“It might have something to do with your personality too.” Goron said.
Morwen glared at him. “Are you a fool, or can’t you count how many fingers I have left?”
When Goron finished his chicken, Szat collected up the bones, and for the next two miles, gnawed them noisily. Morwen kept reminding herself how useful the demon was.
A gloomy huddle of grey houses and farms stared at them from black windows despite the noonday sun. “They say the Cornwell farm was where the infestation started.” Caroc pointed to a stone building with a shingled roof patched with moss. One of its barn doors hung by a single hinge like a milk tooth by a thread of skin. The buildings were surrounded by a sea of golden wheat that rippled softly in the breeze. A strange cricking noise, like fingers being snapped, vibrated in the warm air.
“They’ll be waiting for us… in the grass.” Caroc’s voice trembled. He studied Morwen hoping she’d reconsider.
Weren’t rangers meant to be calm and unafraid in the face of danger? Morwen wondered. “Then we better be ready for them.”
Goron hefted his axe off his shoulders and grinned. His eyes blazed. Whatever Morwen thought about Goron, he wasn’t a coward. He pushed past the ranger, who was still rooted to the spot, and tramped into the wall of grass. Morwen hurried to follow him, her dagger drawn. The stalks of wheat were over Morwen’s head. Footsteps sounded behind her, at least Caroc had the balls to follow them. That was something at any rate.
It was tough going despite Goron trampling a path for them. Szat, not eating for once, peered intently into the grass. His hands glowed red in anticipation of trouble. “Don’t even think about it, Szat. One fireball and we will all go up in smoke,” Morwen hissed.
“Not my problem,” the demon said. “I’m fireproof as well as being conscience proof.”
Morwen shrugged her left shoulder and turned her head so her eyes were staring directly into Szat’s. “No, it’s your problem, too, because as I’m burning, I’m going to curse you. I’m thinking something to do with food, make it all taste like broccoli perhaps.”
Szat flinched and gasped in horror. He hated broccoli. It was the only food he wouldn’t touch. He fireballed it on sight.
The ominous clicking sound intensified. Something was up.
Caroc sensed it too. He’d caught up and was breathing down Morwen’s neck. “They know we’re here,” he whispered. Morwen’s hair prickled, and a shiver ran down her spine at the menacing words he breathed.
The grass rustled to Morwen’s left, and a black bullet of a head appeared. It gleamed like polished iron. Mandibles with jagged edges as large as daggers clicked open and shut. Black, soulless eyes regarded the warlock.
“Um, hello,” Morwen said. The insect kept clicking. Shadows fell across her face, and loud thuds shook the ground around her. It was as if she were standing under a giant apple tree during a gust of wind. A dozen chomites joined the first.
They were seven foot, if you imagined them standing upright. The legs resembled swords and bristled with deadly-looking spurs. Their bodies were covered in the same hard, gleaming exoskeleton as the heads. Each one was as well-armoured and armed as a knight.
The chomites surged toward them as one. Their deadly mandibles clamping shut then opening ready to bite into their victims’ flesh.
Morwen sliced deeply into her scarred palm with her dagger. The wounds hadn’t healed properly after the fight with the toadoks. Blood gushed from the deep gash and dripped from her fingers onto the trampled wheat. She thrust out her bloody hand and muttered a word,“ Kroduv.” Every shadow within several feet was sucked into her hand. “G’uo.” Shadowy tendrils shot out her fingers, entangling the chomites and leaving them ensnarled. They struggled furiously against their bonds.
“Run,” Morwen screamed. The ties wouldn’t hold long.
Which direction, though? Continue to the farm or run back through the grass? She stood still panicking at her indecision. Caroc made the decision for her as he pushed past heading to the distant roof of the farmhouse visible above the wheat.
Goron abandoned her too. He didn’t have an obese demon standing on his backpack and snapping his hair like the reins of a horse.
