Duncton Quest (12 page)

“Well!” said Tryfan, exasperated. “Well!” And turning to Boswell he looked at him for some kind of support, or comment, but Boswell gave none, but instead scratched himself, hummed an annoyingly cheerful tune quite out of keeping with the sombreness of the occasion, and then found some food and ate it.

“Sleep seems to be in order,” he said. And, settling his snout along his wrinkled paws, he closed his eyes and started to snore.

And Tryfan and Spindle eventually settled themselves in companionable proximity, and lay staring at the fall of night, listening to the eternal north wind, their minds racing with all they had been talking about.

“By the way, Spindle,” said Boswell, who woke bright and early the following day, “do you happen to know if Brevis named the leader of the grikes in that report of his?”

“Yes he did. But anyway he told me,” said Spindle. “I know the name of the leader whom the others obey to the death and believe to be the mole Scirpus prophesied would come back to lead the Word to final victory over the Stone.” A look of fear and dread crossed Spindle’s face.

“Well, what’s he called?” asked Tryfan.

“Oh, it’s not a male. The grike leader is a female,” said Spindle. “And I saw her, too, just once. She was... she....”

“Well?” said Boswell.

“Dark. Strong looking. Her eyes... were... fierce. I saw her, just for a moment. I shouldn’t have done, I know that. She was darkly – um – “He looked down at his paws with embarrassment.

“Yes?” prompted Tryfan.

“Beautiful,” said Spindle. “I mean she... she did not look evil. And yet there is something about her to make a mole afraid. Oh yes, terribly afraid. But she was –”

“‘Beautiful’,” mimicked Tryfan. “Sounds to me you find all females beautiful. Probably haven’t seen enough of them.”

“And her name?” said Boswell cutting across Tryfan’s remark.

Even as Spindle said it, Tryfan had the strange and frightening feeling that Boswell already knew it, and had known it all – all of this terror and destruction – and there was in his eyes, and about his whole stance, a sense of expectation, as if time had turned to a point he, Boswell, White Mole, had long waited for.

“Her name,” whispered Spindle, as if merely uttering it would bring the walls of the chamber crashing down upon them. “Her name is Henbane.”

The very name seemed to call forth a hush of dread in the chamber they were in. With some difficulty Tryfan turned to Boswell and said, “You look as if that was a name you expected to hear? Do you know of this Henbane?” He tried to sound calm and yet was filled with a nameless dread that turned his stomach and seemed to leave a dark singing in his ears.

Boswell stared at each of them in turn.

“Yes, I know of her. A long time ago your father Bracken fought with a mole who had taken over Duncton Wood. An evil mole, and a mole of more power than Bracken could have known. His name is Rune.”

“
Is
Rune?” said Tryfan, surprised. “But did not Rune perish over the high cliff to the eastside of the Ancient System on Duncton Hill?”

“I said,” repeated Boswell, his white fur curiously filled with light, “that Rune was a mole of power. More than power: he is a mole who is a Master of Dark Sound. He survives, as I survive, beyond due years. He has his task as I have mine.”

“And what of this Rune?” said Tryfan, trying to appear indifferent to the claims of evil power in a mole he thought his own father had destroyed.

“Henbane is Rune’s daughter,” said Boswell quietly.

“Rune’s daughter?” repeated Tryfan, aghast. “And of what system is she?”

“Oh, I know
that
,” said Spindle. “Henbane is of Whern.”

“But —” began Tryfan horrified, for he had thought Whern was only a dark place of legend, not real, not extant.

But even as he began to react to Spindle’s extraordinary claim that a leader from Whern had been to the Holy Burrows themselves, the tunnel was filled with the distant drumming of paws, as of many moles travelling out on the surface – confident moles, strong moles, moles filled with zeal and led with power.

Tryfan’s natural protectiveness immediately took over, and, ordering the other two to stay still and quiet, he went out on to the surface to see what he could.

Moles. Many of them. Advancing among the Stones steadily and with dark purpose. Not searching, nor tunnelling, but heading back north the way they had come: heading for Uffington. The grikes had returned to the scene of their cruellest destruction.

Tryfan went below ground and looked at Spindle and Boswell. No words were spoken, nor needed to be: as the drumming of pawsteps continued for minute after minute and hour after hour, they knew that the Spring Solstice was on them, and the hour of a bloody Atonement had come.

Chapter Five

They stayed close and silent in the chamber, fearful of being discovered, but as dusk fell it became obvious that the grikes were on the march, and not searching for enemies.

