Thunder oak, p.13
Thunder Oak, page 13
Sylver, who had never liked anything to do with magic, gathered his courage together. The sun’s rays struck the faces of the humans lying on the grass. Suddenly they began to change. They started to shrink, grow fur, and their hands and feet turned into paws.
This is a good sign, thought Sylver hopefully.
Then their ears began to stretch, their noses to flatten; small fluffy tails appeared. They opened their eyes as they woke. Sylver stood before them. They saw him.
‘Friends,’ he began, but could get no more words out. The creatures before him scattered in all directions before he could talk to them. He had not run, but they had. And how could he blame them? Who could expect a bunch of rabbits to stand and listen while a weasel beguiled them with his lies and hypnotic eyes?
They were indeed rabbits, and as such they expected Sylver the weasel to pounce on them and kill them.
‘Come back!’ yelled Sylver. ‘I won’t harm you!’
But of course the hearts of the rabbits ruled their heads. Their blood pounded through their veins. They had panic coursing through their arteries. There was no way in heaven or on earth that they were going to stand and listen to a weasel. They found holes themselves, hid from their old leader. He had wicked sharp teeth, little red glinting eyes, a small pink tongue that liked to savour the taste of bunny.
The sound of moufflon laughter crackled through the forest like wildfire as Sylver wandered around in despair.
Chapter Sixteen
‘All right,’ conceded Sylver, miserably, ‘I’ll become your slave if you restore my friends to their rightful shapes.’
Maghatch shook her head. ‘You must do my bidding for a week – then I’ll let them go. If I change them back now, you might just run off and escape.’
Sylver could do nothing but agree. He took one last lingering look at the woods and fields, where the rabbits would gambol in their innocence once he had gone, and then followed the witch down into the green chapel.
‘I suppose you want me to clean the place up,’ he said with a heavy sigh, looking around him at the filth and dirt which decorated every wall and floor. ‘Get rid of the spiders and all that.’
The moufflon turned on her hooves and stared at him in horror. ‘Clean up? Are you mad? Certainly not. This is the way I like my dark home. Dust is my closest companion. Spiders’ webs make the place more attractive, like lacy curtains, don’t you think? Very suitable for my craft.’
Sylver didn’t think so, but he kept his peace. ‘Well, what do you want me to do then?’
‘Fetch and carry, jack! Fetch and carry. When I’m doing a spell I shall need things – toad’s spawn, lizard’s vomit, saliva of newt – I shall want you to rush out and get them as I call for them.’
‘What if I can’t find any lizard’s vomit?’
‘Stick your paw down a lizard’s throat,’ she said, smiling wickedly. ‘They throw up their breakfast every time when you do that.
‘If you don’t bring me what I want, it’s going to be a nasty night for your rabbit friends, because I can call foxes and owls on a whim.’
Sylver saw what she meant.
For the rest of that day Sylver did the moufflon’s bidding, rushing around gathering all manner of disgusting items for her store cupboard and immediate use. Some of the things he was asked to fetch were so revolting he had to hold them at limb’s length, his nose held with his other paw, and hurry them into some jar or pot.
The witch was tireless in her demands and not at all grateful. She screeched and screamed at him when she thought he was too slow and gave him no praise when he was quick. They were a series of thankless tasks. And what was more, Sylver did not believe she was going to keep her promise about letting the others go once he had been with her a whole week. He had the feeling that week was going to stretch.
‘Here’s a bowl of gruel,’ she said, hoofing him something that looked like pond water. ‘You might think it’s thin but there’s a lot of good meat in there.’
Sylver, exhausted by the day’s work, began to lap the gruel greedily. There was not an ounce of goodness in the soup, despite the grey bits floating on the surface. It appeared to be made of nothing more than water stained with dead leaves. It tasted faintly of snail slime. ‘What’s it made of?’ he asked her, as he sat hunched in the darkness at the back of the green chapel. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Bark gruel, made from the best tree branches,’ she snapped at him, as she dug into her swede mash. ‘Consider yourself lucky.’
