But while it is true that he looked like a mole with a mission, the truth was that he was not yet sure quite what it was. He knew at least that he would not willingly raise his powerful and forbidding paws in violence again, unless it be to defend himself against unfairness, or protect those who were vulnerable against the oppressive Newborns. No, his active fighting days were done, for Privet had pointed him in a different way, strengthening his commitment to what he had already begun to believe; that if moledom was to find peace and harmony once more then the way forward was for hardened warriors like himself to renounce fighting and seek other ways to achieve just ends.
It was this hard-won knowledge that had sent Hamble away from Caer Caradoc before Longest Night with Privet’s blessing, to make his way as best he could to Duncton Wood, where he hoped to find a new direction for his life. The fighter turned pacifist, the warrior turned philosopher; the mole whom the years had made wiser, and whose inner goodness and strength – given so loyally to Rooster from whose violence he had finally felt he must turn away – must now find a different fulfillment.
Alone, but not lonely. Not yet. Hamble had had mates enough over the years, in the way that itinerant fighting moles do: a brief encounter, a night of comfort, a sharing of a day or two, and then the quick farewell and moving on. No, Hamble’s constancy had not been for these encounters, but for Rooster, whose destiny as Master of the Delve he had early sensed and passionately believed in, but for whom he felt he could now do no more; and for his oldest, dearest friend, Privet, whose strength and purpose were so great, so sure, that Hamble willingly obeyed her instinctive sense that he should journey to Duncton Wood.
So he was off alone towards it across winter-bound moledom, to try to see what he might do in the Stone’s service against the Newborns, themselves in thrall now to the vile Quail, who was determined to impose his brutal will upon all of moledom, as the Newborns had begun to impose it already upon a few important systems, including Duncton itself.
Hamble had slipped away from Caer Caradoc, been forced to lie low when harsh blizzard winds swept across his path, and now, moleweeks later and with Caradoc’s hill still darkly lowering up behind him, he was off on his way again towards Duncton Wood. Or rather, this was what Hamble intended to do, and would have done, had not his route that bleak day put him in the way of a small group of moles being forcibly marched not far from the path he was on.
This track follows the stream that rises on the eastern flank of Caradoc and leads first east and then south down to the once-pleasant system of Rusbury and thence via a place whose name is now notorious: Wildenhope. Under the Newborns this had become a centre of correction and punishment, having been utilized by Thripp originally for the purpose of conducting retreats upon the austerities – acts of cruel self-discipline, denial and abstinence. Since Quail’s emergence as Senior Inquisitor Wildenhope had been corrupted into something far worse and there Inquisitors were taught mental and physical torture, and given rewards, mainly of a sexual nature.
Hamble did not know or recognize the place. Beyond it the stream forms a confluence with Eaton Brook at what historians now call Craven Rapids – the name is not used locally, and the whole area is now generally referred to as Wildenhope.
The rapids are simply a faster flow where the two streams join and fall over steeper ground into a dangerous race of white water and jagged rocks. It is not a place to linger by, and a mole wishing to continue his easterly journey does well to turn north and take the two-foot crossing above the rapids, whose malevolent roar is audible a long way off.
Of all this Hamble knew nothing, though while captive with Rooster and the others at Bowdler he had heard that not too far off was a Newborn killing field (namely Wildenhope) at a place near moving water. Which would make sense, for he knew more than most of the Newborns’ killing ways, of strettening, snouting and the Inquisitors’ preference for the punishment of drowning.
Nor was Hamble sure why when he awoke that day and could so easily have continued upslope into safety he chose to go back downslope over the white frozen ground. Towards danger. Except that some instinct for mole in trouble, and some new-found sense of where his next task might be, led him back to the main route he had left.
Even before he got there he could scent alien mole, and when he did he saw that the frosted ground was covered in tracks from Caradoc heading on downstream; they were fresh, and some of them bloody. It did not take him long to catch up with the moles who were making them, who turned out to be ten captives led by four large, bullying Newborns. The numbers might have seemed disproportionate and escape for the captives easy, but they were all lame or in some way injured and showed no spirit to put up a fight.
Hamble followed the unhappy group at a distance, as much out of a desire to help if he could as from curiosity to see what was going to happen to them, though he already had a grim idea. It was easy enough to go unobserved since the way was narrow and the vegetation along the stream’s bank plentiful. The air was so still and cold and the frost so thick that Hamble was not surprised to see that the stream on his right flank was frozen along its edges where the water was stagnant among the reeds. Only in its centre did the water still flow, black, cold and very uninviting.
The noisy, jocular march of the guardmoles, who seemed to think they were on the way to a celebration, was in contrast to the slow and abject gait of the captives, some of whom had increasing difficulty moving at all and needed the help of those few who were more able. One alone seemed to have more spirit than the others, though he was weak enough, and he asked continually that his ailing friends be allowed to rest, or stop and eat; and he asked too, with evident apprehension, where they were being taken.
To this the guards made a variety of replies the general tenor of which was, “Somewhere you lot will not need to worry about food and sleep!”
