Dark Rot

by Simon McHardy

  The smirk died when she entered the cavern. The queen was dead. If the mound of meat with hues of necrotic purple was her majesty. Four guards and Bok lay squashed on the ground in a puddle of goo and gore like their garden cousins. Goron naked, but basted with a thick slime, had squeezed himself into a recess. He was curled into a semi-foetal position and rocked to and fro with his arms wrapped protectively around his lower body.

  “Are you okay?” Morwen said reluctantly patting his slimy shoulder.

  He flinched at her touch, eyes wide from the horrors he’d seen.

  “What went on in here?” Morwen asked wiping her hand on the wall.

  He blinked rapidly and shook his head to dislodge the hold his memories had on him.

  “The beginnings of a lifetime of celibacy.”

  “She’s dead,” Morwen said.

  “You killed her? You killed Gagurt?” Skruc said. He stepped towards her slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

  “Goron did. He throttled her.” Morwen grasped her throat and lolled out her tongue.

  Goron squeezed his eyes shut at the memory and shuddered.

  Eggs squealed, jumped on the table, upsetting dirty plates and mugs, and in a blur of legs began to tap dance.

  Skruc, his grin meeting at the back of his head, grasped Morwen by the wrists and whirled her around. The warlock became a smudge of sallow flesh emitting indignant cries as Skruc completed fifty revolutions around the room before they collapsed in a jumbled heap.

  Goron roared with laughter. Morwen disentangled herself from Skruc and shoved him aside. Glaring at Goron, she stomped to the fireplace.

  Not satisfied with his celebrations, Skruc jumped up on the table with Eggs and joined in the dancing.

  Morwen indulged Skruc in his triumphant caper before coaxing him down and reminding him it was time to fulfill his end of the bargain and change them back to humans. The wizard skipped over to his apothecary, selected a glass jar marked ‘hen’s heart’ from the shelf, and peered inside. “Oh dear, I seem to be all out.”

  “What do you mean?” Morwen said. She was fed up with feeling like a snot-sogged handkerchief. Slime coated everything she touched, and after two days as a slaug, she hadn’t yet figured out how to go to the bathroom.

  “I need hen’s heart to make the shape-changing potion and the jar’s empty.” The wizard inserted his hand into the jar. “Not even a pinch.”

  “What are you waiting for? A deal’s a deal, go and get some more,” Morwen snapped.

  “It only grows in the forest. I used to send Eggs out to get it, but after a few close calls with wolves, he refuses to leave the cave.” Eggs nodded his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to fetch it for me.”

  “That could be a problem,” Goron said. “The boggarts have spilled over the wall and are slaughtering slaugs on sight.”

  Skruc waved a hand dismissively. “No problem at all, we’ll just change you to boggarts. Now where did I put that bottle?” Skruc pulled down a jar ‘boggart hair’—it was empty.

  Morwen gritted her teeth and made tight fists.

  Eggs swiftly returned with a particularly hairy boggart. The unfortunate victim was expertly relieved of his body hair—boggarts’ heads are hairless—and sent on his way to ponder forever his bizarre abduction.

  After downing the foul-smelling brew that tasted like a clump of hair blocking a drain, Morwen, Goron and Szat sported the repulsive bodies of boggarts. The wizard furnished Morwen with the formula for the antidote, so they would be saved a return journey to the cave. The trio bade farewell to Skruc and Eggs. Skruc thanked them again for killing Gagurt, and Eggs collapsed in a flurry of furry legs over Goron while swearing his undying allegiance to the slayer of the slaugs’ queen.

  Morwen wasn’t sure being a boggart was much of an improvement on being a slaug. Her nose was so large and wobbly it obstructed much of her vision, she smelled of boiled cabbage, and her legs were so bandy she found it difficult to walk.

  The slaugs’ cavern was a hive of activity. The vat of sluugouak was empty. Drunken boggarts had banded together and were trying to outdo one another in their cruelties to the slaugs who, with their queen dead, saw no point in fighting back. A barrel of salt had been upturned, and the slaugs were being rolled through it like dough through flour. Some slaugs were being jumped on until they burst like caterpillars, and others were being slow-roasted over a bonfire until they shrivelled up to crunchy strips.

