‘What is it?’ Milva stammered, standing up in her stirrups. ‘What is it, Witcher?’

Geralt looked, saw it and sighed loudly. Angoulême also saw it. And paled.

‘Oh, fuck!’

Milva’s horse also saw it. It neighed wildly, reared and then bucked. The archer flew from the saddle and sprawled heavily onto the ground. The horse raced into the forest. Without a second thought the Witcher’s steed rushed after it, unfortunately choosing a path under an overhanging oak branch. The branch toppled the Witcher from the saddle. The impact and the pain in his knee almost made him lose consciousness.

Angoulême managed to stay in control of her frenzied horse the longest, but finally she too ended up on the ground and her horse fled, almost trampling Milva as she was getting up.

And they saw more clearly the thing that was coming for them. And absolutely, absolutely lost their astonishment at the animals’ panic.

The creature resembled a gigantic tree, a branching, ancient oak; perhaps it was an oak. But if so it was a very unusual oak. Instead of standing somewhere in a clearing among fallen leaves and acorns, instead of letting squirrels scamper over it and linnets shit on it, this oak was marching briskly through the forest, stamping its sturdy roots steadily and waving its boughs. The stout trunk–or torso–of the monster had a diameter of more or less four yards, and the hollow gaping in it was probably not a hollow, but its maw, for it was snapping with a sound like the slamming of a heavy door.

Though the ground trembled beneath its terrible weight, making it difficult for them to keep their balance, the creature was loping through the ravines quite nimbly. And it wasn’t doing it aimlessly.

In front of their eyes the monster swung its boughs, swished its branches and plucked from a pit a bandit who was cowering there, just as deftly as a stork plucks a frog hidden in the grass. Entwined in the branches, the thug hung among the boughs, howling pitifully. Geralt saw that the monster was carrying three brigands caught in the same way. And one Nilfgaardian.

‘Run…’ he moaned, vainly trying to stand. He felt as though someone was banging a white-hot nail into his knee with the rhythmic blows of a hammer. ‘Milva… Angoulême… Run…’

‘We won’t leave you!’

The tree creature heard them, stamped its roots joyfully and rushed towards them. Angoulême, vainly trying to lift Geralt, swore hideously. With trembling hands, Milva tried to nock an arrow on the bowstring. Quite pointlessly.

‘Run away!’