Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Do you want an honest answer, or the answer you want?” he said.

  “Both,” she sighed.

  “The air seems perfectly normal to me, and yes, there’s something very special about it today. So what happens next?”

  Starling looked shy but it didn’t last long.

  “Love and pups,” she said.

  “Not until you’ve answered some questions,” said Heath, “the main one of which is ‘How did you get here?’ followed by the second, which is, ‘How fast can I get out?’”

  “Would you like to come to my burrow so I can answer all your questions?” said Starling pleasantly.

  “With deep and lasting reluctance,” said Heath. But he followed her, attempting to groom himself into some semblance of kemptness as he went.

  But in some places Spring, and mating love, had not yet arrived, and one of them was bitter and besieged Siabod.

  After their meeting with Glyder and the others, Alder and Marram had been led underground to the high and dangerous south-eastern parts of the system. Here the tunnels are twofoot made and cold, running always with torrents of water except when in winter they freeze and the echoing drip of water is replaced by the rasp of cracking ice and the crash of rockfalls in the dark depths of that grim place.

  Yet the Siabod moles have, over the generations, made their own strange quarters here, running their tunnels up faults in the slate, taking them through wormless peat, building chambers in the few wormful parts which, often, open out on to sheer drops down to the tunnelled depths below. Dangerous indeed.

  So sporadic and scarce is food that a mole must know exactly where to go unless he is to die between one stop and the next, wandering out onto the sterile snowy wastes, his snout so cold, his resistance so low, that he cannot function for long before he ails and his paws freeze to the surface and corvids pick him off.

  The Siabods are of two kinds. Those on the lower northern slopes which overlook the Nantgwryd Valley are smaller, thinner, wilier, and are mean with their worms and speech, and look at strangers sideways and drop into their native Siabod and exclude them. They are the watchers, the manipulators, the clever ones, and they often affect to despise the second group of Siabod moles, though they have not guts enough to say so. Yet from this group also come the story-tellers and moles of imagination. Bran, the Siabod mole who first made contact with Bracken on his arrival and later accompanied Rebecca back to Duncton and lived there for a time, was such a lowslope mole.

  The second group, of which Glyder and his brothers were members, and from which tragic Mandrake came as well, live on the high slopes. They are bigger, stronger, bolder but uneasy with words, though most speak mole.

  These are the true Siabod moles, the moles of Siabod legend, who have since Balagan’s time provided the protectors of Siabod’s great heritage, the sacred Stones of Tryfan.

  Perhaps in all systems there are the moles who talk and those that do; moles of the mind and moles of the heart. In Siabod these groups happen to be very evident, and yet over the generations the system has maintained its integrity, and usually found a leader from one or other group who is accepted by all. But at the time that Alder came to Siabod, the system was in disarray because the lowslope moles, the crafty ones, had, on the whole, begun to yield to the grikes’ pressure and compromised their wills and their tunnels in the vain hope of saving their lives.

  It was for this reason that the moles summoned by Glyder to meet the southerners and share their knowledge of the grikes, came solely from the moles of high Siabod. Even so Glyder warned Alder that many would not trust outsiders and might need to be won over. Alder smiled at this: he remembered having to win over the Duncton moles, and saw no reason why he should have difficulty in Siabod.

  “But let me do it my way, Glyder, as Tryfan would if he were here.”

  “I shall trust you as I would trust him,” promised great Glyder.

  The moles took several days to gather but when they had they wasted few words on formalities. Nowhere in high Siabod was wormful enough to support so many for long, especially in winter when the cold has set in.

  As Glyder introduced Alder and Marram to the others they saw they were a grim-looking lot. Huge and ugly of snout, heavy of shoulder, with talons that seemed to dent the earth where they rested, and with solitary natures that did not mix easily with each other. Cwm was the only lowslope mole there, and though he would have been regarded as an average-sized mole in most systems, he seemed small in that great company.

