The Heir of Mistmantle (22 page)

“They’re moving the little ones out of the Mole Palace,” said Sepia, cupping her paws around her drink. “There are streams bursting and water rushing off the hills, it’s so heavy that they’re building defenses and things to prevent a landslide. The king and Captain Padra and everybody, they’re all there, getting people out of burrows.”

“That’s dangerous!” said Juniper.

Sepia hesitated. He was right, but if she said so he’d want to go straight there. Juniper didn’t wait for an answer.

“Is Urchin there?” he demanded.

“Well…” said Sepia, already wishing she hadn’t said anything.

“You mean he is?”

“The king will not put Urchin in danger,” said Fir mildly.

“The king can’t be everywhere at once!” cried Juniper, jumping to his paws.

“And neither can you,” said Fir. “You have had more than enough for one day, and you are distressed.”

“I’ll be a lot more distressed if Urchin gets hurt,” argued Juniper, “without me lifting a paw to help him. There should be a priest there. You can’t go, so I must.”

“I will not forbid you to go,” said Fir, “but I would advise against it.”

“I have to!” said Juniper. “I have to prove to myself that I can rise above being Husk’s son!”

“You rose above it, long before you knew about it,” said Fir. “If you must go, remember that you must not put Urchin or yourself in any greater danger. And however much you want to be a hero, remember that you are inexperienced. Obey orders, whether from the king or from a captain.”

“Yes, Brother Fir,” said Juniper. “May I have your blessing anyway?” He knelt for the touch of Fir’s paw on his head and the murmured words of blessing, took the dry cloak that Sepia held out to him, and pattered down the stairs.

Fir sank back onto the pillows, his eyes closing. Sepia, not sure whether he was praying, falling asleep, or both, settled the blanket gently around him to keep him warm.

She couldn’t do much good at the landslide site. There were enough animals there already. After the long day, the leaping flames and surrounding quiet made her realize how tired she was.

It would be nice to go home and be in her old nest with her sisters, but it was too stormy to go home now, and too far. The quiet, sleepy breath of Brother Fir made her intensely lonely. He could sleep and she couldn’t, not after all she had seen and heard that day. Once, he stirred in his sleep and said “stars” very clearly as if he were awake, but he slept peacefully after that. She wrapped herself in a cloak and, reluctant to leave the fireside, looked into the kindly fire, holding Damson and Juniper in her heart. She had sunk into a light, restless sleep when someone tapped softly at the door. She jumped up, took the lantern, and slipped to open the door.

“Your Majesty!” she said, and bobbed a curtsy—then when the light fell on the queen’s face, Sepia stepped back, holding the door wide, and stretched out her paws.

The queen was thin and haggard, her eyes red-rimmed with sorrow and tiredness, the catkin blanket clutched in her paws. Her flame-red coat had grown dull, and the familiar smell of herbs and vinegar hung about her. She looked wild with grief, and Sepia saw more than the Queen of Mistmantle. She saw a mother facing yet another long, terrible night of not knowing where her baby was.

“I went out to see to Yarrow,” she said. She looked tightly huddled, as if she were cold. “He’s had fouldrought badly, but he’ll live. I’ve washed, I’ve done all the right things. I came to see if Brother Fir was all right.”

“He’s much better. He’s asleep now,” said Sepia. “Come in, Your Majesty. Come and get warm.”

The queen knelt by the fire and sipped the hot cordial Sepia put into her paws. She still looked cold, so Sepia put an arm around her.

“Shouldn’t you go to bed?” she said gently.

“Thripple keeps telling me that,” said Cedar, but she put down the mug. “I don’t want to sleep. I have nightmares. But I’ll go.”

“No, don’t!” said Sepia. “I mean, not if you don’t want to. Not if you’d rather be here. Excuse me, I won’t be long.”

She ran quietly down the stairs and, with the help of a mole maid, fetched the quilt from the royal bedchamber. Back in Fir’s turret, she warmed it by the fire and spread it on the floor while Brother Fir talked to the queen.

“You stood up to Smokewreath in Whitewings,” he was saying. “Stand up to him in your dreams. And tell him no curse can stand against the Heart. Tell him that!”

At last, the queen drifted into a few hours’sleep. It was as if Brother Fir’s quiet breathing had a power to soothe. Sepia slept, too. She dreamed of stars, mists, and Catkin, while Brother Fir dreamed of exactly the same things. Halfway through a dream in which stars danced around Mistmantle Tower, she woke.

What had woken her? She sat up, aware of the empty space beside her where the queen had been, and of the figure of a squirrel looking out of a window.

“Your Majesty?” she said.

“Did I wake you, Sepia?” said the queen softly. “I slept well for the first time since…for the first time. Then I woke and realized I hadn’t said good night to her. I always do that, wherever she is.” She leaned from the window. “Heart bless you, Catkin,” she whispered. “Mummy’s here.”

Sepia rubbed her eyes and remembered her dream. It seemed important.

“Your Majesty,” she said. “You know on the night of riding stars before…”

The queen shuddered.

“Sorry, but, you know the stars circled the tower?”

“Did they, Sepia?”

“Well, that’s supposed to make you think of your hopes and dreams,” she went on. “And, I mean, I think it’s because, when they go around the tower, they disappear, as if they weren’t there anymore. As if your hopes and dreams had just gone away and disappeared. But you see them again, Your Majesty, they always come around.”

“I suppose they do, Sepia,” sighed the queen, and put a paw to her mouth as she yawned. Sepia slipped downstairs. She’d fetch some pillows and lavender, and perhaps, in the soothing peace of the turret, the queen would sleep without nightmares again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LAGUE, LICE, FIRE, AND VERMIN
!” cursed Lugg, ankle-deep in mud. Through the drenching rain and darkness, he passed an armful of wet pit props to Urchin. “Them otters must be dislodging as much as they stop.”

