225 He soared high, wheeling several times before dropping like a stone. ' 'Your Sergeant and Lieutenant are coming now, west and slightly south of here. I suggest you wave to denote your presence, Major."

Perigord climbed out of the ditch and waved his saber. It glittered in the early sunlight as he hallooed the two hares. "What ho, you chaps, what time d'you call this to come rollin' back home? Come on, Torgoch, on the double now!"

Sergeant and Lieutenant came panting up to the ditch. Throwing themselves flat in the damp gra.s.s, they lay recov-ering breath.

Mono raised himself up on one paw, his normally saturnine face glowing with pride. "We found the place, sah, day an' a half's march sou'west o' here. There's a rock stickin' up like an otter's tail top of a rollin' hill range, and beyond that a valley with a gorge runnin' through. Looks somethin' like this," In the bare earth of the ditch top he sc.r.a.ped out a rough outline with his knifepoint.

Twayblade nodded approvingly. "Well done, chaps, looks a great spot for a picnic, eh, wot?"

Perigord studied it, obviously pleased by what he saw. "Aye, we could sh.e.l.l a few acorns there! Stretch our forces along the ridge and send out a decoy party t'lead 'em into the valley from the south side. If we can get 'em with the gorge at their backs and the hill in front, 'twill be an ideal battle-ground. Taunoc, time for you t'do your bit, old lad. Fly out an' scout this place. When you're satisfied as to its location, seek out Rockjaw Grang and tell him exactly where the battlefield is to be. Got that?"

Once again the little owl heaved himself into the air. "I think I am reasonably intelligent enough to understand you, Major. After all, I am an owl, not a hare!"

When the owl was well away, Sergeant Torgoch grinned at Twayblade. "Well curl me ears, marm, there goes an 'uffy bird if ever I saw one. Bet 'e counts 'is feathers regular!"

' 'You, sir, would find yourself counting your ears after an encounter with me, I can a.s.sure you!"

Torgoch almost leapt with fright as the owl landed beside him. The bird stared accusingly at Perigord. "You gave me the location and told me to whom I should deliver the infor- 226 raation, but you did not mention when the battle is to take place."

The Major bowed courteously to Taunoc. "Beg pardon, I stand corrected. Shall we say three days, or however long after that the Rapscallions can be delayed? We need to play for all the time we can get. My thanks to ye, sir!"

Long after the owl had flown, Sergeant Torgoch looked mortified. "I really opened me big mouth an' put me footpaw in it there!"

41.

Abbess Tansy and her party were ready for the descent into the pit beneath the south wall. Friar b.u.t.ty was armed with a stout copper ladle, his chosen weapon. Foremole Diggum and Shad the Gatekeeper had lengths of rope, lanterns, and a fine rope ladder that Ginko the Bellringer had loaned them. Tansy and Craklyn had donned their oldest smocks, and between them they carried a hamper of food.

It was a good hot summer morning. Tare and Tuny of the Long Patrol were pushing a wheelbarrow about on the lawn. Three little owlchicks and the badgerbabe Russano sat on a heap of dry straw in the barrow, taking their daily perambulation.

Tansy waved to them as they pa.s.sed. "See you later. Bye bye!"

Waving back, the babies repeated the word they used most often. "Nut! Nut!"

Craklyn fell about laughing. Shad opened the food hamper and tossed a pawful of candied chestnuts into the barrow for them. "Bye bye, hah! These Eiddle tykes know wot's good for 'em!"

227.

228.

Having lit the lanterns, Friar b.u.t.ty strung them at regular intervals upon a long rope and lowered it into the depths, providing illumination all the way down. Shad secured the rope ladder and let it unroll into the void. "I'll go first," he said. "b.u.t.ty next, then Abbess an' Craklyn. Foremole, you follow last. Remember now, take y'time an' step easy!"

One by one they descended into the silent pit, lantern light and shadows dancing eerily around the rough rock walls mat surrounded them. Scarcely a quarter of the way down, Fore-mole pointed a digging claw at the wall in front of him.

"Yurr, thurr be's ee writin' that Bunto see'd!"

Foremole Diggum had remembered that Bunto, one of his mole crew, had seen writing carved upon the wall.

Craklyn studied it "See these broken rock ends and bits of shattered timber? There must have been a spiral stairway running from top to bottom of the walltower once. There's a s.p.a.ce that may have been a window, all blocked with earth now. This carving is beside it-probably some vermin soldier did it while he was idling away the hours on guard duty at that very window."

