Duncton Tales (65 page)

“Well, the plans are well made and the Senior Delvers have drawn up their lists of the moles who are to come, and what their order is to be,” said Samphire. “There’s little now to hold us back but fear.”

Hume nodded, staring at the spray and straining his eyes to see beyond.

“What’s moledom really like, do you think? I mean, is it so different from our home here?”

Samphire looked round at ‘our home’ — our enshadowed home — and remembered Chieveley Dale,
her
first home.

“Moledoms different,” she said, “and warmer. There’s places in moledom where the sun shines all day long and the rocks grow warm with it, and the soil as well. And the worms can be as long as a mole.”

“Long as a mole!” exclaimed Hume smiling. “No, Samphire, that’s just your memory as a pup. No worm could be
that
long!”

“You wait and see!”

Hume looked at her. “When are we going then? Eh? When’s the big day? Is it leaving Gaunt that’s delaying you?”

She nodded. “You’re a perspicacious mole, Hume. You’ll do well out there in moledom.”

“Now there’s a word, “perspicacious”!” said Hume, grinning. His face grew serious. “It’ll be dangerous crossing the Span, more dangerous meeting the moles of the Reapside —”

“We’ll do it,” said Samphire fiercely. “Ratcher’s moles only know the language of force.”

“There’s not a mole among us will strike another mole, not even to save our life!” said Hume quickly. “That’s not the Charnel way.”

“No, I know,” she replied, “but I believe there’ll not be the need to. We’ll look fierce, and we’ll look odd, and they’ll be afraid of our seeming strength and our appearance. But most of all they’ll be afraid of the disease we carry. We’ll be over and past them before they’ve time to recover from their surprise and decided what to do about it.”

“And then?”

“We’ll go to Chieveley Dale!”

Forgive me, Samphire, but after so long can you find the way?”

“I shall never forget it,” she said. “I remember every rock Red Ratcher dragged me past, every stream we crossed, every patch of heather and grass, every peat hag over the high moor. Each one was one further from my home, where all my kin died. Get me beyond the Reapside, Hume, and Rooster at my flank and all his friends, and I’ll not fail to lead you to a home you can only begin to dream of.”

“Well, we better get on with it while the weather’s mild. Once winter comes …”

“Soon, we’ll go.”

“And Glee and Humlock, are they on the lists the Senior Delvers have made? They’ll be missed amongst the helpers.”

“Rooster would not go without them, though with Humlock’s disabilities, and Glee’s white fur, they’re not a couple will ever find survival easy.”

“Aye, but you’re right, Rooster’ll never go without ’em. It’s not for me to say it but I will: that mole may be a Master of the Delve one day but I’ll swear he’ll only be Master with Glee and Humlock at his flanks. They began in the Delvings together, they made their high chamber when they shouldn’t have done, and I’ll wager they’ll finish up together. The Stone made them for each other, and anyway, do you think Masters in the old days worked alone? Not a bit of it! Delving’s a communal art for communities, and a Master cannot delve alone without something in him dying.”

“Oh, but what of the ones we must leave behind, Hume?” she said sadly.

“Aye,” said Hume shaking his head, “aye, that’ll be hard.”

“Be bold and swift,” Gaunt had said, yet still Samphire hesitated, lingering out last days with Gaunt, though all knew now that the risky departure must be imminent. Days of adjustment, and of sadness, for friend must part with friend, as the system began to part from itself, and leave behind those moles and helpers who had no ability or wish to leave.

One thing only was a consolation to Samphire: there were few moles who were staying or going against their wishes, so few indeed that she could not but think that the Stone was giving them its blessing by timing the great event so that the least hurt was caused to the fewest moles.

The reason given for the delay was that Gaunt was preparing himself to speak to each in turn, following what moles understood to be his preparatory farewells to the Senior Delvers and Hume, who along with Samphire had taken the lead in organization. This seemed to be so, for Gaunt spoke quietly to moles like Rooster, Glee and Humlock, and wished them well in the world beyond. Other, ambulant delvers came, and those of the helpers who had not volunteered to stay behind, or
those
, the ones whom Samphire had decided would be needed in Chieveley Dale. These few were the unhappy ones, though wise Hume knew well that their reluctance to go arose less from the wish to help those staying behind than from a fear of what might come. It was an understandable weakness.

