With a roar Smithills struck the first one down and, using a technique he knew so well, pushed him mightily back into the next advancing mole who, off guard and off balance, made himself vulnerable.
“Bastard,” cried out Smithills, and plunged his talons straight into the mole’s belly.
The mole screamed and rolled downslope even as Skint dealt the first who came to him a talon straight in the snout, and throated the second with his paw.
Then as more came at them, back to back they fought, the whole advance slowing before them as moles, uncertain of what was happening, paused, turned and shouted.
All that Skint and Smithills knew then was the rush of moles upon them, the grunt of killing breath, the raised talons, as each protected the other and they both fought stolidly on, using the ground, surprise, anger and the confusion of numbers about them to their advantage.
Each felt the support of the other’s back and haunches, each knew the other was still fighting, and then each felt the first flow of blood across his flank, not knowing if it was himself or his friend that bled.
On they fought, and roared, thrusting out at the enemy with guardmoles falling where they were hit. On and on they struggled until each felt the other weaken, felt the tiredness coming, felt the inexorable approach of his own death by the pause and judder of the other’s haunch.
“Skint, you’re an old fool!” gasped Smithills as he raised his talons one last time.
“Smithills, words have always failed me where you’re concerned!” rasped Skint. But it was the last thing he said, and Smithills heard his friend grunt in sudden pain, and turning from his adversary with no more thought for himself tried vainly to protect poor Skint from further blows.
On Smithills broad back mortal blows fell, on and on, until he weakened and red darkness came, and he knew no more.
“Bastards!” said a grike, wounded and bloody from the fight, as he stared among the bodies at the two moles who had fought to their very last breath.
Another guardmole came up and looked at them.
“They were brave bastards,” said the mole Romney.
The second guardmole looked at them and said, “They were our own kind that we killed.”
“And if you’d been first on to them they’d have had you ’cos they knew a thing or two about fighting.”
“Stop dawdling there! On, on, on!” a commander shouted and the two turned from that spot on the southeastern Pastures, re-formed, and moved on remorselessly upslope to enter the southern edge of the High Wood.
While below on the slopes bodies lay still and were lost in the gloom, and far beyond them from south to north, from north to south, roaring owls went by endlessly, their gazes cold, their calls an unceasing roar.
For the briefest of moments Tryfan and the others thought it was Skint and Smithills coming through the wood, but the sounds increased beyond what their two friends would make, and moles came from all about, spread wide around the clearing, too wide to flee if any of them had thought of doing so.
But they did not. Instead they stanced closer to each other and Tryfan turned his snout up to the Stone and cried out, “Stone, we of Duncton are old and weak and uncertain of ourselves, guide us now. Help us do thy will with all our strength.”
He had no sooner said this than three stolid males came into the clearing and looked about. Then two more on the other side, and then four more. Shouts echoed through the wood, orders to go this way or that and the sense of being possessed, and being impotent.
The Duncton moles, many afraid, some angry and some confused, seemed overwhelmed by the suddenness of the grikes’ coming and instinctively clustered closer around Tryfan and Feverfew at the Stone. Perhaps if the grikes had attacked them physically they might have fought, but the grikes did not.
They mustered about the clearing, young and strong and intimidating in their stares and silence, and the only contact they made with anymole was with Teasel on the edge of the clearing who seemed confused by all the moles and had stayed where she was. Not unkindly, it seemed, a senior guardmole helped her join the others and said, “That’s right, my love, you stay there. Now, you lot, if you behave yourselves nomole’s going to get hurt.”
“Some chance!” muttered Madder.
“Who said that?”
The voice came out of the murk beyond the clearing, thick and menacing.
The Duncton moles were silent, none saying who it had been.
“What do you want with us?” called out Hay, struggling to break through the moles to the front.
“Be still, mole,” said Tryfan, putting a restraining paw on him. “Be still.”
In the space of moments the clearing seemed full of guardmoles, several of whom stationed themselves around the beleaguered Duncton moles, and there was no doubt at all that resistance of any kind was useless.
