by Piers Torday
At first the walls are rock, changing in colour from the pale grey of our prison to a midnight blue, then again to compressed banks of sandy clay, webbed with hairline fractures and an earthy ceiling that showers us with soil if I so much as brush it with my head.
*Careful, new friend for life!* says the rat. *I’m afraid it’ll be me who has to repair this walk-under if you damage it … Although as my friend for life, you will be here to help of course … It’ll still be many thousands of moons of work, believe you me.*
*Rat,* I start, *when I said I would never leave you, I didn’t exactly mean that I would—*
*Shh, new friend! No time for chatter now – we have the rest of eternity for that. And besides, the closer we get, the more likely they are to hear us …*
I try not to worry about what the rat has said and keep on crawling in silence, all the time flashing the watch at the sides of the tunnel. I can see what he means by how long it would take to mend them. There’s so much stuff stuck in the clay walls, perhaps holding them together, or propping them up. Fragments of what look like glass blocks or the ends of girders. A builder’s yellow helmet, brightly coloured coils of cable with sheaves of copper wire exploding out the ends. Squashed drink cans, plastic bottles, phone handsets and sunglasses.
*The last great human age before this one, new friend,* says the rat, as he sees me flashing the watch at them.
Then the tunnel dips steeply, and I nearly bump my head on a black wooden beam stretching out across the path. Beyond, we find tin tankards wedged in the soil, bricks and shattered china plates, hundreds of tarnished coins scattered everywhere like pebbles.
*And now the human age before that,* he says.
The music and singing from below grow louder, and the rhythm is like the beating of a drum. A drum that my heart now beats to, and even in the chill air, sweat begins to bead and roll down my forehead into my eyes.
The black beams in the clay eventually give way to carved lumps of stone, broken arches, fragments of red pottery and ugly faces that loom out of the dark into my watch light.
*And the human age before that,* says the rat, as if it is the most normal thing in the world. His voice starts to echo as the now muddy tunnel opens up into a bigger space, and I find myself crawling through a trickle of water, then sliding after him on my bum down a smooth rock into a cave. But the water is not the strangest thing about the cave – the strangest thing is the colour.
The walls here are white, reflecting and spreading my watch light so I can see them clearly. They’re chalk. Everything feels lighter and airier. Water runs down the chalk slabs and out of the cracks, streaming everywhere, splashing and rippling over a plain of slippery stones. Like a river that once was, now reduced to a trickle.
*Do try and be a bit quieter, new friend,* hisses the rat. *We have nearly arrived.*
*Where?*
He just tuts, waddling off over the underground riverbed and into the shadows beyond. Shining my watch after him, there now seem to be about seven different chalky tunnels that we could go down. I only just catch his tail flicking round the corner of the hole straight ahead. At least, I think it was the one straight ahead – they are all so close together.
I hurry after him, half crouched, half running down the hole, the noise now so intense it’s hard to think straight –
*Stop!* whispers the rat.
I skid to a halt as I nearly fall straight on top of him. With my watch I can see he is peering over a rock edge.
*Please keep out of sight, whatever you do,* he says, and I shuffle closer on my belly. I turn my watch light on again, but he nips me fiercely in the hand. *Are you trying to get us killed? We have plenty of time for that, new and dear friend.*
Following his beady gaze, I can see I don’t need the watch light. We are perched high up on a precipice, looking down into a huge cave that seems to stretch on for miles underground. Arching above, a great domed ceiling pinpricked with a million tiny holes, down through which beam a million rays of cold early daylight.
The sun must be coming up over our garden at the Culdee Sack. Creeping through the gaps of the Waste Mountain dome. Maybe even sliding through a crack at the Four Towers.
They all feel very human and very far away from here.
The trickling water from the underground river rolls down past us on all sides, gathering in a shallow stream that runs down the centre of the cave, throwing back the pinpricks of light in soft blue waves against the creamy walls. The rippling stream leads to the centre of the dome, where it disappears again into the ground, in the shadow of a large white boulder.
