Tirry Lingl spread his paws at the happy scene surrounding them. ‘Then why not? You are greatly loved here – make this your home.’
It was a tempting proposition. Sunflash thought of the crops and the garden he had created, and the dwelling cave, which was larger now and more comfortable due to his help. Fondly he watched the little ones, laughing and rolling about in the bright noon sun. The older ones too, Aunt Ummer, Uncle Blunn and the rest, were all firm friends, trusting creatures, taking their ease together. His loyal companion Skarlath, a hawk, was happy to learn the simple life. It was idyllic. He knew it could not last.
Weighing his words carefully, he explained to Tirry. ‘Listen to what I must say, friend. If I stayed here it would mean great trouble, possibly death for those around me. I have told you of Swartt Sixclaw, the evil ferret. Make no mistake, if I make this place my home, then he will turn up here one day with his band. But even if he did not, my warrior spirit would grow restless and I would need to go and seek him out. We are sworn lifelong enemies, he and I.
‘However, beside all that there are my dreams. Always I see the mountain of fire looming through my slumbers, and strange voices of other badgers, Warrior Lords whose names I do not know, call me. Why I must go to the mountain, where it is, what name it goes by, I do not know. But I am certain that my fate and destiny are bound to the mountain. Each night I dream, and the urge to travel there goes surging through me. One morning you will wake to find me gone. I am as sure of it as the turning of seasons, Tirry.’
Hiding his sorrow and disappointment the hedgehog murmured, ‘I knew all this afore you told me, I felt it every time I looked at your face. You have worked hard here, but only to put things from your mind. But enough o’ this, mate, we’re gettin’ so gloomy we’ll ’ave it rainin’ afore nightfall! You’re still a youngbeast with a great life ahead of ye, Sunflash. But promise me this – you won’t go without sayin’ goodbye.’
‘I promise you, Tirry Lingl, I won’t leave without a goodbye!’
All through that afternoon they took their well earned leisure, often joining the young ones at play. Skarlath took off to go on one of his high-flying, wide-ranging patrols, leaving word that he would be back by supper. Sunflash took himself off to the stream where he sat cooling his footpaws in the warm shallows, trying to fathom out the riddle song.
‘Arm not alas sand, ’way south in the west,
So star land a mat, there’s where I lo—’
Bruff Dubbo’s voice interrupted his musings. ‘Ho, zurr, you’m see’d ought o’ those two liddle ’ogs Gurmil an’ Tirg?’
Sunflash stamped his footpaws dry in the grass. ‘Haven’t seen them since lunchtime. Why?’
Bruff scratched his head with a heavy digging claw. ‘Seems loik they’m got theyselves losted, hurr!’
Back at the cave, Dearie was questioning the other babes, without much success. Gurmil and Tirg were the two little malehogs. Their sisters Bitty and Giller had been playing with the small molemaids Nilly and Podd, and none of the four were making much sense, as is usual with babes.
Dearie was worried but patient. ‘Now think careful, liddle uns, where’d they two scamps go to?’
Bitty pointed at the sky. ‘Flied ’way, up there!’
‘No, no, they never, that was Mister Skarlath the ’awkburd. Lack a day, I do wish ’e were ’ere now. Nilly, do you know where Gurmil’n’Tirg might be?’
‘Hurr, a playen in ee water, oi think.’
‘No, that was Sunflash, ’e was at the stream. Oh, where ’ave those two liddle villains run off to?’
She stared up at Sunflash beseechingly. The big badger radiated calm and confidence as he patted Dearie’s headspikes gently. ‘Never fear, marm, I’ll find ’em. Tirry, you circle to the east. Bruff, take a wide loop west. I’ll go due south, and we’ll meet up where the big clearing is, the one with the pond, you know it.’
Lully threw her apron up over her face to hide her upset. ‘Burr, they’m rascals, oi do wish’t zurr ’awkburd was ’ere!’
Bruff twitched his nose comfortingly at her. ‘Doan’t ee fret, moi damsen, us’ll foind em. You’m stay by yurr wi’ Dearie an’ watch t’uther liddle uns.’
