‘What m-m-mole are you, and where are you f-from?’ asked Comfrey as firmly as he could.
The mole looked at him calmly for a while and then laughed aloud, not laughing at Comfrey but rather with him, as if the whole world were full of humour and there wasn’t a thing to worry about. And despite himself, despite his thoughts about Rune, Comfrey found himself laughing as well.
‘I used to live here in this system, you know,’ said the mole. ‘My name is Bracken.’
Comfrey’s laugh froze in his mouth; in fact, the whole of him froze. He looked at the mole, who was scarred and looked quite old, his face lined and his fur straggly. He was big and very powerful now Comfrey looked at him closely, and his paws seemed more solidly on the ground than anymole he had ever known, except Rebecca.
‘Bracken?’ whispered Comfrey, without a stutter.
Bracken nodded.
‘Rebecca’s Bracken?’ said Comfrey.
Bracken laughed again. ‘Well, I was when she was alive, by the Stone’s grace I was,’ he said gently.
‘B-but—’ and now Comfrey did stutter and looked confused, because the whole world seemed to whirl about him and he couldn’t catch his breath, and the Stone was towering behind him and he was shaking with a mixture of pride and tears and relief all at once.
‘But she is alive,’ he said, ‘and she’s here, now.’
Behind Comfrey the Stone rose into the sky and Bracken gazed up at it, his head tilting higher and higher as the words sank in. ‘She’s here, now,’ now where the Stone was, now, now where their love was, now. The trees were the same, the sounds were the same, the scent of the leaf litter was just the same as it had always been, so where had he been for so long? The moleyears began to leave him, though if anything he looked older and more solid for the knowledge that she was here, now.
Slowly he began to hear Comfrey’s voice again as he continued to talk, his voice stumbling faster and a mixture of relief and distress running through it.
‘She’s in the old tunnels you burrowed yourself because that’s where she lives, but it’s not right anymore because Rune came back, who was here before, and he’s there now, and I don’t like him because it’s not right, what he wants.’ And Comfrey began to cry, because though he was an adult and a healer, he knew it didn’t matter in front of Bracken because there was nomole in the world stronger than he was, or who could help so much, except Rebecca, and she needed his help now…
Bracken touched him gently. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. Then he turned away from the mole whose sadness he knew so well, and away from the Stone behind him, and without one trace of urgency in his step he made his way towards the nearest entrance to those tunnels he had himself burrowed so long before, thinking it was his home and nomole but Rebecca had the right to be there. Nomole.
Rebecca was suffering Rune’s snoutings with the thought that surely all moles may be loved finally, all arid every one; but that didn’t take away the disgust she felt or the obscenity of it and she wondered whether, if she had not been made so weary by so many moleyears of giving, perhaps she might be bringing down her talons upon him instead of crouching here like this.
He was saying something, meaningless words whose real meaning was his triumph, and he felt like a solid shadow about her, which made her begin to weep silently, the tears becoming a protective veil beyond which Rune could do what he liked, which he was beginning to do, because she could feel his talons on her now, first at her side and then at her flank as she shuddered and wondered if every mole can be loved, or whether there are some who lose the right or for whom she did not have the power, and she felt so weak and in need of forgiveness; just as she had when this same mole had been there with Mandrake, tearing at her litter, and she didn’t have the strength to fight them. Cairn had not come. But she needed help and wanted Bracken, who would have helped her had she called out to him. So she did… ‘Bracken, Bracken, Bracken!’
Then the burrow was filled with blood: Rune’s.
And scrabbling desperate paws: Rune’s.
And screams of anger and fear: Rune’s.
And Bracken was there.
He was in the centre of the burrow with Rebecca behind him and Rune thrown back against one of the walls, his flank bloody where Bracken’s talons had swung gently down and sent him sailing through the air.
There was no anger about Bracken at all, just certainty and great power.
‘I thought you were dead, Rune,’ said Bracken matter-of-factly.
Rune gathered himself up and lunged viciously forward to where Bracken was and yet wasn’t; when Rune got there, his taloned paw stubbed uselessly into thin air, because Bracken was round to his side and another gentle blow seemed to send Rune backwards against another wall, his neck savaged with talon cuts.
Rune turned to face Bracken again but never pushed forward his attack: he found himself looking not just at Bracken but at Rebecca as well, and they crouched side by side, not angry or contemptuous or hostile in any way: their eyes held compassion and pity. It made Rune turn around in terrible fear, as if he were fleeing from the edge of a void, and he ran out of the burrow into the tunnel beyond.
Bracken barely seemed to move and yet, when Rune looked round to see if he was following, there he was, right behind him, not angry but compassionate, and that was something Rune could not face. He turned away again, running and running away, twisting and turning through the tunnels and up on to the surface, anything to get away from Bracken.
But there he was again, or seemed to be. Bracken was there waiting for him and the great soaring beech trees, sinewy and light, seemed to twist around Rune and encircle him so that he could not bear the simple shimmering of their leaves, which were somehow like Bracken.
Rune began to run across the rustling surface of the wood, trying to control the fear he felt, to wonder at it and so control it, but he could hear Bracken pattering along behind him, a mole who seemed now only to have to raise his talon and it sent him, Rune, powerful Rune, who knew how to kill, who could hurt other moles, painfully flying through the air.
His breath wouldn’t come and his body felt twisted and out of control with pains and wounds, and there was red blood on his fur, always glossy before but now matted with blood and sweat. The trees fell away and he was into the Stone clearing, running and turning to see if Bracken was after him, which he was, so that Rune fell behind himself, hurting himself as he twisted and fell among the roots of the tree and was pressing against the Stone which he hated, turning around with Bracken above him.
Bracken looked down at the withered, trembling, shaking form of Rune, who was trying to pull himself up to face him, and then slowly up at the Stone of which he had asked so many times, in so many different ways, why a mole like Rune existed.
Bracken raised his paws and extended his talons and mercilessly brought them down towards Rune against the Stone. Bracken’s breathing was as gentle as soft wind as his death blow fell on Rune, but his breathing stopped short when, somehow, the Stone seemed to stop his paws, for he hit them against it, he who knew how to fight, and they only scratched, squealing down on its face towards Rune, but not into him.
Seeing death stopped above him, Rune twisted and ran from the Stone and behind him heard Bracken, angry at last, and cursing: ‘Bugger the Stone, I’m going to kill that Rune.’
And now Rune was afraid, finally, truly, deeply afraid. He was going to be killed. And he ran on and on into the wood, away from the Stone, faster and faster, as he heard Bracken follow, whose paws sounded so calm in their running, while his paws scrabbled to get away and wouldn’t grip.