  There was an impressive solemnity about them all, and their deep throated reverence as they followed Glyder in prayer impressed Alder greatly.

  They shuffled about a bit after this, and then one of them broke into a chanting song of great beauty, which seemed to carry in its words and driving melody a great and eternal purpose that was of the Stone.

  From among these moles great Mandrake himself had come, driven by his own strange desolation away from Siabod, and led by the Stone in its wisdom and fruitfulness to Duncton Wood where he fathered Rebecca, Tryfan’s mother. Hearing those moles sing then, and seeing them before him, Alder understood something more about Tryfan, and saw where his physical strength came from and understood how it might be that beneath that strong and sometimes impassive exterior there might be the same passion that rung about the tunnels of Siabod now as the moles sung deeply of their faith.

  Yet when they had finished, Alder found any companionable feeling he might have had was driven away by the frank distrust and suspicion of their stares at Marram and himself.

  “What have you to say that will be of use to us?” seemed to be what their faces said. “Aye, and what have you to say for yourselves?”

  Alder eyed them back impassively and said nothing. He knew well enough that the stance he took then would set the pattern to a leadership that might have to last moleyears. He was in no hurry to fail.

  “Well, mole?” said one of the largest and most menacing moles there, and one who clearly felt himself as much a leader as Glyder, “We’re waiting, see!”

  “That’s Clogwyn of Y Wyddfa,” whispered Cwm. “You’ll not want to offend him.”

  But Alder was not in any mood to be weak.

  “For what are you waiting?” he said strongly. “For advice on how to get yourselves out of the mess you’re in?”

  There was a ripple of annoyance at this and mutterings in Siabod that soon developed into what sounded to Alder like a full argument between Glyder and the others led by Clogwyn in which nomole seemed on any other mole’s side. But what they were saying neither he nor Marram could tell and the two settled down resignedly to let the arguments ring back and forth across the chamber.

  Suddenly one contingent of moles seemed to get very angry and the very roof over the top of their heads to shake as voices became louder and talons were raised threateningly. Glyder’s brothers ranged at his side and in front of Alder and Marram as if to protect them, as the other group took a threatening stance with Clogwyn at its head. But then yet another group ranged itself; and then a fourth, all shouting, some even buffeting others preparatory to a real fight.

  “And all for one remark you made!” whispered Marram.

  “That’s their problem,” said Alder quietly. “No other. They’re as tough a lot of moles I’ve ever seen in one chamber at one time. If only they could be made to act as one I think no enemy could contain them!”

  Then as they listened on, and Glyder and his brothers moved away, some of the moles there turned directly on Alder, shouting at him in Siabod and shaking their talons under his snout so fiercely that Marram took up a defensive stance at his side. But neither flinched, though with such huge aggressive moles it was enough to make most moles quail.

  Alder found that his initial instinct about Clogwyn had been right, because as the arguments raged (and it became obvious that there was a lot of feeling about the way the campaigns against the grikes had been run) he in particular seemed most often ranged against Glyder. He
was the biggest there, and the loudest, and he had talons to match and looked no fool. Then he even struck Glyder, though lightly, as if half in play, but play that had a serious intent.

  What Alder did next was instinctive, and afterwards he barely remembered the process which made him do it. But moles would ever remember it, and those there that witnessed it would often recount it to their pups.

  He thrust aside a couple of moles who were gesticulating and arguing near him and advanced on Clogwyn. He had to buffet another out of the way to reach him clear, and then to move in front of Glyder before he was able to take a calm stance against Clogwyn. The hubbub died down slowly as more and more moles saw what he had done, but Clogwyn himself barely noticed Alder at first. When he did he looked in blank surprise at this sudden threat, but did not take stance especially. He was bigger than Alder, though not perhaps quite so fit, and he was clearly not used to being challenged.