Two chomites crashed down in front of Caroc who froze in fear. Goron charged past. His axe whirled in a wide arc and sliced into the first bug, separating its head from its thorax with a spray of seafoam-green gore. The momentum sent him into a spin, and he crashed shoulder first into the next. The chomite slammed into the ground and was trapped as Goron collapsed on top of it. Its legs flailed, trying to saw into him, and the deadly mandibles snapped at his head. Goron had to use all his strength and both hands to keep the jaws from tearing off his face, and that left the warrior powerless to kill the bug.
Morwen flung her leg over Goron’s head and stomped hard with her foot. Her weight pulverized the bug’s skull and her sandal sank into the green ooze. The immediate danger over, Morwen grabbed Goron and helped him to his feet. They dashed after Caroc who’d already disappeared through the grass.
A cricket sprang at Morwen from the left. “Kroduv, birm.” A shadow bolt exploded in the insect’s face and sent it somersaulting backward.
The nearby grass thrashed around, and dark shapes sailed through the air. Caroc decided he was safer behind Goron and his axe. The warrior cleaved anything that got in their way. If they didn’t get to the farmhouse soon, they’d be overwhelmed, and Goron would have no room to swing his axe.
“They’re gaining, giddy up, giddy up,” Szat shouted. She couldn’t run any faster. Her throat felt like it was flayed, and her legs were so weak they could barely support her let alone run. Panic began to cloud her mind, but the feel of her hand, slick with blood, gave her strength. So long as that flowed, she would be okay. “Watch out,” Szat yelled.
Morwen ducked in time as two mandibles snapped together above her head. She sent a shadow bolt sailing over her shoulder and heard the satisfying hiss as it struck.
A thud and a curse ahead, Goron had found the porch. It was obscured by the sea of wheat which had grown up and over it. Morwen barely had the strength to climb after her two companions and was too relieved to refuse Goron’s extended hand.
The farmhouse had become a beacon to every chomite in the area. Hundreds streamed toward them. Goron positioned himself with his axe while Caroc and Morwen hurried to the door. It wasn’t locked, but the hinges were stiff, and Caroc needed to throw his weight against it before it swung open.
A chomite jumped clean over the porch railing. Goron opened its belly as it flew overhead, showering himself with guts.
Another tried to scramble up the railing. Goron surged forward and brained it with the knob of the axe. Others to the left and two more straight ahead thudded into the porch.
“There are too many,” Morwen cried out. Goron raced for the door as Morwen shot a shadow bolt at the closest. Her aim wasn’t perfect. The magic glanced off a front leg, but it was enough to slow the creature down.
Goron dived through the door, and Caroc slammed it shut, crunching through a probing leg that broke off. Within seconds, the chomites threw themselves at the door in an attempt to get inside.
It took all of Caroc’s strength to hold it closed. “Morwen, check the windows, block them any way you can.” Goron yelled.
Morwen was taken back. Wasn’t she the one who was meant to be in charge? Nevertheless, she bit her tongue—brutal and bloody combat was Goron’s area of expertise. There were only five windows. Morwen blocked them with whatever she could find, sacks of mouldering flour, barrels, and whatever furniture she had the strength to move. When she had finished, the room was thrown into darkness.
Szat’s lit a fire in the hearth with a broken chair Morwen had thrown aside. The flames leapt up the chimney just in time. They heard the sound of desperate scrabbling on stone, and a shower of soot belched into the room. Szat s
hot a fireball up the chimney to make sure the chomites got the message.
Goron, meanwhile, had moved a large wardrobe to block the door. Morwen noticed the warrior was covered in cuts and scrapes, whilst she and Caroc were virtually unscathed. She was almost grateful for the warrior’s bravery, not that she’d been a slouch herself. Caroc was a different story. The ranger, pale and exhausted, leant against the wardrobe—fearful it wasn’t enough. His quiver held as many arrows as it had at the start of the journey.
“Are you all right?” she asked Goron. Feigned concern was easier than saying thank you, and at least now her conscience was clear. The warrior raised his eyebrows for a yes and started poking around in the larder for something to drink. Szat jumped down from Morwen’s back and joined him.
