Luck had deliberately chosen a day when she knew that the kings were to hold a royal hunt. Although usually they only hunted deer, today they had the extra special treat of hunting a wicked witch. Lady Luck knew this because that morning she had made a gift of the witch to the kings, knowing full well that they would instantly set her loose in the forest to hunt, for — with the possible exception of taking royal mistresses — there is nothing in the whole world that any king loves more than a good hunt and a grisly kill.
Lex and Schmidt had been in the forest for only half an hour when they saw the kings go thundering past on horses, elephants or rhinoceroses depending on the ethnicity of the particular king. Fortunately, they did not notice Lex or Schmidt — who crouched down to watch from behind some bushes where they could get a good view without being disturbed themselves. But Lex’s heart couldn’t help but sink a little. The kings were all waving huge swords and screaming war cries, but they weren’t even the worst part of it — it was what they were hunting with that concerned him. For the kings were preceded by a pack of rabid draglings. The baby dragons were about the size of large dogs and came in a variety of colours from blue to green to yellow to orange. They were all slavering at the mouth — or at the snout — driven half insane by the maddening scent of the evil witch…
When the last king — a fat one trailing behind on a huge elephant — had loped noisily past them, Lex turned his head to meet Schmidt’s gaze. He felt just as horrified as Schmidt looked, but couldn’t help breaking into a broad smile at the expression on the old lawyer’s face.
‘Why are you grinning?’ Schmidt snapped.
‘Because you’re not! Don’t worry, sir. I won’t let them get you.’ He reached out to pat the lawyer’s hand comfortingly.
Schmidt snatched his hand away and said irritably, ‘Let’s just get on with it.’
So they got on with it — albeit with a lot more caution, for the forest had just become a much more dangerous place and they realised that without even knowing about the witch.
When the kings split up shortly afterwards, it became practically impossible to move about the forest, for as soon as they took a step in any direction they would see a king thundering through the trees up ahead.
‘I think we’d better find somewhere to hide until they’ve passed,’ Lex said reluctantly. He didn’t want to have a repeat performance of what had happened in the sky castle by getting trapped between kings, for he didn’t know that he’d be able to pull another miraculous escape out of his hat this time.
‘Very sensible,’ Schmidt said approvingly. ‘I agree entirely.’
That almost made Lex change his mind and, indeed, he was right on the verge of saying that perhaps they would continue just a little bit further before finding somewhere to hide when a pack of four draglings burst out of the nearby trees, closely followed by a ferocious-looking king on an even more ferocious-looking rhinoceros. The king saw Lex and Schmidt at once, gave a great bellow of anger and raised his sword over his head, screaming about assassins as the whole lot came charging towards them. Lex and Schmidt turned as one and raced into the forest as fast as they could.
They didn’t have much of a head start and Lex knew that the draglings would be upon them at any moment. Attempting to outrun them was quite, quite hopeless. But, as luck would have it, as they stumbled and slid their way down a leaf-covered slope, Lex tripped on a raised tree root, crashed into Schmidt and sent the pair of them rolling down the hill where they landed right beside the narrow mouth of a cave.
‘In here quick!’ Lex exclaimed, heaving the lawyer back to his feet and dragging him into the cave from where they had a perfect view of the king thundering past a bare minute later.
Fortunately, draglings are unable to detect the human scent and so could not tell that Lex and Schmidt had left the path. They were, in fact, a totally ineffectual animal with which to hunt, which was why the kings very rarely caught anything. They liked the draglings because they were colourful and impressive and the sort of creature a king was expected to hunt with. And it was worth it even if it meant they didn’t catch their prey, for although the kings really loved to finish the hunt with a bit of blood and gore, the main attraction for them was that they got to ride along screaming and waving their swords.
Lex and Schmidt watched as first the scaly, lizardy draglings raced past, slavering madly, followed a moment or two later by the wheezing rhino, eyes rolling in anger at the way the insane king in his billowing royal blue robes was sticking his spurred heels mercilessly into its sides. In another moment they had stumped out of sight and Lex said to Schmidt with a smile, ‘If he carries on like that he’s likely to get impaled on the horn of his own rhinoceros.’