“Is that the lot?” a voice called. “Well?”
“None about the place, nor did we see any flee. Could be some in the tunnels, but it seems unlikely. It is Longest Night.”
“None on the far Pastures either, Sir.”
“Right. The Keepers will be here soon, so let’s sort these moles out. We know which one we want.”
The voices seemed disembodied, coming sharply from one side of the clearing to the other, as yet more moles crashed unseen about the wood and the guardmoles organised themselves.
“Found Tryfan yet?”
“Just about to, Sir.”
The voice came from a group in the gloom behind the Stone.
“Don’t identify yourself, Tryfan!” whispered Hay urgently. “If you don’t we’ll not say.”
“He’s right,” responded Dodder.
“Speak only the truth, do not fight, love them. This is our only way,” said Tryfan. Feverfew came close to him, her paws about him.
“Well, mole, found him?”
The voice was nearer, and deeper, and full of authority.
“No, Clowder Sir, not yet. He’ll be among that lot by the Stone... Drule’s about to sort them out.”
“Is he now?” said Clowder.
These disembodied voices from out of the gloom had been menacing enough, but nothing could have prepared them for the sight of the mole Drule who now emerged into the far side of the clearing, the light of the risen moon and stars on him. He was huge and stared about in a fat, grotesque and disinterested way, before stancing down confidently opposite the Duncton moles. He looked up at the Stone, sucked his teeth, spat, and said, “Which one of you is Tryfan?”
His pig eyes stared at them. His gross size, his stubby talons, his moist snub snout, everything about him was unpleasant, and cruel. It was clear that he was not going to waste any time, for after only the briefest of pauses while he waited for an answer he pointed a talon at the nearest female, who was Teasel, since she had been the last to be taken to the group.
“Bring her here.”
As two hefty guardmoles moved in on her there was a movement among the Duncton moles led by Hay to protect her, but six more guardmoles came on aggressively to stop any possibility of effective resistance.
“Well, which one’s Tryfan?” he asked Teasel.
She stared at him blankly.
“My name’s Teasel,” she said, “and I do not know why you’re here. This is Longest Night.”
Drule nodded to the two guardmoles who brought Teasel within reach of him. He stretched out a great fat taloned paw and grabbed her by the throat and pulled her bodily to him.
The action was so fast and violent that the watching group gasped and stared dumbstruck.
Then he held Teasel out from his side and slowly raised her up, his talons tightening about her throat and her cries muffled and choking. Her old paws struggled pathetically at the air and her mouth opened in pain.
“She’s not Tryfan,” said Drule looking away from her and back at the defenceless moles huddled by the Stone, “so which one is?”
The group parted and Tryfan came out from among them.
“Leave her be,” he said. “I am Tryfan of Duncton.”
Slowly, too slowly it seemed, Drule lowered Teasel to the ground. His grip did not slacken.
“Keep him by the Stone,” he ordered. “Group the others behind me and take no nonsense from any that resist.”
He let go of Teasel and she fell sideways on to the ground, her mouth open to the soil, her left paw trying pathetically to reach up to her throat. The atmosphere was heavy with fear.
“Let me go to her,” said Feverfew, trying to struggle past a guardmole.
“Hold her,” said Drule. “Now separate them off....”
Despite Tryfan’s earlier request, there was some attempt at resistance, led now by Hay and Madder, and there were shouts and struggles as none of them wanted to leave Tryfan, least of all Feverfew.
“Myn luve, myn luve....”
In the brief and hopeless fray, Hay was taloned unconscious, Madder was viciously mauled, and Feverfew was dragged bodily away, her paws literally pulled out of Tryfan’s as she was taken to the others, and he was surrounded by guardmoles and forced to stance still by the Stone.
Herded at the far end of the clearing in the shadows away from the Stone, some of the old moles wept, but most slumped and stared, and a few tended to those who had been hurt. Then two moles came and dragged the half-conscious form of Teasel back to where the others were.