But Gaunt had got through his talks with no more than half the departing moles when one evening the weather worsened once again, the skies turned grey, and a drizzly rain began. It was nothing much at first, but as the night continued the drizzle turned to a downpour, and at dawn the downpour worsened towards a spate.

“’Tis time, Samphire,” whispered Hume, coming to waken her.

“Yes,” she said blankly, awake already, her paws about the mole she loved.

must leave, Gaunt. If we delay we may not get across this side of winter. I must leave, my love.”

Hume retreated, tears in his eyes at the parting of two moles whom the Stone had brought together, but whom destiny and their own courage now pulled apart once more. He heard their moving words of love and faith and trust that one day, somewhere, they would meet again; heard but vowed never to repeat.

“Samphire, we —”

“A moment more, good Hume,” whispered old Gaunt, his paw lingering on Samphire’s. As Hume went to retreat again Gaunt shook his head and called him to his flank.

“Guard her well, mole, for she is my joy, and all my strength. In her I live. Guard her as she will guard Rooster, and may the Stone be with you. You have been worthy, Hume, and your name will be remembered.”

Hume embraced his Mentor and with tears in his eyes turned from that beloved burrow in the Charnel, where so many moles had been privileged to hear Gaunt’s words, and heard Gaunt say, “Go, moles, go together, go, and finish the work that Hilbert began so many centuries ago and I was honoured to help continue. Go!”

Then he turned from them, unable to watch Samphire leave, and with her talons tight on Hume’s paw, as if she otherwise could not have moved or even have supported herself, she left the chamber.

Chapter Thirty

At Hume’s command the departing moles had assembled some little time before up near the surface, and their farewells were as Samphire’s had been: tearful, unbelieving, and finally numb, as if they felt themselves entering a world of which they could not quite feel a part.

Rooster was there among the first group ready to cross, for he had grown now to his full size, and with his dark fur and furrowed, frowning face, he was as physically intimidating a mole as any there. Only Hume equaled him in size, excepting always Humlock, bigger than any mole, and no doubt just as capable of showing his strength if he had ever needed to. Others put in the first group of moles were Sedum and another goitrous female, for Samphire had frankly said that their appearance, so familiar and unremarkable to the Charnel moles, would put fear into the Ratcher clan. There too were moles with infectious murrain who though they had survived the disease had hanging skin and raw flesh enough to put off ignorant moles. Inspecting them all, Samphire could not but think they were a formidable vanguard.

Next after this were to follow some more vulnerable moles, those with poor sight or hearing who would need leading from the front, or pushing from behind. But everymole feared crossing the Span perhaps even more than what lay beyond, the more so because as dawn light came it was all too plain that the heavy rains of the night had put the Reap in such spate that the Span was close to being impassable, and if they did not cross it soon they never would this side of winter.

Yet their delay was not entirely due to fear or hesitation: Hume had long since said that the best time to cross would be in worsening rain when the Ratcher moles would least expect such a crossing, and might even be out of the way sheltering in their burrows.

“What I didn’t realize was that the noise would be in our favour too, and that’s a bonus!” he shouted to Samphire. “But we had better begin, the rain is growing heavier still.”

They looked down towards the gorge and saw that the Reap’s water was rushing ever faster and was filthy brown, its spume rising high and crashing on to the Span, while all along the gorge’s edge up the valley spray and foam seemed to be spilling over and beginning to cause minor floods. Pity the moles who had tunnels near those places, though the Charnel moles never had, always fearing just such a flood as they were now witnessing.

“We go
now
!” cried Samphire, magnificent and purposeful, turning to the Span and leading the first group forward.

Once started there was no going back, nor desire to, for the group had a volition of its own, as each followed the other, and their paws ventured on to the narrow span of slippery rock and they looked ahead and not down into the void below.

