The Dreaddrac Onslaught (Book 4) (28 page)

“Good idea.” Earwig held out an arm with the flesh sagging like a drapery cornice. “Give me your shoulder to lean on so I can walk over there.”

Dreg nearly collapsed under the corpulent hag’s weight as she virtually fell over on him. With an involuntary groan, he heaved her up and slowly managed to regain his upright stance. A deep breath and he managed to move a leg forward to encourage her to do the same, but she seemed hesitant. “You gotta try to walk, too?”

“Yes, of course,” she said through her sticky fake smile. “How thoughtless of me.”

They managed to move forward and out across the road. Each step was a labor for them both with Dreg carrying most of the load. Both huffed and puffed. The sounds were gruesome to hear, and Earwig broke wind with most steps. Dreg laughed, and Earwig became indignant.

“How dare you laugh at me; I’m doing the best I can,” Earwig said. She jerked back wobbling, attempting to stand to face him.

“I was just thinking how much you’re like Zendor,” Dreg said, laughing.

Unsteady, Earwig stood with her arms on her rotund hips. She stared at the helper and turned an uglier shade of purple. “Are you comparing me to that gas-filled bone bag?”

“Sorry, it was just a funny thought,” Dreg said. He tried to stop laughing but couldn’t choke back the chuckles.

“I’d kill you, but that would be too easy. You’re going to pay for that remark.” She held out her arm again for his support.

“You shouldn’t oughta talk to me like that.” Dreg stepped back, facing the witch.

Earwig’s eyes narrowed. “Oh the pain and suffering you’re going to endure before you wish for the release of death.” With that, she drew back and shot the first of several energy shots at her assistant. The witch was very unsteady on her feet, and the shots went wild. Dreg was easily able to dodge the bolts, and the sight of her standing in the middle of the road, firing off wizard-fire this way and that, was really comic. He began to laugh again before he could catch himself. Earwig hurled the bolts faster in response.

One bolt struck an unfortunate rabbit that squealed and kicked up into the air, coming down as a snake that shot off into the underbrush. Another bolt hit a fence post. It began to jerk in its hole until it pulled free, grew limbs, and ran south down the road. Another bolt hit the barn and set it on fire. The two of them stopped and stared at the barn as it collapsed in flames and smoke. In no time, their refuge was smoldering ash.

“There you go again losing your temper. Now we got no place to get out of the rain,” Dreg said. He sat down, plucked a grass seed shaft, and chewing that, wrapped his arms around his knees and waited.

The dark clouds over them opened up, and rain poured on them as if all the heavens were draining just there. Both looked, and smelled, like wet dogs. There was no place to take shelter, so they sat staring at each other reproachfully in the downpour.

Just then, a great freight wagon came tearing around the bend in the road at full speed, racing to get out of the storm. Dreg saw the coachman focused on the smoldering barn with its last coals steaming and smoking. He don’t see Miss Earwig, he realized. Dreg jumped up as the six horses and the heavy wagon trampled over her before the driver could stop the horses. Horrified, seeing the unidentifiable thing in the road, the man whipped the horses, and the freight wagon rushed on to the south.

Dreg hurried out to the lumpish pile in the road. She was a purple blob lying there. Dreg had seen the sight before. I know she’s still alive, he thought. For a powerful witch, she sure has a bunch of accidents.

Dreg just scraped her up and rolled the mushy lump to the side of the road until he could find what had been her mouth. He stuffed mushroom mash into it. All the while, two red pupils stared out from horrible yellow eyes as if the face would be screaming if it could. Earwig recovered; she always recovered.

“We’re riding something to Dreaddrac,” Earwig announced. “I’ve had time to think about it, and I’m going to make something to haul us to Dreaddrac. The idea came to me when I saw the fence post dance off down the road. I’ll animate something!”

Dreg rolled his eyes, wildly shaking his head, but Earwig wouldn’t take notice. I’ve seen enough of witching to know whatever it is she’s aiming to make, it ain’t gonna be what we get, he thought. The poor man started to imagine what would happen and stopped himself before he abandoned sanity.

