‘Very sad,’ said Rune. ‘Very unpleasant. The work of Mandrake, I’m afraid, wasn’t it?’ He looked menacingly at Coltsfoot and Pipple; he could not see Violet, who was some way behind Rue and sensibly staying there. The two youngsters nodded silently. Rue could see they were terrified, too afraid even to run to her. She went to them.
Rune looked at her and said, ‘You will go to Barrow Vale and report that Mandrake has tried to kill your litter and that Rune has managed to save all but one of them. Tell them that he wants the henchmoles to muster. Tell them that Rune is coming.’
Rue started to back away, eyes wide, protectively pulling two youngsters with her.
Rune loomed towards her. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he smiled. ‘They’ll slow your progress, and anyway, I will protect them from Mandrake should he return.’ He reached out his paws for them, talons loose, and she looked into his evil eyes, every instinct telling her to push them behind her and fight… and yet, if she did, they would surely die, whereas this way, Rune’s way, there could be a chance.
‘Will they be all right?’
‘Of course,’ nodded Rune, ‘they’ll be safer here than tagging along with you. I will block up the entrance into the Ancient System, making it more difficult for Mandrake to return and then hide elsewhere in these tunnels. If Mandrake returns, which he may very soon do, I will fight him for you, for I hate him as you do, as we all do. Now the time has come to resist him, so run to Barrow Vale now, not only for your system’s sake but for your litter’s, too.’
Rue’s grasp of Coltsfoot and Pipple loosened. Perhaps he was telling the truth. She looked round for Violet, and not seeing her, decided not to mention her.
‘Take care of them,’ she whispered desperately, then she turned and ran for their lives towards Barrow Vale.
The two youngsters looked up at Rune, feeling utterly betrayed and now quite terrified. Rune looked down at them, and as his smile faded, he pulled back his paw swiftly and, with a lunge powerful enough to make him grunt a little with its effort, he stabbed Coltsfoot to death.
Pipple simply turned and ran, his tiny paws desperately trying to carry him away from Rune, who watched him go and then nonchalantly trotted after him, letting him run for a twist and turn or two of the tunnel. Unwittingly, Pipple ran straight into the place where Violet was hiding and the two simply crouched transfixed as Rune came upon them in a side tunnel.
‘Well!’ said Rune, ‘how many more of you are there?’
‘There’s four of us altogether,’ said Violet.
‘Just two left, then,’ said Rune to himself. He decided to leave one alive, just so it could tell the story to the henchmoles. Whichever one it was would be too confused to know the truth, and too terrified to tell it if he did. He wondered coldly which one to kill.
‘What are your names?’ asked Rune.
‘I’m Violet,’ said Violet, ‘and he’s Pipple.’ Pipple looked up at Rune and put his paw for safety on his sister’s flank.
‘Pipple?’ ruminated Rune. He didn’t like the name.
So he killed Pipple.
‘My name’s Mandrake,’ lied Rune to Violet, just to confuse the youngster further. And with that he went back to the main tunnel and headed off for Barrow Vale, slowly enough to let Rue get there ahead of him and create some panic before he arrived.
Violet crouched in the tunnel looking at the crumpled Pipple. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open. ‘Pipple?’ she faltered. ‘Pipple?’ She touched him, but he didn’t move.
She ran down the tunnel, back to where they had been, and found Coltsfoot. ‘Coltsfoot?’ she said, her voice faltering in fear about the tunnel. But she didn’t move either.
Then on towards where Beech had been… surely he would be there. Yes, he was, but there was blood on him. He wasn’t like Beech any more.
Violet looked in panic around the tunnel, not even seeing the owl face that lowered down at her from the flint seal. All she knew was that she could not return down the tunnel where that big mole who had hurt Beech, Pipple and Coltsfoot had gone. She was too afraid to do that.
So she turned instead to the tunnel by the side of the flint that went into the hill where that other big mole had gone, the one who had laughed. Perhaps he would help them. He would know what to do to help Beech and Pipple and Coltsfoot. So, panicking and half sobbing, Violet clambered over the fresh earth burrowed out by Mandrake and went into the echoing depths of the Ancient System, fear behind her and Mandrake somewhere in the darkness ahead.
Rune’s plan worked. It could hardly have done otherwise. Rue had given such a garbled version of what had happened, and was in such a state of shock, that everymole became convinced that it was Mandrake who had killed one of her young, and Mandrake who was now lurking in the Ancient System, possibly with the Stone Mole himself, ready to wreak vengeance on Duncton.
Moles gathered in panic in Barrow Vale, and when Rune arrived he was greeted like the saviour he wanted to appear to be. The time, he told them, had come for the system to act. The Stone had sent Mandrake to test the system’s courage and strength and it must now act by killing him and prove to the Stone that they would not accept such an evil leader.
In the next few hours, henchmoles flocked into Barrow Vale, and even some Eastsiders, hearing the news, came and offered their help.
Rune fuelled their anger by cynically sending Rue back to her tunnels.
'With a henchmole to ‘watch over her’—to collect her young, whom he said he had had to leave there so that he could get himself to Barrow Vale quickly. The terrible story she brought back, that her young were dead or gone, which the henchmole confirmed, gave Rune the final impetus he needed to create a sense of communal outrage against Mandrake and set the moles gathered in Barrow Vale on the path to destroy Mandrake and ‘anymole still in his thrall’.
Rune made various speeches, the most predictable of which ended with the words, ‘These are troubled times and at a time when we lack a leader we must stand firm together…’
At the words ‘lack a leader’ there were cries of dissent and dismay from the attendant henchmoles, who clamoured to let him know that he was far too modest, he was their leader, would he lead them? It was finally Burrhead himself who proposed it, a suggestion Rune accepted ‘reluctantly’ and ‘for the time being’ and with the thought to himself that life can sometimes be very simple.
It was now only a matter of time before Rune would lead the henchmoles back up to the tunnel into the Ancient System and then march through its aged depths to find and kill Mandrake.
There was only one small cloud on Rune’s horizon, and that was the uncooperative attitude of the Marsh End to his new rule.
‘I see no Marshenders lending their support here in Barrow Vale,’ he said smoothly to Mekkins, who had put in an appearance to see what was going on.
‘Disease,’ lied Mekkins, taking a tip from Curlew’s methods of isolating herself. ‘Been dropping like flies in the Marsh End, they have. Often do this time of year, just before the mating season is about to start. There’s not a mole down there doesn’t want to give his support, Rune—in fact, I had to physically restrain a whole pack of them from coming up here. There’s no love lost for Mandrake down our way, you know. But I felt it was too big a risk, mate, too much trouble.’
Rune didn’t like Mekkins—far too disrespectful. Nor did he entirely believe his story. But there were other things to think about and the Marshenders’ failure to help oust Mandrake would be just the excuse he was going to need when it came to doing what he had long wanted to do—wipe out the Marshenders, Mekkins included.