Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  But he didn’t say anything—he had his own strategy for dealing with the Stone Mole rumour and it hinged on fostering the system’s fear and awe of the Stone Mole until he felt the time was right to make an excursion to the Ancient System and kill it. Or rather, find some scapegoat mole and kill him in privacy in such a way as to impress on these miserable moles that only one mole was in charge in Duncton Wood and that was himself. Mandrake was beginning to get heartily sick of the Stone Mole rumour and was looking forward to putting into effect his simple plan to scotch it at one fell blow.

  Meanwhile, his sense of bloody drama had not left him. As the rest of the moles hummed and hawed at the sight of the owl, and Rune looked at it in his sneaking way, Mandrake went up to it and plunged his right paw, talons outstretched, into the owl’s torn breast and smeared the blood over his face fur. Then, turning on the moles, he looked at each of them in turn and laughed. They looked shocked and frightened at his actions, as if believing that in some way he would now be able to inflict the owl curse on them. Then he licked his talons with relish and, with a mighty blow, knocked the owl’s wing in such a way that the body fell on to the ground with a thump.

  ‘Anymole here like a taste of owl as well?’ he taunted them. ‘Good for the health, it is,’ he mocked.

  The moles slunk away, excitement over, aware once again of Mandrake’s brutish power. And even Rune, who had strategies within strategies of his own for dealing with the Stone Mole and Mandrake together, could not help wondering, as he looked at Mandrake exulting in the owl’s gore, whether this bestial mole might not kill them all before he had a chance to take power for himself.

  News of this incident was soon all over the system, and Mekkins regretted that he had not been near enough to witness it. So the Stone Mole was an owl-killer as well now! By the time he got near where the owl had died, it had long since been taken by some predator and only feathers and dried blood on the grass remained. The story impressed him, and it impressed Rebecca, too, elevating the already overimaginative idea of Bracken she had into almost heroic status.

  Against this background, the sudden arrival of Rue on the scene caused a sensation, and when Mekkins told Rebecca of it, she determined to get to Barrow Vale before Mandrake and Rune did and talk for herself to the mole who claimed to have got to within a few molefeet of the Stone Mole. The idea of the journey appealed to her newfound restlessness for mating and gave her something concrete to do. She would be careful, she promised Mekkins, who was against her going, but she would go.

  Rebecca reached Barrow Vale in safety, but she never got to Rue in time. For just as she entered among the wider Barrow Vale tunnels, a chilling voice called out to her from the shadows of a side tunnel. ‘Rebecca!’ it said. ‘Now this is a surprise, it really is. You in Barrow Vale of all moles, come to gossip away with the best of them? Well, well.’

  Rune came out of the dark and stood boldly in front of her, moving slowly towards her as he spoke each word and forcing her back towards the side tunnel. Rune always seemed to be where he could inflict most evil, and he began to weave his black spell on Rebecca now. The moment he saw her so fortuitously he could scent she was ready for mating. Now, ever bold, ever opportunistic, he began resolutely to impose his sensual maleness on her. Rebecca hated him, but her body did not. She could have run, she could have raised her talons, she could have done a thousand things to get away. But instead, her snout fell low and her body tensed as her eyes were held by his bold gaze and she retreated before him.

  ‘Well, now, it must be a long time since we met, yes… back in the spring, wasn’t it, when you were hardly more than a pup… but one who’s grown into an adult, a female, ripe with life, from what I’ve heard…’

  She hated his words, she hated his stare that outstared hers, she hated the secret knowledge he seemed to have that he was going to take her then and there whatever she wanted, his slinky body bold and sure within hers, she hated him… and yet her breathing grew shallow with the excitement of it, and her eyes grew dim with the darkness of his bigger body coming closer and closer to her. Perhaps after all this was all mating was: just sensual darkness. She could wonder only vaguely where the light in the mating excitement was, where the joy she had sensed would be found.

