by Jon Evans
Three days ago King Thorn sent me out into the mountains again. To the squirrels of the Western Kingdom, by the waters. Their land is not far, but the mountains between are terrible, Patch, terrible, I don't know how you made your way back through them. I hope I never have to travel through them again. The Western Kingdom is still rich and peaceful. There are many squirrels there, they received me politely, but they know us only from legend. I do not think they will aid us. I do not think they believed me when I told them the rats would destroy them next, though I am sure it is true. I think they will leave us to our fate. I think my mission failed. I think -
Sharpclaw? What is it, what's wrong - is it Redeye, have they found his army? Oh, no. Oh, bloody moon and darkened sun. Yes, I will come, I will come right away. You were right, Patch. By the Great Sea, just where you fought the rats. That isn't far. They'll reach us tomorrow, if they don't attack tonight.
The crows, Patch. Look, to the west, to the setting sun, look into the light. The crows are coming.
Understanding
Patch spent that night on a low branch of King Thorn's court. There were so many squirrels on the oak tree, and on the other trees nearby, that its branches sagged and creaked. The court was alive that night with furtive whispers and scurryings - until there was any noise in the distance, or any unexpected windblown scent; then every squirrel fell into grim silence, fearing that attack was imminent, that the third and final battle of this war had begun. Patch's heart pounded as if he was running for his life, rather than sitting motionless on a branch. His insides felt like they had been tied tightly together and squeezed. That night seemed endless, as if the sun had stopped its eternal dance around the world, and only the pale moon and sullen stars remained in the heavens.
He must have fallen asleep, because dawn seemed to come abruptly, as if the dark vault of the night had fallen suddenly from the sky to reveal an eastern sky streaked with dawn. The king's guard had already descended to the earth to scout the nearby territory. Patch saw Twitch among them. Other squirrels upon the oak murmured with surprise and relief. Redeye's armies of rats and rebel squirrels had not attacked. They might still invade at any moment - but that prospect was much easier to face now that a bright warm sun was crawling into the sky.
Patch shook himself to some semblance of wakefulness, and began to look for Silver. He found Nighteye instead.
"Follow me," his commander said. "We have work to do."
Patch blinked. "But - what work?"
"You're a soldier. You do whatever work I tell you." Nighteye hesitated a moment and then said, in a less belligerent tone, "The King is sending out all the scout squads to find and report on the enemy. Go over under that maple, there's food there. Hurry. We leave soon."
Indeed there were piles of food under the maple, acorns and nuts and bulbs and buds, collected by those too old, young, or crippled to fight in Thorn's army. Longtail was there, and greeted Patch like an old friend. Patch reluctantly nodded an acknowledgement but did not speak.
Nighteye led his war-clan southeast, across the Ravine, and to a hilltop above the grassy fields between the Great Sea and the Northern River. From that vantage point they saw those fields alive with motion, full to bursting with hundreds of scurrying squirrels. Patch guessed that Redeye's Meadow army, strengthened by so many moon-sworn Treetops squirrels, was roughly as numerous as the combined forces of the Northern tribe and those Ramble squirrels who had survived the war's first two battles, plus the scattered remains of the Treetops ... but the rats were on the enemy's side, and they were far more numerous than either squirrel army.
"They're coming," Longtail breathed, frightened, as Redeye's army began to advance, moving in long clustered chains of war-clans. From the treetop it looked almost as if they were giant furry ants rather than squirrels
Nighteye shook his head. "No. They're not coming towards us. They're going northeast. Why? Why not attack?"
All of Nighteye's war-clan looked at the chain of hills that led northeast to the Northern Sea, and at the dark carpet of crows that covered them. A few crows had come to King Thorn's court - and had quickly been driven away by angry squirrels - but the vast majority of the sun-darkening flock had settled on the territories that Redeye was now inexplicably invading. Why was Redeye turning his back on Thorn and marching to the Northern Sea? Why was he not engaging the true King in a third and final battle?
