Something More 1

SOMETHING MORE

I

When hooves suddenly rapped on the timbers of the bridge, Yurga did not even raise his head; he just howled softly, released the wheel rim he was grappling with and crawled under the cart as quickly as he could. Flattened, scraping his back against the rough manure and mud caked onto the underside of the vehicle, he whined and trembled with fear.

The horse moved slowly towards the cart. Yurga saw it place its hooves cautiously on the rotted, moss-covered timbers.

‘Get out,’ the unseen horseman said. Yurga’s teeth chattered and he pulled his head into his shoulders. The horse snorted and stamped.

‘Easy, Roach,’ the horseman said. Yurga heard him pat his mount on the neck. ‘Get out from under there, fellow. I won’t do you any harm.’ The merchant did not believe the stranger’s declaration in the slightest. There was something calming and at the same time intriguing in his voice, however, though it was by no means a voice which could be described as pleasant. Yurga, mumbling prayers to a dozen deities all at once, timidly stuck his head out from under the cart.

The horseman had hair as white as milk, tied back from his forehead with a leather band, and a black, woollen cloak falling over the rump of the chestnut mare. He did not look at Yurga. Leaning from his saddle, he was examining the cartwheel, sunk up to the hub between the bridge’s broken beams. He suddenly raised his head, flicked a gaze over the merchant and observed the undergrowth above the banks of the ravine.

Yurga scrambled out, blinked and rubbed his nose with a hand, smearing wood tar from the wheel hub over his face. The horseman fixed dark, narrowed, piercing eyes, as sharp as a spear tip, on him. Yurga was silent.

‘The two of us won’t be able to pull it out,’ said the stranger finally, pointing at the stuck wheel. ‘Were you travelling alone?’ ‘There were three of us,’ Yurga stammered. ‘Servants, sir. But they fled, the scoundrels…’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said the horseman, looking under the bridge towards the bottom of the ravine. ‘I’m not surprised at all. I think you ought to do the same. Time is short.’ Yurga did not follow the stranger’s gaze. He did not want to look at the mass of skulls, ribs and shinbones scattered among the rocks, peeping out from the burdock and nettles covering the bottom of the dried-up stream. He was afraid that with just one more glance, one more glimpse of the black eye sockets, grinning teeth and cracked bones, something would snap in him, the remains of his desperate courage would escape like air from a fish’s bladder, and he would dash back up the highway, stifling a scream, just as the carter and his lad had less than an hour before.

‘What are you waiting for?’ the horseman asked softly, reining his horse around. ‘For nightfall? It’ll be too late then. They’ll come for you as soon as it begins to get dark. Or maybe even sooner. Let’s go, jump up behind me. Let’s both get out of here as quick as we can.’ ‘But the cart, sir?’ Yurga howled at the top of his voice, not knowing if from fear, despair or rage. ‘And my goods? That’s a whole year’s work! I’d rather drop dead! I’m not leaving it!’ ‘I think you still don’t know where the bloody hell you are, friend,’ the stranger said calmly, extending a hand towards the ghastly graveyard beneath the bridge. ‘Won’t leave your cart, you say? I tell you, when darkness falls not even King Dezmod’s treasury will save you, never mind your lousy cart. What the hell came over you to take a shortcut through this wilderness? Don’t you know what has infested this place since the war?’ Yurga shook his head.

‘You don’t know,’ nodded the stranger. ‘But you’ve seen what’s down there? It’d be difficult not to notice. That’s all the other men who took a shortcut through here. And you say you won’t leave your cart. And what, I wonder, do you have in your cart?’ Yurga did not reply, but glowered at the horseman, trying to choose between ‘oakum’ and ‘old rags’.

The horseman did not seem particularly interested in the answer. He reassured his chestnut, who was chewing its bit and tossing its head.

‘Please, sir…’ the merchant finally muttered. ‘Help me. Save me. My eternal gratitude… Don’t leave… I’ll give you whatever you want, whatever you ask… Save me, sir!’ The stranger, resting both hands on the pommel of his saddle, suddenly turned his head towards him.

‘What did you say?’

Yurga opened his mouth but said nothing.

‘You’ll give me whatever I ask for? Say it again.’