Sylver sighed at this show of meanness. It seemed his new mistress was not only bad of character, she was stingy too. ‘I thought at least I would get well fed,’ he grumbled.
‘You know what thought did?’ she snapped back at him. ‘Followed a dung cart and thought it was a wedding.’
‘Very funny,’ said Sylver, the tiredness coming over him so heavily that he did not care about eating anyway.
He curled up into a coil of fur and fell asleep amongst the spiders and beetles that worked busily on the floor, careless of their tickling antics.
The next day he was woken at five in the morning and the whole thing began again. He was immediately sent out into the forest to find slugs that had died in the night, and on his return had to peel them and put their skins in a jar. Peeling freshly dead slugs is not an easy task, as those of you who have tried it well know. Their skins are so loose they wrinkle under pressure and tear at the slightest mistake. Maghatch wanted only whole slug skins, with not a rent or hole in them.
On his trips into the forest, Sylver took the opportunity of swallowing a few mouthfuls of mushroom to keep up his strength. He also tried to call the rabbits, but as soon as they scented him, or heard his voice, they shot down their holes. He was alarmed to see that when he first went out there were about a hundred of them in the great glade. How was he to tell which were his outlaw band and which were real rabbits? The whole thing was a nightmare from which it seemed he would never wake.
At about noon a new danger presented itself. Sylver was gathering the cast-off cases of moth larvae when who should tramp wearily into the glade but Sheriff Falshed and a troop of stoats. They quickly surrounded the hapless weasel.
‘GOT YOU AT LAST!’ bellowed the sheriff, in great glee. ‘I knew if we marched night and day we’d catch up with you.’ His triumph was so heartfelt he dribbled down his burnt bib. ‘At last, at last. Don’t look so glum, you miserable wretch, I’m not going to hang you yet. Prince Poynt wants to do something to you with red-hot hooks first. He’s been looking forward to it.’
‘Can we have a go at him first?’ said a corporal with an especially menacing pike. ‘Can we have a go on the way back to the castle, sir?’
‘I’ll see,’ replied Falshed. ‘But no promises.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ snarled the corporal, his eyes glinting with anticipation. ‘Me and the other jacks aren’t particularly fond of marching over hill and dale.’
Sylver stared at the hard faces of the other soldiers and realized he was in for a rough time. However, the upside of things was that Maghatch, having lost him, would hopefully free his band from their bondage. Unless she was thoroughly evil she would not leave them in the shape of rabbits for ever.
Then again, perhaps she was irredeemable. Sylver, however, did not have any choice. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ he said. ‘Let’s get on the road.’
Falshed looked at Sylver with suspicion. ‘Why are you so eager to be captured?’ he asked. He looked about him fearfully for a moment. ‘Where’s the rest of your rogues?’
At that moment Maghatch appeared, towering over the stoats. Some of the soldiers quailed and prepared to run. Others almost fainted away on the spot. Falshed, to give him his due, remained where he was, outwardly calm, though his voice quavered a little when he spoke. ‘What do you want, witch?’
‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, unless you wish to be a toad for the rest of your life,’ she snapped back. ‘What are you doing with my slave?’
‘Your slave?’
‘Sylver the weasel belongs to me for as long as I choose to keep him. Now piddle off somewhere else, you poor excuses for gnat’s leavings, I’ve got work to do.’
‘I – I have to take Sylver back with me,’ said Falshed. ‘My prince expects it.’
Maghatch whirled on the sheriff and stood over him, at least ten times his height. Her shadow blocked out the sun. Falshed went back on his hind legs, quivering with fear under the glare from the slitty eyes of the witch. He knew he was dangerously close to becoming something low and foul in the food chain. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end.
‘Little stoat,’ said Maghatch, slowly and carefully. ‘Do be careful . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry,’ croaked Falshed. ‘He’s yours for as long as you want him, of course. I’ll – I’ll just wait around here for a while with my troops, until you’ve finished with him. Then perhaps you won’t mind me dragging off what’s left of him in chains, to be roasted over a slow fire.’
