“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