  Rune stopped talking and moved up to her, sniffing at her from snout to tail and then back to snout again. The sound of other moles in the main Barrow Vale tunnels nearby seemed to recede and grow distant, and though she wanted to move and run, her body also wanted to drown in his darkness as Rebecca relaxed before his power to do what no other moles she had met dared do, which was to master her. She did not want to feel the moment of his touch but craved his talons in her fur and shuddered and gasped when the first touch came, confident and assured, upon her. She stood tense and bound by instinctive desire, her haunches shivering very slightly and her mating scent growing moister and stronger as he circled about closer and closer with his sensual strength binding her.

  She was ready for him, almost thrusting her haunches at him, and he could take her just when he wanted, just as he wanted…

  ‘Rune! Rune, sir!’ The henchmole’s voice carried down the tunnel towards him and then the sound of the henchmole running down to them. ‘Rune, sir! Mandrake wants you.’

  The henchmole stopped some way from Rune for he could see that he was with a female, and a salty, mating scent hung in the air and carried with it the threat that Rune might attack to kill for being disturbed. In the spring a mole was more careful, but September matings were a rarer thing. The henchmole backed slowly away, repeating, ‘It’s Mandrake, sir, he’s got a mole he wants you to see and listen to. He’s got Rue from the slopes.’

  Rune turned to look at him, the voice growing louder in his ears as he pulled himself back from the encirclement of Rebecca to the demands of Mandrake. He heard Rebecca’s breathing change and saw her tense and move away very slightly, and he saw that his moment had gone, for the time being. ‘I’ll have you yet,’ he promised himself, looking at her beautiful coat and now only half-open haunches. ‘I’ll take you any way I want.’ With that, and without a word to her, he left, following the henchmole to go to Mandrake and this tiresome mole from the slopes.

  For a long time after he had gone, Rebecca stayed where he had left her, feeling enshadowed and grimy. The talon touch that had excited her so much moments before now hung heavy on her. She could smell his scent in the air where he had left it, and it seemed dry and cold, making her shiver with disgust.

  She had no more desire to stay in Barrow Vale, even though she had only just arrived. If Mandrake and Rune had got hold of Rue, she would have little chance of talking to her without Mandrake finding out she was there and causing trouble. And she was so tired of that from him. She wondered why something so simple as mating seemed to be so complicated.

  Eventually, it was the possibility that Rune might come back and find her there, or that he would tell Mandrake that she was in Barrow Vale, that made Rebecca leave. But she had no desire to return to her tunnels. Instead, she circled her way through Barrow Vale in the direction opposite to that in which Rune had gone with the henchmole, keeping to the shadows and avoiding conversation with other moles until she found herself leaving by an entrance that led towards the Westside.

  Well! She had heard so much about it and never dared to go there. Now was her chance! She stayed on the surface for only a short time, found what smelt like a communal tunnel, and shook the shadows of Rune and Barrow Vale from her fur as she headed off on the longest journey she had begun since going down to the Marsh End and meeting Rose the Healer.

  * * *

  If the thought had crossed Rue’s mind, as she rushed in a panic down to Barrow Vale, that she would eventually be summoned into the elder burrow to tell her story to

  Mandrake, she might have thought twice about heading down there in the first place. She was terrified of him and had never forgotten his threat to kill her if she ever tried to return to her tunnels again.


  But on her third day in Barrow Vale, a henchmole ambled up to her, pushed away the moles who were gathered around her, and said, ‘Yer ter jump to it and come wiv me dahn ter the Elder Burrer: Mandrake wants to talk to yer.’ She stared at him in terror and could not move a muscle. ‘Come on then, look sharp. And for Stone’s sake clean yerself up a bit, because although Mandrake won’t notice, Rune’s goin’ ter be there and ’e will.’

  The henchmole, a roly-poly bully of a southern Westsider, almost had to drag her along to get her there, and when finally he shoved her into the presence of Mandrake and Rune, cuffing and cursing as he did so, she felt certain she was going to be killed on the spot. Her paws trembled and she did not at first dare look up at the looming presence above her. When she finally did, it seemed that Mandrake’s eyes were black holes deep in his face.

