Skarlath hopped about, testing his wings with short swoops, noting gratefully that his pinions were undamaged. Glad to be alive he shook his plumage and spread his wings. ‘Heeeeh! Rest, friend, then we go far away!’ he cried.
The badger stood and picked up his club. ‘You go where you want. When I’ve rested and found something to eat I’m going back there to slay that vermin Swartt Sixclaw!’
The young kestrel took flight and wheeled round the badger’s head, his wings brushing his friend’s gold-striped muzzle. ‘Heekeeer!’ he cried. ‘Then you are a deadbeast, my friend. Swartt has too many vermin, you will surely be slain!’
The badger clenched his jaws as his body trembled with rage. ‘For many seasons that ferret held me slave, dragging me around hobbled and muzzled, starving, beating, making fun of me. Scumtripe, that was his name for me – Scumtripe! I’ll make him repeat my name ten-score times before I slay him with this club. But what is my name?’
Whirling his club, the badger charged a dead elm stump and struck the rotting wood a mighty blow . . . Whumpff! A hole appeared in the elm stump as Skarlath shrieked out, ‘Kreeee! Look, food!’
Hazelnuts, chestnuts and acorns poured out onto the snow, the forgotten cache of some careless squirrel. Anger was momentarily forgotten as the two friends laughed aloud at their good fortune and fell upon the life-giving treasure. Sitting on the stump, the badger cracked shells in his strong teeth and placed the nuts before his friend. Soon they were both crunching and munching.
The kestrel spoke around a beakful of chestnut: ‘I am Skarlath, I was alone, but you saved my life, now I am with you. Where come you from, friend?’
Scratching his golden stripe, the badger chewed thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure, I think I had a mother, Bella or Bellen or something, it’s hard to remember. I must have been very young. Boar the Fighter, that’s a name I recall, maybe he was my father, or my grandsire, I’m not certain. Sometimes I dream about home, or maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels nice. Then there’s the mountain, was that my home? It is all very mixed up. But Swartt Sixclaw, I won’t forget him . . .’ The young badger looked quizzically at his friend the kestrel. ‘Maybe Swartt was right, perhaps my name is Scumtripe. He gave me that name. What do you think my name should be, friend Skarlath?’
The kestrel felt fierce pity for the young badger well up in him. He hopped up onto the strong dark furred shoulder, and cried, ‘Kreeeee! Your name I don’t know. But I know you are a great warrior, slay five and injure many, like a lightning bolt! There is none so quick or strong with a mace as you!’
The badger picked up his hornbeam limb and hefted it. ‘So this is a mace, is it? I never knew a mace looked like this!’
Skarlath looked at the hulking young beast with his tree limb. ‘If you call it a mace methinks nobeast would argue the point. Warriors like you can be anything they want to be. You are unsure of your true name. I will give you a good name. The mark of the sun is on your face, your speed is that of lightning, you have your own special weapon . . . You are Sunflash the Mace!’
The badger laughed happily and, standing at his full height, he spun the formidable hornbeam in his paws and roared: ‘I have a name! It is a good name! I know who I am! Sunflash the Mace! Eeulaliaaaaaaa!’
Skarlath took wing and circled high, calling wildly, ‘Kreeeeeeee! Sunflash the Mace! Kreeeeeeeee!’
When the kestrel flew to earth again, Sunflash was away, already backtracking swiftly through the forest. Skarlath winged between the trees after him. ‘Sunflash, where do you go?’ he called.
The warrior blood was rising in the badger’s eyes as he brushed past Skarlath. ‘Out of my way,’ he growled. ‘I am going to settle accounts with the ferret!’
‘So, you go to your death!’ said Skarlath, as he found his perch on the big shoulder and clung doggedly. ‘I have told you Swartt has too many vermin, even for you. No matter, I have sworn to stay by your side. I go with you, and we will both be slain!’
Sunflash halted. ‘But what else can I do?’ he said, a bewildered look on his young face. ‘Sixclaw is my enemy!’
Skarlath was wise for a young kestrel. He rapped his beak lightly against the skull of Sunflash, saying, ‘We can think! You are brave, but headstrong. Why risk your life against the odds when, if we take our time, we can be certain victors one day.’
Sunflash sat down in the snow, leaning his chin on the mace as he gazed at his companion. ‘Tell me how we will do this? I will listen and learn.’
