Duncton Stone (3 page)

But be warned! I’ll not be willing to stay in one place. I’ll want to venture into this tunnel, or that burrow, and I’ll need help to do so. I’ll want to look at trees I thought I had forgotten, and venture into tunnels I thought were lost. I’ll be a nuisance! I’ll be demanding! I’ll be... bad-tempered. And worse of all to a scribemole like you, I might not even have the strength to finish my tale!

Oh yes! That could well be how things turn out, and it’s no good pretending otherwise. If you want to reach the end of this tale you might well have to journey the last part of it without me. I mean what I say! Indeed, it may well be that
that
realization is what the coming of the Book of Silence is all about: that finally we must cast off our past, our memories, even our companions, and make the last part of the journey alone. Is it that which makes me so afraid? Is it that which makes the Silence so awesome? Is that why I have called you to my flank?

But let’s face that when we have to. Meanwhile we’ll find comfort in each other’s company, and resolve. But you’ll have to cajole me! And find good worms! Or make me a scrape if the weather grows bad. Which it does now, for look at how those trees sway in the blustering wind. Feel the chill breeze in your fur. Sense how winter approaches through the veil of autumn. For it’s with winter that this last part of our tale must now begin...

PART I

Wildenhope

Chapter One

January. Chill, still, air. The bleak landscape of Mid-moledom; leafless trees, silent grey rivers, the streams and brooks that fed into them already frozen. Only the black flight of starving rook and the sharp bark of lonely fox gave life and sound to a melancholy world from which all colour, all joy, all pleasure seem to have fled. A January like no other before and – the solitary wanderer grimly hoped – like no other ever to come again. For this was moledom cast down not just by a freezing winter but by the freezing of hope as well. No wonder that the journeying mole stared along the route ahead, and back over the path just trod, with a shivering spirit, and a disconsolate eye.

No safe haven for him. No warm tunnel in which to hide from his pursuers in safety, no welcoming burrow in which to rest; no cheerful companion or offering of food and friendly conversation.

“No respite,” muttered the mole, whose face, though lined and scarred, held clear determined eyes, which told of a fugitive who knew his business, and was never going to let himself be caught without a struggle.

“We go on,” he said.

The “we” he spoke did not mean he had others with him. Rather, it was as if by using it he might for a brief moment enjoy the illusion that he had company, to encourage him on along the bleak and bitter way. But this was no weak mole, nor one who, beyond a temporary pause to summon up new energy to proceed once more, gave any impression other than strength, experience, and purpose. This was a mole on a mission he was determined to fulfill, and even if that January had been yet chiller, yet bleaker, he would not have been diverted from his onward path. For this was Hamble, lifelong friend of Privet, stalwart companion of Rooster in the struggle against the Newborns, and now journeyer to Duncton Wood.

But while it is true that he looked like a mole with a mission, the truth was that he was not yet sure quite what it was. He knew at least that he would not willingly raise his powerful and forbidding paws in violence again, unless it be to defend himself against unfairness, or protect those who were vulnerable against the oppressive Newborns. No, his active fighting days were done, for Privet had pointed him in a different way, strengthening his commitment to what he had already begun to believe; that if moledom was to find peace and harmony once more then the way forward was for hardened warriors like himself to renounce fighting and seek other ways to achieve just ends.

It was this hard-won knowledge that had sent Hamble away from Caer Caradoc before Longest Night with Privet’s blessing, to make his way as best he could to Duncton Wood, where he hoped to find a new direction for his life. The fighter turned pacifist, the warrior turned philosopher; the mole whom the years had made wiser, and whose inner goodness and strength – given so loyally to Rooster from whose violence he had finally felt he must turn away – must now find a different fulfillment.