  “It looks like pork crackling,” Szat cried out digging his heels in Goron’s chest and tugging on his ears as if he were a horse. Seeing Goron’s huge axe, the boggarts kindly shared a piece of crunchy slaug with Szat who noisily munched it as they made their way across the killing grounds and into the boggarts’ caves.

  The boggarts’ caverns weren’t as orderly as the slaugs’. The corridors were choked with rotting food and rubbish. Some of the garbage had been used to bury the dead. Decomposing feet and arms poked out from the waste as hundreds of children clambered over the piles or hid among them. The stench was so bad Morwen dry-heaved her way through the chamber.

  Couples cavorted openly on the ground and extended invitations for Morwen and Goron to join them. One boggart female suckled a newborn. Its umbilical cord dangled from its belly while her lover made a sibling for it.

  What had they done? They’d upset a delicate ecosystem that’s what. Without the slaugs to control their numbers, the boggarts would breed like rats. When the caves became overpopulated, their prolific numbers would spill out and spread like a plague across the land.

  Guided by their large, wobbly noses they found the exit easily. The air became fresher by degrees, and their pace increased accordingly until they stumbled outside and into a cold autumn day. Morwen and Goron sucked in lungfuls of fresh air and grinned at each other with relief. They weren’t surrounded by trees, as they’d presumed, but crumbling stone buildings. Goron scratched at a stone pillar and examined his blackened finger. “It’s dark rot.”

  “It seems Wichsault’s not alone,” Morwen said. They wandered amongst the buildings with the wind howling around them like a banshee. The architecture didn’t differ much from Wichsault’s. There were lots of pointed arches and vaulted ceilings. In the middle of the town was a central tower which swept upward with height and grace despite its dilapidated condition.

  “Do you know who these people were?” Morwen said looking at Szat.

  “The Victains, they made the best roast pork. Their apple bread sauce was awful though.”

  It was a sobering sight. This would be Wichsault’s fate if they didn’t succeed in their task.

  Fat raindrops began to plink on the ground around them, and the sky darkened to the colour of a bruise. “We need to find some hen’s heart. The sooner we change the better. Who knows what predators boggarts have out here.”

  “What does it look like?” Goron asked pulling his cloak up against the rain.

  “Fleshy, red flowers, like a chicken’s heart really.”

  “Like those.” Goron pointed to Morwen’s feet.

  She was standing in a small patch of red flowers, the bleeding blooms crushed beneath her feet. “It’s these horrible, little pin prick eyes. I can’t see a thing.” Morwen plucked up a handful of petals and put them in her pocket with the other herbs Skruc had given her.

  They concocted the brew in the ruins of the great tower. The smoke from the fire spiralled up the rubbled stairs and out through the patches in the roof. The steaming hot brew scorched their throats as they drank, eager to return to their human forms. Back to themselves again, they huddled closer to the fire as the rain became a lake falling from the sky and chatted about how life in Wichsault was before the dark rot.

  “What are you going to do when this is all behind us?” Goron asked. He took a nibble of a square of hardtack. Their supplies were low. They were down to a pound of dried meat and hardta
ck and a handful of dried fruit.

  “I’m going to eat a whole sucking pig and a bucket of cook’s apple bread sauce.” The demon’s slug-like tongue dragged across his lips at the thought.

  Morwen glared at Szat. “I think he was talking to me. We have no doubt what you’d do, stuff your greedy face.” She turned to Goron and tilted her chin up regally. “I’m going to be the new justiciar. Yeston had his chance, and he blew it.”

  “Ah.” Goron’s brow creased, and he put the piece of hardtack he’d been eating upon the stone floor. Szat snatched it up and crammed it into his mouth. “I thought you would want an easier life after what we’ve been through.”

