Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

For instead of doing Henbane’s will and meeting her talon to talon, which is what the others there expected, he turned away from her and with one mighty strike killed the guardmole on his right, and with another struck dead the guardmole on his left, and with a third the other just in front. Then with more thrusting, and pushing, he was past them all, and over at Skint’s side.

  “Now,” he cried out to all of them, “Now! The power of the Stone is with thee, use it for thy lives!”

  Then as Skint talon-thrust to his right and left, so too did Smithills and Spindle, so that together they made chaos all around them and all four fled back into the wood as guardmoles turned to each other in confusion.

  “Kill them!” cried out Weed taking the lead, sensing now that this had been more than an ordinary mole before him, and he himself led the charge on Tryfan and the others. Like a great tide of darkness were the guardmoles then rising up and surging after the four moles.

  “Follow me!” shouted Tryfan, instinctively choosing a direction towards the sun which would make them hard to follow, “and Smithills you take up the rear....”

  “Catch them,” ordered Henbane calmly. “Bring them here!”

  But they had got a good start, and whatever route Tryfan led them on it was a subtle one, one only an experienced woodmole might have made, by root and leaf mould, by rotting branch and uprooted tree, and always back into the light of the sun when the pursuit got closer, doubling back on itself and clever. So that the grikes had to look right and left to check where their colleagues were, unable to follow a straight route or to locate Tryfan and the others by sound because of the noise their own moles were making.

  Until when, at last, Weed was forced to call them to a halt, and all was still, they heard Tryfan not south at all, but far off to the north, near to the wood’s edge where it contoured round the hillside that fell by ploughed field and pasture to the distant Thames.

  “Follow them!” and the trees of Harrowdown seemed to shake with Henbane’s angry voice as she came through the wood, sensing that the guardmoles were failing.

  Then the four at the wood’s edge broke cover as Tryfan found what he had been looking for, which was the badger run Mayweed had mentioned, which would take them down across the field and overslope to the distant Thames.

  “Follow!” they heard Henbane shout, but the guardmoles were at first unwilling, for they could not find any run, but rather assumed the Stone followers had picked a route at random.

  But such was Henbane’s power and Weed’s fury that together they organised the guardmoles to follow them and set off in rapid pursuit. And the sounds of moles running were loud across the slopes below Harrowdown.

  Tired were Spindle and Skint, tired was Smithills but Tryfan seemed inexhaustible as he urged and drove them on, and made each encourage the other.

  “Not far, not catching me, won’t get us, keep going,” they said, one to another.

  “Keep going if it’s the last thing you do,” ordered Tryfan.

  But the guardmoles were fit and remorseless, and Henbane and Weed were at their head, and the gap over that difficult ground began to narrow. And then the guardmoles found the badger run they had taken, and their pursuit became faster and they began to catch up.

  Then Tryfan led them off the run and round to the east saying, “I can snout a stream ahead, it will give us protection.”

  In moments they reached it and guessed it was another of the streams that ran down towards the Thames and, though wider than the one they had crossed with such difficulty when escaping from the Slopeside, it was shallower. Its waters rushed and tumbled before them, seeming impassable.

  “Have faith!” said Tryfan.

  “Stupidity more like,” grumbled Smithills.

  “Madness!” cried out Spindle.

  “Courage,” shouted Skint.

  “Now!” shouted Tryfan, and they plunged in, one beside the other, Smithills watching over them all for he was the strongest in water.

  Then as the guardmoles surged behind them, they struggled and swam across the stream, its flow going over them, its bottom eluding their desperate grasp, and water tumbling them over and getting into their snouts and thundering in their ears, talons to wet rock and reaching up to air they could not reach, struggling and beginning to gasp and gulp in death, cold, cold, cold the water and thump! Gasp! Desperate scrabbling, back paws on nothing, nothing, something... and with last desperate pushes they were up the far side, Spindle the last out with Smithills’ talons roughly helping him.

  “Smithills and Skint, over the bank and out of sight. Spindle lie down and look half drowned, I shall do the same!” So swiftly ordered Tryfan, and it was done, so that when the guardmoles breasted the near bank all they saw on the far side were two moles, wet and shivering, exhausted beyond escaping.

