'Quiet, Alderman, and stay out of this, or you're in for a hiding,' the spotty-faced man warned. 'A sturdy mare, and saddlebags nicely stuffed. And we'll take the sorcerer's horse and chattels. 'For there's no one to pay for the basilisk. 'You've saved yourself a shilling, Alderman,' the spotty-faced man added. And you can't kill a basilisk without a looking glass, everyone knows that.' Why, he even went in without a looking glass, taking only a sword.

It was plain from the start he was heading to his doom, just like the others. 'And now he's dead, sure as eggs is eggs. 'We made a deal with a living man, Alderman,' said the spotty-faced man's companion, a giant in a leather butcher's apron. 'But we struck a deal,' the fat man muttered hesitantly. Haven't enough people perished? Why wait?' 'Have you forgotten, Alderman, that a basilisk is lurking in that there dungeon? No one who goes in there comes out.

'For what?' the spotty-faced man snarled. 'Let's wait a little longer,' he said, wiping the sweat from his thinning eyebrows. A fat man in a yellow jerkin shifted from one foot to the other, cleared his throat and took off his crumpled biretta. The townspeople, crammed among the ruins, stared in silence at the black hole gaping in the debris, at the rubble-strewn opening. 'It's been an hour and a quarter since he went down. 'He won't get out of there, I'm telling you,' the pockmarked man said, shaking his head with conviction. In this second collection of short stories, following the adventures of the hit collection The Last Wish, join Geralt as he battles monsters, demons and prejudices alike. and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.Īndrzej Sapkowski, winner of the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award, started an international phenomenon with his Witcher series. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil not everything fair is good. Yet he is no ordinary killer: he hunts the vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers and lifelong training have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin.

Geralt the Witcher - revered and hated - holds the line against the monsters plaguing humanity in the bestselling series that inspired the hit Witcher Netflix show and video games.

Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski