"Good night!"

"See you inna mornin'."

"Aye, now be quiet!"

"I quiet now. Dumble quiet."

"Well, I should 'ope you are!"

"Oh I are."

"Be quiet, d'you 'ear me. Be quiet!"

"Dumble quiet. You de one makin' alia noise, Mista Thugg."

Since dawn King Glagweb had been peering over the edge of the pit, watching Mara intently. The toad guards heaved a ma.s.sive load of tubers and roots down to the captives. There was even some fruit among it-a few apples, some half-ripe hazelnuts and late strawberries. Nordo and his shrews gathered it into the little walicaves, keeping the hazelnuts to one side as sling material.

As Pikkle helped to gather up the food he called to Mara, "You've got a royal admirer there, old gel, wot? I think he fancies you on toast with an apple in your jolly mouth."

Mara shook a paw at the King of toads. "Go away, you fat sloppy swamp-walloper!"

"Kroikl! Silence stripedog, Glagweb is King, Krrk!" Glagweb flung a hazelnut savagely at her. "Not fat or sloppy. I punish you when the time comes. Grrk!"

Mara flung the nut back, scoring a direct hit on Glagweb's nose. "Why not come down here and punish me now if you dare, fathead. Or should I say your royal splodginess!"

Glagweb waddled about the edge of the pit, quivering with rage, his eyes bulging and his throat pulsing wildly.

132.

"Grrroak! I will eat your heart!"

"Hah!" Mara curled her lip scornfully. "Eat my heart? You couldn't eat mud if it hit you in the mouth. Here!" She flung a pawful of slime. It splattered into the Toadking's open mouth. The creatures in the pit had to scramble for cover as the toad guards hurled pebbles down at them.

Glagweb went into an insane rage, spitting slime as he croaked venomously at the badger maid, "Krrikl! I wait no longer. You have angered me, and soon you will all die. Kroik! I will make your deaths so slow and painful you will plead to be eaten. Grakk!"

After the toads had gone, Mara apologized to the other captives.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper and hastened your deaths, but I couldn't stand that loathsome toad staring at me."

Nordo wiped mud from an apple and bit into it. "What's the difference? We're all going to die anyway. Probably better sooner than later-get it over with."

Pikkle nibbled at a strawberry reflectively. "I don't know whether to stuff m'self and give those toads a good scoff, or bally well starve so they won't have much to chew on. What d'you think, Nordo ol' lad?"

"As I said, Pikkle-makes no difference. Once you're dead then that's it, fat or thin."

"Here, what's all this?" Mara put a paw around Nordo's shoulders. "You talk as if the end is inevitable. Where's your famous fighting spirit of the Guosssom?"

Nordo sat down heavily in the mud and slapped his paws in it. "Look at this-mud, slime, sludge, everywhere! Trapped in a pit like frogs in a barrel, forced to live in this filth. I can't take it anymore, living like a wriggling swamp insect!" He yelled hoa.r.s.ely and threw himself at the pit walls, slipping and sliding as he tried to claw his way upward.

A gra.s.s noose snaked down without warning and settled over Nordo's shoulders. Suddenly the pit edge was alive with a mob of toads croaking and hopping gleefully as Glagweb waved his trident and bellowed loudly, "Knrrokk! Now we eat 'em, one by one. Gurrrrkk!"

133.

Pikkle dived forward and grabbed Nordo's footpaws. "Come on, chaps. Don't let the scurvy knaves take him!"

Mara waded forward and seized the rope. Several shrews hurried to help her, and the badger maid called to them, "Pull! Pull with all your might!"

On the topside of the pit toads attached themselves to the rope and hauled frantically.

"Krruuuukk! Heave! If you want food, heave!" Glagweb shouted at them.

The toughened gra.s.s rope stretched and squeaked taut as creatures at both ends bent their backs into the tug-of-war.

Two young shrews named Scraggle and Wikk climbed over the heads of the others and began attacking the rope with their bare teeth.

Pikkle smiled grimly. "That's the stuffier give the troops, lads. Bite away!"

Several toads leaned over the edge and prodded with their tridents, but they were driven back with a volley of mudb.a.l.l.s from the pit below. Scraggle and Wikk bit furiously into the straining rope, spitting dried gra.s.s left and right as their sharp teeth worked on the fibers.

The rope parted with a loud snapl On top the toads went staggering back and landed in a heap on Glagweb. He thrust at them cruelly with his trident.

"Krrrrekk! Off, fools. Get off the King!"

Mara, Pikkle and Nordo fell back into the pit in a splashing deluge of watery mud. Still clinging to the severed half of the rope, a pile of shrews fell in on top of them. Through the slime and sludge they laughed aloud at their victory.

"We won! We won! Hooray!"

"I say, good show, you chaps. That'll teach old Glag guts, wot?"

An arrow came streaking down and pierced Scraggle's paw. Glagweb appeared at the pit edge with several toad archers.

"Krrrg! Kill! Kill them all!"

Mara felt something hit her between the ears. She clapped a paw to her head and caught the object. From the comer of her eye she caught sight of a wren zooming overhead.

