Page 98 of The Sun King's Noon

“Daisy.” Richard let his voice crack, allowed the panic he was holding off bleed into it. “Please! I beg of you! Do not touch little Daisy!”

“Eh?” Yelka frowned. “Four chicks I caught, dearie. That little lass never followed me.”

“No.” Richard shook his head sadly. “She came with me. She hid herself when your chicken leg took us and slipped into the oven to hide. I lost sight of her—” He choked out a sob. “She must yet be in there. Curled at the back, in the ash. Please. She is only six. Take her out from there. Spare her at least.”

Yelka’s nostrils flared.

“She came?” she breathed. “The wee juicy lass is hiding in my oven?” Her cackle made Richard’s ears ring. “Oh, the little dear. Oh, the clever little dear, thinking herself safe in the wolf’s own mouth. Hold a moment, chicks. Yelka shall fetch the sweetling first. We must marinate her first! The meat tastes better when it is soaked in herbs!”

She abandoned the triplets at the oven’s mouth and dropped to her knees before the iron door. Her hands gripped the lintel, and she bent low, sticking her head, then her shoulders, then her hunched back into the oven’s darkness.

“Daisy, dearie. Daisy, my plump dessert. Come to old Yelka?—”

“Now!” Richard roared. “The door, boys, shut the door!”

Puck moved instantly, and his brothers followed, hurling their combined weight against the door. It swung on its hinges with a screech and rammed shut.

Yelka shrieked, but she was too late. Jeya was already there, sliding the bolt home.

The door shuddered from the inside.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT, OH YOU WICKED CHICKS, OH YOU FILTHY LYING WHELP, I SHALL HAVE YOUR LIVERS, I SHALL HAVE YOUR EYES?—”

“Hurry!” Richard barked. “Cut me free.”

Penn scrambled, almost tripping over the chains between his ankles. He grabbed a knife from the kitchen table and sawed at Richard’s ropes with desperate, clumsy strokes. After Richard’s right hand came loose, he took the knife and cut the other binds in three slashes.

“OPEN THE DOOR, I SHALL BE MERCIFUL, OH YOU LITTLE?—”

“She’ll get out,” Jeya croaked. A livid welt bloomed across her cheek. “The oven ain’t lit. She’ll batter through?—”

“Then we do not linger.” Richard ran to the trapdoor—a square of darker wood set into the floor near the cauldron—and kicked it open. Below, ten feet of empty air descended to the unruly garden, where flies still droned over the bloated horse-corpse.

“But where’s the ladder?” Puck asked from Richard’s shoulder.

Richard shoved him through. The boy shrieked and landed on his backside.

A crack fractured the oven door. The other children needed no urging and fell one after the other. By the time it was Richard’s turn, the bolt was beginning to curve. He dropped onto his feet, rolled and straightened by the horse carcass.

“We must run.” He carried Pip, who was still crying, and yanked on Penn’s hand. “Hurry!”

The chicken legs thankfully did not give chase as they fled across the clearing. The children’s shackles slowed the pace considerably, and they’d just reached the clearing’s end when a furious cry ripped through the air.

Richard turned in unison with the children. The cottage was moving, windows opening and closing like blinking eyes, and the chicken legs unfurling to lumber forward. Yelka stood in the open doorway, soot streaking her cheeks.

“Oh, dearie,” she sing-songed loudly. “Oh, my clever, lying dearie. I should like to see you try to outrun me.”

The ground shuddered. Richard staggered, and Pip wailed into his collar. Jeya skidded to a halt with Penn and Puck, her eyes fixed on the hut as it strode closer. Each footfall left a deep pit in the soil.

Yelka’s eyes locked on Richard. “You. I shall pull your arms from their sockets, and your legs from your hips, one by slow one. I shall bottle up your screams in my finest jars and uncork them at supper.”

Another step. The cottage was twenty paces away. Fifteen.

Richard glanced around. The trees were too thin, and the camp too far for the shackled children. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to?—

A hand seized his shoulder and wrenched him back. Richard stumbled, Pip nearly slipping from his grip, and Kaelen was already past him—sword drawn, shoulders set.