Chauntecleer crowed again. He made a whip out of his crowing, and he lashed the serpents with it.
The serpents withered, shrank back. They rammed their heads against the ground as if they would crawl into it; but the floor which the Bees had put there held tight against them. They began to stream for the wall.
“I adjure you by God,” Chauntecleer crowed—conjured. “If ye be above or if ye be below, that ye go hence!” Such was the cut of his crow.
In a twisting mass the serpents worked their ways to the wall. The animals pressed against the Coop at the Rooster’s feet.
“I adjure you by the most great name, go hence! If ye be obedient, go hence! If ye be disobedient, die! Die! Die!”
Up and over the wall they crawled. And then none could see them but Chauntecleer, for he was on top of the Coop. Rooster’s crow, confusion, the Dun Cow had said. Chauntecleer had just practiced the third category of his crowing, new learned. The occasional crows and the canonical crows were nothing, now. These were the Crows Potens!
Up and over the wall, however, they all crawled but one. This one serpent had burrowed deep into the bowels of the Turkey which it had killed and was well hidden. This serpent hid inside of the magnificent Ocellata. This serpent was still inside the camp.
“In God’s name,” Chauntecleer spat at the animals huddled so tightly around his Coop, “what is the matter with you? Didn’t you hear me yesterday? Did you forget everything?”
The animals put their heads down and stood still, trembling.
In the doorway of the Coop stood three figures apart: John Wesley Weasel and Mundo Cani Dog, both of them out of breath; and Lord Russel the Fox with a grotesque, painfully swollen muzzle. Behind them was a huge pile of rue.
Failing everything else before, John Wesley had leaped the wall and shot into the forest to find Chauntecleer. At his warning Mundo Cani had carried the Rooster back into the camp with an amazing speed.
“God give the lot of you brains!” cried Chauntecleer. “Or not one of you will be left alive. Did you suppose the wall was a joke? Do you think I laugh at you with what I do? I knew the serpents were out there!”
Chauntecleer stared at his animals, furious. Almost to himself he said, “We’re going to fight an enemy; but first we will deliver ourselves into their hands.” Then he shouted: “You invited them into this camp! Do you know that? Not just by climbing the wall. Not just by making doorways of your bellies. But by your faithlessness. Warriors! Warriors? Rabble and children, the whole lot! If you don’t believe in what I say, if you don’t hold together, there will be slaughter! Who wants to go home now? Get out! Get away from me!” Chauntecleer cried—and immediately he was ashamed of his outburst. This was a difficult moment for the Rooster. He glanced at the Turkeys already dead, at the animals already humiliated, pawing the ground; and he felt that he had gone too far in his anger.
A moment to control himself, and then in a quieter voice he commanded that every child and every mother of children be moved to a special place toward the north of the camp.
Then, while that was being done, Chauntecleer took himself into the Coop and stood facing a blank wall for a full ten minutes. Not a Hen disturbed him.
“The rue,” he said finally to Pertelote, even before he had turned to look at her. And when he did turn, it could be seen that his face was calm.
“Rub rue everywhere around the place of the mothers and children. Make a closed circle of it. But see that you keep enough back. Every warrior should also be smeared with the stuff. Every warrior should stink of it.” And then he went outside.
Rue, she said, protection.
The serpents had been able to approach the camp wall without notice, that morning, simply because the guards—the Foxes—had been no longer on watch, and there had been none to cry warning. When the Dun Cow had left him, when the white morning had just begun to break, Chauntecleer had seen an appalling sight. He had seen the Basilisks begin to break water at the river’s edge to blacken the beach—thousands upon thousands, wriggling and creeping into the plain.
Chauntecleer had leaped to the wall, prepared to rouse the camp and to bring Russel back. But first he saw a marvel: Every tree, every bush upon the plain, was withering and falling sere before the Basilisks—every bush except one! This bush they avoided. “Russel!” Chauntecleer had cried. Immediately the Fox shot from that bush and began to run for the wall. The bush withered in an instant; but Russel the serpents did not yet attack. And Russel, against all sensible principle, opened his mouth and snapped at them. He caught three serpents in the middles of their backs and kept running. They writhed around his snout, and he stumbled and fell into the trench at Chauntecleer’s feet—but he bit them, and they died.