‘When I’ve done with him, you can do as you like,’ she said, losing interest. ‘Now come on, slave – let’s have those items I asked for!’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ muttered Sylver.
Maghatch left the glade and Falshed stared hard at Sylver. ‘We’ll be here,’ he said menacingly.
The sheriff turned to address his soldiers. ‘Let’s kill a few rabbits for the pot,’ he suggested conversationally, ‘while we’re waiting.’
‘NO!’ cried Sylver.
Falshed swung round and stared at the weasel.
‘That is,’ continued Sylver quickly, ‘don’t you know the voles around here are so much tastier? Maghatch breeds very appetizing voles, don’t you know? I would give the voles a try if I were you, Falshed.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the sheriff, his eyes narrowing. ‘Are the voles poisoned in some way? Eat venomous toadstools, do they? Full of nasty fluids, are they?’
‘No, no, that is, you can’t trust the rabbits. Maghatch feeds them on – on twigs and fir cones. They’re as tough as brick. You would not like the rabbits.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Falshed. ‘In the meantime, hadn’t you better be doing your mistress’s bidding? Go on, slave, get to work. Run around, gather things.’
The stoats clacked their teeth together in appreciation of their leader’s joke. Then they all went off to find mossy banks to sleep on. Sylver was at last left alone to his misery.
He gathered together his bits and pieces for Maghatch, then took them back to the green chapel. The witch was busy with one of her spells and she nodded impatiently when he came in, indicating that he should put the stuff on the ground beside her and then get some rest. Sylver did so gratefully.
Later, when it was dark, he had to go out again to get those items which could not be had in the daytime. While he roamed the woods he could hear Falshed’s men, getting tipsy on honey dew, shouting and bawling to one another. They found it difficult to speak in normal voices, did stoats, having been raised by loud parents with no social graces. The soldiers were happier nudging one another, bursting into raucous teeth-clicking, telling ribald jokes.
He could hear Falshed’s voice above it all, wanting to be one of the jack soldiers while there was fun to be had around the camp fire, yet expecting to be instantly obeyed when he flung his orders at them during emergencies.
Eventually Sylver got to bed, but not before midnight. Even then he had to remain awake.
When Maghatch was herself fast asleep, Sylver crept wearily from his bed. He began a search of the green chapel to see if he could find clues to the spell Maghatch had used on his band of outlaws. It was true she used no books, as Lord Haukin did, but Sylver wondered whether there might not be other, more tangible artefacts, which would lead him to the restoration of his friends.
The weasel found nothing but death watch beetles, guarding the exits to the green chapel. He spent the rest of the night wondering how he was going to keep going, if Maghatch drove him as hard as she had been doing. He was tempted to run, to go seeking elsewhere for the remedy to his troubles, but he managed to put this unworthy thought aside.
So it was that he went back to bed yet again, only to be woken two hours later to do the witch’s bidding.
The stoats were, of course, up and waiting for him, to jeer and taunt him as he went about his tasks. When they got tired of this sport and went back to their sluggard’s beds, the rabbits came out, keeping their distance from Sylver. He stared at them, thinking that if he could only recognize one of his number amongst them, he could get that one to fetch help.
Suddenly, as he was watching them, it became obvious to Sylver which one of the rabbits was definitely a weasel in the wrong fur coat.
At last he had something to work on.
Chapter Seventeen
Sylver crept closer to the feeding rabbits, using his old weasel skills of sneaking and skulking, until he was within earshot of one particular rabbit. This creature was nibbling the grass more enthusiastically than the others. In fact he tore at it, swallowed it in great clumps, and it seemed he would rather choke to death than forgo that extra blade of grass in his mouth. In a double word, he was a greedy-guts.
This rabbit also had fur coming out on his coat, leaving bald patches. He was dirty around the paws and jaws. His cotton-tail was more a ragged-tail, and there were creatures nestling in the fur about his ears. Sylver knew exactly who this rabbit was and hoped to capture his attention.
