The Heir of Mistmantle

by M. I. McAllister

  “I’ll look after him,” said Whittle, eager to be useful. “We should all take turns, all of us who can, because he shouldn’t be left alone, should he?”

  Urchin and Juniper hurried down the stairs together.

  “Can you cope without him?” asked Urchin.

  “Have to,” said Juniper, and after a moment of indecision, added, “You know how busy it’s been.”

  “Silly question,” said Urchin.

  “Yes, I know,” said Juniper, “but what I’m trying to tell you is, with both of us being so busy, and not always together, I never told Fir about my prophecy. I can’t very well tell him now, can I?”

  No, he couldn’t tell him now, and Urchin didn’t feel that it was the right time to ask Juniper what was meant by the greatest enemy the island would ever face. What was the worst thing there could be? A curse on the Heir of Mistmantle?

  He wished he hadn’t thought of that.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FLASH OF RED FUR SPRANG from the tower, and the little knot of animals leaning against the walls ducked as Longpaw flew over their heads. He had landed, whisked round, and leaped onto a rock before all the animals in sight had gathered to hear him.

  “Drink only from the springs and the rainwater pools, not from the streams and rivers, until told otherwise,” he announced, “by order of the king. If any of your colony are sick, report it to your nearest member of the Circle. Healers are out doing all they can.”

  “Please, sir,” asked Quill the hedgehog, “my mum wants to know, how long is it going to go on?”

  “Nobody knows,” said Longpaw, “but the queen knows what she’s doing. She’s seen something like this before, and she thinks it might be to do with the streams, that’s why we’re not to use them. Those with the best noses, report to Captain Padra.”

  Longpaw leaped away to spread a team of messengers across the island. Keen hedgehogs and moles ran off to find Padra, arguing about who had the best nose. Hobb, Quill, and a few of their friends returned to leaning against the tower walls.

  “Typical tower animal,” remarked Hobb. “Thinks he can give us all orders. Where’s Yarrow today?”

  “He’s not well,” said Gleaner in a high, worried voice that might have been a touch too dramatic. “I didn’t sleep at all last night, worrying about him.”

  “The queen knows what she’s doing,” said Quill. “That’s what I heard.”

  “The queen?” said Hobb. He scratched his polished head and folded his arms. “Her, know what she’s doing? Didn’t you know? It’s sad, really. She’s gone mad as the wind. She goes round whispering down wormholes now. Haven’t you seen her? And where’s this sickness come from? She says herself that she’s seen it before, and there you are, then. We never had it before she came here.” (Quill had a feeling that they had, but he didn’t like to argue with Hobb.) “Animals are dropping dead all over the island, but the queen hasn’t caught it. Neither has that one.” He nodded at Scatter, who was running off to join Fingal. “Stands to reason. They’re immune. That Whitewings place must be riddled with it, and they’ve brought it here. And now the queen’s off her head; we’re all going sick and likely to die and running after lost squirrels because Her Majesty can’t keep her own baby safe; Lord Husk’s planning something horrible and roaming the island, and if he hasn’t got the baby, sure enough he will get her. But try telling any of this to that lot in the tower. They won’t have it. It’s no good expecting the king to do anything.”

  “Maybe it’s Lord Husk that’s been poisoning the water,” said Quill, and felt very pleased with himself for having an idea of his own.

  “Could be, son,” said Hobb. “Could be. Whatever it is, the king isn’t doing a thing about it.”

  “The king?” said a passing squirrel. “Are you having a go at the king?”

  “Pity,” said Hobb. “He was the best captain we had in a long time. I always said so. But a king? He can’t handle it.”

  A large, muscular hedgehog put down a box of berries and came to join them. “It’s not the king!” argued the hedgehog. “It’s her! There was never any trouble before she came!” He twisted awkwardly to look over his shoulder. “We should get organized. We should call a meeting!”

  “I was just doing that,” said Hobb firmly, tipping back his head to look the hedgehog in the eyes. If there was any organizing to be done, he was going to do it, not some lumbering, jumped-up hearth brush.

