He hoped he was heading southeast, but he could see nothing but mist. The wake was straight, as far as he could tell, but the mists grew closer and whiter until he could hardly see even that. It was encouraging to think that if he emerged at night, he could navigate by the stars—Padra had taught him the stars—but he was losing track of time. He wrapped himself in a cloak and wondered what his friends on the island were doing. Needle, Padra—no, he mustn’t think of them. It made his eyes sting.
He tried singing to keep his spirits up, but in the white wreaths of mist his voice sounded thin and lost. He prayed silently inside himself, instead. Tiny diamonds of vapor clung to his fur and whiskers. He wondered about who his parents were and what they’d do if they could see him, and hoped they’d be proud of him. He mustn’t feel sorry for himself; he mustn’t wish he’d waited for Lugg.
The mists seemed like a weight. The effort of rowing grew heavier. Behind his closing eyes he saw a squirrel, a female, pale like himself…
He was falling asleep. He must have been rowing forever. He shipped the oars and lay down to snatch a few minutes of rest, but he was soon deeply asleep. Night drew in and grew cold, and the boat drifted on. And as Urchin slept in the drifting boat, Gloss slipped out from behind the food stores and crept toward him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
T WAS ALL VERY WELL FOR SQUIRRELS. Urchin could run through woods, scurry up and down walls, and jump over brooks with a heavy satchel over his shoulder and not even notice it was there. Needle took the bag filled with cakes, biscuits and cheese for Apple, impaled it firmly on her spines, and trundled through the forest.
Much as she loved her work, she was glad of the morning’s freedom. The hours of work grew longer and longer, and her paws were sore. Thripple, the kind and rather ugly hedgehog who sat next to her, had given her salves to put on her paws to heal them. They helped, but lately the work had been so hard that even Thripple’s salves could not altogether heal the cuts and scratches. In the spring morning, she felt sorry for the animals in the workroom. The buds were fresh and green. Poppies and daffodils were springing up. She ran on through the wood, scenting the rising hyacinths, hearing the stream, picking up notes of birdsong, watching a blackbird gathering twigs for a nest. At the foot of the beech tree she scrabbled about for the nuts Apple liked, unearthing a few worms and beetles, too, which she ate. The stream gurgled invitingly, and was deliciously cool and fresh when she drank from it and splashed her paws.
On the other side of the stream, the cushions of moss were as springy as waves and as green as caterpillars. When she came this way with Urchin, he always took this stretch at a jump, while she trotted round to the shallows and waded across. Sometimes she jumped it, but her jump was always a dumpy thud compared to Urchin’s.
But Urchin wasn’t here today to compare to. Wistfully she thought of him, alone in a small boat on the friendless sea. He’d like her to do that jump for him. She adjusted the package on her back, retreated a few paces to get a good run, and leaped across the stream. The dry moss gave way under her paws. In sickening terror, she fell, faster and faster, too fast to save herself, hearing her own voice screaming—but her scream was lost in the deep shaft as she scrabbled helplessly at the earth.
The sharpness of her spines catching on the earthen walls slowed her fall, and by scratching and clinging, she managed to dig her claws hard into the soil. With all her strength she clutched, gritting her teeth, pressing her back against the earthen wall behind her, but she was slipping. She tried to climb—but even lifting one claw was enough to send her slipping farther down. Bracing herself, she tried again, but she fell so far that the daylight above her was now nothing but a dot of white.
But this time, she had fallen to a tree root which had grown out into the shaft. It wasn’t much, but it provided a thin ledge where, so long as she didn’t panic, she could balance and keep from falling any farther. She tried again to climb up, but again, she fell. She wondered if she could climb down in search of a tunnel entrance—but if she fell again, how far would it be? And what was underneath? Rock? Deep water? What if she went down and down into blackness and earth, and there still wasn’t any mole tunnel? She might never be able to climb back up.
“I’ll stay on this ledge,” she told herself sensibly. “Somebody will find me.”
She took a deep breath and yelled for help, but her voice sounded pale and scared, and she couldn’t tell how far it would travel. She tightened her claws. She could be here for hours before anyone found her. Days, even.
