Urchin and the Rage Tide (13 page)

“Mother Huggen,” said Padra, “come here.” He put an arm around her, carefully, as was best with hedgehogs. “You are doing a wonderful job, keeping order in a hill full of healthy young animals with too much energy and too little freedom. I’m astonished that there’s only two of them missing. Really, Huggen. You’re more capable and experienced than any of us. If it had been left to me, the whole lot of them would have vanished. Urchin and Needle are on to it.”

The end of the mists brought bitter disappointment to Corr. The sky was sullen with cloud, and soon a gray rain was falling steadily. Being an otter, he didn’t mind being wet, but he would rather have one good soaking than this constant dripping of rain. Soon it would be dark, and there wouldn’t be much chance of steering by the stars if he couldn’t see them for the clouds.

But long ago, Crispin and Urchin had taken boats beyond the island, and had had adventures, and if a squirrel could do it…He trailed a paw in the water to feel the pull of the tide, sniffed the air, and turned his boat in what he hoped would be the right direction, according to the course of the tide that had swept Sepia away. He sailed when there was a wind and rowed when there was not, praying for the Heart’s help until his eyes were closing.

When he woke up, he was still muttering prayers.

Urchin, Needle, Oakleaf, and Hope had assembled cloaks, food supplies, and flasks of water. Hope was to come with them because, as he said, he thought like a hedgehog but found his way like a mole, which could be useful.

“We’ll start from the hilltop chamber where they were last seen,” said Urchin. “We believe they’re somewhere mossy and safe.”

“That narrows it down,” muttered Needle.

“They’re small,” Urchin went on. “They can’t have gone far. Myrtle, you can come with us.”

“Is that a good idea?” asked Needle. Taking him to one side, she whispered, “She’ll only slow us down!”

“But if she calls them and they hear her, they’ll come,” said Urchin. “They might be scared of us and hide if they hear us coming, but they’ll trust Myrtle. And”—he turned and took Myrtle’s paw—“you’ll keep drawing pictures for us, won’t you?”

“She’ll draw snowdrops everywhere,” muttered Needle. “She’s got a thing about snowdrops just now. Look, she’s doing it already.”

“Good,” said Urchin. “They’re a symbol of hope.” Hope, hearing his name, peered shortsightedly about until he realized that Urchin didn’t mean him. “Ready, everyone. We’ll need another cloak for Myrtle.”

“And currants,” said Myrtle.

“Currants?” repeated Needle.

“Furtle and Ouch like currants,” said Myrtle. “We all do.”

“And currants,” said Urchin. “Provisions, lanterns, ropes, a cloak for Myrtle, and currants.”

Corr couldn’t possibly stay awake all the time. However hard he tried, flexing his paws and claws, standing up in the boat to stretch his limbs, and singing every song he knew, his eyes would close, his head would droop, and he would wake to find himself drifting off course. He yearned for someone to share the journey with so that there could be one rowing and one sleeping, and, when they were both awake at the same time, someone to talk to. That would be good. He had never been alone for so long before, day and night and day and night and day. Sea, nothing but sea. Sometimes, when he felt his eyes closing and the dreams seeped into his head, he would jerk awake and pull on the oars as hard as he could. There were long, weary hours with no sight of land. He sometimes thought he’d be better off with a storm—at least, in a storm, he’d have to struggle to control the boat and bring in the sail, and he couldn’t get sleepy while fighting for his life against a furious gale. It had never occurred to him that being a Voyager could be so boring. Another rainy night seemed to last forever, and he was glad of the cloak he’d brought with him.

The sky grew lighter. At first he thought the line on the horizon was only clouds, but it became clearer and stronger, and, unlike the clouds, it didn’t change.
Land!
He sat up straight and rowed with new strength in aching muscles. Being a Voyager was suddenly exciting again. As the land became clearer, he hoped that it really was Whitewings. He knew nothing about the other islands in these waters, except that there was a deserted fire island somewhere—a dead volcano. He had no wish to arrive there.

He had not yet learned that land in sight is always farther away than it first seems, especially to a young animal already tired and aching from rowing. He felt he had been rowing forever before he could see any details—high, sheer cliffs rose up, with something that might have been streams weaving snakily down them. It didn’t look at all like a promising place to land, but when he steered east, working his way around the coast, he felt a lot more hopeful.

This was much better. He heard the noises of a busy harbor long before he reached it. Hedgehog voices called to each other, oars splashed, and there was the steady thump and thud of cargoes being loaded and unloaded. Before he rounded the bay, he could see the masts of tall ships, their pennants fluttering in the breeze.

Gradually, Corr saw the bustling animals loading ships on the harbor. They saw him, too, and the chatter died away. Hedgehogs carrying crates stopped, and stood still to watch him. Squirrels ran up masts to see what was going on.

“Otter!” whispered someone. A small hedgehog looked up at his mother and stretched up on his clawtips to whisper in her ear. Corr remembered Urchin telling him that there weren’t any otters on Whitewings. The young hedgehog probably wanted to know what he was, and whether he’d bite. By the time he’d rowed to the jetty, most of the animals had gathered on the shore to watch him, and were reaching out to help him tie up the boat.

