Duncton Found (97 page)

But lest the violence against the followers seems absolute, know that always at such times a few escape to tell the tale. All across moledom, nameless even now, there were followers who were not quite caught by the tightening squeeze of the Word’s vengeance. Some by luck, some because they were overlooked, some by foresight and cunning, some by courage. One day, perhaps, their tales will be told.

Of Rollright know only this: that before Lucerne had even come, sturdy and faithful Rampion, wise already to the ways of the grikes, knowing what had happened at Duncton Wood, rallied a few followers and, with Lorren at her flank, got them out to safety before Drule’s killings by the Stones.

As for the east, and north-east, Lucerne decreed that they would be spared for now. Let the rest be killed and the guardmoles gathered, for, as Lucerne himself said in his homecoming speech at Cannock, “if Duncton was the preface then shall Beechenhill be the epilogue! We know the Word’s intentions for that place. To there shall we go last, but most mightily!”

A mole can therefore imagine, that that was not a good time for a follower to be wandering the heaths of Cannock Chase.

A disastrous time, in fact, to be poking his snout about those entrances on Cannock’s eastern side that lead down into the doleful depths of the Sumps.

But it was just then, and to there, that Wharfe had come in his desperate search to find Betony, and there he was taken by guardmoles. Though not without difficulty, for it took five to restrain him fully, not counting the two he killed and three he concussed before he was subdued.

“Name?” said a senior guardmole when he was finally taken into the Upper Sumps.

“Brook,” lied Wharfe, looking around at the dark damp place into which he had been brought and where he had good reason now to think that Betony would be.

“Brook,” said the guardmole indifferently, scrivening the name in his clumsy way and nodding to his subordinate to take the mole away.

“Usual, Sir?”

Oh yes, a mole who had killed two, one of them the guardmole’s friend, would have the usual all right, and plenty of it.

“In here,” said one of the four guardmoles who carried him bodily along and cast him into a sealable cell in the Middle Sumps. Once there, as usual, they taloned him; then, as usual, they let him starve a while; then, as usual, they took him to the noisome burrows at the north end of the Sumps and half drowned him for three days. Then....

“That Brook? Surviving?”

“Tough he was, broke yesterday. Weeping, abject, usual things....”

“Clean him up a bit, just enough. The sideem Slighe is coming down today.”

“We’ve a couple of youngsters for him.”

“Only males will do.”

“Aye, both male. He’ll like ’em.”

“Good.”

Slighe came and looked in on Wharfe.

“Name?”

“Brook. It wasn’t my fault....”

Slighe looked at the mole coldly. Large, strong once, but weak now it seemed. A pity he had killed guardmoles or else he could have been used.

“It never is ‘my fault’,” said Slighe. “Where from?”

“Youlgreave,” lied Wharfe.

“What were you doing here?”

“Looking for worms.”

“You’re lying,” said Slighe, and turned and left.

“Five days more here,” Slighe told the senior guardmole, “and then put him down. He’s lying, that one, and no fool. He’s not hurt as badly as he seems, so hurt him more. Then Middle Sump him and put a peeper on to him. Now, what else have you for me?”

“Two, Sir, waiting for you now.”

“Parents?” said Slighe, his voice a little higher, his eyes shining, his small mouth moist.

“Were followers, Sir.”

“Good,” squeaked Slighe.

Slowly, with a filthy thrill of anticipation, Slighe went back down the tunnel... and that same day Wharfe heard worse sufferings than any he yet had. He had to listen as, in a burrow not far off, two young things pleaded, first for their lives, and finally to be allowed to die untouched any more....

Much later Wharfe heard them die, and cursed the Stone for not helping them. And then cursed Slighe and swore to see him dead.

Five days later, Wharfe, his body weak but his spirit as resolute as it had always been, was taken to the Middle Sumps and found bedlam in the murk. Communal cells, murderous, maddened moles, wickedness incarnate, and all the sound and filth of moles reduced to beasts.

From the first moment Wharfe was shoved into that place he guessed what he must do and did not hesitate. He stanced up to his first attacker, buffeted his second to the ground, and picked out the third and nearly throttled him.

“Leave me alone or you shall die,” he said loudly, rounding on them all.

“Bastard!” said one, retreating.

“Don’t hurt me,” whined the second, coming near.

The third stared, scratched at his sores and laughed like the mad mole he had become.

