The moment the aroma of freshly cut food assailed his senses, Horty revived. “Oh goody! I say, you chaps, please pass the salad. Owchowchoooh! Me flippin’ bonce is splittin’. Can y’see any of me brilliant young brains leakin’ out, wot?”
Fenna could not stifle a giggle. “Oh, poor Horty, you’ve got a lump like a boulder, right twixt your ears. I’m sorry for laughing, it must be very painful.”
The young hare winced when he touched the large swelling. “Painful ain’t the word, Fenn old gel, it’s absobally agonisticful. Don’t think I’ll last the day out, actually. Don’t shed too many bitter tears when I turn me paws up an’ peg out. ’Twas all done bravely in the line of duty. Wot!”
Saro inspected the injury. “Hah, it looks like a duck egg growin’ out o’ yore skull. Don’t worry, though, you’ll live. I’ve got just the thing for that. Sit still an’ eat yore salad while I go an’ make a poultice.”
She spent some time at the stream, gathering certain things and soaking them in the water. On her return, the aging squirrel tore strips off a cloak for binding.
Horty pulled back apprehensively. “Don’t hurt a dyin’ young beast in his final moments. Be merciful, marm!”
Bragoon held the hare’s paws as Saro worked. She tweaked Horty’s whiskers whenever he moved. “Be still, ye great ninny! This is a compress of duckweed, dock, watercress, sainfoil an’ streambed mud. Twill do ye a world o’ good!”
When she had finished, the others had to turn away their faces to keep from bursting out into laughter. Horty sat dolefully munching salad. Atop his head sat a high turban of cloak strips, herbs and mud, secured with a tie beneath his chin. Both of Horty’s ears flopped out at the sides. He glared at Bragoon, who was biting down on his lip to contain a guffaw.
“What’s the flippin’ matter with your face, chucklechops? D’you find somethin’ funny about a wounded warrior, wot wot?”
The otter brought himself under control. “Who, me? No, mate, but I wouldn’t go near any bumblebees if’n I was ye. They might be lookin’ fer a new hive! Hohohohoho!”
Seeing there was no salad left, Horty rose regally and stared down his nose at the mirth-struck quartet. “Tut tut, I shall be carryin’ on alone, without any aid from those I once called friends. Huh, bunch of whinnyin’, witless woebetides. Fie upon you all, say I!” He stalked off in high dudgeon, his turban dressing awobble as he stooped to avoid branches.
Fenna grasped her sides, tears of laughter rolling down both cheeks as she gasped out, “Heeheehee, come on, I’m, haha, well enough to travel now. Ohahahahhh! We’d better go along with him just in case he, heeheehee, backs into a sharp branch, and we, hahahahaaaa, have to tie a turban to his tail. Whoohoohoohoo!”
The pine forest was a vast area. As evening fell, it became dark, swathed in a gloomy, green light. Horty was still not talking to anybeast, but the urge to utter some noise was so great that he struck up a mournful dirge.
“ ’Tis a sad lonely life, I have oft heard it said,
to go wanderin’ about with this wodge on one’s head,
for I travel alone o’er desert an’ lea.
Why, even the midges and ants avoid me,
while the ones I called pals an’ the comrades I know,
all laugh ’til their rotten, cruel faces turn blue.
There’s a grin on the gob of each pitiless cad,
as they scoff at the plight of a poor wretched lad,
but I’ll carry on bravely, I won’t weep or cry,
an’ I’ll have my revenge on ’em all when I die.
My ghost will sneak up while they’re laid snug in bed,
an’ I’ll hoot spooky whoops through this thing on my head.
Then they’ll cry out ‘Oh Horty, forgive us, please do’
as my spirit howls loudly . . . ‘Yah boo sucks to you!’ ”
When night fell, Horty broke down and wept inconsolably. Springald crept through the gloom and found him sitting on a log, feeling sorry for himself. She put a paw around him.
“Horty, don’t cry. What’s the matter? This isn’t like you.”
He shoved her paw away. “Yaaah, gerroff me, you don’t care, no flippin’ one bally well bloomin’ cares about me!”
Bragoon took a firmer approach. “Come on now, mate, wot’s all this blubberin’ about, eh?”
Horty snapped a small twig and flung it at the otter, but it missed. “You ain’t no mate o’ mine, none of you lot is! I’m starvin’ t’death, I’ve got a molehill growin’ out me head, my poor skull aches like flamin’ thunder, an’ now I’m goin’ blind. I can hardly see a paw in front o’ me!”
Fenna took over, grasping the weeping hare’s shoulders. “Don’t be silly, Horty Braebuck, and listen to me. What’s all this carrying on for, eh? You’re hungry, right? Tell me when you aren’t hungry! What then, your head’s aching? Stands to reason, you’ve suffered a nasty bang on it. But as for going blind, that’s nonsense! It’s so dark in this forest at nighttime that none of us can see much. Here, take hold of this stick and follow me. Don’t keep fiddling with that dressing on your head or it’ll never get better. Saro, have you any food left?”
The squirrel produced a few mushrooms. “I saved these.”
Fenna gave the mushrooms to Horty. “Eat them slowly, take small bites and chew each mouthful twenty times. Come on, up you come, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover yet.”
They marched all night, with Bragoon scouting ahead and Saro keeping them on course. The otter returned in dawn’s first glimmer, bringing with him a heap of ripe bilberries in his cloak.
“Lookit wot I found! I think there must be a river ahead, I could hear the sound of running water in the distance. Sit down an’ get yore gums round a few o’ these, Horty mate, they’re nice’n’ripe. We’ll rest ’ere awhile.”
Horty was considerably less sorrowful when there was food in the offing. “Mmmm, better’n those measly mushrooms. I say, you chaps, I can see better. Flippin’ bandage must’ve fell down over me eyes last night, wot. Oh corks, now everything’s gone flippin’ green! Why’s it all green?”
Springald explained. “Because it isn’t properly light yet, it’s the day breaking over the treetops. Pines grow so thick in here that it makes the light look green.”
But Horty would not be convinced. “Fiddlesticks, you’re only sayin’ that t’make a chap feel better. Ah well, I don’t mind spendin’ the rest o’ me life in a green fug. Hawhaw, lookit old Brag, sour apple face, an’ you, too, Spring, little lettuce features, an’ you Fenn, young grassgob!”
Saro stared at him pointedly. “Ye missed me out?”
Having devoured all the available berries, Horty lay back and closed his eyes. “Hush now, let a chap get some rest, cabbage head!”
The squirrel chuckled. “That’s more like the ole Horty we all know an’ dread.”
Midmorning found them back trekking once more, eager to be out of the oppressive pine forest. The further on they went, the more pronounced came the sound of flowing water.
Saro stopped to listen. “Sounds like a fairly wide river. Have ye got that ole map from the Abbey, mate?”
Bragoon produced the map, which had been made during the journey of Matthias of Redwall in search of his son Mattimeo. He scanned it closely. “Aye, we’re on the right course, though I think we took a different route t’get to it. This is the high cliffs, here’s the wastelands an’ this is the pines we’re in now. There should be some sort of open area ahead, then a big river. We’ll soon see, mates. Press on, eh!”
They emerged onto the edge of a deep valley, the hill below them thickly dotted with smaller pines and lots of shrubbery. Below it was the narrowest strip of bank. Beyond that, a wide, fast-flowing river glimmered in the sunlight. Halfway down, the travellers halted on a shale ledge. They still had some way to go, and the descent looked fairly steep. Horty sat down, yawning in the heat. He rested his face in both paws.