“It’s strange that Mellinda has abandoned this place,” Hilt said, examining the same tracks. “You would think that a town this size could be of use to someone building an army. The buildings are already here. It’s defendable. It would be perfect for a supply outpost, or prisoner camp, or troll farm.”
“Or trap,” Charz said, bending over to pick something up off the street. It was a child’s dress. It had been blue once before being muddied and trampled. “Enemy could charge in at any moment.”
“No,” said Beth. She stopped in front of a large two story house, her hand on her chin as she stared up at it. “There are no enemies for at least half a mile in any direction.”
“Huh,” said the giant. He stood there with the filthy blue dress in his hand, looking around for a place to put it down. For some reason he didn’t seem willing to toss it back in the mud. “So not a trap.”
“Not unless the trap is in here,” she said gesturing to the building in front of her. “This is the mayor’s house. It’s also the meeting hall and the town storage. Does it feel strange to you?”
Deathclaw glanced at the building. It looked in remarkably good repair compared to the others. There were a few broken windows on the upper story, yet the doors and windows on the lower level were undamaged and curtains drawn so that he couldn’t see inside. He cocked his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, forget that place,” said Charz.
Hilt was staring at the front door, one hand resting on a sword hilt. “I really don’t care about this place, Beth.”
“And yet, that’s where the pepper is,” she said.
Deathclaw shook his head. Why was she staring at something so unimportant? They should be worrying that Talon was here. That was just a house.
“There could be pepper in one of these other places,” Charz said. He stooped and walked inside one of the other buildings and Deathclaw could hear him moving things around.
Beth looked at her husband. “If you don’t care about this place, Hilt, then why are you staring at it?”
“Because I should care,” he said, frowning. “Whatever’s inside there must be very powerful.”
“Exactly,” Beth said. “This is where the bewitching magic is coming from.” She waved her hand over them. “Do you understand now?”
Deathclaw’s indifference faded. He crept up to the front door and crouched. The front porch was completely clean of debris and he could see tiny gouges in the wood that could have been left by Talon’s claws. He pressed his nasal slits against the door jamb where a tiny draft of air leaked out. He hissed as he processed the scent from inside. “Talon was here!”
He reached for the door handle but it would not open. He rammed his shoulder against the front doors, but they would not budge.
“Wait, Deathclaw!” Beth said.
Deathclaw moved to the side and launched himself at one of the front widows. He collided against it face first and bounced back, his neck wrenched and bruised by the impact.
“Those are strong windows,” Beth said. “I helped install them. We should go around back.”
“What’s going on?” Charz asked, poking his head out of the door of the house across the street.
Deathclaw rotated his head and felt his neck bones pop. The window had cracked. He launched himself again, this time shoulder first, and the window shattered inward.
Deathclaw landed on all fours, glass imbedded in his skin in several places. But the pain was easy to ignore. The scent of Talon filled his nose. She had been here for some time. And there was something else. Another scent.
As he left the front room and headed upstairs, Deathclaw could hear Sir Hilt knocking the remaining shards of glass from the window frame. The scent was issuing from up there; something acrid and sweet, covering something more unpleasant.
He tore open one of the doors at the top of the stairs. Talon’s smell was strongest here. The room had been thrashed, ripped apart, and on a rumpled mattress in the center of the room, curled up in a quivering ball, was the source of the other scent in the house.
It looked like most gorcs, with a bulging nose and warty face. But this one was whimpering and sobbing and wearing a yellow lace dress and a blond wig. He rushed over and grabbed the creature by its arms.
“Where is Talon?” It didn’t respond. He shook it, his claws piercing the dress’ sleeves and the skin underneath. “Where is she?”
“Mistress Talon is gone!” it cried. “She left me all ‘lone. Durza is all ‘lone!”
“Don’t kill it!” came Beth’s voice from the room below. “Bring her down here. I must speak with her!”
“Can’t fit through this window!” Charz yelled from outside. “Will someone open the door?”
