Duncton Stone (74 page)

This deadlock might have continued for a molemonth or two more but for the arrival in Banbury of a mole who had travelled night and day with news that was to change everything, and directly bring about the downfall of Quail and Squilver, and lead to their headlong flight south into Duncton Wood.

This mole, the tough and unpleasant Newborn commander Dirke of Devizes, deputed by Sapient for precisely this kind of intelligence work, had come hot-paw from Avebury to report that system’s devastating capture by the followers under Maple, and the danger that now confronted Buckland.

To be more accurate, Dirke had come from Avebury by way of Barbury Hill where, “We caught them napping, Sapient, sir, and killed a good few in the Stone’s name.” In short, it was Dirke who should have been among those arraigned and executed by the followers for the crimes of Barbury.

But he had got away, and now he was speaking to Sapient privily, for he knew enough not to tell anymole-else what his errand was, though his condition – filthy, tired, and cut and torn along the way – provoked questions aplenty. But Sapient’s guardmoles knew him well and acted as his bodyguard when they brought him north of Banbury and into Sapient’s presence.

Nothing can describe the raw rage and anger of Sapient as he heard how quickly and totally the system and area he regarded as his personal territory had been taken over.

“Moles will die for this!” he hissed, digging his talons savagely into Dirke’s chest and peering at him with so much malevolence that a lesser mole than Dirke might have thought
he
was about to die for it. But Sapient was not Quail, and retained control of both his temper and his talons. And like all successful tyrants and bullies he knew advantage when he saw it, even in what others might consider failure.

“But anyway, mole, this may be just what we were planning for. We did after all make provision for a hasty retreat if need be, for as you know well, I have long believed that Buckland is the real centre of the south, and the system I desire to be in control of. Turling has resisted that, but now an opportunity arises, does it not?”

“It certainly does, sir.”

“Does Turling of Buckland know yet of the Avebury retreat?”

“I doubt it. It may be one of his moles has come north on hearing news of it, but if they have they would not have made the speed I did. Night and day, sir, night and day.”

“It is what I expect of you,” said Sapient coldly. “Now, this matter of Barbury Hill?”

“We hoped it would slow them down, sir. None were left alive, though in such circumstances one can never be sure. But it will have frightened them, caused them to regroup and slow down, and our main force deliberately headed south for a day or two to lead them away from Buckland when they came in pursuit, just as your contingency plans arranged.”

Sapient nodded, well satisfied. “Tell only as much to Turling as you need to, and concerning the future of that mole, await my personal instructions. Matters here are not good. The Elder Senior Brother is... well, shall we say he is less reliable than he was. It is a matter only of time..

He said no more on that subject: Dirke had no need that he should, for he was a mole who worked best in the shadowy world of the half-spoken word, and the meaningful silence. Dirke could construct a whole series of orders from Sapient out of almost nothing, and he would be right about every one of them. There was no love lost between Sapient and Turling, he knew that. Nor did Sapient any longer feel that Avebury fully satisfied his talents and ambitions. Had not the Elder Senior Brother himself once been Brother Commander of Avebury? He had. And look at how he had had to move away to rise up in the world!

“Aye, look at him now,” muttered Sapient. “No, we can dally here no longer, Dirke, and I regret not returning south earlier. Quail will not like it, Squilver even less, but needs must, for if we do not get to Buckland fast that system may fall to the followers and the south will be much harder to regain control of.”

“I have to say that they are doughty fighters, sir, and well led too.”

“Hmmph!” said Sapient. “They will be no match for my guardmoles when I order them to stance their ground. The easy victory we allowed them at Avebury will have made them complacent, you mark my words! Now... rest up the night, Dirke, and then be ready to travel back with me, for I shall have need of you; there is work you alone must do. Change is coming now and we must be ready, and act swiftly if we are to secure the future for ourselves, and for moledom.”

There was a glint of excitement in Dirke’s eyes, and of ambition and hope of reward.

“I must talk to Turling now,” said Sapient. “Our withdrawal from here has been long planned, and I fancy Squilver has guessed as much.” Then he continued, almost to himself: “Well, he can’t fight two wars at once against his own side, and will not be able to stop us leaving him.

