“Scalpskin remains virulent for decades, doesn’t it?” observed one commander dubiously.
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Tryfan did not suffer it and nor did many others who lived for molemonths in the Slopeside. We are thinking we might only need to be there two or three days.”
“Tell us your idea, mole,” said Maple.
The plan was as simple as it was startling, but as risky as it was simple: a band of selected warriors, all volunteers, would enter the Slopeside unobserved. They would get as near to the existing Buckland tunnels as possible, preferably finding the seal-up that Quail had made. Then, and here timing would be of the essence, they would wait until two attacks were made. One overhead, across the Slopeside, which would draw out any defenders below ground; the other would be down at Buckland Marsh. The Newborns’ attention and resources taken up with these assaults, the Slopeside moles would break the seal and invade the system from within.
“We know the system’s lay-out well enough, and those of us who have kenned the Duncton Chronicles know something of the Slopeside too. The Newborns are superstitious of old tunnels, which is why they have left Pumpkin and the rebels up in Duncton’s Ancient System where they are,” said Noakes.
“I doubt that they would relish being attacked by a lot of contaminated moles,” said Weeth, “whatmole would? They’re set in their ways are Newborns, which is why they are happy to fight this battle on their terms. These would be our terms.”
The debate resumed and the dangers of the new plan, and its possibilities, were fully aired. Then, as the discussion drifted in its favour, somemole turned to Ystwelyn, for his views were needed on such a risky strategy.
“Yes, I like it. I like it very much!” was his pronouncement when it was put to him – bold words which carried the night and caused moles to cheer. “But the moles who go into the Slopeside must be volunteers.”
“Aye,” said Maple, “for there are real though unknown dangers. Quail would not have ordered the place re-sealed without good reason.”
“I’m willing to go, sir!”
“And I am...”
“And all our group, sir, you count us in. We’re experienced in tunnel fighting.”
Maple and Ystwelyn raised their paws to stop the clamour of volunteers, including several who had been wounded in earlier fighting, and were pleased to be leading such moles as these. Both knew that if there was going to be a crux to the battle this was likely to be it, and some of these brave and loyal moles would never get to see the light of more than two or three dawns, let alone the Duncton Stone of which they had long dreamed.
Yet how differently these two most senior commanders felt about it, though none could have guessed it, for both looked assured and in control. Ystwelyn knew now that if this was not to be the greatest battle he was ever likely to fight as a warrior, then the one following it, at Duncton Wood, most certainly would be and he would give his all; while Maple’s thought went beyond that, to the very Stone itself, before which he trusted he would one day soon lower his snout, and ask that never again would he need to lead even one mole to his death.
“I will say only this before a final decision is made,” declared Maple at the end of the debate. “Tomorrow morning I shall enter the Slopeside myself in company with Noakes, and two of you volunteers, in case we run into difficulty with Newborns. We shall assess the tunnels, and how easily we may get from them into the main system of Buckland itself. Only then shall I give the order for this new strategy to be followed through.”
He did as he had promised, following Noakes, in the company of a couple of hefty warriors, to the place where Noakes had broken into the tunnels the day before, and down they went. The air was clear enough at first, though the passages were narrow and ill-made.
“It gets worse, I’m afraid,” said Noakes, “and you’ll see things you’d rather not.”
He was right: the air turned musty and sour, and the tunnels grew narrow and more winding still, and were dusty with death’s decay. The deeper they went, and the nearer towards the Newborns’ surface lines, the more evidence they came upon of the plague victims for which the place was so notorious. Here whole families and communities of moles had been incarcerated, and those that did not already have the plague when they arrived soon caught it in the fetid, flea-ridden conditions that prevailed. Many weaker groups had been sealed up and starved by stronger, healthier ones, in the vain hope they might escape infection.