  ‘So this is the female who claims to have heard mole noises coming from the Ancient System,’ said Rune to Mandrake in a voice so accusatory that it made it sound as if Rue had set out to tell lies and deliberately deceive Mandrake himself.

  Mandrake looked full on her and she quailed before his gaze, everything suddenly cast for her into slow motion as he shifted his massive weight from one side to the other and scratched the side of his face with the biggest talon she had ever seen.

  ‘Mmm…’ he growled. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

  ‘R-Rue,’ she faltered.

  ‘Rue.’ He said the name as if it were the name of a mole long lost in the pit of despair. ‘Rue. Mmm… you used to live over by…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, and to fill the gap she nodded her head eagerly, feeling an inclination to say anything to save herself from the death that she felt certain was about to come her way. Something like ‘It really doesn’t matter that you forced me out of my tunnels, I don’t mind, I’m only an insignificant little mole and you can do what you like to me, only please don’t…’ As it was, she didn’t need to say anything, since she looked as abject and pathetic as she felt.

  ‘I have heard of your story and I’m not wasting time hearing it again here,’ said Mandrake. ‘You will take us to your tunnels and show us where you heard what you claim to have heard.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ whispered Rue.

  Rune suddenly poked his snout forward until it was only inches from hers, and she felt the power of his contempt on her.

  ‘Did you hear noises, or did you make it up to draw attention to your miserable little self?’ he asked.

  Rue started to whimper at this. She was so frightened and cowered back, stuttering out that ‘n-n-nomole could tell a lie in the Elder Burrow’. The thought had not occurred to Rune, who would tell a lie in front of the Stone itself if need be, but what did occur to them was that Rue was too grubby and unintelligent to make up such a bold lie.

  So it was that Barrow Vale was treated to the rare sight of a quaking Rue leading the mighty Mandrake and Rune, along with the attendant henchmole, through their tunnels and on to the communal one leading towards the slopes.

  Rue, however, was a poor leader. She felt nervous and sick at the strain of it all and at one point actually collapsed, unable to on. ‘Get her food,’ snapped Rune impatiently to the henchmole, who did so with ill grace.

  ‘Last bloody time I find worms for a female, I can tell yer that,’ he muttered angrily as he hurled three worms down before her in the tunnel where she lay. Rune noted this remark down in his memory. He didn’t trust moles who lost their tempers over something as trivial as that, or even lost their tempers at all.

  ‘Well now, is ’er ladyship ready to move ’erself forward then?’ asked the henchmole sarcastically when she had eaten the food. She nodded and got up, feeling very shaky and nervous, for to add to her fear of Mandrake and Rune, there was her apprehension about what might be waiting for them in her tunnel.

  Eventually she reached the end of the communal tunnel, led them out on to the surface, and from there pressed on the last few hundred moleyards to her tunnels.

  ‘Well!’ said Rune when they got there, with sarcasm lurking behind the good-humoured tone in his voice. ‘This is where it all happened, is it?’

  Rue nodded her head miserably. She felt she was going to be attacked at any moment by one of them, or perhaps all of them.

  ‘Why didn’t you say that this was Hulver’s old system right from the start?’ Rune spoke the words silkily, but to Rue they sounded as threatening as a thousand moles. And she didn’t understand what he meant at all.

  Her terror, her general miserableness, now gave way to tears and she gulped her next words out: ‘I don’t know what you mean. I only did what you said. This is where I heard it and there is a mole up there on the higher slopes and I don’t know if his name is Hulver or anything. I didn’t even know moles lived in the Ancient System and I don’t know what you want me to say or do.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Mandrake brought her flood of tearful words to a short, sharp stop as he raised his talons by a tunnel entrance and snouted inside. ‘There is a mole here, or has been recently,’ he said tersely. ‘You two wait here and let nomole out, nomole. I will see what we may find, for there is a scent here like none I have found before in the Ancient System— dry and dusty, old in its impression but fresh in its strength.’ With that, Mandrake boldly went into the tunnels, while Rune covered those entrances that lay nearby and the henchmole went off to cover more.

