Free The Curse of the Giant Hogweed by Charlotte MacLeod

evidence that witches recoil from the threat of water.”
    “She’d already recoiled before I sloshed her,” Shandy insisted. “I grant you the cold water may have triggered the final explosion, but it would be unscientific to overlook the preliminary effect of the laughter.”
    Dan pondered awhile, then essayed an experimental chortle. He got one beechnut and a much put-out starling.
    “Ye tree knew ye didn’t really mean it,” said Torchyld.
    “You fooled the starling, though,” said Tim.
    The bird gave him a dirty look and flew off.
    “The salient fact,” Stott decided, “is that I did in fact get a result. This bears out Peter’s argument and means we are less defenseless than we might have supposed. He who can laugh in the face of adversity is in sober fact thrice-armed, it appears. I find myself greatly heartened by this knowledge.”
    “Urrgh,” said Torchyld. “I still wish I had my sword. Mayhap I should go back and get it.”
    “Mayhap you shouldn’t,” said Peter. “I have a feeling that would be a remarkably stupid thing to do. Would you settle for a quarterstaff ?”
    “A what?”
    “A long stick, suitable for prodding and lambasting.”
    “Oh, a ffon. That be a peasant’s weapon. And forsooth, who careth?”
    Torchyld leaped to his feet and went on the prowl. It wasn’t long before he found a ffon to his liking, about six feet long and as big around as Dan Stott’s arm. Peter thought it more suited for tossing the caber than hand-to-hand combat, but he didn’t say so.
    “Might ye rest of us not equip ourselves with ffons, too, if I may be so bold as to offer ye suggestion?” Medrus ventured.
    With his eyes now fully open and all those beechnuts under his kilt, the clerk looked a shade less weedy, though still a wretchedly inferior specimen. His suggestion was sensible enough, though, so they all began equipping themselves according to their tastes. Tim chose a sturdy branch about three feet long with a knob at the top, which he could use as a war club or a walking stick as occasion offered. Medrus followed his example on a punier scale to befit his rank and stature. Dan Stott managed to find a tall staff with the top looped over to suggest a shepherd’s crook or a bishop’s crozier.
    Dan did look remarkably like a bishop, or some such august personage, in that long white robe and headdress, with the fillet of gold across his hairless brow. No wonder the hag had fallen for him, Peter thought. He himself aroused Torchyld’s derision by selecting not one but three sticks: short, straight, and strong; none of them bigger around than a plant stick. He also gathered up a few feathers the starling had shed when it fell out of the tree, and stowed them in a fold of his robe.
    Peter was also still carrying the harp, which Torchyld appeared to have handed over to him on the strength of his stellar performance back in the cave. Now he hoisted it back over his shoulder and jerked his head forward.
    “What do you say, men? Let’s start hunting for water. I want a drink and I want a bath. And I want to wash this filthy damned burnous I’m wearing. And then I want a nap. The rest of you at least managed to get a little sleep last night. I never closed my eyes.”
    “It still amazeth me, noble druid, that ye alone were not felled by Gwrach’s magic potion,” Medrus remarked.
    “That so?” Shandy gave him a narrow look. “It amazeth me that you know her name all of a sudden. Back there a while, you said you didn’t.”
    “Great sir, I durst not men utter it. Mayhap I should not have dursted now.”
    “You mean the evil that she did lives after her?”
    “I cannot say. I only fear.”
    “Laugh it off,” Tim snorted. “Mayhap you can snicker up a stack of buckwheat cakes. Let’s strike downhill, Pete. We’re more apt to find water on low ground. Besides, I’d rather go down than up.”
    “Right, Tim.”
    Peter was growing deeply concerned for his old buddy. Tim was a tough old