Thorn Ogres of Hagwood Page 12

  A heavy silence fell about the campfire, and the werlings shivered in spite of the flames.

  High above, in the topmost branches of the tree that leaned over their heads, a large barn owl blinked its golden eyes then spread its wings. Into the night it flew.

  “What was that?” the Pucca said, staring about them. “Smith felt eyes upon him, aye, and ears, too. Hagwood is full of watchful spies.”

  Rising, he doused the fire and kicked the drowned ashes.

  “Come, little changers,” he announced. “You must return to your own safer land. Smith will take you.”

  Quickly he packed the handcart, and took Gamaliel and the fox cub in his arms.

  “Soonest you are back in your trees Smith will be happy,” he said, striding from the camp. “There is much to do this night. The casket must be removed from the hiding place and then Smith will finish this business by doing what he should have done down in the strong room. Come dawn, Hagwood will be free of the High Lady’s tyranny. Hasten, little friends. The night is not yet ended; there still may be many dangers ahead—for us all.”

  Into the shadows the werlings hurried, but not one of them realized just how deadly that night would prove. Before morning, one of them would be slain.

  CHAPTER 10

  Murder by Moonlight

  UPON THE BARREN HEATH, Mufus and Bufus were enjoying themselves immensely.

  As soon as they slipped away from the others, they had run to this empty wasteland, giggling and sniggering at their own sly cleverness.

  Wergling into mice, they charged through the coarse grasses that covered the heath, reveling in the freedom of that vast deserted space. Neither of them had ever known such liberty, and to be away from the constant presence of trees was an experience that never ceased to thrill them.

  For more than an hour they played in the moonlit dark, discovering the countless pits and shafts that grinned in the expansive scrubland. In high squeaking voices they joked and laughed, mostly at the expense of those they had left behind.

  Finally, when they had rampaged as wildly and as recklessly as their rodents’ legs could manage, they threw themselves into the long grass where their clothes were heaped in an untidy pile and stared up at the stars while they panted and regained their breath.

  Looking for all the world like two relaxing, reclining mice, lounging upon their backs, they lay there, exhausted and content.

  It was Mufus who recovered sufficiently to speak first.

  “Wish it was like this all the time.” He sighed, snapping a grass stem and nibbling it. “Dunno why they make us plod about in groups. Never learn nothin’ that way, what with stupid Gammy holdin’ us up and that Liffy girl whining about fur pullin’ every chance she gets.”

  His brother grunted his agreement.

  “Don’t forget Chookface,” Bufus said. “With his ’normous feet and guzzlin’ all the time.”

  “Useless bunch.”

  “Except Lufkin, though. Right clever he is.”

  Mufus tittered. “Not clever enough to stop us running off,” he crowed.

  “Know what his trouble is...,” Bufus added after a moment’s deliberation. “Too soft. Might be a grand wergler, but a pushover all the same. No point bein’ smart if you’re weak with it. Nah, you and me, we’re the best of that sorry lot.”

  “What do you reckon they’re doin’ right this minute?”

  Bufus lifted himself up on all fours and began an exaggerated waddle. “Here, hedgepiggy!” he called, mimicking Tollychook’s earnest tones.

  Mufus snickered. “Prob’ly not even noticed we’re missing!” he said. “Still dawdling about the wood, watching beetles bein’ chewed.”

  Rolling onto his back once more, Bufus gave his mouse tail a wiggle and idly curled and uncurled it while pushing his pink toes into the cool soil.

  “Cracked in the head they are,” he scoffed. “Waste of time, all that. This is much better.”

  Mufus spat the stem from his mouth. “All the same,” he began, “we really should find a hedgehog of our own. Not to study or anything dull, of course. We could get away with just yanking some bristles out.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” his brother moaned.

  “If we don’t, you know what’ll happen. They’ll all end up being able to wergle into one before we do—maybe even Gammy. Can’t have that, can we?”

  Bufus conceded that he had a point. “Mind you,” he said, “I haven’t seen a hedgehog the whole time we’ve been here, have you?”

  “No,” Mufus replied with a scowl. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anything. No other living thing at all.”

  His brother yawned. “I reckon the critters hereabouts know when the wergle teaching starts,” he said. “So they hide from us. What a fuss over a tiny smudge of fluff.”

  Mufus rose and peered over the gently swaying grasses. Cocking his head to one side, he waggled his mousy ears but could hear nothing.

  “No sound anywhere!” he exclaimed. “Nothin’ but the wind a-rustling them bushes down there.”

  Staring at the dense thickets that grew at the bottom of the sloping heathland, he scratched his head in puzzlement.

  “Can’t figure it,” he muttered.

  “P’raps it’s always like this out here,” Bufus suggested drowsily. “We wouldn’t know, would we?”

  “Hmm, maybe. Look, I’d best go and see if I can round up one of those prickly cowards. Must all be skulking in them thorn clumps.”

  Puffing out his chest, he wergled back into his usual self and pulled on his breeches.

  “Drive one of them this way,” Bufus drawled. “I can’t be bothered to go down there.”