  “Cross and hold them,” commanded Weed, his eyes narrowing. “But beware. Feigning tiredness is an old trick.”

  Two of the guardmoles immediately went into the water and began to cross a little upstream so drifting, as Tryfan and the others had done, down to where Spindle and Tryfan puffed and heaved. Two more went upsteam before going in and also began to come across. Then Tryfan watched them apathetically, feigning fear, and seemed to turn and try to escape up the bank, but his injuries were bad....

  Henbane came to the crest and Weed was at her side.

  “Only two left,” he said, “the others have escaped. The Word will punish them.”

  “Do not kill either of them. Bring them here. I shall punish them myself.”

  On the far bank Spindle groaned and glanced accusingly at Tryfan. If looks could kill, Tryfan would have been dead.

  But then Tryfan turned and faced the oncoming moles, watching their progress carefully. As the first two landed and began to make slow progress towards him, obviously tired from the chase and river plunge, and the others began to scramble ashore nearby he rose to his paws at first unsteadily, and then suddenly charged them with speed and power that put awe into those watching on the far bank. As he charged he called to Skint and Smithills to come and help, and to Spindle too, and then he was on the first of the two moles advancing on him. Two thrusts was all it took to push him back in the stream, and the water was filled with a racing turbulence of blood and a dying mole. Then he despatched the other, as Smithills bore down on the other two and stopped them sufficiently for Skint to charge in and strike one down. There was little more struggle as the fourth and last guardmole turned tail and plunged back into the stream which carried him down into its depths, and surged him along past them all as he reached out a taloned paw for the bank and was engulfed and taken out of their sight.

  Already more were coming across, but now Tryfan was dominant and with the others at his side they were able to pick them off as they tried desperately to climb up the bank, or go back again. Four more died as Henbane and Weed looked on. Then she commanded them to stop.

  “It seems this mole is not going to die today, that much is plain enough. It is the Word punishing the failure of the guardmoles. Punishment is wreaked in many ways.”

  There was silence then as Tryfan, Skint and the others, blood on their talons, waited for more to come, and Henbane and the remaining guardmoles stared at him across the stream.

  Henbane looked more curious than angry and observant moles, as Spindle was, recorded that Weed looked at her, his eyes narrowed and surprised, as if he saw something he did not wish to see on the face of his mistress. Which was, so Spindle later said, respect, and even pleasure to find after so long an opponent worthy of her, and one she could relish defeating when the time came.

  Tryfan stared back at her, and for the first time seemed to see her clearly. The light of the sun was on her flanks, and dark were her eyes and shining her talons and her shoulders large. The sky seemed a fitting frame for such a mole. Between them, over that stream, was a grim respect.

  “What moles are you?” she said across the gulf between them.

  “Of the Seven Systems
am I,” said Tryfan, hardly knowing what he said for it seemed he spoke from Silence, “and to them am I bound.”

  “Your purpose?”

  “To honour the Stone and fulfil a quest that will bring Silence on the Word. To avenge the life of Boswell, not with force of talon but with force of love.”

  “Ah yes,” she said, “Boswell. A worthy mole.”

  Then Tryfan knew without need of words from her that Boswell was still alive. And his heart rejoiced.

  “He is dead to you, Tryfan, and where nomole of the Stone can reach him.”

  Her ambiguity did not fool him. Boswell was not dead. Must not be dead. Tryfan said nothing but stared at her expressionlessly. She had no power over him.

  “Where does your strength come from, mole?” asked Henbane. Her voice was soft and genuinely curious. Weed shifted at her side uncomfortably.

  “Of the Stone am I ordained,” replied Tryfan.

  “You’re a scribemole?” said Weed.

  Tryfan nodded, and the moles at his side came closer as if, now that what they suspected was confirmed, they had even more reason to protect Tryfan, and follow him.

  “When I see thee again, mole, I will make sure you die,” she said softly. “Until then anymole that talks to thee, or succours thee, or follows thee, will be snouted in the name of the Word. Thou art cast out and reviled by allmole, thy life is gone from this time on. Atoning will never be thine, nor communion of others.”

