Left right left right!
Our queen is comin’ home tonight!
Left right left right!
The clans are marchin’ free!”
They halted on the far bank and sat down for a rest. Tiria heaved a sigh of relief as she lifted the babe over her head and set her down on the grass. The little one came to earth, clutching the royal coronet in her tiny paws. Tiria pretended to look shocked.
“So, a coronet robber, eh?”
Wrinkling her nose, the otterbabe returned the regalia. “H’a sorry, Kweemarm!”
Leatho bounced the babe in his lap. “Kweemarm, I like that, it fits ye well. Kweemarm!”
Tiria splashed streamwater at him. “Don’t you dare start calling me Kweemarm, or I’ll call you by your baby name!”
The outlaw picked up the otterbabe. Pressing his forehead against hers, he whispered, “So then, rascal, wot d’ye call me?”
The tiny otter giggled. “Heehee, Fleeko Spellbrown!”
Big Kolun sat the otterbabe on his paw. He smiled at her. “An’ wot’s my name, liddle cuddlerudder?”
She stared solemnly at him. “Unka Kolun!”
He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Hoho, I’ll be yore Unka Kolun anytime, darlin’!”
The cooks had packed food, which they had prepared the night before. The streambank assumed the air of a picnic lunch as everybeast sat eating and dabbling their footpaws in the shallows. Quartle and Portan shared a long loaf sliced lengthwise and filled with preserved fruit. Holding an end apiece, they bit into the long sandwich.
“I say, old lad, this is better’n haversack rations, wot!”
“Rather! Yum yum, sammies!”
The little ones thought this was hilarious. After gulping down everything they were given to eat, they splashed about in the water shouting, “Yumyum sammies! Yumyum sammies!”
Big Kolun chuckled. “Wait’ll they see Summerdell—the falls, an’ the waterslide, an’ the swimpools. I tell ye, Lady, they won’t forget ye for wot ye done for ’em!”
Tiria shook her head. “You mean for what you’ve done, and our brave hares. I just stood about an’ looked like a queen most of the time.”
Kolun winked at her. “An’ ye did it very nicely, marm!”
Cuthbert came wading along. Chewing at an enormous slice of salad turnover, he waved his swagger stick at them. “Everythin’ hunky dory here, wot?”
Tiria threw him a very pretty salute. “We’re fine, thank you, Major. How are you?”
He squinched down on his monocle in a sort of half-wink. “Flourishin’, marm, thankee. Must have a word, though.”
Sitting among them, he beckoned Leatho, Kolun and Tiria close, dropping his voice. “Cap’n Rafe an’ Sarn’t O’Cragg have just reported back from the advance scouts. Seems there’s a jolly old spot o’ bother loomin’ ahead.”
Leatho became alert. “Wot sort o’ bother, Major?”
Cuthbert explained. “Top o’ that big crater over yonder. Seems a heap o’ flippin’ cats have built a wall, type o’ barricade, right across the bloomin’ path. Nerve o’ the whiskery blighters, wot! Nothin’ for you t’worry about, Milady. You stop here with the families. The Long Patrol an’ some of our otterchums will sort ’em out, sharpish!”
Big Kolun stroked his rudder thoughtfully. “Sharpish ain’t a word I’d use, Major. A few pawfuls o’ foebeasts could hold that pass agin twice our numbers.”
Leatho agreed with Kolun. “Right, mate. They could hold us there all season, stop us gettin’ back to the families at Holt Summerdell.”
Cuthbert rose in sprightly manner. “Right, then we’ll just have t’shift the villains post haste, wot! You chaps comin’?”
Tiria bounded up beside Cuthbert. “Yes we are, and I’m one of the chaps. A queen’s place is with her warriors. Much as I like playing with babes, that’ll have to wait awhile. Raise the clans, Shellhound!”
Cuthbert was about to object when Kolun cautioned him, “Ye don’t argue with a queen, Major, especially one that sounds like my missus when she’s dancin’ on her rudder!”
