by Scott Nash
It wasn’t long before the weasels broke through the blockades and were tearing through the open tunnel behind them. The weasels’ growls and screams followed them and jangled the nerves of every pirate, but especially those terrified birds bringing up the rear!
Hillary came to a sudden stop, causing a pileup.
“Don’t stop! Move! Move! Move!” screamed the birds at the end of the line.
Hillary spoke hurriedly. “There is a tunnel on your left here. Take it! Run as fast as you can. Do not stop for anything. I’ll follow behind you. Now, go! Go! Go!”
“Hillary —” Junco began.
“Junco! Go now or, I swear, we will all die right here!”
The pirates broke to the left then, pouring into the tunnel, as Hillary stood by to be sure no one missed the turn. Junco, Blackcap, Jay, Crossbill, Creeper. The weasels were nearly upon them, now uttering low growls. Snipe, Thrasher, Chuck, turned the corner.
FHOOMPH! Junco heard the familiar sound of falling dirt mixed with the muffled screams of the weasels. FHOOMPH! FHOOMPH! Then there was a sharp “SQUEAK!” that was followed by a sickening silence.
“Hillary!” Junco cried over her shoulder. She tried to stop, but the momentum of her mates kept pushing her forward. They surged through the tunnel and did not stop until they tumbled, in a filthy pile, onto the shore of Briarloch’s pond at the feet of Gabriel and Henry.
“Captain! Mates!” Gabriel and Henry were shocked by the pirates’ appearance. The gosling and young sparrow had waited anxiously, listening for hours, hoping for the return of Junco and the rest of the crew. Given their recent ordeal, the pirates looked more wild and menacing than Gabriel was accustomed to. Henry, who had heard only the legends of Blue Jay and his pirates, was struck dumb in the company of actual pirates. The goose rushed over to Junco, who had taken no notice of him and had begun striding back to the tunnel. “Wait, Junco! Where are you going?” asked Gabriel.
Junco did not answer but stood at the entrance to the tunnel and listened. “Hulloo, Hillary!” she called. No answer. No Hillary. No weasels. No growling, screeching, or squeaking. There was nothing but muffled silence and darkness in the tunnel. “I’m going back!” she declared, then turned and drew her sword and stepped back inside.
“Hold on, Junco!” called Jay. Junco turned to see all seven pirates lined up behind her.
“If you’re going back, we’re going with you!” said Blue Jay.
Before they took another step, a rustling in the grassy bank startled them. The pirates leaped back and prepared for an ambush by weasels. The grass parted, and over the ridge appeared . . . the mole! His face like a full moon, Hillary smiled down at the pirates. “Good evening, everyone!” he greeted them cheerfully. “Sorry I hadn’t the chance to introduce myself earlier. My name is Hillary.”
The Sooty Fox was filled to the rafters that evening. Nearly every sparrow in Briarloch was in attendance to gawk in utter amazement at the famous Blue Jay and his crew. The pirates were a sight to behold, all of them dressed in eccentric garb — a motley assortment of colors, shapes, and sizes. Jay regaled the publicans with his tale of the shipwreck, of their encounter with Teach and his mob, and the pirates’ last stand at Black Point. “I think you’ll all agree, Teach had me in a bit of a bind! I had no weapon, a maimed wing, and the razor-sharp point of a switch pointed at me throat! The tall devil stood there, pickin’ his beak with one of my own feathers and said, ‘Aw! Your ship is mine, Jay! Now, tell me, what am I to do with you?’” Jay paused and took a long draw from his tankard.
“What happened then?” asked a wide-eyed Henry Clay.
“Well, now, take a look at this,” said Jay, and he held out his left wing to display the blunt remains of his feathers. The sparrows gasped. “Hold ’em up, mates!” And the sparrows gasped as each displayed a wing that was similarly mangled.
Jay continued. “Rather than killing us outright, he decided that it would be more entertaining if he clipped our flight feathers and threw us overboard. And so he did. Tossed us over the rail and down into the hungry jaws of sharp-toothed mammals prowling the forest floor. There we were, marooned in the underbrush at night with grim prospects, unable to fly and with nothing to save us except a few knives and our wits!”
