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know how we can get back to there?"
The shrew nodded. "It is a long journey, but I know the way. I am Log-a-log of all these waters. The South Stream has many tributaries, and I know them all like the back of my paw. I will take you to the mountain, but first you must come with me. I have other plans for you at the moment."
Pikkle smiled coyly. "Other plans, eh? Give us a hint, Log-a-thing."
The grim expression on Log-a-log's face wilted Pikkle. He turned aside muttering, "Hmph. Only asked. No harm in jolly well askin', is there? Wonder what shrew tucker tastes like. I could eat a toad."
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Dingeye got over the loss of his comrade Thura with surprising speed. At first he had grown nostalgic and even wept a bit, but then he remembered how stupid and insulting Thura could be, all the times Thura had stolen food from him, and the arguments that invariably ended up in fighting. As he traveled south and west under the canopy of Mossflower, Dingeye reconciled and justified himself aloud to the lonely thicknesses of the silent green forest.
"Yah, serves 'im right. Anyhow, maybe Thura's got better and gone off on his own. That stoat never really liked me,'e weren't no proper mucker. Bad luck to him, I says. Besides all that, who needs a mucker wi' a sword like this'n?"
He swung the fabulous blade and chopped off an overhanging branch. It fell, tangling his paws and tripping him. Growling curses, he slashed and hacked at the offending branch.
"Yowhoo! Yaha! Owch, that 'urt!"
Dingeye's clumsy attack on the harmless foliage had caused him to wound himself on the left footpaw with the razor-keen sword. He dropped the weapon and sat rocking back and forth as he tried to bend double and lick his injured limb.
"Urgh! That'll be Thura, wherever 'e is, wishin' bad luck
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on me, 'is old mucker who never did 'im any wrong nor wished him ill, not once. That Thura was allus a nasty one!"
Casting about, he found a large dockleaf and improvised a dressing for the paw. Staunching the blood with a pawful of leaf mold, he bound the lot with a thin weed stem. Using the sword as a walking stick, he set off again, gnawing on a wrinkled apple and feeling sorry for himself.
"Just fancy, bein' wished bad fortune by me mucker who's deserted me. Life's *ard an' cruel fer a pore stoat who's all alone an' wounded."
Samkim and Arula had also encountered an unlucky setback. Tracking steadily, the pair were making good progress when they came to an area that Dingeye had not chopped at with his sword. Casting about this way and that, they hunted for signs that would help them to pick up the stoat's trail. Arula rummaged about in a yew thicket until Samkim gave an excited shout:
"Over here, Arula. Look, blood!"
The young mole scurried across to find her friend sitting among a heap of slashed twigs and branches. He pointed to the scarlet stains on the leaves.
"He's been here, all right. See the stoat pawprintswho else could it be? I suspect this is his blood too. Yes, Dingeye's passed this way. What d'you think?"
Arula turned the leaves over with heavy digging claws. "Yurr, so 'e 'as. Oi wunner wot yon stoater wurr a-bleedin' for, Sanken?"
The young squirrel wiped his paws on the ground. "Who .knows? Dingeye can't be too far ahead now, though. What d'you say we rest here awhile and have a meal, then we can put on a good forced march and catch him up?"
Arula agreed readily at the mention of food. "Ho urr, gudd idea. Oi'm fair famishered. But us'ns sit o'er thurr, away from -all this stoater bludd."
They sat in a sunlit patch between a lilac clump and a ythicket of lupins. Samkim allowed Arula to choose the fare. |.She unpacked strawberry jam turnovers and blackcurrant cor-
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dial from the haversacks. Spreading a napkin, she laid the food out. "Thurr, that do look noice."
First one wasp came. It settled on Samkim's turnover until he brushed it away. Soon there were several wasps trying to light on the sweet jammy turnovers. Others buzzed and hummed around the little flask of cordial. Arula flicked one of the insects as it went for the jam around her mouth. "Gur-roff, 'ee pesky wosper!"
The wasp attacked and stung her.
"Burrhoo! 'Ee wosper stungen oi!"
Samkim flailed about at the wasps with his bow, thwacking about as he punctuated each swing with angry words. "Go away, little nuisances! Be off with youscoot!"
Unwittingly the bow whipped into the lupins, demolishing the wasp nest that was built in the forks of three stems. In a trice the air was filled with maddened wasps. They hummed and buzzed about the young ones' heads in a maddened frenzy. The two friends leapt up, beating frantically at the stinging cloud of insects.
"Quick, run for it before we're stung to death!"
"Whoohurr, they'm all o'er the place. Leave oi alone, wos-pers!"
Abandoning their meal, Samkim and Arula dashed off among the trees, pursued by an army of wasps.
"Owch! Yowch! Look for cover, Arula! Look for cover!"
"Hooh! Ooh! Oi doant see nuthin' but pesky wospers!"
A burly hedgehog appeared out of nowhere and began catching wasps with a net on a stick and eating them with great relish. "Hoho hoho, lookit yew tew. Don't like wasps, do yer?"
Samkim beat furiously at the insects as he shrieked out in panic to the newcomer, who was obviously enjoying himself: "Yaaah! This is no time for chitchat, mister. Do something!"
The hedgehog snapped at a passing wasp and caught it in his mouth. He chewed on it as he spoke.
"Tchah! Naught like a good crunchy wasp,'cepting fer a big fat bee, o' course. Come on then, yew tew. Foller Sprig-gat."
They ran after him, wailing and yelling in pain, with the wasps still in hot pursuit. Spriggat stopped at the edge of a small woodland tarn. Pointing to the little lake, he urged them into the water and plucked two hollow reeds.
"Hoho hoho. Never see'd nothin' like it in me born days critters afeared o1 wasps. Come on, cullies. In y' go. Best duck under an' breathe through these reeds. 'Urry now!"
Grabbing a reed apiece, the two young ones hurled themselves into the water. Submerging themselves totally, they fixed the reeds in their mouths and sucked greedily for air.
Spriggat carried on dining off wasps. Impervious to stings, he ate the buzzing insects by the pawful, only stopping now and then to winkle out wings that were caught between his teeth.
"Come to Spriggat, me crunchy liddle beauties. There's plenty o' room for you all in me good ol' tummy!"
From beneath the clear waters of the small sunlit pool Samkim and Arula watched the hedgehog gorging himself on wasps until the buzzing horde thinned out and flew off back to their damaged nest. When the wasps had gone, Spriggat hauled the young ones dripping from the pool. They looked a sorry sight, soaked and covered in lumps.
"Well, curl me spikes, lookit yew tew. I wouldn't give a moldy acorn for the pair of ye. See this bank mud? Well, if you plaster it all over y'selves it'll stop the stingin'."
Rolling over in the sticky black mud, they coated themselves with it. Strangely enough, it relieved the stings immediately. Looking like two mud dollies, they introduced themselves, telling the hedgehog of their quest.
He nodded knowingly. "I seen that daft stoat earlier, limp-in' an' bobbin' along an' talkin' to hisself like a worried wart. No mind, ol' Spriggat'll put y'back on his trail. Least a body could do for bringin' me such a good dinner o' wasps."