The hunter raised his head.

Ciri leaped from her speeding horse, staggered and dropped onto one knee.

Bonhart smiled.

‘A she-rat,’ he said. ‘The seventh Rat. I’m glad you are here. I needed you to complete the set.’

Mistle had found her sword, but was unable to lift it. She wheezed and threw herself at Bonhart’s feet. Her trembling fingers dug into the legs of his boots. She opened her mouth to scream, but instead of a cry, a shining crimson stream burst forth. Bonhart kicked her hard, knocking her over in the muck. Mistle, both hands now holding her mutilated belly, managed to raise herself again.

‘Noooo!’ Ciri screamed. ‘Miiiistle!’

The bounty hunter paid no attention to her yell. He did not even turn his head. He swung his sword and struck vigorously, as though with a scythe. A powerful blow that jerked Mistle up from the ground and flung her over to the wall, as limp as a cloth doll, like a rag smeared with red.

A scream died in Ciri’s throat. Her hands trembled as she reached for her sword.

‘Murderer,’ she said, astonished at the strangeness of her voice, at the strangeness of her lips, which had suddenly become horrendously dry.

‘Murderer! Bastard!’

Bonhart observed her curiously, tilting his head slightly.

‘Are you going to die too?’ he asked.

Ciri walked towards him, skirting around him in a semi-circle. The sword in his raised and extended hands moved around, deceiving, beguiling.

The bounty hunter laughed loudly.

‘Die!’ he repeated. ‘The she-rat wants to die!’

He moved around slowly, standing on the spot, not allowing himself to be lured into the trap of the semi-circle. But it was all the same to Ciri. She was boiling over with ferocity and hatred, trembling with the lust for murder. She wanted to strike that ghastly old man, feel her blade cut into his body. She wanted to see his blood gushing from severed arteries in the final beats of his heart.

‘Well, little Rat.’ Bonhart raised his bloody sword and spat on the blade. ‘Before you die, show me what there is in you! Let the music play!’

‘Truly, no one knows how that they did not slaughter each other during the first clash,’ Nycklar, the son of the coffin maker said, six days later. ‘They wanted to slaughter each other, that was clear to see. She to murder him and he her. They flew at each other, came together for a split second and there was a mighty clash of swords. They exchanged mebbes two, mebbes three blows each. There ain’t a man what could of counted it, by sight or by hearing. So swiftly did they strike, m’lord, that not a man’s eye nor ear could have grasped it. And how they danced and leaped around each other, like two weasels!’

Stefan Skellen, called Tawny Owl, listened attentively, playing with a knout.