It was some moments before any of them had caught breath sufficient to speak, and then it was Rune. ‘He has escaped, Mandrake, and gone down to the slopes where he lives. At least he cannot do the ritual now.’
They were gathered in a spot dappled with moonlight filtering through the gap in the canopy by the fallen tree where Bracken lay hidden. Bracken peered down to look at Mandrake. His presence was huge—he was massive, more like two moles than one. He seemed blacker than the night itself and Bracken could see that he held his head forward and low, as if about to attack the whole world.
‘You say he has escaped? But who has escaped?’ demanded Mandrake. ‘I do not believe that the oldest mole in the system, who appeared to be hardly alive at the last elder meeting, could run through the wood like a youngster and elude the’—he looked around him sarcastically, as if he was not one of them—‘the toughest moles in the system. That was not Hulver.’
At this, they followed his gaze down to the slopes. Then, quick as a flash, as they looked back up towards the distant Stone lost somewhere above them in the night, the realisation came to all of them that they might have been fooled. They all started back for the Stone as one, and as fast as they could—Mandrake at their head.
Bracken decided that he must follow them. It would be easy enough to avoid them now, and they were making sufficient noise to cover his sounds.
One makes faster progress than six, and so it was that Bracken arrived on the far side of the clearing when Mandrake came to it from the slope side.
Hulver was there, clear in the moonlight, back to the Stone and paws raised towards Uffington. He was in the final stages of the ritual, his figure commanding in its calm, his voice awe-inspiring in its aged strength. Behind him the Stone towered up into the sky.
He seemed oblivious of the arrival of Mandrake and his henchmoles, who stopped for a moment in awe at the sight of him.
But there was one other mole there whose presence was unknown to any of the others, including Hulver. He was hidden among the roots of the great beech by the Stone where Hulver and Bracken had slept their first night in the clearing.
He had left his burrow on the Eastside and come slowly and reluctantly through the wood to the Stone. He had not wanted to come, for he had heard the talk that Mandrake’s henchmoles would be out, yet he knew he must, and he arrived as Bracken drew the others away, in time to watch Hulver start the ritual. He might have joined in, but he felt unworthy to do so, as if he had no right to be there. But he mouthed the words with Hulver, urging the old mole through each one and intending to see Hulver through to the end of the ritual. Then he would go quietly back, back to the Eastside, so that none might ever know that he had watched over the ritual.
But now he saw that Hulver would be cut down before the end and he knew, as perhaps he had known all the time, what he must do. Perhaps he could stop them—he must at least try. In the moment during which Mandrake hesitated with the others at the clearing’s edge he came from among the roots behind the Stone and stood with his back to Hulver, his talons raised towards Mandrake, ready to do his best to stop him while Hulver finished the ritual. Bracken did not recognise him—he was an older, sturdy mole whom he had never seen in his travels around the Westside and Barrow Vale. But Rune knew him, and so did the others.
‘Bindle!’ hissed Rune. ‘It’s Bindle come to be brave.’
‘Bindle!’ roared Mandrake.
But Bindle stood firm as they advanced slowly towards him and holding his talons ready began to join in with Hulver:
‘By the shadow of the Stone,
In the shade of the night…’
Mandrake began to speed his approach.
‘As they leave their burrows
On your Midsummer Night…’
Mandrake’s breath came out rasping and angry, black and dangerous against the gentle combination of the voices of Hulver and Bindle as they continued towards the final part of the rituaclass="underline"
‘We the moles of Duncton Stone
See our young with blessing sown…’
While Bracken watched in horror from outside the clearing, Mandrake reared his talons up high above Bindle. And then they came crashing down with a terrible force, plunging through Bindle’s own upraised paws and ripping deep into his body. He fell down and back, torn and crippled, as Mandrake rushed past him towards Hulver, while Rune and Burrhead cut at him as they too ran on towards Hulver.
Bracken crouched in the shadows, frozen with fear, unable to move, watching Hulver in anguish as the three strongest moles in Duncton, one of them his own father, bore down upon him with raised talons and ugly snouts. They were shouting or screaming at him, it was hard to tell which, and yet through it Bracken could hear Hulver begin the very final part of the blessing, the part he himself had learned:
‘We bathe their paws in showers of dew,
We free their fur with… ’
But old Hulver got no further. He half-turned at the final moment to face his attackers and Bracken saw that his talons were not raised at all—rather, his paws were outstretched as if he were blessing them. Just as he had blessed the worms at the very first meal they had taken together:
‘Let no mole adown my body
That may hurt my sorrowing soul…’
And then frail Hulver was gone, lost beneath their stabbing, vicious, thrusting, tearing talons, any sound he made drowned by the noise of their screams of anger and the panting of their murderous effort. Torn down where he stood in the shadow of the Stone, at the very heart of the system he loved, uttering the blessing on the youngsters in whose future he believed. Bracken was rooted to the spot, his heart screaming out at the agony of watching the mole he had so quickly grown to love, slaughtered before him. Yet he could not move. He did not have the courage, or the foolishness, to run out into the clearing and face Hulver’s killers.
Then, in a moment, it was over. Mandrake stood back and the others fell away, and without a word to each other, they turned round like a pack of rats in the night and scampered out of the clearing. As they passed Bindle, lying stretched out on the ground, he stirred and moaned, but Mandrake said, ‘Leave him, let him be living owl-fodder.’
They were barely gone before Bracken found his strength again and was able to run out into the clearing to Hulver.
But Hulver was dead, and all he could see was the body of a time-worn old mole, terribly torn, small and crumpled in the moonlight, the left paw catching its light and curled softly like a young pup’s. There was the shiny blackness of blood on him, from his snout to his rump.
With a terrible sob, Bracken ran over to Bindle, who was moaning and whispering, trying to raise himself on a shattered paw, the paw sliding out uselessly from under his weight. Bracken bent low over him and heard him whisper,
‘Bindle, my name is Bindle. I came back to say the ritual with my oldest friend. We almost finished it, didn’t we?’ His breath came rasping and painful, and Bracken’s heart ached to hear it. ‘We almost finished it. And in the end I knew the words. He never thought I knew them all, but I did. When they came at the end I remembered the words.’ Bindle tried to say more but he rasped and coughed, and gasped in his terrible pain. Bracken pressed against him, supporting his torn body, blood on his fur. Bindle started to speak again, each word a massive effort: ‘Listen, youngster, and try to remember them: “We… bathe… their… paws… in…”’
Bracken looked up at the Stone and across to the body of Hulver, whose wisdom he now began to see. And then, at first very softly, but with increasing strength, he joined his voice to the dying Bindle’s: