Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  It was three days before they made the contact they sought, and in that time they saw several patrols and a couple of individuals, but none of them came near the Stoats. But on the evening of the third day a mole approached cautiously from the west, snouting about the area with great care before advancing into the enclave of the Stones. There he crouched for a little, and then said a rough prayer, looking up at the Stones and touching one of them.

  He was of good size and strong, but it was clear that he had been in a good many lights because his flanks and snout were scarred, and he seemed to have lost a talon from his left paw. There was something familiar about him, but none of them could quite place him.

  They waited until he came out of the enclave before addressing him, and, after a moment of stancing in which he left them in no doubt that he would have fought for his life formidably, he came forward with a mixture of surprise, relief and pleasure on his face.

  “Why, ’tis Tryfan and Spindle the Cleric if I’m not mistaken, and both alive. And you...” He looked at Mayweed but obviously did not know his name.

  “Before you, fearless follower, is moledom’s humblest, moledom’s least: Mayweed by name. But what we wish to know, and in double quick time before the gormless grikes hear us, is who you are and what news you have for us.”

  “Mayweed too, eh! Well, bless me, there’s a lot more moles than me will be glad to see you three alive. I’m Tundry, and I expect I’ve changed a bit since you saw me last, Tryfan Sir. Skint’s group, the Marsh End Defence, Duncton Wood.”

  Tryfan suddenly remembered. This mole had been a last-minute replacement in the Marsh End group.

  “So what news of Skint?”

  “Safe Sir, and well so far as I know. Smithills too. They waited here at Longest Night having damn near broke their necks getting here to meet you, and then hung about a bit after. But they decided to travel on and as I was the one deputed to stay at Rollright under cover of following the Word, they trusted me to make contact with you and tell you where to find them should you want to... But I know a better place than this to talk, and a mole who would like to see you, so follow me now.”

  He took them downslope away from the main system, at first through dry runs but later into damp soil, and then into downright wet soil.

  “Not pleasant but grikes never come here,” said Tundry.

  As he spoke a couple of youngsters peered out at them from a side tunnel, both filthy, their faces as begrimed with mud as it is possible to be. Mayweed stared at them hard, a look of puzzled recognition on his face.

  They went on a little way and a third youngster popped her head round a corner, as muddy as the first two. All silent, very.

  “Mayweed suggests that there is something very familiar about these tunnels, and requests permission to go ahead.”

  “You’re in charge anyway,” said Tryfan.

  “Mayweed goes ahead hopefully, into tunnels whose cut and whose general air of untidy order and muddy filth warms his heart as much as it besmirches his paws.

  Mayweed’s heart is suddenly full of hope that not far from here is a mole he feared he might not meet again. Mayweed....”

  But Mayweed said no more for as they rounded a corner into a communal burrow, as messy as the tunnels that preceded it, they found themselves face to face with not one mole but two. The cleaner of them was a female, though she was grubby enough, yet cheerful and well rounded, with fur that went this way and that in a carefree way and an eagerness about her that reminded them of somemole they had met before. But it was at the male next to her that Mayweed stared in delighted disbelief.

  “Mayweed cannot believe his eyes,” said Mayweed.

  For the mole before him, who stared with wide eyes and said not a word, was Holm. Silent Holm, whose fur was still mud-covered. Mute Holm, who was almost as good a route-finder as Mayweed himself. Speechless Holm, who had first showed Mayweed the way out of Duncton Wood.

  And Holm said not a word, yet what he did do could not have said more for what he felt. For he stared at Mayweed and tears came to his eyes and his snout lowered and his little marshy body heaved and puffed with emotion. Then he turned to the female and made what was, for him, a long speech: “I’m happy,” he said. And then, “I’m happy, Lorren!”

  Lorren! Starling’s sister. Lorren?

  But she was tubby, she was dirty, she was....

  “Happy!” said Mayweed, speaking for them all. As he spoke the three youngsters they had seen earlier poked their heads out from the tunnel at the back of the chamber and stared in awestruck silence.

