Duncton Rising (81 page)

Brothers, and Brother Barre in particular!” Pumpkin found himself crying out boldly, though from where he found the words he had no idea, “these other moles are harmless. Take me, for I am the reprobate and sinner here. Take me and let the others go!”

Brave Pumpkin – no! Heroic Pumpkin! – now advanced out from the Stone to face the Newborns alone. How thin his old body seemed in that winter dawn, how weak his paws, how grey and patchy his fur.

He did not see that behind him Cluniac and Elynor had gathered to their flanks the only two or three other moles there capable of fighting, and were about to rush out to his side. Nor did he see what the Newborns saw, that the light about the Stone grew brighter, and the Stone itself appeared ever more formidable, as if to say, “These good moles are in my care and sanctuary now, touch them at your peril!”

Many of the Newborns, including Fetter himself, seemed aware of this strange threat in the air about the Stone, but Brother Inquisitor Barre, never a sensitive mole, was not. He saw only a puny mole who had escaped him once, and once was too much – now he had a chance to make amends by killing him.

At Barre’s flanks were the two moles who had been with him earlier down in the Marsh End, and whose paws had thrust Pumpkin into the water to drown. Their fears seemed to have gone and, encouraged no doubt by the presence of a growing number of Newborns behind them, they advanced with Barre towards Pumpkin.

All Barre saw now was an old mole coming towards him, and he sensed that with a single talon-thrust into his face he could destroy completely the little resistance these blaspheming Duncton moles were about to put up. His instructions had been to kill the mole Pumpkin, and now he would do so. If killing one would make the rest biddable he would do it and anyway... Barre smiled grimly. It had long since been decided that not one of these pathetic, blaspheming followers was going to survive the night. Not one. How fitting that the library aide would be the first; but all made themselves guilty by simply being there.

As Barre began to raise his right paw to deliver a killing thrust Pumpkin’s fear went quite away, and was replaced by regret. For though he might have seen ruthless determination in Barre himself, he saw in the eyes of the Newborns beyond him genuine awe at the sight of the Stone.

“If
only
I was a fighter!” was Pumpkin’s final regretful thought as he raised his own right paw in peace and said the prayer that seemed to suit the moment best, the prayer of peaceful moles.

“Stone, deliver us from evil! Help us in our hour of darkness. Bring us out of the night of this evil spirit into the dawning light of thy good day!”

“Aye,” whispered those he had sought to protect, “Stone deliver us now and in the moment of our darkness.”

In that moment of darkness two of the followers behind Pumpkin found their destiny. They were the old pair whom Elynor had persuaded to escape with them; they had seemed hardly aware of themselves, let alone of the events around them. Yet now, led by the ancient and doddering male, the two of them broke forth from the group, muttering and shaking their heads.

“No,” said the male almost gently, certainly sorrowfully, “you must not strike the mole who leads us. Cannot you see he means you no harm? Can you not sense the Stone’s Light and Silence all about us? Good mole...”

The raised paw of Barre came crashing down out of the night and struck the old mole in the face. As Barre sought to withdraw his talons and blood began to flow upon the Clearing’s floor one of the guardmoles next to Barre struck a second blow into the mole.

“No!” cried Pumpkin, but faintly, for this was bloody murder before his eyes; this was the worst thing he had ever seen. “You cannot; you must not!”

“Oh, yes we can!” cried Barre, his rage risen, his two friends excited, their three bodies moving together like one evil, killing thing as sleet and leaves and blood seemed to swirl about them.

Even as the female reached her dying mate, but before she had time to reach out to him and tend him, and show she was at his flank, Barre and his creatures struck her down too. Their talons thrust sickeningly into her, the scene made more dreadful still by their killing grunts and cries of pleasure at the evil that they did.

But worse followed, even as behind them Fetter cried out to them to stop. Pumpkin raised a paw in protest at their vileness, and somemole among those followers by the Stone screamed out in shame and pity for all who witnessed this depravity.

For Barre, brutalized by power and the cruelty of his life, carried forward by his own violence, driven now by the rage that Pumpkin’s escape had engendered, reached down his great paws to the limp form of the female, lying dead across her dying mate, and raised it up and cried in a voice more terrible than any of those present had ever heard, “For thee, great Stone, we make this just sacrifice.”

But there was worse yet, for thinking that Fetter and the others must approve these evil and obscene acts, and no doubt believing them to be the prelude to the massacre of the secret followers the guardmoles had anticipated since their insubordination on Longest Night, one of Barre’s minions reached down and took up the body of the male. It moved; it bled; it was alive.

“And this as well, Stone, this sacrifice for thee!”

