Pikkle was becoming very popular with the shrews. His good humor and impeccable table manners endeared him to them. The Gousssom began to cheer support for the young hare.
"Come on, Pik. Slow and easy does the trick!"
"I'll bet a barrel of shrewbeer he beats Tubgutt!"
"I'll take that bet. Tubgutt's eaten nine, he's only on his sixth."
"I'll bet my sword the mountain hare wins. He's a good un!"
The banter went back and forth as the two contestants battled on. Tubgutt undid his belt and leaned back. A look of disgust crossed his face as he picked up his eleventh pudding and dug a spoon halfheartedly into it. Pikkle now had eight empty bowls to his credit and was halfway through his ninth. The incorrigible hare drank another beaker of shrewbeer,
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wiped his lips delicately on a napkin and winked at his opponent.
"Good stuff this. I say, Tubbyguts, don't take that one-it looks bigger than the rest. Leave it for me. Try that little oneit only looks half full, wot!"
On his thirteenth pudding Tubgutt stopped. He was breathing heavily and his mouth hung slackly open. The two little thin shrews fanned him with napkins and gave him a beaker of shrewbeer, but he pushed it away with a flabby paw.
Mara nudged Nordo. "Now watch Pikkle really take off!"
The young hare now had eleven empty bowls to his credit. He licked his spoon shiny clean and selected a twelfth.
"Tubbyguts old pal, you've gone green. I must say, you looked much better your other color. Pass another pudden, will you?"
With the spoon halfway to his lips, Tubgutt's stomach heaved and his paw went limp. The spoon clattered back into the bowl.
A hushed silence fell over the onlookers.
Completely ignoring his fellow contestant, Pikkle polished off the twelfth pudding and chose another as he licked his spoon.
Bowley the cook watched Tubgutt carefully. "Can you raise spoon or paw, shrew?"
Tubgutt collapsed, his head squelching into the pudding in front of him. Pikkle blinked and tut-tutted at his table manners. "Is he finished already? Ah well, never mind, Tubby-gutts. It's not the victory but playin' the jolly old game that counts. Anybeast want to take his place?"
A wild cheer went up from the shrews. Log-a-log laughed heartily. "Well done, Pikkle! I liked that little joke about anyone else taking Tubgutt's place. Good, eh, Mara?"
Mara gave Log-a-log a blank look. "That was no joke. Pikkle meant it. Look, he's on his sixteenth!"
The Guosssom shrews were laughing, patting Pikkle's back and cheering him to the echo. Bowley the cook held Pikkle's paw aloft.
' 'The winner by a clear four bowls of pudding, Pikkle the
hare from Salamandastron is the champion!"
Amid the cheering and applause Pikkle smiled modestly, trying to pull his spooning paw from Bowley's grasp. "Steady on, chaps. Leggo me paw will you, Bowley old lad. It's bad form to stop a fellow in midscoff!"
Covered by a blanket, Pikkle lay on a ledge, snoring loudly. Mara sat with Log-a-log and his son Nordo. The other shrews had retired for the night.
Though Mara had been glad to escape Salamandastron she could not reconcile herself to the idea of Urthstripe being besieged along with the hares inside the mountain. A sudden yearning to be back there, giving what aid she could, caused the young badger maid to turn to the shrew leader.
"Log-a-log, I want to thank you and your tribe for rescuing
. us and showing us the hospitality of your home, but I am
anxious to go back to Salamandastron. I have told you about
what will be happening there, so why can I not go?'' (' "AH in good time, Mara. AH in good time." Log-a-log v patted her paw. "When you do go, the Guosssom warriors , and I will be with you. I have crossed swords with this Klitch you speak ofaye, and his father Ferahgo. The blue-eyed f ones are our enemies; we would wear out logboats traveling ,} to fight against them." / Mara nodded. "Then why do we not go now?"
Log-a-log took a sip of shrewbeer from his tankard. "Be-
, cause I need you to do something for me. Listen and I will
. tell you. I am leader of the Guosssom because I am the strong-
:; est; that is the only thing that keeps our tribe together without
the Blackstone. The Guosssom will follow the shrew who
holds the Blackstoneit is sacred to us shrews. I held the
:; Blackstone from the time it was passed to me by my father,
who got it from his father before him. It makes the holder
"., undisputed leader of all shrews. Well, one day when my son
Nordo was little he took it from around my neck as I slept. I
; ,did not worry too much because Nordo was a baby who liked
4 to play with the Blackstone. I let him, thinking that one day
.;gt;; it would be his by right. However, Nordo lost the stone. I
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took the blame on myself, not wanting him to be shunned by the Guosssom, and since then I have been leader only by my authority and fighting skills."
"Where did Nordo lose the Blackstone?" Mara could not help interrupting. "And how does it concern me?"
Nordo took up the story from his father. "You must understand our ways, Mara. The importance of the Blackstone is great in our tribe. Without it my father leads only by his strength; if he possesses the stone then he is leader not only by his toughness, but by Guosssom law.... But let me tell you my story. One of the tributaries of the Great South Stream leads out on to a large lake, so big it is like an inland sea. I drifted out there in a little logboat that my father made for meactually I fell asleep and the logboat took its own course. The oars were lost overboard as I slept. I drifted around on the big lake for more than two days, then I sighted an island near its center. Paddling with my paws, I made it to the island. There I searched the woods, looking for suitable wood to make oars so that I could row back home. Having no knife or sword, I could not cut wood. I searched all day without success. When night fell I went to sleep in the woods. It was like a dream. I was suddenly wakened by a dreadful roar. A huge white creature stood over me. It was terrifying, more ghost than fur or blood. It had hold of the Blackstone. I screamed and ran off, leaving the Blackstone and the broken thong that it had hung from. The ghost had it. I made it back to my little logboat and drifted round until the evening of the next day, when I was found by my father and a search party who were scouring the lake with the big logboat fleet. Since then no shrew has been near the big lake or the island where the ghost lives. But with you along I might be able to get the Blackstone."
"I don't understand. Why must you have me along?" Mara scratched her head in puzzlement.
Log-a-log spoke then, keeping his voice low. "Because you are a badger, and the ghost that haunts the island of the big lake is a badger also, a huge white one without stripes!"
Samkim and Arula sat in the late afternoon sun peeling the mud from themselves. Spriggat had proved correct: the stings came out with the mud. The young squirrel picked the last of it from his tail bush.
"That mud is marvelous stuff, Arula. Look, there's not a sting on me and scarcely a lump. I feel great."
"Ho urr, an' oi loikwoise. 'Tis champeen mud, as 'ee say. Oi wunner whurr Maister Spriggat be agone to?"