Nonsense, she told herself firmly. Pull yourself together, hedgehog. Somebody would notice she was missing. Padra would. The hedgehogs in charge of the workroom would go to him demanding to know why she wasn’t back, and he’d send a search party, and they’d find her. He’d come looking for her himself. Padra was like that. Afraid of falling, she wriggled to get a better grip, and prayed that Padra would come soon. He’d come. He’d hear her, he’d see where the moss had fallen in.
It never did that when Urchin landed on it. Yes, Urchin was light—but surely, if there was a tunnel underneath, somebody would have fallen in before now?
And then she suddenly felt very shaky, and had to brace herself harder. This wasn’t an old mole tunnel. Tunnels didn’t go straight down. This trap had been made for Urchin. To be left here would be terrible, and to be found by Husk’s claw thugs might be worse. She felt sick.
Was there a sound? She strained to hear. Yes, there was a rustle. Then paws, lots of paws, on the other side of the earth wall. She had opened her mouth to shout for help when she decided it would be safer to wait and find out who it was.
There was the dragging of a tail, and the slap of paws on earth. An otter! Please, Heart, let it be Padra! There were small, busy paws, too, mole paws. But when the otter began to speak, Needle’s hopes sank.
“Attend to me, now,” said the otter sternly.
It was Tay. Wretched with fear, sick with disappointment, Needle gripped the root and stayed silent.
Cramped from his long wait behind the stores, Gloss stretched himself and raised a claw over the sleeping figure in the moonlit boat. He had brought a sword, concealed on a black belt with a black scabbard, but a claw would do it. He could kill Urchin now and return by tunnels, taking one of Urchin’s ears to prove he had done it. But it would be better to stay hidden and let Urchin lead him to Crispin. Then he could kill both, and return with an ear from each.
But he might not return. Why settle for being Husk’s assassin when he could find another island and become king in his own right? Squirrels thought themselves so superior. Crispin might be on an island in need of a king. And if there was a way back to Mistmantle, he could return through tunnels with an army of moles at his back, and conquer it. Then Husk would have to run errands for him, and Aspen would kneel at his paws and beg for her life.
He would not kill Urchin yet.
Urchin woke to drizzling rain and a gray sky meeting a gray sea. No sign of land, and no way of knowing if he had drifted off course. Unlike the previous day, when he hadn’t felt like eating much, he was hungry, and by the time he had breakfasted on walnut bread, beech nuts and black-currant cordial, the sun was breaking through. A light breeze was in the air. Urchin sniffed at the wind and wondered which way was southeast. With a lot of struggling, he hoisted the sail and let the wind carry him. This felt good. He was Urchin of the Riding Stars, Urchin of Mistmantle, Urchin the Adventurer, following the quest for his hero alone with his sword at his hip. He only hoped he was going the right way.
When at last the sky began to darken, he thought at first that it was nightfall. But nightfall did not come in like this, with heavy clouds rolling low and growling in the sky. He pulled on a cloak as the wind teased and pushed at him, and the first big raindrops drove into his face. He pushed the stores farther under cover, crouched low in the boat, and waited for the storm to pass.
But it would not pass. The wind was a bully, slashing cruel rain in his face, tippin
g and pushing the boat, tossing waves to soak him. Arran had left a bowl in the boat for bailing out water, and against the buffeting storm he bailed furiously. A gust caught the sail, flung the boat about, tossed her, rocked her, punched her, and tore at the sail as he fought to bring it down; and a second gust flung him to the bottom of the boat. Struggling to stand, he was thrown off his paws again, and by clinging to the mast, saved himself from being hurled into the sea. Tucking in his head, he kept down, down, waiting for the fury to pass because it must pass; but whether he and his boat would survive it was more than he knew. With rain dashing into his face and the sodden cloak flapping about him, he tried to look for land, but through sheets of rain he could see nothing, and was helpless.