It was not to be, and scores died slow and lonely deaths of disfigurement and suffering, until none, or almost none – for Mayweed was a celebrated exception – survived. It was into this hell that the cruel moles of the Word had sent moles like Tryfan to work as “clearers” of corpses, and some of these moles contracted scalpskin, a less virulent form of plague but one that caused fur to fall out, and a mole’s flesh to waste away before madness and death overtook him.
It was evidence of the activities of these long-gone clearers that Maple and Noakes now literally stumbled upon, for the place was murky and the tunnels so deep in the hard soil that they were ill-lit.
“It’s best to avoid the corpses, even if they are but skin and bones, for do we not ken in the Duncton Chronicles that even the desiccated remains of moles can be the host of talon worms?” said Maple, stancing near a corpse they came upon so that the others were forced to go a longer way round it.
“Surely not after so many years?” said Noakes. But he gave the corpse a wide berth.
But they all looked concerned, and where they were forced to squeeze amongst the cadaverous debris in some of the larger chambers, or when, as happened twice, they found bones and mole-matter inextricably entwined with roots through and over which they had to clamber, the hardiest of them felt revulsion, and the urge to pull away rapidly. They went slowly on, ever more uneasy, and glad when they emerged out of the maze of small tunnels, with all their fearful adjacent chambers, some sealed and some not, in which corpses had been and might well be still, into a larger communal tunnel that clearly led downslope in the direction they wished to go.
The air so far had been no more than musty, and the sounds no more significant than the whispers of wind-sound prevalent in all ill-kept tunnels. Then things changed. The air grew a little warmer, and certainly more fetid, and they heard the unmistakable sound of moles overhead, and even on occasion the murmur of their voices. They were under the Newborn lines.
Maple had no need to order silence, and they carried on down the tunnel and into a huge collection chamber of some kind as quietly as they could. At least the tunnels and chambers here were clear of old corpses, though dust was everywhere and the air felt heavy. Maple held up a paw to stop them all, and at first Noakes thought it was because of the sounds they heard ahead.
Aye, I heard them too,” whispered Maple, “but it’s not for that I’ve stopped.” He snouted at the air and turned to them saying, “Well, and can you scent it too?”
“An odour,” said one of the warriors.
“Not unpleasant,” observed the other, pushing forward a little until Maple held him back.
“No, mole, I think not.”
“It scents of crushed nettles,” said Noakes slowly, “now where have I heard...”
“I know where I’ve heard,” said Maple grimly, “In the Duncton Chronicles – I remember it well. Tryfan was warned in this very place that if ever he came upon the scent of nettles in such tunnels as these he should beware of the talon worm.”
Instinctively they all backed away, if only fractionally.
“We will go on, but carefully, and we shall avoid all corpses.”
They did so, aware not only of the potential danger they faced from the rarest but most dangerous worm in moledom, but also that Newborns’ sounds were not only overhead now, but straight ahead as well. Noakes, who was now in the lead, turned a bend and his sharp intake of breath told the others that whatever he saw was unusual and perhaps unpleasant.
It was both, for a veil of roo
ts hung across the passage ahead, completely obscuring what lay beyond. There had been a partial roof-fall, admitting a narrow shaft of light. The roots were pale green in places, white in others, but mostly old, dusty and cobwebby. Grotesquely caught up in them, and hanging a little above shoulder height, were the thin whitened bones and bleached translucent talons of a mole’s paw. There seemed nothing else attached to it, though it was hard to see for sure, but the impression they received was of some long-departed mole, risen from the dead, coming their way and about to pull aside the roots and peer at them.
Noakes went carefully ahead, reached out to touch the roots as far from the paw as he could and...
Whump!
Thump!
Tangle and struggle! The whole lot swung over and round in a shambles of dead roots, body bones and disintegrating fur, on them and around them all. For a moment they thought the roof might cave in altogether to expose them to anymole above, but that did not happen.
In the dust they stanced, unsure which way to look or go; then, from some dreadful nest or fissure above their heads there came tumbling and then pouring shiny forms, some black, some white, dropping as if in slow motion upon them, hitting their upturned faces and snouts, even making way into the mouths of one or two of them.