Patch contemplated this question while his war-clan returned to King Thorn's court. As the oak tree came into sight once more, it occurred to him that it wasn't Redeye who truly commanded the enemy army, but rather Lord Snout; he remembered what a clever rat had told him once, when he was trapped in a wall of cages in the Hidden Kingdom - and he gasped, as an answer struck him like a fallen tree.
Lord Snout didn't want Redeye to be King of the Squirrels. All he wanted was maximum death and desolation. He wanted Redeye's army to ravage every part of the Center Kingdom, before finally closing in on King Thorn's court like a leash choking a dog; and then, after the final battle, the rats would kill whatever squirrels remained, as they had done after the Battle of the Ramble. Lord Snout was not fighting to control the Center Kingdom through his puppet-king Redeye. He was fighting to destroy the very idea of the Center Kingdom; to slaughter every squirrel within its bounds. Lord Snout was not yet ready for the final battle, because this was not a war. This was a slow and methodical extermination.
Besieged
Sometimes in the desperate days that followed it seemed to Patch that time itself had shattered like glass, splintered into sharp and disconnected fragments. On the rare occasions he had the opportunity to sleep, he woke as if propelled into a strange new world, unsure for long moments whether he had escaped his dreams or fallen deeper into their senseless, dizzying currents. That vicious skirmish fresh in his mind, their battle against Meadow squirrels on a tangled sky-road across the Ravine, Longtail's dying screams, their desperate escape across the river - had those things happened before or after he slept? Had he really stood beside Nighteye atop that tall cypress, spying on Redeye's army as they passed beneath them, knowing that the slightest sound or motion would mean their deaths - and if so, had he really seen his moon-sworn brother Tuft pass between them? Had he just now been woken by the distant screams of pain and cries of battle, or only by the dim echoes of such memories?
By day, King Thorn sent out his squirrels, trying to push the enemy back; by night, rats scrabbled at the edges of the King's territory, looking for unguarded shadows, sleeping sentries, any chance to skulk past the armies of the true King and prey on the old and young and weak. Patch and his war-clan fought skirmishes every day and night. The enemy, although usually superior in number, rarely stayed long enough to kill or be killed. Instead of fighting a pitched battle they gnawed slowly and grimly away at King Thorn's armies and territories, murdering a squirrel here and a squirrel there, occasionally surrounding and slaughtering an entire war-clan, and driving back Thorn's hungry and exhausted defenders one tree at a time.
In the first two days of the war for the North, Patch was sent with Nighteye's war-clan across the Northern River, to carry the fight to the enemy. On the second night, they were withdrawn back to Thorn's court by night, in order to protect both it and themselves; on the third day, they ventured across the river, and fought a running sky-road battle against two dozen Meadow squirrels, in which Longtail died bravely. From that night on they did not venture across the river. Instead they were sent to help wherever Redeye was attacking. Sometimes he seemed to be attacking everywhere at once. King Thorn's territories grew daily smaller, and his armies fewer in number; their food grew scant, and their nights sleepless.
The crows came to roost in King Thorn's territories and began to roost in his trees. his subjects had grown too hungry and exhausted to drive them off. Soon even the King's oak-tree court was occupied by drooping, black-winged crows, watching with blank eyes, waiting for their inevitable spoils of war. Even humans began to notice that som
ething strange was happening in this corner of the Center Kingdom. Not many came through these regions, but those who did often stopped and stared at the crows massed on the trees, and the dead bodies of rats and squirrels, and sometimes they watched two howling, writhing squads of the enemy armies tear at one another with fang and claw.
When Patch had any excuse, he returned to the King's court and sought out Twitch and Silver. When they met, they sat together without words. There were no words left worth speaking. Everyone knew that there was no escape, and no apparent hope. The annihilation of the Center Kingdom was only a matter of time.
And then, early one desperate morning, Patch was awakened from a rare moment of sleep by a sharp pain at the tip of his tail.
Enemy of my Enemy
Patch leapt snarling from his interrupted slumber, ready to kill whatever had attacked. There was a huge dark shape standing on the branch beside him, and Patch launched himself at it, fangs bared - and then something hit him, it was like being struck by a branch, and he fell thudding to the ground below. Fortunately he had slept on a low branch; and he came to his feet bruised and angry but not seriously harmed, his tail erect with rage and fear.
