Torca Marda



Torca Marda is the main antagonist in the Welkin Weasels book two Castle Storm. He is a powerful minister in the stoat government and is also a dark magician, able to use dark magic to manipulate his goals.

As Sylver and his party of weasels are searching for the humans to bring them back to Welkin, this is considered treachery by the stoats and they have put a bounty on Sylver's head. With no one to help him Sylver has gone to get the humans back himself.

Torca Marda is first shown when the weasels get to Castle Storm, on the moors. They meet the squirrel rulers, but the stoats have sent spies in, notably the Sheriff Falshed, nemesis of Sylver. But even Falshed's presence is insignificant compared to Torca Marda's. Torca Marda is the Inquisitor of the stoats and he has built up a profession as torturer and interrogator from his early days as a grave digger. He is not SLOW on the uptake at all.

The weasels and squirrels have an annual festivity game, and when Icham, one of the weasels, enters a jousting match, Sylver swears Torca Marda utters a demonic spell to turn his own stake into a sharp point (against the rules) and then Marda launches his javelin at Icham, killing him.

The remaining weasels go under the castle, trying to find clues as to where the humans went. They come across Torca Marda and his stoats using dark magic over a corpse of a badger. Suddenly the badger is animated and comes back to life. The Undead badger then chases the weasels through the crypts and tunnels but they lose it. When seeking a way to kill the badger, the weasels find that Torca Marda has imprisoned monks in their cells, unable to see sunlight unless the impossible happens and Marda is dead. Later, the weasels get help from a stoat alchemist to kill the Undead badger.

Torca Marda corners the weasels on a high tower of the castle and threatens to kill them. But Mawk, one of the weasels, walks by pretending to be a plague victim, causing the germophobic Torca Marda to recoil from him and lose his footing, falling off the ledge to his death.

Upon his death, the monks were able to come back out of their cells.