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rift opening under his feet. Yennefer, yanked by the arm, got up onto her knees. Her eyes were wide open and the trickle of blood running down from her cut brow had already reached her ear.
    ‘Stand up, Yen!’
    ‘Geralt! Look out!’
    An enormous, flat block of stone, scraping against the side of the rock wall with a grinding, clattering sound, slid down and plummeted towards them. Geralt dropped, shielding the sorcereress with his body. At the very same moment the block exploded, bursting into a billion fragments, which rained down on them, stinging like wasps.
    ‘Quick!’ Dorregaray cried. Brandishing his wand atop the skittering horse, he blasted more boulders which were tumbling down from the cliff into dust. ‘Onto the bridge, Witcher!’
    Yennefer waved a hand, bending her fingers and shrieking incomprehensibly. As the stones came into contact with the bluish hemisphere which had suddenly materialised above their heads they vaporised like drops of water falling on red-hot metal.
    ‘Onto the bridge, Geralt!’ the sorceress yelled. ‘Stay close to me!’ They ran, following Dorregaray and several fleeing bowmen. The bridge rocked and creaked, the timbers bending in all directions as it flung them from railing to railing.
    ‘Quick!’
    The bridge suddenly slumped with a piercing, penetrating crack, and the half they had just crossed broke off, tumbling with a clatter into the gulf, taking the dwarves’ wagon with it, which shattered against the rocky teeth to the sound of the horses’ frantic whinnying. The part they were now standing on was still intact, but Geralt suddenly realised they were now running upwards across a rapidly tilting slope. Yennefer panted a curse.
    ‘Get down, Yen! Hang on!’
    The rest of the bridge grated, cracked and sagged into a ramp. They fell with it, digging their fingers into the cracks between the timbers. Yennefer could not hold on. She squealed like a little girl and dropped. Geralt, hanging on with one hand, drew a dagger, plunged the blade between the timbers and seized the haft in both hands. His elbow joints creaked as Yennefer tugged him down, suspended by the belt and scabbard slung across his back. The bridge made a cracking noise again and tilted even more, almost vertically.
    ‘Yen,’ the Witcher grunted. ‘Do something… Cast a bloody spell!’
    ‘How can I?’ he heard a furious, muffled snarl. ‘I’m hanging on!’
    ‘Free one of your hands!’
    ‘I can’t…’
    ‘Hey!’ Dandelion yelled from above. ‘Can you hold on? Hey!’
    Geralt did not deign to reply.
    ‘Throw down a rope!’ Dandelion bellowed. ‘Quickly, dammit!’
    The Reavers, the dwarves and Gyllenstiern appeared beside the troubadour. Geralt heard Boholt’s quiet words.
    ‘Wait, busker. She’ll soon fall. Then we’ll pull the Witcher up.’
    Yennefer hissed like a viper, writhing and suspended from Geralt’s back. His belt dug painfully into his chest.
    ‘Yen? Can you find a hold? Using your legs? Can you do anything with your legs?’
    ‘Yes,’ she groaned. ‘Swing them around.’
    Geralt looked down at the river seething and swirling among the sharp rocks, against which some bridge timbers, a horse and a body in the bright colours of Caingorn were bumping. Beyond the rocks, in the emerald, transparent maelstrom, he saw the tapered bodies of large trout, languidly moving in the current.
    ‘Can you hold on, Yen?’
    ‘Just about… yes…’
    ‘Heave yourself up. You have to get a foothold…’
    ‘I… can’t…’
    ‘Throw down a rope!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘Have you all gone mad? They’ll both fall!’
    ‘Perhaps that’s not so bad?’ Gyllenstiern wondered, out of sight.
    The bridge creaked and sagged even more. Geralt’s fingers, gripping the hilt of his dagger, began to go numb.
    ‘Yen…’
    ‘Shut up… and stop wriggling about…’
    ‘Yen?’
    ‘Don’t call me that…’
    ‘Can you hold on?’
    ‘No,’ she said coldly. She was no longer struggling,