Then he stopped, looked around, and decided this time he really was dreaming, he had to be. Because he had slept on the oak tree that was King Thorn's court, and it and all the trees around it were covered with Ramble and Northern and Treetops squirrels; and every single one of those squirrels, including Sharpclaw and Twitch and the king's guard around him, were frozen in place like carved statues, horrified expressions on their motionless faces; and the crows on the branches were staring in the same frozen manner. All eyes were fixed on a point just behind Patch. He heard a fluttering sound.
Slowly he turned around.
"You have been exceedingly remiss in your mission, Patch son of Silver," Karmerruk said drily. "I imagined you eaten by crows. Why did you not send me word?"
Patch recovered enough from his surprise to say, "How?"
"Your little bluejay friend."
"I haven't seen him."
Karmerruk nodded. "I suppose he too thought you dead in the Ramble. Well, better late-hatched than fallen. Which of these ragged balls of fur is your King Thorn?"
Patch looked up the oak tree. "He'll be at the top."
"Is that so." Karmerruk leaped into the air - then stooped down on Patch, seized him in his agonizing talons, and carried him to the top of King Thorn's court with wingbeats so powerful the oak's branches shivered as if whipped by the winds of a storm. Patch moaned as Karmerruk deposited him on the crown of the oak tree, in the midst of the King's war council, which included Silver and Stardancer. All of them stared speechless at Patch and his avian companion.
"Let that journey be a reminder to you that I do not take kindly to delays," Karmerruk said sharply to Patch. "Now introduce me to your King and tell him I seek the death of his enemy."
Patch took a moment to collect himself, then turned and said, "King Thorn, this is Karmerruk, Prince of the Air. He would like to propose an alliance."
Their situation was desperate, they were all frantic with anxiety and exhaustion, and blood was seeping from Patch's fresh talon-wounds; but he still took a certain satisfaction from the stunned expressions of King Thorn and his council of war.
"It's too late," said Stardancer, the red-furred lord of the Northern tribe. "One hawk, however dangerous, can't save us."
"Yes, he can," Silver said. "He can kill Redeye and Sniffer and Snout, if he can find them. Without them the Meadow army will fall back. Without them they may even recognize the true King. They don't want to fight us. They're being forced."
Thorn looked to Patch. "Is that possible?"
Patch translated.
Karmerruk clucked with dissatisfaction. "I would have devoured on Snout a long time ago if he ever showed himself, but he must know he is hunted, he stays in the night and the underworld. As for squirrels, how am I to tell one of you from another? Perhaps if you can point them out to me. But what I hoped is that you might lure Snout into the open."
"How?" Patch asked.
Karmerruk shrugged imperiously. "I don't pretend to understand the thoughts of crawling groundlings. That's why I have come to you."
Patch translated for the war council.
"Just tell him yes," Silver said, before Thorn could respond. "Tell him we'll do anything he wants. They'll come for us soon, for the last battle. Redeye and Sniffer will be there, at least. If he can get them - any hope is better than no hope. With him at least we have a chance, however small."
Thorn gave her an annoyed look, and opened his mouth as if to object, but Patch was already relaying her acceptance to Karmerruk.
Karmerruk nodded as if the conclusion had been obvious. "Then I shall wait, rather than reveal myself too soon. When the final battle is joined, I shall come and find you, Patch son of Silver, and you shall point your enemies out to me. Remember that if you fail, your King and all his tribes will be utterly destroyed."
He stretched out his colossal wings, ready to fly away.
"Wait!" Patch said.
Karmerruk sighed and refurled his wings. "What is it?"
"Last time I saw you, you said something about the Queen of All Cats."
The hawk twitched. "What of her?"
"Do you know where she is?"
Karmerruk paused before responding, and when he did speak, his voice sounded strange and whistling; and Patch found himself wondering if the Prince of the Air might actually be nervous.
