“Found anything yet?” A short fat troll with big feet and floppy ears asked.
“Ain’t nothing over this way,” a tall pot-bellied troll with large features and even larger feet replied.
Bodrin watched the two, scrounging at the swamp’s edge. Trolls aren’t picky eaters, he thought. Carrying swords, the two poked grass clumps with spears.
Saxthor motioned his companions to back up, stay low in the undergrowth, and to come to him. Tonelia and Astorax were to move to the rear, with Tonelia taking Tournak’s bow and arrows. Astorax would guard Tonelia. Hendrel and Tournak would back up Saxthor and Bodrin.
“Use only swords,” Saxthor whispered. “Bodrin, slip further into the grass and wait for the second troll.” When Bodrin was in place, Saxthor threw a stone toward the dead rat.
“You hear that?” the short troll asked.
“Yeah, it was over your way,” the taller troll said.
The short troll scrounged around until he discovered the rodent and bird carcasses.
“What’d ya find?” the tall troll asked.
“Nuttin,” Saxthor responded in a voice, mimicking that of the short troll.
Startled, the pudgy troll was close by and looked up to see who answered for him. Saxthor ducked. The taller troll’s brow furrowed over his narrowed eyes.
“What you up to? I knows your stumpy self found something. Is you going to keep it all for yourself?”
The tall troll wandered up on the fat one as he stood over the rat and bird.
“So you found nuttin,” the taller troll said to the shorter one. “Looks like to me you was going to eat both and not share.”
“It won’t me what answered you,” the short troll said.
The tall one would have none of it. Bodrin grinned, watching the two.
“Ain’t nobody else here to answer ‘sept you?” the taller menacing troll said. He smirked and drew his sword. In a snap, the taller troll slashed the pudgy one, killing him.
Saxthor jumped up and yelled, “Was me!”
The surprised troll jerked around toward Saxthor. Bodrin leaped from the grass beside him, appearing to start a sword fight. He fell back over a rock, and the troll was on him. Twit flew up in the troll’s face. The startled troll stepped backward and bumped into Delia, who nipped his leg. The fiend jerked forward, falling onto Bodrin’s sword.
“Good bird, Twit! Good dog, Delia!” Bodrin said. He got up, brushed himself off, and patted Delia’s head.
With the two trolls dead, the adventurers surrounded the bodies. Being careful not to step on the grass clumps, they arranged the two trolls so it would appear that they had fought over the rat and killed each other.
“So that’s why you didn’t want them killed with arrows or staffs,” Tournak said.
Saxthor grinned and nodded.
Stone-faced, Tonelia stepped forward and took each troll’s sword. She stuck each sword in the other’s carcass so the wider cuts would match the blades.
Saxthor shook his head. “We must hurry on through the brush to get away from here. Someone’s bound to come looking for these two.”
“If we keep this up, we’ll defeat the whole Dreaddrac army ourselves,” Bodrin said, as he wiped his sword clean and returned it to his scabbard. Delia panted and wagged her tail. Twit just rolled his eyes as best a bird could.
“Yes, but it’s going to be noticeable if we leave a trail of dead or missing trolls and orcs behind us,” Saxthor said. “I hope we don’t keep running into them.”
Tonelia handed everyone a piece of dried fruit, and they kept moving along the edge of the swamp. The clumps of grass dwindled in size as the land turned marshier. A few trees appeared, but they were the remnants of a long-dead forest. The rotted trunks left only the resin-filled heartwood, like tree bones with clumps of festering mold on them — vultures perched on the spindly tops, watching for dying things at the marsh’s edge.
“Wonder if we should go back, skirting the swamp’s southern edge,” Hendrel said. “The land here can’t support much life. If our food should run out, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
Tournak was looking around. “Even the large rodents seem to be missing now. Reptiles slither in the grass, but they’re smaller, most likely from lack of food. Ahead the air appears to be more sulfurous and the sky darker.”
They came to a sluggish stream, trickling foul water through a bed of orange and yellow slime.
“This is nasty,” Tonelia said.
Hendrel rose from smelling it. “We can’t drink it.”