In any case, he should not
need
us to hold the territory here, his own forces should be capable. So rest up, Dirke, for we shall leave on the morrow. Be ready to brief me more fully at dawn on what I might expect in the territory south of here.”

“Loose discipline, that’s what you should expect, Crusade Councillor,” said Dirke, using Sapient’s grander title. “That’s what I saw wherever I passed through. Newborns in command still, but too much that is lax. Vagrant moles seem all about, calling themselves pilgrims. It is the mole Privet they seek, and they think she’s in Duncton, for they are beginning to converge on it.”

“Privet!” exclaimed Sapient in disgust. “She should have been killed at Wildenhope with the rest of them. When I heard —”

“I was there at your flank when you
heard,
sir,” said Dirke, grinning. “You were not well pleased.”

“Well pleased! The Elder Senior Brother and his advisers, notably Brother Inquisitor Skua, made a grave mistake in letting her live. They should at the very least have got a confession from her. Stone help us if she is still alive.”

“There’s many think so!”

“Quail’s problem, not ours. It may have been a fatal mistake, and she may return to cause his downfall if his disease doesn’t do it first.”

“He still...?”

“Yes, mole, he stinks. Like rotting flesh, he stinks. I stay upwind of him when we are outside, and by the nearest draughty portal when we are down below. Yet he is our leader, and though he may have many faults as a mole, as our spirit in the Stone he must be seen as faultless.”

“And the former Elder Senior Brother, sir?”

“Thripp lives, but is kept out of sight. They say he is incarcerated in Rollright, though by now, were I Quail, I would have had him removed to Duncton itself. But... but... enough of talk, Dirke. Best your head. Say nothing to anymole. Brief me at dawn and then to Buckland we shall go.”

Sapient smiled faintly with relief that circumstances had fallen out so well.

“Dirke!” he called, summoning his subordinate back. “Do I understand that we lost hardly any moles at Avebury?”

“You do, sir: just the ones you wanted to lose. Old scores well settled there! As for the rest, they got clean away and by now should be waiting, and ready and willing, just as you have wished.”

“Ahhh!” sighed Sapient: and now he smiled broadly, and Dirke grinned in return, darkly.

The departure of Sapient and Turling and all their forces from the ranks of the Newborns beyond Banbury was as sudden as it had been well rehearsed. There was no discussion, nor even time for argument, and both Brother Commanders were too canny to give Quail time or opportunity to arraign them, which he would certainly have done.

There was not even any final scene, for though Sapient (with a strong contingent of his own bodyguards to protect him) offered to visit the Elder Senior Brother, Quail did not deign to see him. Instead, Squilver and Sapient exchanged some angry words and the two former allies parted on the worst of terms.

But the words and anger were ineffectual and too late: whole contingents of moles were already leaving their positions and heading south, and Squilver, who now realized his folly in not integrating the southern-based Newborn guardmoles with his own, could do nothing about it. So that one moment the frontier with Thorne’s force, though static, was at least secure, and the next it was as exposed as a starling chick fallen out of a nest in a north-east gale. – Squilver was nothing if not realistic.

“We have a day at most to effect a proper retreat,” he told Snyde, having failed to gain quick audience with Quail. “After that Thorne’s moles, who are forever testing us, will have found our weakness and taken advantage of it and what might be orderly retreat will turn into a rout. You must tell the Elder Senior Brother —”

“Tell him yourself, Squilver,” a voice whispered. “Speak your mind, Supreme Commander. Come on, mole, come closer, come close and speak to the mole who loves you so.”

It was Quail, coming out of the shadows of his inner sanctum, his left front paw dragging, his eyes red-rimmed and rheumy. He wheezed a little as he moved, and occasionally he winced in pain. As he spoke the words “who loves you” he smiled a smile that was a mask to suffering.

Squilver told him, told him all, and made no bones of the danger they were now in.

“We can fool Thorne for a day, perhaps a little more, but only by dint of moving our forces about, and they will soon tire and then begin to become less malleable.”

“Aye, aye, the snake stirs still, close by, ever closer, sliding and sleeking its way towards us,” said Quail in a voice that was sometimes a whisper, sometimes a rasp, and just occasionally became a phlegmy rattle, like some half-broken branch in a tree past its prime.

