Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Arvon! Mole!”

  Two days had passed and some of those who had gone to reconnoitre were back and had discovered the presence and strength of Newborns to the north and south.

  Arvon heard their reports one by one, asked questions as he needed to, waited for the sleepers to awake, and ascertained that only four moles were missing – the group that had gone north into what was believed to be Thorne’s territory.

  “Wake me when they get back,” said Arvon finally, it now being past midnight. It was plain enough that he had absolute confidence that they would get back safely.

  “Those moles don’t get taken by surprise,” said one of the Siabod guards, and Noakes did not doubt it.

  Nor were they. At some grey pre-dawn hour Noakes was woken from deep slumber in the communal chamber they all shared by the sound of moles arriving. It was the northern group, and one was wounded, or at least limping.

  “It’s nothing that some sleep and rest won’t cure,” Noakes heard him say. “We had a little argument with some Newborns.”

  The next day Arvon’s forces gathered together again, as rough-looking but comradely a group of moles as Noakes ever remembered being in company with. Arvon did not waste time on niceties. The reports were all in and the position was alarmingly clear: Thorne’s forces were far larger and more disciplined than they had expected, and the rumours of Chervil’s involvement were true. How the four moles had gained their information Noakes dreaded to think, but he pitied the Newborns who had crossed the followers’ path.

  “You’re talking big, powerful and well led,” said one of the four. “They’re impressive, and they’re only a day or two from moving south. Our understanding is that they intend to bypass Quail and get to Duncton before he does. They want to make him fight for it so they’re not seen as the aggressors.”

  Thorne, it seemed, was well informed, for the story that the moles who had gone south had gathered was that Quail too was imminently moving – also to Duncton Wood.

  “Vicious lot of bastards, they really are,” came the report. “I wouldn’t call them disciplined, and from the account we’ve heard, Thorne would have no trouble with them in a location like Banbury. Well, I mean, the defences aren’t bloody well there, are they?”

  There was a general deprecating murmur and shaking of heads.

  “Anything else?” asked Arvon, looking about.

  More shaking of heads, and a general sense that every-mole knew what needed to be done.

  “Well, then, lads, it’s going to be risky but I think we know what we’ve got to do.”

  And as Noakes listened, and heard what Arvon proposed, he wondered if wars had always been like this – not great armies of moles moving as one, but smaller groups, working together, knowing what their objectives were and how to achieve them.

  “... the point is that nomole on either side must ever know who we are, or even that we were there at all. We go in where we’ve got to, and we come out; go in again and come out again. Get caught and you’re on the other side, and Stone help you! Don’t get caught!”

  Noakes looked about and thought that it would take twenty Newborns to catch any one of the moles stanced about him.

  “And you, Noakes, you go with...” and suddenly Noakes’ heart was pounding. He was part of it. He was one of them... no, one of these!

  “You, Cluniac, you’ll stay with me, mole, for you’re not up to much fighting yet, and I’m not sure you should be.”

  Noakes exchanged a glance with Cluniac, a mole he had got to know and like. He was surprised at the gentleness in Arvon’s deep voice, and his obvious concern for the Duncton mole.

  “So you all know what you’ve to do. Any questions?”

  “The meeting place afterwards, sir...”

  “Aye, we’ll have the usual arrangement: one central place at the end of operations, and a secondary location for stragglers. Here will do – say the second night from now. We’ll leave a couple of moles behind to pick up stragglers. The rest of us will travel south to a location not far from Duncton called Cuddesdon – Noakes here knows of it, and Cluniac, though neither have been to it. But it’s well enough known to be easy to find, even for anymole that gets separated. It’s from there that we’ll be mounting any operation we may have to make into Duncton Wood itself. It’s to the south-east and useful for the cross-under into the Wood, which you all know.”

  “Aye, sir,” they said, nodding their heads and beginning to break up into the groups they would be working in.

  “And lads...” growled Arvon right at the end, his voice commanding instant attention, “I swear to you by the Holy Stones of Tryfan that after we’ve set paw in Duncton Wood once more, and seen that all is as it should be – and we shall, and it will be – then those of you who long as I do for the clean air of Siabod will set paw for home.”

