babbled louder, more urgently and menacingly. Something lowed in the darkness. Geralt didn’t know what it was. It sounded like a cow, but the Witcher bet it wasn’t.

‘Wi-tcha, the ba-stard.’

‘Let go of my boot,’ he repeated, fighting to control himself. ‘I came here unarmed, in peace. You’re bothering me—’

He broke off and choked on a wave of repellent fetor, making his eyes water and his hair curl. The strange Pekinese-like creature digging into his calf goggled and defecated right on his boot. The hideous stink was accompanied by even more hideous noises.

He swore appropriately to the situation and shoved the aggressive creature away with his foot. Much more gently than he should have. But what he was expecting happened anyway.

‘He kicked the little one!’ something roared in the darkness, above the literally thunderous jabbering and howling of the barbegazis. ‘He kicked the little one! He harmed something smaller than himself!’

The nearest barbegazis rolled right over to his feet. He felt the gnarled and steely claws grabbing and immobilising him. He didn’t fight back; he was resigned to his fate. He wiped his befouled boot on the fur of the largest and most aggressive one. He sat down, tugged by his clothes.

Something large descended a stalagnate, jumping down onto the cave floor. He knew at once what it was. A knocker. Stocky, pot-bellied, hairy, bow-legged, at least two yards across the shoulders, with an even broader ruddy beard. The knocker’s approach was heralded by the ground shaking, as though not a knocker but a Shire horse was approaching. Each of the monster’s callused and wide feet were–however ridiculous it sounds–a foot and a half long.

The knocker leaned over him and its breath smelled of vodka. The rascals distil hooch here, Geralt thought mechanically.