When the Christmas bells tolled at midnight, sending peals of music over the moonlit fields, Beth’s heart was touched by a pang of homesickness but the animals stopped and looked at each other grimly in anticipation of the slaughter it foretold.
In Silver Wood, in the old days, a Council Meeting would have been called to discuss tactics and to prepare the wood in readiness. ‘They have nearly all gone now,’ thought Brock. ‘Only Wythen is left.’
His mind flashed back with a little thrill of recollection to that Council Meeting, so many seasons ago, when he had broken the news of the arrival of a baby Urkku in the wood. And then he realized, as did the others, that although by the time the killing began they would be a long distance away from the wood nevertheless they would still have to be extremely careful, wherever they were, for the slaughter went on all over the land.
And so they trudged on slowly with their thoughts drifting between the past, the future and the present, and the only sound the crunching of the frozen surface of the snow as they walked. The trees, dark, shadowy and mysterious in the moonlight, seemed to move in acknowledgement as they passed, the boughs dipping slightly, and the sound of the breeze in the branches seeming to greet them and wish them good fortune on their journey.
In the distance the little copse towards which their eyes were fixed stood out clearly on the skyline where it stood encircling the top of a large hummock which grew like an enormous molehill on the relatively flat stretch of moors surrounding it. Soon the colour of the sky behind the copse grew lighter and the animals found themselves among the gently rolling foothills which led up to the flat summit of this small range of hills and, as the first rose-pink streaks of dawn began to appear in the sky to herald the beginning of a new day, Christmas Day, they stood looking across a bleak expanse of moorland in the middle of which was the copse. The snow here was deeper and the wind was quite strong so that it had drifted in the little hollows and against the tussocks and the walking was difficult. Brock and Sam could now only go very slowly because of the dog’s injury and the others had to keep waiting for them. The wind was much colder up here and Beth was thankful that she had brought so many clothes; looking at Nab’s bare legs she gave a little shiver and huddled deep into her grandmother’s cape. They saw no other animals but there was the occasional track of a hare in the snow and once or twice they heard the chuckling of a grouse in the distance. Finally, as a pale watery sun appeared in the clear morning sky, they climbed up the slope of the hummock and entered the copse. They carried on climbing through firs and the occasional twisted oak until they reached the top which was bare of trees and through which sharp angular outcrops of rock showed, where the wind had blown away the snow. The snow had also been blown off the heather and clumps of it clung on to the patches of earth between the rock or else seemingly grew out of the rock itself, its roots finding a precarious foothold in the cracks. It moved with the wind as seaweed moves with the waves and the strong gusts seemed to be trying to pull it away, yanking at it savagely.
Amongst these rocks each of the travellers found a sheltered spot and sat looking down across the bleak expanse below them where the moors stretched away into the distance before dropping down sharply into the valleys and clefts of more foothills and then finally levelling out into a huge plain; and although they could not see it they knew that at the far end of that plain was the ocean towards which they were heading. As they sat with the wind blowing in their faces and making their eyes water and with what seemed to be the whole world laid out beneath them they felt the power of the place fill them with strength and energy. Each of them seemed to grow inwardly until their spirit was bigger than their body and escaped the physical confines in which it had been trapped for so long to leap out into the mountain air and dance joyously in the wind. No longer did the sufferings of their bodies seem important; they seemed to be outside themselves, looking down as they soared into the sky and flew on the wind. This place was one of the Scyttels or places of power, guessed at by many, and whose existence is hinted at in legend and song, but known only to the elves and those with the power of magic. It is at the Scyttels that the elves gather for rejuvenation of their magic and at the greatest of them it is said that the Elflords are visited by Ashgaroth. Thus it was that the Lord Wychnor had chosen this copse as their starting place, for there Nab, as one with the power of magic, would be enabled to get his bearings and to follow the currents of the earth to the Elflords of the Sea and of the Mountains by means of the secret ways, or Roosdyche, which join the Scyttels one to the other.
Nab and Beth were perched together in a little rocky crevice between two enormous boulders, their bodies braced against the wind, exulting in the power of the place and the warmth of each other as they huddled close. They sat like that until the sun was high in the blue sky and then weariness overtook them and they lay down together behind the rock out of the wind and went to sleep. Nab had dropped straight off as soon as his eyes had closed but Beth had lain awake for a while thinking and staring at a sparrowhawk hovering way above them in the distance. She was marvelling at the deep contentment which she felt within herself and luxuriating in the peacefulness of it. Finally when the sparrowhawk had swooped away out of sight she turned to look at Nab lying beside her, his body moving rhythmically as he breathed the deep breath of sleep and his legs curled up into his chest with his head resting on his two hands clasped together under it for a pillow. Then smiling to herself she gently wrapped her arms around him from behind, snuggled up, against him and went off to sleep.