Wharfe soon discovered that his was not the only way to survive. Some weaker moles formed gangs, some used their infectious sores as threats, some chose to huddle in such filth that nomole went near them, and some, like him, were too strong (so far) for others to come near.

In truth, it was the guardmoles who were the greatest danger to life and limb, coming when they felt like it and dealing out their blows. Or throwing in the suppurating worms which they called food, and watching as the prisoners did battle for them.

The Middle Sumps consists of a series of interconnected tunnels in sandstone which, since they are lit only by fissures at their higher end, slope down into near darkness. To this bottom and most fetid end, where water oozes and a stream of mud and filth flows slowly in the dark, the weaker moles were driven. The stream flows into a heaving pool, often more mud than water, which sucks and slurps away into some grim depth, and once a mole is lost in that he or she is lost for good.

The poor wretched moles who eke out their lives there do not attack each other, or anymole else, but live in a shivering, wretched darkness, cold, hungry, grateful for the scraps that come their way, hopeless. Some even, it seems, lived on the bodies of others.

It was not until his third day down there that Wharfe finally went searching among these ragged things called moles to find his Betony. For hours that became days he reached out a paw to moles who shrank away from him, or he stanced to watch some muttering form that might once have been a mole, hoping that among them he might find the poor mole he sought.

“Betony?” he would say, but they only shied away.

“Betony?” and they stared.

“Betony?” Silence.

Until at last:

“Betony?”

“Wharfe?”

Where did that voice come from? From his declining mind?

“Wharfe?” Why would the tormented voice not leave his head?

“Wharfe?”

What was this broken, scarred and noxious creature that came out of the cloven rock, where the chamber was its lowest, and stared at him?

“Betony?” he barely dared to say again, for it could not be her. Not this thing with but one talon left on one paw and three on the other, whose back paws dragged upon the rock.

“Betony?” he whispered once again, too frightened of what he had found after so long a search to go forward towards her.

“Bet...?”

“Yes,” she said, and in her eyes, which was the only part of her he recognised, he saw the one thing he would not have thought to see: remorse.

“Forgive me,” she said, “their tortures were too great.”

Why, she must think... she must fear... she must believe that he was there because of what she had said.

“Oh Wharfe,” she cried, as he took her broken body in his paws and whispered, “Yes, Betony, it’s Wharfe. I shall take you from here and back to Beechenhill, back where you belong...” And whispering on, not letting go of her, letting her weep her dry croaking tears, he did not see the peeper peep, and turn, and go, and whisper to the guardmoles for the favour of a sodden worm:

“His name is Wharfe, not Brook.”

“His name is Wharfe, Sir. The one sent down three days ago.”

Slighe stared.

“
Wharfe?
”

“Seems so, Sir.”

“Bring him up here again, and summon guardmole Drule.”

“He’s busy, Sir, if you know what I mean.”

Slighe’s face hardened.

“Get him,” he said brutally.

Harebell had borne the trek from Beechenhill to Tissington with Harrow through snow and ice, without a thought, and crept past grikes on the alert without a qualm, but only when she began to climb the final slope towards her mother’s hideaway did she begin to feel real doubt.

She was glad Harrow was with her and he seemed to understand her feelings, for he said nothing as she stared up the slope ahead to the rough nondescript and hidden place where her mother was.

“I feel quite scared,” she said.

“I’ve told you already, Harebell,” Harrow said with a reassuring smile, “she’s just an old mole. Well....”

“Yes! Well!” said Harebell ruefully.

They spoke easily to each other, and their looks were direct and frank. Each had learned to trust and respect the other on their long trek, and more than that, each had begun to want the other. It was the time for young, and they were free and adrift in a world of danger, and excitement too. Harebell did not underestimate the danger of their enterprise, but the further she had got from Beechenhill, especially when they crossed the River Dove on to new ground, the freer she had felt, and a little wild too.

In truth, they had taken a slow way, under the guise of it being more safe. But the company of each other was sufficient reward for what hardships they faced, and when it was time to sleep, then for safety’s sake they had slept in the same burrow, getting closer every time, revelling in the privacy they had and the freedom that two moles, young and attractive and unwatched by other moles, can feel when darkness comes and they are sleeping close. Then, rather more...

But in truth, neither could quite believe their luck. To Harebell, Harrow was surely the most – well –
male
mole she had ever had the pleasure to be near, and he scented good, very good. The first male indeed that she had ever met whom she felt might stance well alongside Wharfe. How she longed for the two to meet.