  There was a cheer, but a quiet one of moles who sensed that a time of destiny was upon them and that for some of them perhaps it would be their last chance to serve the Stone, for theirs would be a final sacrifice. But for others – and whatmole could say who they would be? – there would be life beyond the coming conflicts, and a chance to return to Siabod and see their kin and their home system once more, and remember the days when they were led by a great mole to do great things. Somemole began singing, and soon all joined in...

  Moles of Siabod,

  At the break of dawn

  Arise...

  Siabod arise,

  Spawner of warriors.

  I have watched over you,

  Though I am not only yours...

  “Though you are not only watching over me...” whispered Hibbott that same dawn, far to the west, high in the Wolds.

  He invoked, he prayed and he hoped, and though his words may finally have been different from those of Arvon and his friends caught now so perilously between the Newborn forces of Thorne and Quail, yet their intention was similar: to invoke the Stone’s help for deeds yet to be done. For Arvon and the others it concerned war, for Hibbott a pilgrimage to peace.

  “Though you are not only watching over me, Stone, give me the sense that you are with me. Yesterday I was witness to a dreadful thing, and now my heart is heavy. What can I, a solitary pilgrim, usefully do at such a time as this?”

  The “dreadful thing” Hibbott had seen, and of which his is the only eye-witness account, was the followers’ exodus from Bourton at the start of their great Crusade against the Newborns. From this we may reasonably surmise that his own departure from the Wolds the following morning coincided with that secret and dramatic scene near Banbury when Arvon briefed his force for an operation designed to bring Thorne against Quail, and so make time for the followers in the south. Let us repeat part of Hibbott’s account of the followers’ departure from the Wolds.

  “Tired from my exertions over the days past to find the Master of the Delve, more familiarly known as Rooster of Charnel Clough, and strangely affected by my conversation with him when I did so, I began to weaken in my resolve to get a good start on my onward journey. Then, my paws already heavy, and my eyes unable to stare long at the stars to gain inspiration from them without closing towards sleep, I heard a deep chanting of moles from Bourton, the system at whose edge I had found Rooster.

  “I stopped and turned to look back, and over Bourton Hill, from where the chant came, and where I imagined many moles to have assembled, a great spread of stars seemed to hang, like a huge tree of hawthorn blossom caught by a bright sun. I knew I could travel no further and, for prudence’s sake, as was my habit, I climbed upslope above my path and made a scrape in some obscure spot overlooking it. I listened to the chant for but a short time more before I fell asleep, Rooster’s mysterious words in my mind: ‘You show way to Privet, not me. Master of Delve is Master of Delve only; servant otherwise! You lead now! Go, go, go, mole! Flames come, fire burns, go to river now. Needs you too.’

  “‘Well! And what is a mole to make of that?’ I wondered! Still, his words must mean somethin
g, and I had done his bidding to ‘Go’ as best I could. But now sleep overtook me, and his words and the moles’ chanting mingled into some heavy awe-inspiring dream which carried me along through night and late into the morning, though when I woke all details of it fled before I could grasp them to my memory. I was left feeling lonely and afraid, and therefore lethargic, a condition I had known often enough before to have faith that it would pass.

  “I stayed where I was and let the sun rise higher before I even moved to find a little food. My limbs were heavy, my mind slow, and I decided to rest for a time. I am glad I did, for from my secret place I saw what few others can have seen, the departure of the forces of the followers out of Bourton, to begin what allmole now knows to be their campaign across southern moledom.

  “I saw them all, as if in place of the dream I had lost, except they seemed still a part of it: mole after mole, large and small, warriors all. I did not know their names, or that among them great moles went. Later I learnt that Maple was there, but I did not know him; the great Siabodian leader Ystwelyn went by, so I have been told, but I did not know him either.