Bodrin looked at Saxthor. “That gunk in the water looks like the stuff we saw coming from underground forges below the Highback Mountains. There must be forges upstream, dumping their sludge.”
“Look at the mineral-encrusted skulls,” Tournak said. “They glow white and yellow in the moonlight here and there along the stream. That’s all that’s left of unfortunate creatures who drank from the stream and never made it far from the bank.”
“This is the most desolate scene I’ve seen,” Saxthor said. “We’ve not passed beyond the Edros Swamps yet. I hate to think of the horrors ahead if we keep going north.”
When they were the most despondent, a noise out on the water stopped them in their tracks.
“I can’t believe my eyes,” Bodrin said. “It’s a small boat crowded with seven orcs, rowing toward the stream. The boat may be decrepit, but it does float. “
“Hide!” Saxthor waved them back into the darkness among the grass clumps, where they huddled around him again. He pulled the Peldentak Wand, and with hand turned down, enclosed his band in a veil of invisibility.
The orcs landed their boat at the mouth of the stream. They got out, stretching their legs, complaining about having to sail in the dark.
“There ain’t much moonlight to see by. These here little lanterns barely makes light in this mist, hanging over the swamp,” one orc said.
Saxthor again called upon the wand, and using heavy concentration cast an illusion of a female orc higher up on the grassland. The orcs, seeing the temptress, nearly beat or tripped over each other in the rush to be first to get to her.
“Stay close,” Saxthor said. He moved to the boat. In the veil's cocoon, they slipped onto the boat without a sound, pushing it beyond the mud and onto the water. They poled the boat out into the darkness toward the southwest. Soon the water was deeper, and they rowed.
As Bodrin watched, the orcs got to where they thought the temptress orc was waiting for them. The illusion disappeared. After searching the darkness for the siren, the grumbling orcs stumbled back along the stream only to find their boat had floated away. They trampled the mud, looking for it in the darkness and covered the adventurers’ tracks in the process.
“I bet it’s a mad bunch of orcs that stumble back to their encampment days from now,” Saxthor said.
“It’s going to be an even madder commander that lops off the leader’s head when he reports his sad tale,” Tournak said.
* * *
The witch Earwig took many weeks and numerous potions to neutralize her spell, which Memlatec had reflected back onto her. She had only lived through it because of her strong-willed hatred and desire for revenge.
One last old woman, who had nowhere else to go but the Earwighof, nursed Earwig back to health. She was the poor wretch who had brought the package containing the curse-reflection disk to the wretched witch. Day after day, the old woman sat beside the moldy bed, where Earwig flopped and flailed in her delirium. She raged at the queen, the royal family, and that ‘meddlesome Memlatec’ as she called him. It amazed the toothless, gray-haired nurse how weak people could overlook or excuse their failings, blaming innocent people around them for their ineptitude.
“What’s that you want?” the old woman asked. Her breath of raw onions and tooth decay fought a draw with Earwig’s.
“Don’t breathe on me, you hag!” Earwig said. “Go back to the cellar and find another red mushroom and be careful not to touch it
with your skin.”
“I ain’t agoin’ back down in that dark, moldy hole,” the old woman said.
“Do as you’re told, or I’ll turn you into a roach – or, worse yet, I’ll turn you over to Magnosious to play with.”
The pitiable servant’s stomach rolled over at the thought. She turned white but looked gray through the dirt permanently encrusted in the wrinkled folds of her skin. When she recovered, she limped from the room and down the dreaded stairs. Fear masked the pain in her joints when forced to crawl about the cellar’s damp cold floor on knobby knees in search of yet another mushroom.
In a corner, where foundation seepage moistened fallen dung, she found a red-spored mushroom. Looking at the fungus, the old woman trembled, hesitating to pick it. Bloated carcasses lay here and there on the floor, having tasted the red spores. Only fear of Earwig and her dragon overruled her trepidation facing the mushroom.
Knowing the mushroom would be instant death, she stuck it with a stick, wrenched it from the dung, and staggered out of the cellar. The mushroom jiggled at the stick’s tip with each step as the old woman hobbled up the stairs and down the corridor to Earwig’s bedroom.