Sunflash did not travel directly south. The late afternoon sun played through the leaves, casting mottled shade patterns on his broad back, as he weaved through the woodlands on either side of the faint south path, searching wherever he thought the two little hoglets might have strayed. Birdsong trilled in the stillness of the noontide heat, butterflies fluttered their quiet way from shrub to bush, and bees droned lazily amid clumps of bramble, honeysuckle and dogrose. But the tranquillity of nature was lost upon the badger as he strode anxiously about, his great mace swinging from one paw, searching for signs of the hedgehog babes.
At last he found something. It was only small – a fragment of apple and blackberry pie crust – but it proved that they had passed this way. They were roaming south. Further on, Sunflash chased away a bold blackbird that was pecking at a small morsel of cheese. He quickened his stride. Gurmil and Tirg had to be somewhere hereabouts.
Suddenly a welter of cries and shouts broke upon his ears. Sunflash went thundering and crashing through the woodland and came bounding out into the clearing where he had arranged to meet with Bruff and Tirry. His quick eyes took in the dangerous situation at a single glance. There were the two little hoglets, frightened speechless, clinging on to each other, standing shoulder deep in the pond at the far side of the clearing. Bruff and Tirry, in company with an old squirrel, were circling and shouting. And a short distance from the water’s edge, between them, barring their way to the babes, two fully grown adders coiled and reared menacingly. The snakes had not yet seen Sunflash, who slowed his pace immediately and signalled to his friends not to look directly at him and betray his presence to the reptiles.
Tirry Lingl was terrified, but willing to sacrifice his life for the hoglets. He picked up anything close to paw – twigs, soil, grass – and flung it at the big scaly adders, his voice shrill with panic. ‘Leave my liddle uns alone, serpents! Don’t you go near ’em! Gurmil, Tirg, stay in the water, stop there!’
The old squirrel joined in the shouting. He obviously knew the snakes and hated them. ‘Gah, you cold-’earted slimers, leave the babes alone!’
One adder faced the three creatures, menacing them as the other snake began sliding slowly towards the little ones in the water. Cold evil glittered in the snake’s eyes, and its forked tongue quivered as it hissed, ‘Leave here fassssst, while you ssstill have livessssss!’
Suddenly, Sunflash made his move. Dropping the mace, he ran into the lake from one side, pounding in a straight line across the shallows towards the hoglets. The adder who had been sliding towards the water speeded up; it was fast, but not as speedy as Sunflash the Mace when his warrior blood was roused. The badger reached the babes ahead of the snake, snatched them both out of the water with a single movement, and carried on hurtling straight across the shallows. The adder was after Sunflash, zipping through the roiling waters in his wake, as duckweed and rushes broken off by the badger’s storming speed flopped wetly on the pond’s surface. The other snake turned away from the three creatures on the bank, its coils bunching and stretching as it raced to intercept the badger.
Sunflash leapt from the water and, bursting onto dry land, he rolled the babes, who had tucked themselves up into the refuge of their soft prickles. They skimmed over the bank like twin orbs, coming to rest way out of danger. Sunflash turned as the adder launched itself from the water and buried its sharp fangs in his side. Its companion wrapped itself round one of the badger’s footpaws. Roaring aloud, Sunflash grabbed the snake that was biting him around its neck and plunged back into the water with the other adder still wrapped round his footpaw. Tirry grabbed the hoglets, hugging them to him as Bruff and the old squirrel raced about in the shallows. Unable to help the badger, they splashed and shouted.
Sunflash did not come to a halt until he was in dee
p, the water lapping near his shoulders. Feeling the snake unwinding itself from his footpaw, he stamped down hard several times until he trapped its head, flat beneath his big blunt claws on the bed of the pond, and held it there. The other snake had struck him twice, once in the side and once on his back, and now it slid off him into the water. But Sunflash caught it by the tail and began whirling it round above his head. Round and round it went, the creatures on shore hearing the whirr it made as it cut the air in blurring circles. Sunflash roared.
‘Eeulaliaaaaa!’
He flung the adder far and high, and it sped through the air straight out like an arrow from a bow. Tirry looked up and saw it strike an elm tree limb. The snake’s body wrapped round it several times, then it was still, resting draped across the high bough like a soggy piece of rope.
Sunflash ground down hard with his footpaw for a long time, until the wriggling coils beneath the water went limp and still for ever. Then, slowly, painfully, he began wading back to land, his side and back one throbbing, agonized mass. The big badger tottered in the shallows as Tirry, Bruff and the squirrel dashed in and helped him out.