Yurga smacked his lips, closed his mouth and wished he was agile enough to kick himself in the arse. His head was spinning with fantastic theories as to the reward that this weird stranger might demand. Most of them, including the privilege of weekly use of his rosy-cheeked young wife, did not seem as awful as the prospect of losing the cart, and certainly not as macabre as the possibility of ending up at the bottom of the canyon as one more bleached skeleton. His merchant’s experience forced him into some rapid calculations. The horseman, although he did not resemble a typical ruffian, tramp or marauder–of which there were plenty on the roads after the war–surely wasn’t a magnate or governor either, nor one of those proud little knights with a high opinion of themselves who derive pleasure from robbing the shirt off their neighbours’ backs. Yurga reckoned him at no more than twenty pieces of gold. However, his commercial instincts stopped him from naming a price. So he limited himself to mumbling something about ‘lifelong gratitude’.

‘I asked you,’ the stranger calmly reminded him, after waiting for the merchant to be quiet, ‘if you’ll give me whatever I ask for?’ There was no way out. Yurga swallowed, bowed his head and nodded his agreement. The stranger, in spite of Yurga’s expectations, did not laugh portentously; quite the opposite, he did not show any sign of being delighted by his victory in the negotiations. Leaning over in the saddle, he spat into the ravine.

‘What am I doing?’ he said grimly. ‘What the fuck am I doing? Well, so be it. I’ll try to get you out of this, though I don’t know that it won’t finish disastrously for us both. But if I succeed, in exchange you will…’ Yurga curled up, close to tears.

‘You will give me,’ the horseman in the black cloak suddenly and quickly recited, ‘whatever you come across at home on your return, but did not expect. Do you swear?’ Yurga groaned and nodded quickly.

‘Good,’ the stranger grimaced. ‘And now stand aside. It would be best if you got back under the cart. The sun is about to set.’ He dismounted and took his cloak from his shoulders. Yurga saw that the stranger was carrying a sword on his back, on a belt slung diagonally across his chest. He had a vague sense he had once heard of people with a similar way of carrying a weapon. The black, leather, hip-length jacket with long sleeves sparkling with silver studs might have indicated that the stranger came from Novigrad or the surroundings, but the fashion for such dress had recently become widespread, particularly among youngsters. Although this stranger was no youngster.

After removing his saddlebags from his mount the horseman turned around. A round medallion hung on a silver chain around his neck. He was holding a small, metal-bound chest and an oblong parcel wrapped in skins and fastened with a strap under one arm.

‘Aren’t you under the cart yet?’ he asked, approaching. Yurga saw that a wolf’s head with open jaws and armed with fangs was depicted on the medallion. He suddenly recalled.

‘Would you be… a witcher? Sir?’

The stranger shrugged.

‘You guess right. A witcher. Now move away. To the other side of the cart. Don’t come out from there and be silent. I must be alone for a while.’ Yurga obeyed. He hunkered down by the wheel, wrapped in a mantle. He didn’t want to look at what the stranger was doing on the other side of the cart, even less at the bones at the bottom of the ravine. So he looked at his boots and at the green, star-shaped shoots of moss growing on the bridge’s rotten timbers.

A witcher.

The sun was setting.

He heard footsteps.

Slowly, very slowly, the stranger moved out from behind the cart, into the centre of the bridge. He had his back to Yurga, who saw that the sword on his back was not the sword he had seen earlier. Now it was a splendid weapon; the hilt, crossguard and fittings of the scabbard shone like stars. Even in the gathering darkness they reflected light, although there was almost none; not even the golden-purple glow which a short while earlier had been hanging over the forest.

‘Sir—’

The stranger turned his head. Yurga barely stifled a scream.

The stranger’s face was white–white and porous, like cheese drained and unwrapped from a cloth. And his eyes… Ye Gods, something howled inside Yurga. His eyes… ‘Behind the cart. Now,’ the stranger rasped. It was not the voice Yurga had heard before. The merchant suddenly felt his full bladder troubling him terribly. The stranger turned and walked further along the bridge.

A witcher.

The horse tied to the cart’s rack snorted, neighed, and stamped its hooves dully on the beams.

