Morwen whispered a single word, “Kroduv.” The shadows in the room were sucked into her and left in their place a formless, grey gloom. “Birm,” she said. A jet of black shadow shot from her hand into the butcher’s face snapping his neck back with a crack and sending his body catapulting across the tent.
Morwen and Caroc lay sprawled in the putrefying slops, willing their movement to return. Their eyes were focused on the tent’s entrance, fearful they would be fetched for dinner before the paralysis passed.
Szat was the first to rise. He pulled his skin off the rack and stepped back into it as if dressing for the day. He then made his way from carcass to carcass, sampling each and commenting on its taste before settling upon what appeared to be a duck with arms instead of wings.
“Demons are nearly impossible to kill,” Morwen said, noting Caroc’s incredulous stare. “Slice and dice them and they can stick themselves back together. I remember once chef chopped off Szat’s fingers and threw them away when he tried to snatch a roast chicken. We had to search through the kitchen trash for hours to find them again.”
“The toadoks would have got a fright when they tried to boil me,” Szat chuckled. “I’m heat resistant too remember.” He hadn’t quite put his skin back on correctly, and it billowed under his arms and sagged below his buttocks. There were a few tears too, but they would mend themselves.
“Thank you,” Caroc said. The feeling was returning to his limbs. He propped himself up on his elbows. His neck, too numb to support his head, rested on his chest as if he were asleep. Morwen was still unable to move. “I shouldn’t have brought us here,” he said.
“You had to, the justiciar instructed us. The toadoks are a constant threat and need to be eradicated.”
“I ought to have come alone then, not been such a coward.” He pushed himself up onto his knees then rose unsteadily. “I aim to set that right.” He stumbled as his legs trembled and was forced to rest his hand on the bloody table until his strength returned. Using one of the butcher’s knives, he cut a flap at the back of the tent. Outside there were only trees. He dressed Morwen in her torn robe, and too weak to carry her over his shoulder, he dragged her from the tent and into the forest. Szat insisted on a ride, sitting on Morwen’s belly and munching on the revolting carcass he’d found on the butcher’s slab. They went unchallenged, the toadoks too busy preparing for the feast.
Caroc made a lean-to shelter of branches and leaves and hid Morwen beneath. The warlock was still having difficulty moving. It would take a small body like hers some time to neutralize the poison from the toadoks’ darts. It was a wonder she’d managed to mutter the spell that saved them—a testament to her inner strength.
“I’m going back to the village,” Caroc announced.
“Why?”
“To do something I should have done a long time ago.”
Morwen managed a half smile. “Okay.”
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” Caroc said and disappeared into the creeping twilight.
It didn’t take long to find the plant he wanted, pale red leaves with dots in the middle. Killer’s eye, one leaf was enough to kill a grown man a dozen times over. He stuffed his pocket with a fistful of the leaves and continued to the village.
The butcher’s tent was as they had left it, and there was no commotion outside except for the excited murmurings of the toadoks gathered around the great pot. It would not be long, though, before one of them poked its head inside the tent and asked what the holdup was.
He stripped off his clothes and squatted beside the butcher. Choosing a serrated blade from the butcher’s own knives, he sawed into the meaty neck and opened up the throat. The blood had already started to thicken and oozed out the wound like raspberry jam. Caroc scooped it up and smeared it over himself, careful not to leave even an inch without the sticky coating. The illusion complete—he’d been skinned alive—he retrieved the poisonous leaves from his pocket and clasped them tightly in his fist.
He took a deep breath and smiled. He hadn’t felt this alive since…since the toadoks had captured him and Nessa all that time ago. “For Nessa, for the man I was.” He walked from the tent, head held high.
The whole village was assembled in the village square, at least two thousand toadoks. Luckily, the cooking pot was huge, roomy enough to boil twenty men inside. The chief was there. His chair had been dragged from his tent, and at his side was his grotesque wife. She was holding Morwen’s staff, the shiny onyx reflecting the firelight. The chief’s eyes glittered as much from the flame as his greed. Cheers rang out; dinner had at last arrived. Caroc waved, and the toadoks waved back.
They were too stupid or too hungry, he surmised, to question why he walked to the pot unaided, as if it were a privilege to be eaten. They might wonder where Morwen and Szat were in time, but Caroc did not think it would affect his plan.
He ran. He wanted this to be over and done with as soon as possible—he wanted to redeem himself. When he got closer to the fire, he broke into a sprint and vaulted into the pot with a splash. The pot overflowed into the fire nearly extinguishing it, but after a hiss and a cloud of steam it came back to life.
The pain Caroc felt was unimaginable, despite himself he cried out and tried to scramble from the pot. A beautiful face with emerald green eyes and auburn hair beamed at him, Nessa. He sank back into the pot and closed his eyes. His buttocks and feet rested on the bottom. There were other dead animals down there with him.
