They turned and walked slowly away through the wood, their minds preoccupied with Wythen’s words. Warrigal of course knew all of what his father had just said for they had been talking almost continuously since he had returned after the rescue of Nab. Although the young owl had possessed a vague knowledge of these affairs before (and had pretended he knew more), this was the first time that Wythen had spoken to him directly about Elvenlore in a deliberate attempt to pass on his knowledge. The fact that Wythen was not going himself with Nab and Brock was a further indication that he appeared to be sharing the Patriarchate of the Owls with his son. Warrigal was flattered and pleased but also a little afraid at the thought of his new responsibility.
For Brock and Nab, walking together through the moonlit wood, the references to danger and the innuendoes of magic and legend had served to strengthen the grip of the apprehensive fears they both felt.
It was a wonderful night; the air was full of the keenness of the frost and all the damp leafy smells that frost brings out. Nab breathed it deeply and became almost intoxicated by it so that his whole being hummed with vibrant excitement and his mind seemed to float. All the excitements and tragedies and pain of the past few days came together in a confused blur that filled him with a feeling of limitless energy which seemed to fit perfectly the spirit of the journey they were now making. He looked at Brock and, as he watched the wonderfully familiar black and white figure plodding along beside him, his nose snuffling along the ground, lost in the smells of the night, he felt the warm glow of love surge through him. Suddenly in a burst of exhilaration he fell on the badger and they wrestled together joyfully on top of the frosty bracken which crunched and crackled under them. Then Warrigal’s hooting from an oak tree at the edge of the wood reminded them that they should be on their way and they raced each other to where the owl was sitting perched on an exposed length of root, watching them and chuckling quietly to himself with pleasure at seeing his old friend so full of fun again after the sadness of his self-recrimination when the boy was captured. Something about the night and the sense of adventure they felt about the journey they were on had affected them all.
The badger and the boy crawled under the bottom strand of old rusty barbed wire which fenced off the wood and then they were out on to the moonlit fields, walking up the slope at the back of the wood and following the silent shadow in front of them as he turned and flew along the top of the rise. Every so often Warrigal would stop at a convenient tree and wait for the others to catch up and then they would move on again through the night.
As the first rose-pink streaks of dawn appeared on the lightening sky the three were down by the big stream, near the spot where Nab had met the girl. For a time he walked along in silence thinking of her and wondering whether he would ever see her again and then slowly he realized that the countryside around him was strange and new and with a thrill it occurred to him that he was now outside the boundaries of his previous experience. This was further than he had ever been before. He looked around him intently as the morning sun slowly came up beyond the hill away to his left and filled the sky with a brilliant mass of orange and dark flaming reds. The steep-sided valley through which they had followed the stream had now gradually opened out so that they were in a shallow basin with the fields sloping away upwards very gently on either side. There were not many trees now to break up the rolling meadows: only the thick thorn hedges dividing the fields into squares or rectangles and providing refuge and a home for birds and sometimes rabbits. The stream on Nab’s right had now widened slightly and it meandered less, running along its sandy bed almost straight for a while until suddenly for no apparent reason it began once again to twist and curve and water willows sprang up at either side growing thick and dense along the banks. Warrigal stopped at one of these and showed the others where two of the trees had fallen across the stream and so formed a convenient bridge.
‘We go across here,’ said Warrigal. ‘Then we cross two fields and make for that belt of trees you can see straight ahead. Behind those trees lies Ellmondrill. I think you two should stay at the side of the hedges where possible from now on; Urkku may be around and we can’t be too careful. There’s a farm on top of that hill to the right. Can you see it?’
They looked and saw a collection of buildings clustered around the top of the rise in the distance. Then they gingerly inched their way across the fallen willows and set off along the far bank of the stream until they came to a thick hedge which ran in from the field to meet it, and then they turned and moved along the side of this as it took them out into open country.
They travelled like that for the rest of the short winter day, keeping well under cover of hedges and moving slowly, constantly looking round and sniffing the air for scents of danger. The sun shone brightly out of the clear blue sky and the early morning frost soon disappeared, giving way to a day that was so warm that the animals occasionally had to think twice to remind themselves that it was the middle of winter. The feel of the sun and the smells that it produced as it warmed up the ground filled them full of yearning for the spring and, as they walked, Nab and Brock chatted quietly about past springs and their times together. Nab also asked the badger to tell him once again the story of that night so many years ago when Brock had found him in the snow; he never tired of hearing it and it sounded different every time it was told. And when the story was finished there were always endless questions of detail, particularly about the two Urkku who had brought him. Somehow the story always made him feel secure and warm and comforted him whenever he was anxious or worried. It had that effect now and the nervousness which had been building up inside him as they got closer to Ellmondrill subsided and was replaced with a feeling of quiet confidence and certainty.
Around the time of Sun-High they were delayed by a flock of sheep. They had been walking quietly along the hedge of the field in which the sheep were grazing when suddenly, hearing strange sounds and seeing the badger and the boy, they had bolted and an Urkku had come down to the field from the farm on his tractor to investigate. They squeezed through a gap in the hedge and watched him as he drove around the field. His tractor chugged loudly and pushed out puffs of grey smoke which hung in the still air for a long while after he’d gone, growing bigger but less dense so that in the end they became so thin that they disappeared completely.
He drove around the field two or three times and then, having satisfied himself that there was nothing to worry about, he turned his tractor around and drove back up the fields to the farm.
The travellers waited a short time to make certain he wasn’t coming back and to let the sheep settle again, and then they resumed their journey. They had been walking towards the distant trees since early morning and had seemed to be getting no nearer, but now, as the afternoon wore on and the blue sky began to turn grey and wintry, the trees became clearer and more distinct even though a mist had appeared which filled the fields with a grey haze and blurred the outlines of the hedges. The fields now seemed to be smaller and the hedges thicker and soon they found themselves walking along a narrow path bordered on either side by hedges which were so dense that they could see nothing through them. They walked on as if they were in a tunnel towards the patch of grey they could see at the far end until, suddenly, they were out in an open meadow, standing at the top of a steep slope and looking down at a stream which moved restlessly along at the bottom. It chattered and gurgled in the stillness, and beyond it stood Tall Wood, shrouded in the evening mist, dark and impenetrable except for the occasional burst of gold as the evening sun, perched just above it, managed to breach the blanket of mist. The trio stood for a long time, gazing in awe and wonder at this magical sight, until finally Warrigal broke the silence.