“Otter, aren’t you?” called a hedgehog, who, from his sword and elegant cloak, must be a senior animal. He reached out, shook Corr’s paw heartily, and helped him from the boat. “Welcome to Whitewings. I’m Morrow, I look after things at the harbor.”

Corr stepped onto the jetty. His legs felt wobbly from sitting in the boat for so long.

“I’m Corr of Mistmantle,” he said.

“Delighted!” said Morrow. “Mistmantle? How are you going to get back? Never mind that now, you’ve only just got here. Someone bring him wine! Bring him bread, bring him fruit! Bring fish! Fish, of course, I suppose that’s what otters like, is it? It must have been hard rowing, all that way on your own! What’s the news, and what’s your errand here?”

As Corr told of the devastation of Mistmantle, the whole crowd seemed to want to look after him. They spread their cloaks for him to sit on, brought him food and wine, and sat down to listen to his story. (The young hedgehog, who had been frightened, timorously put out a paw to touch his tail.) When he told them of the rage tide, several animals nodded in sympathy.

“We had a rage tide here, too,” said Morrow, “but nothing as bad as it was on Mistmantle. Your island must have taken the force of it, far more than we did. So what help do you need? Shall we try to send food? We can send a shipload if it can only get through the mists. Queen Larch needs to know about this. What do you need?”

“We need a different sort of help,” said Corr, and told them, as briefly as he could, about how Sepia had been swept out to sea. But as he told the story, his heart sank. He could see no sign of recognition on their faces.

“Sorry,” said Morrow. “She hasn’t turned up here, I’m afraid. She would have been more than welcome if she had. But you should be taken to the queen. She’ll want to hear of all this herself.”

“I should go on looking,” said Corr—but he knew it would be senseless to go on without a night’s sleep, and he would need more provisions and fresh water. He let Morrow escort him to the queen’s home. He had heard of Urchin’s trek across Whitewings in the bad old days of King Silverbirch, but this was very different. Where there had been wasteland, now crops, trees, and flowers grew; and Morrow seemed keen to show it all off to him as they walked. Trees had been planted in earth brought from Mistmantle and were growing well, wheat and flowers thrived where there had been silver mines. Corr would have thoroughly enjoyed it all if he hadn’t been wondering how soon he could leave, and go on looking for Sepia.

“Queen Larch lives in the new palace,” said Morrow. “She’s talking of giving it a grand new name, but she’s not telling anyone what it is yet. It’s only just finished being built. Her Majesty insisted that the rest of the island had to be restored before she had a palace to live in. Spent most of her reign up to now in an overcrowded burrow like everyone else. Here it is now. You’ll see Her Majesty’s mighty fond of flowers. They never grew much on this island in King Silverbirch’s time. If you could grow solid silver daisies he would have had any number of those, but he couldn’t see the point in anything colorful. You can see the palace from here.”

In fact Corr couldn’t see the palace at all, but only the cascade of flowers in front of it. As he came closer he saw that behind the terraced garden lay the sprawling and upturned roots of a fallen tree. “Fell down when the earthquake struck,” said Morrow. The palace had been built into the roots. It could only be approached through the gardens, where a female hedgehog was hoeing out weeds. When she looked up, she smiled in delight.

“An otter!” she said. “From Mistmantle?”

“Your Majesty,” said Morrow, bowing. “This is Corr of Mistmantle.”

The queen! thought Corr, who had taken her for a gardener. He knelt, but his legs were so tired and sore that getting up again was a painful struggle.

“Corr is on a quest,” said Morrow. “He’s looking for a missing squirrel.”

“Oh?” said Larch.

“Her name is Sepia, Your Majesty,” said Corr.

“Sepia!” The queen’s eyes widened, and Corr’s heart leaped with hope. “Sepia of the Songs?”

“You’ve seen her?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her since the Raven War, but I remember her well. Tell me all about this!”

She brought him into the shade of the tree root palace and sent for a drink made mostly of borage—it tasted horrible, but Corr soon felt better for drinking it. When he had told the queen his story, she shook her head.

“Sepia was one of those squirrels who has more to her than most,” she said. “Cedar was very fond of her. For her sake, I wish she had been washed up on the shores of my island. She still may be, and I can set a watch for her, just in case. And, if there’s any news, I’ll send a swan to Mistmantle. But she isn’t here now.”

Until now, Corr had only felt sore and tired. Now he felt heavy. He didn’t know where to search next, and told himself to think. What next?

“If she isn’t on Whitewings,” he said, thinking aloud, “where should I go now?”

“Nowhere, until you’ve recovered your strength,” she said firmly. “You’ll be no use to Sepia if you collapse at sea. There’s the old Ashfire—I’ve heard that there’s not much of it left now. But there’s always Swan Isle.”

That made sense to Corr. Swan Isle was in the opposite direction.

“And if she did get there, she’d find friends,” the queen went on. “The swans are eternally thankful to Mistmantle.”

“I’ll try to find it,” he said. “King Crispin said there were other islands in those waters, but I don’t think she’d survive long on any of them.”