‘Pssst. Scirf! Over here!’
The rabbit paused in his eating – reluctantly, it seemed – to look up.
Now when confronted with dangers like weasels, rabbits do one of two things. They either bolt or they freeze. Fortunately for Sylver, Scirf froze, his eyes popping – though he actually looked as if he might run at any moment and Sylver had to calm the creature with a few words. ‘Don’t run, it’s only me, Sylver. Listen, I know you can’t talk to me, but you can talk to the others. I want you to tell them something. Tell them that I’ve gone away to fetch help, but I’ve not abandoned them. If the witch comes looking for you all, hide amongst the real rabbits. Have you got that?’
Scirf made no reply. He simply sat there with his mouth in mid-chew, his eyes still starting from his head.
‘I have to go,’ continued Sylver, ‘because you are all in real danger of ending up in a stoat stew pot in your present forms. I’m certain Maghatch has no intention of ever willingly letting us leave this place.’
Scirf shivered from bobtail to the tips of his ears.
‘You’d better go now, Scirf,’ whispered Sylver. ‘Remember what I told you . . .’
Scirf bolted.
Sylver was not sure whether the message had got through or not. He had no experience of rabbits, who ordinarily seemed quite stupid creatures. Whether his outlaws would retain their old weasel sense in some part, even though their bodies might be rabbit, he did not know. Sylver could only hope that some of his words had sunk in.
With this accomplished, Sylver set out on a journey. He was going to see an old friend of his father’s, to try to get help. Sylver’s father had been a law-abiding weasel who served Lord Haukin until the soldiers of Prince Poynt had dragged him away to an unknown fate for some trumped-up trivial offence which Lord Haukin could not dispute. Sylver had never seen his father again, after that dew-bedecked morning in June. His mother had died of a broken heart the following spring.
Sylver travelled east, knowing he would be quickly missed by both the witch and the sheriff. Falshed would be bound to follow him, even if Maghatch remained in her green chapel. Over weald and through woodland he went, across streams, under roots, behind hills, into valleys. Finally he came to a sandy bank where there were a number of holes. It was here that the badgers of Gath lived. Taking his courage into both paws, Sylver entered the nearest tunnel and went down to the chambers below.
It was dark under the ground but Sylver, like most creatures, could ‘see’ in the dark by using feel and scent, building up a picture of his surroundings as he went.
A female badger confronted him almost before he had gone ten metres. ‘A weasel!’ she cried in the strange clicking old-tongue which Sylver’s father had taught him. ‘What do you want, weasel?’
‘I’ve come to see a badger named Kalthas,’ clicked Sylver in the same ancient language. ‘He knew my father.’
The badger, whom Sylver judged was enormous, grunted in suspicion. ‘How am I supposed to know you’re telling the truth, weasel? Weasels are too fond of lying. I wouldn’t trust a weasel as far as I could throw a bear.’
‘Look,’ said Sylver reasonably, ‘would I come down into a badgers’ sett if I was not on official business? We both know I’m taking an awful risk being down here. I do have good reason for wanting to see Kalthas. Please?’
The female badger snorted through her rubbery nostrils, blowing dust into Sylver’s face. But it was not an ill-mannered act, it was simply something badgers did all the time. Then she turned and said, ‘Follow me,’ leading him into the bewildering system of tunnels that made up the community of badgers.
Eventually she came to a chamber which smelled strongly of slept-in hay and badger’s fur. Inside the chamber was a great form, heaving slowly in sleep. The female stood outside for a moment and motioned for Sylver to go in. ‘You can wake him,’ she said, ‘after I’ve gone. He’s like a bear with toothache when he’s woken. I shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t whack you flat with his claws. Still, that’s up to you, isn’t it? Personally, I’d cut and run.’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Sylver. ‘Most kind.’
The weasel entered the chamber and stood by the warm fur mountain, watching it rise and fall. There was nothing for it – he would have to wake the badger. It was certainly something he was not looking forward to.