“I found one of your cursed mushrooms,” the old woman said. She went to the fireplace and flicked the fungus into a black kettle.
“Boil it with turtle bile and chitlins,” Earwig said.
Mortified, the woman glared at Earwig, who hung over the side of her bed, salivating. “I’ll have to get other stuff.” Shaking her head, she headed back out the door, ogling the witch.
“Well, hurry up before the mushroom loses potency, you hag.”
The old woman returned to the room with raw, moldy chitlins. She cackled through a grin more black than yellow when she saw Earwig turn up her nose.
“Best I could do.” She turned to the fireplace and tossed the chitlins in the pot, where the sticky tubes settled around the mushroom like a strangler snake. “You’re about out of turtle bile.”
“Never mind that, do you have enough for this pot?”
The old hag nodded, held her nose, and looked away to cook the sludge, then filled a large bowl for her benefactor. A chitlin end flapped over the side as if coming to life.
Drooling as she followed the heaping bowl with her eyes, Earwig grabbed it and guzzled the broth. She smacked her lips as she chewed the tough chitlins, finally tossing aside the tarnish-blackened spoon to suck down the last drops. The pasty red sludge dribbled down her wrinkled chin and stained her large pores red.
Earwig eyes were dreamy when chewing the slimy mushroom. As she watched Earwig feed, the old woman remembered a rat once sipped a drop or two that boiled over onto the hearth. The rodent screeched and died bolting from the room. The poor cook had had to keep her nose covered and only boiled the concoction out in the yard after that incident. She soon disappeared from the kitchen garden, when Magnosious was out of his lair.
“That’s not strong enough,” Earwig said, wiping her face with the dissolving sleeve of her nightgown. “Go to the cellar and find another mushroom.”
“Back to the cellar, back to the cellar, find another mushroom. There ain’t no end to this,” the old woman grumbled, as the tattered soles of her boots smacked on the stone stairs. The old woman’s greasy hair flipped into her mouth while trying to watch her step. She spat it out and knocked it aside with her knobby fingers, only to see a tuft catch in a ragged fingernail and fly off beside her. “Mushrooms, mushrooms, and more of them nasty mushrooms …”
She had boiled an earlier batch in a cauldron with boar’s feet. The brew dissolved the tendons, cartilage, and even hooves with all the caustic things the woman threw in at Earwig’s explicit instructions. When the pot cooled, the old hag had sprinkled the red mushroom spores on the gelatinous goop and tossed in the mushroom for good measure.
In three days, the result had turned black, and something had grown in the coagulated slush. The hag approached. Something moved about in the liquid. It bubbled, belched, and wiggled about in the kettle like a huge, reddish-black maggot.
“Nasty,” the old woman said. She’d stepped back, put her hand to her chest, and stared at the thing undulating in the pot.
“Good thing the cauldron has to stay in the cellar, where it’s dark and cool. I don’t thinks I could sleep at night if that thing got out. Miss Irkin says the thing grows good, where it’s dark and cool. I’ve half a mind to tie a cord around it and dump it in the latrine. I could haul it up when she wants it. I’s terrified of that there slimy, wriggling maggot, but I done brewed the thing up as Miss Irkin told me to.”
On hearing of the horror in the pot, Earwig had cackled. “I want you to go to the cellar twice a day and draw off the broth in the cauldron. Bring it here for me to drink. Got that?”
“How’s I supposed to get the broth without that thing grabbing me?”
“Don’t be silly, you old fool; it only eats what we feed it.”
“What does we feed it?” the wary servant had asked; her suspicious face pinched.
“Boil a cauldron of boar’s feet with turtle bile and chitlins to feed the thing. That should keep it fat and happy, so I’ll have a steady supply of broth to neutralize the curse and rebuild my strength.”
“Uh-huh,” the old woman responded, as she backed out of the room, still staring at Earwig.
