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The taller of the women suddenly swayed, legs planted widely apart, and twisted her hips. Her sabre, which no one saw her draw, hissed sharply through the air. The spotty-faced man’s head flew upwards in an arc and fell into the gaping opening to the dungeon. His body toppled stiffly and heavily, like a tree being felled, among the crushed bricks. The crowd let out a scream. The second woman, hand on her sword hilt, whirled around nimbly, protecting her partner’s back. Needlessly. The crowd, stumbling and falling over on the rubble, fled towards the town as fast as they could. The Alderman loped at the front with impressive strides, outdistancing the huge butcher by only a few yards.
‘An excellent stroke,’ the white-haired man commented coldly, shielding his eyes from the sun with a black-gloved hand. ‘An excellent stroke from a Zerrikanian sabre. I bow before the skill and beauty of the free warriors. I’m Geralt of Rivia.’
‘And I,’ the stranger in the dark brown tunic pointed at the faded coat of arms on the front of his garment, depicting three black birds sitting in a row in the centre of a uniformly gold field, ‘am Borch, also known as Three Jackdaws. And these are my girls, Téa and Véa. That’s what I call them, because you’ll twist your tongue on their right names. They are both, as you correctly surmised, Zerrikanian.’
‘Thanks to them, it appears, I still have my horse and belongings. I thank you, warriors. My thanks to you too, sir.’
‘Three Jackdaws. And you can drop the “sir”. Does anything detain you in this little town, Geralt of Rivia?’
‘Quite the opposite.’
‘Excellent. I have a proposal. Not far from here, at the crossroads on the road to the river port, is an inn. It’s called the Pensive Dragon. The vittals there have no equal in these parts. I’m heading there with food and lodging in mind. It would be my honour should you choose to keep me company.’
‘Borch.’ The white-haired man turned around from his horse and looked into the stranger’s bright eyes. ‘I wouldn’t want anything left unclear between us. I’m a witcher.’
‘I guessed as much. But you said it as you might have said “I’m a leper”.’
‘There are those,’ Geralt said slowly, ‘who prefer the company of lepers to that of a witcher.’
‘There are also those,’ Three Jackdaws laughed, ‘who prefer sheep to girls. Ah, well, one can only sympathise with the former and the latter. I repeat my proposal.’
Geralt took off his glove and shook the hand being proffered.