  “I’ll scare a whole crowd of ’em out,” his brother promised. “You’ll be able to pick and choose. Watch out, hedgehogs, Mufus Doolan is coming to get you!”

  Cackling like a little demon, he marched through the coarse grasses, down to where the thorns obscured the shores of the Lonely Mere like a bank of dark and jagged fog.

  “You can’t hide from me,” he called in his spookiest voice. “There’s no escape. Your dooooom is nigh!”

  Cheerily Mufus trotted closer to the dense thickets.

  “There’ll be bald spots aplenty when I’ve finished with you!”

  The needle-covered branches ahead were rattling and scraping together. Ignorant of the terrible danger, the young werling strolled into their profound shadow with the lightest of hearts.

  To the very edge of the thorns he went, then stooped to peer beneath the clattering boughs.

  “Come out, come out!” he said, whistling invitingly. “Or I’ll come in and kick you out.”

  The twigs shook even more and Mufus straightened. Something peculiar was happening. Gazing up at the quivering branches, he suddenly realized that the wind was not strong enough to make them bow and bend like that.

  “Funny,” he murmured. “What’s causin’ it?”

  Mufus began to grow uneasy. It was almost as if the thorns were impatient for him to enter.

  Turning back to face the empty stretch of heath, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Hey, Bufus, get down here.”

  Only the sighing grasses answered, and then Mufus thought he heard a malevolent, rasping voice hiss behind him.

  “Come—come to dark—Snaggart wants.”

  The werling whisked around.

  “Who’s that?” he demanded. “Who is it?”

  The twigs rattled all the more, and Mufus became afraid. The spiky gloom was suddenly smoldering with menace, and he wanted to run away.

  “Bufus!” he shouted in alarm,

  Black shapes were moving in those tangled depths, and the werling took a frightened step backward.

  At once a pair of pale eyes snapped open in the murk.

  Mufus wailed for his brother, and then, to his horror, the thornbush he was standing by shifted and reared upward. From the grass the ogre rose, its buckled legs creaking. In the gnarled head the mouth split open
, and twisted arms came swinging round, the fingers of deformed claws jerking and writhing as they reached out to snatch him.

  Before Mufus could move another step, the woody talons plucked him off the ground.

  “Bufus!” he shrieked. “Bufus, help me! Help!”

  The thorn ogres cackled hideously, and into their barbed darkness the werling was dragged.

  “Bufus!” Mufus Doolan screamed for the last time, and then his voice was silenced forever.

  Still wearing his mouse shape, Bufus was dozing peacefully.

  The whiskers upon his furry face gave an unhappy twitch. Shrill cries had disturbed his slumber, and with a reluctant groan he opened one eye.

  “Mufus?” he mumbled dopily. “Where are you?”

  Yawning and blinking, the mouse stretched and looked around. The night had become deathly silent once more.

  “Mufus?” he said again, a little louder this time.

  Bufus sucked his teeth and pouted. Where had his brother gone?

  A fuzzy recollection of their last conversation came back to him, and he stared across the heath to where the thorn-bushes grew. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he shouted Mufus’s name, but there was still no response.

  “What’s he doin’ down there?” he muttered grumpily. “I’m bored of this and want to go home now.”

  Sweeping his tail behind him, Bufus wandered over the scrubland, pressing ever closer to the eclipsing mass of thorn and briar.

  “Did you find any?” he called. “Did you pull a handful out for me? You’d better or else...”

  Drawing near the bushes, Bufus thought he heard thin laughter, and he toddled a little faster toward them.

  “What you chucklin’ at in there?” he asked. “Mufus, where are you?”

  Scampering to the edge of the thicket, the mouse halted. The laughter had stopped and he wavered uncertainly. It wasn’t like his brother to play games like this with him.

  Thorny branches filled his vision. Bufus did not like the look of those ugly growths. Then something in the corner of his eye made him turn and glance upward.

  Bufus Doolan choked back a cry. Above him, impaled upon the spiky twigs, hung Mufus’s lifeless body.

  The branches rattled, and croaking laughter floated from the shadows.

  Howling, Bufus turned tail and ran for his life.

  Over the heath the werling pelted, too terrified to even think about wergling back into his proper form. Across that wide, empty desolation he fled, leaping onto the cinder trackway and plunging through the trees beyond.

  Not once did he stop. The horrendous image of his brother stuck through with thorns burned like a hot coal in his mind, and squealing hideously, he sped through Hagwood.

  Up in the trees around him lanterns were lighted, and anxious faces appeared to see what all the noise was about.

  At the base of the wych elm where the Doolans lived, Bufus finally stumbled to a halt and collapsed in the leaf mold.

  “ ’Ware! ’Ware!” he bawled. “Wolves! Owls! Witches! ’Ware! ’Ware!”

  Overcome with grief he buried his face in the dead leaves, wergling back into his usual shape, then wept violently.