The sparrows stared, wide-eyed and mute, as Jay continued: “The bloodred eyes of weasels burned like coals in the dark that surrounded us; their cruel snarls and screams filled the forest. The devils were so close that we could smell the foulness of their breath! I’m sure we would have been eaten, if it weren’t for the resourcefulness of my good crew, especially of this ruffian here,” said Jay, nodding to Chuck. “Master Will’s-Widow, the first to be tossed off the ship, had the good sense to seek shelter for all his friends, who would shortly be raining down from the sky. He managed to find a hole in the ground that he thought might accommodate all of us, and as we fell, Chuck gathered us in before the weasels had the opportunity to find us. Once we were all safely in the hole, we did our best to fortify the entrance with crude pikes that we fashioned out of long sticks. When those weasels did finally sniff us out, they attacked like an army of demons! We were helpless, or so we thought. Teach had confiscated most of our large weapons, too, so all we had were a few knives and a couple of cutlasses between us. If we didn’t think of something quick, we’d all be goners. It was then that Creeper discovered we were not just in a hole but at the beginning of a tunnel. So we blocked up the entrance as best we could and headed blindly into the tunnel, hoping to make our escape.” Jay gestured toward Hillary. “Instead we were soon lost in a vast, subterranean maze. We have since come to understand that that maze is Mr. Hillary’s home.”
“It really is quite cozy,” said the good-natured mole to the sparrows. “You should come visit sometime.”
The sparrows smiled and tittered nervously at the very suggestion of going underground.
“We weren’t seeing anything in that blackness,” Jay continued, “just feeling our way along. By the time we stumbled into our host, Hillary, and our friend Junco, the weasels had broken through our barrier and were hot on our trail. We managed to evade the monsters for some time, but, I must say, things got a bit sticky down there more than once. If Hillary had not been there to courageously lead us out of the dark, I have no doubt that by now we would all have been reduced to a pile of feathers and bones.”
Jay raised his glass. “Here’s to our subterranean saviors, Chuck, Junco, and Mr. Hillary!” said Jay. “We would not be here without you!”
Every bird in the tavern answered, “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” and the attention turned to Hillary.
“Tell us wot you did!” cried Chuck. “Tell us wot happened to the weasels.”
“We thought you were a goner!” said Thrasher.
“Did you fight them off with your claws?” asked Blackcap.
Hillary modestly waved off the question, but the crowd would not relent. “Aw, come on. Tell us!”
“Ye didn’t eat them, did ye?” called Chuck, and the room erupted into laughter.
“You’re asking me to give away my secrets,” said Hillary, “but all right! All right! I’ll tell you the story, but, you know, there’s really not much to tell.”
The room quieted, and the soft-spoken mole told his story. “As you may know, I like to dig. I dig just below the surface of the ground to find food, I dig deep down underground to find warmth in the winter or coolness in the summer, and I dig mazes to confuse any creature that might choose to invade my home.”
“I’ll attest to that!” said Jay. “Cry-ee-aye!”
“Every so often in my digging,” Hillary continued, “I inadvertently tunnel into the dens of other mammals.”
“What sort of mammals?” asked Henry Clay anxiously.
“Well, let’s see . . . ,” said Hillary. “Rabbits, mice, chipmunks, badgers, fox, wolves, and occasionally a bear.”
“OOOOOOOH!” said the crowd.
“Usually I repair and close up these mistakes
, but with the larger animals, I might just leave the opening as a trap or a trick for any unwelcome guests that might trespass into my tunnels. This evening, for example, I managed to successfully facilitate a visit between our unwitting weasels and a she wolf tending to her pups. Wolf mothers with babies don’t like to be disturbed. I didn’t linger too long to find out how the visit went, but from what I could hear, I think it’s safe to say that those particular weasels won’t be bothering us again anytime soon.”
At this, the pirates and sparrows laughed and cheered and patted Hillary on the back.
“Poppa Fox, another bowl of bumble for this fine mole, if you please!” cried Jay.