Just like the one I hid behind in the Ring of Trees.
I can see a handful of tunnel mouths behind the rock, leading further and deeper underground, and then … nothing but blackness.
Gathered on either side of the stream, in rank after rank between our lookout and the white rock, spreading out in dark columns as far as the eye can see, are not a few, or hundreds, but thousands of animals.
Animals I thought had been wiped from the face of this city.
There are dogs, like Dagger. Filthy and battered, short wiry dogs with legs missing and chewed ears. And ones like our neighbours had: long-haired with their collars still attached, leads trailing behind them, a couple with tiny bald dogs standing upright on their backs, trembling.
Keeping their distance from the dogs are a sprawling mass of cats like those in the flapping photos we saw under the road, only very much alive – arching their backs and flicking their tails. There are cats with manes of fur, and some with bare patches.
On the other side of the stream there are legions of rats like my guide, crawling and tumbling on top of one another. Not just black, but brown, grey, even dirty ginger and white. They chatter and shriek at the swirls of mice around them and at the grey squirrels who skip over their backs.
The squirrels that stopped the formula train.
*Look at them all, new friend,* sniffs my guide. *They’re so happy I’m not there with them, the wretches. But they don’t know I have you!*
He twists his head up at me eagerly and I try to smile.
I follow the rat’s gaze, through clouds of whining mosquitoes, to some foxes who stand in a crooked semicircle in front of the white rock, like they’re protecting it. They look skinny and hungry, their bushy tails hanging limp behind their matchstick legs. But they are not as weak as they look – every time a dog or cat tries to get nearer to the rock, one of them lunges forward with their jaws and drives the interloper back.
Stag beetles and black ants swarm over every surface, so that the crags and pointed rocks of the cave seem to glitter with their shells and armour.
And it’s not just the ground that’s packed. Crows and magpies flit from jagged pillars circling the cave that seem to be hewn from the centre of the earth itself. Starlings swerve to avoid a screeching flurry of bats, showering down from the cave roof.
Directly below us, are black spiders dangling from outcrops, sheltering the craggy slope all the way down. These are not at all like the spider I saw at Spectrum Hall. They are bigger and more alien-looking than any spider I have ever seen, creeping over one another and shrieking in high-pitched voices.
Wasps and bluebottles dart in between their shining webs, while the ground beneath pulses with slithering snakes and worms.
All of them chanting so loud it feels they could lift the dome of the cave clean off and into the morning sky. But of Dagger, the dog that led me here, or the wolves who were following him – there is no sign.
*Where are we?* I ask the rat, who is peering over the rock with me, his nose twitching with excitement.
He turns, and I can hear his tiny heart racing at an amazing speed. His eyes glitter with anticipation. *This, new friend,* he says, *is the age that began them all. The age that never ends, the age that will return to take them all. The age of nature wild and true.* He leans in close and I shiver as he bares his yellowing fangs. *Welcome, new friend, to the
Underearth of the Dark Wild.*
The crowd of stray dogs, missing cats and varmints of all kinds in the cave below begins to quieten, as if they know something is going to happen. They are watching one of the foxes, who has turned from the semicircle guarding the white rock and is now climbing on top of it.
His big ears, sculpted jaw and deep-set eyes make it look like he is wearing a mask. A mask fringed by a plump and fuzzy hood of fur. He does not look as hungry as the others. The fox scans the cave with his hooded eyes and raises a paw. Everyone falls silent – even the mosquitoes’ whine fades to a low drone.
*Attention, dark wild! Greet your Wildness!*
The dark wild repeat his words back, crying *Wildness! Wildness!* stamping their paws and flapping their wings, deafening us with their cheers.
Hooded Fox leaps off the rock in a bound, and scrambling up behind him, his head held high, is Dagger. For a moment he just stands there, stiff and square on his short legs, turning his head from side to side while he laps up the cheers.
