The next day, my head pounded, and my body felt strange, like I’d been stretched out and then compressed again to fit inside a four-foot package. I lay on the moss until only a dull pain lingered.

It was another hot day outside. The air vibrated with the swarm’s buzzing. Ikfael Glen was waiting for me, the otter resting in the pool. I nodded to let her know I was ready. And I was, mostly. I ran through the plan mentally several times while waiting for the pain to ease.

The first step was to gather the materials. I knew the area now and quickly arranged two piles of kindling.

The next step was to make a large fan. I used a frond before, but this time, I cut and lashed together sections of cedar bark to create a three foot by three foot fan, which I then attached it to a two-foot handle. The contraption was at the limit of what I could handle, but since I was dealing with a much more toxic substance this time, I wanted more length and surface area than a simple frond.

Hopefully, the fan wouldn’t even be necessary and the wind would do all the work, but I wasn’t counting on it. Not when my life was on the line. If the wind shifted, the only things keeping me alive would be the fan and my ability to hold my breath.

I was still testing the fan when I saw movement inside the dragon’s dung. My heart nearly stopped, thinking it was another worm. But no--some of the fly eggs had hatched, and the interior wriggled with larva. The little beasts were twice as long as their parents.

I guess dragon dung is good for fly babies.

The otter was just as disgusted as I was and urged me to hurry up. I lit the first fire. My hands shook, so it took a while to get a spark. Then once the fire was truly going, I used a brand to start the second one.

Yay me! One step closer to chemical extermination.

I waited for the second fire to burn down to embers. The smoke kept drifting my way, and that worried me. A lot. I was glad I hadn’t eaten earlier. My nerves were so bad, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep anything down.

I untied the cord wrapped around the mushroom package. Tried to anyway, but the dang knot wouldn’t come undone. And, of course, I left my knife by the campfire. I was just about to go get it when the wind shifted, blowing directly onto the dung. It was now or never, so I threw the whole package, frond and mushroom together, onto the embers.

Smoke rose. Just a wisp at first, but quickly turning into a stream and then a cloud. I held my breath and waved the fan. Hard.

The swarm, alarmed by the wood smoke, buzzed angrily. They lifted into the air to investigate, and then immediately dropped...dropped like flies. They passed Go, didn’t collect $200, and went straight to Dead.

More frightening, the dung started to cake, the moisture sucked out of it. Larva spilled through the cracks, as dead as their fly parents. The grasses and green things in a cone fifteen feet beyond the dung yellowed and blackened. An ash tree cracked in two, and the wood seasoned in front of my eyes.

I tested my breath earlier and was able to hold it for ninety seconds. Forty seconds was all it took for the flies, larva, and tree to die. Which was good, because my arms were burning from the strain and my lungs felt like they were at the edge of bursting.

I dropped the fan and dived into the pool to swim underwater and emerge behind the waterfall. I came up gasping for air, very much hoping that the falling water shielded the cave from any stray smoke.

I waited until the otter came to get me an hour later. The fire, the ashes, and the dung were cleared away, the ground soaked as if by a heavy rain. All that was left were the items hidden inside the dung.

It turned out to be quite a haul:

A human skull, part of a sternum, and a collection of bone shards. A pair of ivory dice. 10 large copper coins, four small silver coins, 1 large silver coin, and 1 small gold coin. A section of a shield folded onto itself, the metal torn on one end. A red stripe was still visible. A helm, dented on one side. Five pieces of a chain mail that’d been ripped apart. The smallest piece was two by three inches, the largest twenty-four by eleven. The links were crafted from steel. A dagger, unblemished and sharp.

Everything was washed clean by the water, as if the dung and the mushroom never existed. I sat among the items, not caring if my pants got wet.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the skull. “It was probably a horrible way to die. I hope you don’t mind, but I could really use these things. I’m in trouble you see. Over my head, and if it wasn’t for the kindness of strangers, I’d be dead.”

I waited, in case the skull responded, but they didn’t. Which was a relief. I wasn’t sure what I would do if they did.