“Plague and pestilence!” yelled Urchin as he clutched the mast. The boat was completely beyond his control. She was the plaything of the wild wind that laughed as it tore at her. Icy water was in his fur, in his paws, in his eyes, slopping in the bottom of the boat. He had to bail it out, but his paws slipped, and he fell into the water he was bailing. He tried to think of all he’d ever learned about boats, but nothing Padra had said, nothing anybody had said, could prepare him for this wild sea that wanted to swallow him forever.
Nobody would know what had happened. Crispin and Padra would never have news of him; Apple…Falling in the sloshing water, his teeth chattering, Urchin knelt and tipped his head back against the rain.
“Heart!” he yelled. “Can’t you see me? Won’t you help me! Won’t you do something?”
He wouldn’t be beaten. He bailed with such strength and determination that he didn’t notice the wind easing. The rain became lighter. Slowly he realized that the fierce, wild rocking had stopped. He could raise his face without being blinded by rain, and the darkness around him was not storm, but night.
He staggered to his paws, dropped the cloak in the puddle at the bottom of the boat, and rummaged in the stores for another to dry himself on. Then he sat on the rowing bench, shivering, looking up at the sky. The clouds had cleared. He could see a few stars. He steered southeast and followed his course until he fell asleep. As he slept, two otters swam, ducked, and bobbed up again on either side of the boat.
“Nice craft, this,” said one. “I’ve seen one of these before.”
“On Swan Isle,” said the other. “Yes. Very like this one.” She reached up inquisitively to look into the boat. “Same sort of creature, too. One of those tree things.”
“Yes,” said her mate. “One of those. A what’s-its-whiskers. Sorrel or Cirrel or something. Funny color, what I can see of it. What’s it doing here?”
“Maybe this one’s going to Swan Isle, too,” said the she-otter. “But he’s a long way off it, and drifting off course.”
“Shall we give him a shove?” said the other. “That sorrel thing on Swan Isle’s a nice chappie; I got talking to him one morning when he was paddling about in his boat. He said his best friend was an otter.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, from Mistmantle, apparently. Asked me, if I ever got there, to take a message to a Captain Padra; but Mistmantle’s a hard place to get to.”
Urchin turned in his sleep. “Captain Padra, sir,” he muttered, and his eyes half opened and shut again. The otters looked at each other and nodded.
“Come around the stern, then,” said the he-otter, and together they propelled the boat steadily and smoothly through the night seas until, with a last gentle push, it ran aground on the shores of the island of swans. The otters smiled, nodded to each other, and swam away.
While it was still dark, Gloss left the boat. He swam to the island and began to search, far from the shore.
Dawn woke Urchin. He was stiff from sleep and aching with cold.
“Ouch,” he said, sitting up to rub life into his chilled limbs.
“Land!” he exclaimed, and with a lifting heart he whispered thanks into the sky. He surveyed the island, saw nobody about, then jumped into the shallow water and heaved the boat ashore. He reached in for the driest cloak he could find and wrapped it around himself, turning sharply as he heard a rustle behind him.
He stared, blinked hard, looked again, and shook his ears in case this was a dream. But it was real, and it was wonderful.
“Captain Crispin!” he cried.
Needle ordered herself not to be afraid. Frightened animals trembled, and if she trembled she would almost certainly fall off the ledge. She had to be small and still, and listen. The scuffling of paws had stopped, but now she heard weapons clanking, which was worse. She strained to hear Tay.
“Attend to me, moles,” announced Tay. “It is enough for you to know that I have discovered a site where a certain person—a certain person of high rank, who ought to know better—I might say, a certain otter—is carrying out highly illegal and unsuitable practices.”
Needle couldn’t quite hear her next words, only some muttering between two moles. One asked, “What’s she on about?” and “She means Captain Padra’s up to something,” answered the other. But her next words were clear, and chilled Needle to the bone.
“There are various ways to this place,” said Tay. “I will send you in the appropriate mole tunnels, while I take the otter route. Do not enter the place until you hear my signal. I will cough twice. Then we storm the site and arrest whatever we find there, however young, however innocent it looks. Arrest them all and bring them to the tower.”
No, no, thought Needle. She must mean the place where Scufflen’s hidden. No, no.