“Yes, Elder Senior Brother,” intoned Squilver, not sure what else to say. He was in any case fighting to stop himself from gagging, for Quail’s odour was so pungent it was almost tangible, and growths and excrescences seemed to be spreading across his body and his head daily now. What had once been simply bald and smooth was ridged and crinkled now, and bulging in places, while from that normally unseen place between body and forepaws peeped sacs of skin, filled with Stone knew what foul bile. As for that excrescence at his rear, sometimes soft and flaccid, sometimes erect and threatening, Squilver could hardly bring himself to look at it – but look at it he must. For Quail turned, slowly, painfully, and there it was, longer, dropping into a knob of yellowness, and seeming about to burst.

“What... is... he?” Quail asked Snyde, meaning Squilver.

“Your friend, Master, and mine.”

Snyde smiled over Quail’s foul, bent head and Squilver did his best to smile back.

“He jokes, Master, he is but jocular today,” said Snyde.

“Are you that, Squilver?” asked Quail, somewhat disconcertingly not turning back to the Supreme Commander, but reaching out a paw to Snyde, whose hump he caressed.

“I am jocular,” said Squilver, “I joke, I jest.”

“He makes a jape.”

“A pretty jape,” whispered Quail, laughing terribly, and then sobbing softly. Then falling silent, snout low.

Snyde looked intently at Squilver, whose mind raced for something to say, or rather, to find what he was expected to say.

“Elder Senior Brother,” said Squilver with sudden confidence, “the serpent that is Thorne shall shrivel in defeat. Already he does so. We must not permit him to be an obstacle to your rightful entry into Duncton Wood. Eschew further parleys and parries with him; turn from him; leave him to shrivel up alone.”

“You hear, dear Snyde? He
was
jocular; now he jests not.”

“No, my Lord, he jests not,” said Snyde heavily. “The Supreme Commander is right, we must be bold and go to Duncton Wood. And you must rest while the preparations are made.”

“Thripp will be there. And my son Squelch. And Privet, she shall come as well to see the Stone honour me. And mine eyes shall be talons into Thripp’s heart, who came so near, so near, to the greatness that shall shine upon me instead, and make me whole again. For...” And here, most horribly, he swung round, all his appendages with him, to stance snout to snout with Squilver. “... for I have been unwell.”

“Have you, Lord?” said Squilver.

Quail nodded his head, his eyes puplike and wide, as if to share some secret nomole-else could know.

“But I am getting better.”

“
Much
better,” said Snyde, jocularly.

“Do I not look it?”

“Elder Senior Brother, I never noticed that you were ill,” lied Squilver with delicacy, “but now you mention it you look well indeed; never better, never better.” He too smiled with ghastly enthusiasm.

“No, no, I have been ill, I have,” simpered Quail like a flattered female. “But now I am better, and ready to go to the Duncton Stone in triumph and there be made first among moles, nearest to the Stone, which is no more than I am. For allmole I shall do it, for thee, Squilver. You shall come?”

Quail turned from him before Squilver could find a suitable reply, and has gone into darkness again.

“We leave today,” said Snyde rapidly. “Depute a strong guard to be with us. Deceive Thorne a while longer, for the Elder Senior Brother cannot travel fast when he is in contemplation. It is not fitting.”

Being “in contemplation” was an expression new to Squilver, but no matter. He supposed it must mean “ill”. Betreat it must be, though not to defeat.

“We shall consolidate and we shall overcome Thorne’s forces,” said Squilver. “Here we have been at a disadvantage, and perhaps Sapient has held us back. Now we shall make Duncton our own, and from it send forth the Last Crusade.”

And he meant it, as foolish commanders whose delusions lead moles to their deaths always do.

“So be it,” said Snyde, “then go to it.”

“I shall!” cried Squilver, and was gone.

“And is he gone?” said Quail, emerging a little later. “Has that jumped-up little has-been gone?”

“He has.”

“He cannot win against Thorne – he will lose. He is a fool, that’s all.”

“Probably.”

“His thoughts, his efforts, the work of those who do his bidding and follow his orders – orders issued in my name, Brother Snyde, my very own – will all be in vain, of course.”