It was only after peering down into many tunnels that Mekkins and his three friends began to realise that there were no Marsh End youngsters or females here at all, dead or alive. Not a single one.
‘They’ve all gone!’ said Mekkins. ‘They’ve gone!’ And it was confirmed by a conversation they overheard between two henchmoles: ‘Bloody waste of time, this jaunt were. That Mekkins must have taken the whole pack of them on to the pastures, youngsters and all! Cunning little bugger, isn’t he?’
But ‘that’ Mekkins had done nothing of the kind. Mekkins crouched in the shadows as a sense of wonder and disbelief settled over him. They could not all have gone!
‘But they have!’ said one of the three with him. They checked again on the surface, down to the marsh edge, creeping silently along for fear of disturbing the henchmoles, peering into tunnel after tunnel and burrows when they could. But not a sign of life could they find. Just a few grumbling henchmoles in the deserted tunnels of Marsh End.
They stopped still again up on the surface, which was bright with the cold light of a nearly full moon. Out from the marshes came the call of curlew and snipe, calls which every one of the four had heard a thousand times and which they barely noticed. Leaves of oak and ash rustled gently above them, catching the moonshine. Mekkins looked about him in wonder and then, very slowly, his face and snout rose to point up towards the moon.
‘It’s nearly full strength,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Nearly full. You know what tomorrow will be?’ There was silence so he answered his own question: ‘It’ll be Midsummer’s Night, that’s what!’ He turned away from the marsh to face southwards, up towards the distant hill now sunk in wooded darkness, where the Stone stood waiting.
‘You know where youngsters go for Midsummer Night, don’t you? I think I know where ours have gone. They’ve not gone, they’ve bloody well escaped!’ Then he laughed gently with wonder and relief and added, ‘And I’ve got a damn good idea who’s leading ’em there!’
Chapter Thirty-One
Rebecca had sensed something wrong in Duncton Wood two hours after Mekkins had left in the early evening with a band of Marsh End males and the stronger females to enter the pastures to try to help Brome. They had gone off amid excited chatter and cheering, eager to be a party to a possible defeat of Rune.
But Rebecca had stayed behind and only later did she begin to know why. Something was wrong. She had the same impending fear she had felt on that night when Rune and Mandrake had come and killed her litter. She went up on to the surface, where the light of the rising moon against a still sky was just beginning to filter among the trees and fall weakly on the wood’s floor, and snouted up in the direction of Barrow Vale. Dark shadows, talons, the shifting unease of danger was what she sensed. She went down into the tunnels where burrow after burrow was filled with the gentle sound of youngsters, some still suckling, others rolling and fighting each other with the strength and independence they had found by their third week of June.
Mothers relaxed with their young, a few older, litterless females gossiped among themselves, chattering about the excitement of seeing Mekkins off ‘to give that Rune a taste of his own violence’.
It was quiet and peaceful with just a hint of laughter in the air. Rebecca paced about uneasily, the few Marshenders who met her smiling, for they knew from Mekkins who she was and that she was a healer like Rose had been.
‘Tell us a story, Rebecca!’ a giggling youngster asked her, pushed forward by his less bold siblings. She touched him, shook her head and passed on, her tail twitching with tension. Something was wrong. Then up on to the surface again and the growing feeling that there was a terrible danger coming through the night, down here where only youngsters played and females were unprotected.
Birdcalls drifted in from the marshes, as they had on the night Bracken had gone; a tree occasionally stirred and whispered in a breeze that ran above the wood but not on its still floor.
Fear began to come into her, her eyes widened in the night, her snout pointed and pointed to the dark towards Barrow Vale. She felt that she was the only thing protecting the Marsh End… from what? The moon rose slowly, stronger, full, the sky finally turning black, and somewhere a small branch fell rolling through the fresh-leaved branches of a tree, tumbling round and down leisurely until it hit the wood floor and all was silent again.
There was danger, and it was coming. And she knew suddenly, and with a ruthless certainty, that she must take them away to somewhere safe where no hurt could befall them. These youngsters were in her protection, just as once her own litter had been. This time there would be no mistakes.
So powerful was her sense of danger and so determined her resolution, that there was no argument. The females with litters heard her in silence, her instinct for protection of the young soon becoming theirs.
Urgent whispers, silent runnings through tunnels, low voices, scurrying, sleepy youngsters suddenly awake and standing still waiting for instructions, last-minute checkings of more distant tunnels and then off together through the tunnels to the east, where nomole likes to go. Where that Curlew had lived. Youngsters running and scrabbling to keep up, calm fear of mothers knowing they must not panic, away and away through the night tunnels, to where the soil is damper and the smell is strange.
Rebecca leading them, away from a danger she had not yet seen but which was coming, towards a place to rest on the east side of the Marsh End and then on, the massed sound of escaping paws pattering in the silent night.
On and on she led them, letting none lag behind, the youngsters holding back their tears and tiredness before the urgent seriousness of adult moles.
Even at Curlew’s place there was no safety in the air. The wood was too still in the light of a nearly full moon. Where to take them? Where to lead? Again and again her snout led her round and up towards the distant slopes where once, on Longest Night, she had gone with Mekkins. Beyond, the Stone waited. It always waited. A full moon, and nearly Midsummer, when the Stone blessed the young. One day to get there, sneaking through the wood. She could try along the east side, up on the surface, pray to the Stone and take them there. The Stone would protect them on Midsummer Night. On to the Stone.
Mekkins and the moles who had followed him finally got back to Brome in the Pasture system at dawn, fatigued beyond sleep.
‘They’ve gone,’ Mekkins said blankly to Brome. ‘Rebecca must have taken the Marsh End youngsters over to the east side so that Rune and the henchmoles couldn’t get them. She’ll probably try to reach the Stone. We’ll have to help…’ But his body could hardly hold itself straight he was so tired, and his eyes could not focus.
‘Try to sleep,’ urged Brome, ‘and when we have all rested we will work out what to do. We will help you as you helped us. If need be our moles will die for your youngsters.’
Mekkins awoke restless and worried. It was late morning and the tunnels of the pastures were light with warm air and the soft smell of summer wafting down from the surface. Then a curious, distant rumbling slowly filled the tunnels as he woke up, quite unlike any sound he had ever heard, and it brought him wide awake out into the communal tunnel before he could blink twice more. A passing Pasture mole must have seen his concern, for he said the single word ‘cows’ as he went by. The rumbling stopped and started, passing overhead like a summer day’s cloud that hides the sun for a while in its passing. ‘Cows!’ muttered Mekkins in a grumbling voice, finding a tunnel to the surface, and going to see them close to. He smelt them before he got there, heavy and sweet, and then watched their black and white flanks swaying and stalling above his gaze against a blue sky, the tearing sound of the grass they grazed filling the tunnels and mixing with the slow sound of their chewing and breathing and the chomping and thumping of their hooves. All harmless and sad. ‘Bloody cows!’