Thus began the education of Sunflash the Mace. Skarlath outlined his plan, which was simple and should be effective. ‘Why run after Swartt? He will be coming after us. The ferret will lose face in front of his vermin if he lets you live. Let Sixclaw wear himself out chasing us, while we leave this cold land and find warm country, where it is green and there is plenty of food. There we can rest and grow strong.
‘I will be your eyes and ears, flying high, watching for Swartt, listening for information. When the time is ripe, then we strike cleverly, my friend, like wasps we worry the ferret and his band. In and out, sting and disappear, slay one or two at a time, strike like Sunflash, vanish like smoke. Then Swartt will come to fear us, he will realize that you will not disappear – that one day he will turn round and you will be there, waiting. This will trouble his mind, haunt his sleep. That is my plan. What do you think?’
A broad smile spread across Sunflash’s face. ‘It is a great plan, Skarlath. I will learn to think like the kestrel. Lead on!’
That day the two friends began travelling south and west on a journey that would last many seasons. Sunflash strode over hill, valley and plain, whilst Skarlath soared and circled overhead, scouting out the land. Winter passed into spring as the two friends journeyed onward, growing up together, getting wiser, seeing and learning as they went. Sunflash could not stand injustice, and wherever he saw creatures being oppressed or enslaved, the big badger, remembering his own enslavement by Swartt, meted out terrible retribution to their tormentors.
His name and fame began spreading. Songs and poems sprang up in the lands he and Skarlath travelled through. Most were heroic, and some, like this one, were humorous:
I met with six weasels one warm summer night,
And I feared for my life I’d be beaten and slain,
But their faces were fearful, all ashen with fright,
They jibbered and whimpered like they were insane.
‘O save us, preserve us, O hide us from him,
The one with the mark of the sun on his face,
In one paw he carries a great hornbeam limb,
He’s the Warrior Lord they call Sunflash the Mace!’
Of a sudden the earth seemed to tremble and shake,
And the verminous weasels passed out in a swoon,
As he came like the wind, with a hawk in his wake,
There he stood strong and tall ’neath the moon.
I’ll never forget what he told me that night,
While he looked at the weasels, stretched out where they fell.
‘You’re a very brave beast to down six in one fight,
For a small baby dormouse you’ve done very well!’
But as more seasons passed and time went on, things did not quite turn out as Skarlath had said they would. Swartt Sixclaw had tracked them as predicted, and Sunflash and his friend worried them, striking at them many times. Each attack was successful, and the ferret lost quite a few of his vermin to the lightning strikes of Sunflash. But Swartt was no fool. The realization of the badger’s guerrilla tactics came home to him one sunny morning in low hill country to the north of Mossflower Woods. Two vermin whom he valued highly, Spurhakk the stoat and Bulfie, a ferret like himself, both hardened and skilful warriors, had vanished overnight. Swartt sat hunched over a small fire, massaging his damaged paw. From shoulder to elbow the limb was as strong as ever, but the sixclawed paw was rigid and unmoving. It ached every morning, reminding him of the winter night when the young badger smashed it with
a piece of hornbeam. Nightshade approached with three others who had been out searching for the missing warriors. Swartt quickly pulled a gauntlet onto his dead paw. It was a heavy affair, meshed brass mail, with two weighty copper fasteners, and it made a very formidable weapon. He glanced up at the vixen and snarled, ‘Well, didyer find ’em?’
Nightshade squatted down on the other side of the fire. ‘Aye, both sitting up against a sycamore in a copse over yonder, stone dead, each holding one of these.’ She tossed over two long-stemmed water plants.
Swartt picked them up and inspected them. ‘Bulrushes?’ he said.
Nightshade was a healer, and she knew every plant by name. ‘That’s right, bulrushes. They are also called reed mace, or just mace in some parts of the country.’
Swartt Sixclaw flung them on the fire and watched them smoulder. ‘Mace! It doesn’t take a genius to work out who did this.’
The vixen narrowed her eyes against the smoke of the fire, saying, ‘You should have caught him and slain him the night he escaped.’
Swartt leapt up. Drawing his sword, he scattered the fire, and shouted, ‘Should have! Might have! Would have! That’s in the past! Get those idlers up off their tails, we travel east!’