134.

Holding up the acorn, she roared aloud, "Look, it's the acorn! Eulaliaaaaa!"

Immediately, the battle cries of the Guosssom shrews reached their ears. Nordo dived into a wallcave, avoiding arrows as he threw slings and stones forward, lifting his head in an answering war shout to his father's warriors who were pressing up from the riverbank. "Logalogalogalogalog!''

An arrow zipped between Pikkle's ears as he flung off a rounded stone from his sling. There was a satisfying thud as it caught a toad guard in the throat. Toads were everywhere, swinging their vicious flails and thrusting with tridents. Fierce-eyed Guosssom warriors, their heads bound in bright-colored cloths, leapt to the fray, parrying and riposting with their short fencing rapiers.

"Yahaa, 'sdeath to you, sc.u.mback!"

"On guard! One, two, slay!"

Mara and the rest whirled stones upward with as much speed and force as they could muster, dodging arrows and ducking long pike thrusts from the toads on top. King Glag-web turned back and forth, trying to divide his attention between the prisoners in the pit and the advancing Guosssom shrews. The element of surprise was working well. The shrews drove the toad ma.s.ses backwards mercilessly, pushing them into the flames of their own cooking fires as they did. Log-a-log, the fierce-eyed leader of the shrews, fought like a mad beast, throwing himself onto several toads at a time, regardless of danger. Bleeding from a dozen trident and flail cuts, he fought wildly with tooth and rapier, all the time booming out in his gruff ba.s.s voice: "I'm coming, Nordo my son. Logalogalogalogalog!"

Several shrews had been slain by the toads, but the losses on King Glagweb's side were far heavier. The toads were beginning to lose heart. They still fought on, but they were pushed into retreat by the ferocity of the Guosssom attack.

135.

Down in the pit there were four dead shrews, but the prisoners never stopped for a moment. The upward hail of stones was so fast and thick that they felled many toads. Mara leapt out of the cave she had been slinging from, heaving and throwing anything that came within reach of her paws. For a second she glimpsed the snarling features of King Glagweb, then he retreated from the edge.

"Mara, he's gettin' away," Pikkle's voice called out to her over the melee. "The tridents-over there!"

Two toad guards had been knocked down into the pit. They lay dead in the deep watery mud, still holding their tridents. Immediately, Mara sensed what Pikkle meant.

s.n.a.t.c.hing the two tridents, she used them as climbing spikes. Paw over paw, up the side of the pit she went, using the tridents to haul herself up, thrusting them deep into the slippery sides and exerting all of her huge strength she thrust her way up to the top. Flailing with the tridents, she sent two toads hurtling into the pit before she took off after Glagweb.

The King of the toads wobbled and hopped through the swamps. Toad warriors less ponderous than himself pa.s.sed him on both sides as they fled from the wrath of the Guosssom fighters.

"Krrruk! Worms, deserters, come back and help your King!" Glagweb spat at the toads. Chancing a look back, he saw Mara coming after him. The Toadking's throat bulged with terror as he tried to go faster. The badger maid was a frightening sight, her eyes red with rage, foam flecking her jaws as she hurtled forward regardless of brush or sapling. Glagweb froze with horror, the strength draining from his flabby limbs as the young badger threw herself through the air and pounced upon him.

The Log-a-log and several of his crew came dashing up as Mara lifted Glagweb from the ground bodily, both her paws locked around his throat. He dangled helplessly, croaking feebly as his legs tried to reach the ground.

Mara found herself suddenly borne down beneath the weight of half a dozen shrews. Blinded by her warlike badger 136.

spirit, she turned to fight with them as her prisoner was wrested out of her grasp. Log-a-log's rapier touched her throat.

"Be still, young badger. Leave this one to us. He is our longtime enemy, and we will deal with him. Come and watch!"

The toad camp had been destroyed, and those who had not fled were slain. Pikkle, Nordo and the others were hauled up out of the pit. Shrew warriors gathered round the pit edge as Glagweb was dragged forward. He snarled and spat at all about him. Log-a-log took little notice of Glagweb's anger as he unceremoniously kicked the Toadking down into the pit. Two shrews nearby loosed the mouth of a sack and something flashed down to join the toad in the pit. The shrew leader smiled.

"So then, Toadking, you end up in your own pit-the same pit that you kept my shrews in so that you could eat them. Other creatures are flesh-eaters too. Take, for instance, the pike that has just been thrown in there with you. He is only half-grown, but fierce. Why don't you try to eat him, Glagweb? Once he is hungry enough he is going to try to eat you. I call that justice, Toadking-eat or be eaten. Goodbye."

Glagweb recoiled to the side of the pit, trying to avoid the ominous dorsal fin that stuck out of the muddy water as the pike cruised the pit bottom. Looking for food.

Farther down from the toad camp lay the South Stream. Moored on the bank were fifteen huge logs, each one hollowed into a long dugout. The shrews sat in pairs along the length of each log; Mara and Pikkle were seated in the prow of the leading log with Nordo and his father. The dugouts pushed out from the bank and the shrews paddled them out into the center of the broad stream which meandered to the southeast.

