Duncton Wood (17 page)

“You say he has escaped? But
who
has escaped?” demanded Mandrake. “I do not believe that the oldest mole in the system, who appeared to be hardly alive at the last elder meeting, could run through the wood like a youngster and elude the” – he looked around him sarcastically, as if he was not one of them —” the toughest moles in the system. That was
not
Hulver.”

At this, they followed his gaze down to the slopes. Then, quick as a flash, as they looked back up toward the distant Stone lost somewhere above them in the night, the realization came to all of them that they might have been fooled. They all started back for the Stone as one, and as fast as they could – Mandrake at their head.

Bracken decided that he must follow them. It would be easy enough to avoid them now, and they were making sufficient noise to cover his sounds.

One makes faster progress than six, and so it was that Bracken arrived on the far side of the clearing when Mandrake came to it from the slope side.

Hulver was there, clear in the moonlight, back to the Stone and paws raised toward Uffington. He was in the final stages of the ritual, his figure commanding in its calm, his voice awe-inspiring in its aged strength. Behind him the Stone towered up into the sky.

He seemed oblivious of the arrival of Mandrake and his henchmoles, who stopped for a moment in awe at the sight of him.

But there was one other mole there whose presence was unknown to any of the others, including Hulver. He was hidden among the roots of the great beech by the Stone where Hulver and Bracken had slept their first night in the clearing.

He had left his burrow on the eastside and come slowly and reluctantly through the wood to the Stone. He had not wanted to come, for he had heard the talk that Mandrake’s henchmoles would be out, yet he knew he must, and he arrived as Bracken drew the others away, in time to watch Hulver start the ritual. He might have joined in, but he felt unworthy to do so, as if he had no right to be there. But he mouthed the words with Hulver, urging the old mole through each one and intending to see Hulver through to the end of the ritual. Then he would go quietly back, back to the eastside, so that none might ever know that he had watched over the ritual.

But now he saw that Hulver would be cut down before the end and he knew, as perhaps he had known all the time, what he must do. Perhaps he could stop them – he must at least try. In the moment Mandrake hesitated with the others at the clearing’s edge he came from among the roots behind the Stone and stood with his back to Hulver, his talons raised toward Mandrake, ready to do his best to stop him while Hulver finished the ritual. Bracken did not recognize him – he was an older, sturdy mole whom he had never seen in his travels around the westside and Barrow Vale. But Rune knew him, and so did the others.. “Bindle!” hissed Rune. “It’s Bindle come to be brave.”

“Bindle!” roared Mandrake.

But Bindle stood firm as they advanced slowly toward him and holding his talons ready began to join in with Hulver:

By the shadow of the Stone,

In the shade of the night.. •

Mandrake began to speed his approach.

As they leave their burrows

On your Midsummer Night

Mandrake’s breath came out rasping and angry, black and dangerous against the gentle combination of the voices of Hulver and Bindle as they continued toward the final part of the ritual:

We the moles of Duncton Stone

See our young with blessing sown...

While Bracken watched in horror from outside the clearing, Mandrake reared his talons up high above Bindle. And then they came crashing down with a terrible force, plunging through Bindle’s own upraised paws and ripping deep into his body. He fell down and back, torn and crippled, as Mandrake rushed past him toward Hulver, while Rune and Burrhead cut at him as they too ran on toward Hulver.

Bracken crouched in the shadows, frozen with fear, unable to move, watching Hulver in anguish as the three strongest moles in Duncton, one of them his own father, bore down upon him with raised talons and ugly snouts. They were shouting or screaming at him, it was hard to tell which, and yet through it Bracken could hear Hulver begin the very final part of the blessing, the part he himself had learned:

We bathe their paws in showers of dew

We free their fur with...

But old Hulver got no further. He half-turned at the final moment to face his attackers and Bracken saw that his talons were not raised at all – rather, his paws were outstretched as if he were blessing them. Just as he had blessed the worms at the very first meal they had taken together:

Let no mole adown my body

That may hurt my sorrowing soul...

And then frail Hulver was gone, lost beneath their stabbing, vicious, thrusting, tearing talons, any sound he made drowned by the noise of their screams of anger and the panting of their murderous effort. Torn down where he stood in the shadow of the Stone, at the very heart of the system he loved, uttering the blessing on the youngsters in whose future he believed. Bracken was rooted to the spot, his heart screaming out at the agony of watching the mole he had so quickly grown to love, slaughtered before him. Yet he could not move. He did not have the courage, or the foolishness, to run out into the clearing and face Hulver’s killers.

Then, in a moment, it was over. Mandrake stood back and the others fell away, and without a word to each other, they turned round like a pack of rats in the night and scampered out of the clearing. As they passed Bindle, lying stretched out on the ground, he stirred and moaned, but Mandrake said, “Leave him, let him be living owl-fodder.”

They were barely gone before Bracken found his strength again and was able to run out into the clearing to Hulver.

But Hulver was dead, and all he could see was the body of a time-worn old mole terribly torn, small and crumpled in the moonlight, the left paw catching its light and curled softly like a young pup’s. There was the shiny blackness of blood on him, from his snout to his rump.

With a terrible sob. Bracken ran over to Bindle, who was moaning and whispering, trying to raise himself on a shattered paw, the paw sliding out uselessly from under his weight. Bracken bent low over him and heard him whisper, “Bindle, my name is Bindle. I came back to say the ritual with my oldest friend. We almost finished it, didn’t we?”