The vixen sprang aside to avoid the burning embers. ‘East? But my scouts tell me Sunflash still travels south by west. What is there in the east?’
‘Bowfleg!’
Nightshade raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘Bowfleg the Warlord?’
Swartt thrust the sword back through his belt, sneering, ‘Bowfleg the Warlord, hah! You mean Bowfleg the Old, Bowfleg the Fat, Bowfleg the Glutton!’
Nightshade shrugged. ‘Still, he leads a great horde.’
Swartt chuckled evilly as he marched off. ‘Not for long!’
* * *
3
The far northwest fringes of Mossflower Woods are broken by rocky outcrops, gullies and hills. One could wonder why creatures bothered living there when the woodlands further inward were so lush and bounteous. But home is home and often creatures do not like to move away from the familiar surroundings of their birthplaces. So it was with the hedgehog family of Tirry Lingl and the mole kin of Bruff Dubbo, who had shared the same dwelling cave for untold generations. Tirry and his wife Dearie had four small hogs, scarce a season and a half old. Not counting his old Uncle Blunn and Aunt Ummer, Bruff had his wife Lully and two little molemaid daughters Nilly and Podd to provide for.
However, the dwelling cave of both families was not a happy place. It was a hungry and dangerous time for them, for outside in the grey drizzling afternoon another family waited, a family of five foxes. The old vixen with a hulking son covered the back exit, whilst the father, an equally old dogfox, sat outside the front entrance with a fully grown son and daughter who towered over him. They had been there nearly half a season, laying siege to the dwelling. It was quite easy to relieve one another for the purposes of eating and sleeping, and still keep up a presence, taunting and reasoning by turns, knowing they had the hedgehogs and moles prisoners in their own home until hunger forced them out.
‘Don’t be foolish, come out, there’s food here, friends,’ the vixen wheedled.
Tirry Lingl shouted back at them, ‘Garn, shift yoreselves, vermin, you ain’t welcome ’ere!’
The hulking fox son sniggered as he called into the back exit, ‘Heehee, there’ll be something tasty here when you come out. Heeheehee. You!’
The vixen nipped him sharply on his ear. ‘Shuttup, acorn brain, do you want to scare ’em to death?’
The old father fox cajoled at the front entrance. ‘Come on, be reasonable, we just want to talk. You don’t think we’d hurt yer liddle ones, do yer?’
Inside the dwelling, Bruff Dubbo helped Tirry to shore up the barricade they had made from furniture and the bit of earth they could scrabble from the cave’s rocky interior.
Bruff shook his dark furry head sadly as he spoke in quaint mole dialect to his companion. ‘Hurr oi wish’t oi ’ad moi ole bow’n’arrers, they vurmints’d soon shift they’m selves, hurr aye!’
Tirry Lingl peered through a gap between an armchair and a table at the foxes sitting outside. ‘They’ve got time on their rotten ole side, Bruff, we ain’t. Liddle uns drank the last o’ the water this mornin’ an’ there’s nought but a stale rye crust stannin’ atwixt us an’ starvation.’
Uncle Blunn’s quavery voice piped up behind them. ‘You’m rarscalls! Oi’m a cummen owt thurr to beat ee with moi gurt stick, ho urr, so oi am!’
Bruff turned the old fellow round, patting his back. ‘You’m a fierce ole h’aminal, Nuncle Blunn, but et be toime furr ee noontide nap. Hurr thurr, go’n lay ee daown.’
Back in the cave, the little hedgehogs began weeping for food and a drink, and the two wives, Lully and Dearie, shushed them soothingly. The small group slumped dejected, knowing what their inevitable fate would be.
Sunflash the Mace sat amid the pines and shrubs on a neighbouring hillside, invisible to the foxes as he watched the scene below. Rain dripped from the edges of an old green cloak draped over his head. The warrior looked up now and then, searching the skies for the familiar figure of Skarlath to break through the drab curtain of drizzle, and then rested his chin on his mace handle. Over the seasons he had shaped it into a weapon that would last throughout his life. The handle had a tight binding of whipcord which formed a loop to go over his paw, and the rest of the club had been fire-hardened, oiled and polished. Several arrowheads and speartips were half buried in the wide, rounded head of the mace. Only Sunflash had the skill and strength to wield such a formidable weapon.
