But he did not go over towards the Stone Clearing, but instead, as Cluniac had rightly guessed, he headed towards the Great Library, no doubt to try to meet Sturne. But Pumpkin never got that far. Somewhere along the way his luck ran out. Two guards reared out of the shadows of some roots and challenged him, and all he could do was turn back the way he had come, running for his life.
“Mo – ole, we’re going to get you...” the guardmoles called with playful menace, for what could a scraggy old mole like the one they had surprised expect to do against them! He could not hope to run far. So they tracked behind him, upslope towards the Stone, laughing, shouting mockingly ahead of him, hoping perhaps to bring out other followers and so increase their catch, enjoying their moment before they turned pursuit to capture.
Poor Pumpkin’s breath began to fail him a good way from the Stone, too far to hope to reach it, or rather one of the tunnel entrances about it that might afford him better opportunity of escape. He had often thought of this moment and such plans as he had made depended on reaching such an entrance.
“Must try,” he panted, glancing over his shoulder and seeing how big the guardmoles were, how fierce, how close. “Must try my very best!” And if anything gave him a little extra strength it was that they mocked him, and made him angry.
Then, suddenly, a greater shock, and a sadder one. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Cluniac, gesticulating him on, Cluniac... In a flash he knew whatmole it was had helped him before when the guards nearly caught him. Cluniac had watched over him, but oh dear, oh dear... it was too late now.
“I order you to run for your life, mole!” cried out Pumpkin, stopping dead and turning to face the guards. “Go now!” Pumpkin almost wept, for Cluniac did not, would not obey. Instead the youngster came to his flank to confront the guards with him.
“And an entrance so near!” muttered Pumpkin, afraid for Cluniac, not himself. “You’re a fool, Cluniac.”
But the guards had stopped, wrongly suspecting they might have been led into an ambush, assuming that such paltry moles as they saw upslope of them were capable of such a thing.
“Let’s make a dash for it,” whispered Cluniac, “the nearest entrance isn’t that far. It’ll be our only chance.”
“A dash!” panted Pumpkin. “At my age!”
Yet, brave and resolute as ever, he turned back upslope towards the entrance and was almost to it, with Cluniac close behind him, before the guardmoles realized what was happening. Then, with a roar of rage, they came crashing upslope after them, ambush or no.
With a scamper and a scurry Pumpkin and Cluniac tumbled through the entrance and down a short passage into a dusty and echoing tunnel which they had used from time to time to hide in. Full of Dark Sound this one, leading to nowhere near the Main Tunnel that might have given them respite. No, this ran to the darker centre, where nomole might venture.
“We can but try!” cried Pumpkin, and so they did, the guardmoles already through the entrance and rushing down towards them before they began moving again.
Terror lay ahead, dark shadows, cries and screams, and the thunder of paws: cloying, gripping, paralysing Dark Sound clouded Pumpkin’s sight as the tunnel narrowed ahead and ended. They had turned amiss, and were in some grim, vast chamber, talons of sound about them and behind them the guardmoles advancing, unaffected it seemed by what dismayed the two followers. Pumpkin slowed once more, knowing he could go no further, and Cluniac had stopped already, paws to his ears as the Dark Sound rushed over them.
“Well, you two bastards, we’ve got you now,” said one of the guardmoles from the huge arched entrance behind which the darkness seemed to Pumpkin to slip and slide, to mount and mill, to swing and become impenetrable.
“Come on!” he continued, with heavy patience. “You’ve done the best you can and now let’s get you out of this bloody noise.”
“And fast,” said the other, his snout growing grey in the gloom, “it’s beginning to get to me.”
The guards, much bigger and stronger than either of them, grasped them roughly beneath their shoulders, the pain of being gripped in so tender a place bringing a gasp from Cluniac.
“Come on!” said the first guard once more, suddenly angry. “Out! Fast!”
So, helpless, beset now by pain and echoing sound, they began the short trek back to the surface, and Dark Sound fading, the echoes in the chamber behind receding, the...