  “Yet my eyes scanned them all, hoping to see the two moles I knew – Weeth and Rooster. Weeth I did see, and glimpsed as well one of those moles who had been his companions on the way back to the Wolds when we had briefly met. Rooster I did not see, and since once seen he is not a mole one forgets, I concluded he was not of the Crusade that day.

  “One by one, dark-furred and fair, famous and less so, but to me all one, I watched them go, their eyes fixed on the glories they hoped to find on the westward horizon, and thus not seeing me, Hibbott of Ashbourne Chase, a mole getting older, dustier each day, and troubled. Why should they see me?

  “They left behind them a haze of dust stirred up by the tramp of their paws. I prayed then to the Stone, for their sakes as well as my own, concluding with these words, for I felt very alone: ‘Though you are not only watching over me, Stone, give me the sense that you are with me.’

  “The dust was still in the air when I slipped into sleep again. I woke to find dusk had come, and with it a clear cool sky. I slept into night and another dawn came, the first day of October, a time of change that brings in autumn and the falling of the leaves. I knew that now my long pilgrimage had taken another turn, into new tunnels and strange ways, and they seemed bleak and long and without end.

  “‘Hibbott,’ I told myself, ‘they have gone their way, and now you must go yours.’ And where was that? Surely, to the Duncton Stone...

  “Though I rose then, and journeyed on, never had I done so with such a sense of foreboding, nor felt that my journey’s destination, and moledom’s, was so far away, and reaching it so fraught with difficulty.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Where are they?”

  “Just over there, sir, just beyond the rise.”

  The guardmole moved smartly out of the way as Brother Commander Thorne and no less a mole than Chervil, formidable son of Thripp, moved past him to view the corpses for themselves. A little behind, puffing from the exertion of climbing the steep slope, came old Brother Rolt, frowning, a little reluctant, concerned.

  The three dead guardmoles lay where they had been attacked, paws outstretched, mouths open to the blue October sky, red-brown blood like excrement smeared on grass and fur, in one case in a trail where the mole had crawled a little way before dying.

  “You heard nothing, mole?”

  The guardmole came hurrying over to Thorne and gave what account he could, which was not much. He himself, along with several others, had been in the nearby guard-chamber. The patrol of watchers – doubled in number for safety after three other recent murderous night-time attacks – had simply been patrolling. When they did not come in for the change of watch the next guards on duty had gone to investigate and found all but one dead. It had all been done with ruthless efficiency.

  The fourth guardmole in the patrol, to whom Thorne and the others had spoken a short time before where he was being tended below ground, was alive, though wounded. He had played dead and got away with it, and in doing so he had gained useful information about his attackers.

  “They were of Squilver’s force, sir, no doubt of it. I heard them refer to yourself and our forces, and how the Elder Senior Brother would have a report of this operation, and it would serve their promotions well. They talked of another successful ‘softening-up operation’ for the assaults yet to come.”

  The mole winced with pain, the wound in his flank still seeping a watery blood.

  “You have done well, mole,” Thorne had said, pleased that even under such pressure the mole had kept his ears open and his eyes shut.

  “I hardly dared breathe, sir, they were that close. Five of them.”

  “But you got a glimpse of them before they wounded you?”

  “Not much of one. They tricked us into giving them our attention – made a whistling kind of noise as if it was one of our own – and then reared up out of the dark and went for us. We’ll have a chance to go after them, won’t we, sir? They were my friends Quail’s lot killed.”

  Now Thorne stanced looking at the dead, Chervil and Rolt at his flank. Near them a strong force of guardmoles, brought in at dawn in case of further trouble, waited patiently, staring downslope to the south, towards the territory they knew to be in Quail’s control. Where they stanced was the boundary between the two, so far as one could be defined. A good way off to their left flank a huge roaring owl way rose into the sky.

  “The system over there’s called Gaydon,” said Rolt, “so I am told. Nomole about there any more, it seems.”

  “Hmmph!” grunted Thorne, glancing at Chervil. None of them were at all pleased at what had happened. “We know there aren’t any other Caradocians about, at least not in force, otherwise patrols would have spotted them long since. This is obviously a small force working under cover, and I must say I am impressed. I didn’t think Squilver had it in him to organize such a thing. Six killed three days ago, two yesterday and now three more, nearly four.”