“They’re not!” yelled Crispin. “They’re doing a great job up there. This will soon stop!”

“Not blooming soon enough!” growled Lugg as another wave of mud and stones slithered downhill toward them. “Are them hedgehogs out of that burrow?”

“All out and accounted for,” said Urchin, struggling through mud as he passed along the pit props. “But there’s another burrow beyond it. What’s their best way out?”

“Top way, sharpish,” said Lugg. “Give 'em a shout, but don’t go up there if you can help it.”

Urchin shouted, but he knew his voice would be whipped away in the wind. There was no choice but to scramble to the top of the bank, unbuckling his sword to make himself lighter.

“Come out the top way!” he yelled. “Quickly, one at a time!”

He heard Crispin shouting something, strained to hear the words, and turned with rain driving into in his eyes. Looking uphill he saw Crispin cupping his paws, shouting, and Padra, waving and pointing to a wave of mud and stone lurching furiously downhill.

He sprang backward as mud, grass, and stone cascaded toward the burrows. Animals with lanterns were running in all directions as Crispin, Padra, and Lugg shouted orders—
Stay back!
—
Over here!
—
Spread out!
The churning mud gathered power and speed, hurling rocks ahead of it, huge and savage as a monster in a nightmare.

The slope shallowed. The landslide slowed, spreading its weight, thinned to a trickle, slithered over Crispin’s paws, and finally stopped.

There was a brief and total silence, then a cheer that was almost a sigh of relief, and a low whistle from Lugg.

“Not bad for a practice run,” he remarked.

Crispin climbed onto a mound of earth. He was so daubed with mud that the white patch on his chest was obscured, and his ears were the only clean part of him.

“Anyone harmed?” he called. “Urchin, come farther back. That would have been a lot worse if not for the work the otters are doing at the top there. This lot was way below the dam already. Is anyone in those burrows?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, and I can’t see them getting out in a hurry,” replied Lugg. “We were going to get them out the top way, but that lot will have blocked it solid. The only other way now is a twisty one that goes well under the hill, in and out and I don’t know what. Dead ends all over the place. They’ll need an escort to get them out. Permission to do it myself, please, Your Majesty. I don’t fancy asking anyone else to.”

“You may, Lugg,” said Crispin. “And choose who you want to help you. No unnecessary risks.” He called a few hedgehogs to his side and squelched back up the hill. Urchin watched Lugg run along the bank, scrabble at an almost invisible entrance, and wriggle into the darkness. There were a few muffled words, and something about needing more props.

The stack of pit props had been thrown in all directions by the mud slide. Urchin, seeing some sticking up through the mud at wild angles as if reaching out to be rescued, crawled to gather a few together.

“Pit props, Lugg!” he called, and lowered them down, wriggling and angling them as they jammed against tree roots. From the calls of “Mind me snout!” he knew they were getting there.

“Move, littl’ ’uns!” yelled Lugg. To a chorus of mutters and curses, two terrified young squirrels ran from the entrance, looking over their shoulders with wild, frightened eyes.

“It’s caving in!” squealed one.

“Get clear, then!” yelled Urchin, but they huddled beside him. They looked like brothers, and he remembered meeting them before. “It’ll cave in even faster if you stand on top of it,” he insisted. “Go…” He could see Docken guiding animals to safety. “You see that tall hedgehog? That’s Docken of the Circle. Go to him. Crawl, get farther up and onto the driest ground you can find.”

The older squirrel retreated backward, leading the younger by the paw, but with a heartbroken wail of “Mummy!” the little one pulled with all his strength toward the entrance.

“Sh, Pepper,” said the older one. “Master Urchin and Captain Lugg will get them out. Please, Master Urchin, sir, I’m Grain and he’s Pepper, and our mum and dad and Mistress Wheatear are still in there.”

“And they’ll want you to be safe, so go to Master Docken,” insisted Urchin. “Captain Lugg will get them out, if anyone can.”

“Do you need this, sir?” said Grain, heaving with his free paw at a log sticking out of the mud.

“Thanks,” said Urchin, dragging it into place to give to Lugg. “Now, GO!”

There was another length of timber almost buried in the mud, but when he heaved it out he saw it was too short to hold up a tunnel roof. “More props!” he yelled to anyone who could hear.

“There’s no more!” yelled Docken, taking Grain and Pepper by the paws. “None big enough!”

“Pass whatever there is, then!” Urchin shouted back. The timbers someone passed to him were too short to hold up a tunnel, but perhaps an animal could hold them up, or wedge them against a tree root…. From underground came a terrifying rumble.

“PLAGUE!” bellowed Lugg. “Where’s the plaguing props? LIGHT!”

“Someone bring a lantern!” yelled Urchin. Twigg slithered toward him, one arm wrapped around a bundle of timber and holding up a lantern in his other paw.

“The wood might not be long enough, but it’s all I could get,” panted Twigg. “And here’s your lantern.”

Urchin lowered the wood, but the lantern was too awkward a shape to ease into the tunnel. Hind paws first, holding the light above him, he clambered down into the tunnel and held it high. In its warm circle, he saw Lugg heaving pit props into place. Mounds of fallen earth, leaves, and mud lay on the ground around him. Three squirrel faces peered out from a dark corner.

“Shall we make a run for it, Captain Lugg?” asked one.

“Not yet!” grunted Lugg. “Urchin, what in plagues and fire are you doing here?”

“Bringing your lantern,” said Urchin.