Voices. Deep and rhythmic, yet far-off. A distant song.
“Listen, Cluniac!” whispered Pumpkin, and even the guardmoles listened, more affected by this it seemed than the Dark Sound that had so tormented the followers.
“Come on, on you go!”
Deeper now the chorus of voices chanting, louder than they had ever heard them, yet distant still. Deep, purposeful, marching...
“Cluniac, can you hear them, can you hear?”
“Yes,” whispered the younger mole in wonder, “yes, I can, Pumpkin. But it’s too late for us. Others will know it though, others...”
The chant continued, swelling now, deepening, and then fading as the guardmoles hurried them away and they reached the slipway up to the surface, and final captivity.
“Help us!” cried out Pumpkin, turning to look back.
“Help us. Stone!” called out Cluniac into the receding darkness.
Marching paws, the chant almost a melody now, rich in the ancient tunnels, the song of moles on a pilgrimage through time, trying to reach forward to help those who lived long after they themselves were gone to Silence. Their voices preserved for ever in the Dark Sound – no, in that place that lay beyond it.
“Stone!” whispered Pumpkin finally as the guardmole’s rough paws pushed him ahead and up the slipway towards... towards...
Behind them the chant swelled, ahead the light of the dusk seemed almost to shine, then dim again as the way was blocked by one of the most solid-looking and frightening moles Pumpkin had ever seen.
“What the...!” began the leading guard, his paw-grip on Pumpkin weakening.
“What is it?” grunted the one behind him, with Cluniac. And then... “Stone me! What mole is he?”
Deep, deep the chant of moles behind them, as if the Ancient System was a community again, and on an unstoppable march towards the Stone.
“Let them go,” growled the strange mole, “and get out of here. OUT!”
The guardmoles needed no second bidding. With time’s great army of followers behind them, and the reality of this fierce unknown mole blocking the exit ahead, they wanted to get away from these dread tunnels and these mysterious moles. The intruder pulled aside, frowned and growled again, and the guardmoles were up and gone past him, crashing away through the wood above, the sounds of their flight subsumed by the extraordinary chant that now filled the tunnels.
Pumpkin stared at the stranger, then at Cluniac, and then turned back into the tunnel, towards the song. It came on to them in waves, so powerful, so glorious, that all three were struck still by its sound as three moles might be who turn a corner and are caught for a glorious and eternal moment by the rays of a rising sun, with a prospect of a moledom ahead with all its vales and valleys, fells and moors, trees and mountains flooded by light and peace. So the chant enveloped them, and knew them, and gave them the sense of the Stone’s grace. And then it faded, slowly, reluctantly, back into the lost tunnels whence it came, leaving only the whisper of hope, and the trace of a promise yet to be fulfilled.
“Did you hear it, Cluniac, did you hear it, mole?”
Silently Cluniac nodded. Then together they turned to face the fierce stranger whose coming had saved their lives. His face bore the scars of past fights; his paws were huge; his talons blunt. His eyes, which had blazed fiercely at the Newborn guards but moments before, now seemed diffident, almost shy.
“Whatmole are you, and whither are you bound?” asked Pumpkin, as Duncton-like as he could possibly be. Proud yet humble; brave yet frail; alone and yet with the sound of a great heritage and belo
ved community behind him.
“Bound?” repeated the mole. “I’m bound here, to Duncton Wood. And if my observations of the last few days are right, you are the library aide Pumpkin, and you, young mole, are named Cluniac. You’ve things to learn about not being seen. A crow with one eye could see you right across the wood, rustling and hustling about as you both have been! Aye, you’ve things to learn and I’ve come not a moment too soon by the look of things.”
“But whatmole are you?” asked Cluniac, in awe, yet affronted that he had been watched and knew nothing about it.
“My name’s Hamble,” said the mole, “and I’m of Crowden in the Moors. Privet sent me. She thought you might be in need of help. She was right.”