Morwen stared around the grimy confines of the farmhouse. A meal, now dust, was still set out on the table. “This isn’t good at all. We’re trapped and surrounded.” As if on cue the crashing against the door intensified.
“I knew this would happen,” Caroc said. “We had no business coming here.”
“I’m starting to think you’re a coward, Caroc. Don’t like getting your hands bloody do you?” Morwen said.
Caroc’s face flushed. “We all don’t like killing as much as you, especially the helpless and sick.”
That was quite obviously a dig at her for murdering her patients. Morwen was about to ask if Caroc even had a string in that bow of his, when Goron said, “This go anywhere?” He was standing by a trap door.
The ranger, keen for any way to flee, seized on the opportunity. “Most of the buildings in Mournburn have cellars with an outside trapdoor. We could escape and sneak out of Mournburn while the chomites are still trying to break into the farmhouse.” He flicked the latch and opened the door.
The air released from the dark hole was dusty and dank. Both Caroc and Goron grinned at the idea of escape.
Morwen was the only one not happy with the discovery. “We haven’t exactly finished here, though, have we? Reclaim Mournburn back for Wichsault, remember?” Caroc and Goron didn’t seem too concerned. Goron had already grabbed a burning chair leg to use as a torch. She couldn’t blame them, to fight against so many would mean death. Escape was the only option.
“Me first.” Morwen snatched the torch from Goron and shone it down the hatch into the darkness, illuminating a dust-padded, wooden staircase and stone floor. The staircase groaned under her weight and began to shudder as Goron planted his feet on the top step. “Get off, you fool,” Morwen shouted.
Below her in the darkness, she could discern several barrels at the edge of the light. No doubt, they would be full of ale or, even better, spirits. “You can’t use fire in here either. Just in case you get startled by a spider or something.”
Szat sighed. “I figured that.” The demon hated spiders almost as much as broccoli.
Morwen stepped off the last stair and onto the stone floor. She could now see the whole cellar was full of barrels—only they weren’t barrels. As she moved her torch closer, Morwen saw they were translucent, and a black shape in the centre writhed from the glow of the torch. An unhatched chomite—the barrel was an egg.
She swept her light around the room. Hundreds were crammed into its confines. More terrifying, though, was the colossal shape squatting in their midst. The form, stooped yet reaching the roof eight feet above, had to be their queen. The face, human, the complexion as pale as the eggs, the eyes as black as night, framed by dark hair as lank as waterweed, was turned to them.
“Another queen!” the queen said.
“Don’t go too far, Anabeel,” her mother called in a voice groggy from a day in the fields and a pitcher of strong cider. Her daughter didn’t hear. She was far away in her own world. The path she’d navigated through the wheat was the passage between the walls of a dungeon, the stick she carried, a flaming, magical sword, and each bug she met, a horrible monster to be slain. Anabeel spotted a grasshopper, mint green—a green dragon. The dragon regarded her with an arrogant stare. Armies had been sent against it. The dragon dissolved every one of them with its acid spray and drank up the puddle with a convenient straw it always carried. What could one heroine do, even if she did carry an enchanted weapon?
Anabeel raised the sword above her head. She could feel the heat of the flaming blade on her skin. The dragon laughed, a cruel sound. The same sound her older brother made when she got that acorn stuck up her nose. The dragon inhaled ready to spit his poison at her, but too late. Her sword flashed down, a blur of flame. The giant lizard exploded, and some of its goo splattered against Anabeel’s cheek. “Ew, gross,” she cried out and wiped it off with her clean dress. She raced back down the passage and sprang through a cleft in the dungeon walls. A rustle in the grass up ahead caught her attention. Maybe it was the dragon’s mother? She hacked and slashed her way towards the ruckus.
Her mother yelled at her to stop being so naughty and come back to help with dinner. Dinner could wait. Anabeel had one more dragon to slay. She could see its black scales gleaming through the wheat in the late afternoon sun. It was huge. She would take it by surprise. Sword pointing ahead, she charged through the grass and froze. Her imagination left her in a heart-stopping moment. A bug, three to four times her size, in shiny, black armour stared directly at her.
