Urchin and the Rage Tide (7 page)

“But everyone does those jobs!” whispered Fingal. “We all do! You do!”

“Sh!” said Padra.

“And what I wanted to tell them,” Mossberry went on, “is that the Heart is angry! The Heart is sending the rage tide to punish Juniper, the king, the captains, and all those animals who live in comfort and send us all to do backbreaking work for them! You, me, all of us, they make endless work for us all! Animals, the Heart has rejected them all and chosen me!”

Padra stood up. “Good afternoon!” he said cheerfully. With his usual good humor, his cloak flapping and his sword and circlet glinting in the sun, he strode up the hill toward Mossberry and his small audience. Fingal and Corr followed him.

“Heart be with you, Mossberry,” said Padra with a smile.

For a second Mossberry looked awkward; then he gathered his confidence.

“Oh, the Heart certainly is with
me
, Captain Padra,” he said.

Padra turned and smiled warmly at the gathered animals.

“And the Heart be with you all,” he said, and they couldn’t help smiling back. Padra was a long-standing, trusted captain who had fought for them and protected them, and his presence was always reassuring.

“What a rousing speech that was!” he said, and sat down on the rock as if they were all sharing a picnic together. “But maybe I’m just a bit dense—I don’t understand all this anger and destruction bit. The Heart is all loving, that’s what I always understood. And can someone just explain to me, please, what exactly is this backbreaking work that we make you all do?”

There was complete silence. Corr, looking around, could see from their faces that the animals were trying hard to think of an answer and failing. They all looked as if they suddenly needed to inspect the ground beneath their paws.

“Mossberry?” inquired Padra. “Can you help us?”

“I mean the poor tower animals!” cried Mossberry. “Those tower animals who toil miserably, day and night for the king and the court!”

“Oh,
those
animals!” said Padra. “The ones who lined up for tower jobs! The ones who come to me, and Fingal, and all the Circle, asking if there’s any work going at the tower, and please will we put in a word for them? The ones who sing while they run up and downstairs, and laugh a lot?”

Mossberry’s eyes narrowed with rage. He would not be spoken to like this, in front of his own followers.

“Those days are over!” he cried, tilting his head back. “No longer will animals believe the lies that come from the tower! Freedom! There must be no more groveling before the captains! All the animals will be free!”

“Sorry, free from what?” asked Fingal.

Mossberry ran up to the top of a small mound. It wasn’t very high, but it meant that he was looking down at the other animals and they were looking up at him.

“From slavery!” he cried.

“Slavery?”
repeated Fingal. He looked down at his paws, then all around him. “Are there chains on
your
paws? Anyone’s paws? Are there guards coming to arrest you for talking rubbish, or me for listening to it? We’re not sent to work down mines all day, are we?
Slavery?
”

“It’s not so bad here,” said a hedgehog, timidly. “If we didn’t work, there wouldn’t be enough to eat. Fair enough.”

“My sister cooks at the tower and she loves it,” said another hedgehog. Mossberry glared at her, and she rolled into a ball.

“Just one thing, before we all, and I mean
all
, get up to safe burrows,” said Padra, standing up. “Anyone who wants to know what slavery really is, remember what it was like when Husk was in power! Or, even better, ask Urchin of the Riding Stars. He was a prisoner on Whitewings when King Silverbirch and his sorcerer had all the island terrified, and that really was slavery. If any of you have any complaints about the way the island is run, you are all free—yes,
free
—to go to King Crispin and tell him all about it. Nobody’s stopping you.” He gave Mossberry a purposeful look, which Mossberry couldn’t return. “Animals, if you have worries or complaints, take them to
King Crispin
—Crispin, who delivered you from Captain Husk, Crispin, who has brought you safely through drought, landslides, diseases, and war, Crispin, who is always ready to listen to you. Mossberry, if you honestly do care at all for these animals, lead them uphill and inland,
now
! Good animals, you should all be in the safe burrows in the hilltops. We will be very happy to take you there. Heart keep you all!”

He turned to go. Fingal stayed for a moment.

“By the way,” said Fingal, “if it weren’t for Captain Padra, you might still be stuck with Husk. Coming, Corr? Anybody else?”

Two of the squirrels, not looking Mossberry in the eyes, ran after them. The frightened hedgehog uncurled and, after a moment’s hesitation, scurried to Fingal’s side. Fingal looked down, smiled, and walked away with it, paw in paw. Some followed, but the rest still gazed adoringly at Mossberry.

“We need to tell Crispin about this,” said Padra to Fingal. “This is all he needs.”

They found King Crispin at the burrows with Oakleaf and Catkin, organizing the job of sending sandbags—long canvas bags packed with sand to hold back water—around the island to be stacked up as protection against the rage tide. The idea was to roll the sandbags down a ramp to be collected at the other end. This had to be carefully supervised: a lot of small animals thought it would be great fun to roll themselves down the ramp, or wait at the bottom to catch the heavy sandbags, not realizing how dangerous this was.

“No littl’uns!” roared Captain Docken. “No squished hedgehogs on my watch! Oh, here’s Captain Padra and Fingal!”

“Where’s the king, Docken?” asked Padra. Docken jerked a claw toward a high rock. Crispin stood there with Urchin and Sepia, who were talking urgently to him. Now and again, he heaved another sandbag down to Docken.

“Your Majesty,” called Padra, bounding up the rocks toward them.

“Padra!” said the king. “Urchin and Sepia have been telling me more about Mossberry.”