Deathclaw dragged the gorc from the room and down the stairs, losing its wig along the way.
“My hair!” it cried.
Deathclaw threw it at Beth’s feet. “It’s a gorc.”
“I can see that,” Beth said. She crouched beside the creature and laid a hand on its shoulder. “What a pretty dress you’re wearing. What is your name, dear?”
“My hair!” It wailed, clawed hands covering the thin scraps of hair that clung to its mottled green scalp. “My pretty hair!”
Beth looked up at the stairway. “Deathclaw, would you please retrieve her hair?” Deathclaw hissed, but he went back and threw the wig down to her. Beth caught it and handed it to the gorc. “There you are, dear. It really is pretty hair.”
It pulled the wig on crookedly, the strands of hair sticking out sideways, and nodded, “I likes this one. It is nice and yellow.”
“It goes well with your dress,” Beth said in agreement. She looked at Hilt. “Hold her arms.”
The gorc didn’t resist as Hilt came up behind her and lifted her to her feet. He gripped her wrists behind her back and warned, “Careful, Beth. She could scratch you pretty good with the claws on her feet.”
“Not wearing those shoes,” Beth replied as she stood, gesturing to the shiny white boots that bulged from the gorc’s oversized feet. She prodded the creature and turned its head back and forth, then placed her head against its chest. The gorc’s eyes widened. After a few moments Beth withdrew her head.
“You can let her go, Hilt. She’s not going to try to hurt me.” Beth sighed and scratched her head. “Mellinda sent her in after Pinewood was attacked to try and find out if there were still any survivors hiding out here. Evidently some of the people were unaccounted for. When she saw the stores here in the mayor’s house, she got rid of the moonrat eye she had been given and drove the others out.”
“Threw it down the poop hole!” the gorc said proudly.
“Poop hole?” Beth asked, then shook her head. “At any rate, Talon found her here a while ago. They have been hiding from Mellinda together.”
“You got big witchy-witch magic, lady,” the creature said.
“As do you,” Beth said. She smiled at the gorc. “My name is Beth and this here is my husband Hilt. The giant sticking his head in the window is Charz. We aren’t here to hurt you.”
“I’m Durza,” the gorc said with a cautious smile. Then she pointed an accusatory finger at Deathclaw. “He hurt me!”
“That’s Deathclaw. He’s Talon’s brother,” Beth replied. “He’s worried about her.”
Durza scowled. “He hates her! Mistress Talon loveses him but he hates her. He wants to kill her!” Deathclaw hissed and she recoiled. “He’d kill me too!”
“Deathclaw, dear,” Beth said. “Apologize to this young lady.”
“What?” he said.
“Young lady?” Charz laughed, banging his fist on the windowsill outside. Hilt settled for a bemused smile.
“Yes, young lady,” Beth said, fixing the three of them with a stern glare. “Durza is a proper young lady and must be treated as such. Do you understand me? Apologize.”
Deathclaw swallowed. What was Beth going on about? He folded his arms, “Sorry.”
Beth looked back a
t Durza. “See? He won’t hurt you again. Please tell me, where has Talon gone?”
She pointed at Deathclaw, “One of him was sneakin’ ‘round outside and sh-she went out to lead him off. B-but she didn’t come back. All night long I waited but she didn’t come. Even last night, she didn’t. Now I’m all ‘lone!” the gorc sobbed.
“I was not here,” Deathclaw hissed. What had Talon gone to do? Had she known he was coming?
“It was like you,” the gorc insisted. “Felt like you.”
“Another raptoid?” Hilt asked and Durza shrugged in response.
“She doesn’t know,” Beth said. “But to her spirit magic, the other creature Talon led away felt a lot like Deathclaw.”
“Hey, you guys gonna leave me out here all day?” Charz complained.
Beth walked over and unlocked the heavy front doors. “You can come in, but you’re not going to fit down in the food cellar.”