  “Sirs,” began Mayweed, “Sirs, all five of us, Madam, all one of you, alias large Lorren, and wondering youngsters, Mayweed repeats the only word worth saying twice on this occasion: Happy. And he says it a third time, because seeing these two before him, once helpless Holm with once pupless Lorren, should give Tryfan here and Spindle too the encouragement they need, and moledom too, so he pronounces: Happy.”

  Lorren laughed in a rounded generous kind of way, looked serious, and immediately asked about Starling. And then she was in tears as they told she too had pupped, and she was safe, and hoped one day to return to Duncton Wood.

  Then those moles told each other their news, the youngsters asked by Tryfan himself to stay, for the future of moledom would depend on such moles as them, and they must learn of their past and the moles that fought for it so that one day they would know what it meant, and how much of the past a good future holds.

  When news of each other was done, the three travellers turned to Tundry, who, with due solemnity, told them what happened to Skint’s group in Duncton Wood after Henbane took the system over, and how it was they left.

  The first molemonths after Duncton moles’ departure went exactly as Skint and Tryfan had planned it should: the grikes were harassed, several were killed, they were forced to patrol in groups of two or three but even then Skint’s moles succeeded in picking off a few.

  It seemed to have dawned only slowly on the grikes that covert moles were lodged in tunnels in the wood, and when it did searches were started and patrol upon patrol tramped about the Marsh End seeking them. But they were never successful and, indeed, in all the time they were there, the Marsh End Defence was never found. Though whether it had been subsequently Tundry did not know.

  Then towards the end of September they noticed a change come over the system. For a start there was a long period when no patrols appeared at all. The atmosphere became as eerily quiet as the autumn mists that drifted from the marshes in among the trees. Then there were scurryings in the wood, and secret comings and surreptitious goings. Screams, sometimes of violence and of terror. Skint’s moles heard these things and yet, when they ventured out on to the surface, they found nothing and saw nothing in the mists and rains. The wood seemed deserted, and there was even a day or two they began to think that Henbane’s grikes had left altogether.

  Yet an atmosphere of fear and horror had overtaken the once peaceful wood.

  “I cannot put it into words, Tryfan Sir, not having your way with them, or Spindle’s here, so I can only say that with the grikes about a mole knew what he was up against,” recalled Tundry. “But when that change came you knew there was something else, and it hid. It didn’t show its snout, and you knew it was dangerous and clever. Lurking, evil, very dangerous.

  “Naturally we decided to find out about what had happened to the grikes, and Skint himself and two others set out one day to head up south to the Ancient System’s tunnels. Well there were grikes there all right. No doubt about that: thick as fleas on an old mole. And evidence of occupation in tunnels on the east slope, and hiding moles... but we could not have guessed what was going on.”

  Then, in October, they found out. One wet day they heard a commotion on the surface near their defence and investigated. Moles fighting, to the death. Big moles, desperate moles. They heard the death blows and the dying screams but as their orders had always been to stay covert they did not interfere. When all
was quiet they went out on the surface and found a dead mole.

  “Never forget it,” said Tundry. “He was dead from talon-thrusts all right, but you might as well say he was dead from disease. His sides were eaten raw with it, and there was maggots in there, and must have been there when he was alive. He was big, that mole, muscular, and whatever mole or moles had killed him would have been strong. Skint ordered that we didn’t touch him and it seemed owls wouldn’t either, though we heard them investigate. Didn’t like the scent, and don’t blame them. Stunk our tunnels out because he rotted where he was. And that was only the beginning.”

  “Of what?” asked Spindle.

  “Of an invasion the like of which nomole has ever seen, and one which nearly took us lot over and killed us. Well, it did, some of us....”

