Duncton Found (83 page)

To talk they had to shout, and Gareg did not want that so they proceeded in single file and in hunched silence until they reached the most northerly of the Stones and, breathless, eased thankfully into its shelter.

It was immediately plain that Gareg’s caution had been wise, for mole paw-prints old and new covered the muddy ground about the Stone. Gareg’s moles knew their job well and quickly deployed themselves to right and left while Gareg himself crept carefully around the Stone, with Caradoc just behind him.

There, not far downslope of them, stanced two grikes, eating and having one of those fierce and cheerful arguments males who know each other well sometimes enjoy; while yet further off, one on either side of a narrow strip of land at that end of Caer Caradoc, watched two more. The wind blew from the south and so sound and scent favoured the followers and unless they were unlucky there was no likelihood the grikes would see them.

One of Gareg’s moles crept down to him.

“We can take them any time we like. From this upslope position and against the wind they’ll not know we’re on them until they feel our talons plunge, and then it’ll be too late.”

Gareg nodded, and agreed it was tempting. Very. He looked about him for the first time, relaxed, and said, “This is a place and a half – why all moledom lies at our paws!” It was true enough, for the country spread out east and west and north of them, while to the south Caer Caradoc itself ran, its great Stones and rock outcrops giving way to the shallow slopes of grassy, heather-bound fell which much of it comprises.

“Shall we take them, Sir?”

Some inner instinct cautioned Gareg against it. If they took the grikes now then others would quickly be on to them and then it would depend on who had the biggest force....

Even as he pondered it there occurred one of those shifts of circumstance that force moles to act so quickly that only through experience, nerve, and a sound grasp of tactics can they hope to gain advantage from it.

They heard a good-natured roar from one of the eating moles below them, their argument suddenly erupted into a mock fight, one buffeted the other and chased him straight upslope towards where Gareg and the others stanced in hiding.

Some strategists who have analysed the long and tragic campaigns between moles of the Word and Stone go so far as to say that the decision Gareg of Merthyr was forced to make in the few moments he then had was more critical than any other single decision a commander ever made. In that moment he showed the command and decisiveness that was later to be so much needed by the forces of the Stone.

Most moles would have said there were but two choices: to wait their moment and emerge fighting, or to turn and flee, hoping surprise and superior speed would take them safely out of harm’s way downslope.

But there was a third option, and it depended on Gareg’s extraordinary analysis of the implications of either course of action, and his appreciation, as he stanced there, of the strategic potential and its importance for morale that Caer Caradoc had for the moles of the Stone. If Caer Caradoc was to be taken, it was best done in the way and at a time that suited moles of the Stone, not hastily in a skirmish, which if they won it – and Gareg had no doubt they could – would force the grikes to reoccupy from their strong base, while moles of the Stone would have to defend a position they were not yet ready to. Better to bide their time and choose their moment well. Yet if they were seen – whether fighting or fleeing – the grikes would know they had an interest in the place, and either take it back in force, or occupy it and make it impregnable.

These were the thoughts the young mole had and with no more time at paw he gave the riskiest command a mole could at such a juncture.

“Freeze!” he cried.
“
Freeze
!”

His own moles were obedient to his word. Caradoc, not being a fighting mole, was inclined to protest but as the two great guardmoles all unawares rushed nearer he saw the sense in Gareg’s order. The slightest movement would be seen.

Up came the guardmoles, turned, joked, played, so close that the breathless moles of the Stone could smell their sweat, then closer still. Why, one seemed to pause and look straight at Caradoc but he stanced as still as ice and the mole saw him not. Were they made invisible as some have said? Perhaps. Gareg never thought so, but only said that if there was ever a time he believed the Stone loved him
personally
, it was then.

Tiring of their play the grikes turned and went back downslope, and as soon as they were out of the line of Gareg’s and the other moles’ vision he ordered the retreat, and not until they were far down the steep northern slope did they dare breathe again.

By then poor Caradoc’s ragged fur was wet with sweat and strain, and he was shaking his head and saying, “I never thought that
not
fighting would be more of a strain than fighting, but so it seems to be.”

This secret retreat had been the preface to what must have been one of the most clandestine occupations of an important site in all mole history. For the moment Troedfach heard Gareg’s report he too saw the implications and approved what Gareg had done.

“Aye, we must make them think we have no interest in the place and then build up our forces until we have the strength to take it quickly and hold it so strongly that the grikes will not risk taking it back.”

“Longest Night,” said Caradoc without hesitation. “That’ll be the time they’ll least expect us to occupy it. Plenty of time for us to build up our forces until then.”

“Aye and meanwhile we recce the place and establish the best way of taking it over,” said Gareg. Troedfach nodded and growled, “You make me feel old, Gareg. When I was your age I would have stayed where I was and fought it out, but now it’s all feints and shadows and calculation. I wish I were younger than I am. How differently I’d do things!

“But be patient with me over this for it will take until Longest Night at least to get all the moles we’ll need from other parts. We do not want to weaken ourselves just north and south of here.”

Troedfach’s watchers reported every grike movement from that day on, and naturally could not understand the inexplicable withdrawal of moles from its heights soon after the first incident. They were not privy to the fact that Ginnell was back from Cannock, and Haulke had felt it prudent to withdraw his patrols.