  Crackle hadn’t heard about Longpaw’s announcement. She rubbed infusions of herbs and vinegar into every inch of her fur until, she decided, she smelled like a pickle barrel; then she added more vinegar. Her eyes watered. She had spent long enough making biscuits, and it was time somebody found the princess. What’s it like, she wondered, when everyone admires you, loves you, and thanks you? She wanted so much to find out—but far more than that, she wanted the princess home.

  Under the ground, Linty curled up with Catkin in her arms. It was time the baby had some fresh air. When she had climbed up nearer to the surface, she had heard the most beautiful singing, lovely voices that soothed the baby. She had heard a soft female voice, too, calling for Catkin, claiming to be the queen. Catkin had heard it, too, and whimpered, so that Linty had been ready to scramble straight out and take her back to the surface, deliver her to her mother—but it might be a trick. Maybe it wasn’t really the queen at all. She had hustled the baby far under the ground again, where the singing would not reach them.

  Besides, she had heard other whispers. Stories that sent her hunting for a stone to sharpen her knife. Stories of disease. Stories of Lord Husk! She drew the knife viciously across the sharpening stone. The island aboveground wasn’t a safe place anymore, so what was she to do for Daisy now?

  Catkin. The baby was Catkin, not Daisy. But she was very like Daisy.

  A movement above made her whip around so quickly that the knife blade swept across her arm and left a trail of blood springing along the wound. Be more careful, she told herself. You’ll hurt Daisy if you’re not careful.

  Gleaner wriggled through the Tangletwigs, hugging the bunch of mauve daisies she had brought for Lady Aspen’s grave. Perhaps the muslin would be damp by now, and she would have to hang it on the trees to dry. The daisies would look so pretty against the muslin, and Lady Aspen had always liked pretty things.

  The cairn stood bare. There was no muslin. Gleaner stared and shivered.

  Who would take the muslin from Lady Aspen’s grave? Gleaner could think of only one name, the name that was already being whispered with fear all over the island. Husk. She ran to the bushes, pulling at thorns with her paws. Not a shred of muslin remained. Around the cairn, she pressed close to the ground to search for paw prints. The ground was very dry, but—yes, that was a squirrel print. Definitely a squirrel print. She pressed her own paw beside it. It wasn’t hers. Fearfully, she glanced over her shoulder and all around her.

  She should tell someone. Really, she should tell them at the tower, but they wouldn’t listen to her. And she didn’t want other animals knowing about Lady Aspen’s grave, crowding about it, gawping and touching things. They’d spoil it.

  “Scatter!” called Fingal. “Is your nose any good? I’ve got really important work to do!”

  Scatter’s ears twitched with interest.

  “Streams need investigating,” said Fingal. “That might be where the fouldrought’s coming from. But if anything smells, it must be a long way up in the hilltops, because nobody’s found it yet, even in this weather. You can come if you like, but it won’t be much fun.”

  “Fun!” said Scatter, and drew herself up in indignation. “Fun!”

  “Come on, then!” said Fingal. “We may as well go at once.”

  They chose a stream that, as far as they could tell, wasn’t being inspected by anyone else and set out to follow it uphill to its source. On these hot autumn days, leaves were falling and dancing around the island so that Scatter, who longed to play with them, had to make a great effort to concen
trate on what she was meant to be doing. As they climbed, Fingal said the scents were confusing. Farther uphill, he paused.

  “There’s a whiff of some strong pong, but I can’t tell where from,” he said. “With all these animals catching diseases, there’s every sort of unpleasant whiff around.” He sniffed again. “Can’t smell a thing in this wind, can you? We’ll keep going farther up. How do you fancy a long trek? All the way up to the top?”

  “I’ll do anything for Mistmantle!” said Scatter earnestly. Looking for polluted streams wasn’t as exciting as saving a baby, but at least she was doing something useful. So she scampered on uphill, chatting to Fingal, pausing to raise her head and sniff the air. They climbed farther up and farther north, where trees were sparser.

  “Hang on,” said Fingal, and stopped. His nose twitched. “Something nasty. This way, I think. Farther up, and follow this stream.” A waft of south wind cooled their faces, and he turned his head in disgust. “Fire and flood, something’s deader than it ought to be! Are you sure you want to come with me?”