“She’s dying!” cried out one of the moles. “You’ve killed her.”
Drule smirked and picked his teeth while outside the clearing Clowder gave quiet orders. “Aye, stay there... the Master-elect will come this way... no, the Keepers first... oh, aye, they’ve got the mole Tryfan by the Stone.”
For his part the old scribemole stanced still in the Stone’s shadow, unheeding now of the commotions around him, dignified, gentle.
He looked at Drule and asked, “Why do you hurt us and ours?”
There was no answer that Drule could make, but nor did he try to or care. He turned to one of his minions, out of sight beyond the clearing, and said, “Tell the Twelfth Keeper we have the mole Tryfan here.”
“’Tis done, Sir.”
The sense that Tryfan and the others already had – that the events that were overtaking them were quite beyond their control – was now increased by the sound of a deep and guttural chanting that began to come out of the High Wood about them.
Nomole can adequately describe that sound nor the growing horror they felt as it began to be accompanied by the tramp-tramp of paws through the undergrowth, getting ever nearer.
Then suddenly two columns of moles, chanting their processional more loudly, came out into the clearing and began to circle the edge of it, one column on either side. The impact on the Duncton moles was all the worse because they had no idea what they were seeing, or that these moles were sideem and senior guardmoles come to welcome the Master-elect to his place of ordination.
For Tryfan and the others the sounds were so alien to anything they had ever heard, so in opposition to the grace and Silence of the Stone, so freakish among the wintry trees of the High Wood, that the feathers of a raven might have turned red in the sky and its flight left a trail of blood among the clouds and it would have seemed less strange, less ominous.
Deep the chant, incomprehensible the words, as over it a guardmole commanded, “Be still for the Keepers there, stop shifting about.” At this moment the eldrene Wort slipped into the clearing, and took a stance adjacent to the place the moles of the Word were using as an entrance.
“What’s happening?” one of the Duncton moles began.
There was a tussle, a sickening thump, a moan, and he was silenced by a guardmole. The rest were mute.
The chant deepened and quickened and into the clearing came the Keepers who, but for Mallice and Clowder, were old and slow, and moved unrhythmically, their very discordance evidence of their seniority and importance. Some looked about, some kept their snouts to the ground, Mallice, eyes alight, gazed up at the Stone and then, whispering to Clowder, pointed at Tryfan.
The Keepers were disposed by Slighe near where Drule had been watching over the proceedings, and he retreated to the side, and near the Stone. Now, except for Tryfan, who remained captive by the Stone, the Duncton moles were barely visible at the back.
As suddenly as it had started the chanting stopped, and a dreadful, awesome silence fell. The summary assault on anymole that spoke seemed to have quietened the Duncton moles, though sometimes one of the confused ones spoke loudly or cried out, and one mole was softly sobbing.
“Shut the bitch up,” hissed a guardmole.
“It’s all right,” whispered one of the females, herself half crying, “she’ll not make another sound.”
“She won’t if she does!” growled a guardmole.
Two figures moved in the gloom beyond the clearing in the direction from which the sideem and Keepers had come. But for Tryfan, all the moles looked that way, the Duncton moles too, for as well as fear there was a terrible fascination about the scene. Only Tryfan did not look, but stared at the ground before him, though his posture did not speak of defeat or subjection but, rather, of deep sadness.
Then from out of the gloom came Terce, and just behind him, looking at his most powerful and healthy, came Lucerne, his head up, his eye first on the Stone, than on Tryfan beneath it.
“Is that the mole Tryfan?” asked Terce of Wort who was just nearby.
“It is, Twelfth Keeper. Tryfan of Duncton.”
Lucerne came forward and whispered to Terce who, moving to one side, came forward with him. Any fears the Twelfth Keeper had that the Stone might dominate the moles of the Word in general were proved false. It was the tension between Tryfan and Lucerne which dominated, each facing the other, the younger mole staring at the older arrogantly, the older still and looking at the ground.
“So,” said Lucerne, “you are Tryfan.”
