“Honestly, you couple of maudlin dopes.” Szat shot a jet of flame at the axe. The handle glowed red. Goron yelped and dropped the weapon. “Right, that’s enough of that.” Szat scooped up the axe and led the two malcontents from the cavern.
The horn sounded. Its deep rumble made the cavern tremble and woke Goron from the slime heap. The slaugs slept in a jelly-like mass for warmth using one another for blankets. The heap rose and began to move, sweeping Goron and Morwen along with it. The crowd, armed with clubs, halted by the horn blower, a stooped and wizened slaug weighed down by heavy, jewelled necklaces. Two hundred yards away was an equally large force of boggarts armed with bows and spears.
“What’s happening?” Goron nudged a pimply adolescent squeezed beside him.
The slaug looked him up and down as if he were a peculiarity.
“I don’t get out much. I work in the gardens,” Goron explained.
The slaug’s mouth curled in disdain. “You’re one of those lettuce lovers are you? We soldiers compete with one another to catch boggarts. Whoever captures the most and carries them back to where we started spends the night with the queen.”
Goron’s and Morwen’s chance to prove themselves—to gain access to the queen.
He spotted the huge axe slung over Goron’s back. “You won’t catch any slaves with that. You need a club.”
“Where can I get one?”
The slaug rolled his eyes and arrogantly waved his club in Goron’s face. “You have to make it, of course.”
Goron punched the juvenile in the face and snatched the club off him as he went down and was swallowed by the surging crowd. He turned to Morwen and whispered, “This is madness, clubs versus spears and arrows. We’ll be cut to ribbons.”
“I think, that’s the whole idea. It’s the queen’s way of keeping down the population. Haven’t you noticed how many noisy brats there are crawling around? She’s got to make room for them somehow.
Goron stretched up and looked around, assessing the distance and the boggarts’ numbers. “I can think of an easier way to cull the population.” The furrow in his brow deepened as he leaned in closer to Morwen. “Can’t the queen stop popping out so many babies? It’s just a vicious cycle.”
“Maybe that’s the only enjoyment she has,” Morwen said.
The slaug who Goron had punched in the nose poked his bloody head between Morwen and Goron. “Give me my club back, or I’ll tell the guard.”
“Get lost,” Morwen said and spread his nose farther across his face with her elbow.
“Where’s Szat?” Goron asked adjusting the strap of his axe. It was designed for dainty human backs not gelatinous slabs.
“He wandered off in the night grumbling about only salad and vegetables to eat. I suspect he’ll be looking for some bats.”
The overeager slaugs jostled them from behind. “Let them, it’s safer at the back without shields or armour,” Goron said.
The horn blasted out, and with a testosteronic roar, the slaugs broke into a run, which for any other humanoid species was a brisk walk.
“Keep behind me,” Goron shouted. The air hissed with arrows. The metal heads clanged off the cave walls, thudded into the ground, and sliced into slaug flesh. Many in the front row dropped soundlessly, bristling with shafts, but there were still dozens of meat shields ahead. Goron hugged the cavern wall and kept low. Morwen was his shadow.
The slaug to Goron’s left went down with an arrow sticking out his forehead. He manoeuvred himself directly behind another slaug to use him as a guard. Just in time—a shaft sank into Goron’s slaug shield up to the feathers.
There was a loud thwack as white rocks sailed through the air and shattered as they hit their targets—the boggarts had a catapult.
“Salt, Salt,” a hundred voices cried out.
What’s so scary about salt Goron thought. A clump of it struck Goron on the back with a hiss, and he howled as it ate into his skin like acid. His slaug shield was frothing and bubbling like a mad science experiment. He jockeyed into position behind a rather plump specimen and glanced behind him in time to see Morwen drop back. From the look on her face, she was horrified by the carnage she was witnessing.
The slaug in front of Goron went down with a spear buried in his chest. Goron now found himself at the front of the slaugs’ onslaught. “Murdus protect me,” he whispered and lowered his head to push on.
He crashed into the boggart line with all the force of a slow tide. His club swept a path through the enemy like a scythe through a field of wheat. With their short spears, arrows, and diminutive size, they were no match for the slaugs in close quarters. It was the slaugs’ turn for some population control.
Goron didn’t stick around for the slaughter. He picked up six unconscious boggarts, two under each arm and two slung over his shoulders, and made his way back to the starting point.
He passed Morwen on the way. She was gliding along slowly in no hurry to join the battle and grinned when she saw him. “I guess you’ll be getting lucky tonight at last.”
“How bad could it be?” Goron returned the grin and added, “She will have had plenty of experience.”
Other slaugs were making their way back with their prizes. Only one, though, matched Goron in strength. The huge slaug carried a squirming heap as if it were a barrel. Goron counted twelve legs.
“We have a tie,” the wizened slaug called out and beckoned the two winners over. “What are your names?”
“Goro,” Goron replied. That was the most slaugish version of his name he could think of.
“Bok,” the other grunted.
“Goro and Bok for their bravery shall spend a night inside the loins of Gagurt, our most behemothic and voluptuary queen.” Bok thumped Goron on the back. Goron glowered at him and quickly looked away
