There was a scurrying sound behind her.
Szat had discarded the bat, pronouncing the remainder inedible, and plucked another from the ceiling. Their discussion on feasts had whetted his appetite, and he threatened to die of starvation if they did not stop immediately for food. Goron felt peckish too. “Morwen,” he called looking back. “Morwen?” They were in the middle of a long, unremarkable stretch of tunnel, but she had vanished. There was nowhere for her to go unless she was squatting behind a rock answering a call of nature. He hopped and limped back to the last bend, but there was only more empty cave. “Morwen, Morwen,” he hissed. No reply.
“The spider got her,” Szat said.
“What…when?” Goron forgot about his need for a walking stick and raised his axe.
“When I was telling you about that time I hid in the oven and ate an entire sucking pig.” Szat cackled at the memory.
Goron ignored the pounding in his foot and dashed back down the tunnel, his eyes on the ceiling expecting to see Morwen cocooned in a web with some giant arachnid draining her blood.
“You won’t find her up there. It came out of the ground.”
Goron cursed and held the torch to the ground looking for evidence of a trapdoor. He tracked back and forth sweeping away the loose stones with his axe and thrusting the torch into crevices and behind rocks. His neck and back ached, and his wounds throbbed from his exertions, but he found no trace of her. She’d completely disappeared. He slumped down against the wall in despair. He’d let Morwen down.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was taken by a spider?”
“I had a mouthful, and I don’t like spiders. Besides, she’s a big girl and can look after herself.” Szat took a bite out of the bat’s belly, sucking an intestine down like a big, fat, juicy worm. “They really are better cooked.”
Goron had tolerated Szat munching on foul-smelling bats in his ear for the last hour, and now he’d had enough. He pushed Szat and the bat carcass off his shoulder. The demon bounced off the ground like a ball.
“What’s wrong with you? Morwen’s our friend, and you let her die.”
“Friend!” Szat scoffed, “I don’t have friends.”
“Figures.” The two sat in a sullen silence. Szat was selfish and disloyal. One cry from the demon alerting him Morwen was spider food, and he could have helped her. He should leave him down here with the bats and the charybdis.
Goron stood up. Szat looked at him expectantly and raised his arms like a small child about to be picked up. Goron turned his back and limped off down the tunnel.
Szat yawned loudly. “You’ll never do it without me.”
Goron stopped. It was true. He couldn’t do it without Szat. Damn! If he was going to find the source of the corruption, he needed him. With a sigh, he turned around.
Relief flickered across Szat’s face. Goron bent down, grabbed the demon by the scruff of his neck and dumped him on his shoulder. Szat resumed noisily chomping on his bat.
He owed it to Morwen and Wichsault to try to complete the mission. He took a determined step and plummeted—he’d found the spider’s trapdoor.
Morwen woke. Her head was so light it felt as if it might float away from her body. She tried to focus on her surroundings. If it wasn’t for the cave walls and the ceiling heavy with stalactites, she would have thought herself in the castle. A slight figure stood beside a huge black pot that hung from chains above a fireplace chipped into the rock. Humming, it chopped up what smelled like mushrooms, on the palm of its hand, then tossed them into the pot where they sizzled and spat in the hot oil. Morwen tried to move. She was encased in some type of cocoon. She strained against the fibres, but they did not loosen.
Hearing her struggle, the figure turned from the fire and crossed the cave, the knife still in its hand. Morwen lay on her belly. Through the thin veil of web covering her eyes, she examined the shape as it came towards her. It wore an ill-fitting, earth-coloured robe with a frayed hem and an absurdly tall hat which drooped like a wilted flower. The shoes were remarkable too, brown leather spotted with white mould and chunky heels with strange, tooled designs. They halted beside Morwen’s head, and she could make out the fat toes painfully imprisoned in their pointed ends. “A nice fat one, Eggs, this will fill the pot.” A spider twice Morwen’s size appeared. Morwen flinched. The spider had two very humanoid-looking eyes, sunset orange, below which were six very spidery eyes, black and alien. They all sat above what was certainly a humanoid mouth. As well as eight legs, Eggs possessed two tiny, green arms.
“She put up a real fight, Skruc. Walloped me with its stick before I could bind her,” Eggs said.
“She?…Hmm…very large for a slaug.” Skruc squatted beside Morwen and tore at the web that encased her face, “It…it’s a human. You brought us a human.” Eggs’ legs trembled as he teetered back. “I’ve told you, only slaug. You’ve ruined supper.”
The shame was too much for Eggs who fell onto his back. His legs twitched a moment before becoming still. “Playing dead won’t get you out of trouble. What am I meant to do with her now?” Skruc returned to his scrutiny of Morwen. “She doesn’t look at all friendly.”
“I am friendly,” Morwen said through gritted teeth. And she’d show Eggs and Skruc how friendly as soon as they got her out of this cocoon.
Skruc sensed Morwen’s ‘friendliness’ and raised a questioning monobrow.
“Fine, you’re right, I’m not friendly, I’m mad. Drag me back