“Privet?” whispered Pumpkin, his voice faltering. “Scholar Privet? H... Hamble? The friend from her youth on the Moors?”
“The same,” said Hamble, smiling.
Pumpkin stared a moment more before it all became too much for him: the pursuit, the Dark Sound, the capture, the communal chant, being apprehended and then rescued. But more than that, hearing that Privet had sent this great mole to them, to help them, to help... And poor Pumpkin, who had led the rebel followers alone so long, sniffled and snuffled, his mouth trembled and all he could say was, “Privet sent him, Cluniac. I always said help would come one day. I always said...”
And all he could do was burst into tears, and sob his heart out while Cluniac held him, as a son might hold a father who had fought alone long and hard for his family and now was alone no more.
Chapter Seven
“Wildenhope!” whispered Privet to herself, staring at its distant dark shape. Then, from the valley far below, came the ominous roaring of water.
“And how will we cross the river?” asked Privet.
Below her, surrounded by guards, Rooster had also stopped. Between them was Madoc with her group and Whillan with his.
“With difficulty,” said her guard.
As if he heard them, though he was too far off to have done so, Whillan turned and looked up to Privet. Beyond him and far below her was the white-grey rush of the river they must cross and she felt sudden desperate fear as if she sensed a danger she could not name. Indeed, so powerful was the feeling that quite involuntarily she pushed forward to reach Whillan, and for the first and only time her guards had to restrain her. The moment passed and the parties set off once more, but Privet was left with an aching unease which would not go away.
By the time they reached the bottom of the Wenlock Edge escarpment it was dusk and Thorne and Fagg decided it would be better to cross the river by daylight.
“It will be easier then, miss, so there’s no need to fret. Maybe the rain’ll stop and the river’s flow ease off a bit.”
“Maybe...” said his fellow guard dubiously.
There followed a troubled night in which the rain did ease a little, but the roar of the nearby river grew louder. Everywhere and everything around them seemed to drip and run with water, and Privet felt chilled to the bone.
At dawn came the signal to move once more.
“I thought we would wait until full daylight,” said Privet.
“The Commander’s probably thinking that the sooner we get across the better – if the river floods we could be stranded this side, or worse,” observed the friendly guard at some point when dawn light came.
It was cold comfort, for nomole likes a flooding. Water is one thing, a flooding is another, for however well a mole can swim, the power and rush of a flooding can overcome the strongest. A grim look had settled on to the faces of Privet’s normally affable guards, and the only comfort was that they stayed protectively close to her as the party sloshed its way over water-logged meadows towards the river they could hear but no longer see. How they would actually cross it Privet could not imagine, for there was no sign of a roaring owl way and a nice safe stone bridge which might have led them comfortably high over the raging water. Privet had never wished before for signs of two-foots and their structures, but she wished for them now. Looking back the way they had come she saw that the top of the Edge was obscured by grey cloud, and now the rain began once more.
They came down at last to the field before the river itself, at which point they not only lost sight of it beneath its banks, but its roar became muted, replaced by the shriller sound of rushing water in the drainage ditches that crossed the fields all about. They turned south, parallel with the river, to cross the first of several ditches by means of swaying planks on unstable and rickety two-foot structures made wet and slippery by the rain and, worse, the occasional upward splash of water from the torrents they bridged. Privet disliked these crossings, but they were generally short enough to scurry across in one quick movement, being careful to keep eyes firmly fixed on the pawhold ahead and never straying past and downward to the water itself. Only once did Privet do that and she momentarily froze; the rush and dash of water below was so mesmerizing and terrible that the guard behind had to talk her on step by step until she was safely across.
It was midday before they turned once more towards the river, taking a route along the very edge of the dyke they had just crossed. Ahead was a clump of shrubby trees through which the river seemed to take a curving course. They cut in among these trees to slightly higher ground and for a moment Privet had the illusion they had left the river behind, and were safe once more.