It was when Chauntecleer helped the Fox—stunned with pain and swelling frightfully around his nose—that the Rooster noticed the bitter smell of rue which cloaked his guard.
Rue, she said, protection.
“The wonder is,” Chauntecleer said now to his warriors as they stood tight around the Coop, submitting to the vigorous rubbing which Pertelote and the Hens were giving them, “the wonder of it is that they can die! Know that. Repeat it to yourselves. Believe it. Never, never let their strange shapes cloud your minds or persuade you otherwise: They are vulnerable. They can die!” Chauntecleer was making his last, preparing speech before he sent his warriors over the wall.
He began in a low, intense voice to scourge his warriors. He leaned down from the top of the Coop and scraped their souls with a description of the evil outside the wall. Not the Basilisks alone he described, but evil. Evil itself, and what it can do.
Then, in precisely the same voice, without the least comforting transition, he began to name their children. The contrast was tormenting. It produced—without the word ever being spoken—the word “death” in every heart.
The warriors great and small, with many teeth and few, began to cast eyes toward the wall. Their teeth ground together. Hoofs, paws, and claws began to scratch dust. Nostrils flared.
Still in the same voice Chauntecleer gave over the names of their children and began, rather, to name his own. He called each one of the Three Pins “Prince.” He pointed to the place where these lay buried. “Mine,” he said. “Yours,” he said in that low and lashing voice. “But mine are no longer and yours nevermore.”
And then he named the name of the adversary. “Cockatrice,” he said, so quietly that he could barely be heard. “Cockatriss. Cockatrisssssss.”
A deep rumbling rose up from among the warriors, and as it did, Chauntecleer drew out the hissing of the enemy’s name like spitfire, louder and louder, until above the rumbling he arched his neck and he screamed: “COCKATRISSSSSSSS!”
Fur stood up like needles on a thousand backs. Muscles twitched violently. Hackles were raised on every feathered neck. Teeth came bare. Lips curled back in a thousand snarling faces.
Chauntecleer’s low monotone had driven outrage into the souls of his warriors. It had also restrained them, holding them taut, quivering at his feet. Now he threw it away.
“Up!” he roared, and the traces were loosened. “Go!” he cried, and the reins were dropped. They were free. They turned away from him. “Now God goes out before you! But you! You! Kill them utterly!”
Not fast, but with a dreadful purpose, the warriors moved to the wall. Chauntecleer set up a startling, brilliant crow from the top of the Coop—the Crows Potens—and he watched.
The serpents on the other side all put their heads up, waiting. It was as if all the field between the river and the wall had suddenly sprouted living heads. The heads, like fingers out of the ground, waved back and forth; the flesh gleamed. The hissing sprayed the air, loud, louder, deafening.
All at once Chauntecleer saw a horrifying sight. On a mound by the river he thought he saw himself—like a mirror of himself. He saw a Roo
ster of grim appearance, a Rooster covered all over with scales, grey scales down the neck and underneath the chest. This Rooster had a powerful, twisting serpent’s tail and a red eye. Level, cold across the plain, the eye was looking back at him. Cockatrice, too, was watching.
If it had been more than that instant, if Chauntecleer had thought about what he saw, he might have learned a lesson and abandoned hope on the spot. For there was not one enemy, but three, and each the greater, each the father of the other. And each one wanted the blood and the very soul of the Rooster. And each would have his day: the Basilisk, then Cockatrice, then great Wyrm himself. This, the Rooster might have known, was only the beginning!
But the Rooster did not choose to know. He turned his face and crowed.
[TWENTY-TWO] The first battle—carnage, and a valorous Weasel
How Chauntecleer crowed then!
He ripped his eyes from this Cockatrice he had never seen before. He heard one low, guttural laugh below the hissing. Then he turned attention to his warriors and crowed with a will.