The rat and I press against the outcrop, breathing in grit, trying to make ourselves invisible as we listen.
Dagger waits until every last cat has curled their tail behind themselves, stray magpies have stopped flitting from rock to rock and the spiders have scuttled round making sure every beetle and bug are completely still.
He opens his mouth, the metal jaws squeaking. He shows the assembled crowd his pink stubby tongue and I hear a fox-cub gasp before being nipped into silence. The dog Wildness gives a long drawn-out breath, like air escaping from a tyre. Then he begins to speak.
The silent white dog can talk. He could talk all along.
*I have taken to the white rock, so hear me!* Dagger says in a high-pitched voice that is dry and cold, a voice that gets right under my skin and chills me to the bone. A voice I have heard before. *After too many moons, I can now stand here and greet you once again, my dark wild of the Underearth. I have been travelling about this Island, infiltrating the human world. I searched in vain for other survivors of the plague, but only found their bones.*
And I realize exactly where I heard this voice before.
It is the voice in the Forest of the Dead that told me another wild had survived and that I would never speak for them, that they would come when I least expected it. I didn’t believe it, I thought I was imagining things, and now –
He is real. And he is lying. Because he must have seen my living wild in the same place; he must have. So that was why he never spoke before, in case I recognized him. But he goes on.
*My journey confirmed my worst fears and my greatest hopes. It reminded me that you all represent something I never forgot in my time above. Something that the enemy does not realize is happening right under his very feet!*
There are furious squawks from a cluster of starlings gathered on the crumbling stone just below our hiding place. They are the noisiest birds I have ever heard. Dagger raises his paw again for silence.
*I remember,* he continues in his high dry voice, *when this wild was small. When we had to struggle to persuade you that our course was not only just, but the only way forward for animals in this world!*
The circle of foxes gaze up at him, expressionless. The starlings shriek louder than ever.
*There were not many of us at first, because we did not know whether others existed who felt the same way. We lost so many to the plague. Then, as if our spirit had not been crushed enough, we were driven from our homes and slaughtered by the enemy.*
There are angry mutterings from the dogs and cats at the front. Dagger grows more fierce.
*Who was this enemy that exiled us, murdered us and stole what was ours?* He licks his chops. *Tell me, animals of the Underearth, tell me so loudly that they themselves might hear!*
One word sweeps across the crowd like a fire, sparking and crackling, billowing into the air. *Humans!* they cry.
I can feel the hate bouncing off the walls in waves. I shrink back into the dark, but no creature turns around or looks up.
*Don’t worry, new friend,* whispers the rat, seeing my face. *I still like you!*
Far away at the end of the cave, Dagger stamps his foot, his short tail wagging like crazy.
*The human!* he spits with venom. *Humans who burnt out my tongue and my teeth with their poison. Humans who have driven us from our homes with their glass tall-homes and firesticks. Homes that have rightfully been ours since time began!*
The dark wild cannot control themselves. They are no longer in neat, still rows but are yapping and leaping, wheeling and spinning up webs with excitement.
*But what is this enemy I speak of?* asks Dagger, like he knows the answer already. *A weak creature, forced to stand on two legs all the time. The only animal who kills his own for no reason. They pour poison into the earth, and will not rest until they have torn out every tree, and covered the land with their grey stone.*
*No!* roars his wild. And I start to feel angry too, but in a different way.
Then one of the starlings beneath us flies up into the air, dancing. As the ripples of cave light reflected back from the stream catch her dark feathers, they shimmer with purples and greens.
*Wildness, Wildness!* she calls, circling above his head in the air.
The dog glances up crossly. *What is it, bird?*
*Can I just say something?* Not waiting for a reply, the starling carries straight on. *I’m right with you. It’s an absolute disgrace the way them humans have been carrying on, an absolute disgrace. On behalf of all the starlings, can I just say we are with you all the way on this. We’re absolutely disgusted.*
The dog grunts and turns back to the crowd, while the starling dives back to her nest looking very pleased with herself. Her flock just look embarrassed with all the attention they’re suddenly getting.