Before Schmidt could reply, a voice from the cave behind them made them both jump. It was a sly old voice, practically dripping with greed.
‘Why, it appearth that dinner hath walked right into my cave all by it-thelf.’
Lex and Schmidt turned around and out of the gloom stepped the wicked witch the kings were hunting. She had green skin, long, greasy black hair, a hooked nose with a large spot on the end of it that looked as if it was about to burst at any moment and her almost-blind eyes had a milky white sheen. She slowly smiled, displaying the revolting remnants of her decaying, yellowed teeth, although most of them were missing — which quite possibly explained the lisp. Lex could smell her bad breath from where he stood.
‘ Urghh! ’ he exclaimed in obvious and horrified disgust. As someone who was an absolute stickler for cleanliness, the contents of that rotting mouth were enough to make Lex feel sick. He turned on his heel with the intention of walking straight out of the cave and back into the forest. Better to risk insane kings and rabid draglings than this… But there were bars blocking his way. And when he turned back he realised that they were all around him, trapping them both. The witch had conjured up a cage — one of her gnarled, bent old hands with disgustingly overgrown fingernails was still stretched out towards them. She gave a dry cackle that made the hairs on the back of Lex’s neck stand up.
‘Dinner ith therved,’ she giggled to herself before turning away and promptly starting to build a cooking fire from the sticks and twigs that littered the floor.
‘I thought you said there was nothing dangerous in the forest?’ Schmidt hissed.
‘There isn’t, usually,’ Lex replied defensively. ‘She must be what the kings are hunting.’
‘And you call yourself a lucky person?’ Schmidt snarled. ‘Things just seem to go from bad to worse whenever you’re around!’
‘Oh, settle down,’ Lex said calmly. ‘I have every confidence that I shall be able to talk my way out of this. If you’re extra-specially polite to me, then I just might save your skin as well. Again.’
He turned away from Schmidt and studied the cave. It was always sensible to study your surroundings first — see what might help you and what might hinder you… The cave was a deep one — stretching far back into the rock. There were obviously large trees above it, for Lex could see the thick roots entwined throughout the walls. Sunlight shone in from a hole in the ceiling and it was beneath this that the witch was assembling wood for a fire, attempting to whistle while she worked but — due to her lack of teeth — mostly just spitting on the sticks. There was a large black cauldron behind her, set on top of a metal tripod, presumably to hold it above the flames and, on the floor, were an assortment of rather dirty vegetables, which mostly seemed to be turnips and carrots.
‘How long have you been living here?’ Lex said, for if she had only been set loose in the forest that morning, then it seemed rather odd that she had stopped to collect vegetables and a cauldron from somewhere before finding a place to hide from the kings.
‘A few dayth,’ the witch replied cheerfully, ‘before the Goddeth took me to the kingth.’ She shrugged. ‘All they did wath thet me looth, tho I came thtraight back here and — lo and behold — my dinner came in right behind me. Wathn’t that a fortunate cointhidenth?’
‘Most fortunate,’ Lex replied. ‘But I see you already have quite an assortment of vegetables there to eat. Wouldn’t you rather just make do with them and allow me to reward you handsomely for letting us go free?’
Lex could see at once that this line of reasoning was going to be quite, quite useless. The witch was already shaking her head vehemently. ‘There’th nothing like a good thlab of meat!’ she said gleefully as she pointed a gnarled finger at the pile of wood. A green spark leapt from her filthy fingertip and in a matter of moments caught onto the sticks so that they crackled away cheerfully. ‘Ethpecially little-boy meat — that’th alwayth the juithietht and I haven’t had any in thuch a long time!’
Lex scowled. ‘Not that I suppose it matters much at this stage but — just for the record — I am not a little boy!’
‘You mean you’re a big boy?’ the witch replied, practically salivating at the mouth in anticipation as she dragged the cauldron towards the fire — water slopping over the edges as she did so. ‘Exthellent. Now I than’t have to wait and fatten you up a bit before eating you. Oh, what a featht I thall have!’