Anabeel began to back away.
The bug followed.
Anabeel dropped the flaming sword and screamed. A conspiracy of ravens, startled by the sound, took flight.
The bug closed the distance in one bound and gathered her up, its shell smooth and warm from the afternoon sun against her skin. It leapt into the air, came down with a thump, and leapt again. She could hear her mother crashing through the wheat behind her, yelling her name.
Anabeel squirmed to get free, but the insect’s grip was iron tight. They sprang over the last of the grass and entered the forest. Her mother’s screams grew dim, muffled by the wall of trees.
Anabeel had never been inside the forest before—its dangers were impressed upon her from a young age. It was a land of monstrous leviathans, misshapen into nightmares, that tore at her skin as she rushed past them. The forest was grey and gloomy. Not even one stray sunbeam broke through the twilight. Inhuman cries echoed around her. Anabeel had never heard any animals or birds make such spooky sounds. She shivered and tried to curl into herself, but the spikey legs of the bug stabbed into her.
Her captor pressed on deeper into the forest. Annabel bit her lip to stop herself from crying. She was cold and frightened. What was going to happen to her? How would she find her way home? The rhythm changed. They ducked into a muddy hole and wormed their way through dank, black tunnels deep down into the earth, until they came to a large cavern in the middle of which grew a gigantic oak. Its branches had broken free of its earthen prison, lighting the cave with the same gloom that inhabited the forest.
Sitting amongst the knots of roots, no less twisted and ancient than the oak itself, was a monstrosity. The thing was twice the size of the bug that held her. The two were alike, but instead of glossy armour, the monster was clad in rust-brown, pitted plates. It had a human’s head too, an old woman’s with limp, grey hair and wrinkled, ashen skin. Her sightless eyes were cloudy and dripped with a milk-like substance.
Her captor placed Anabeel reverently before her—a gift.
The old-woman head tilted to Anabeel, and the nostrils flared. She sniffed the air and her face cracked into a smile like a raw wound. “I’m Yaotl, Queen of the Chomites.” Yaotl’s voice sounded like the rustle of autumn leaves.
“Anabeel.” Anabeel stifled a sob. “Please take me home to my mummy and daddy. They will be worried.”
“But don’t you want the gift I have for you?”
Anabeel couldn’t think of anything she wanted from the queen except her freedom. “No, thank you, I just want to go home.”
She backed away but collided
with a wall of insects that had emerged silently behind her. Most were as feeble and ancient as the old woman. The chomites pushed her closer to their queen. “We need you.” Yaotl’s mouth opened impossibly wide and her proboscis began to unfurl like the stigma of a flower that felt the morning sun.
Anabeel screamed but changed her mind as the organ began to inch closer to her mouth. She snapped it shut, her lips bloodless bits of string, teeth clenched so tightly her jaw ached. Two legs moved up to her head and held it in a vice-like grip. The proboscis, rough and coarse as unsanded wood, unknitted her lips and knocked against her teeth. It rapped so hard Anabeel feared they would break. She didn’t want to lose her teeth like her grandfather, so she opened her mouth. The proboscis slipped inside and wormed its way down her throat, making her gag, and stopped in her belly.
The queen emptied herself into Anabeel. The same milky substance that dripped from the queen’s eyes bubbled out of Anabeel’s nose and mouth drowning her from the inside out.
When Anabeel awoke the cavern was illuminated by dappled moonlight. She was nestled in the roots of the ancient oak. The queen was dead beside her, the body a husk, the human face skeletal. Anabeel’s throat was sore and bruised as if she’d swallowed a string of sausages without chewing a single one. The rest of her body ached.
Uncomfortable on her bed of roots, she pushed herself up. She started at what the moonlight revealed. Her hands were gone, turned to points. The insidious change had crept up her arm partially transforming the limb to something insect like. Black spurs pushed through her skin like thorns. The same thing had happened to her legs which were now longer and black. Two limbs sprouted from her midriff as if she’d been skewered by sticks, and small gossamer wings grew on her back.
Dark Rot Page 5