  Mandrake was right—Bracken had been in the tunnels, having gone there for comfort after Rue had fled four moledays before. But he was getting wiser and, having worked out that if anymole returned it would almost certainly do so from the direction of the communal tunnels, he had kept himself as far over the other side of the tunnels as possible, with a line of retreat ready. On hearing the arrival of several moles, and in particular the whimpering of a female, he quietly crept out of the tunnels by a little entrance higher up the slopes, which he blocked behind him, and made his way down into the tunnel on the far side of the stone seal. He was very cautious indeed, and blocked up each tunnel as he went.

  Mandrake explored the tunnels in a no-nonsense fashion, quite ready to do battle with whatever creature he might find there. The scent puzzled him, for it was strange and strong, but he could not trace its source. He called the others down, and Rue, still trembling, led them past the main burrow up to the stone seal. She told them what she had heard, pointing a talon at the black wall of the seal on the far side of which, unknown to any of them, Bracken crouched listening.

  Mandrake sent Rue and the henchmole back to her burrow while he and Rune discussed the situation.

  ‘Mmm… It’s a seal, that’s for sure,’ mumbled Mandrake, ‘which means there must be a tunnel beyond it.’

  ‘A tunnel leading into the Ancient System?’ Rune asked it as a question, for he liked Mandrake to feel he had the initiative all the time, but it was more an obvious statement of fact. Mandrake nodded.

  ‘No wonder Hulver chose to live here, where he could be so close to his beloved dead tunnels of the past,’ said Rune.

  Mandrake looked up at the seal and finally decided what he must do. A bold gesture was needed. He still doubted very much that there was anymole in the Ancient System— indeed, if there had been, whatever it was would surely have destroyed the seal and entered these tunnels. The fact was that something suggested to Mandrake that it was, as he had always suspected, just an ordinary mole—whom, when the time came, he would kill. If he was in the forgotten tunnels beyond, then well and good, let him know that Mandrake was here. He raised his massive talons to the seal, not knowing that beneath its cover of packed soil it was massive flint, and brought them down upon it, just as Bracken had done.

  But this time the result was startlingly different. Again there was the terrifying screeching sound that Rue had told them about, but from behind the mass of dust and debris something far more frightening appeared. As the covering peeled away under Mandrake’s blow and the dust settled, there, staring at them all, and bigger even than Mandrake, was an i
mage of an owl just like the one Bracken had already found in the Chamber of Dark Sound. Its eyes, its beak, its talons—each were picked out through the calcite covering of the flint so that they shone black with the hard, glossy shine of the raw stone underneath, while the screech of talon on flint sounded harshly about them, as it had sounded about Rue before, seeming to come from the owl face itself.

  Their reactions to this sudden apparition were all different. Rue simply covered her ears with her paws, looked at the image forming in front of her and fled to her burrow. The henchmole staggered back from the sound and sight, his mouth open, trying to say something in his fear and surprise, but failing.

  At first sight of the owl face, Mandrake reared up snarling before it, his talons poised on a level with the owl’s eyes, and his mouth open and ready for any kind of fighting. He was feeling that at last, in this system to which life had so miserably driven him, he had an adversary worth facing. And in that moment of poised action, he crossed over a boundary beyond which a mole never again knows physical fear.

  Crouched behind him, Rune’s response was altogether different. It was an inward reaction, for outwardly he showed little or no response—a momentary look of surprise, an instinctive clawing of talons, but no more than that. But as Rune looked into the sudden black eyes of the owl face that materialised before him, he saw the power for evil which he had pursued for so long. His pulse quickened, he gazed with excited awe on the owl face, and he shivered with a frisson of sensuality far deeper, and for him far more exciting, than any he had felt with Rebecca. With her he was in charge and playing a game; here, he was surrendering his will to what, for him, was the only reality of life, its dark and arcane side where a mole might learn to agonise the souls of others by wielding the same black power that seemed to lie behind the shining flint eyes of the owl.