“Kura bruud kocrekeca, kura bruud kocrekeca,” the figure moaned.
“What’s it saying?” Goron asked as he lifted his foot to stem the blood flow.
“It’s not enough. It wants more,” Morwen said.
Szat launched himself at Goron and latched his teeth onto his ear. Goron let out a high-pitched scream and shoved him away with his elbow. The demon fell taking Goron’s ear with him.
The ear slayer spat the bloody lump into the shade’s outstretched hand, and the offering disappeared into the wall.
“What now?” Goron asked, glaring at the demon, the blood streaming down his face.
“We wait,” Szat replied. Morwen had already slipped into a deep sleep.
The change was gradual. Colour seeped across her ashen face, and her breath was no longer a hiss.
Morwen opened her eyes and saw Goron watching her. “What happened to your ear?” she asked.
“Szat,” Goron said sulkily.
The demon grinned, showing blood-stained teeth.
“Ah,” Morwen nodded. She eased herself up. There was no trembling from the hacking cough or wincing in pain from her broken ribs, but neither was there any gratitude for the body parts Goron had sacrificed for her recovery. “Where’s my staff?” she demanded.
“Out there.” Goron gestured to the cavern.
Szat crept out of the cave. He wasn’t afraid. Demons didn’t experience fear on the primal plane. If their physical bodies were destroyed, they would return to the nightlands until they were summoned again.
The charybdis wasn’t asleep. It was emitting a high-pitched whining sound and had wrapped itself protectively around the staff.
This wouldn’t be easy. There’d be no grab and run. “Pathetic, and you call yourself a charybdis,” Szat said.
“Zooktuk can’t see.” The charybdis pointed a tentacle at his eye now resembling a giant blood blister. “Hurts.”
“What did you expect, you tried to kill them.”
The charybdis shook his head vehemently. “No, never kill.”
“How about them then.” Szat gestured unseen toward a pile of skeletons, some still dressed in mouldering rags.
“Zooktuk friends. Zooktuk look after, feed fish and waterweed. All die someday. Zooktuk alone.”
Szat could see how it could be a bit lonely living in a cave under a lake. “That staff you’ve got there belongs to a friend of mine.”
“Zooktuk’s staff. Friends gone. Zooktuk friend now.” The charybdis hugged the staff close to its body and bared a dozen rows of dagger-sized teeth at Szat.
“It’s a healing staff. If you give it to me, I could fix your eye with it.” Fortunately Zooktuk couldn’t see Szat’s transparent salesman’s grin.
“Zooktuk see again?”
“Yes, just give me the staff.”
Zooktuk’s huge brow furrowed in thought as he weighed up the request. “Zooktuk give.” He extended the tentacle holding the staff to Szat who grabbed at it.
“Make Zooktuk see now?”
“Yes, yes,” Szat said scurrying away.
Szat sniggered, “It was like stealing from somebody on their deathbed.” Morwen and Goron didn’t share his amusement. They were sickened by his scornful boast.
“So he never meant us any harm? And Goron blinded him…” Morwen said.
“I didn’t know he was harmless,” Goron interrupted.
There was a loud wail from the cavern as Zooktuk realized he’d been tricked.
“…and you promised to heal him and then ran off with the staff?”
“Yes, hilarious isn’t it?”
“No, and we can’t leave him like that.”
Goron nodded and kicked at a loose rock. What was up with Morwen? A few days ago, she’d been gleefully killing Wichsault’s ailing population. “I guess not. Can’t we sacrifice one of the demon’s fingers, an arm even?”
Szat bared his spikey teeth and fired up his hands.
“No, the night mother has as many of those as she wants. It’s mortal flesh she needs.” Morwen looked at Goron’s remaining ear. “I don’t suppose you want to even things out?”
“Not a chance.” Goron grabbed his ear protectively and glared at Szat.
Morwen slipped off her sandals and stuck out her foot. “Szat you’re up.”
Szat ran a purple, pointed tongue across his bulbous lips.
They wound their way through the cave, beneath the green mushrooms and dripping gloom. The fear that the chamber could end in a solid wall of rock, and they would have to suffer the horror of that long swim to the surface was always on their minds.
Their anxiety abated as the cave branched out into other passages—one must lead to the light of the sun or the moon. Always, they chose the passage that sloped up. Both of them limped from their missing toes and the ascent was laborious. Goron used his axe, kindly returned by the charybdis after they had restored its sight, as a walking stick, and Morwen hobbled along with the aid of her staff.
The incline steepened, and Morwen was forced to use the walls to pull herself up. The roof was barely above Morwen’s head when they stumbled into a colony of bats. Morwen flung herself into a crouch as the creatures shrieked their displeasure at the intrusion. Her head throbbed from the commotion, and her stomach heaved as the pungent stench of urine engulfed her. Still, finding bats in the cave was a good thing. Not just for Szat, who had plucked one like an apple from a tree and was tentatively nibbling on its leathery wings, but because it meant there was a way out.
The tunnel opened up into a cavern. The roof was luminous with thousands of glow worms. Their light was reflected in the puddles, each a galaxy on its own. Stalagmites and stalactites met to form sets of jagged teeth.
“It’s beautiful,” Goron said.
Despite Morwen’s preference for shadow over light, she had to agree.
Reluctantly, they exited the cavern and journeyed along another mushroom-lit corridor. Szat and Goron chatted like old friends about bygone feasts. Morwen trudged along behind. What had her sister seen in the warrior? Was it the broad back and muscled arms? His bad boy reputation or perhaps it was something hidden that others couldn’t see. She’d seen
