Bracken tensed and stepped a pace or two in front of Boswell, squinting to see if he could make out from the dark rocky shapes and shadows ahead where the mole was hidden. He felt angry and frustrated enough for a fight.
The mist rolled away and there were four moles ranged on the slope a little above them, the one they had seen and three others, all equally stunted and mean-looking.
‘Siabod moles,’ murmured Boswell.
‘Yes, we are lost, as a matter of fact,’ said Bracken boldly, ‘and we’d be obliged if you’d tell us where Siabod is.’
There was a rapid crossfire of talk among the four moles which they could not understand before the smaller one, who had met them already, approached and said, ‘And what would you be wanting with Siabod? It’s not a place you just go to, you know.’
‘If you hadn’t scarpered when you saw us before, we wouldn’t have been mucking about in that bloody mess,’ said Bracken, waving a paw at the retreating mist and deciding that a bit of aggression wouldn’t go amiss.
It went very amiss indeed. One of the other moles stepped forward and said in a high, angry voice, ‘Now don’t you go talking to Bran like that, or you’ll have something else to talk about, see?’
Bran smirked and stepped cockily forward in a way he had not dared to do when he was alone.
‘Well?’ he asked.
Bracken did not reply because he was engaged in a snout confrontation with the other mole, who did not impress him one bit. He had learned a great deal about aggression over the moleyears and could tell a phoney when he saw one. Also, he was hungry and he was itching for a fight.
Boswell tried to defuse the situation by crouching down and beginning to explain why they were there by saying, ‘We’ve come from Capel Garmon and are seeking to find Siabod and…’ But it was no use. Bran foolishly darted forward, outraged at Bracken’s apparent ignoring of him, and dared to cuff Bracken lightly on the snout.
Bracken did not hesitate. With a backsweep of his right paw he knocked Bran off his paws, while with a forward thrust of his left he lunged his talons into the other mole’s shoulder and then swept him to the left with a powerful smack of his right paw. Then, facing the two big moles and rearing up before them, he said between angry gulps of breath: ‘Don’t any of you try anything like that again. Now, where’s Siabod?’
As he spoke, the answer soared high above him, behind the silent Siabod moles. Beyond the rim of the valley side the mist slowly cleared and rolled back out of the valley, revealing in the distance the cruel mass of a mountain whose shape was streaked with more and more snow the higher the eye travelled, between which rose steep masses of bare, black rock whose details were obscured by distance. Its size and impregnability seemed absolute. Angry grey clouds kissed at its highest peak, a sharp point that made a mole feel very small and distant.
‘That’s Siabod,’ spat Bran in a high, shaken voice.
‘Good,’ said Boswell quietly, ‘and now that we’ve found it and got to know each other’s strength, why don’t we find a nice safe burrow somewhere and we’ll try and explain why we’re here.’
‘What’s your names, then?’ asked one of the bigger moles.
‘Bracken of Duncton,’ said Bracken.
‘Boswell of Uffington,’ said Boswell, a little wearily because the mention of Uffington rarely failed to have an effect on other moles. It was one of the few systems everymole seemed to have heard of. This time was no exception.
‘Why didn’t you say so before, mole?’ said one of them after a long, respectful pause.
‘Now there’s a fine thing!’ said Bran, his crafty face cracking suddenly into what was for him a smile. ‘A mole from Uffington! An honour. A great honour.’
And the four of them clustered around Boswell and led him up the valley side, leaving Bracken to trail along behind, feeling quite forgotten and a little foolish for having been so aggressive.
Chapter Forty-One
‘You’re never going to try to get to Castell y Gwynt!’ exclaimed Bran after he and several other Siabod moles they met had heard their tale. There was a great shaking of heads and muttering in Siabod, the meaning of which was plain enough to Bracken: ‘insane,’ ‘mad,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘foolish,’ ‘idiots’. But behind it all there was awe as well.
‘You’ll never do it, mole, you never will.’
‘Have none of you ever tried?’ asked Bracken.
Bran repeated the question in Siabod, because they found that most moles there spoke nomole at all. There was another shaking of heads and a sullen silence.
‘One mole tried a long time ago, but he never came back,’ said Bran. ‘You can’t, see? There is evil up there, there is danger like no danger anymole has ever faced and lived through. There’s no food, for they say no worms live that high and there is Gelert the Hound of Siabod.’ Gelert! Was that what Mandrake had muttered to himself and shouted in his threats to Bracken in the Ancient System? wondered Bracken.
Neither Bracken nor Boswell had mentioned Mandrake in their account, principally because they feared that if they told the full story, it might invoke hostility on them. Bracken had, after all, been responsible for his death. But now…
‘Do you know a Siabod mole called Mandrake?’ asked Bracken slowly.
Bran looked startled, his mouth fell open, he looked nervously at the other moles, and one of them asked him to translate. When he did so, there was rapid talk and looks of surprise.
‘Well?’ said Bracken.
‘That’s a strange question, isn’t it?’ said Bran carefully. ‘What makes you ask a question like that?’
Briefly Bracken told him. As he spoke, Bran translated, but the moles never took their eyes off Bracken. The only bit that Bracken glossed over was how Mandrake had died.
‘Tell them the truth,’ urged Boswell.
But Bracken shook his head. ‘Too risky,’ he said. ‘Later, perhaps.’
‘Well, do you know him?’ asked Bracken again. But before Bran could answer, or would, one of the older moles there came forward with such authority that they realised that while Bran was their spokesman, this mole was their leader. He had seen perhaps four Longest Nights and he was a little on the tubby side, though his face was lined and scraggy as the others’ were. He had intelligent eyes and a firm way with him that brought respect. He spoke rapidly to Bran in Siabod, while gesticulating at them both. Bran nodded rapidly and turned to them. ‘You’re to go with Celyn, see? There’s a mole he says you must meet.’
With Bran taking the rear, they were led from the surface tunnels in which they had been talking higher and higher up the valley and out on to the surface. They did not resist this move because they had so often had the experience of being met by guardmoles or scouts at the periphery of a system and then being interrogated before being led into its heart and they had taken it for granted that this was what was happening to them when they were initially led into the tunnels lower down the valley. They rarely found out much about whatever moles they had met during such preliminary talks, and no longer expected to. The excitement started once they were led, as they were being led now, into the real heart of the system.