He ran on down the tunnel almost as excited as when he had reached the Stone for the first time. Soon he heard the echo of his pawsteps coming back, pitter pat pat patter, pitter pat pat patter, drumming back to him in an escalating pattern of soft sound as the end of the tunnel got nearer and nearer and then finally came in sight straight ahead of him. As he reached it, he let out a shout of pleasure, for surely the tunnel was the right size, in the right direction… it was just a matter of finding a way through to the other side without leaving any clues for any Duncton mole who might, at some future time, come along.
The sound of his shout echoed back past him and on up the tunnel down which he had just run, where it was lost in the darkness of ever-shifting air currents. The tunnel here was dusty and he saw at once that the seal was as it had appeared on the other side—hard-packed soil. He was at the end! Again he let out a laugh or shout of pleasure, crouching down on the dusty floor of the tunnel with contented relief.
And Rue heard it. She thought she had heard sounds before, distant sounds like a mole running and shouting, sounds from outside her tunnels. She had run about seeking their source, determined to fight to the end for the tunnels she had found with such difficulty and which nothing would make her give up. Perhaps, three moleweeks before, when she had first come here, she would not have been so determined. But now she was strong again and though the tunnels were not a patch on the system Mandrake had turned her out of—at least from a food point of view—they were hers. She had busied herself to make them comfortable for the approach of autumn and they smelt sweet from the nesting material she had brought in and rustled with the sound of beech leaves. Her cache of worms was well stocked and she had cleaned everywhere. It was hers, and nothing would force her out.
The sounds did not come from up on the surface into whose night air she snouted and listened fruitlessly. Down below again she listened and distinctly heard the sound of Bracken’s approaching pawsteps, soft but persistent in her tunnels. She darted about, eliminating one tunnel after another as their source, until she took the old half-finished tunnel that lay past her burrow and led up towards the higher slopes, and the sound seemed to come from there. She went up it very, very hesitantly, because being dead-end, any creature there would have to fight, and a fight is best avoided if it can be.
The sound came stronger… pitter pat pat patter, pitter pat pat patter… a running mole. Surely a running mole! Rue, trembling with apprehension, approached the tunnel end and looked up at the blank wall which, on this side, had been covered over with a thin layer of dried mud.
The sounds were coming from beyond her tunnels. Higher up the slope. From the direction of the Ancient System. Rue’s eyes widened, and she waited, not knowing what to do or how to move. How can a mole fight an enemy who isn’t there?
Beyond the wall she heard the pawsteps stop. She heard a triumphant shout or laugh—she couldn’t tell which—and the settling of a body on the ground. She not only heard that, she felt its vibration as well. Her heart in her mouth, her mouth slightly open, she waited. Behind her her bright tunnels, her sweet place, seemed to darken and blur as she wondered if perhaps she should run after all.
Rue waited in the silence that now settled on the tunnels as, beyond the seal, Bracken got his breath back. She knew that the slightest clumsy movement on her part would send a vibration, and possibly even a sound, through to whatever creature it was beyond.
Bracken looked about him with pleasure, and then up at the blunt end to the tunnel formed by the seal. It looked like a mass of consolidated and close-packed soil and was not likely to give him much difficulty now that he had regained so much of his physical health and strength. He did not intend to break the seal right down, because he wanted nomole to know what lay on this side of it. But he wanted to make a hole big enough to peer through and establish without any doubt that this was the link. So he would make one, burrow his way up on to the surface, re-enter Hulver’s tunnels and make his way up to the seal to confirm its position in the tunnels.
He got up, turned to the blank face of the seal, and in an exultant gesture, spread his talons wide, reached as high as he could, and brought them crashing down on the seal, ripping them vertically down its length. The noise that followed was indescribably terrible. For, unknown to Bracken, or to Rue who crouched so near on the other side, the seal was, in fact, massive flint covered over only thinly with soil and debris. Bracken’s talons cut through the veneer of long-dried soil with ease, and scraped down the flint beneath with such a screeching scratch that the sound was like a million blackthorns flying in the air.
The soil fell away before him to reveal the great flint underneath and Bracken had to cover his ears with his paws to block out the terrible sound he had made.
While, on the other side, unknown to Bracken, Rue heard the terrible sound, and it was like an owl killing its prey. In that moment she forgot all her resolutions to stay and defend her territory. All she knew was that there was a mole beyond the Stone who could make owls appear and screech at their victims. She turned away in fear and ran away out of her new home, desperately making for the communal tunnel down to Barrow Vale, where, if she survived that far, she could tell her tale of a dreadful mole from the Ancient System and the owl that seemed to screech at his command.
She could not know what effect the sound of her fleeing would have on Bracken. His talons smarting from their confrontation with the impregnable flint, its sound dying away, he heard a mole beyond fleeing into the distance.
Nothing could have told him more clearly than this flint that it was here that the Ancient System ended, or started, depending on which side you came from. Nothing could have driven home to him more forcibly than the sound of yet another mole running from him, to whom he meant no harm, that he was for ever dispossessed of the Duncton system in which he had grown up. It was no longer his system. He was not of it. He was of the Ancient System now, and alone in it. Its tunnels, its wormless depths, its mysterious secrets, its aching isolation and loneliness, were his, and his territory.
His mood changed from exultation to a grim despair.
He looked at the great flint and knew it would be useless to try to dig a way round it. Still, at least he could confirm that the seal was where he thought it was in Hulver’s old tunnels, and perhaps stay in them for a few moledays, or until whatever mole it was that had run off came back. When he did, Bracken would retire gracefully. For the time being, however, he simply could not face going back to the confines of the Ancient System—which, though it was now his place, was too lonely for him to bear quite yet.
Chapter Thirteen
With Rue’s sudden appearance in Barrow Vale one morning, frightened, dishevelled and with a genuine tale of horror to tell, the rumour of a giant mole in the Ancient System turned into solid fact. She happened to arrive at a time when both Mandrake and Rune were away in the system, so that before news reached them, she had told her story to everymole who wanted to listen to it—which was every mole.