Tansy tweaked at her friend's footpaw, which was directly above her head on the ladder. "Never mind the architecture, what does the writing say?"

The Recorder's voice echoed boomingly as she read out aloud.

' 'Turn at the lowest stair, Right is the left down there, Every pace you must count, At ten times paws amount, See where a deathbird flies, Under the hunter's eyes, Radiant in splendor fair, Ever mine, hidden where?

Verdauga, Lord of Kotir."

Clinging to the ladder, Tansy looked up at her friend as the echoes faded to silence in the strange atmosphere. "Sounds 229 like some sort of riddle to me. Craklyn, what are you doing up there-writing?"

"Sc.r.a.p o' parchment and a stick of charcoal always come in useful," the old Recorder muttered busily as she sc.r.a.ped away. "I never go anywhere without them. This won't lake long. Hmm, Verdauga, he was mentioned in Abbess Ger-maine's journal, some sort of wildcat who ruled Mossflower before Martin the Warrior arrived. There, I've got it!"

Foremole Diggum, who was last on the ladder, grunted impatiently. "Ho, gudd for ee, marm. Can us'n's git down thurr naow? Oi'm not gurtly pleased 'angin' 'round up yurr!"

It was a long and arduous descent. When they touched ground at the pit bottom, Friar b.u.t.ty peered upward to the platform. It looked very small and far off.

"Phew!" he said, nodding in admiration. "Just think, Skipper dove from up there, what a brave an' darin' beast! I think if I tried it I'd prob'ly die of fright halfway down."

Shad tapped his tail against the mud-coated rocks. "Since the waters dried up, mate, you'd die fer sure if you landed 'ere. Right, let's git the lay o' the land."

He lit another lantern and they moved gingerly on the slippery stones of the dried streambed, staring at tiieir surroundings. It was little more than a stone chamber, with a gaping hole at eye level where the water had flowed in from the right, and another hole beneath their paws to the left, where the stream had exited downward.

Tansy found a dry rock and sat down. "It's very smelly and cold. We'd best watch we don't slip and fall down that hole-goodness knows where we'd end up. Well, anyone got some bright ideas? This place looks like a dead end."

Craklyn studied the verse she had copied, then took a careful look around. She pointed to a spot not far above their heads. "Look there, up to the left. There's a hole in the wall, but it's blocked by rubble and old timbers. I think that was where the stairs finished originally. We must be standing below the old ground level now, where the water carved the floor away."

Shad climbed back up the ladder, swinging it inward until he could reach the hole in the side of the wall. He secured the rope ladder to a splintered wood beam that stuck out. "Aye, 230 yore right, marm, this is where the last stair was. I think we might've found a pa.s.sage 'ere. Stand clear while I try an' unblock it."

Huddling beneath an overhang at the cave's far side, they watched rock, timber, and masonry pouring from the hole as the husky otter cleared away the debris. It was not long before he called down to them, "Haharr, 'tis a pa.s.sage sure enough- dry, too. C'mon up, mateys!"

One by one Shad helped them from the rope ladder into the pa.s.sage. Foremole discovered a shattered pine beam and, using a dash of lantern oil, soon had a fire burning cheerily.

"Thurr ee go. Oi thinks us'n's be 'avin' a warm an' summ vitties afore us do ought else, bo urr!"

Abbess Tansy wanned her paws gratefully. "What would we do without a good and sensible Foremole?''

Friar b.u.t.ty unpacked a latticed fruit tart, some nutbread, and a flask of elderberry wine, which he set by the fire to warm. As the friends ate they discussed the verse that Craklyn had copied.

"So," said Tansy, "it wasn't an idle sentry who carved those words, it was the Lord of the castle himself. But why put it there in plain view?"

Craklyn explained what she had seen. "It wasn't exactly in plain view, though. I noticed some spike holes in the stone; there must have been a wall hanging or a curtain hiding the verse. Maybe Verdauga was getting old and he carved it there to remind himself."

Foremole sliced the tart evenly, shaking his head. "Hurr, 'tis a gurt puzzlement tho', marm. 'Roight is ee left daown thurr,' wot do that mean?"