“There now, don’t you get yourself in a tizzy, Miss Earwig. You get some rest and don’t think about such things in your condition.” I ain’t sure I can fight off what might come from her trying magic again.

Next morning, when Dreg awakened, he found the sorceress limping about, leaning on a crooked stick, searching for something to animate. I had hoped I’d done got her mind off that idea, but I see the hag’s possessed. With a sigh, he rose and made something for them to eat. Most likely we is gonna need all our strength to get away from the thing she’s about to make. He shook his head as he shook the frying pan.

After eating, Earwig was again ‘on her mission’, and eventually, to Dreg’s despair, she assembled a mass of small stones. She looked around at Dreg with that dreadful smile of self-satisfaction that turned his stomach. “You’ll see this will be my greatest creation!” she bellowed.

Dreg rolled his eyes and moved away. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

The witch stood near the pile of rock that she’d carefully laid out in the pattern of a flattened body with four legs extended, two rocks for head and neck, and one rock for a tail for good measure. With that, she drew her battered and bruised carcass up to full height and raised her arms as rods to draw the earth’s energy to her wand. She confidently cast her spell in a voice to command even stone.

To Dreg’s surprise, the stones began to shake, their lines blurred and blended. The whole took on a more supple appearance. In a poof, a small horse stood before them! There were a few problems, but the thing was animate, no question about it. In her haste and enthusiasm, Earwig had placed the leg rocks in the wrong order, and the front left hoof was the size of a water bucket. The horse couldn’t raise it and stood there attached to the unmovable hoof.

“Well, this one doesn’t have fangs or angry red eyes,” Dreg said. No need to point out the thing can’t move,
he thought.

“Yes, well, perhaps I should transform him again and fix the leg. After all, you can see I’m quite good at animation.” Earwig stood up straight and sucked up her gut.

Dreg glared at the concentrating witch. “Maybe you should leave it be.”

Again her arms shot up and out to draw the earth’s energy. She thrust her wand at the thing, casting the undo spell. The horse immediately toppled back to the ground as the rocks from whence it came. Groaning, Earwig realigned the rocks in the correct order. Then she again cast her spell, and again a horse formed. She smirked back at Dreg, hiding in the bushes. “Surely you can acknowledge my greatness.”

Dreg watched the horse. I just ain’t seen what’s messed up yet.

“Come on now, you know you’re impressed with my powers. Dreg, you must acknowledge and proclaim my greatness.”

“Give me a few minutes. I wants to see for myself this thing’s a working horse.” I’m only a helper, but I do learn from experience. Experience done taught me there ain’t much chance this thing, whatever it is, is gonna haul us to Dreaddrac.

“It’s a simple spell actually,” Earwig said all puffed up, even glowing. “Anyone could do it.” The nauseating smile spread over her face and hung there, annoying Dreg to no end.

She ain’t gonna learn me that or any other spells all the while I works for her as apprentice. I don’t want to be a wizard anyhow.

Earwig was facing Dreg, chattering about her greatness, when Dreg saw a ghoul racing full speed from the woods behind the smoldering barn rubble. It leapt on the rock-horse and bit into the neck. Its nasty yellow teeth shattered on the rock. Stunned, it jumped off, staring at rock-horse. It backed up two steps, holding its bloody mouth, then turned to Earwig. “You done this! You burned my barn and knocked out my teefs!”

The witch’s marbled skin looked much like decomposing flesh. Dreg saw vengeance and appetite on the ghoul’s half rotted face. He jumped up and pointed at the ghoul as Earwig finally stopped chattering and turned around. The ghoul was pouncing when Earwig turned. Her outstretched wand hand struck the ghoul, knocking him across the clearing.

“Oh crud!” At first startled, Earwig then realized her victim was an angry, hungry ghoul. She waddled to the unconscious creature at the roots of the tree he’d struck. She looked down at the ghoul, then back at Dreg. “Even though they’re on our side, they do look horrible rotting like that, don’t they?”

Dreg rolled his eyes, stepped closer, and leaned forward to take a better look at the unconscious corpse. “I never seen one up close before. I wondered if they was really them undead in rotting bodies. If this is one, the description was dead on. What we gonna do with him?”