A mosquito buzzed above Yurga’s ear. The merchant did not even move a hand to shoo it away. A second one joined it. Whole clouds of mosquitoes were buzzing in the thicket on the far side of the ravine. Buzzing.

And howling.

Yurga, clenching his teeth till they hurt, realised they were not mosquitoes.

From the thickening darkness on the overgrown side of the ravine emerged some small, misshapen forms–less than four feet tall, horribly gaunt, like skeletons. They stepped onto the bridge with a peculiar, heron-like gait, feet high, making staccato, jerky movements as they lifted their bony knees. Their eyes, beneath flat, dirty foreheads, shone yellow, and pointed little fangs gleamed white in wide, frog-like maws. They came closer, hissing.

The stranger, as still as a statue in the centre of the bridge, suddenly raised his right hand, making a bizarre shape with his fingers. The monstrous little beasts retreated, hissing loudly, before once again moving forwards, quickly, quicker and quicker, on their long, spindly, taloned forefeet.

Claws scraped on the timbers to the left, as another monster jumped out from under the bridge, and the remaining ones on the bank rushed forwards in bewildering leaps. The stranger spun around on the spot and the sword, which had suddenly appeared in his hand, flashed. The head of the creature scrambling onto the bridge flew two yards up into the air, trailing a ribbon of blood behind it. Then the white-haired man fell on a group of them and whirled, slashing swiftly all around him. The monsters, flailing their arms and wailing, attacked him from all sides, ignoring the luminous blade cutting them like a razor. Yurga cowered, hugging the cart.

Something fell right at his feet, bespattering him with gore. It was a long, bony hand, four-clawed and scaly, like a chicken’s foot.

The merchant screamed.

He sensed something flitting past him. He cowered, intending to dive under the cart, just as something landed on his neck, and a scaly hand seized him by the temple and cheek. He covered his eyes, howling and jerking his head, leaped to his feet and staggered into the middle of the bridge, stumbling over the corpses sprawled across the timbers. A battle was raging there–but Yurga could not see anything apart from a furious swarm, a mass, within which the silver blade kept flashing.

‘Help meeeee!’ he howled, feeling the sharp fangs penetrating the felt of his hood and digging into the back of his head.

‘Duck!’

He pressed his chin down onto his chest, looking out for the flash of the blade. It whined in the air and grazed his hood. Yurga heard a hideous, wet crunching sound and then a hot liquid gushed down his back. He fell to his knees, dragged down by the now inert weight hanging from his neck.

He watched as three more monsters scuttled out from under the bridge. Leaping like bizarre grasshoppers, they latched onto the stranger’s thighs. One of them, slashed with a short blow across its toadlike muzzle, took a few steps upright and fell onto the timbers. Another, struck with the very tip of the sword, collapsed in squirming convulsions. The remaining ones swarmed like ants over the white-haired man, pushing him towards the edge of the bridge. One flew out of the swarm bent backwards, spurting blood, quivering and howling, and right then the entire seething mass staggered over the edge and plummeted into the ravine. Yurga fell to the ground, covering his head with his hands.

From below the bridge he heard the monsters’ triumphant squeals, suddenly transforming into howls of pain, those howls silenced by the whistling of the blade. Then from the darkness came the rattle of stones and the crunch of skeletons being trodden on and crushed, and then once again came the whistle of a falling sword and a despairing, bloodcurdling shriek which suddenly broke off.

And then there was only silence, interrupted by the sudden cry of a terrified bird, deep in the forest among the towering trees. And then the bird fell silent too.

Yurga swallowed, raised his head and stood up with difficulty. It was still quiet; not even the leaves rustled, the entire forest seemed to be dumbstruck with terror. Ragged clouds obscured the sky.

‘Hey…’

He turned around, involuntarily protecting himself with raised arms. The Witcher stood before him, motionless, black, with the shining sword in his lowered hand. Yurga noticed he was standing somehow crookedly, leaning over to one side.

‘What’s the matter, sir?’

The Witcher did not reply. He took a step, clumsily and heavily, limping on his left leg. He held out a hand and grasped the cart. Yurga saw blood, black and shining, dripping onto the timbers.

‘You’re wounded, sir!’

The Witcher did not reply. Looking straight into the merchant’s eyes, he fell against the cart’s box and slowly collapsed onto the bridge.