“Cellar?” Charz asked as he lumbered in. The ceiling was high enough here that he was able to stand without hunching over.
“Let’s not forget why we came here,” Beth said. She headed towards the door at the side of the room. “Come on.”
Deathclaw followed her and Hilt through the rooms beyond. What was this thing that ‘felt like’ him and Talon? Could the wizard have made more? He needed to tell Justan, but he could tell that nothing had changed in the bond.
Beth entered a room filled with counters and human dining implements. Durza scurried up to her. “Are you here to take my foods?”
“No, Durza,” Beth said. “At least not much of it. We’re here for something specific.”
Deathclaw followed them down a narrow and steep stairway with earthen walls. He did not like the feel of this place at all. It was too tight. He pushed down a surge of panic. Surely Beth would not be leading them down this way if it was unstable.
He was so uncomfortable that he did not smell the food until he reached the bottom. Here the floor and ceiling were wooden, though the walls were still made of hard packed earth. The cellar was large and filled with shelves upon shelves of glass bottles.
“You have gone through a lot of the stores,” Beth said.
“Mistress Talon eats too much,” Durza conceded. “But I hides some of it from her.”
Hilt stopped at some barrels lining the walls. “Beans, turnips, potatoes . . . no pepper here, but maybe we could take some of this with us? Make a stew?”
“It’s not here. Further back,” Beth said she went to the rear of the cellar to the far right corner and stopped. “What the . . . oh.”
“You want to use the poop hole?” Durza asked.
They were standing in front of a circular hole. Deathclaw could see that it had been cut at the front of a hinged door in the floor. He could see edges of a wooden ladder when he peered in. The door could be lifted by grabbing the edge of the hole, though it did not look pleasant to do so now.
“That’s not a poop hole,” Beth said with a grimace. “That’s the trap door to the wine cellar.”
“Did you say wine cellar?” yelled Charz hopefully from the kitchen above.
“It’s also where we stored the spices,” Beth sighed.
Chapter Twenty
Talon crept through black sludge and rotted vegetation. Rain poured down all around her, leaving deep puddles and sucking mud. She was getting close. There were very few living things this deep into the dark forest. Just vicious biting insects, snakes, and half dead trees. And moonrats of course, but they didn’t bother her as long as she stayed hidden at night. Her pheromones hid her from their sensitive noses.
The bugs didn’t bother Talon much either. She enjoyed the feel of their stings and they were the only thing she could safely eat in this place, flavorless as they were. The driving rain that had begun the day before had been welcome as well. The moonrats didn’t prowl about as much in the rain and for some reason these bugs made her quite thirsty.
She opened her mouth as wide as she could and turned her face towards the sky, letting the water trickle down her throat. Talon swallowed and smiled. This would be the day. She was sure of it. This was the day she would find Mellinda and kill her.
She had been conducting a steady search of the Dark Forest, starting with a search around its perimeter, then circling inward just in case the moonrat mother wasn’t in the exact center. Yet that seemed to be where Mellinda was, for the trees were getting more rotten and most of them were leafless. Several times she passed tall mounds of stinging ants and slid by small clouds of greenish flies.
It was nearing dark before she found her. The rain stopped and the moonrats had come out of hiding. Luckily they were mostly blind and Talon kept her movements slow, avoiding them as much as she could. Soon there were so many of them that Talon was forced to lay against the trunk of a tree as still as possible and wait.
She was grateful for Ewwie’s gift. Her pheromones were powerful enough that a couple times moonrats crawled up her back without noticing she wasn’t part of the tree. Her biggest struggle was resisting the urge to kill them. She promised herself that she would kill them all as soon as Mellinda was gone.
A short time later Talon saw her.
The moonrat mother rose up from the base of an enormous rotted tree not far from the place where Talon hid. Her skin was purest black and glistened in the dying sunlight in such a way that Talon could only make out the outlines of her voluptuous shape. Cascades of black hair fell about her shoulders. Mellinda lounged in the exposed roots of the tree and idly caressed the heads of a few orange-eyed moonrats that stood near her.