  “Yes, please!” said Scatter. It was getting exciting now. And her nose wasn’t as sensitive as Fingal’s.

  Crackle was tired, dispirited, and lonely. She hadn’t meant to come this far. She had just meant to go to the top of the next ridge—then she’d thought she’d go on to the trees—then she’d decided she may as well go to the rock, which didn’t look far, and would give her such a good view—now she was tired, hot, thirsty, and a long way from home. She’d rationed the water in her flask, but even so, climbing uphill on a hot day, she’d finished every last drop.

  She flopped down in the heather. She hadn’t found a trace of Linty and the baby. She wasn’t the rescuing heroine who would bring the baby home. She was a long way from home and alone, with a wasted morning behind her. With both paws she pulled up a stalk of bracken and fanned herself.

  A pleasant, musical sound of water reached her, making her ears twitch. She must be near a stream, which was exactly what she needed. The sound of water dancing over stone made her thirstier than ever. She was tired, but not too tired to look for it. Clambering uphill and over rocks, struggling through tall brackens, coughing as dust and pollen tickled her dry throat, she came at last within sight of the stream. In the hot weather it ran slowly and was shallower than it might have been, but sunlight sparkled on it as it rippled over the stones. It seemed to call her.

  She hurried to it, scenting the heathery air. She sniffed as she bent over it, but smelled only the overpowering scent of thyme, rosemary, and vinegar on her own fur. The water must be all right. Crackle bent down to drink.

  Something hit her across the shoulder so hard that it knocked the breath out of her and hurled her sideways. Rolling over, shocked by pain, she struggled to her paws and found her voice as somebody caught her from behind and held her tightly.

  “Help help help help help help help!” she yelled, and stretched out her claws as she fought, kicked, and tried to bite the paws that held her. “Get off me!” She stopped thrashing to tip back her head and take a good look at her attacker. “You!”

  “Yes, only me, sorry,” said Fingal, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just had to stop you touching that water. Couldn’t you smell it? Farther upstream it stinks something disgusting. Didn’t you know we’re not supposed to drink from the streams?” He helped her to her paws, and she dusted herself down.

  “Nobody told me,” she said plaintively.

  “You’re covered in that pongy stuff that the queen’s been giving out,” observed Fingal. “I don’t suppose you could smell a thing. Good thing we were here. Aren’t you supposed to be in the tower? Who’s baking the biscuits if you’re not there? And you’ve set out uphill on your own.”

  Crackle’s lip trembled. She was shaking.

  “Leave her alone,” said Scatter, and put her paws protectively around Crackle. “She was probably looking for Catkin, weren’t you, Crackle? And she’s upset.”

  “I didn’t mean…” began Fingal, but Crackle was sobbing violently into Scatter’s shoulder.

  “I only…I only wanted"—she gulped—"to help.” She stopped sobbing, pouted, and hiccupped. “And I nearly…I could have been poisoned!”

  “Yes, but you weren’t,” said Scatter, hugging her. “Fingal stopped you in time. You’re all right. Fingal, she’s had a very nasty fright!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Fingal. “Sorry to be a very nasty fright. The fact is, Crackle, I saw you bending over that stream, and it scared the whiskers off me, because I’m pretty certain that water’s polluted. It smells worse farther upstream, so we need to keep climbing uphill to find the source. You can come with us if you like, but it’ll be pretty unpleasant.”

  Crackle dried her eyes on the back of her paw. “I’ll come,” she said.

  The steep uphill climb led them through a pine wood (which, as Fingal observed, smelled a lot better than the water did) until the trees grew thinner and they stood on almost level ground near the thin trickle of a stream, which fell halfheartedly into a pool. Crackle and Scatter took a few steps back when they saw the pool, and Crackle couldn’t help turning her face away. Even Fingal held his breath.

  Something thick and gray-green floated on the top of the water, something that might have been mold, or decayed flesh, or rotting plants, or perhaps all of those, thick and spreading enough to obscure whatever might lie in the water beneath. From the pool, the water overflowed into the course of the stream. Crackle and Scatter pressed their paws over their mouths and noses, and Fingal pulled a face.