Alone, but not lonely. Not yet. Hamble had had mates enough over the years, in the way that itinerant fighting moles do: a brief encounter, a night of comfort, a sharing of a day or two, and then the quick farewell and moving on. No, Hamble’s constancy had not been for these encounters, but for Rooster, whose destiny as Master of the Delve he had early sensed and passionately believed in, but for whom he felt he could now do no more; and for his oldest, dearest friend, Privet, whose strength and purpose were so great, so sure, that Hamble willingly obeyed her instinctive sense that he should journey to Duncton Wood.

So he was off alone towards it across winter-bound moledom, to try to see what he might do in the Stone’s service against the Newborns, themselves in thrall now to the vile Quail, who was determined to impose his brutal will upon all of moledom, as the Newborns had begun to impose it already upon a few important systems, including Duncton itself.

Hamble had slipped away from Caer Caradoc, been forced to lie low when harsh blizzard winds swept across his path, and now, moleweeks later and with Caradoc’s hill still darkly lowering up behind him, he was off on his way again towards Duncton Wood. Or rather, this was what Hamble
intended
to do, and would have done, had not his route that bleak day put him in the way of a small group of moles being forcibly marched not far from the path he was on.

This track follows the stream that rises on the eastern flank of Caradoc and leads first east and then south down to the once-pleasant system of Rusbury and thence via a place whose name is now notorious: Wildenhope. Under the Newborns this had become a centre of correction and punishment, having been utilized by Thripp originally for the purpose of conducting retreats upon the austerities – acts of cruel self-discipline, denial and abstinence. Since Quail’s emergence as Senior Inquisitor Wildenhope had been corrupted into something far worse and there Inquisitors were taught mental and physical torture, and given rewards, mainly of a sexual nature.

Hamble did not know or recognize the place. Beyond it the stream forms a confluence with Eaton Brook at what historians now call Craven Rapids – the name is not used locally, and the whole area is now generally referred to as Wildenhope.

The rapids are simply a faster flow where the two streams join and fall over steeper ground into a dangerous race of white water and jagged rocks. It is not a place to linger by, and a mole wishing to continue his easterly journey does well to turn north and take the two-foot crossing above the rapids, whose malevolent roar is audible a long way off.

Of all this Hamble knew nothing, though while captive with Rooster and the others at Bowdler he had heard that not too far off was a Newborn killing field (namely Wildenhope) at a place near moving water. Which would make sense, for he knew more than most of the Newborns’ killing ways, of strettening, snouting and the Inquisitors’ preference for the punishment of drowning.

Nor was Hamble sure why when he awoke that day and could so easily have continued upslope into safety he chose to go back downslope over the white frozen ground. Towards danger. Except that some instinct for mole in trouble, and some new-found sense of where his next task might be, led him back to the main route he had left.

Even before he got there he could scent alien mole, and when he did he saw that the frosted ground was covered in tracks from Caradoc heading on downstream; they were fresh, and some of them bloody. It did not take him long to catch up with the moles who were making them, who turned out to be ten captives led by four large, bullying Newborns. The numbers might have seemed disproportionate and escape for the captives easy, but they were all lame or in some way injured and showed no spirit to put up a fight.

Hamble followed the unhappy group at a distance, as much out of a desire to help if he could as from curiosity to see what was going to happen to them, though he already had a grim idea. It was easy enough to go unobserved since the way was narrow and the vegetation along the stream’s bank plentiful. The air was so still and cold and the frost so thick that Hamble was not surprised to see that the stream on his right flank was frozen along its edges where the water was stagnant among the reeds. Only in its centre did the water still flow, black, cold and very uninviting.

The noisy, jocular march of the guardmoles, who seemed to think they were on the way to a celebration, was in contrast to the slow and abject gait of the captives, some of whom had increasing difficulty moving at all and needed the help of those few who were more able. One alone seemed to have more spirit than the others, though he was weak enough, and he asked continually that his ailing friends be allowed to rest, or stop and eat; and he asked too, with evident apprehension, where they were being taken.

To this the guards made a variety of replies the general tenor of which was, “Somewhere you lot will not need to worry about food and sleep!”