  Alder chose his moment well. As the voices around him died down further, but before they had entirely, and, more important, before anymole there would have expected him to make a move, he went forward fast and furious. He talon-thrust hard at the great mole, pushing him back against the wall. Even as he did that, and as dead silence fell on the chamber except for some gasps of surprise, he went forward again and delivered two blows on the mole, the second drawing blood and wheeling Clogwyn round so he stumbled and fell back, not yet having delivered a single blow in return.

  Alder moved in a final time and, pinioning the great mole on the ground between wall and floor with his left paw, he raised his right high and said in a cold calm voice, in mole, “Shall I kill him then?”

  The moles recovered themselves, several rushed forward and pulled Alder back and held him so he could not strike a blow, while others held Marram, and all cried out “No!” and “Mole, you’ve done it now, see!”

  At the same time Clogwyn, furious, regained his balance and reared up, his fur bristling with rage and his talons mighty over Alder.

  “So,” said Alder quietly but with great authority, “it is possible for you all to act as one and agree on something sensible.” Then he called out lightly over his shoulder, “There’s hope for these Siabod moles yet, Marram!”

  There was an uncertain silence as Alder shook himself free and Clogwyn came forward aggressively blood dripping from the light wound Alder had inflicted.

  “Mole,” said Alder, “I apologise. I chose you because of all moles here you seem to me the strongest, and the one most likely to defeat me in a fair fight.” Clogwyn relaxed a little at this and his talons eased. “But you see,” continued Alder, “watching you arguing, my good friend Marram and I were beginning to think that there is no easier system for a grike attack to be successful in than one in which everymole argues with each other. Such a system is wide open to surprise attacks. Such a system may find it impossible to mount a concerted defence. Such a system can never act strategically. Against moles as organised and purposeful as the moles of the Word, such a system is doomed however noble its past might be.”

  Nomole said a thing until Clogwyn, still shaken by the attack on him and unable, perhaps, to take in as the others had the full implication of what Alder said, growled out threateningly, “You hurt me, mole.”

  Alder smiled disarmingly and lightly stepped forward and touched the lowering Clogwyn’s shoulder where the blood ran and, as lightly, touched his bloodied talon to his mouth. Then he turned to the others and said, “Many a mole must have wondered what Siabod blood tasted like, but I know. It’s good!”

  He grinned again and many there laughed with approval at his stance and black humour.

  “The blow still hurts, southern mole,” growled Clogwyn again.

  Alder turned sharply back.

  “Then strike me mole as I struck you, and let us forget this difference and start planning how we shall defeat the grikes.”

  With a terrible roar Clogwyn of Y Wyddfa moved forward and talon-thrust Alder so hard that he fell back against Marram, who was still restrained by other moles.

  For a moment Alder seemed dazed, and silence fell again as all the moles waited for Alder’s inevitable counterattack and prepared themselves to watch a bloody fight.

  But Alder recovered himself, stared at where he had been hit and where blood flowed, touched his talons to his own blood and then to his mouth as he had before and said, a little shaken it is true, “But I’ll tell moles one thing, and in this I speak very true, grike’s blood tastes better still!”

  With that many there laughed aloud, and more still when, gruffly but with growing good humour, Clogwyn joined in too and he and Alder buffeted each other in a friendly way as Alder said, “I tell you true, mole, that if you strike like that among friends then by the Stone itself I trust that of all moles I have ever met it will be you at my side on the coming day of victory!”

  That moment more than any other marks the beginning of Alder’s command over the fighting moles of the Stone. For though on Siabod soil he always took second place to Glyder and acted only as adviser, from that day the Siabod moles accepted Alder’s ascendancy against the time when that great system’s resistance was taken outside the harsh confines of Siabod itself. Certainly all there were prepared now to listen to what the “southern mole” had to say, and to understand that the way of victory lay in unity not disarray.