Meanwhile, well hidden and without even the moles themselves knowing the reason, forces were brought in from Troedfach’s system to the south, and Gaelri’s to the north. The decision was made to persuade Alder to delay the occupation of the lower Siabod slopes lest that action encourage more activity and movement along the western front and delay the arrival of Troedfach’s reinforcements. But even without that precaution Ginnell still put pressure on along the line, and slowed Troedfach’s movement of moles up so that even the day before Longest Night moles were still not assembled in numbers, or quite near enough, to complete the rapid assault Gareg proposed.

“Well, we’ll hurry them, mole,” promised Troedfach, “for I agree that it would be a good time to reoccupy Caer Caradoc in the name of the Stone. Should have done it moleyears ago.”

But that same day, all unknown to Gareg, Haulke at last prevailed on Ginnell to let him occupy Caer Caradoc. His own spies had seen the moles of the Stone showing an interest in the place and he used the dubious argument that if the deed was done before Longest Night and the Master’s ordination – in short, while Lucerne was still “merely” Master-elect – it could not be said to be breaking the Word’s law. Then, too, there was a certain satisfaction in taking an Ancient System of the Stone at Longest Night, even if it was a disregarded one.

“Should have done it years ago!” said Ginnell, in unknowing echo of his great adversary. “But you’ve got only until the moon begins to wane on Longest Night, for that’s when Lucerne’s to be ordained. After that, if you’ve not occupied the place you’ll retreat. Understand?”

“Yes
Sir
!” Haulke had cried out.

But what instincts drive fighting moles to know where to be, and when? How was it that a day before Longest Night Gareg was moved to take an especially strong patrol up the northern incline to the very top? Was it “just to have a final look” as he said? On such hunches the outcome of fighting moles’ lives depend.

Why, too, that same day, did Haulke suddenly get concerned about what seemed a simple unopposed occupation, and decide to bring forward by half a day his massive occupation of the top, approaching from the south-eastern side? Nomole can say, but so it was.

And so it was, too, that at dusk of the last night before Longest Night there took place the first of what moles have come to call the Battles of the Caradoc Stones.

Gareg ascended to the Stones shortly before the light began to fade, and decided to do the one thing he himself had not done ever since he first mooted the best way to take Caer Caradoc, and crossed past the Stone to look at the flat, exposed slopes of the central part of the place.

Then, just as chance had so nearly permitted the grikes to know he was there, so now chance beckoned him and brought him to the very edge of Caer Caradoc’s southeastern edge as Haulke’s force of many moles confidently ascended towards the very top.

The plan that had so long been in the making now seemed on the very brink of foundering even before the occupation of the moles of the Stone had began. So many assembling, so many almost ready, but most too far off to deploy with speed.

Gareg watched the moles below approaching and assessed the position rapidly. His own force of eight moles looked pitifully small against the many coming up towards him, and yet... and yet his had the advantage of height, surprise and, surely, purpose. Perhaps if Longest Night had not been almost on them Gareg would have retreated, but he looked balefully around, saw the Stones and Caer Caradoc which courageous Caradoc had so long argued for, and summoned his moles to him.

“We are eight and they are many, many more. You all know me well, and know that I am not a mole to hesitate.” They nodded, and one or two who had not already peered down at the advancing moles went and did so and came back looking dour. Then he continued: “Yet here and now I do not know what to do. To retreat is the sensible thing, and we shall be safe, but we shall never reoccupy Caer Cardoc. If we stance firm and fight all we can hope for is to hold them off until Troedfach can be informed and gets moles up here, but even then I doubt if we’re enough to hold these moles off for long. If they get over the steep edge here then I fear our chances of survival are low.

“I shall not issue an order but ask you to agree to this: if all of us say we stance, then all shall do so. But if only one of you declines, all of us will leave, and that one who decides against shall not be harshly judged, but respected for courage to retreat and we shall follow. So, all or none of us. Which is it to be?”

There was no sound then but that of wind in heather, and among the distant Stones.

Gareg looked at each mole one by one. He knew them all, and well: five were of Merthyr, and close to him, the other three were Troedfach’s and strong moles. Only one of them was younger than Gareg.

Some nodded their agreement immediately, others more slowly, and the last, the wise fighter Brecon, went and looked again and came back and said, “If we stance here and do it we’ll be bloody fools and chances are we’ll die. But if we live then it’s heroes that we’ll be, and after so many grubby years scurrying about being a hero will suit me well. As for retreating, if we do it we’ll never know what might have been and I’d not like that. Aye, I’m for it. Eight of us can kill four times as many grikes.”

“Seven of us,” said Gareg, “for I’m ordering one of you down to warn Troedfach. You, mole, you’ll go.” He pointed to the youngest and waved away his protest. “Go on, mole, you’re the fastest of us, and we’ll promise not to finish them all off before you get back.”

Then quickly, with dusk falling, those brave seven were deployed by Gareg in such positions that each supported the other well, and had room to move back and forth along the top so that the grikes coming up would find it hard to tell how many were there.

They gave no warning of their defence but, knowing that surprise would demoralise the grikes, killed the first guardmole as he unsuspectingly came over the ridge’s top, and then the next and then a third.

Those were the easiest deaths. For the grikes retreated, reformed, and began to mount a determined assault on what they naturally assumed was a heavy force of followers. But Gareg had chosen his ground well, and there was something about the looming Stones as night fell that worried the grikes and slowed them down.

On and on into the night went the fight, bloody, violent, a struggle to the death. Only when three of Gareg’s moles had died did the first grike succeed in coming over the edge. Even then, most cleverly, using every hollow and shelter they could find, Gareg’s moles, all wounded, all tired, succeeded in confusing the grikes and making them think there were many more defending than there were.