  “You have the forces to retaliate in the same way,” said Chervil. “It’s just that you haven’t chosen to use them.”

  “Well, I think that time is now coming,” said Thorne. For Chervil was right, Thorne had long since had a force of well-trained moles for just such work as this – tough, efficient, disciplined moles able to work in small groups.

  “But Brother Commander, I thought you had decided to avoid conflict with Quail’s force and reach Duncton as quickly as possible and so cut it off to him!”

  “I said, Brother Rolt, that I would like to do that, but we must pay heed to what is happening on the ground. If we had been able to muster our forces from the north, and consolidate the eastern territories sooner, then we might have been able to set off for Duncton earlier, but only now have we come to full strength, and it seems it is too late for what I had in mind. In any case, a little show of force by us here and now might well serve to delay Quail, and if he proves as weak as I think, make it easier for us finally to make the breakthrough to Duncton. My wish is to contain the violence. I do not want civil war. But...” He frowned, thinking, his eyes dark. “My moles demand retaliation, and they may well be right – they have been very disciplined so far, but there are limits. I am as concerned for your father Thripp as you are, Chervil, of course I am. But we do not know where he is, and I think Rolt is right to believe that Quail will not allow harm to come to him because he still needs him. Frankly, if he had wanted to kill him he would have done so long since. Perhaps he has...”

  Rolt shook his head slowly, his eyes full of care for the master he loved so much but of whom nomole had heard a thing. That much Quail – or Snyde, perhaps – had done well.

  “I remain dubious about the wisdom of attacking Quail’s force,” Chervil said. “But perhaps we cannot show weakness, especially at a time when the followers are gaining support.”

  The others nodded, thinking no doubt of the growing number of
pilgrims who had begun to appear from out of nowhere, as it seemed. Ever since mid-July such fearless moles had begun to trek southwards, and they all told the same story: they were heading for Duncton Wood, they came in peace, they were showing their support for the mole Privet. Some of them even refused to speak, seeming to have chosen to adopt a vow of silence in sympathy with a mole who had become both heroine and martyr to them. One group of moles brought into Leamington had all chosen silence, but for one who acted as their spokesmole.

  “Praise be, brothers,” he told them, “but we’re on our way in silence to mark our respect, and show our faith in the virtues of holy Privet, whose blessed words we hope to hear when her vow of silence is complete.”

  “And when might that be, pilgrim?” wondered Thorne.

  “When the lost and last Book, which is of Silence, is brought back to Duncton Wood.”

  Thorne and Chervil had decreed that such moles should be unharmed, given shelter, and sent on their way – or he had for a time. Then, when two of them were found snouted some way south of Leamington, the outrage perpetrated by Quail’s moles, the pilgrims had been told to return to the north.

  Not that this policy had been very effective: they came back again, or they were found detouring to the east and then moving south, despite all the warnings Thorne’s moles gave them about what would happen to them if the Caradocians caught them.

  “Brother! Have faith in the Stone!” the pilgrims hectored him. “Free yourselves of fear as Privet has done! Feel the healing power of fearlessness!”

  Throughout the summer years Thorne had made every effort to track down Privet, having greatly regretted letting her slip away from Leamington. Now he had a use for her, and in any case he feared for her safety. The only positive lead he had came from one of a rough group of moles his own forces had captured who had been in the thrall of one of the independent Newborns who had begun to flourish at that time. The mole was called Rees; he was badly scarred about the eyes and had only limited vision, and told a strange story of having been attacked by some followers, temporarily blinded, and then healed by the touch of a female who sounded very like the Privet Thorne had known up on Wenlock Edge. Rees confessed he had been transformed by the experience, and had even been tempted to join the pilgrims, but Thorne had persuaded him he might serve Privet’s cause better by staying with him. He had the natural instinct good leaders have for moles who have qualities which may prove useful.