Vysogota lay on the floor, where he had collapsed as he was getting out of bed. He found to his horror that he couldn’t stand up. His heart pounded in his throat, choking him.

Now he knew whose death the elven apparition’s nocturnal cry was auguring. Life was beautiful, he thought. In spite of everything.

‘O Gods…’ he whispered. ‘I don’t believe in you… But if you do exist…’

A dreadful pain suddenly exploded in his chest, behind his breastbone. Somewhere in the swamps, far away, but much nearer than before, the beann’shie howled savagely for the third time.

‘If you do exist, protect the witcher girl on the road!’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘I have enormous eyes, all the better to see you with!’ shrieked the great, iron wolf. ‘I have enormous paws, all the better to seize and hug you with! Everything about me is enormous, everything, and soon you will discover it for yourself. Why are you looking at me so strangely, little girl? Why do you not answer?

The witcher girl smiled.

‘I have a surprise for you.’

Flourens Delannoy, The Surprise, from the book Fairy Tales and Stories

The novices stood before the high priestess as straight as ramrods, tense, mute, slightly pale. They were ready to set off, prepared down to the minutest detail. Men’s grey travelling clothes, warm, loose-fitting sheepskin coats and comfortable elven boots. Haircuts which could easily be kept clean and tidy on camps and marches, so as not to interfere with work. Very small bundles, containing only provisions and essential equipment. The army was to provide them with the rest. The army they were enlisting in.

The faces of the two girls were composed. Seemingly. Triss Merigold could see that the hands and lips of the two girls were quivering faintly.

The wind tugged at the bare branches of the trees in the temple grounds, swept dead leaves across the flagstones of the courtyard. The sky was a deep blue. A blizzard was in the air. You could feel it.

Nenneke broke the silence.

‘Do you have your postings?’

‘I don’t,’ Eurneid mumbled. ‘For the moment I’ll be in winter quarters in a camp outside Vizima. The recruiting officer said that in the spring mercenary units from the North will be stopping there… I’m to be a nurse in one of them.’

‘But I,’ said Iola the Second, ‘already have my posting. To Mr Milo Vanderbeck, field surgeon.’

‘Mind you don’t disgrace me.’ Nenneke gave the novices a menacing look. ‘Mind you dishonour neither myself, nor the temple, nor the name of Great Melitele.’

‘Certainly not, O mother.’

‘And look after yourselves.’

‘Yes, O mother.’

‘You’ll be dead tired attending the wounded, you will not know sleep. You’ll be frightened and have doubts as you gaze on pain and death. And then it’s easy to misuse narcotics or stimulants. Be careful of that.’

‘We know, O mother.’