“Hah!” Mara curled her lip scornfully. “Eat my heart? You couldn’t eat mud if it hit you in the mouth. Here!” She flung a pawful of slime. It splattered into the Toadking’s open mouth. The creatures in the pit had to scramble for cover as the toad guards hurled pebbles down at them.

Glagweb went into an insane rage, spitting slime as he croaked venomously at the badger maid, “Krrikl! I wait no longer. You have angered me, and soon you will all die. Kroik! I will make your deaths so slow and painful you will plead to be eaten. Grakk!”

After the toads had gone, Mara apologized to the other captives.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper and hastened your deaths, but I couldn’t stand that loathsome toad staring at me.”

Nordo wiped mud from an apple and bit into it. “What’s the difference? We’re all going to die anyway. Probably better sooner than later—get it over with.”

Pikkle nibbled at a strawberry reflectively. “I don’t know whether to stuff m’self and give those toads a good scoff, or bally well starve so they won’t have much to chew on. What d’you think, Nordo ol’ lad?”

“As I said, Pikkle—makes no difference. Once you’re dead then that’s it, fat or thin.”

“Here, what’s all this?” Mara put a paw around Nordo’s shoulders. “You talk as if the end is inevitable. Where’s your famous fighting spirit of the Guosssom?”

Nordo sat down heavily in the mud and slapped his paws in it. “Look at this—mud, slime, sludge, everywhere! Trapped in a pit like frogs in a barrel, forced to live in this filth. I can’t take it anymore, living like a wriggling swamp insect!” He yelled hoarsely and threw himself at the pit walls, slipping and sliding as he tried to claw his way upward.

A grass noose snaked down without warning and settled over Nordo’s shoulders. Suddenly the pit edge was alive with a mob of toads croaking and hopping gleefully as Glagweb waved his trident and bellowed loudly, “Krrrrokk! Now we eat ’em, one by one. Gurrrrkk!”

Pikkle dived forward and grabbed Nordo’s footpaws. “Come on, chaps. Don’t let the scurvy knaves take him!”

Mara waded forward and seized the rope. Several shrews hurried to help her, and the badger maid called to them, “Pull! Pull with all your might!”

On the topside of the pit toads attached themselves to the rope and hauled frantically.

“Krruuuukk! Heave! If you want food, heave!” Glagweb shouted at them.

The toughened grass rope stretched and squeaked taut as creatures at both ends bent their backs into the tug-of-war.

Two young shrews named Scraggle and Wikk climbed over the heads of the others and began attacking the rope with their bare teeth.

Pikkle smiled grimly. “That’s the stuff ter give the troops, lads. Bite away!”