  “Huh,” Morwen scoffed. “I’ve no choice. If Wichsault is to survive, it will need the night mother’s help, and as her last emissary, the task falls to me.” The firelight gleamed in Morwen’s eyes. “What about you?”

  Goron poked at the fire with a stick. “I’m tired, Morwen, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “What, be captain of the guard?”

  “Any of it, the fighting, the drinking the…,” he trailed off embarrassed.

  “The womanising,” Szat added his mouth bulging with a cracker.

  “Yes, and that. I want to settle down, perhaps on one of the farms in Mournburn with a good woman and have children.”

  Morwen burst out laughing. “The great warrior, Goron, scourge of his enemies and a threat to women’s knickers everywhere, wants to be a farmer. I don’t believe it.” It was absurd. It was comparable to Morwen, the bane of Wichsault’s sick and dying, declaring she wanted to join the Sisters of Murdus.

  “People change,” Goron grumbled.

  The smirk dropped from Morwen’s face. She didn’t realise Goron was the sensitive type.

  A black-robed figure appeared in the doorway, as dark as the night outside and drifted toward the fire. At first Goron thought it was one of Morwen’s shadows come to do her bidding and remained seated, but when she scrambled for her weapon and jumped up, he did the same.

  The figure ignored the commotion and sat by the fire laying a gnarled staff with black berries and green, thorny leaves sprouting from the wood, at his side. Szat yawned and stretched out by the fire.

  “Who are you?” Morwen asked pointing her staff at the stranger.

  He pulled back his cowl to reveal a hairless head as smooth and brown as polished ruinwood and eyes the colour of the waters of the River Grayl. “The name is Widon.”

  “Widon, do you make it a habit to join a stranger’s fire uninvited?” Morwen said.

  “You say that as if the forest is your own.” He stared at the ruinwood spluttering in the blaze.

  “No more mine than anybody else’s.” Morwen lowered her staff and joined Widon at the fire. “I’m Morwen, the big fellow is Goron and the demon’s name is Szat.” Goron eyeballed Widon for a moment longer before he too sat back down.

  “Are those berries edible?” Szat asked pointing a chubby finger at the staff.

  Widon nodded. He plucked one and tossed it to the demon who caught it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. He threw Morwen and Goron one each, but they weren’t as trusting and pocketed them. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you said you’re from Wichsault.”

  “Skulking around outside listening to us were you?” Morwen said.

  Widon shook his head and smiled faintly. “An old man trying to get his courage up to warm himself by a stranger’s fire. People aren’t friendly, not like they used to be.”

  Morwen didn’t think he looked old. There wasn’t a wrinkle on him.

  “Don’t mind her, she’s not a people person,” Goron said. Morwen shot Goron a frosty glance.

  “I know just how she feels,” Widon said.

  Szat motioned frantically to his open mouth. Widon fired another berry in.

  “We’re from Wichsault, and you?” Goron said.

  “The forest. What brings you so far from the castle? He looked from one to the other before his gaze settled on Szat. “You don’t look like rangers especially the fat, little one.” Szat grinned his teeth blackened from the berries.

  “We’re on a mission to find the source of the poisonous gas clouds that are blighting the castle,” Goron said. Morwen kicked out at his shin.

  “There is no mystery in that. The mothras would hunt the world to extinction if they could.”

  “We thought as much,” Goron said rubbing his shin. “Do they live near here?”

  “Not far at all. In a grove of ancient trees near the river. If you left in the morning, you would be there by midday. It would be a good time as they don’t like the daylight and are weakened by it. Are you going to kill them?”

  The question was said without emotion, but Morwen saw the keen interest in Widon’s eyes.

  “Wichsault must be saved,” Morwen said.

  “Moths to a flame,” Szat said. He pointed his finger skyward and shot a fireball out through a hole in the roof.

  “Impressive magic,” Widon said watching the fiery comet sail through the night.

  “Fool of a demon. You may as well be sending smoke signals to every evil entity in the forest to tell them we’re here,” Morwen complained.

  Widon got to his feet. “I think the storm has eased off. I thank you for your hospitality.” He bowed and disappeared through the archway as suddenly as he had appeared.