Worms. Shiny, legged at front, jawed, their heads cruelly pointed. They recoiled in disgust, brushing the foul things off themselves.
“Dead,” gasped Maple, his breath sending several of this long-dead nest rolling along the floor, or back up into the air again. “Dead husks, no more!”
His voice was unashamedly relieved, as all about them the scent of nettles wafted as if in the dust that had been released, and then drifted away. They looked at each other in mute alarm, brushing away the husky things, and then thankfully pushed on through the screen of roots to the tunnel beyond.
The scent remained, though they found no further sign of worms, coming at last to another chamber, one in which, assuming that the way ahead might be the way an attack might later go, would be useful to muster their force in relative comfort.
They went on, turned a corner, and saw ahead the huge and recent seal-up across the tunnel which had been the object of their search. But a grim obstacle lay before it...
“Stone alive!” muttered one of the warrior moles, already thoroughly shaken by the dust and roots and dead worms that had fallen on them, “Stone...!”
“Go no further,” ordered Maple, staring at what looked as much barrier as obstacle across their path.
It was a pile of bodies that they saw, entangled with each other, piled against the seal-up as if they had reached it and died. These were more recent corpses than any others they had seen, the fur of most of them intact, the bones only showing here and there, the postures lifelike, the heads and flanks hardly shrunken into death at all. Yet no odour, just dry still air and this frieze of death.
“We go no further now,” said Maple, though it was plain they had no need to. Clear as if they were just round the next bend, had the tunnel continued, they heard the sound of moles. Moles talking, moles resting, moles eating, moles ordering: Newborn moles.
“That’s no tunnel beyond,” whispered Noakes, “but a great chamber.”
“Perfect for a surprise attack,” said Maple, “perfect. We needed a chamber and if we stance here long enough we’ll be able to deduce what chamber this is.”
“Perfect, but for them,” replied Noakes, indicating the dead bodies, evidently those of the moles left incarcerated when Quail sealed up the Slopeside once again.
“We’ll have to find a way round, or under, or just pick our way carefully between them and the wall,” whispered one of the warriors, creeping closer. “They seem just dry, not contaminated.”
They all went closer and stared at the wretched pile of death, and indeed there seemed nothing untoward but the manner of death itself, and the mystery of why these moles had stayed where they were and not tried to escape back up the tunnels the way Noakes had led them in.
For the rest of the day the four moles listened to the sounds of the Newborns coming and going in the chamber beyond, and were able to deduce that it was a resting-place for moles who went on up to the surface and out to fight the followers, or came back down wounded or just tired.
More than that, they were able to work out the numbers in it at any one time, and to conclude that if Maple could muster twice as many in the Slopeside ready to break through, they could easily take the chamber and cause panic and disarray, “We have done enough,” said Maple finally, “and now we shall return. Noakes, your plan will work, with the Stone’s help and our own courage.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Quail’s slow and painful southward journey to Duncton Wood over the next few days, though presented to him as a “triumphal progress”, was really a flight, and one for which time was very rapidly running out.
For Squilver had been right. Thorne was quick to spot the weaknesses in the Caradocian front line and to exploit them. Had he known the true extent of the weakening Quail had suffered by Sapient’s and Turling’s withdrawal, and had not Squilver driven his moles almost to exhaustion in their efforts to hurry from one place to another and give the impression they were more numerous than they were, Thorne would certainly have pushed hard through their ranks, and gone south without bothering to secure territory to either side. And had he done so, Quail would never have reached the sanctuary of Duncton Wood, and... but history speaks of what happened, not what might have been.
As it was, Thorne, ever careful and thorough, covered himself as he went and gave Squilver too much opportunity to make his retreat orderly and effective. Indeed, Quail even had time to hold court for a day in Rollright, and suffer such few followers as remained alive and in captivity there to be tried and punished within the holy orbit of Rollright’s famous circle of Stones.