Bruff wrung his paws agitatedly as Sunflash collapsed on the bank. ‘Yurr, ee been bited by ee surrpints, oi knows et!’
The old squirrel grabbed Sunflash’s face between both paws and shouted as the badger’s eyelids began flickering shut. ‘Where did yon serpents bite thee?’ he cried.
Sunflash was sinking into a black pit; he heard the words coming from far away. Making an effort, he answered, ‘Bitten . . . twice . . . side . . . back . . .’
Then darkness overtook Sunflash the Mace completely.
* * *
7
The sun broiled the flatlands mercilessly, drying up streams to a trickle, baking the earth and raising dust swirls on the hot wind. It was a hostile waste where even scrub, gorse and broom barely survived in the parched heat.
Things were not going well for the new Warlord Swartt Sixclaw; there was a murmur of discontent running through the great horde. Swartt sat in his tent pondering the dilemma facing him: too many soldiers and not enough food or water, and worst of all, they were lost! The mighty cavalcade had started out on the wrong paw. Some had wanted to go, swayed by Swartt’s promises of plunder and plenty, but others had wanted to stay, knowing they could get by in the semi-fertile cliff shadows, where there was at least water and a certain amount of vegetation, birds and eggs. The whole project had been too unwieldy from the outset, with tents, trappings and camp followers, most of the hordebeasts having mates and families.
Sometimes Swartt felt as though he were merely the figurehead of a great travelling settlement; and as if that were not enough, he had found himself landed with a wife. Swartt had not known that Bowfleg had a daughter. It was the tradition and unwritten law that she became wife to the new Warlord as a matter of course. Bluefen was her name, and she was quiet and pretty enough. Swartt marvelled that such a fat ugly creature as Bowfleg could have sired her. Bluefen largely kept out of Swartt’s way, as she had with her father, knowing the angry moods and great rages Warlords were capable of.
Swartt dismissed his wife from his mind and concentrated his thoughts on horde problems. How they had lost direction on the desert-like flatlands was anybeast’s guess, but he blamed the vixen Nightshade. She should have been calculating their direction while his time was taken up dealing with more important horde matters. Swartt had berated her soundly, sending her off three nights back to find water and food and to get them back on the right trail, south and west. To make doubly sure, he had sent his two killers with her, the weasels Scarback and Marbul. When he had taken command of the horde, these two had immediately caught the eye of Swartt. They were ambitious and ruthless, cold-hearted assassins, just the types he needed to do his secret biddings.
Outside the tent Swartt could hear the horde as they pitched camp. Travel on the hot windswept plains was impossible at noon – they would move again when eventide cooled the land slightly. Bluefen slipped quietly into the tent, placed a flagon at Swartt’s side and hurried out. The Warlord hardly noticed she had been and gone; absently, he knocked the stopper out of the flagon and tipped from it. Pulling a face, he spat out the brackish-tasting water, which hit the footpaw of the stoat Trattak as he entered the tent. Swartt beckoned him inside swiftly, saying, ‘Shut the tentflap, I don’t want everybeast seein’ you report t’me. Are they still at it?’
Trattak pulled the tentflap closed.
‘Aye, Lord, it’s as you said. Wildag the ferret Captain and his toady, the rat they call Lardtail, they’re the two. I hung about close to them, all’s they do is go from tent to tent talkin’ about you be’ind yore back.’
Swartt placed the flagon on the ground and sat down by it. ‘What do they say, tell me? Speak, don’t be afraid.’
Trattak swallowed hard and crouched close to his master. ‘They say you’ve got us all lost and y’don’t know where yore goin’,’ he said in low, halting tones. ‘Also they say you ain’t fit t’be Warlord an’ that you eat all the best food an’ drink fine wines from silver goblets while good ’onest ’ordebeasts are starvin’ . . . an’ . . .’
Swartt Sixclaw nodded understandingly. ‘Go on, what else? I know it’s their words an’ not yours.’
Trattak continued, a little more confident. ‘They say that a dagger between yore ribs’d solve a lot o’ problems, then they could go back an’ live by the cliffs where things were a lot better. Any’ow, Wildag’s called a meetin’ secret like, tonight. All the Captains’ll be there.’