The battle began.
Over the wall the Red Ants streamed, like pouring sand. They went among the Basilisks and bit. It was a stinging bite; but every Ant, when he had bitten flesh, died. Yet his body clung to the place where he had bitten. The serpents writhed. The hissing became a screaming and a curse. They waited no longer. Serpents flowed forward to meet the attack.
Now the warriors of size burst over the wall, crying, galloping, roaring, raging. Great animals raised a battle cry. They tossed their heads. They thundered their hoofs among the serpents; black blood spurted onto the land. But the larger serpents doubled themselves with taut violence; they fired themselves into the air, arrows; they flung their bodies like ropes around the necks of these animals. They squeezed tight until the necks broke and the noses ran red blood.
Small animals took the serpents into their mouths and whipped their heads back and forth to snap the backs of the enemy; but then they spun in circles, shrieking, as the serpents’ poison burned through their bodies. The birds swooped down from the air, vicious claws open, piercing, breaking the flesh of the serpents. The Foxes beat left and right with sticks, leaping backward whenever a serpent drew near enough to touch. Their sticks dripped black blood and smoked. The Foxes were quick. They used their tails to turn corners at a sharp angle. When a serpent reared at them, they snapped their tails left, then left with their whole bodies, and the passing stick cut another in two.
But the Basilisks made sharp points of their own tails. They sprang from the earth and sailed through the air tail first like darts. They stabbed the hearts of many creatures. The smallest serpents stung furry animals between their toes; then these animals would curl into shivering balls and plead for someone to chop their feet away. Others clawed at their own skulls until the skin flapped, because the poison had ascended to their brains.
The Sheep had thick, woolen protection over all their bodies. But their eyes were open. The Basilisks flew at their eyes.
The Otters fought together. The Weasels fought, each one of them, alone. But the Weasels fought! Most furious and deadly and courageous of all. So fast their sudden speed across the ground, so quick their cut and their retreat, that the serpents could not watch for them.
The Rabbits were there: That alone was their courage. They died easily under the serpents’ bite, legs jerking as they did.
The battle was a long one. The field ran wet with blood both black and red, so that the animals slipped in it, and some who lost their footing came to grief.
Oh, there was a screaming and a busy grunting on every hand across the plain. Animals went forward with their shoulders hunched, their heads down, their eyes stern and dirty. Everywhere the serpents slithered, hissed, and bit, innumerable. And Chauntecleer heard it all from the top of his Coop. He saw it all from his high place. The tears broke from his eyes, and he wept.
But yet he crowed, and he crowed as though his heart would break. Hatred, God’s curse, sorrow, and Godspeed he crowed together in a constant, burning beauty. The Crows Potens. And never once, never once in all that time, did he take his eyes from the battlefield.
Then a small figure came to the top of the wall. He came from the bloody plain. Once on the wall, he turned and stared at the fighting. He was breathing hard, winded. But soon his breath came in strange jerks. His whole body began to quiver and shake. After a moment he threw back his head, and it could be seen that his mouth was wide open. It was John Wesley Weasel. And he was laughing.
“Ooo,” he laughed. “Is going, going! Cut for cut! Kill for kill! Serpents wants fighting? Hoopla! Ha, Ha! Gets fighting! Furry little buggers knows how to fight, hey?”
He thrust the air a couple of times with his legs. Then he turned and came down into the camp.
There was blood on the left side of his head. It matted the fur, and a swelling had closed his left eye. Also, his left ear was gone. He had lost it to the battle, and now he came for salve to stop the bleeding. If he lost too much of his blood, he would become useless to the fight, and that would have greatly irritated the Weasel.
“Ho, Chauntecleer! Ho, Lord Chauntecleer!” he called as he neared the Coop. “The Rooster sees the way it goes?”
Chauntecleer thought: Yes, I see the many dying, see the slaughter. But he was crowing heart-bloody crows and could not answer the Weasel.
“Is blackguards, Chauntecleer. Is filthy blackguards from hell. We kill them. Double-u’s makes the field stink with them!”
