“Oh. Well, that’s much better.” Morwen opened her mouth instead and closed her eyes. It wouldn’t be as unpleasant, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to see what was about to be done to her. The thought occurred to her she was being very trusting. What if this was all an elaborate story, so the queen could devour her? She shrugged and kept her mouth open. You don’t gain anything without risk.
Something whizzed past her head. There was a sickening thud followed by a crash. Morwen’s eyes flew open. The queen was lying on the ground, dead, with Goron’s axe embedded in her head. Oh hell! She’d forgotten about Goron. Furious, eyes ablaze, Morwen swung around to confront the warrior. “You absolute shit,” she screeched. “That could have been the solution to all our problems. I could have protected Wichsault with my army and sent out chomites to find the source of the dark rot.”
Goron raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I think you would have enslaved us all.”
That sounded like her, Morwen agreed, but she wasn’t going to tell Goron that. “Where’s Caroc?” she asked her face still scrunched in a scowl.
“Upstairs making sure they don’t burst through the front door.”
“What a surprise.”
Goron took an axe to the eggs. Morwen couldn’t watch; it was like killing babies. Instead, she glanced at the queen and wondered fleetingly if Anabeel found the peace she sought. When his grisly task was finished, they searched for another exit from the cellar. The space had obviously been dug out for storage only. Dejected, they returned to Caroc who, as Goron said, still leant against the huge wardrobe.
“You were down there a while, find a casket of wine?” he asked.
“If I had, I would have drowned Goron in it,” Morwen muttered.
“And I would have let you, so I didn’t have to spend another minute in your company,” Goron retorted. Morwen shot him an angry glare that switched to Szat when the demon sniggered.
Goron peeked through a gap in the window. “There are hundreds of them out there. Any idea what we’re going to do?”
Morwen maintained a sullen silence, but a jet of flame shot out of Szat’s hand. “We set fire to the fields and burn them all,” he said.
Goron shoved the wardrobe away from the door. Once the heavy obstacle was removed, the weight of the chomites, crowded against the door, flung it wide open. Two of them burst through, desperate to protect their queen. Goron was ready. A swing of his axe cut both in two. He charged out onto the porch, dodged a thrust from a leg, and put down another three.
Morwen thought she’d better help and sliced into the inside of her forearm. The warm blood ran over her hand and dripped from her fingers. She sucked up the surrounding shadows and released two shadow bolts in quick succession. The bolts struck the two remaining chomites. One crashed into the porch railing, and the other sailed over the top of it and thumped down into the grass. Others hurried to take their place. The companions had to move quickly, or they would be overwhelmed. “Light it up,” Morwen yelled to Szat.
The demon fired off a succession of fireballs over the porch into the dry grass. It lit up like a tinderbox shooting up flames ten feet high. Dozens of chomites were caught in the blaze. Panicked, they lurched around spreading the fire. One ran into the barn. The flames spread rapidly through the dry timber and turned the building into an inferno.
The companions watched as the flames spread and enveloped the army of chomites.
“Someone should have done this years ago,” Caroc said.
Morwen couldn’t be as excited as Caroc. She felt a sense of loss as the chomites died—they could have been hers. Something else concerned her. The wind had changed, and the flames had altered direction, blowing back to the farmhouse.
Morwen could feel the intense heat bite at her skin. To remain on the porch or retreat inside the farmhouse’s wooden walls would be certain death. They needed to flee. Conveniently, the blaze was heading to their next destination.
They vaulted over the porch and joined the fleeing chomites—hostilities forgotten. The fire matched their stride. A chomite, its wings smouldering, passed Morwen. Behind her, she could hear terrible, high-pitched screams as the slower chomites were overtaken by the flames. She turned around and saw Goron was only feet from the flames himself. His muscled frame was built for bursts of speed, not endurance. To her surprise, the fleet-footed Caroc offered to carry the warrior’s backpack for him.
Morwen fared little better than Goron. Her own burdens slowed her down considerably. “Aren’t you fireproof?” she asked the demon clinging to her back.
“Naturally, but I don’t want to have to walk.” Morwen made to put Szat down. “Don’t even think about it.” The demon leaned in close. “Or I’ll tell Goron I saw you checking him out when he went for a swim in the river.”
There wasn’t that far to go. She was sure she could make it. The houses of the dead, as large as any of the houses in Mournburn, rose out of the grass ahead, such luxury just for bones.
She wasn’t sure Goron was going to make it. Caroc was practically dragging him. The warrior breathed in great gasps. “Drop the axe, it’s slowing you down too much.” Goron still had energy enough to glare back at Morwen. The hem of his cloak caught alight as the fire bit at his feet. It gave the warrior the boost he needed, and the three of them hurdled the rusty iron fence into the cemetery with its houses and lanes of stone.
The wind, in league with the fire, blew sparks and smoke over the fence at them, but stone can’t burn. The three collapsed on the cool ground, letting its chill seep into them. They stayed like that until they couldn’t