Talon’s heart pounded. She was close. As soon as the moment was right, she would strike. She watched the moonrat mother for a while. Mellinda merely lay there, occasionally stretching or crooking her finger for another moonrat to come to her. It was as if she was practicing luring men, much in the way Ewwie had taught her. Then Talon realized that the moonrats all around mimicked the moonrat mother’s movements. They turned their heads when she did, lounged when she did.
Her moment finally came just as the sun sank beyond the horizon and only the dimmest shade of red from the fading sunset lit the forest. The moonrat mother looked away from Talon, turning on her stomach and facing in the opposite direction. The moonrats turned and looked with her.
Talon darted towards the rotten tree and jumped, landing on Mellinda’s back. Simultaneously she pierced the moonrat mother’s body with her tail, pumping poison into her, and reached around to tear her throat out.
Mellinda laughed. Her body grew and she was no longer facing away from Talon, but embracing her. “I’m so glad you finally came.”
“Die,” Talon said, stabbing the witch with her tail over and over, squeezing out every ounce of poison she could.
“I’m afraid not, sweet Talon,” Mellinda said. Her dark body grew larger and larger until she was twice Talon’s size. “You cannot kill me. I am immortal.”
“Nothing livess forever,” Talon hissed.
“I do,” Mellinda said. Black strands of muck gripped Talon’s arms, legs, and tail, immobilizing her.
“My poisonss will kill you.” Talon could smell it already. The moonrat mother was rotting from the inside. “You diess already.”
Mellinda chuckled and her black face smiled, showing a gleaming set of white teeth. “Can your poison kill this?”
Mellinda’s black skin peeled back from her face, exposing the flesh within. Under her skin was a legion of tiny insects, flies and ants, all clinging to rotten leaves and small animal bones. The white teeth Mellinda had shown Talon were, in fact, small white beetles.
“My true body lies deep under this tree, you see.” The insects moved along with the dead matter in a parody of living tissues, working a jaw, a tangled mass of worms mimicking a tongue. Her hair was made up of a tangle of fine roots. “The body you are seeing, the body I show my rare visitors, is made of the living things and organic rot around me. I command it all. It obeys my will.”
“How do you do thiss?” Talon asked. She didn’t quite comprehend what she had seen. “Why sshow me?”
“I do this because I cannot be contained,” Mellinda said and the black sludge that made up her skin flowed back over her hideous insides, giving her the illusion of life again. “I tell you, because it amuses me.” She grew larger and hunched over Talon’s form, peering at her with oily black eyes. “Because you are mine now.”
“No,” Talon hissed. She strained, trying to thrash, trying to dislodge herself. This had been a foolish attempt. She needed to get away. She would have to run. She could run away forever to get away from this thing. Her body barely moved.
“You would abandon your poor Ewwie?” Mellinda asked in mock surprise. She chuckled again. “Oh you would, wouldn’t you? Your love for him is a hollow thing, an affection built out of a need to survive. You had to love him or hate him. Hating him would have been useless, since he controlled you. But your love amused him. It earned you freedoms.”
“No. I lovess Ewwie,” Talon gurgled.
“Then why do you disobey him? Why do you run away?” she asked.
“I runss . . . from you.”
“Ah, well that isn’t possible anymore.” Mellinda reached towards the forest and the sea of glowing moonrat eyes and crooked a finger. The moonrats moved aside, to let another come forward. This moonrat was larger and more muscular than the others. Its teeth were longer and sharper, its claws more vicious. And its eyes glowed blue.
The blue-eyed moonrat came to Mellinda obediently but proud, not cowering like so many of the others did. She reached towards it and her hand shrunk as she did so until it was just the right size to stroke its head and rub its flank.
The Bowl of Souls: Book 05 - Mother of the Moonrat Page 25