  “Whatever died in that, it died a lot,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He retreated to the trees and scratched about in the undergrowth.

  “Whatty lookyfor?” asked Scatter, through her paws.

  “A stick,” called Fingal. “And more sticks. We need something long to prod in the water, find out what’s making the smell and the—whatever that scummy stuff is—and get it out. But before that, we need to get a fire going, because whatever it is, it should be burned.”

  “That’s brilliant!” said Scatter.

  “It won’t burn,” said Crackle. “It’ll be wet.”

  “Then we’ll make it a really good fire,” said Fingal with confidence, dragging a branch clear of the woods, “and a long way from the trees. We’ve got enough trouble without setting the hillside alight.” He stopped, thought for a moment, and turned to Crackle.

  “You’re quick, Crackle,” he said. “A lot quicker than I am. Get down to the shore. There are otters on watch all around the island. Get a message to the king, and everybody else, and let them know this stream is the bad one, and nobody’s to go near it. Fast as you can. Follow the path of the stream so you don’t get lost, but mind you don’t get a paw wet.”

  Crackle nodded. It wasn’t quite the same as rescuing the baby, but it was doing something to save the island. And she’d get away from that awful stench at the same time. She turned and bolted down the hill.

  “Scatter,” said Fingal, “go with her. She might get lost.”

  Scatter hesitated. She didn’t want to get any nearer to that water than she absolutely had to. But she couldn’t leave Fingal to manage this on his own.

  “She won’t get lost,” she said. “I’m staying with you.”

  “Scatter,” said Fingal, suddenly sounding grown-up. “Go with her. I won’t catch anything. Squirrels aren’t immune, but otters are.”

  “No, you’re not,” argued Scatter, scraping up an armful of twigs to add to Fingal’s heap of branches. “I think the otters don’t catch it because they don’t drink from places like this. If you get anywhere near that water—and whatever’s in it…”

  “Bit of rotting fish, I think,” said Fingal.

  “Whatever it is, it could make you ill,” said Scatter.

  “Then it could do the same to you,” said Fingal, rather shortly, as he was dragging a heavy branch at the time.

  “I’m from Whitewings,” said Scatter, building the
sticks into a bonfire. “The queen thinks we may be immune to it, and she’s been out healing, and she hasn’t caught it, and anyway the queen should know, because she…”

  “Just go, Scatter!” snapped Fingal, and turned his back on her to face the pool. Scatter didn’t say another word. He heard a scampering of paws running downhill.

  That was better. He hadn’t liked sending Scatter away, and pretending to be cross with her had been very hard, but he couldn’t put her at risk. It was up to him now. One animal in danger, not two. It would be better that way.

  He bunched together the kindling and struck dry sticks until a spark flew into the brittle leaves. Cupping his paws around the smoldering heap, he blew softly, coaxing the flame into life. The fire must become a powerful blaze before he could leave it long enough to retrieve the blockage from the pool. When the flames leaped and roared and the smoke blurred his eyes, he took the longest and sturdiest branch he had found and, warily, carrying it at arm’s length, approached the pool.

  Cautiously, holding his breath, he used the branch to nudge the thick covering of decay onto the rocks. He could see something now, lodged against a stone, green and black and bloated. He couldn’t see what it was and didn’t want to know, but he guessed that it was an old and diseased fish. Standing as far back as he could, he poked at it with the branch until the corrupted body floated free. Lumps of rotting flesh dripped from it as he lifted it on the branch’s end from the water and dropped it into the heart of the fire, pushing it in as far as possible. It spat sparks and twisted. Acrid gray smoke curled from it.

  “Done,” he said.

  A sudden breeze caught the flames so that they flared, roared, and blew smoke into his eyes, but he leaned closer to push the foul thing deeper into the fire, making sparks shower up. The rotten fish spluttered as it burned, and Fingal pushed it in farther, narrowing his eyes as it blackened and crumpled, and he threw the branch in after it. The smoke was still blowing toward him, and his eyes stung. Admiring his bonfire, he walked around to the other side of it, careful to avoid the stream, pleased with his work, forgetting just for an instant to sniff the air, not noticing the change in the wind until a sudden gust sent hungry flames roaring toward him.