  Tryfan raised his talons and said softly, “May the Stone have pity on thee and thy Word; and may Boswell know its Silence.”

  “I want not thy pity,” screamed Henbane rearing up as if burned by a light too powerful for her. “I want not thy Stone or thy Silence!” Behind her the distant trees of Harrowdown were bent and old and wasted with the winds.

  “So one day will you be,” whispered Tryfan.

  “Will be what?” snarled Weed. “What, mole?” For a grike does not like mystery or silence.

  But Tryfan said no more, and with Spindle at his side and the others following, climbed up the bank, and never once did he look back, though he and his pursuers knew that by leaving so he had given ground, and might have been easily chased and caught. Yet Henbane gave no orders other than to turn back to Buckland. She was last to go, and she stayed and watched Tryfan until he could be seen no more.

  “Whatmole are thou, Tryfan of Duncton?” she whispered, and in her gaze there was strange loss and trouble. “And what words are these: “So one day will you be”?” She turned away, and looked upslope, and saw, as Tryfan had seen, the silhouettes of the trees of Harrowdown. Black they were and bent, and at their edge hung moles she had killed. Withered was that place, and seeming lost, and so, and so. “And so one day will I be?” she whispered. No....

  She moved upslope and Eldrene Fescue was there, old herself, yellow-toothed, past her prime and usefulness.

  “Your fault!” said Henbane, and she raised her talons and struck them hard into Fescue’s balding chest, and killed her.

  “All your fault!” she screamed, and blood was on the ground where her paws went and the guardmoles trembled and dared not look at her.

  Except for Weed, choosing his moment, eyes smiling, snout turning.

  “That mole will go to Duncton Wood,” he said, “for nowhere else will he find safety once your outcasting of him is known. Perhaps we have been mistaken believing the reports that it had been destroyed by plague and fire and allmole in it dispersed.”

  “Yes,” agreed Henbane. “If that system can still produce such moles as this Tryfan, then to it we will send a crusade, and raze it, and root out each one of its Stone followers, and kill them. This is the command of Henbane; this is of the Word!”

  Then she said to the guardmoles around her, “None will speak of these moles as escaping the Word, or defeating our intent. That is not the truth. The scribemole Brevis was snouted and that is a triumph; the other was better dead in any case. But as for the others, know only this on pain of death: the Word has spared them for it must have a use for them. Knowing this I let them run free.”

  “None will speak...” yet somemole did. Of Tryfan and how he escaped a snouting and killed ten or eleven moles; no, more, many more. Yes, hundreds perhaps... Of how Henbane of Whern herself was bested, and forced to retreat empty-pawed. Of the death of the hated Fescue... Of it all rumour spread, though secretly, for Henbane was feared and her talon-thrust long.

  “His name is Tryfan....”

  “He can kill at a single thrust....”

  “He is huge and fierce....”

  “With a name like that he’ll be a Siabod mole.”

  “Siabod!”

  “Aye, that’s the system of wild moles, and one which has defied all incursions of the Word.” Which was true, for Siabod had never been conquered by the grikes, and was a source of rumour and doubt among them. That Tryfan had a Siabod name, and that he had defied Henbane added to Siabod’s fame, as the association with Siabod added to his own.

  “Of the Stone is this Tryfan... and he has many who follow him....”

  “Catch him and bring him alive to the Wordspeaker and you’ll have a worm-rich burrow the rest of your days....”

  “Catch him and you’ll be dead....”

  “Tryfan eh? Must be quite a mole... From Duncton some say, others Siabod....”

  So rumour spread, and would become the festering talon-thrust in the flank of the grikes. And yet... and yet Henbane was not angry. But rather she seemed pleased, whispering of the Word at night and saying that at last it had sent her an adversary worthy of her, and his killing would, in time, be a death blow to followers of the Stone.

