Roger Chi

Blood of Elves

Andrzej Sapkowski

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  1. Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf’s blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of the Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but will burst into flame. Ess’tuath esse! Thus it shall be! Watch for the signs! What signs these shall be, I say unto you: first the earth will flow with the blood of Aen Seidhe, the Blood of Elves…Aen Ithlinnespeath, Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien’s prophecy

CHAPTER ONE

  1. “Every swordsman’s an arse when the enemy’s not sparse,”

CHAPTER TWO

  1. She slipped the fur cape from her shoulders, removed her fox-fur hat and, with a swift movement of the head, tousled her hair –long, full locks the colour of fresh chestnuts, with a sheen of gold, her pride and identifying characteristic. Ciri sighed with admiration. Triss smiled, pleased by the effect she’d had. Beautiful, long, loose hair was a rarity, an indication of a woman’s position, her status, the sign of a free woman, a woman who belonged to herself. The sign of an unusual woman –because “normal”maidens wore their hair in plaits, “normal”married women hid theirs beneath a caul or a coif. Women of high birth, including queens, curled their hair and styled it. Warriors cut it short. Only druids and magicians –and whores –wore their hair naturally so as to emphasise their independence and freedom.
  2. Even when something bad happens to you, you have to go straight back to that piece of equipment or you get frightened. And if you’re frightened you’ll be hopeless at the exercise. You mustn’t give up. Geralt said so.”
  3. “That girl,”said Geralt quietly and calmly, “that petite, delicate princess lived through the Massacre of Cintra. Left entirely to her own devices, she stole past Nilfgaard’s cohorts. She successfully fled the marauders who prowled the villages, plundering and murdering anything that still lived. She survived on her own for two weeks in the forests of Transriver, entirely alone. She spent a month roaming with a pack of fugitives, slogging as hard as all the others and starving like all the others. For almost half a year, having been taken in by a peasant family, she worked on the land and with the livestock. Believe me, Triss, life has tried, seasoned and hardened her no less than good-for-nothings like us, who were brought to Kaer Morhen from the highways. Ciri is no weaker than unwanted bastards, like us, who were left with witchers in taverns like kittens in a wicker basket. And her gender? What difference does that make?”
  4. in his day the world was a better place. Duplicity was a character flaw to be ashamed of. Sincerity did not bring shame.

CHAPTER THREE

  1. “I saw… In Sodden and in Transriver… Entire fields… They were lying there, being eaten by wolves and wild dogs. Birds were picking at them… I guess there were ghouls there too…”
  2. When you know about something it stops being a nightmare. When you know how to fight something, it stops being so threatening.
  3. witcher doesn’t use light or fire because it makes it harder to see. Every light creates a shadow and shadows make it harder to get your bearings. One must always fight in darkness, by moon or starlight.”
  4. I’m a witcher: an artificially created mutant. I kill monsters for money. I defend children when their parents pay me to. If Nilfgaardian parents pay me, I’ll defend Nilfgaardian children. And even if the world lies in ruin –which does not seem likely to me –I’ll carry on killing monsters in the ruins of this world until some monster kills me. That is my fate, my reason, my life and my attitude to the world. And it is not what I chose. It was chosen for me.”
  5. No witcher has yet died of old age, lying in bed dictating his will. Not a single one.
  6. I know I’m going to die in some cave which stinks of carcases, torn apart by a griffin, lamia or manticore. But I don’t want to die in a war, because they’re not my wars.”
  7. You are not learning in order to kill and be killed. You are not learning to kill out of fear and hatred, but in order to save lives. Your own and those of others.”
  8. “Who do you want to deceive, Geralt? Me? Her? Or maybe yourself? Maybe you don’t want to admit the truth, a truth everyone knows except you? Maybe you don’t want to accept the fact that human emotions and feelings weren’t killed in you by the elixirs and Grasses! You killed them! You killed them yourself! But don’t you dare kill them in the child!”