"I know it sounds odd, but it's not really. Creatures who hide something and write about it usually try to trick others by arranging the words so they sound strange. 'Right is the left down there' means that the left pa.s.sage is the right one to take. I could say that two ways; either the left is the right one to take, or as Verdauga put it, right is the left to take. See?" b.u.t.ty poured out small amounts of the warm wine for them. "I'm with you, miz Craklyn, 'tis right to take the left pa.s.sage, an' that's the one we're in now, lucky enough. I think I've got the next two lines as well. 'Every pace you must count, 231 At ten times paws amount.' Everybeast has four paws, so add ten to that an' it makes fourteen paces we must count."

A smile hovered on the Recorder's lips as she challenged the Friar. "Is that right? Go on then, young b.u.t.ty, take the lantern and walk fourteen paces down this pa.s.sage. Tell us what you find."

The young squirrel marched off, counting precisely. He was lost to sight at the count of eight, where the pa.s.sage took a bend. Shortly he returned to sit by the fire, scratching his chin. "Hmph! Wasn't a thing there, nothin' except stone walls!"

Craklyn shook a paw at him in mock severity. "That's because your arithmetic was wrong, Friar. Work it out properly now. You have four paws, and the line says 'Ten times paws amount.' Times!"

The answer dawned upon b.u.t.ty suddenly. ' 'Of course, ten times four is forty-it means take forty paces!"

Tansy pa.s.sed him a slice of tart. "Well done, sir, but let's have our meal, then we'll all go and count it out together."

Beyond the turn a long pa.s.sage stretched before them, dark and gloomy, layered with the dust of untold ages. So intense was the silence that they paced on tip-paws, whispering out the count. Tansy looked left and right at the forbidding bare stone walls and the worn paved floor. What sort of creatures had walked them in the distant past? How long had it been since a living beast set paw down here?

"Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty!"

"Well wallop me rudder, look at this, messmates!"

A great shuttered window stood before them, broad and high, its lintel, sill, and corbels intricately carved with sinister designs. Shad unlatched the shutters, announcing jokingly, "Wonderful view o' Mossflower countryside from 'ere. Take a look!"

Cobwebs parted as Shad drew back the creaking shutters, revealing the entire frame, packed solid with stone and dark earth. He shut them again and pushed the rusty latch into place.

"Too far down even for roots or worms to travel. Question is, wot are we supposed t'look for now?"

Craklyn repeated the fifth and sixth lines of the verse: 232 "See where a deathbird flies, Under the hunter's eyes."

Tansy shuddered as she held up the lantern to inspect the sil!. "These carvings are skillfully done, but they're horrible. See here, there's a snake swallowing a little mouse, and here, two rats are cutting up a skylark with curved knives. Everywhere you look there's cruelty and murder being done. No wonder Martin and his friends fought so hard against the vermin who lived here. But where's the deathbird and the hunter?"

Piece by piece they went over the grisly scenes until Shad, being the tallest, stood on the sill and held up the lantern to view the lintel overhead.

"Is this wot yore lookin' for, marm?"

He was pointing to a picture of a raven. The big black bird was trying to fly away, but it was trapped by a leaping wildcat that had bitten deep into the raven's back.

Craklyn clenched her paws tightly, fascinated yet repulsed by the dreadful image. "Yes, that's it, Shad! The wildcat is the hunter, and the raven has long been known as the deathbird for the way that it feasts upon carca.s.ses of dead creatures. I'm sure that is it!"

They sat upon the windowsill, looking at one another in the flickering lamplight. Tansy read out the final two lines: "Radiant in splendor fair, Ever mine, hidden where?"

Young Friar b.u.t.ty hunched his shoulders, shivering slightly. "I couldn't imagine anythin' radiant or splendidly fair down here, but if there is I'll bet 'tis behind the carvin'l"

Shad took out his knife and stood up on the sill. "Well, let's see, shall we!"

He tapped with the knife handle, rapping the corbels and the surrounding wall, finally hitting the lintel several smart raps. "Aye, yore right, Friar. Sounds as if there's a cavity wall above this lintel. Pa.s.s me the lantern."

The light was pa.s.sed up to Shad. He dug and sc.r.a.ped away 233 with his blade until they were forced to vacate the sill beneath him.

"You'm sendin' daown a tumble dust, zurr. Wot be you'm a doin'?"