  While from her whispers, and those of cunning Weed, other, slower, darker rumours spread: of how a mole called Tryfan, who claimed he was of the Stone, was a coward and let a brave old mole called Brevis, and a harmless female called Willow die in his place... Weed smiled, rumour to counter rumour, it is the best of ways.

  Rumour. The Stone and the Word; the light and the dark; a mole is caught between them and needs a steady paw and a faithful heart to know which path to tread.

  As Tryfan and the others ran, the ground below Harrowdown stream became progressively wetter and more difficult to travel. The air was heavy with the moisture of the nearby Thames, but its great width they could not yet see. The ditches they now had to start traversing were filled with sedge and reeds which rose high, and whose base was not yet dry with high summer. They swayed softly in the sky above them.

  The sounds were strange to them, though less so to the northern moles who had travelled much and already crossed the great Thames, though by a roaring owl way. But here, in wide damp fields, the wind in the high reeds, the sound of coot scuttling in the sedge, and the croak of unseen frog, made them all uneasy. The scents, too, were heavy and threatening, of water vole and fox, and above them wheeled blackheaded seagull and once a heron darkened the sky.

  They fell into silence as evening came slowly on them, each thinking grim thoughts of the escape they had had and the deaths they had been witness to. They stopped by a ditch, borrowed the abandoned tunnels of a weasel, and rested. Thin mist hung a few feet over the grass and caught the light of the setting sun, mysterious and quiet.

  Then Tryfan spoke.

  “I cannot think I did well as your leader,” he said, voice and snout low. “Brevis and Willow are dead and Mayweed is lost and probably in great danger, if not already discovered and snouted. May the Stone protect him and forgive me.

  “No doubt guardmoles will have stayed to watch over the wood they found us in, especially as Weed never seemed quite certain they had found us all. When Mayweed emerges he will be found and I cannot leave him up there alone, and I will not. Yet I cannot ask you to accompany me back....”

  “No use going back, Tryfan,” said Skint firmly. “That Mayweed’s more of a survivor than any of us.”

  “No” said Tryfan, “I must go...” and for a time Smithills had to restrain Tryfan from
leaving them to climb the long way back to Harrowdown. But eventually he saw sense and said, “If he has escaped, then the problem is knowing what Mayweed might do and where he might go —”

  “Beats me how he avoided being found,” said Smithills, shaking his head in wonder and admiration. “I’ve never been so nervous as I was when they were looking for him.” The others nodded their heads.

  “That mole has more to him than mole might think,” said Tryfan, aware only now of how, in such a short space of time, he had grown fond of Mayweed, as of them all. “Now, if I had been him...” Tryfan fell silent.

  “He would go to the river eventually, I think,” suggested Spindle, “because that’s what he told us to do, and what he’ll expect us to do.”

  Tryfan agreed. “We might wait for him or at least leave a sign we have been this way, as we agreed... But it’s probably best to rest until the morning and see if he comes by, and if he does not then we must move on. Now you others rest a little, I’m going to watch and think,” said Tryfan, going out a little into the open.

  He turned over in his mind what Mayweed might do if he had survived: come to the river, that seemed certain. But where would he go from there? Downstream to the east, towards Duncton Wood, presumably. Mayweed knew that was where Tryfan had already decided to go. That being so, and Mayweed being a sensible kind of mole when it came to routes, he would head downstream to a point where a passing mole could easily be observed: a way over the river, perhaps. Yes....

  As Tryfan thought like this he began to feel more hopeful. There was something about that mole Mayweed that seemed like life itself. No, no... But Tryfan’s thoughts were brought to a stop by a beam of yellow-orange light which arced into the sky from the east, was still and then disappeared. He focussed his senses in that direction, and heard the soft rumble of roaring owl, now louder, now softer. And lights, roaring owl lights; then suddenly arcing again over the valley and going out. A crossing place. The place which Mayweed would find. Yes....

  Tryfan rejoined the others, some of whom were already asleep.

  “We’re leaving,” said Tryfan urgently. “We’re leaving now.” He rapidly explained his belief that they would do well to stop near a crossing place for roaring owls because it was as clear a spot as any for Mayweed to seek out. That’s where he would go when he escaped and Tryfan would go there too.