“The girlchose to join,” Moro continued, “That was the person I sacrificed my eye for.That was the coward I raised as my own, a creature who would sell her own soul,become one of them, and for what? I vowed never to risk myself for the weak everagain, and I swore I would take more than an eye from the Warrior Witch.”
Fibian looked down at his mechanical hand.
“Was that yourdue for helping the boy?” Moro asked, gesturing to the artificial limb, “Wasthat your payment for aiding the weak?”
She grinnedknowingly.
“You cannot killthe undead,” Fibian said, his voice filled with confusion,“You of all should know this. This boy is our only chance to rid the seas ofher tyranny.”
“Oh, but Ibelieve she can be killed,” Moro said, stroking Edward’s cage, “I’vethought a great deal about her immortality, just as I’ve thought much about theprophecy. I believe both are lies, meant to discourage and mislead her enemies.She is dangerously powerful, but she can be destroyed.”
“How?” Cyrusasked, the pain in his body again taking hold.
“With steeland cannons and fire powder. With an army of willing slaves, ready to die on myorders,” Moro said, balling up her webbed hand into a fist, “I will turn the hune into a steel plated leviathan of death, with hundredsof cannons mounted along his shores, and I will create a horde of klops ready to man those weapons.”
Moro began tocreep from behind the bed.
“And once Ibring the hune out of hiding, the witch’s armies willrise up against me, and smash themselves against his shores. I will blast the WarriorWitch into so many tiny pieces that there will be nothing left of her to stitchtogether.”
Moro’s litheframe shook with passion and rage.
“Join me,” shesaid to Fibian, “I have searched for you for so long.We were meant to rule this world. Our offspring were meant to rule this world,not the Warrior Witch, not that boy. Our people will be strong, cunningand beautiful. The witch is wretched and diseased, waiting to be conquered.”
“You wouldtake her place if given the chance?” Fibian asked.
“It is mydestiny,” Moro said, through clenched teeth.
Fibian seemed to look inside himself.
“Don’t listento her!” Edward shouted, “She’s insane!”
The small spider’smouth appeared swollen.
“Will you joinme, brother?” Moro asked.
Fibian hesitated. Cyrus looked to the froskman, wonderingwhat was going through his smooth head. Surely, he could see that Moro was mad.
“You mustfirst hand over Master Edward,” Fibian said.
“Fibian?” Cyrus asked.
Fibian gestured for silence.
“No trades, nobargains,” Moro said, “If you want to rule at my side, kill the alveling. The blodbad stays withme.”
“There must beanother way!” Fibian demanded.
“That is theonly way you will prove your loyalty.”
“Please,” Fibian begged Moro.
She stared backat him unwavering. Fibian turned to Cyrus, a strangelook of sorrow across his face.
“Fibian?” Cyrus said, stepping back.
The froskman grabbed him around the neck. He pulled Cyrus tohis chest and pressed his knife against his throat.
“Fibian!” Edward cried.
“What are youdoing?” Cyrus shrieked.
“As you wish, sister,”Fibian said.
Moro leanedcloser, her smile growing wider with the coming kill.
In one smoothmotion, Fibian shoved Cyrus to the floor and flunghis blade at the queen’s head. Moro too became a blur. She doveacross the bed and tossed a small ball to the ground. The dagger shattered againstthe wall. Then the room erupted into another fog of chalky fumes.
Chapter 37
CHILD EATER
“FIBIAN,WHERE ARE YOU?” Cyrus shouted.
The sound ofiron grinding across floor was followed by light footsteps echoing down some unseencorridor.
“I am here,” Fibian said.
The froskman emerged from the haze and hoisted Cyrus off the ground.
“She still hasEdward,” Cyrus said.
“We will haveto use our wits if we are to defeat her,” Fibianreplied.
Fibian helped Cyrus through the fog. Both coughed and stumbled their way acrossthe lair.
“I think sheescaped over that way,” Cyrus said, pointing toward the bookshelf, “There mustbe a secret exit or something.”
“I feel adraft,” Fibian said, “Over here.”
The froskman led them through the smoke, over to the bookshelf.Cyrus and Fibian felt along the shelf for an opening.They could find no entryway. Cyrus began to pull books off the shelf, lookingfor a handle or leaver. Nothing.
“Stand back,”he said.
Cyrus went toone end of the shelf and tried to tip it over. Fibianmoved to the other. Together they brought the bookshelf crashing to the floor.Behind the shelf hid a narrow passageway that delved into the living rock. Theair grew cold and clear as Cyrus and Fibian enteredthe passage. Fibian’s eyes lit the narrow corridorwith a dim blue glow.
“Where doesthis lead?” Cyrus whispered.
The passagetwisted east and opened up into another large chamber. The air smelled ofrotten pork and burnt lard. Fibian stopped. He puthis webbed hand to Cyrus’ chest.
Cyrus scannedthe room, searching for Edward. The cavern was half the size of the great hall.Its floor was cracked and uneven. Water poured from the stone walls andcollected in large pools throughout the cave. Oil lamps hung from iron hooksmounted to the walls, and a small cook fire glowed at its center. The largestwater klops Cyrus had ever seen tended the fire. Thecreature was no batalha, for she was fat and helpless,like a beached whale. The glowing coals threw shadows over her layers of chins.Her black hair lay knotted, in thick nests, across her broad shoulders.
“Ah, come outof your fancy hall to visit little ol’ me, have ya?” the obese klops grunted,turning three fat rats on a spit over the fire.
Oil from therodents dripped and fizzled into the fire.
Who was shetalking to, Cyrus wondered? Then he saw her. Moro stood in the shadows besideseveral large wooden barrels stacked on top of each other. She inspectedherself in a broken picture mirror set against the wall. Cyrus spied Edward’sglass jar glinting in her right hand.
“I do not havetime for this, Vaca. Which one of these is female?”
Moro gesturedto the many cocoon-like pods surrounding the water klops’belly folds. Cyrus had seen others like them before, deep within the troll’shideout. But the ones there had been frozen and shattered. These sacs hadliving forms shifting about within their wombs.
The massivefemale shuffled her rotund frame in seeming discomfort.
“What’s all theyelling and blasting been about?” Vaca asked.
She