  “I cannot say yet how our fight against the grikes will best be conducted, but one thing I do know,” he told them then, “we cannot fight the grikes on their terms yet, but must create the conditions which favour us. We must make a force of moles that is disciplined and purposeful, and will act for the greater good. I do not think, from what I have seen of the grike siege of Siabod, that anything but disaster will come of seeking to defeat them here and now. You will lose, and lose for good, as Tryfan of Duncton would have lost if he had tried to lead his system against the grikes. Heroic but foolish, as, so far, and with respect, Siabod has been.”

  “You’re not asking us to retreat then, mole, that’s not the Siabod way, see?” said one.

  “You want young this coming spring? You want them to survive? You want these tunnels, and those of the lowslope moles, safe and untainted by grike? Or do you want your females mated against their will by grikes, and their half-caste young to be reared in contempt of the Stone. And for once-proud Siabod to be ruined, its language lost and its pride forever destroyed? For that’s what’ll happen here as it has happened in so much of moledom. It was to avoid that that Tryfan retreated to fight his system’s battle, and that of moledom too, another day.”

  “Tell us of this Tryfan, and how he gained his name, and what his prowess is,” said Clogwyn.

  Which Alder did in no uncertain terms, drawing on what so many moles in Duncton had told him and what Tryfan himself had revealed. Of his journey to legendary Uffington he spoke, and of his struggles against the grikes, first at Buckland and later at Duncton. He spoke of his great task to seek Silence, as ordained by the White Mole Boswell, and he told those moles of Siabod of Tryfan’s journey into the heart of the Wen, where nomole had been, or if they had, from which none had returned.

  “A brave mole!” said Clogwyn at the conclusion. “But then he has Siabod blood in his veins!” There was a deep muttering of approval at this.

  Glyder said, “My brothers and I take this mole Tryfan as our brother, sent us by our mother Rebecca to replace Wyddfa whom many of you knew. We trust him, and we trust his purpose in the Stone. We believe he can lead where we of Siabod cannot, for while we know the mountains, and the blizzard life, he knows the south and the ways of twofoots and roaring owls which touch us not. But he fights for more than his system, he fights for all of moledom, and so must we, forgetting our differences, curbing our tempers, remembering our pride in our system and our task for the Stone before ourselves.

  “You have heard Alder speak, and seen that he and Marram take bold stance to equal any of us. He comes in Tryfan’s place, and as he has Tryfan’s trust so he ha
s ours too. We should listen to him, accept his advice, and do as he bids us to as best we can!”

  “Aye!” said a good few moles there, but others were still doubtful, unwilling to be so easily persuaded by a stranger that the habits of generations were mistaken. While a few, whose mole was poor and spoke only dialect Siabod had not fully understood all that had been said.

  So then a great debate began in the Siabod tongue, ranging to and fro with much passion, some anger and occasional laughter, while Alder and Marram, uncertain what was going on, did their best to maintain a confident stance. Certainly many there looked them over, and some of the old ones came and peered hard at them with furrowed brows and mutterings.

  Throughout it all it was clear that Glyder was the advocate for Alder’s point of view, and a mole on whom they could rely in the future. Until at last the talking stopped, there was much laughter and some throaty cheering.

  “It was the bold stance you took that did it!” whispered Glyder quickly, pleasure in his strong face.

  Then great Clogwyn himself came forward and affirmed his acceptance of Alder that all might know and see, and there was great approval among all the Siabod moles at that.

  “But you talked of retreat,” said Clogwyn later, “and to us that means death just the same, but slower, that’s all!”

  “Not if you do it my way it doesn’t,” said Alder. “For there’s a kind of retreat that will do more than preserve your strength, it will give you the chance to build it. There’s a retreat that intimidates the enemy, and leaves them extended and vulnerable to raids of a kind and in country which Siabod moles may be most suited to.

  “Out of such retreats, which will endanger their moles and sap their morale, will be made the basis for the victories that will come over the grikes....”

  So began Alder’s direction of the Siabod moles, and from the November in which he arrived through to the following March the plans were made for Siabod’s long-term strategy, while in a series of carefully contained raids the grike advance was harried and slowed with nearly no loss of Siabod life.