The tavern had never been so busy. Poppa Fox was like a dervish, spinning plates of food from one waiter to the next, making sure that every customer, especially the pirates, were well served. On that day, the menu included thistle cake with dried berries, suet and pine-nut tarts, baskets of fresh greens and teaberries. He provided dried fish for Snipe, pickled stag beetles for Chuck, and fresh grubs for everyone. His culinary creations were astonishing given the meager ingredients available to him. For drink, he offered up bumble, a potent concoction made from grass and a variety of berries from the forest. The combination of good food, strong drink, and high spirits kept the festivities lively for quite some time. The sparrows of Briarloch found themselves sitting shoulder to shoulder with pirates, sharing food, trading stories, and finding a common bond in the source of their troubles.
“A toast!” cried Jay as he raised his tankard high in the air with his good wing and paused. “To my cousin Teach!”
The room fell silent and the birds looked bewildered.
Jay continued, “May he grow like an onion, with his head in the ground and his feet in the air!”
The pirates and sparrows laughed, raised their tankards, and let out a raucous cheer. “May he grow like an onion!”
“Those crows will feel th’ sting of our swords soon enough!” hollered Chuck.
“We’ll tear their feathers out, we will!” said Thrasher.
“Aye, Captain!” shouted Blackcap. “We’ll take back the Grosbeak yet!”
The party continued through the night. Then it went on as night turned to day and day into night. Three full days after the pirate reunion in Briarloch, Jay had finally run out of stories, toasts, and drinking buddies. By the fourth day, most of the sparrows had drifted back into their daily routines. By the morning of the fifth day, even the pirates had lost interest in the Sooty Fox and began to help out in the village, partly in gratitude to the sparrows but mostly to allay their boredom. Two weeks passed and the pirates showed no sign of leaving.
Gabriel had become especially restless. Having had a taste of swimming in the pond, he wanted more, but Poppa Fox discouraged him from swimming in the open, fearing that the goose’s presence would attract the attention of either the crows or colonials flying overhead. “We don’t want the Thrushians to suddenly become interested in Briarloch. We don’t want them coming by and asking questions ’n’ all!” He also requested that Gabriel remove his hat and pirate garb for the same reason. As a result, Gabriel was irritable, and Junco spent most of her days trying to entertain the goose by reading from scrolls she borrowed from Poppa Fox.
Poppa Fox had an excellent library, filled with volumes on the history of Paxwood, the Colonial War, and avian mythology, which Junco thought Gabriel might find especially interesting. Junco read fascinating accounts of the time before the colonies were established, when birds freely migrated and the gods served as peacemakers in the borderless pre-colonial era. Regrettably, Gabriel seemed bored by most of this. He listened politely to Junco’s reading but rarely commented and never asked questions of her. Instead, he gazed longingly out on the pond and daydreamed.
One morning, Gabriel interrupted Junco’s reading to ask, “Why are we still here? What are we doing here in Briarloch?”
“We’re awaiting orders from Blue Jay,” said Junco.
“What orders? It doesn’t seem to me like he has any plan at all!” said Gabriel.
Junco could neither deny nor confirm that. All Junco could say was, “I’m sure he’s hatching a plan.” Junco set down the scroll and stared up at the sky.
Poppa Fox was growing his own set of worries: Blue Jay and his crew had accumulated quite a tab at the tavern, but so far had not produced a penny in payment and gave no sign of leaving or of having a plan to move on.
One day when the tavern was quiet, Poppa Fox sat down beside Jay, intending to discuss business with the pirate captain. Hillary, who had come to admire Blue Jay and usually hung on his every word, seemed to be dozing on a bench nearby.
Jay wrapped a wing around the tavern keeper’s shoulder. “You, sir,” said the pirate, “are the finest cacher I’ve met, and I’ve been served by a few, as you might imagine.”
“Thank you. It was my pleasure t’ serve ye,” said Poppa Fox humbly. “Yor, uh, welcome as long as ye please.”
Jay considered the remnants of his latest meal in front of him. “I’ve accumulated quite a bill here, haven’t I?”
“Larger than most, larger than most,” said Poppa Fox, relieved that Jay had broken the ice and broached the subject himself.
“You know that I have nothing to pay you with, at least until I take my ship back from that scoundrel Teach,” ventured Jay.
“I thought as much,” said Poppa, disappointed by what he knew to be the truth.
