story identification - Fantasy novel with amnesiac witch, impotent soldier and cursed animals

The story is set in a vaguely medieval world in which a young woman has been cursed by the evil witch who has enslaved her and caused her to lose her memory. With the aid of her talking animal friends who have also been cursed (toad has a huge stone under his tongue meaning he can't feed and a crow with a gem embedded in its wing and there's a little grey kitten too who never grows up) she sets out on a journey to break the curse for herself and her friends. Along the way she meets an injured unicorn and a horny-but-moral soldier rendered impotent by a curse after refusing the disguised witch's sexual advances.

After adventures there's a 'happy ever after' for all of the heroes and the witch meets a sticky end.

In the UK the book had a deep red cover with an illustration. I read it in either the 1990's or the early 2000's. Cracking book, definitely for adults given some of the situations, language and humour.

Comments

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Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

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