“Well, we can’t leave him there. He’ll come to and stalk us again. No, we need to make use of him or finish him off.” A sudden twinkle came to Earwig’s eye. “I wonder if my incredible magic could convert him to something useful.”

“Maybe you done enough today, making the horse from them rocks.”

“Rubbish!” Earwig turned to the rock-horse and pointed. “We have an excellent horse that won’t break wind. I can bend this ghoul to my will and make him go retrieve my precious treasures.”

“Aren’t you afraid the fanged rat-horse will eat the ghoul?”

Earwig’s triumphant smile collapsed. “Small loss.” A torrent of excuses why the rat was to blame for the prior failure followed. “This magnificent horse proves I’m a great witch.”

I’m sorry I ever brought it up, thought Dreg. He agreed with everything she said to get her to stop the endless excuses and shut up. Still babbling justifications, Earwig’s arm unintentionally backhanded the ghoul attempting to stand behind her. His head smashed against the tree once again, and the living corpse slumped unconscious once more. Dreg shook his head and tied up the ghoul until Earwig shut up and decided what she wanted to do with him. The last trauma had knocked the corpse’s arm off at the elbow. Dreg lifted the forearm to show Earwig but said nothing.

“Oops!” Earwig said through pinched lips and an embarrassed, coquettish pose. “I don’t know my own strength.”

Dreg tossed the forearm in the ghoul’s lap. He tied the body to the tree so the rope went through to the ribs in case the flesh fell off. I don’t want that thing wandering around, dropping body parts here and there, while tearing out our throats in the coming dark, he thought.

“Tonight I’ll think of something special for our friend here,” Earwig said. “Meanwhile we need a cart for the ride to Dreaddrac.”

“A cart, yes, we needs a cart,” Dreg mumbled, then jerked upright. Frog’s toenails! I’ve slipped up and encouraged her to use magic again.

They both scrounged around until Dreg found an old wagon wheel that had rolled away from the barn and was saved from the fire by the living vines that covered it. The apprentice freed it and rolled it back to the clearing. When Earwig saw it, she beamed and placed a board she’d found on top of the wheel, just so.

“My boy, these are the makings of a fine cart. Now we’ll have a horse, a cart, and a servant to wait on us as we make our way to the Munattahensenhov,” the witch said. She rubbed the stubby fingers of her fat hands together, while gazing back and forth between the wheel and the ghoul. “Oh yes, a fine cart and servant.”

“Uh huh,” Dreg mumbled. He thought a moment. Your sense of self-preservation is screaming inside to run for your life. Nope, too late.

“Now let me see,” Earwig said. She looked at the ghoul, but it had recovered consciousness and picked up its unattached arm with the other hand. It was staring at the appendage. Earwig, flushed red and turned to the wheel, then Dreg. “I’ll make the cart first.”

“Now, Dreg, you stand the wheel upright in the clearing and move back away from it.”

Dreg propped up the wheel with the board and ran for the cover of the woods.

Earwig drew her lumpy self up and extended her arms once again to absorb and focus the energy around her. She went into a trance and rattled off an incantation with true conviction. At the end, she shot her crooked wand down at the wheel, and an orange bolt shot from it.

The wheel stood upright on its own and shook in the fire light. In a wavy vision, it shimmered and divided into two exact copies of the original. After that, Earwig looked back at the woods and cast a huge grin at Dreg. Again, she shot another bolt of energy at the wheels. The rotting wood in the spokes became new hard wood, and the rusty iron band around the wooden rims shed the flakes of rust and sparkled as new forged. Earwig squealed and clapped her hands, knocking sparks from her wand in the process. The witch pushed her luck and cast one more spell, turning the wheels a brilliant blood red.

Dreg was impressed for the first time in a long time. He stepped out of the brush. This is the first time I seen the witch get any of her magic right, he thought. Maybe she’s got over her curse?

“Can you make the plank into a cart?” Dreg asked.

Earwig puffed up once again, her hands shaking with excitement. “Place the plank between the two wheels and stand back.” The witch again raised her hideous bulk up and cast another spell. But she stood mute.