Slowly Tryfan looked up and stared back. By the pale light that shone down, the scars on his face and about his eyes were impenetrable shadows. Certainly he was sad, but it was hard to judge if he was angry as well.
“This is a holy night,” said Tryfan, “and we are worshipping. Join us.”
A faint smile came to Lucerne’s face.
“Do you know whatmole I am?” he asked. “Look at me, Tryfan of Duncton.”
“I know whatmole you must be,” said Tryfan.
“Then look proud when you look at me!” said Lucerne. Did some hint of recognition come to Tryfan’s face then? Some mixture of alarm, of hope, of surprise, of horror? Whatever he felt he did not betray it, but said icily, “I have many failings, mole, but pride in you is not likely to be one of them.”
There was a brief laugh from Hay among the Duncton moles followed by a thump as he was hit, and from Wort there was a sharp intake of breath expressing horror that the Master-elect had been insulted.
“Release the moles of this system, celebrate Longest Night with us though you be of a different faith, be not afraid of us,” said Tryfan.
“I am thy son, Tryfan. I am Lucerne of Whern; I am thy Master-elect come to be ordained. Welcome me in the spirit in which I come.”
The guardmoles maintained their solid silence, Mallice stared with unadulterated glee, Wort half closed her eyes and prayed and only the Duncton moles moved and expressed anything – and it was surprise, confusion, disbelief.
“His son? Master-elect? Lucerne?”
“We welcome all moles, Lucerne, whatever moles they are, whatever their faith,” said Tryfan. “We welcome them in the spirit of the Stone.”
A mole watching that scene then would have seen Lucerne stiffen a little before this reply, and two others shift their gaze from Tryfan to Lucerne: Mallice and Terce. They saw anger in Lucerne, and knew it came not from what Tryfan said, but what in Lucerne’s eyes he had not done: he did not respond in any way to Lucerne’s declaration that he was his son. It might have been anymole who had come, anymole Tryfan was welcoming.
; “Renounce thy Stone,” said Lucerne, his voice suddenly harsh. Never had three words spoken in that hallowed place seemed more threatening or more bleak; but never did a reply sound more final.
“I cannot.”
Son to father, father to son; Word to Stone, Stone to Word.
“I shall make thee, mole.”
“Lucerne, you cannot,” replied Tryfan, speaking for the first and only time in a voice that sounded like a father to a son, but it was a voice of weary warning, not of love.
Lucerne tried one last time.
“This holy night, here, now, might be your proudest moment, Tryfan of Duncton. Your son shall be ordained the Master of the Word. In the name of the Word I abjure you to renounce thy Stone that we may rejoice together.”
“Moule, Tryfan moule shal nat renege upon owre Stane,” said Feverfew from behind, her voice warm and maternal, as if she spoke to a youngster. “He cannat renege upon himself. The Stane ys and namoule may gainsay ytt.”
“She speaks true,” said Tryfan, slowly turning from Lucerne to face the Stone. It was a gesture of such final dismissal that some say the two guardmoles at his side were later executed for allowing this insult to the Master-elect to take place. But from that moment on the fate of Tryfan, and perhaps the other moles as well, was sealed.
If Tryfan had intended to speak out a prayer to the Stone he was prevented from doing so, for he was dragged, at Drule’s quick command, to one side, and, shrugging, Lucerne turned to Terce and nodded, and without more ado, or chance of change, the ordination of Lucerne of Whern, Master of the Word, glorious in his faith, learned of the Twelve Cleaves, began.
Terce, Twelfth Keeper and most senior, spoke the first words, saying, “A Master is called by the Word to work with his fellow Keepers and with the anointed sideem as servant among the moles to whom he has been sent. It is a holy office and he is successor to great Scirpus, receiver of the Cleave. Hear now....”
What the disbelieving followers heard was a recitation by the Twelve Keepers of what being Master meant, as expounded in the scrivenings of past Masters since the first beginnings of that malevolent office. So long did this go on that they might have been forgiven for thinking that they had no role in the rites they were witnessing.
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