“Go slowly and steadily,” Hume had said, “and if spray buffets you, stance firm and do not falter. If one stops, others will be forced to pause and that’s when courage fails.”

Rooster had wanted Humlock and Glee to travel with him, but Hume had decreed that Humlock must stay with the central group, with Glee at his flank to guide him, and Drumlin, whom he liked, just ahead.

Off they went into the rain, out of the shelter of the portal and across to the Span and then up to its narrowest and most treacherous point where the stone was barely a paw-width across, and the sodden rock dropped away to the terrifying rush of the Reap all turbulent below.

Samphire went first, as quick as she could so that Rooster and Hume could follow and not leave her vulnerable and alone on the far side for too long. As Rooster crossed the highest point a great plume of spray shot up to one side of ‘him and then down again, just spattering his right flank. But as Hume followed on behind and reached the same place a second shot up, caught the wind and turned and flung itself on him, so that for a few moments none could see him at all. The moment of wild chaos seemed to last an age, before suddenly all cleared and they saw the last of the water running down on either side of the Span as the river below surged and heaved and seemed to seek to reach up once more, while Hume, blinking the water from his eyes, was steady where he was.

He heaved himself forward, ran the last few steps to safer ground, then turned with Rooster to help the others of the first group following behind, both of them almost pulling each mole that reached them off the Span so that others could follow on as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, Samphire was surveying the once-familiar terrace of the Reapside for sign of Ratcher mole and danger, but in the driving rain nomole was about at all.

“I’ll signal the second group to start across,” said Hume, coming close to her, but still having to shout into her ear to be heard.

She nodded, still eyeing the ground ahead warily, and gathered each new arrival near, to form a defensive position in case the need arose. All had their instructions to look bold and unpleasant, and eyeing them now from the point of view of a Reapside mole, and seeing their strange looks, their goitres, their distortions of appearance and patched raw skin, Samphire could not help think with wry amusement that they had no need of instruction to look alien; any mole used to drab normality would find her group as fearsome as any clan. For a time at least. But then …

“Get the others over as quick as you can!” Samphire urged Rooster and Hume, sensing that the sooner they all got going the better. They had all the advantages for the moment, and once they were off and away from Reapside down Charnel Clough she would feel happier.

Rooster and Hume were already back at the Span urging the second group of moles across, and among them all the sense of urgency increased with the realization that separated as they now were they were at their most vulnerable. But then, as if wishing to add to their concern, violent winds began to drive the rain yet harder, so powerfully indeed that Rooster and Hume had to raise a paw to protect themselves from it, as it dashed into their eyes and stung their faces.

For oncoming moles, however, the direction of the wind was an advantage, since it almost seemed to bowl them across the narrow way, buffeting their rumps and keeping their snouts down as they did as they had been told to do, which was to peer down at where their paws went, and not dwell on the raging, roaring, frightening mass of water rushing below.

The leading moles of the second group were sturdy and careful and not one faltered or slowed, and as Hume had hoped, their example inspired the weaker ones who formed the bulk of the party. For a time even the torrent below seemed quieter, and its wilder eruptions and dangerous spouts of water were driven parallel with the Span and not across it.

“It’s going too easily,” fretted Samphire, watching from the further side.

She was right; it was. Suddenly a mole recently ill with murrain and thus weaker than some faltered at the very highest point of the Span, and fatally raised his snout in fear as he froze to the spot, unable to go forward, unable to turn and go back. The mole behind was forced to stop on the precarious incline, whilst ahead Hume did his best to urge the mole forward. The torrent and the wind seemed to sense the mole’s vulnerability, for suddenly the water rose, the wind shifted and a great wave bore down upon him.

Without a moment’s thought Rooster and Hume reached out great paws to hold the mole steady as the water rushed into him and knocked his front paws flying. All on the Reapside could see the two moles’ back paws strain as they clung on to the mole, just as they heard the shout, dreadful in its horror, of the moles back on the Charnel side as they saw what Rooster and Hume could not see.