Snarling, he lurched away. Damned overly sensitive woman! ‘My rapier,’ he moaned.
‘Shattered inside her skull, I’d wager,’ said Gruntle, ‘which couldn’t have done her brain any good. Nicely done, Reccanto.’
Ilk decided it was time to strut a little.
Whilst Reccanto Ilk walked round like a rooster, Precious Thimble glanced over worriedly at the Boles, and was relieved to see them both apparently unharmed. They hadn’t been paying her enough attention lately and they weren’t paying her any now either. She felt a tremor of unease.
Master Quell was thumping on the cellar door. ‘I know you can hear me,’ he called. ‘You, hiding in there. We got three of ’em — is there more? Three of ’em killed. Is there more?’
Faint was checking her weapons. ‘We got to go and find Glanno,’ she said. ‘Any volunteers?’
Gruntle walked over, pausing to peer out of the doorway. ‘The rain’s letting off — looks as if the storm’s spent. I’ll go with you, Faint.’
‘I was asking for volunteers. I wasn’t volunteering myself.’
‘I’ll go!’ said Amby.
‘I’ll go!’ said Jula.
And then they glared at each other, and then grinned as if at some private joke, and a moment later both burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Precious Thimble demanded, truly bewildered this time.
Her harsh query sobered them and both ducked, avoiding her stare.
The cellar door creaked open, drawing everyone’s attention, and a bewhiskered face poked out, eyes wide and rolling. ‘Three, ya said? Ya said three?’
The dialect was Genabackan, the accent south islander.
‘Ya got ah three? Deed?’
Quell nodded. ‘Any more lurking about, host?’
A quick shake of the head, and the tavern keep edged out, flinching when he saw the slaughtered bodies. ‘Oh, darlings,’ he whispered, ‘ahm so soory. So soory!’
‘You know them?’ Quell asked. ‘You know what they were?’
More figures crowded behind the keep, pale faces, frightened eyes. To Quell’s questions the whiskered man flinched. ‘Coarsed,’ he said in a rasp. ‘Our daughters. . coarsed.’
‘Cursed? When they come of age, right?’
A jerky nod, and then the man’s eyes widened on the wizard. ‘You know it? You know the coarse?’
‘How long have you had it, host? Here, in this village — how long have you had the curse?’
‘Foor yars now. Foor yars.’ And the man edged out. ‘Aai, their heeds! Ya cart erf their heeds!’ Behind him the others set up a wailing.
Precious Thimble met Quell’s eyes and they exchanged a nod. ‘Still about, I’d say,’ Precious said under her breath.
‘Agreed. Should we go hunting?’
She looked round once more. Mappo was dragging the first naked, headless corpse out through the doorway. The green blood had blackened on the floor and left tarry streaks trailing the body. ‘Let’s take that Trell with us, I think.’
‘Good idea.’ Quell walked up to the tavern keep. ‘Is there a constable in this village? Who rules the land — where in Hood’s name are we anyway?’
Owlish blinks of the eyes. ‘Reach of Woe is war ye are. Seen the toower? It’s war the Provost leeves. Yull wan the Provost, ah expeect.’
Quell turned away, rubbed at his eyes, then edged close to Precious Thimble. ‘We’re agreed, then, it’s witchery, this curse.’
‘Witch or warlock,’ she said, nodding.
‘We’re on the Reach of Woe, a wrecker coast. I’d wager it’s the arrival of strangers that wakes up the daughters — they won’t eat their kin, will they?’
‘When the frenzy’s on them,’ said Precious Thimble, ‘they’ll eat anything that moves.’
‘That’s why the locals bolted, then, right. Fine, Witch, go collect Mappo — and this time, tell him he needs to arm himself. This could get messy.’
Precious Thimble looked over at the last body the Trell was now dragging out shy;side. ‘Right,’ she said.
Flanked by the Boles, Tula on his right, Amby on his left, Gruntle walked back down to the main street, boots squelching in the mud. The last spits of rain cooled his brow. Oh, he’d wanted a nastier fight. The problem with mindless attackers was their mindlessness, which made them pathetically predictable. And only three of the damned things-
‘I was going first,’ said Amby.
‘No, I was,’ said Tula.
Gruntle scowled. ‘Going where? What are you two talking about?’
‘That window back there,’ said Tula, ‘at the tavern. If’n the girlies got in through the door, I was goin’ out through the window — only we couldn’t get the shutters pulled back-’
‘That was your fault,’ said Amby. ‘I kept lifting the latch and you kept pushing it back down.’
‘The latch goes down to let go, Amby, you idiot.’
‘No it goes up — it went up, I saw it-’
‘And then back down-’
‘Up.’
‘Then down.’