"Oh! Sorry 'bout that, mates, but there's a big stone that's stickin' out a bit up 'ere. I'm just diggin' out the mortar wot's holdin1 it in. I reckon wot we're after lies be'ind it."

"Yurr, oi'll coom up an' 'elp ee. Lend oi yore young shoulders thur, b.u.t.ty, let oi git moi diggen claws worken on et."

b.u.t.ty stood on the sill, grunting as Foremole Diggum clambered up onto his shoulders.

Shad and Foremole blinked mortar dust from their eyes as they dug, tugged, and probed. The otter grasped the lantern ring in his mouth to leave both paws free.

Craklyn watched them anxiously. "Do be careful now, mind your paws don't get jammed in the cracks."

"Stan' asoide, lukkee owt naow, yurr ee comes!"

With a few mighty heaves the two creatures pulled the big oblong wallstone free and dropped it.

Boom!

It shattered a section of the paved floor as it fell, sending up a choking dust cloud, through which Shad could be seen, one paw rummaging deep in the hole as he held out several glittering objects with the other.

"Ahoy there, hearties, lookit wot I found! Owowooh! Me paw!"

There was a rumbling, crumbling sound as the stones above collapsed down, trapping the paw Shad had buried in the wall s.p.a.ce. He hung there awkwardly, gritting his teeth against the pain. Then everything happened without an instant's notice.

Foremole slipped from b.u.t.ty's shoulders and fell backward as, with a dull roar, the entire wall and ceiling disintegrated in an avalanche of stone, mortar, and thick choking dust!

Vermin snored and muttered in their sleep, fighting imaginary battles, some of them even singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs as they lay around their campfire embers in the warm summer night. The guards of the cage were still at the fire of the stoat Bluggach, within easy distance of the prisoner they were supposed to be watching. Like Bluggach, they too were flat on their backs, mouths open wide to the sounds of then- painful rasping snores.

The old squirrel watched the two ragged figures' silent approach to his cage. He grabbed at the food they pushed through the bars to him, and his throat moved up and down as he gulped water from a canteen, drinking until the vessel was empty. With his head bent low he gave a long sigh of satisfaction, then began chewing the food slowly, while Midge whispered questions at him.

"What do they call you, and how did y'come to be here?"

"My name is Fourdun. I live alone in Mossflower. They took me by surprise-I must be gettin' old."

Midge pa.s.sed the small knife through to him. "We're both Long Patrol hares. I'm Midge, he's Tammo. Listen to me, old 234.

235 feller-don't do anythin' silly. We'll get you free. Maybe tomorrow night or the night after, but we'll do it. So watch out for us an' don't try escapin' by yourself."

Nudging Midge, Tammo hissed urgently, "Look out, that big stoat Cap'n's awake!"

Bluggach woke with a throat that was both sore and dry from snoring. Coughing hoa.r.s.ely several times, he staggered down to the stream. Crouching in the shallows, the stoat pawed water into his mouth until he had drunk enough, then he straightened up and belched.

There was no place for Tammo or Midge to hide-one movement from either of them and they would be discovered. Midge shoved Tammo toward the stream, muttering to him, "Sit by the water an' look as if you're meditatin'-hurry!"

Tammo walked straight for the stoat, b.u.mping into him as he slumped by the shallows, and stared intently into the water. Bluggach was about to say something when Midge strolled up.

"Pleasant night to ye, Cap'n. Take no notice of ole Burfal, 'e goes off doin' odd things any hour o' the day or dark."

The stoat drew his cutla.s.s, eyeing Midge suspiciously. "Wot are yew doin' 'round 'ere?"

Midge produced the flask of grog he had been about to give Fourdun. "Oh, jus' keepin' an' eye on Burfal, seein' 'e don't disturb n.o.beast. 'Ere, take a pull o' this, sir, Warfang's own private grog. Twill put a throat on ye like a cob o' velvet."

Bluggach was still not quite convinced by Midge, but he took a good swig of the fiery grog as he weighed the ragged beast up. "You'll be the Seer, then? Some sez yore a magic creature."

Smiling craftily, Midge moved close to the stoat and reached out. "I ain't magic, Cap'n. You are, though. Wot's this candied chestnut doin' in yore earlug?"

Grinning widely, the big stoat tossed the nut into his mouth and gave Midge a friendly shove that almost knocked him flat. "I knew you was magic the moment I clapped eyes on ya, haharrharr!"