There was more clinking of arms; then the tramping of paws faded into the distance. Needle clenched her claws. She was in danger; the hiding place was in danger; and she could do nothing. When the moles had been silent for some time and she was about to take the chance of crying out, she heard a movement close by.
This time, there were young voices. Moles, mostly. One of them giggled.
“Come on,” said a kind voice. “You’re doing fine. Keep going.”
“He’s as determined as a mole,” said another; then, “I smell hedgehog!”
“That’s me,” said a very young hedgehog voice.
“No!” called Needle. “It’s me! I’m Needle, and I’m stuck!”
There was a pause, then some whispering among the young animals. She picked up her own name, and Urchin’s, and somebody said, “Scufflen’s sister.” Then a mole voice was raised, a pleasant female voice.
“Stay put. We’re digging through.” There was a lot of scraping and scratching, then, “Ouch!”
“Sorry,” said Needle. “My spines are stuck in the earth. They’re a bit sharp.”
Presently a paw appeared, digging a hole through the wall. Soon, the hole was just wide enough for Needle to squeeze through. Cautiously, with a lot of “Ouch!” from the moles and “Sorry!” from Needle, she shuffled from the ledge into the safety of a freshly dug tunnel, face-to-face with a small mole maid.
“I’m Moth,” said the mole maid, and nodded toward the two other moles with her. “And Jig and Fig: they’re sisters. And this is Hope.”
A very small hedgehog snuffled nearsightedly in Needle’s direction.
“A very good morning, Mistress Needle,” he said politely.
“It won’t be if we’re not quick,” said Needle, and in a rush she told them all she had heard.
Moth nodded to the other moles. “You two get Hope to a safe burrow,” she said. “If we go by a secret way, we can get to the nursery before Tay does. Needle, come with me.”
She vanished so that Needle lost sight of her and had to follow the sound of racing paws. Behind her, she heard the hedgehog explaining hopefully that his mummy worked in the tower and he could go to her, and the moles gently explaining that the tower really wasn’t a safe place for him just now. Then there was only the long gallop through the tunnels, Needle’s heart pounding harder and harder as she ran, her legs aching, her chest hurting, a stitch gripping her side. She followed Moth down the tunnels, scrabbling upward, gathering pace on the w
ay down, twisting, following the darting mole in and out, squeezing through tiny entrances until she suddenly found herself in a well-lit room. After the dark tunnels, she had to blink and turn away until her eyes adjusted, but Moth was already gabbling out their story to Arran the otter, who stood up on her hind legs and clapped her paws.
“We’re about to be raided,” she announced briskly. “They mustn’t find us, and they mustn’t find any sign of us. We’ll go by the water route. No arguments, no tears. You’ll get your paws wet, that’s all. Pick up everything; burn what we don’t need. Sort out the babies. If it can walk, lead it; if it can’t, carry it. Look sharp!”
Everyone ran to obey. Mother Huggen bundled up blankets and food. Arran kicked nests into a jumble of moss. The fire was quenched.
“We can’t take the water jars,” said Arran with a frown.
“Excuse me,” said Needle, “but does it matter if they know Padra’s been here? There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. It’s only hiding the babies that’s against the law.”
“Well thought of!” said Arran. “That means we don’t have to carry absolutely everything. Just don’t leave anything babyish. What’s your name?”
“Needle,” she said.
“Oh!” Arran nodded at a nest. “That one’s yours.”
Needle had been too caught up in the escape to think of her brother. But there he was, and he was awake! Bright-eyed, he peered from his nest, his nose twitching. Needle picked him up.
“And as we go to the tunnel, walk backward, sweeping the floor,” ordered Arran. “No pawprints.”
Standing on an upturned boat, Padra gazed out to sea. Urchin should not have gone alone and he blamed himself bitterly, but it was too late now. He slipped into the water and thought over his plans for the Spring Festival. Only two days to go. It was his chance to challenge Husk, and everything depended on whether the animals of Mistmantle would rally to his side. He had to convince them. With Lugg and Arran, a few very young animals, and a pawful of dead leaves, he had to save the whole island. The future of Mistmantle lay with him, and he felt intensely lonely.
The Urchin of the Riding Stars Page 15