Snyde arranged that this spectacle should be at dusk, that Quail be not seen in the full glare of daylight, for now he grew more foul and hideous with each day that passed, and even the loyal and mindless guardmoles who watched closest over him were beginning to avoid being too close.
They abided him for the prestige and power that he gave them, and the special titbits of food, and the favours sexual and otherwise that they came to expect. And too, which cannot be denied, despite all he had become, Quail retained an awesome power, born perhaps of the unequivocal strength of purpose and decision he had shown in the past, and occasionally showed still, which was attractive and alluring to those who came within his dark ambit.
In Rollright, Brother Adviser Fagg, prompted by Snyde no doubt, offered two pleasing surprises to Quail. One was a final youthful victim who, perhaps mercifully, died of fright on being dragged into Quail’s personal chamber, and thereafter became Snyde’s dead plaything for the night.
The other was a reunion with his son Squelch, which gave Quail almost pathetic delight. How he burbled and chuckled as at Snyde’s suggestion Squelch first revealed himself not visually but aurally, by singing.
“Oh, oh, oh,” cried Quail, panting and sobbing and exclaiming in glee, “it is my son, my beauty, my beloved Squelch! No other has a voice like his! Show yourself! Become!”
But Squelch, knowing his father liked to look forward to his pleasures and revel in the idea of them before actually enjoying them, let his beautiful and unforgettable falsetto voice play out of the darkness where he hid; whilst other singers there, well rehearsed, counterpointing his high notes with their low ones, provided the perfect accompaniment to the ritual executions of some Rollright followers.
“Oh, my dear!” exalted Quail, watching a mole die, and then another, and then a third, their heads crushed and battered against a Stone, their blood running darkly in the dusk. Squelch’s voice soared above their screams, and gave them a kind of sonority.
“Oh, stop torturing me, my love, my son, and show yourself!”
Eventually Squelch emerged, larger than when the two had last met, or wider, his paws
like the fins of some fat chub stranded on a river-bank, his mouth gobbling at the air with every tiny effort that he made.
“Father!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening in horror at what he saw, and his sensitive snout recoiling in disgust as Quail opened his paws to him.
“Yes, yes, come here and kiss me, Squelch,” simpered Quail, offering up his rotten mouth to Squelch’s unwilling embrace.
“Father,” said Squelch, yielding to the kiss with feigned pleasure and delight, “it is so good to see you. How are you? Have your travels been hard?”
“I must not complain if the Stone puts pain into my body to try my spirit and test my resolve,” replied Quail, “and nor do I. I am better than I was. I am better.”
Squelch eyed Quail’s saccy parts, the drooping eyes whose cornea was now bulging and turning white and blind; he saw the downward fall of the mouth, sign of some internal breaking down, and the black stumps of teeth; he saw the tremor to the flanks, and the hollows and swellings; and he smelled the stench, which was like death itself.
“You look so well,” he said, “and now... now I am to accompany you to Duncton Wood! How nice! What fun we shall have along the way, how much to talk about!”
Squelch’s fat eyes flicked ruefully into the shadows behind Quail, from where Snyde watched, and Snyde’s cold black eyes blinked back in return, the quick opaque blink that lizards have.
“Fun,” he purred softly, “is what we all shall have.”
Perhaps they did have fun next day, trekking very slowly, for Quail was overcome with fatigue from the night before, and with excitement at the prospect ahead.
“Will it be soon that we see Duncton? Sooner than soon?”
Squelch giggled at his flank and said that sooner than soon was not soon enough for him, but yet they must wait. It was not too far.
“Too far is far too far,” responded Quail, and Squelch began to think he had never known his father in so playful a mood, nor known him to be light.
They might have paused more than they did but that Snyde, to whom messengers constantly came and went from the rear of their party of moles, with grim news of how Thorne’s forces were pressing ever closer, harried them on whilst trying not to seem to.
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