Fans of The Witcher may be waiting awhile for the show to return to Netflix, but something just as exciting is coming very soon: Andrzej Sapkowski‘s first new Witcher book in over a decade, Crossroads of Ravens. It’s getting a global release September 30, translated into various languages (the English version is from series veteran David French), and io9 has an exclusive excerpt to share today.
Here’s a summary of what you can expect from this standalone work:
“Before he was the White Wolf or the Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt of Rivia was simply a fresh graduate of Kaer Morhen, stepping into a world that neither understands nor welcomes his kind.
And when an act of naïve heroism goes gravely wrong, Geralt is only saved from the noose by Preston Holt, a grizzled witcher with a buried past and an agenda of his own.
Under Holt’s guiding hand, Geralt begins to learn what it truly means to walk the Path—to protect a world that fears him, and to survive in it on his own terms. But as the line between right and wrong begins to blur, Geralt must decide to become the monster everyone expects, or something else entirely.
This is the story of how legends are made—and what they cost.”
Read on for an exclusive excerpt from Crossroads of Ravens, where a young Geralt has recently been rescued from the noose by a mysterious Witcher named Preston Holt…
The Kingdom of Kaedwen was known throughout the inhabited world for its cold and capricious weather. Enclosed from the north by the barrier of the Dragon Mountains, and from the east by the great massif of the Blue Mountains, the land suffered from erratic and frequent visitations of air masses causing long and bitter winters, cold springs and short, rainy summers. As regards autumn, it varied—once sunny, warm and pleasant—once nothing of the kind.
Now, in the month of March, called “Birke” by the elves, the snow still remained here and there in ravines and hollows, while white patches lay in depressions in glades. Ice still covered some puddles and dykes in yellowing sheets. Although the sun gave off some warmth, when frosty winds blew from the mountains, they stung no less than in January.
Geralt had set off from Kaer Morhen the day before the Equinox. That was the custom of witchers. It was thus practised because after the winter monsters were at their hungriest, and so vicious that folk in villages and settlements were inclined to indulge in the hiring of a witcher, even though during the hungry gap they had eaten their stores and were practically destitute. But Geralt never got the chance to be hired. For things went as they went; barely two days’ ride from the mountains and bang! the peasant and his daughter, the marauders, the bald enforcer with the rotten teeth, wham, bam, and here we are. He had found himself being judged by Alderman Bulava of Neuhold, and then being rescued from that and the threat of being lynched by soldiers from the nearby fort by the strange white-haired individual with two swords on his back, riding a black horse, whom Geralt was now following.
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