His breath came rasping and painful, and Bracken’s heart ached to hear it. “We almost finished it. And in the end I knew the words. He never thought I knew them all, but I did. When they came at the end I remembered the words.”

Bindle tried to say more but he rasped and coughed, and gasped in his terrible pain. Bracken pressed against him, supporting his torn body, blood on his fur. Bindle started to speak again, each word a massive effort: “Listen, youngster, and try to remember them: We... bathe... their... paws... in....”

Bracken looked up at the Stone and across to the body of Hulver, whose wisdom he now began to see. And then, at first very softly, but with increasing strength, he joined his voice to the dying Bindle’s:

We bathe their paws in showers of dew

We free their fur with wind from the west

We bring them choice soil

Sunlight in life

We ask they be blessed

With a sevenfold blessing...

Bracken spoke the words now with power, with the voice of an adult. They filled the clearing and carried on beyond it loud and clear, until they stopped Mandrake and his moles in their tracks.

The grace of form

The grace of goodness...

A wild storm of racing blood and blizzard cold swept through Mandrake’s head and body; he seemed possessed by rushing darkness. With a mighty roar he turned back, thrashing back up toward the clearing, tormented by the powerful voice that carried words that agonized his soul.

The grace of suffering

The grace of wisdom

The grace of true words

The grace of trust

The grace of whole-souled loveliness.

Bracken had moved to the Stone and now stood in its dark shadow turned toward Uffington, aware of everything about him: the dead Hulver, the dying Bindle and the agonized rushing of Mandrake fast approaching him, but he ignored it all.

It seemed to Mandrake, as he arrived back at the clearing and saw at first only two moles lying on the ground, that the Stone itself was speaking:

We bathe their paws in showers of light

We free their souls with talons of love

We ask that they hear the silent Stone.

It was only with these very last words of the ritual that Mandrake saw Bracken in the shadow, and with a roar as agonized as it was angry, charged upon him.

Bracken stepped forward for a moment into the moonlight, where Mandrake saw him clearly for the first time, and then ran behind the Stone, beyond the great beech tree, and into the wood in the direction of the chalk escarpment.

As Mandrake followed after him, Bindle moved for the last time, stretching a paw toward his friend Hulver, his snout turned toward the Stone into whose silence and light he felt himself flowing, away from the rasping breathing that was no longer his and the numbing cold that had been spreading from his paws and flanks toward his heart, and thinking that the youngster somehow knew the words as well, and that was how it should be.

On Bracken ran, his strength failing rapidly. He could no longer think clearly and his breath was coming in pants and rasps as Bindle’s had done. Behind him he could hear Mandrake getting nearer, carried forward as he was by an indescribable rage and malevolence, beech leaves and leaf mold scattering in his wake.

To his left. Bracken could hear other moles running toward him through the undergrowth, Rune, Dogwood and the others. To his right, the hill rose toward its final height, where he and Hulver had lain in secret before tonight. But he knew he had no strength left to climb up and away from Mandrake. So he ran straight on, straight toward the void of the chalk escarpment, his heart pounding in pain and each breath harder and harder to grasp hold of. Mandrake could see him now, just ahead, paws scrabbling over themselves, back almost within talon range. With a final push forward Mandrake reared up to try to bring his talons down on the failing Bracken.

Sensing what Mandrake was about to do. Bracken turned in midflight to make a valiant effort to ward off Mandrake’s blows. But as he raised his own talons to defend himself, he felt his back paws continue forward into nothing, sliding downward through loose soil and vegetation, attempting, it seemed, to keep hold of nothing. As Mandrake’s talons crashed down toward his upturned snout he felt the nothingness of the void swallowing him, pulling him down into blackness as his front paws flailed desperately at the cliff face slipping past his snout, felt loose vegetation and flints scratching at his face.

Above him he heard a mighty roar of triumph from Mandrake. But then, hardly realizing what was happening, he felt his front paws fall suddenly forward into an emptiness in the cliff face and caught hold of a surface. And he was flailing again, pulling himself forward, back paws again in contact with the cliff face, pulling, heaving, shoving himself up until he finally lay on the smooth, more paws, as Rune and Mekkins, Dogwood and Burrhead joined Mandrake at the cliff’s edge, and looked over into the blackness of its void.

“He has gone, gone to his death,” screamed Mandrake. “I caught him with my talon before he went and ripped his flesh.” And then Mandrake laughed terribly into the darkness beyond.

“Which mole was it?” asked Mekkins, wondering at the courage and strength of the three moles they had killed that night.

“It was Bracken,” hissed Rune into the darkness beyond them. “The mole I found in Hulver’s tunnels. I should have killed him then but I did not wish to warn Hulver that something was wrong. I should have killed him painfully then.”

“It was Bracken, was it!” exclaimed Burrhead, trying to sound angry. But there was a hint of surprise in his voice, mingled with a touch of pride. He could not believe that it was his own strange son, who he had thought had been killed after leaving the home burrow without a word, who had given Mandrake so much trouble before his end. Best to say no more, Burrhead thought.

Bracken heard them move off across the floor of the wood, back toward the slopes. Painfully he raised himself up, his left shoulder now stiff and almost lame, and pointed his snout forward into the Ancient System, which, after so many generations, had at last opened its tunnels to a mole again.