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vital ingredients was proving to be difficult. Said task had occupied her for the past half hour and, in that time, something of a murderous glint had appeared in her twitching right eye.
    "I will 'avva you, you leetle red bastardo!" she threatened, her arm swooping down to grab the skittering bunch of macalorum.
    But once again the leafy herb evaded her clutches, bouncing and flapping away down the hill towards the Flagons and causing the tall, thin woman to lose balance on the slope and flip heel over head, her skirt flapping after her and enveloping her like a tent.
    "Bastardo!" she hissed again, from beneath the cloth.
    A group of drinkers outside the tavern stared open-mouthed at an exposed pair of skull and crossbones bloomers and - possibly as a release of tension at the bad new they had all received - there was much pointing and loud and raucous bursts of laughter. Dolorosa's head popped out of the bundle of cloth and she flipped her skirt back over her dignity and squinted at them, hard . It was a squint that some said could kill - some even said it had killed - and the laughter stopped. Dead.
    Dolorosa straightened, then squinted down at the tavern again. The drinkers had disappeared inside but she could still see their faces pressed up against the tavern's windows and she strained to listen for the merest titter from them. But there was none and they seemed only to be checking that she wasn't striding down the hill after them.
    Lucky fora them , she thought, because if they hadda tittered, I would havva to keel them horribly and withouta mercy.
    After she had keeled the bastardo.
    Dolorosa span as she saw that the macalorum had taken advantage of her unexpected halt to turn around and bounce back up the hill, chittering as it passed her. Once again she made a grab for it, and once again missed. What had made this essential ingredient of her surprise stew quite so skittish she wasn't sure - it was normally such a docile little herb - and she wondered whether it had anything to do with the reports of strange creature sightings to the west. These things nicknamed the k'nid. Certainly macalorum wasn't the only thing around here that was uneasy at the moment, as most of the smaller wildlife in Tarn seemed to be that, or worse. Whatever the cause, the macalorum's determination to avoid becoming an ingredient only made her all the more determined to catch it.
    Dolorosa bent and slid her fingers into the rim of her right boot, then rolled up her sleeves and began to stomp after the herb.
    The stiletto she had extracted from her footwear gleamed viciously and the woman grinned evilly and tossed it in her palm, weighing it up, before flipping it so that she held it by the end of the blade. All she had to do now was time her moment right. And there it was, she thought, where the herb was about to hop over that small ridge into the trees beyond. The macalorum tensed it roots and Dolorosa threw.
    Victory issa mine! she thought, and began to scramble up the hill towards the impaled and struggling herb.
    She was almost upon it when she found herself staggering backwards. The sky above her tipped dizzily, as if she were going into a swoon.
    Greata Gods of the Seas, I havva overdone myself , she thought. My 'usband, in moments of passion, hassa warned me ovva this.
    There was only one problem with that theory, she realised - she didn't feel remotely dizzy or weak. Why, then, did she continue to fall backwards, landing on her behind with a thud and a puff of dry soil?
    Anda wotta wassa happening to the hill?
    To her confused eyes it seemed to be getting bigger.
    Pah! Eet ees impossible.
    Impossib -
    "Greata Grandma of the Gods!"
    Above her, no more than a yard from her upturned feet, the grass that covered the hill was breaking apart, spilling roiling piles of soil onto the otherwise green landscape, like a pan that had begun to bubble over. Dolorosa scrambled back, thinking that perhaps she was being visited by a rarely seen