Goron threw himself down beside Morwen on the river’s edge. “That looks like a good idea.” He wrestled with his leather boots.
The smell of waterweed and dank earth was replaced by the aroma of sweaty feet as he plonked the huge, hairy things beside hers. She thought they looked like drowned beavers, not at all elegant like her dainty extremities.
Goron sighed contentedly and unbuckled his breastplate. Morwen lowered her aching back onto the grass and closed her eyes. A loud splash roused her from her dreamy musings. A heap of discarded clothes lay beside her, and white buttocks flashed over the small waves of the river.
Morwen pretended not to look as Goron frolicked like a fish then played at being a fountain. She couldn’t maintain the same indifference when he grew cold and clambered up the bank, his muscles straining with the effort and his manhood—unaffected by the chill water—on display.
“You should have a dip yourself. Your face is all red and flushed,” Goron said as he rifled in his backpack and produced a whole chicken while dressing.
Szat eyed the chicken greedily, turned his glowing hands on Goron, and demanded half. Goron thought for a moment about not complying, but when a nearby shrub burst into flames, he decided the demon was serious. The demon snatched the offered chicken and scurried up the willow tree.
“So,” Goron said, twirling a drumstick around in his fingers and sounding as casual as he could, “that little curse you said you put on me was just a joke, wasn’t it?” He laughed feebly to illustrate the point. “I mean, there’s no such thing as curses is there?”
Morwen waggled the stump of her little finger, “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to cut off my own bits if there weren’t.”
“You could reverse it, though, couldn’t you, if you wanted to?” Little flakes of chicken fell like snow from the tree and landed in their hair.
“Only if Anwen makes another donation of flesh. What do you think the chances of her doing that are after you cheated on her, twice?”
Goron’s brow tightened as he pondered the question. After a few moments, he turned to look at her and replied dolefully, “Not good.”
“When I was an acolyte, I cursed a rival for spreading unpleasant rumours about me. No matter what she ate, food would pass through her undigested. She suspected it was me—the bloody stump on my foot was a giveaway. She took her clothes off to show me how emaciated she’d become and begged me to show her mercy and reverse the curse. Even her mother came up with a sob story about how Shauna was her only child and, since her husband had died, the sole object of her affection. I was unmoved and let her die. My sister’s twice the bitch I am when she wants to be.”
“Why didn’t your rival threaten to curse you if you didn’t lift it?”
“Not every warlock can curse. It’s a special gift I have. Some get fire spells like demons, others can conjure the dead. I got curses, the first girl in several hundred years to do so. That’s why people stay away from me. They’re afraid.”
“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