It was around this more spirited mole that Hamble formed a rough plan of action whose success depended entirely on his being able to use surprise to disable the two guards at the rear of the group. If he succeeded, with the help of that mole he might then frighten off the other two guards and get the captives to safety. It was not a plan Hamble much liked, but needs must, and since it was obvious what was going to happen to these moles he knew he must try to help them if he could.

So indeed he might have done had not events preempted any plan he had, and made it unworkable. For the route suddenly dropped over a bluff to the clearer ground of water-meadows now frozen over, with no cover at all. There was the ominous roar of water further on, still out of view.

Its threatening sound seemed to warn the captives that if they were to escape their fate, now was their final chance. The spirited mole made a brave assault on one of the guards, while two others of the captives made a dash for it, but it was all over in moments, before Hamble could intervene. The two moles were simply grabbed and after a few buffets pushed back into line, while the more lively mole was taloned hard in the face by the guardmole he had attacked. Then, and most brutally, another guardmole came, shouting in anger, and taloned him again, as he lay on the ground.

Hamble prudently pulled back behind cover, for he was not a fool and knew he was no match for those four. Moments later, after a brief and dismissive examination of their fallen victim, they left him where he lay and led the remaining captives on across the meadow.

The moment they were out of sight Hamble went to the mole, who had not moved since he had fallen. Blood was spreading over the white ground from terrible injuries to his head and flank, and his limbs trembled, though whether from cold or in the throes of death Hamble did not know. Yet when Hamble touched him and spoke gently his eyes opened and he stirred.

“I am not a Newborn,” said Hamble. “If I can get you into cover there might be a chance.”

The dying mole waved a paw dismissively and shook his head. “We cannot let them be so,” he whispered; “I came to Caradoc in peace. Moles must do what they can to stance up to them.”

They were his final words, for though Hamble asked his name and where he was from, and tried to revive him, he breathed but for a short time more, his blood still flowing after his body was still. Then even his blood began to congeal and freeze.

“You did what you could!” said Hamble respectfully, looking at the mole. He was middle-aged, not strong, a librarian perhaps, fooled into coming to Caer Caradoc like the others. The others... Hamble followed down the way, the roar of tumbling water growing louder all the time.

The track was now open and stretched without cover to the edge of Wildenhope Bluff, and then dropped down to cross meadowlands, and he was just in time to see the party disappear over the ridge ahead. Risking the possibility that they might come back and see him, Hamble followed on to the ridge and creeping up the last few paces peered over and downslope to see what they were about. The killing of the mole had not caused Hamble to change his mind about intervening – moles were not going to be able to “stance up to them” if they got themselves killed making futile gestures. Having survived so long he knew when prudence made more sense than valour; and anyway, the germ of an idea had come into his head, suggested by what the dying mole had said; just a thought...

So Hamble was a silent witness to what happened by Craven Rapids that morning. Four Newborn guards and nine anonymous victims. One by one they were led over the frozen meadows to the confluence of the streams. There they were pushed to the edge of the bank and brutally taloned down into the icy torrent below. Briefly they disappeared from sight, for the bank was steep and the water furious, but then Hamble saw their bodies floating up to the surface in wild water before being tumbled over and down again to disappear finally into the race of white water flowing south. It was quick, efficient, and final, and Hamble watched it all with growing numbness and shock.

One after another they were taken, some too weak to protest, others putting up a final valiant effort to fight their captors before they too were taloned into submission and hurled over the steep bank into the rapids. Each time they disappeared from sight beyond the bank, and each time the currents spewed them up again, their paws flailing in a semblance of life before they were swept away to icy oblivion.

Finally, their work done, the guardmoles chatted some more, ate a little, indulged in some brief horseplay on the bank’s dangerous edge, and finally headed back upslope past where Hamble was hidden, to return to Caer Caradoc. Hamble did not dally when they were gone, but nor did he set off to find a crossing-point, for he wished to see at close paw the spot where the executions had taken place.