CHAPTER FOUR

  1. I can groom the horses, carry water and firewood, even cook. But I will not enter the king’s service as a soldier. Please don’t count on my sword. I have no intention of killing those, as you call them, evil creatures on the order of other creatures whom I do not consider to be any better.”
  2. “If the Scoia’tael attack us, your Geralt intends to stand by and look calmly on as they cut our throats. You’ll probably stand next to him, because it’ll be a demonstration class. Today’s subject: the witcher’s behaviour in the face of conflict between intelligent races.”
  3. “Because you multiply like rabbits.”The dwarf ground his teeth. “You’d do nothing but screw day in day out, without discrimination, with just anyone and anywhere. And it’s enough for your women to just sit on a man’s trousers and it makes their bellies swell…Why have you gone so red, crimson as a poppy? You wanted to know, didn’t you? So you’ve got the honest truth and faithful history of a world where he who shatters the skulls of others most efficiently and swells women’s bellies fastest, reigns. And it’s just as hard to compete with you people in murdering as it is in screwing—”
  4. “Yarpen?”“Yes?”“Who’s right? The Squirrels or you? Geralt wants to be…neutral. You serve King Henselt even though you’re a dwarf. And the knight in the fort shouted that everybody’s our enemy and that everyone’s got to be…Everyone. Even the children. Why, Yarpen? Who’s right?”“I don’t know,”said the dwarf with some effort. “I’m not omniscient. I’m doing what I think right. The Squirrels have taken up their weapons and gone into the woods. ‘Humans to the sea,’they’re shouting, not realising that their catchy slogan was fed them by Nilfgaardian emissaries. Not understanding that the slogan is not aimed at them but plainly at humans, that it’s meant to ignite human hatred, not fire young elves to battle. I understood –that’s why I consider the Scoia’tael’s actions criminally stupid. What to do? Maybe in a few years time I’ll be called a traitor who sold out and they’ll be heroes…Our history, the history of our world, has seen events turn out like that.”He fell silent, ruffled his beard. Ciri also remained silent.
  5. Let them call me a traitor and a coward. Because I, Yarpen Zigrin, coward, traitor and renegade, state that we should not kill each other. I state that we ought to live. Live in such a way that we don’t, later, have to ask anyone for forgiveness.
  6. “We’re not different at all, Yarpen.”The dwarf turned abruptly. “We’re not different at all,”repeated Ciri. “After all, you think and feel like Geralt. And like…like I do. We eat the same things, from the same pot. You help Triss and so do I. You had a grandmother and I had a grandmother…My grandmother was killed by the Nilfgaardians. In Cintra.”“And mine by the humans,”the dwarf said with some effort. “In Brugge. During the pogrom.”
  7. Ciri wiped her face, looked down at her hand, taken aback. Her palm was wet. The girl sniffed and wiped the tears with her sleeve. Neutrality? Indifference? She wanted to scream. A witcher looking on indifferently? No! A witcher has to defend people. From the leshy, the vampire, the werewolf. And not only from them. He has to defend people from every evil. And in Transriver I saw what evil is. A witcher has to defend and save. To defend men so that they aren’t hung on trees by their hands, aren’t impaled and left to die. To defend fair girls from being spread-eagled between stakes rammed into the ground. Defend children so they aren’t slaughtered and thrown into a well. Even a cat burned alive in a torched barn deserves to be defended. That’s why I’m going to become a witcher, that’s why I’ve got a sword, to defend people like those in Sodden and Transriver –because they don’t have swords, don’t know the steps, half-turns, dodges and pirouettes. No one has taught them how to fight, they are defenceless and helpless in face of the werewolf and the Nilfgaardian marauder. They’re teaching me to fight so that I can defend the helpless. And that’s what I’m going to do. Never will I be neutral. Never will I be indifferent. Never!
  8. Geralt put his arms around Ciri. Slowly, he unpinned the white rose, spattered with dark stains, from her jerkin and, without a word, threw it on the Squirrel’s body. “Farewell,”whispered Ciri. “Farewell, Rose of Shaerrawedd. Farewell and…”“And forgive us,”added the witcher.

CHAPTER FIVE

  1. Shani smiled even more beautifully and Dandilion was once more filled with the desire to finally compose a ballad about girls like her –not too pretty but nonetheless beautiful, girls of whom one dreams at night when those of classical beauty are forgotten after five minutes.
  2. Dandilion knew that similar duels of words and allusions –demonstrating a mutual fascination –waged between the witcher and enchantresses very often ended in bed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. Yennefer was very beautiful. Compared to the delicate, pale and rather common comeliness of the priestesses and novices who Ciri saw every day, the magician glowed with a conscious, even demonstrative loveliness, emphasised and accentuated in every detail. Her raven-black locks cascading down her shoulders shone, reflected the light like the feathers of a peacock, curling and undulating with every move.
  2. “Nonsense. Geralt has been brandishing his sword for his whole life and his fingers are agile and… mmmm… very gentle.
  3. That laughter, thought Ciri watching swarms of black birds flying eastwards, that laughter, shared and sincere, really brought us together, her and me. We understood –both she and I –that we can laugh and talk together about him. About Geralt. Suddenly we became close, although I knew perfectly well that Geralt both brought us together and separated us, and that that’s how it would always be.
  4. “But I don’t want to…don’t want to be ugly. I want to be pretty. Really pretty, like you, Lady Yennefer. Can I, through magic, be as pretty as you one day?”“You…Fortunately you don’t have to…You don’t need magic for it. You don’t know how lucky you are.”“But I want to be really pretty!”“You are really pretty. A really pretty ugly one. My pretty little ugly one…”“Oh, Lady Yennefer!”