They kill us, Chauntecleer thought behind his crowing. Savagely.
“Crow, Lord Chauntecleer!” the Weasel cried buoyantly. “Crow like judgment day! Hears you!” he cried; and he went into the Coop by the Widow’s back door.
In the minute while he was gone, Chauntecleer saw a Deer go down to his knees in the vermilion mud. The Deer Nimbus raised his face to heaven, and then he died without a word. There was a serpent lodged in his breast. Chauntecleer crowed. He crowed and crowed.
Suddenly he felt the Coop tremble beneath him. Though he was crowing loudly, yet he heard a storm of shocked, painful curses come from down below. Immediately he thought of Pertelote inside. But he couldn’t leave his place, and he couldn’t stop his crowing.
Then John Wesley burst out of the back hole, a writhing serpent in his mouth. John Wesley slammed the serpent violently against the Coop. Again and again he whirled the serpent until the body ruptured and spewed black blood everywhere. And still he battered the ragged body with great blows. He tore at the dead flesh. He dug at it with blinding speed and with loathing.
He stood back. “God! God!” he cried, wringing his paws. Then he ran back into the hole.
This was the Basilisk which had hidden itself in Ocellata’s body. This one had waited his time before sliding into the very Coop of Chauntecleer.
John Wesley came out of the hole again, tenderly bearing the body of the Wee Widow Mouse. He walked to the Coop door, and he stood there, crying: “Pertelote! Pertelote! Come and see what they have done!”
He cried: “Chauntecleer, this is what they are doing. What does Mice do? Mice cleans in the spring. Mice wears aprons and sweeps. But the damned—! The damned—!” He said no more.
Pertelote came to the door. She took the dead Widow from the Weasel.
He said: “See what they are doing.”
He stood and watched while Pertelote found a place for the Widow within the Coop. Then he filled his lungs to cracking, and he screamed: “Do and do and do! John Wesley will do for you!”
In a flash he had cleared the ground between the Coop and the wall. Up and over the wall he sped. He leaped the trench and threw himself bodily into the war.
How the Weasel fought then!
Here was a serpent raising its head. John Wesley shot by and took the head with him. Here a serpent flew through the air. John Wesley
darted off the ground, caught it; when they hit the ground again, the serpent was dead, bleeding at the eyes. Here was a tangle of serpents all leeched to a Fox’s back. With a cry John Wesley pounced. He snapped and slaughtered them all. John Wesley was faster and more fierce than fire. He pierced through the battlefield crying, “Do and do and do!” On the left hand he killed a hundred as if they were paper. On the right he killed five hundred. Many, many perished before him. But he was not enjoying his carnage. He was enraged. “Do and do and do for what you have done!”
The animals saw his stark fury, and they took courage. They roared. They turned, every one of them, and pressed a wild attack toward the river.
The serpents hissed and tried to meet this thundering wall.
The river belched forth bales of ready Basilisks. But the animals were convinced: Serpents could die! As one mighty beast, with John Wesley at its head, the animals came forward killing. Dying and killing.
Chauntecleer crowed. He crowed lustily. He stood on the tips of his toes. He stretched his neck and crowed almighty power to his warriors.
“Children!” Another voice! Another scream not Chauntecleer’s!
Suddenly the Rooster was gaping. He saw his mirror on the other side of the field. He saw the scaly, serpentine Cockatrice.
“Children!” Cockatrice put out his wide wings and lunged into the air. Higher and higher he circled, his tail curling out behind him—ascending until he was at a point above the fighting Weasel. Then he dived.
“John Wesley Weasel!” Chauntecleer shrieked.
The Weasel dodged. But Cockatrice only skimmed the ground and rose up again on his great wings. Again he gained height, then stooped and dived again at the Weasel. He aimed his tail from underneath his body like a stinger.
John Wesley scrambled. He raced back and forth. There was no fighting for him now—only the running to escape.
Down came Cockatrice, a bolt of lightning. His tail opened a wound on the Weasel’s side; and again he soared up to the white sky.
The Book of the Dun Cow Page 17
