In a short while the boats appeared. They were long log-boats carved from pine trunks, punted skillfully by old shrews.
Log a Log took Sunflashs paw. “Youll like our settlement; well lay on a feast for you thatll make your fur curl, matey.
The big badger shook Log a Logs paw firmly. “No, thank you, friend. I have my own path to follow.
Folrig and Ruddle nodded in agreement. “Aye, matey, were bound a long ways from here.
Sunflash grabbed the two otters and, tucking one beneath each elbow, he walked to the broadstream and dropped them into the nearest logboat.
“You two ugly mugs are going back with Log a Log, he said. “This part of my journey I must make alone. I can feel it in my bones; the mountain of Salamandastron is not far away now.
By the look on Sunflashs face, the otters knew there would be no room for argument, so they slipped back into their old insulting ways.
Ruddle stretched out in the stem and waved. “Gbye, ole frog frightener, hope yore mountain doesnt crack down the middle when ylook at it, what dyou say, nastynose?
Folrig flicked streamwater at the badger. “Right, me ole bulgebelly, at least I wont have twake up an think Im havin nightmares when I see yore great big badgerbutterbonce starin at me. Take care of yoreself, cos nobeast else will, yore not pretty enough!
Skarlath and Sunflash stood on the shore, waving as the logboats loaded with Guosim disappeared around the broad-stream bend with the shrews paddling and chanting:
“Shrum a too rye hey, shrum a too rye hey,
Dig those paddles deep today,
Where the alders shade me overhead,
And trout swim on the broadstream bed.
Im a Guosim to the water wed,
Shrum a too rye hey, shrum a too rye hey,
Ill see you one day to make,
Oer any stream or pond or lake,
A good ole logboats ripplin wake,
Shrum a too rye hey, shrum a too rye hey, shrum shrummmmmm.
The sounds died off into the far shady reaches of the broad-stream.
Sunflash turned to Skarlath as he set off, saying, “Straight south to the end of autumn, I dreamed it last night. But what of you, my hawk, have you no affairs of your own to fly off to and attend?
The kestrel circled his companions head. “Ill stay with you for a score and a half days, until you reach your dream mountain, then I will fly off and see to my own business.
Sunflash tried to focus on Skarlath as he swooped and wheeled. “How do you know it is a score and a half days away?
Dipping low, the kestrel brushed the gold-striped head with his wings and flew off high, calling, “Because I have flown south until I saw it rearing to the sky. Go now, see for yourself, Badger Lord of Salamandastron!
The autumn was, if anything, as warm as the summer. Sunflash traveled the shores moving south. He saw little of Skarlath during this time, but he knew his friend was not far off, watching, ever watching. Misty mornings dissolved into golden noontides and crimson sunsets, and the big badger found peace, walking alone, making solitary camp at night, thinking, and reflecting on both the past and the future. Often he was visited in dreams by his mother, father and grandsires; they imparted much wisdom to him, as if preparing him for the role he was to play.
The last day of autumn was hot and bright as midsummer. Still as a millpond, the sea reflected a cloudless blue sky. Sea-birds wheeled and called, soaring lazily on the warm thermals above the sun-baked sands of the shore.
Sunflash stood for a moment, his breath taken away by the majesty of the great mountain that lay ahead of him.
Two hares stood shaded by a cave entrance, watching a fully grown male badger plough his way wearily across the beach toward them. He was big and dangerous looking; the fierce light in his eyes glinted off the metal tip of an immense war club that he carried easily in one paw.
When the two hares stepped out from the shadows, Sunflash could see that both were of a very great age.
“What do they call this place? he asked.
The older of the hares, a male, answered him: “Salamandastron, the place of the fire lizard.
The badger gave a huge sigh. Leaning against the rock, he rested his club on the sand.
“I feel as if Ive been here before, he said strangely.
The female hare produced victuals from within the cave entrance. “Rest awhile. Eat and drink. I am called Breeze, and this is my brother Starbuck. What do they call you?
The badger smiled. He touched one of his headstripes, which was yellow rather than white.
“Some call me Sunflash the Mace. I am the son of Bella and Barkstripe. Im a traveller.
Starbuck nodded in satisfaction. “Your travelling is at an end, Sunflash. You are the grandson of Boar the Fighter and great grandson of Old Lord Brocktree. It is written on the walls of our mountain that you would come here someday.
Sunflash straightened up. He stared hard at the hares. “Written, you say. By whom?
Breeze shrugged. “By whoever wrote that other hares will follow after us. That is the way it has always been and always will be.
Both hares stood in the cave entrance. They bowed to the badger.
“Welcome to your mountain, Sunflash the Mace, Lord of Salamandasiron.
The high sun above watched as the badger and the hares went together into the mountain on the shores below.
Skarlath the kestrel had watched all from the crater peak of the mountain fortress. Fierce pride welled in his breast for the badger who had given him back his life all those long seasons ago in a winter forest. Then, without a backward glance, he soared off into the blue, winging northeast to seek out Swartt Sixclaw.
Book Two: A Broken Trust
18
Nobeast in living memory could recall a winter as long and harsh as the one that followed the brief, hot autumn, though some had predicted it earlier, judging by the great number of berries that were seen on tree and bush at harvest time. Shrieking northeast winds drove the snow into deep drifts, and great, ancient trees were riven, split from root to tip, felled by ice that sought out any weakness in their trunks. Overnight, the west-flowing river stood still, frozen solid. Bushes lining both banks poked bare skeletal twigs at the hostile sky, as if pleading for the release of spring. Bitter and intense, the cruel season took savage toll of anybeast weakened by its ravages. It was a winter of death, hunger, and despair.
The great horde of the Warlord was held prisoner, trapped amid a freezing world of whiteness. They erected crude shelters in the woodland surrounding the riverbank. Sustenance and morale were at their lowest, stifling any ideas of desertion or mutiny as effectively as the snows that shrouded the earth.
Bluefen, daughter of Bowfleg and wife of Swartt, gave birth to a ferretbabe, after which she faded and died, like a delicate spring flower suddenly embraced by severe frost, though it was said that she had never been a strong creature. Unlike the babe, a young male, tough as a deep-rooted weed and marked with the legacy of his father Swartt, six tiny claws showing on the left forepaw. The Warlord lived up to his title the Pitiless One, neither grieving after his wife nor caring for his son. Bluefen was buried with scant ceremony in a shallow hole hacked into the stone-hard earth, while the babe was given to an old female rat to nurse and guard. Swartt acted as though the whole thing was no concern of his.
Nightshade, the vixen seer and healer, had erected a separate shelter as far from the vicious-tempered Warlord as she dared, though she was constantly on call, applying heated poultices and nostrums to her masters damaged six-clawed paw, which pained him agonizingly in cold weather. Hordebeasts crouched and trembled in their own meager dwellings, listening at night to Swartts anguished cries as winter tortured his withered paw. Any horde soldier with a grain of sense kept clear of the Warlord when he was like this, for the ferrets temper was unpredictable. Once the pains had subsided, Swartt would sit in his fir-bough lean-to, staring into the fire, sleepless, cursing the name of Sunflash the Mace. Revenge was what kept Swartt Sixclaw alive through that winter. The thought of vengeance upon his foe was like food, drink, and sleep to him, as he planned what he would do on the day he had the badger at his mercy. And so the horde existed through that long winter, starving, freezing, and waiting for spring.