“What are you waiting for? A deal’s a deal, go and get some more,” Morwen snapped.
“It only grows in the forest. I used to send Eggs out to get it, but after a few close calls with wolves, he refuses to leave the cave.” Eggs nodded his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to fetch it for me.”
“That could be a problem,” Goron said. “The boggarts have spilled over the wall and are slaughtering slaugs on sight.”
Skruc waved a hand dismissively. “No problem at all, we’ll just change you to boggarts. Now where did I put that bottle?” Skruc pulled down a jar ‘boggart hair’—it was empty.
Morwen gritted her teeth and made tight fists.
Eggs swiftly returned with a particularly hairy boggart. The unfortunate victim was expertly relieved of his body hair—boggarts’ heads are hairless—and sent on his way to ponder forever his bizarre abduction.
After downing the foul-smelling brew that tasted like a clump of hair blocking a drain, Morwen, Goron and Szat sported the repulsive bodies of boggarts. The wizard furnished Morwen with the formula for the antidote, so they would be saved a return journey to the cave. The trio bade farewell to Skruc and Eggs. Skruc thanked them again for killing Gagurt, and Eggs collapsed in a flurry of furry legs over Goron while swearing his undying allegiance to the slayer of the slaugs’ queen.
Morwen wasn’t sure being a boggart was much of an improvement on being a slaug. Her nose was so large and wobbly it obstructed much of her vision, she smelled of boiled cabbage, and her legs were so bandy she found it difficult to walk.
The slaugs’ cavern was a hive of activity. The vat of sluugouak was empty. Drunken boggarts had banded together and were trying to outdo one another in their cruelties to the slaugs who, with their queen dead, saw no point in fighting back. A barrel of salt had been upturned, and the slaugs were being rolled through it like dough through flour. Some slaugs were being jumped on until they burst like caterpillars, and others were being slow-roasted over a bonfire until they shrivelled up to crunchy strips.
“It looks like pork crackling,” Szat cried out digging his heels in Goron’s chest and tugging on his ears as if he were a horse. Seeing Goron’s huge axe, the boggarts kindly shared a piece of crunchy slaug with Szat who noisily munched it as they made their way across the killing grounds and into the boggarts’ caves.
The boggarts’ caverns weren’t as orderly as the slaugs’. The corridors were choked with rotting food and rubbish. Some of the garbage had been used to bury the dead. Decomposing feet and arms poked out from the waste as hundreds of children clambered over the piles or hid among them. The stench was so bad Morwen dry-heaved her way through the chamber.
Couples cavorted openly on the ground and extended invitations for Morwen and Goron to join them. One boggart female suckled a newborn. Its umbilical cord dangled from its belly while her lover made a sibling for it.
What had they done? They’d upset a delicate ecosystem that’s what. Without the slaugs to control their numbers, the boggarts would breed like rats. When the caves became overpopulated, their prolific numbers would spill out and spread like a plague across the land.
Guided by their large, wobbly noses they found the exit easily. The air became fresher by degrees, and their pace increased accordingly until they stumbled outside and into a cold autumn day. Morwen and Goron sucked in lungfuls of fresh air and grinned at each other with relief. They weren’t surrounded by trees, as they’d presumed, but crumbling stone buildings. Goron scratched at a stone pillar and examined his blackened finger. “It’s dark rot.”
“It seems Wichsault’s not alone,” Morwen said. They wandered amongst the buildings with the wind howling around them like a banshee. The architecture didn’t differ much from Wichsault’s. There were lots of pointed arches and vaulted ceilings. In the middle of the town was a central tower which swept upward with height and grace despite its dilapidated condition.
“Do you know who these people were?” Morwen said looking at Szat.
“The Victains, they made the best roast pork. Their apple bread sauce was awful though.”
It was a sobering sight. This would be Wichsault’s fate if they didn’t succeed in their task.
Fat raindrops began to plink on the ground around them, and the sky darkened to the colour of a bruise. “We need to find some hen’s heart. The sooner we change the better. Who knows what predators boggarts have out here.”
“What does it look like?” Goron asked pulling his cloak up against the rain.
“Fleshy, red flowers, like a chicken’s heart really.”
“Like those.” Goron pointed to Morwen’s feet.
She was standing in a small patch of red flowers, the bleeding blooms crushed beneath her feet. “It’s these horrible, little pin prick eyes. I can’t see a thing.” Morwen plucked up a handful of petals and put them in her pocket with the other herbs Skruc had given her.
They concocted the brew in the ruins of the great tower. The smoke from the fire spiralled up the rubbled stairs and out through the patches in the roof. The steaming hot brew scorched their throats as they drank, eager to return to their human forms. Back to themselves again, they huddled closer to the fire as the rain became a lake falling from the sky and chatted about how life in Wichsault was before the dark rot.
“What are you going to do when this is all behind us?” Goron asked. He took a nibble of a square of hardtack. Their supplies were low. They were down to a pound of dried meat and hardtack and a handful of dried fruit.
“I’m going to eat a whole sucking pig and a bucket of cook’s apple bread sauce.” The demon’s slug-like tongue dragged across his lips at the thought.
Morwen glared at