  Skint and his group were in the perfect position to watch the tragedy that unfolded across Duncton Wood as Henbane’s policy of importing all the misfits, miscreants and diseased moles who were near enough to make the journey to Duncton Wood. Part of her unpleasant genius was to order that such moles were not forced to come but, rather, were offered the opportunity of a better life, a freer life, somewhere where they could dictate their own destiny, subject only to the rules they created for themselves; along with certain rules laid down by Henbane and enforced by her successor Wyre through his representative in Duncton Wood. The rules were simple enough: nomole to set paw in or on the Ancient System, nomole to attempt (therefore) to visit the Stone and, finally, nomole to leave the system.

  The grikes effectively isolated themselves from the newcomers, releasing them northward into the system immediately on arrival at the cow cross-under over which the grikes and Duncton moles had fought so bitterly. The new arrivals went one way, the grikes another, their routes to the Ancient System being clear of the other tunnels.

  What happened in the lower tunnels the grikes neither knew nor cared, least of all Beake, the eldrene in charge of them. She was as bitter a mole as ever lived, and was happy to kill with her own thin talons anymole from the lower slopes who transgressed the rules. Some did early on, simply for lack of knowledge of the system, but the others soon learnt from their deaths and the sight of their torn bodies which the guardmoles dragged back into the lower slopes were a terrible reminder. Others were too ill, physically or mentally, to know where they were, and they were killed if they trespassed. And a few, outcast for being Stone followers, strove to reach the Stone in the belief that it might take them out of the torment which they gradually began to realise they had been brought to. Such moles too were killed.

  Slowly, Skint and his group came to understand what was happening, and for a time thought that they might be able to organise the new arrivals into a force that could overthrow the grikes. But that proved impossible. There was no order to be found among the newcomers, and the more that arrived through October and November, the more chaos and anarchy reigned as moles formed packs and began to kill each other in an effort to establish dominance.

  Tundry made them shudder at his memories of the torments he witnessed, of the cruelty of the maddened, diseased and mentally ill moles who settled in Duncton and created a murderous and foul community of their own. They heard snoutings and mutilations, they saw killings and violence, they saw groups of males torment and destroy females, and they found evidence of groups of females retaliating against individual males. The stronger and the fitter began to emerge as leaders, and formed groups of moles which were violent parodies of the groupings that had been in evidence in Bracken’s young days. For just as then the strongest moles were the Westsiders because that was where the wormful soils were, so now the stronger took the Westside, and places there were won hard, with talon and tooth. The chalky Eastside became the place to die, for the diseased moles lived there, and moles ousted from other parts were driven there, or would flee there before they were killed.

  Barrow Vale, the traditional centre of the system, became an area where nomole went alone but, rather, went in groups to protect each other. While inevitably the Marsh End became the place for secretive survivors, physically weak moles who had intelligence and resource, and could tolerate the damper conditions and the poor soils of that low part of the wood.

  So, quite quickly, a kind of order came to Duncton Wood and Skint decided it would be best to evacuate his small group. The decision was hastened by the loss of two of his moles, Fidler and Yarrow, when they were caught by some of the rough Westsiders and killed. Skint made attempts to parley with those moles, but after being taken he, too, was nearly killed, escaping narrowly and having to lie low for two days before being able to rejoin Tundry and the other three.

  November was passing by and Skint wished to get to Rollright in good time to meet Tryfan there. So, using one of the small conduits north of the cow cross-under, the party had left Duncton Wood, unsure whether their stay there had been successful or not. But to the last their tunnels were not discovered, and when they left they did so privily, blocking up the entrances down into the tunnels in which they had successfully hidden for so long.

  “The journey to Rollright proved a slow one, Sir,” concluded Tundry, “because the grikes were thick on the ground and we passed more than one party of moles who were being taken to Duncton, judging by the state of them. I tell you, that’s not a system which will be occupied again in our time and I pity the mole who tries it. Nomole would go there now, and by the time those moles started breeding last spring, it must have become a terrible place indeed. To think, Duncton Wood occupied by such poor, tormented and plain ruthless moles as that and no traditions of their own but the violent ones they make! The word we have now is Beake is dead and the grikes have retreated back to a garrison this side of the cow cross-under. She died of disease, and the grikes will not be shaken from that strong point they have reached, nor by the disorganised rabble that those moles must be. And still moles are being taken to Duncton and forced through the cross-under to whatever foul life lives beyond it now.