Tryfan went up again to see what he could observe and the other two soon followed. The initial drumming of confident pawsteps had thinned, and they could see why. The first wave of moles must have been grike guardmoles, but now there were other moles, captive moles, pitiful moles. The ill, the weak, the aged, the defiant... in groups they came, herded and bullied along by grikes who seemed never happier than when giving commands, never more delighted than when drawing blood with their talons. Time and again Tryfan saw these wretched moles raise weary and frightened eyes, and heard more than one say, “That must be it, that’s Uffington.”

But they spoke not with hope or delight, as such moles would once have spoken, but with fear and dread, and Tryfan guessed that they knew, or had been told, that at Uffington they would suffer and perhaps die. They had a role to play, and a terrible one, for it was ritualistic and sacrificial, and they were its forfeits.

It was hard to gauge their numbers and Tryfan soon gave up trying, but certainly there were many of them, more moles together than any of them had ever seen.

“More than likely they’ve gathered others to their numbers,” said Tryfan, “and will be moving on from here to Buckland, as your master Brevis suggested in his report. Well, for now, this is as good a place to stay as any. We’re more likely to be seen moving than staying still.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” said Spindle.

“Nothing that won’t get us killed,” said Tryfan firmly.

“The Stone will find its own way of dealing with these grikes, and if it includes me in its scheme I shall be well pleased!”

“What are we going to do when they’ve gone?” asked Spindle, looking worried.

“Get Boswell to safety,” said Tryfan, speaking almost as if Boswell was not there.

Boswell had settled down and was examining his worn talons and toothing them clean, first this way and then that, as calm as ever in a crisis in which he could do nothing.

“Humph!” was all he observed as the other two discussed his safety.

But when darkness fell, and the pawfalls above petered out and were replaced by a strengthening wind, he said suddenly, “Is there a moon up, and if so what is it?”

Tryfan went to look.

“High,” he said. “The Solstice will very soon be on us. Tomorrow or the next day. Hard to make out the moon clearly, but the light’s enough to see the nearest Stone.”

“We’re nearly finished here then,” said Boswell, sounding pleased. “Very nearly now, Tryfan.” And the way he looked at Tryfan, with compassion and with love, sent a pang through the young mole’s heart, and the premonition he had of a future separated from Boswell came back to him.

“We’ll get you to safety,” he said hunching his shoulders aggressively. “When it’s safe we’ll leave southwards, away from Uffington, away from the grikes.”

“No Tryfan, we will not. Your future lies northwards. And yours, Spindle, yours too. Now sleep both of you and I will wake you when the time is ripe. Soon now, very soon...” And his voice was soothing and sleep-making, and the two moles, tired from the grim excitements and discoveries of the past few days, slipped into slumber, the one weak-looking, scholastic and physically uncertain; the other powerful and sure, his fur good and his face maturing now into that of a mole who might in time be a leader of moles of the Stone.

Unseen, Boswell watched over them, his eyes kindly and concerned, and a silence came to their refuge, deep and good. At last, when the two moles were asleep, Boswell whispered prayers and invocations, and quietly left them to go out on the surface.

The moon, which had been masked earlier, was clear now, but occasionally high cloud drifted across it, too thin to obscure it, but making a halo that seemed to encircle the sky above where Boswell crouched.

About him the stonefields stretched out dark in the night, but the taller standing Stones caught the moon’s light, their sides pale and green and rising against the sky and stars. Grass stirred softly and was still; then stirred again.

Far below, near where the river ran in the darkened vale, an owl shrieked briefly, and another answered it, far away. There was movement in the grass across the vale, and then it was gone, and Boswell sighed. Far, far away, slowly, a roaring owl crossed the vale in the night, its eyes bright for a moment before it turned away, its gaze sweeping some trees, then shining for a moment towards the sky before the gaze and the moan of its call was gone. Grass stirred nearby again.

“Mole,” he whispered, and then, more softly still, “Mole. Yes, yes, mole. Your time is come.” And the moon’s light was on old Boswell, and his fur was white.

He turned, and limped back as if he carried a great burden, and then he reached the burrow leading to the chamber and went below; while on the surface the Stones seemed hushed and reverent, turned in a way towards the place where he had been. The wind veered, whispered change, and from somewhere near or far, there was laughter of mole, young and joyful and....

... And Spindle stirred. Turned in his sleep, snouted up as if some dream was waking him and then stretched out again as Tryfan, the stronger in waking, moved closer to him in the sleeping, and seemed more protected by Spindle than his protector. And then, when they were still again, Boswell took out the seventh Stillstone and laid it on the chamber floor before them and its light came and was on them all.