The separate parties had slowed and bunched up, so that for the first time since the journey started Privet was near enough the others to see them clearly, if not quite talk. All looked tired, their fur bedraggled and their paws and snouts muddy. Rooster, huge and fearsome, seemed to tower over the guards around him and he looked round for a moment and gestured towards her and frowned, which might have meant anything from complete despair to a determination to escape. The moment passed and they plodded off once more through the trees, past two-foot structures, over a large concrete dyke by way of a sturdy flat bridge of the kind Privet would have welcomed earlier, and then finally out of the trees to the river’s edge.
It was then she saw sweeping up from the bank a structure of a kind she had seen on her journey across Evesham Vale before Caer Caradoc, but never been upon. It was, Weeth had explained, for cows and sheep to cross from one pasture to another and had been all muddy and trodden down at either end where the livestock had grouped and waited. This one however was ruinous and abandoned, its entrance fenced off to cows by barbed wire. The structure was still whole on either bank, but where an elegant span might once have been there was now only a great girder of rusting metal, its centre sagging down towards the torrent that raged just below. To make the prospect of crossing it especially grim the girder had a leftward twist, and swayed to and fro in the wind, and up and down.
“Right!” said Thorne firmly. “There’ll be no dawdling and no rushing. One at a time, go steadily, concentrate on the next step, and count. That’s the way to do it.”
“Counting keeps your mind off it,” whispered Privet’s friendly guard, his paw touching hers reassuringly, “we came this way and there’s nothing to it!”
“Wasn’t roaring then,” said his companion unhelpfully, “wasn’t flooded.”
Privet could have wished that she was among the first to go, but they went in the order in which they had travelled and her fears about the crossing had time to grow and fester and feed upon themselves. When the third mole across hesitated, she hesitated with him; when the fifth slipped and nearly fell, she slipped too, and half screamed in fear – a cry lost in the remorseless roar of the river below.
Whether out of sympathy or a moment’s forgetfulness in the successive dramas of moles crossing, the guardmoles allowed their charges to come close enough to shout words of greeting and encouragement to each other over the noise of the river, and nothing was more comforting to Privet than that. Rooster was already near the girder, ready to cross behind one of his guards so it was Whillan and Madoc Privet saw best, and both seemed well, if tired, with Whillan now a li
ttle recovered from his beating.
Rooster set off firmly, making it look easy, and giving Privet a little more confidence. But halfway across, where the girder dipped down lowest to the torrent below, he stopped. Unaware of this the guardmole ahead continued, but the one behind paused, eyeing Rooster uneasily and knowing perhaps that here at least, without the others’ support, he was no match for the great mole.
Rooster seemed oblivious to them all, but only stared for a moment at the dangerous waters below and then very slowly and strangely gazed around him and then upward, eyes wild, snout raised, mouth half open. Then, most terribly, he looked back at them, on his face the expression of one who never expected to see them again.
“Something’s wrong!” cried out Privet, forgetting her own fears. “Whillan, something’s wrong...”
Whillan pushed forward shouting something Privet could not quite catch, but as the guards restrained him Rooster seemed to come out of his strange trance; he shook his head, and proceeded to cross without further hesitation, into the grateful paws of the guards massed ready for him on the other side.
“It was the Charnel Clough!” shouted Whillan to Privet. “I think for a moment he thought he was crossing out of it again. Did you see the way he looked back here as if we were his friends Glee and Humlock he left behind? Did you?”
As Whillan was pushed up to the girder to take his turn at crossing it Privet thought, “Even after so long he has not forgotten them. Friends lost. His whole life has been loss.”
Certainly Whillan’s imagining, if that was what it had been, had the ring of truth about it, as if he understood something of Rooster’s mind as only family or a friend might.
As Whillan crossed, and more guards, and then Madoc, the number watching from the far side grew, whilst those around Privet decreased, until only her two guards and Brother Adviser Fagg remained.