  “As for Skint and those of us who survived, we came here, and, Stone be praised, good Smithills was waiting, and Lorren and Holm too, and told us your news, bad and good. Of the tunnel collapse and of the escape. Skint and he waited for a time and then, as I’ve said, journeyed north, saying that they had a mind you would be doing the same once you heard the last thing I have to tell you which is this: Henbane has gone north to Whern and that mole Weed with her; and we’ve heard that Siabod has fallen and the grikes finally victorious.”

  “No word of Alder or Marram then?” said Tryfan.

  “None.”

  “Nor any other moles who survived the tunnel collapse on the Duncton side?”

  Tundry shook his head. Grim news indeed, most of it.

  Tryfan was silent for a little until he roused himself and asked again after Skint.

  “Aye, he said he’d leave word of where you could find him, at Beechenhill, a system in the heart of the Dark Peak, too small for grikes to bother with. There are worthy moles up there and Skint reckoned that by the time you got there they would know what he was up to.”

  This was most of the general news Tundry had, the rest being about his own decision to Atone bravely and admit of the Word and live among the grikes until better days came and his talons would be needed inside the system he had infiltrated.

  “Not talons I think, but faith and belief in the Stone,” said Tryfan quietly.

  “Yes, well, maybe,” said Tundry. “But talons is what won grikes their territory, talons is what will lose it.”

  Perhaps Tryfan saw a look of admiration for Tundry in Holm’s three youngsters’ eyes as they listened to this adult talk in fascinated silence; or perhaps some inner shock and disgust with the rule of violence which seemed to descend finally to everywhere that had lost touch with the Stone, whether it was Duncton Wood or Rollright, Uffington or even the Wen.

  Whatever it was Tryfan seemed to grow purposeful then, and powerful, and though he spoke softly nomole doubted he meant what h
e said.

  “The way of the Stone is not the way of the talon; and nor will that be the Stone Mole’s way. I have seen too much violence, and inflicted some myself, with intent and by accident, to wish ever to inflict more. The ways of the Stone will be quiet and mindful, for they are the ways of Silence and of light.

  “But they are harder ways, Tundry, than the talon and claw. And demand more courage....”

  “More?” said Tundry, flexing his talons and the light catching the scars of battle that coursed across his strong flanks.

  “Yes, more,” said Tryfan. “A talon-thrust is easier to make than a piercing thought, a thought is harder to absorb than a talon-thrust. It is easier to make an adult mole scream than to comfort a mewing pup; it is harder for a mole to admit a fault than to assert what he thinks may be a right. The way of the Stone is by thought, by listening to another’s cries, by changes which starts in each mole’s being. These will be the Stone Mole’s ways, and they are the hardest.”

  “And what of Skint, Alder and Marram, and moles like me?” said Tundry, suddenly angry. “Such moles use talons for the Stone – are they wrong? Will you tell them they are wrong?”

  “I know not what may be right for them,” said Tryfan, “or whether I shall myself ever be able to hold my talons back when I am threatened, or those I love are. I know that if you attacked Spindle here now, or Mayweed, or any of these moles I would defend them to the death. That I know.”

  “We were given talons for fighting,” said Tundry.

  “No, we were given them for delving, we choose to fight with them as well. We choose to believe that talon should fight talon. But I have travelled a good part of southern moledom and I have seen only sadness and loss. I see moles who long for peace, harmless moles like Holm here, forced to hide their lives away for fear of others’ talons. Are there not worms enough for all moles? Is there not earth enough for all their tunnels? I think the Stone Mole will show there is a different way.”