*Well put, loyal Starling. Because the humans had a choice, did they not? They could have stepped out of their glass tall-homes and seen the destruction they had brought about with their selfish blindness and greed. They could have found a cure for the berry-eye. They could have helped us, rather than drive us underground. But this is not the humans’ way, and it never will be. If they cannot eat us, then they will destroy us. And we will never be allowed to return to the land which is rightfully ours!*
The rat shakes his head. *Oh dearie me. No good will come of this, mark my words,* he mutters.
My blood is beginning to boil too. Not all humans are like the ones he describes. Besides, we never ate dogs – at least not on this Island. He’s making stuff up.
The starling is in the air again.
*Sorry to interrupt, your most excellent Wildness,* she squawks, *but you are totally right on that. I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s an outrage, that’s what it is, an outrage.*
Now Dagger almost lifts into the air with the excitement of his own words.
*But the enemy does not know the true spirit of a wild animal! We cannot be crushed. Every one of you is fearless. What you are doing is right, not just for yourselves but for all animals to come, and you will live on forever in their memories as eternal heroes.* His voice rises higher and higher as he speaks. *We are united in the same cause, and when the time comes – when this moon has gone, casting the ancient land above into darkness – we shall rise up and wash it free of human filth. We will no longer be the dark wild!*
*Yes, yes!* cries the starling. *Oh, that’s very good, I like that.* She turns back to the others in her nest. *Did you hear that, birds? We will no longer be the dark wild! Oh, he’s good at speaking in public, isn’t he? I could never do that.*
The spider colony beneath the birds swirls with agitation as they call up. *Shushh, you sstupid bird! We are trying to lee-ssten!*
Ignoring the starling for a moment, Dagger’s beady black eyes seem to fix on me, although I know he is too far away to see us hidden here. All the same, I shrink back as he roars, *We will be the only wild on the planet!*
Then, pausing for breath, he raises
his paw and calms his audience, flicking sweat off his head and foam away from his mouth. He waits until the cave is completely quiet again and then speaks in a softer voice, meaning we all have to lean in and listen.
*But we have an advantage, creatures of the Underearth. The human is too proud and weak to realize what they have done. I have sat in their lair and studied their moving pictures on their screens. They laughed at me, but I was learning everything about the enemy, from their weapons to their feeble defences against nature herself. They are fighting among themselves right this very moment, grown humans and their children at war with one another. They do not concern themselves with what is happening right under their feeble noses, under the earth they walk upon every day. And what is happening to that earth, my wild?*
*It rises,* reply the animals, in voices as hushed as his.
*I ask you again,* calls Dagger, now raising his voice again, making it higher and more strangled, *what is happening to that earth?*
*It rises!* the crowd roars back, every beast and bird and bug jostling for space.
*It will do more than rise!* yells Dagger, now screeching, his tail ticking like crazy. A drop of drool wells up at the corner of his metal jaws and spills out on to the rock. *It will rise up and wash away the human filth as we flood forth. We will rise and swarm and scurry and crawl, invading their homes. We will chew through the wires that bring them power. We will destroy their stores of pink food. We will bring down their machines from the sky. We will bark and buzz and caw. We will bite and sting and nip. We will chase them and tear them limb from limb!*
Now the wild under the earth are not just chanting *The earth rises*, but are echoing the dog’s words. *We will bite!* say the foxes. *Wee-ll trap ’em een our web-ss!* say the spiders. *We will tear them limb from limb!* snarl the dogs.
Then, in among the squawks and growls, I hear another voice floating above them all.
*No!* is what this voice says. It’s quiet at first, then grows louder. *No, you can’t do that!* says the voice. *It’s not fair!*