“But I will pay you!” said Jay hopefully.
“Oh, sure. Sure, I know. I know ye will. . . .” Poppa’s voice trailed off.
There was for a moment an uncomfortable silence during which the two avoided eye contact.
Then Poppa Fox cleared his throat and said, “And how is it yor gonna get yor ship back, then?”
“My ship?” said Jay. “Oh, I’ve got a strategy for that, a plan that I can’t reveal just yet. Stealth and surprise — those are a pirate’s allies in such matters, you know.” Truth was, Jay was stymied by his situation — no weapons, a disabled crew, and no ship — but still he insisted, “I have a plan, yes, indeed!”
“I thought as much,” Poppa Fox said quietly. “Care for another drink, Captain?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
Poppa signaled a waiter. “Some more bumble for the captain, if you please!”
The innkeeper waited for Jay to take a haul of his drink, then leaned in close and said, “Captain, if I may, I have a proposal — a plan of sorts — that might be of interest to you and yor mates. One that may help us to achieve what might be considered our mutual goals.”
“Really?” said Jay, sitting up with interest. “Aye, and what might them goals be?”
“Woll, that cousin of yors . . .”
“He’s no longer a cousin of mine, that rotten carcass-picker,” said Jay.
Poppa Fox looked Jay square in the eye. “Rumor has it,” he said confidentially, “that Teach is in the weapons business, that he’s got himself a full arsenal of metal blades and an exclusive arrangement with the Thrushian army.”
“You don’t say!” said Jay. “That might explain why the Thrushians have turned a blind eye to the villain’s exploits!”
“It might, indeed,” said Poppa.
“I’ve crossed swords with Teach, and he does have a fine blade,” said Jay, “but the Thrushians produce their own blades. Why would they bother getting tangled up with, and perhaps beholden to, the likes of Teach?”
“Again, it’s rumored that the crows have a superior product in the works,” said Poppa Fox. “They’re producing metal blades strong enough to slice through anything, including, perhaps, yor sword there.”
“Well, I’ll be spanked!” said Jay. “Teach must have himself a forge, then!”
“Right you are,” said Poppa. “But its location seems to be a mystery!”
According to Poppa Fox, Teach had not only developed the ability to smelt and forge metal, but was producing metals that were harder, sharper, an
d lighter than anything previously made. Such metal weapons and tools were very rare since the process required the use of fire. According to colonial decree, fire was deemed a destructive power in a world made of wood, capable of turning whole forests and villages into vapor and ash. It was an element that seemed to have a will of its own, randomly selecting a ship, fortress, or home to send up in flames. Therefore, colonial law strictly regulated the use of fire by anyone besides those sanctioned by the government.
The crows ignored these laws, believing that they had a unique relationship with fire — one steeped in their origin story. According to crow legend, fire was a gift given to them by “the Great One.” As the story goes, the first crow, named Corvus, was a spectacularly colorful bird with a pretty song who was loved by all. The animals in the forest admired Corvus, not only for her beauty but also for her bravery and confidence. (Some might say the crow was arrogant.) During one particularly long, cold winter, the animals became unhappy, held council, and decided to appeal to the Great One to give them heat. Corvus volunteered to make the long journey to the Great One’s palace to make the request. The crow flew for three days and three nights. When she finally arrived at the Great One’s palace in the sky, she sang her appeal on behalf of all animals. The Great One was moved by Corvus’s beauty and lovely song and offered her a flaming branch to take back to the animals in the forest. The Great One warned Corvus that possessing fire was a great responsibility and that with that responsibility would come sacrifice and pain.
Corvus took the branch and began her three-day journey back to the forest. As she flew, smoke and soot from the fire blackened her colorful feathers. When she arrived at the forest, Corvus opened her beak to sing the story of the gift of the flaming branch, but inhaling the smoke had ruined her beautiful voice. From that day forward, all crows were sooty black and no crow could sing, only croak and caw. In return for this sacrifice, crows alone were gifted with the ability to possess and use fire. Through the ages, crows found new ways to use fire, cooking up medicines and poisons, and eventually forging metal tools and weapons that were far superior to their wooden counterparts.