And then he dropped the body, raised his bloodied paws, and he and his friend taloned death finally into that weak, frail, brave mole; and they laughed.

The silence that followed was a void as deep as time, and in it rose and melded, swirled and scattered, a thousand, a hundred thousand evil things. It was a void before which all in the Stone Clearing now faltered, slipping and sliding down towards it as the darkness of revenge and hatred, loathing and abhorrence began to overtake their minds. Yet in the midst of all of that, as followers and Newborns teetered on the brink to which an evil act had brought them, one alone stanced fast.

From where such inner goodness flows, nomole knows. From where such love, in the face of evil? From where compassion, when all compassion is lost? From where forgiveness?

Pumpkin saw true evil; he heard true blasphemy; he knew, because he saw the depth of the void to which Barre’s act had brought him. But he raised his clear mild gaze from it and stared for one terrible moment into Barre’s black eyes.

Then he turned his back on Barre, and looked up at the Stone, unafraid. He cried out his simple prayer for all of them, follower and Newborn alike, fearless and full of faith that it would be answered.

“Good Stone,

Deliver us.

Send us thy grace,

For we are but ordinary moles,

Without grace unless you grant it us,

Without deliverance unless you bring it us,

Without love but in your Light and Silence.”

As Pumpkin spoke, with all the pity and compassion and love that was in his simple heart alive in every word, he slowly raised his paws towards the Stone, and to the dawning light of a new day that rose through the wild winds of winter beyond it; and he cried out again:

“Good Stone,

Deliver us!”

Chapter Thirty-Five

The downland of Uffington Hill at Seven Barrows was overwhelmed that dawn by the urgent sounding of the Blowing Stone, as Fieldfare and the others held each other’s paws and touched the Stone, and sent the power of their thoughts into the sky.

“Now is the time,” whispered Fieldfare,
“now.”

The blizzard winds had abated only slightly, and as the dawn light came they saw that the downs about them were white with snow.

“Duncton it is that needs us!” Fieldfare had cried out earlier, and none had doubted it. So it was to Duncton now that their prayers for intercession and deliverance went.

Far, far to the north, where the snow had been thicker, and the ice more bitter, three brave followers still stanced by the Stone of Beechenhill. Dawn was a hard rising that morning, but with prayer and faith it came, and though the name Duncton did not come to their mouths, their prayers seemed southward-bound, to moles whom the Stone’s touch told them needed help.

“Good Stone,

Deliver them!”

At Fyfield, the vagrant mole Tonner sensed that his long vigil was reaching its climax, and though he felt half frozen with cold he would not have deserted the Stone for one moment. He knew it was nearby Duncton that needed help, and such prayer as he had, though he was not a praying mole, he offered up:
“Stone, deliver them!”

While at Caer Caradoc, in the open space amidst the Stones, Thripp seemed close to death, so bitter had been the winds, so determined had been his stance all night. Yet there he had stayed, muttering prayers, staring bleakly into the night until it became dawn, and raising paws as if to try to beat back the elements – perhaps very life itself – that had threatened all moledom that long and dreadful night.

“Master, Master, you cannot do more,” Rolt cried, deserting the Stone he had been commanded to touch, and going to Thripp’s aid.

Thripp shivered and shook, his eyes half closed as he slipped in and out of consciousness, yet still he whispered, “Stone, help them. Help them. Stone...”

Then, as dawn light came and tinged the sleety snow grey-mauve, Rolt led the Elder Senior Brother unresisting to the shelter of the nearest Stone.

“Touch my paw to it, mole, for I have not strength,” whispered Thripp, “and pray for Duncton Wood.”

Which Rolt did, huddling his body to Thripp’s in an effort to warm him, and knowing wonder and awe once more as he felt the Stone’s grace and power come into Thripp, and realizing that in this night of prayer and invocation for others, his Master might have found a way to live anew.

“Help us help them...” whispered Rolt, one paw round Thripp’s weak shoulders, and the other upon the Stone.

At so many other places followers sent out their prayers. But it was with Rooster and Privet that the most ancient of ritual affirmations of the power of life found its expression once more on that first Night of Rising.

Beneath the Stone that Hobsley had led the moles to earlier in the night, Rooster and Whillan delved; above it Privet led the others in meditation and prayers, but as the night went by all of them knew that time was running out.

“The Stone guides, the Stone teaches, but it cannot make moles do. They alone make themselves do that!” Privet said at one point, when the others were flagging. “Now, think and think again of Duncton, urge the moles there to have strength, ask the Stone to send its power to the followers there, and especially... yes, especially to Pumpkin, library aide, brave mole, survivor.”