Skarlath had seen the foxes, too. He landed out of their sight and crept silently up until he was at Sunflash’s side.
‘Friend Skarlath, what news of Swartt Sixclaw?’ said the badger, keeping his eyes on the foxes below.
The kestrel edged under Sunflash’s cloak, out of the rain. ‘Gone east three sunrises back, mayhap we were thinning his ranks too fine for him to follow us safely.’
Sunflash never once moved his eyes from the foxes. ‘I think you’re right, but he’ll be after us again someday, a little older, angrier, and with a lot more help. His ruined sixclaw won’t let him forget us. Maybe we’ll wait here for him.’
The kestrel’s keen eyes began watching the foxes closely. ‘They look like they’re all one brood, what are they up to?’
Sunflash pointed a huge paw at the cave entrance. ‘I think they’ve got some likely victims bottled up in there. I was waiting on your return. The foxes are just bullies, I would not feel justified in slaying them, but they must be taught a lesson. If they see me, they’ll be frightened off. Would you go down and speak to those foxes for me, my friend?’
The young vixen and her brothers were running out of patience, and they began hurling stones through the cave entrance and shouting, ‘Get out here, you stupid beasts!’
‘I’ll count to ten and then we’re coming in after you . . . One!’
Skarlath fluttered to earth between the cave and the foxes. ‘Kreeeeee! You must go from here!’
The old fox did not appear at all disturbed. ‘Who are you, bird, what d’yer want?’ he said, indignantly.
The kestrel treated him with lofty disdain. ‘Who I am matters not. I was sent here to tell you to go quickly and stop persecuting whoever lives in yonder cave.’
The hulking son and his vixen mother came dashing round from the rear entrance, and he picked up a stone and made to hurl it at the kestrel.
Skarlath spread his wings wide. ‘Throw the stone and you will not see nightfall!’
‘The bird’s bluffing,’ the vixen snarled nastily. ‘There’s only him! Come on, rush him!’
Before they could move the mace came hissing through the air and thudded upright in the wet ground. A voice like thunder froze the foxes in their tracks.
‘Be still or die! Eeulaliaaaaa!’
They watched astounded as a huge badger came bounding down the hillside. Taking a rock
ledge in his stride, he gave a mighty leap and landed among them with a roar.
‘I am Sunflash the Mace!’
The vermin had heard the name; they crouched against the earth, trembling.
Sunflash nodded to Skarlath. ‘See who lives in the cave. Tell them they are safe.’
Peering through the barricade of furniture, Bruff’s wife Lully called out, ‘Yurr, ’tis an ’awkburd!’
Old Uncle Blunn roused himself from his noontide nap. ‘Did ee say an ’awkburd? Wait’ll oi gets moi gurt stick, oi’ll give’m billyoh!’
Tirry clambered to the top of the barricade, crying, ‘Lack a day, first foxes, then ’awks, wotever next? Well, my friend, d’you want to eat us too?’
Skarlath kept his voice gentle and tried a smile. ‘No, I don’t want to eat you, I am your friend. Do you know of one called Sunflash the Mace?’
Tirry’s wife Dearie poked her spiky head through a gap in the barricade. ‘Sunflash the Mace, d’you say? I’ve ’eard of that one – a great warrior, they say. Is he outside? I’d be ’onoured t’make his acquaintance!’
It took a great deal of fussing and persuading to get old Uncle Blunn and Auntie Ummer out, but the little ones had no fear at all of the majestic badger warrior. Tirry and Bruff were completely awestruck. The foxes lay face down in the dirt, Skarlath keeping a fierce eye upon them. When Uncle Blunn was eventually coaxed out, he brought his ‘gurt stick’ and began laying about at the foxes. Bruff took the stick from the old fellow, saying ‘Yurr, Nuncle, doan’t ee beat yon vurmin round, ee gurt zurr Sunflash moight want t’do that hisself, hurr!’
The badger warrior listened carefully as Tirry, acting the part of spokesbeast for both families, explained how the foxes had besieged and starved them. Sunflash listened, stifling a smile as he felt the two tiny molemaids licking rainwater from his paw. Then, grasping his club, he winked at Skarlath, and said, ‘Stand those vermin upright, friend! Let me look at their scurvy faces while I decide what to do with them!’
Outcast Of Redwall Page 2