“We just met him,” said Padra. “He’s crazed, and some of those animals are utterly devoted to him. They’re more concerned with gazing at him than with getting to safety.”

“Urchin and Sepia persuaded a couple of his followers to come here,” said Crispin “The rest seemed to think that Mossberry had a place of safety for them, but he’s up to something.”

“And they have
children
with them!” said Sepia, who looked close to tears. “Little Twirl from the choir was there. She wanted to come with me, but her aunt wouldn’t let her!”

Crispin kicked another sandbag down the ramp. “We’ve got enough to do without a squirrel with delusions of grandeur,” he said. “At any other time, I’d say we should watch him but leave him alone. That’s what I’ve been doing up to now. His followers would give up and go home as soon as they realized that no work means no dinner. But right now he’s too dangerous to be out, so—Sepia!”

Crispin called Sepia’s name, and he and Urchin both caught at her, because at that moment a violent gust of wind nearly swept her from her paws. The next was so powerful that trees bent, and all the animals ducked into the burrows. As it eased, they peeped cautiously out.

“That’s a warning shot,” said Padra. “And a sight earlier than we thought. Let’s get moving.”

“Padra, take a few good animals and bring Mossberry in,” said Crispin. “And bring in anyone who tries to stop you. All the Circle have to wear white tunics tonight so that any lost animals can find us, but put on plain cloaks over yours. Mossberry mustn’t see you. There’s a rage tide on the way, so we can do without his nonsense now.”

“Shall I go with Padra?” said Fingal.

“And me,” said Urchin, and looked up. Seagulls, and swans, flying to sanctuary, were swerving from their course across the sky. His fur prickled.

“You two have my permission to go, but I’m not ordering you to go down there tonight,” said Crispin. “And Padra,” he added, “and you, Urchin and Fingal. Don’t put yourselves at risk for Mossberry’s sake. Understood?”

The rest of the Circle gathered in an emergency burrow, where four heaps of white tunics lay neatly stacked on the floor. Thripple and two pages were giving them out.

“They’re all sorted,” Thripple was saying. “Mole, squirrel, hedgehog, otter, left to right. We’re all to wear them so we can be seen easily. We need to form a Ring of White around the burrows and keep watch for stragglers.”

“We have orders to put cloaks over ours,” Padra told her quietly as he wriggled into a tunic. “We’re not meant to be seen yet. King’s orders.”

Juniper arrived, and managed a twitch of a smile at Urchin, but Urchin knew that he didn’t feel like smiling at all. At times when the island was in danger, and when any evil was close by, Juniper always became dizzy and nauseated.

“You all right?” asked Urchin.

Juniper nodded bravely, but Urchin saw him take a deep breath. The sight of the velvet bag Juniper wore around his neck made his paws tingle. This bag held the island’s sacred treasure, the Heartstone of Mistmantle, which could be held only by a true ruler or priest of the island. It would fall from the paw of anyone else who tried to touch it. If Juniper had brought it with him, not even the Heartstone was safe in the tower.

“Heart keep you,” said Juniper, and the familiar blessing put a moment of calm into the hearts of all the animals who heard it. The Heart would not fail them.

“It must be time to form the Ring of White,” said Urchin. “It’s getting dark.”

“
Getting
dark?” said Juniper.

“I mean, late sort of dark, not just dark clouds dark,” said Urchin. “I think Docken’s onto it.”

“All Circle animals, form the Ring of White!” called Docken, striding into the burrow. “And you, too, Tipp, Todd, you can join us. Not you, Mother Huggen, we need you here.” He was about to tell Moth the mole that she was exempt from duty, too—she was small and delicate and looked as if the wind would blow her away—but she looked up at him with a glare that told him it wasn’t worth arguing. Her nephews Tipp and Todd took her paws.

“We won’t let you blow away, Auntie,” said Todd.

The wind was rising and the rain lashing as the Circle marched out to make a Ring of White around the burrows. Urchin, Padra, and Fingal pulled their cloaks around them and turned to walk into the storm, falling onto all four paws as the driving rain struck them. They were safer that way, and would make faster progress.

For the first time, Urchin saw what a dangerous mission this was. When every other animal on the island was being ushered to the highest and safest ground possible, when the rage tide seemed nearer and more terrible than anything they had imagined, they had to scour the island looking for Mossberry, who could be anywhere. While every instinct told him to head uphill and duck into the nearest burrow, he was in open country.

Urchin pulled his cloak more tightly about him, narrowed his eyes against the rain, and huddled his head into his shoulders.
King’s orders. This is what comes of being a member of the Circle and a Companion to the King.
He remembered the days when, as a young squirrel, he would have given anything to go on a dangerous mission for Captain Crispin. The thought made him smile. All that excitement was still there.

Nearing the cliffs, Padra put out a paw for them to stop. A gust of rain and wind slashed across them. Urchin’s ears stung.

“Have you seen something?” yelled Fingal, his voice whipped about in the storm.

“Can’t see a plaguing thing!” Padra yelled back. “We may have to go back. I can’t see anything in this rain!”

Urchin turned to look uphill. At first, through the driving rain, he could hardly see the Ring of White—but as his eyes focused he saw the dots, here and there, of white tunics, and animals weaving their way to safety. He had barely registered a flurry of red fur when Longpaw, the chief messenger squirrel, stood before him, rain pouring from his cloak.

“News from the king, Captain Padra,” he panted. “He’s been talking to some of those animals you brought in. Mossberry’s hangers-on, or they used to be. Apparently Mossberry has plans to take his followers off the island. It’s all been done very secretly.”