CHAPTER XVI
All through the cold crisp days of January they trudged on across the plain. The cloak of winter was heavy on the land; the trees were bare and stark, the grass cropped short and the fields frozen. There was some snow but no rain; it was too cold for that and the animals were grateful, for rain brings damp and damp is the enemy of every wild creature. So the snow froze, coating the trees with glitter which glinted in the moonlight and covering the fields with a crisp white surface which was easy to walk on and left no footprints. But although they were free of rain there was an icy cutting wind which swept down from the hills they had just crossed and nagged at them until it found a way through to their bodies. Beth was grateful for her cloak and all her layers of clothing which, although heavy and cumbersome to walk in, kept her at least moderately warm.
They kept to the same pattern as before; by day sleeping under hedges or in hollows and then as the sun started to go down in the late afternoon, setting out to walk through cold clear nights when the stars twinkled at them and the moon lit their way. For much of the time the Scyttel of standing stones which they were heading for was out of sight but Nab had no difficulty in feeling the currents of Roosdyche. Sometimes as they travelled they would come across a smaller Scyttel quite accidentally; it would perhaps have been marked by a stone or else it would simply be a little mound or a copse of trees or a place where water welled up from the earth. At other times it took the form of a grotto by a stream or a collection of huge rocks. They would stop by these places for a while and feel the power of the Scyttel giving them energy, strength and clarity of thought and, if they were lucky enough to come across one around dawn, they would sleep there for the day and awake feeling marvellously refreshed and invigorated.
Sam’s injuries were almost perfectly healed now and he was in the peak of condition; his coat a deep shining gold and his eyes clear and bright. Perryfoot too was better and had been ejected unceremoniously from his sling by Nab one night when it was thought that things had got to the stage when he was simply cadging a free ride. In fact, without his lift he would never have got better or even survived but now, although he still had a bad limp and would never be able to recapture his former speed, he was very nearly back to normal.
Beth found that she had got used to the grasses, roots, berries and toadstools that Nab found for her and had even begun to enjoy some of them. They at least now kept her going and she looked forward to the spring and summer when she knew there would be far more variety and choice. Now she was able to recognize some and, although Nab always insisted that he look at them before she ate in case they were poisonous, she gathered most of her food herself.
The teaching and the learning of each other’s language, which had begun in the hay bam, continued as they walked along together through the nights and it was not long before Nab had enough command of Beth’s language to be able to tell her of his life and of the purpose of their mission together. She listened in amazement and fascination as he told her of his early days with Brock and Tara in the sett and of how he had been found, and of his adventures and friendships with the other animals in Silver Wood. He related to her the tales and legends of the members of the Council; Rufus, Bruin, Sterndale and Pictor, all of them now dead, and he told her the stories which he had been told of the great heroes of the past and of the early days when the Urkku were first on the earth and of the myths of the time Before-Man. Slowly, as their journey together continued, Beth felt a whole new world revealed to her; a world of whose existence she had previously been almost totally unaware and a world over which the shadow of the Urkku loomed, omnipresent, dark and forbidding. She felt as if her eyes were being slowly opened and when finally Nab retold to her, as best he could, the saga which had been related to him by the Lord Wychnor, then the answers to so many questions which had worried her and puzzled her for so long became clear; now the jigsaw became complete. She felt humble and proud to have been the one chosen by Ashgaroth to accompany Nab and she was pleased that the significance of her dreams had been explained. And she was to play a part in this saga; a part which she and the others would only fully understand at the end when they had completed their mission and Ashgaroth revealed it to them. When Nab had finished he buried his hand beneath his raiments of bark and, finding the casket on the Belt of Ammdar which contained the Ring, he pressed the catch and put his fingers inside to pull it out.
‘Here; this belongs to you. It is your gift from Ashgaroth; given to me as a sign for you by the Lord Wychnor,’ Nab said tenderly.
Beth took the precious ring, which she remembered so clearly from her dreams, and as she did so the silvery threads of mist deep inside it shimmered and moved gracefully in the golden light given off by the jewel deep in the shank. She placed it slowly and carefully on the long middle finger of her right hand and it seemed to cast an aura of light around her, so powerful was its glow. There it remained for ever, never to be removed, and the strength of its beauty never failed to fill Beth with wonder whenever she looked at it, and to help her through the difficult times ahead whenever she felt doubt or fear or uncertainty. It was her link with the world which Nab had shown her; her proof that she was truly chosen, and a constant reminder of the power and magic of that world and the depth of its mysteries.
The country through which they were going was not as flat as it had appeared from their first view of it; little streams and valleys cut it up and there were large areas of woodland and these they passed quickly in case they were seen by any of the travellers living in them. The existence of Nab and Beth must be kept secret until the end, and talk within a wood would soon find its way out to Dréagg through careless conversations. As they passed on across the plain the land became more fertile, the fields smaller and the Urkku dwellings more numerous. Farms were everywhere and sometimes it was impossible to avoid being within sight of one and they would find themselves crawling along ditches or by the side of hedges as lights from the farm windows blazed out across the fields and the noise of the cows being milked in the shippens, the hum of milking machines or the clatter of pails drifted out on the frosty air. At other times a dog would bark and the travellers would freeze where they were as a door opened and an Urkku stared out into the night to see what had caused the disturbance. Then they would wait until the door had closed again before venturing forward like silent shadows.
It was also at this time that they came across roads; the great bands of concrete which cut across the face of the land. Beth explained the purpose of them to Nab and he in turn told the others although they had all seen them before. Beth told them of the dangers if they were crossing when one of the Urkku vehicles was travelling along, and she always led the way over them, standing on the verge looking out for headlights and beckoning them to go over one by one when she thought it was safe. Sometimes two of them would be safely on the far side, normally Perryfoot and Brock as they went first, and then a stream of cars would appear from nowhere and the animals would lie terrified behind a bank, or hidden in a ditch by the verge, while the cars roared past in a thundering storm of noise and light, choking them with dust and fumes and leaving them shaking with fear. Once they had been crossing on a bend and Beth, thinking it was safe, had motioned Perryfoot across. He had just hopped on to the tarmac when a car screamed around the corner trapping him in its lights. The hare had frozen, mesmerized as Nab remembered from the incident he’d seen in the field at the front of Silver Wood, but fortunately Beth had just had time to leap out and pull him back before he was crushed under the wheels. The driver had seen the girl in the glare of his headlamps and had pulled to a halt further up the road. Beth had gone up to him when he got out and told him that it was her little dog he had almost run over and that she had left him tied to a tree at the side of the road in the ditch. He offered her and her dog a lift home as it was a cold night and it was past eleven o’clock, but she had politely declined the offer explaining that she did not live far away and was just taking the dog out for its last walk. The man had then wished her goodnight, walked back to his car and driven off, feeling slightly bemused by the sight of the wild-looking pretty young girl in the brown tweed cape whose eyes had seemed to transfix him with their depth and intensity and whose blonde hair had tumbled like a mane around her shoulders. She did not live far away, she had said, and yet the nearest house he had passed was eight miles back. Once back in the familiar surroundings of his own car, it was almost as if he had dreamt the entire incident.