  “Delicious berries,” Szat said searching the ground where Widon had been sitting for more.

  As if to make up for the intrusion of masonry, the forest wasted no time in staking its claim on the land. It threw up a canopy so dense the travellers walked in perpetual gloom. The only source of light came from the reflection of the sun on the grey waters of the river. Morwen felt entombed in the darkness as it pressed around her. She searched in vain amongst the sprawling branches and abundant foliage for a glimmer of light.

  “It was easier to see in the caves,” Goron said stumbling over a tree root.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Szat said from his perch atop Goron’s shoulder. He belched then heaved a string of black vomit down Goron’s back.

  “That’s just great,” Goron said pushing the demon off his perch and rubbing his back along a leafy bush.

  Szat lay on the ground clasping his stomach and groaning.

  “You’ll be fine. You only have indigestion,” Morwen said scooping Szat up. “If Widon ate the berries, they can’t be poisonous.” She scrummaged around in her backpack and produced a sprig of mint and a stem of yarrow.

  Goron gave her a questioning look, no doubt wondering why she was carrying such herbs.

  She wasn’t going to justify his ignorance of women’s matters with an explanation.

  “Eat this. It will help the cramps and nausea.”

  Szat sneered at the offering and poked out his black tongue. “I don’t eat anything green, unless it’s meat and that jelly cook does.”

  “Do what you’re told, demon,” Morwen said grabbing Szat and stuffing the leaves down his throat.

  There was a swooshing noise above. Morwen looked up to see giant shapes fluttering around the tops of the trees. “Birds?”

  “They don’t move like birds,” Goron said. The warrior readied his axe.

  If they were not birds they could only be…the old man had said they were inactive during the day. “Mothras,” Morwen shouted.

  One mothra broke away from the swarm and swooped down at Goron. It was the colour of the gloom with a wingspan that stretched over eight feet. The head was human with large, black, shiny eyes that stared without blinking.

  Goron sidestepped and slashed with his axe, biting through a soft wing as it arced into the air. The mothra careered into a tree trunk and slammed to the ground where it flapped around in a circle.

  The warrior raised his axe ready to strike again. Morwen raised her st
aff, her mouth loaded with dark words. Szat groaned and passed wind in Morwen’s ear. The loud thunderclap made her ear ring.

  A mothra dived at Goron’s back. “Kroduv, birm,”’ Morwen shouted. A shadow bolt spurted from her staff and exploded against the mothra’s abdomen, dropping it from the air like a lead weight.

  Goron heard it fall and spun around to find its corpse sprawled beside his feet.

  Morwen grinned and twirled her staff expertly in her hand. Wisps of shadow smoked from its end.

  The swarm descended as one.

  Goron whirled his axe above his head. Morwen’s staff spewed clots of shadow as she chanted, “Kroduv, birm” over and over as if it were a mantra. Dead mothras spiralled like autumn leaves. But still they came.

  Szat was plucked from Morwen’s shoulders and her staff knocked from her hands. She was grasped by her arms and jerked into the air. Up she soared, weaving through the branches and bursting through the canopy into a sky as dismal as the forest below. So far above the ground and its shadows, Morwen’s magic had no potency. She was powerless to help them and concentrated, instead, on her bearings. The view was spectacular. The forest was vast and covered the land from the sea to the mountains. The only significant blot was Wichsault. It jutted from the earth like a spear tip, the surrounding farmland a wound.

  Goron and Szat weren’t enjoying the view. Goron was carried by two large mothras with beautiful spiral patterns on their wings. His mouth was open in a soundless scream. Szat was busy vomiting on the unsuspecting forest creatures far below. His skin had turned a dark shade of blue.

  The mothras followed the river until they reached a grassy clearing where they released their captives.

  Thousands of shiny, black eyes watched Morwen from the trees. Barrel-sized cocoons, the same colour as the wood, hung from the branches. One cocoon was split open, and Morwen watched fascinated as a leg and head tried to wiggle through a gap in the silk.