It was around this more spirited mole that Hamble formed a rough plan of action whose success depended entirely on his being able to use surprise to disable the two guards at the rear of the group. If he succeeded, with the help of that mole he might then frighten off the other two guards and get the captives to safety. It was not a plan Hamble much liked, but needs must, and since it was obvious what was going to happen to these moles he knew he must try to help them if he could.
So indeed he might have done had not events preempted any plan he had, and made it unworkable. For the route suddenly dropped over a bluff to the clearer ground of water-meadows now frozen over, with no cover at all. There was the ominous roar of water further on, still out of view.
Its threatening sound seemed to warn the captives that if they were to escape their fate, now was their final chance. The spirited mole made a brave assault on one of the guards, while two others of the captives made a dash for it, but it was all over in moments, before Hamble could intervene. The two moles were simply grabbed and after a few buffets pushed back into line, while the more lively mole was taloned hard in the face by the guardmole he had attacked. Then, and most brutally, another guardmole came, shouting in anger, and taloned him again, as he lay on the ground.
Hamble prudently pulled back behind cover, for he was not a fool and knew he was no match for those four. Moments later, after a brief and dismissive examination of their fallen victim, they left him where he lay and led the remaining captives on across the meadow.
The moment they were out of sight Hamble went to the mole, who had not moved since he had fallen. Blood was spreading over the white ground from terrible injuries to his head and flank, and his limbs trembled, though whether from cold or in the throes of death Hamble did not know. Yet when Hamble touched him and spoke gently his eyes opened and he stirred.
“I am not a Newborn,” said Hamble. “If I can get you into cover there might be a chance.”
The dying mole waved a paw dismissively and shook his head. “We cannot let them be so,” he whispered; “I came to Caradoc in peace. Moles must do what they can to stance up to them.”
They were his final words, for though Hamble asked his name and where he was from, and tried to revive him, he breathed but for a short time more, his blood still flowing after his body was still. Then even his blood began to congeal and freeze.
“You did what you could!” said Hamble respectfully, looking at the mole. He was middle-aged, not strong, a librarian perhaps, fooled into coming to Caer Caradoc like the others. The others... Hamble followed down the way, the roar of tumbling water growing louder all the time.
The track was now open and stretched without cover to the edge of Wildenhope Bluff, and then dropped down to cross meadowlands, and he was just in time to see the party disappear over the ridge ahead. Risking the possibility that they might come back and see him, Hamble followed on to the ridge and creeping up the last few paces peered over and downslope to see what they were about. The killing of the mole had not caused Hamble to change his mind about intervening – moles were not going to be able to “stance up to them” if they got themselves killed making futile gestures. Having survived so long he knew when prudence made more sense than valour; and anyway, the germ of an idea had come into his head, suggested by what the dying mole had said; just a thought...
So Hamble was a silent witness to what happened by Craven Rapids that morning. Four Newborn guards and nine anonymous victims. One by one they were led over the frozen meadows to the confluence of the streams. There they were pushed to the edge of the bank and brutally taloned down into the icy torrent below. Briefly they disappeared from sight, for the bank was steep and the water furious, but then Hamble saw their bodies floating up to the surface in wild water before being tumbled over and down again to disappear finally into the race of white water flowing south. It was quick, efficient, and final, and Hamble watched it all with growing numbness and shock.
One after another they were taken, some too weak to protest, others putting up a final valiant effort to fight their captors before they too were taloned into submission and hurled over the steep bank into the rapids. Each time they disappeared from sight beyond the bank, and each time the currents spewed them up again, their paws flailing in a semblance of life before they were swept away to icy oblivion.
Finally, their work done, the guardmoles chatted some more, ate a little, indulged in some brief horseplay on the bank’s dangerous edge, and finally headed back upslope past where Hamble was hidden, to return to Caer Caradoc. Hamble did not dally when they were gone, but nor did he set off to find a crossing-point, for he wished to see at close paw the spot where the executions had taken place.
“Aye,” he muttered darkly as he approached it, “if I’m to do what I intend then I had best see all I can for myself.”
As he approached the bank the roar of the rushing waters was almost like a wall of sound, and the sight of the currents and whirlpools where the two streams met was enough to terrify anymole. He stared sombrely down into the rapids into which the nine moles had been thrown, and he could only hope they were dead before they reached such cruel waters; only as he turned away did he notice the sweet-rotting smell of death, foul enough in his throat to make him retch. He looked down the steep bank and saw a sight that, fight-hardened as he was, he could not easily have imagined – nor ever have wished to do so.
For the bank was steep indeed, no doubt gouged out by flood waters, dropping almost vertically into the rushing stream. Whether there was some eddy, or submerged silty shoal, he could not tell, but there, some under water, some clinging in their death contortions to the crumbling wall of the bank, were several mole corpses. No wonder then that the guardmoles had tried to hurl their victims out bodily into the stream, for the poor wretches below had not gone far enough into its main flow, but rather slipped and slid to the very brink and then, if not yet dead, found themselves trapped in this little treacherous odoriferous nook of death. Unable to clamber back up the sheer slippery bank, unable to burrow, unable to swim for it, many must have lingered on to die amongst the corpses of their fellows.
