—Does any of you speak the common tongue? I don't know it well...
—An váill. Vort uinge —the dryad cut in.
—I am Gwynbleidd, the White Wolf. Lady Eithné knows me. I am going to see her with a message. I have been in Brokilon before, in Duén Canell.
—Gwynbleidd —the reddish-haired dryad narrowed her eyes—. Vatt'ghern?
—Yes —Geralt confirmed—. I am a Witcher.
The olive-skinned dryad snorted coldly. But she lowered her bow.
The one with the reddish hair, who seemed to be the leader, looked at Geralt with her eyes wide open. Her face, crossed by the green bands painted with walnut shell, remained completely motionless. Dead. Like the face of a statue carved in stone, conveying a sense of absolute indifference.
A tense silence settled between them. Geralt heard Zywiecki groaning from inside the hollow. The elder dryad must have heard it too, but her face did not change a millimeter.
The witcher placed his hands on his hips.
—In that hollow over there —he said calmly—, there is a wounded man. If he is not given help, he will die.
—Tháess aep! —the olive-skinned one immediately drew her bow again, aiming the arrowhead directly at his face.
—Will you just let him die alone? —Geralt did not raise his voice—. Will you allow him to simply bleed out slowly? In that case, it would be better to finish him off.
—Shut your mouth! —the dryad howled, switching to the common tongue.
But she lowered her bow. She relaxed the string and glanced at the elder. The reddish-haired one nodded with an almost imperceptible movement of her head and pointed toward the hollow. The olive-skinned one ran off, disappearing among the trees before Geralt could blink.
—I want to see Lady Eithné —the witcher repeated—. I bring a message.
—She —the elder pointed to the honey-haired dryad— will take you to Duén Canell. Go.
—And the wounded man? Zywie...
The dryad looked at him, narrowing her eyes. Her fingers still toyed with the arrow nocked on the bowstring, stroking the feathers with her thumb.
—Don't worry —she said—. Go. She will take you there.
—But...
—Va'en vort! —she cut him off, pressing her lips together until the green stripes on her face distorted.
Geralt shrugged and turned to the honey-haired dryad. She seemed the youngest of the three, though he knew he could be wrong. In Brokilon, appearances were deceiving. When their eyes met, Geralt noticed a detail he had missed before: this dryad's eyes were blue. A bright, clear blue, like the morning sky over Kaer Morhen.
—Let's go, then.
—Come —the girl said softly.
She hesitated for a moment. Then, with a quick gesture, she returned his sword. Geralt sheathed it on his back without comment.
—Let's go.
—What's your name? —Geralt asked as they started walking.
—Shut your mouth.
The dryad plunged into the thicket at a brisk pace, without looking back. Her bare feet seemed to float over the undergrowth, dodging roots and fallen branches with supernatural grace. Geralt had to push himself to keep up, pushing aside low-hanging branches and leaping over moss-covered logs. He knew the girl was doing it on purpose. She wanted the human following her to get stuck in the brush, to fall to the ground exhausted, unable to keep going. It was a silent test, a small childish prank.
But she didn't know she was dealing with a witcher, not an ordinary human. She was too young to know what a witcher was.
The girl stopped suddenly and turned her head. Her breasts heaved violently beneath the velvet fabric, and it was only with great effort that she managed to avoid breathing through her mouth. The exertion of the run had flushed her cheeks with a faint blush that showed beneath the painted stripes.
Geralt, however, had not altered his breathing. He watched her with his cat-like eyes, saying nothing, not gloating over the small victory. He simply waited for the girl to catch her breath, leaning against the trunk of a birch tree, as the silence of the forest closed in around them again.
—Shall we slow down? —Geralt proposed, with a smile that barely curved the corner of his lips.
—Yeá —the girl looked at him with disgust, as if the witcher's smile had personally offended her—. Aeén esseáth Sidh?
—No, I'm not an elf. What's your name?
—Braenn —she replied, and resumed walking without further ceremony.
But this time she walked more slowly. Without trying to leave him behind.
They walked side by side, so close that their shoulders almost brushed as they dodged the same low-hanging branches. Geralt caught the smell of her sweat, an ordinary sweat, salty and human. Nothing like the sweat of pure-blooded dryads, which smelled of willow leaves.
—And what was your name before?
Braenn looked at him. Her lips pressed together into a thin line. Geralt thought she would get angry, or tell him to shut his mouth again, but she didn't.
—I don't remember —she said, and her voice sounded uncertain, as if she had just discovered it was true.
The witcher glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, not believing her.
She looked no more than sixteen. She couldn't have been in Brokilon for more than six or seven years, perhaps less. If she had arrived there earlier, as a very young child or a newborn, she would no longer recognize the human in herself. Her blue eyes and naturally light hair also occurred among the dryads. The children of dryads, conceived through contact with elves or humans, took on organic characteristics only from their mothers and were always born female. Very rarely, usually once a generation, one was born with eyes or hair inherited from the anonymous male genes of their fathers. But Geralt was sure that Braenn did not have a single drop of dryad blood. This girl had been converted from a human.
—And you —she shot him a sidelong glance— what should I call you?
—Gwynbleidd.
Braenn tilted her head, testing the name in silence.
—Let's continue, then... Gwynbleidd.
If he had been alone, Geralt would not have been able to keep either the pace or the correct direction in this forest. The girl led him along winding paths masked behind barriers of thickets that seemed impenetrable until she pushed them aside with a simple gesture of her hand.
Despite the speed of their march, they had to stop to rest. The sun collapsed behind the trees, and the darkness of Brokilon fell over them like a damp cloak.
In the middle of the night, when the temperature dropped, Braenn embraced him and pressed herself tightly against his chest to warm herself against the cold of the forest.
At dawn, with the light still weak and milky, barely filtering through the treetops, they resumed their journey.