The hare took one look at the tall ottermaid unwinding her sling and coughed. “Harrumph! Very good, point taken old lad, wot!”
Balur crouched on the rimtop, holding a long pike axe by his side. Shielding his eyes against the noontide sun, he squinted down the steep, rocky, brushstrewn slope of the crater. Everything seemed unusually quiet; even the grasshoppers had stopped chirruping among the heather, and the humming of bees visiting gorseflowers was absent. He raised himself slightly higher, thinking he had detected a movement amid some rocks.
He had time for only one strangled yelp as the slingstone split his skull. Then he toppled downhill, with a few loose rocks falling behind him.
“Eulaliiiiaaaa! Ee aye eeeeeeeee!”
Slingstones whipped uphill, most of them bouncing off the barricade which stood across the path, a few finding their way over the rough stone wall but not causing much damage to the enemy.
Pitru was up and at the barricade, snapping out orders. “Archers, stand by! Spears and pikes, drop back! Slingers and boulder throwers, up front here!”
Sergeant O’Cragg shook his head at Leatho and Tiria. “Ye needs t’be further h’up to be doin’ h’any good with those slings!”
Cuthbert whispered to Captain Granden, “It looks like we’ll have to try a charge!”
Before Granden could reply, there was a clatter and a rumble from above. The steep crater side shook as an avalanche of rock and rubble pounded down from above.
Tiria yelled, “Find cover, quick! Get your heads down!”
She and Kolun crouched behind a rocky outcrop as boulders bounced by overhead, followed by a hurtling mass of soil, vegetation and scree. Big Kolun covered Tiria, shielding her with his powerful back. She felt the thud as several missiles rebounded from him. Then there was silence, soon broken by a cheer from the cats on the rim.
Kolun straightened up, spitting out dust and groaning as he rubbed his back. “Phew! They nearly had us that time, Lady!”
The ottermaid wiped debris from her eyes anxiously. “Are you hurt, Kolun? Did any big rocks hit you?”
The big fellow managed a rueful grin. “Oh, I think I’ll live, marm. Banya, wot’s goin’ on?”
Banya Streamdog came scurrying on all fours, a large gash over one eye. “We lost two clanbeasts an’ a hare.... Look out!”
The three huddled together as another load of boulders thundered down the slope. This was smaller than the first lot, and soon petered out.
Now the catguards were chanting. “Pitru! Pitru! Death to his foes!”
In the relative safety of the rocky outcrop, Cuthbert, Granden and O’Cragg joined Kolun, Leatho, Banya and Tiria for a hasty Council of War. Granden glanced grimly up at the crater top.
“Bad show all round, chaps, wot?”
Kolun looked up from pressing some dried moss to Banya’s wound. “I told ye they could pin us down here, Major. There ain’t no way we can get at the scum, that’s a fact!”
Cuthbert polished dust from his monocle nonchalantly. “Pish-tush, old lad! I’ve thought of a solution already. Sarn’t O’Cragg, see if y’can’t get the Patrol an’ a few stout otter types away off to the left flank. Quietly now, don’t let the cats see what we’re up to, wot! Cap’n Granden, I’ll leave you in charge here. Begin advancin’ slowly in ranks of three, slingin’ fusillades.”
The captain drew his long rapier. “I’m with ye, Major Frunk. We keep the blighters busy while you work a flanker on’em. Hah, we’ve played that game before. Remember when we whacked those vermin at the south cliffs?”
Cuthbert nodded. “Precisely! But remember, don’t give the order to charge ’til ye hear me give the old war whoop.”
Captain Rafe Granden threw a curt salute. “Aye, sir. The moment ye yell, we’ll come runnin’ like death on the wind. There’ll be a lot o’ cats linin’ up at Hellgates by sunset!”
Major Cuthbert Blanedale Frunk began to smile. “By thunder there will, I’ll see to that. G’bye, chaps!”