"Where are you from, Mara?" Log-a-log questioned Mara as they rode the stream.

"From the mountain called Salamandastron, sir. Do you 137.

know how we can get back to there?"

The shrew nodded. "It is a long journey, but I know the way. I am Log-a-log of all these waters. The South Stream has many tributaries, and I know them all like the back of my paw. I will take you to the mountain, but first you must come with me. I have other plans for you at the moment."

Pikkle smiled coyly. "Other plans, eh? Give us a hint, Log-a-thing."

The grim expression on Log-a-log's face wilted Pikkle. He turned aside muttering, "Hmph. Only asked. No harm in jolly well askin', is there? Wonder what shrew tucker tastes like. I could eat a toad."

Salamandastran 139.

17.

Dingeye got over the loss of his comrade Thura with surprising speed. At first he had grown nostalgic and even wept a bit, but then he remembered how stupid and insulting Thura could be, all the times Thura had stolen food from him, and the arguments that invariably ended up in fighting. As he traveled south and west under the canopy of Mossflower, Dingeye reconciled and justified himself aloud to the lonely thicknesses of the silent green forest.

"Yah, serves 'im right. Anyhow, maybe Thura's got better and gone off on his own. That stoat never really liked me,'e weren't no proper mucker. Bad luck to him, I says. Besides all that, who needs a mucker wi' a sword like this'n?"

He swung the fabulous blade and chopped off an overhanging branch. It fell, tangling his paws and tripping him. Growling curses, he slashed and hacked at the offending branch.

"Yowhoo! Yaha! Owch, that 'urt!"

Dingeye's clumsy attack on the harmless foliage had caused him to wound himself on the left footpaw with the razor-keen sword. He dropped the weapon and sat rocking back and forth as he tried to bend double and lick his injured limb.

"Urgh! That'll be Thura, wherever 'e is, wishin' bad luck 138.

on me, 'is old mucker who never did 'im any wrong nor wished him ill, not once. That Thura was allus a nasty one!"

Casting about, he found a large dockleaf and improvised a dressing for the paw. Staunching the blood with a pawful of leaf mold, he bound the lot with a thin weed stem. Using the sword as a walking stick, he set off again, gnawing on a wrinkled apple and feeling sorry for himself.

"Just fancy, bein' wished bad fortune by me mucker who's deserted me. Life's *ard an' cruel fer a pore stoat who's all alone an' wounded."

Samkim and Arula had also encountered an unlucky setback. Tracking steadily, the pair were making good progress when they came to an area that Dingeye had not chopped at with his sword. Casting about this way and that, they hunted for signs that would help them to pick up the stoat's trail. Arula rummaged about in a yew thicket until Samkim gave an excited shout: "Over here, Arula. Look, blood!"

The young mole scurried across to find her friend sitting among a heap of slashed twigs and branches. He pointed to the scarlet stains on the leaves.

"He's been here, all right. See the stoat pawprints-who else could it be? I suspect this is his blood too. Yes, Dingeye's pa.s.sed this way. What d'you think?"

Arula turned the leaves over with heavy digging claws. "Yurr, so 'e 'as. Oi wunner wot yon stoater wurr a-bleedin' for, Sanken?"

The young squirrel wiped his paws on the ground. "Who .knows? Dingeye can't be too far ahead now, though. What d'you say we rest here awhile and have a meal, then we can put on a good forced march and catch him up?"

Arula agreed readily at the mention of food. "Ho urr, gudd idea. Oi'm fair famishered. But us'ns sit o'er thurr, away from -all this stoater bludd."

They sat in a sunlit patch between a lilac clump and a ythicket of lupins. Samkim allowed Arula to choose the fare.

.She unpacked strawberry jam turnovers and blackcurrant cor- 140.

141.

dial from the haversacks. Spreading a napkin, she laid the food out. "Thurr, that do look noice."

First one wasp came. It settled on Samkim's turnover until he brushed it away. Soon there were several wasps trying to light on the sweet jammy turnovers. Others buzzed and hummed around the little flask of cordial. Arula flicked one of the insects as it went for the jam around her mouth. "Gur-roff, 'ee pesky wosper!"

The wasp attacked and stung her.

"Burrhoo! 'Ee wosper stungen oi!"

Samkim flailed about at the wasps with his bow, thwacking about as he punctuated each swing with angry words. "Go away, little nuisances! Be off with you-scoot!"

Unwittingly the bow whipped into the lupins, demolishing the wasp nest that was built in the forks of three stems. In a trice the air was filled with maddened wasps. They hummed and buzzed about the young ones' heads in a maddened frenzy. The two friends leapt up, beating frantically at the stinging cloud of insects.

"Quick, run for it before we're stung to death!"

"Whoohurr, they'm all o'er the place. Leave oi alone, wos-pers!"

Abandoning their meal, Samkim and Arula dashed off among the trees, pursued by an army of wasps.