Swartt patted Trattak, noticing the stoat eyeing the flagon. ‘You did well. Take this if yore thirsty – it ain’t fine wine, only muddy water, but it’ll do to wet yer throat with. Send Nightshade t’me the moment she gets back. Go on now, keep an eye out for ’er.’
The vixen returned at twilight. Swartt had not given the order to move on; the horde had stayed camped in the same place since noon. Leaving the two weasel assassins outside the tent, Nightshade went in to make her report.
Swartt watched her as she laid a lumpy sack in front of him. ‘The news better be good, fox – speak!’ he snarled.
Words spilled from the vixen’s mouth like water from a pitcher. ‘The word is good, Lord, I have found the southwest trail again – two days’ trek should take us out of these desert lands. There is a broad stream, fresh water, small copses with trees and grassy hills. There is food there, fish, birds, and fruit. Look!’
She emptied out the sack, which contained roots, tubers and a couple of russet apples, plus a dead bird which the vixen held up for Swartt’s inspection.
‘Your weasels Scarback and Marbul killed this bird with slings and stones,’ she said. ‘There are many like it where we have been.’
Swartt munched on an apple as he turned the carcass with his swordpoint. He shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s a crow, and an old one at that. You tryin’ t’poison me?’
Before the vixen could answer, Swartt shoved the dead crow back into the sack and laughed wickedly. ‘Never mind, it’ll come in handy before the night’s through. Well, at least we ain’t lost any more. Go an’ get some sleep, I’ll be movin’ the horde out at the double tomorrow. Send the weasels in here.’
The ferret Wildag was older than Swartt, though not as big, and his ally Lardtail was a grumpy, fat, oversized rat. By the light of a flickering fire at the outer edge of the camp, the two faced a sizeable gathering of Captains and assorted hordebeasts, all of whom were disaffected with the leadership of Sixclaw. Wildag addressed the meeting, backed up by Lardtail’s whining comments.
‘Well, how does it feel t’be lost an’ starvin’, buckoes?’
Lardtail stepped up. ‘Aye, all I’ve had since dawn is a few roots an’ a mouthful o’ dirty water – it’s not good enough, mates!’
A voice called out of the crowd, ‘There’s nought out ’ere but sand an’ wind, but if we starve then at least Sixclaws will too!’
Wildag’s paw jabbed the air a
s he shook his head vigorously. ‘Swartt Sixclaw starve? Huh, that’s a good un, tell ’em, Lardtail!’
‘I seen that vixen of his sneakin’ into camp this evenin’. She went straight to Swartt’s tent, carryin’ a sack of vittles!’
Wildag waved his paws to silence the outraged hubbub. ‘Did you ’ear that, friends, a sack of food! I’ll wager the scum’s sittin’ in ’is tent right now, drinkin’ wine an’ stuffin’ a roasted duck down his greedy gullet!’
Amid the uproar that followed a sack flew through the air, and struck Wildag in the face. Furiously he grabbed the sack and shook it at the assembly. ‘Who threw this?’ he yelled.
Swartt stepped into the firelight, his painted face and redstained fangs highlighted by the flames. Silence fell instantly upon the gathering. Showing no fear or concern, the Warlord winked at the two conspirators and rubbed his paws together in front of the fire. ‘Gets a bit chilly ’ere at night when the sun goes in. You cold, Wildag, hungry maybe?’
The Captain was at a loss for words and, sensing something awful was about to happen, Lardtail began shuffling backward.
‘Stay where y’are, rat, or I’ll gut ye!’
Lardtail froze, noting that Scarback and Marbul, the two assassins, had materialized out of nowhere and were flanking him.
Swartt spoke to the would-be mutineers in a reasonable tone. ‘I’ve heard that some are sayin’ we’re lost? Now what sort of a Warlord would get his horde lost? Two days from here is a broad stream of fresh water, food, fruit growin’ on the trees. Would I be lost if I knew this? An’ I tell you somethin’ else, the further on we travel, the better it gets – greener, fatter, richer. I don’t tell lies, you’ll see.’
He picked up the sack and faced the ferret Captain. ‘But as for you, my friend, I don’t think you was tellin’ the truth when you said I was drinkin’ wine an’ eatin’ roast duck. If I was, then I’d make sure everybeast got the same as me.’
Outcast Of Redwall Page 5
