Shardik

PENGUIN BOOKS

SHARDIK

Richard Adams was born in Berkshire in
1920,
and studied history at Bradfie
ld and Worcester College, Oxford. He served in the Second World War and in
1948
joined the Civil Service. In the mid-sixties he completed his first novel,
Wate
rship Down,
the story of which he originally told to his children to while away a long car journey.
Watership Down
was awarded both the Carnegie medal and the
Guardian
award for children’s fiction in
1972.

Early in
1974
he retired from the Civil Service to devote himself entirely to writing, and published
Sh
ardik,
his second novel. Since then he has collaborated on
Nat
ure Through the Seasons
(w
ith Max Hooper and David A. God
dard;
1976)
and has written the poetry for
The Tyger Voyage
illustrated by Nicola Bayley
(1976).
His latest book is
The Plague Dogs
(1977).
He lives on the Isle of Man with his wife Elizabeth, who is an expert on English ceramic history, and his two daughters, Juliet and Rosamond. As well as English literature he is fond of music, chess, beer and shove-ha’penny, bird-song, folk-song and country walking.

Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books,
625
Madison Avenue, New York, New York
10022,
U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd,
2801
John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd,
182-190
Wairau Road, Auckland
10,
New Zealand

First published by Allen Lane in association with Rex Collings
1974
Published in Penguin Books,
1976
Reprinted
1976
(five times),
1977,197S
(twice),
1979

Copyright © Richard Adams,
1974
All rights reserved

Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd Bungay, .Suffolk Set in Linotype Granjon

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

To my one-time Ward in Chancery

ALICE PINTO

with sincere affection always.

Contents

book i ortelga

book iv urtah: and kabin

book vii the power of god

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I acknowledge with gratitude the help I have received from my friends Reg. Sones and John Apps, who read the book before publication and made valuable criticisms and suggestions.

The manuscript was typed by Mrs Margaret

Apps and Mrs Barbara Cheeseman.

I thank them warmly for their patience and

accuracy.

The map in this edition is redrawn after a map by Mrs Marilyn Hemmett in the Allen Lane edition of this book.

NOTE

Lest any should suppose that I set my wits to work t
o invent the cruelties of
Genshed
, I say here that all lie within my knowledge and some - would they did not - within my experience.

Behold, I will send my messenger .
..
But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire.

Malachi. Chapter III

Superstition and accident manifest
the
will of God.

C. G.Jung

Book I

1
The Fire

Even in
the dry heat of summer’s end, th
e great forest was never silent. Along the ground - soft, bare soil, twigs and fallen branches, decaying leaves black as ashes - there ran a continuous flow of sound. As a fire burns with a murmur of flames, with the intermittent crack of exploding knots in t
he logs and the falling and settl
ing of coal, so on the forest floor the hours of dusk
y light consumed away with rustl
ings, patterings, si
ghing and dying of breeze, scuttl
ings of rodents, snakes, lizards and now and then the padding of some larger animal on the move. Above, the green dusk of creepers and branches formed another realm, in
habited by the monkeys and sloth
s, by hunting spiders and birds innumerable -creatures passing all their lives high above the ground. Here the noises were louder and harsher - chatterings, sudden cacklings and screams, hollow knockings, bell-like calls and the swish of disturbed leaves and branches. Higher still, in the topmost tiers, where the sunlight fell upon the outer surface of
the
forest as upon the upper side of an expanse of green clouds, the raucous gloom gave place to a silent brightness,
the
province of great butterflies flitting across the sprays in a solitude where no eye admired nor any ear caught the minute sounds made by those marvellous wings.

The creatures of the forest floor - like the blind, grotesque fish that dwell in the ocean depths - inhabited, all unaware, the lowest tier of a world extending vertically from shadowless twilight to shadcless, dazzling brilliance. Creeping
or scampering upon their furtive
ways, they seldom went far and
saw little of sun and moon. A th
icket of thorn, a maze of burrows among tree-trunks, a slope littered with rocks and stones - such places were almost all that their inhabitants ever knew of the earth where they lived and died. Born there, they survived for a while, coming to know every inch within their narrow bounds. From time to time a few might stray further — when prey or forage failed, or more rarely, through the irruption of s
ome uncompre
hended force from beyond their daily lives.

Between the trees
the
air seemed scarcely to move. The heat had thickened it, so that the winged insects sat torpid on the very leaves beneath which crouched the mantis and spider, too drowsy to strike. Along the foot of a tilted, red rock a porcupine came nosing and grubbing. It broke open a tiny shelter of sticks and some meagre, round-cared
little
creature, all eyes and bony limbs, fled across the stones. The porcupine, ignoring it, was about to devour the
beetles
scurrying among the sticks when suddenly it paused, raised its head and listened. As it remained motionless a brown, mongoose-like creature broke quickly through the bushes and disappeared down its hole. From further away came a sound of scolding birds.

A moment later the porcupine too had v
anished. It had felt not only th
e fear of other creatures near by, but also something of the cause - a disturbance, a vibration along the forest floor. A
little
distance away, something unimaginably heavy was moving and this movement was beating the ground like a drum. The vibration grew until even a human ear could have heard the irregular sounds of ponderous movement in the gloom. A stone rolled downhill through fallen leaves and was followed by a crashing of undergrowth. Then, at
the
top of the slope beyond the red rock, the thick mass of branches and creepers began to shake. A young tree tilted outwards, snapped, splintered and pitched its length to the ground, springing up and down in diminishing bounds on its pliant branches, as though not only the sound but also the movement of the fall had set up echoes in the solitude.

In the gap, half-concealed by a confused tangle of creepers, leaves and broken flowers, appeared a figure of terror, monstrous beyond the nature even of that dark, savage place. Huge it was - gigantic -standing on its hind legs more than twice as high as a man. Its shaggy feet carried great, curved claws as thick as a man’s fingers, from which were hanging fragments of torn fern and strips of bark. The
mouth
gaped open, a steaming pit set with white stakes. The muzzle was thrust forward, sniffing, while
the
blood-shot eyes peered short-sightedly over the unfamiliar ground below. For long moments it remained erect, breathing heavily and growling. Then it sank clumsily upon all fours, pushed into the undergrowth, the round claws scraping against the stones - for they could not be retracted -and smashed its way down the slope towards the red rock. It was a bear - such a bear as is not seen in a thousand years - more powerful than a rhinoceros and heavy as eight strong men. It reached the open ground by the rock and paused, throwing its head uneasily to one side and the other. Then once more it reared up on its hind legs, sniffed
the
air and on
the
instant gave a deep, coughing bark. It was afraid.

Afraid - this breaker of trees, whose tread shook the ground - of what could it be afraid? The porcupine, cowering in its shallow burrow beneath the rock, sensed its fear with bewilderment. What had driven it wandering through strange country, through deep forest not its own? Behind it there followed a strange smell; an acrid, powdery smell, a drifting fear.