The broth did indeed revive the witch, but it changed her innards to a state, not unlike tanned leather. While Earwig lived, she slowly darkened to strange colors of red and purple as the mysterious brew worked through her body and out through the pores of her wrinkled sagging skin. The pupils of her eyes turned red, and the irises turned permanently yellow. Her red-on-yellow eyes made her frightening to behold. They stood out on her marbled skin, which seemed a mass of bruises in various stages of development. Her teeth stubble turned deep purple like old dried blood. Only her frame still gave any impression she was human.
“What does it matter to me what I look like?” Earwig said. “My only claim to the throne was through Minnabec, but the fool drowned while I was convalescing.”
“What’s that you say, dearie?” the old woman asked, turning back from the fire.
“What difference does it make what I look like now? The duke’s dead; that ends my claim to the throne.”
“How’d he die? Your dragon get him?”
“No, Fool. Magnosious knew better than to waste time on Minnabec’s scrawny bones. It seems the duke was clutching two big bags of his gold, and in a trance of ecstasy, he stumbled into a rain barrel.”
“How’s that? Did he hit his head?”
“No, no. The water was not deep. The duke just wouldn’t let go of his gold, and so he drowned. If he’d dropped the gold and stood up, he would’ve been fine. He died with his fingers clutching those gold bags.”
The servant shook her head. She turned back to the fire and rotated the spit so the flat roadkill wouldn’t burn.
“Now, you live to destroy everything around you.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, just mumbling about this meat. It’s hard to cook like this. I should’ve done parboiled it first.”
When Earwig recovered sufficiently, she spent her nights taking the vapors above The Crypt. Her precious Magnosious would play along the rim, tossing bodies in the air as a cat tosses mice. When she was able to get about fairly well, she began to climb the endless stairs to her familiar dark tower. She’d reminisce about the wonderful old times she had reducing living creatures to basic proteins, on which she would grow something sinister.
My poor old Radrac, Earwig thought. She smiled. He was Magnosious’ first solid meal. Those were the good times. I’ll have them again, she vowed.
One day she was gazing out the window at Magnosious at play, reducing some lost trespasser to a charred but tasty morsel. As he tired of his game and swallowed the smoking roast, he licked his lips and gazed back, smiling at Earwig.
She beamed at him with a mother’s pride. Her dragon had
grown huge. It took a constant supply of condemned prisoners to satisfy his appetite. She had to import a brace or two at a time from far away. The people in the surrounding provinces were on their best behavior as it turned out.
“Magnosious, you should be more useful. If I just knew where Saxthor was, I’d send you to deal with him. It’s been so long since he was around; I’ve no means to get his picture or scent for you. He’ll return one day soon, I’m sure of it.”
“Young and tender, quick flame - rare.”
“You do think of things in terms of food. I pay endless informants to listen to court gossip but glean nothing about that nuisance. If the prince comes near Konnotan, he’s going to meet my precious Magnosious. Meanwhile, I’ll take revenge on Memlatec for protecting him. Memlatec may be the most powerful wizard in the world after Dreaddrac’s king. I must be very careful. I’ll use his goodness and compassion against him to get him out of the way; then I can deal with Saxthor in my own good time and way.”
“The wizard’s not tender – boney, stringy like a bat,” Magnosious said, and he flew back to his lair.
Earwig shuffled back down to her bedroom and flopped on her bed, thinking.
“A bat, a rabid bat, why didn’t I think of that before? That meddlesome wizard is always buzzing back and forth from his tower to the palace.”
“What’s that you say, dearie?” the old woman said, appearing at the door.
“Nothing, go away.”
“Well, if you’re going to talk like that …”
“Just shut up, and get out.”
The old woman groaned as she got up from her work and shuffled out the door.
Earwig became more animated as her plot developed.
“I know how deep concentration can absorb one at work. I could send a rabid bat to his tower when I’m sure he’s there. Magnosious is too large to spy on him. That hulk would knock down the tower, trying to peak in the window. No, I need something the wizard won’t notice.”
Earwig got out of bed and paced the dusty floor. She scratched the lice in her wiry hair and then her left armpit. She put on her boots and robe and traipsed out the door to find a window, from which she could summon Magnosious. She happened upon a strange girl on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor ahead of her.
The N Arc of Empire- Complete Series Page 63