"Even if I do, what is it to you?" Karmerruk demanded.
Patch chose his words carefully before speaking. "I know she is an enemy of Lord Snout, and she knows the night and the underworld. She might be able to find him and drive him into your claws."
Karmerruk frowned and considered for what felt like a very long time. The squirrels of King Thorn's war council listened silently; none of them spoke any Bird, but it seemed almost as if they knew that this question and its answer were of the greatest importance.
"The enemy of my enemy," Kamerruk muttered. "Yes, I know where she is. I have seen her standing on the steel branches of her palace, undefended, looking down the Great Avenue ... I could have ... but the prophecy ... nothing that walks or flies or swims -"
"Where is she?" Patch asked.
"She has left the mountains," Karmerruk said. "She is in the Center Kingdom as we speak, with her guards. I saw them in the Ramble earlier today. What are they doing here, Patch son of Silver? What do you know of her?"
Patch's heart leapt. "She's in the Ramble?"
"Why would she and her entourage leave the mountains?" Karmerruk demanded. "Do you know?"
Patch said, slowly and wonderingly, "She might be looking for me."
Karmerruk glared down at him. "Very funny, little squirrel. I shall be back for the final battle. I shall expect you to treat my questions more seriously then."
He leapt from the oak tree and soared into the air. The squirrels of King Thorn's war council stared at Patch. He considered telling them about Zelina - but they probably wouldn't believe him, and even if they did, there was no sense in giving them hope that might prove false.
"He'll come for the final battle," Patch said.
After a pause Stardancer said, grimly, "He won't have to wait long."
An Army of the Night
Later that day, Patch and Twitch lay half-collapsed and half-asleep on the ground beneath King Thorn's oak tree.
"There isn't any food left," Twitch said dolefully.
Patch nodded.
"Maybe if I go back to the maple there'll be food there. Maybe someone found some acorns!"
Patch sighed. "I don't think so. But we can dig for more worms." The ground around them was pockmarked by holes and little piles of earth where squirrels had done just that.
Twitch groaned. "I don't want to ever eat another worm again. I don't think they're really food, Patch. I want acorns. Or tulip bulbs. Oh, tulips. Maybe there are tulips
in the Labyrinth!"
The Labyrinth, a walled garden where humans tortured plants and flowers into growing in straight lines and sharp corners so unnatural that it almost hurt the mind to see, was east of Thorn's court, on the very edge of the Center Kingdom.
"We can't go the Labyrinth, Twitch. We're surrounded."
"Maybe we can sneak through. It's quiet. They're not attacking."
Twitch was right about that much. There hadn't been any enemy incursions all day. Patch wondered if the enemy was massing for the final battle. If so, win or lose, this would likely be the last day alive for most of the squirrels around him, and for Patch and Twitch as well.
"Patch!" a voice shouted, and Nighteye pelted out of the bushes and towards them. "Patch, you are needed!"
Patch came to his feet, his every muscle taut with tension. "What is it?"
Nighteye looked at him for a long moment. It took Patch some time to recognize his commander's strange expression as awed deference. "It was all true, wasn't it? Everything you said."
"Yes. Why?"
"She's asking for you."
"Who is?"
Nighteye said, "The Queen of All Cats."
And a broad smile began to spread across Patch's face.
Twitch asked, "Who's that?"
"A friend of mine," Patch said. "Where is she?"
Nighteye led him through the bushes through what was left of King Thorn's territory, a half-dozen tree-lined ridges teeming with exhausted squirrels and watchful crows. From the crest of the final hill Patch looked down a gentle slope, across the Ravine, towards the trees where Redeye's army waited. He could see them moving in the branches and the shadows, and he could smell them in the wind. He smelled uncertainty among the enemy squirrels.
But most of all he saw and scented old friends. Standing on a concrete human bridge that spanned the Ravine were Zelina and seven other cats, all of them sleek and strong; and one of them, sleekest and strongest of all, his pale fur scored with countless battle-scars, was Alabast. Patch laughed with sheer delight and sprinted out across no-squirrel's-land and to the bridge.