“We cannot let them be so... Moles must do what they can to stance up to them.” So had the mole they had murdered along the way spoken, and seeing what he saw now, Hamble was resolved to carry out the idea that mole had inspired.
“As the Stone is my witness,” he whispered, “I shall kill no mole, unless it be in self-defence, but I will go where I must to gather evidence of what the Newborns do. And I will make it my task to tell others what I have learnt so that moles in the future shall know what happens when some believe theirs is the one true way, and think less of those who do not agree with them. For as sure as night follows day, once moles believe they have right on their side then some among them will lead others into the path of “just punishment”, whose end I have witnessed today, and whose stench makes me retch now. I’m not a religious mole, Stone, nor have I been a good one, but so far as I am able from this moment I shall be witness against the Newborns and encourage others to be the same.”
Hamble had found his new task and having done so resolved to abandon his idea of over-wintering in some safe place, and decided instead to set off for Duncton Wood in a roundabout way forthwith when and where the Newborns would least expect journeyers, to find out all that he could about their killing, their organization, and their plans. As for explanation of whatmole he was, should he be stopped and questioned he decided to appoint himself the survivor of a patrol, all other members of which had been killed, whose task was to track down and bring before the Inquisitors that most infamous of moles at liberty – Hamble, friend of Rooster! It was not lost on Hamble that this search for himself, which Privet had started by sending him to Duncton Wood, might be nearer to the mark than most might suppose. Whatmole was he, after all? Only now was he beginning to find out.
So it was that Hamble of Crowden began his winter journey across moledom, a mole just a little past middle age who had seen much of life in one way, and now desired to see more of it in another. His life had not so far, as he himself had whispered to the Stone, been of a religious turn, and nor did his appearance – grizzled, tough, serious, doughty, strong of limb and slow to passion – suggest it would be now. But few moles that stark winter dared even venture out in the Stone’s service, and fewer still can have had the potential to serve it so well as Hamble.
Chapter Two
Spring came to Hobsley Coppice towards the end of March, and quite suddenly. One day the air was chill and dark, and the trees and vegetation all leafless and bleak across the icy ground; and the next dawned warm and mellow, and even as the last snows melted and dripped away it seemed the delicate snowdrops and sunny aconites were up and about all across the woodland floor.
All of which was not a moment too soon for the six followers who had been so long safely hidden as refugees with the ageing Hobsley, but now wanted to be up and away with their plans, and projects, and journeyings. For with the stir of life underpaw that a new spring brings, and the buzz of life overhead, a mole is inclined to raise his snout with excited eyes and stare towards dreams and hopes in the far distance, giving little thought to the difficulties of crossing the middle ground between. All, that is, but Hobsley, the seventh mole, who had seen enough springs to last a lifetime, and wished for nothing more than to stay where he was and enjoy the coming warm days in peace and leave a troubled moledom to itself.
Of the others. Maple and Weeth were the most eager to leave, for their intentions were specific and well worked out. The question of whether Maple would continue to act as Privet’s protector – which naturally he had offered to do – had long since been resolved by Privet herself.
“You have fulfilled your task in getting me to Caer Caradoc in safety, and out again,” she said. “Besides, I have Rooster at my flank now, and Whillan too, and Madoc as well. If we are to go back to Duncton Wood, they will see me safely there.”
“Humph!” Maple had said, being persuaded though not quite satisfied that his task now lay in trying to build up resistance to the Newborns, beginning with the moles i
n the Cotswolds whose confidence he had already gained.
“Well then, we’ll travel with you until I’m satisfied you’re clear of Caradoc and its influence, and only then will Weeth and I think about how to lead resistance against the Newborns.”
But both moles remained uneasy about Whillan travelling on with Privet. She might have gained a new serenity and wisdom since leaving Duncton Wood, but where Whillan was concerned her judgement was suspect. It was as if she knew she should make it easy for him to leave her flank and journey as some youngsters must if they are to find true adulthood, and yet she would not. His life meant so much to her that she could not quite let him be free. This would not have mattered if Whillan had been more secure, more normal, than he was. But a mole who loses an anonymous mother at the moment of birth and has no known father, may well feel a reluctance, even guilt, to leave the foster-mother who raised him. How deep and troubling their strange tie, how hard, it seemed, to break.
It might have made all the difference if Rooster had confessed his suspicion that he was Whillan’s father. Or so Privet and Weeth, who both believed this to be the case, argued. But Rooster himself was not so sure this would have done Whillan a favour, true though it might be.
“Will get in way of him finding his delving path,” he said, and refused the offer to talk of it, except once.
“You tell him then, you do it,” he said to Privet and Weeth in exasperation one day when they mentioned it again. “You think, I feel. Am delver and only know feelings. Doesn’t feel right to tell. If it does to you, you tell.”