  The alarm cry had not been used in living memory, and from every home the families came pouring. Down the trees they scrambled, calling to one another in worried voices. What was happening? Some actually believed that a pack of ferocious wolves had invaded, and they refused to leave the safety of the branches. Others thought that there must have been a terrible accident involving one or more of the groups hunting hedgehogs, and parents began to frantically call their children’s names. All was panic and confusion, but eventually they gathered around Bufus, who was now being held in his mother’s arms, and finally, through his sobs, they heard the ghastly news.

  When the horror of his words sank in, the Doolan family wailed and clutched him tightly.

  A dismayed hush descended upon the other werlings, and Yoori Mattock stepped forward.

  “There will be time for sorrow later,” he addressed them. “First we must bring back the child’s body.”

  A great number volunteered to accompany him to the heath, but he ordered that some of them should remain behind.

  “The other children must be found,” he announced. “This is no night for instruction and study. Find them, fetch them to their homes, and cherish them all the more.”

  And so, with lanterns and flaming torches in their hands, a host of werlings marched from Hagwood, with Yoori Mattock and Terser Gibble at their head. Fighting their anguish, Bufus Doolan and his parents joined them, for only Bufus could lead them to his brother.

  Angered and determined, prepared to fight whatever foes they might encounter, the crowd solemnly crossed the overgrown track and entered the heath.

  Down the sloping ground they paraded, with Master Gibble urging them on with encouraging words and warlike cries.

  Through the scrubland their tiny lights streaked, tracing a flickering line in that deserted gloom. Then, as the land lifted and became level once more, Bufus gave a shout.

  The werlings halted and mustered around him.

  “What is it, lad?” Yoori Mattock asked. “Is there aught else we should know?”

  Bufus was not listening. He pushed his way through the crowd and stared in disbelief at the heath around him.

  “Where are they?” he cried. “Where’ve they gone?”

  The thornbushes had vanished.

  Where only a little while ago dense thickets had covered the ground, now only a stretch of stubbly grass separated him from the Lonely Mere in the distance.

  “I don’t understand!” he yelled. “They were here. I know they were! Mufus was...Mufus was...!”

  He could utter no more, and the others looked at him with concern.

  Master Gibble drew Yoori Mattock aside.

  “An excitable child,” the tutor remarked. “He and his brother are prone to pranks. Perhaps this also is one of their little jokes.”

  Mr. Mattock’s whiskery face grew sterner than ever. “I know what the Doolan twins are like,” he said. “But just look at the boy. Do you really think he’s playacting?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Master Gibble retorted indignantly, his many nostrils all sniffing at once. “Why should my opinion count, after all?”

  Yoori rejoined the others. “Before we leave this place,” he shouted, “we’re going to search it, even if it takes the rest of the night. The poor lad might’ve fallen into one of the pits. They’ll all have to be inspected.”

  The werlings began at once. Like a slowly bursting firework, the lanterns radiated through the grass and the hunt commenced.

  Pursing his lips, Terser Gibble joined the endeavor but with neither enthusiasm nor expectation. He was certain that this was nothing more than an exaggerated mischief, and so, when the grisly discovery was made, he was both astonished and ashamed.

  “Here! Here!” one of the searchers called. “I’ve found...here!”

  Lying on the grass was the bloodless body of Mufus Doolan. Punctured with many sharp wounds, it looked as though he had been tossed carelessly aside, a worthless thing to be discarded. It was a contemptible gesture, and no one who looked on that small, broken corpse could staunch their tears.

  “What were they doing out here on their own?” Yoori Mattock asked hoarsely. “Who was the leader of their group?”

  Master Gibble was dabbing at his nose, making certain that everyone could see how affected he was by this tragedy. “They were in the care of Finnen Lufkin,” he answered smartly. “I have no idea why they should come here or why he permitted it.”

  Mr. Mattock gave instructions for the body to be carried back to Hagwood. “There’ll be a meeting of the ruling council tomorrow,” he said. “Finnen Lufkin will have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Trailing wretchedly behind those carrying his brother, Bufus Doolan wiped his streaming eyes and nose and glanced over his shoulder.

  The thorns had depa
rted—but where had they gone?

  CHAPTER 11

  The Silent Grove

  WHEN THEY FINALLY CROSSED the Hagburn and stepped back into their own land, Finnen and the others breathed great glad gulps of the less oppressive air. The horrors they had been through seemed a world away now. This was where they belonged, here in this pleasant corner of Hagwood where the trees were tall and beautiful and all was safe and familiar.

  With Gamaliel and the fox cub still in his arms, the Smith gave approving nods at everything he saw.

  “A wholesome place,” he observed. “Though the shadow of the heartless one has spread far across the wild, no hint of it does Smith perceive here. Long may it remain this way.”

  It was when they arrived at the Tumpin home that they discovered that evil had already entered in.

  Worried that their son’s party had not returned when the other groups had been recalled, Figgle and Tidubelle Tumpin were keeping watch in the branches. As the Smith strode over the woodland floor, they saw Gamaliel sitting in the crook of his arm and rushed down the tree as fast as they were able.

  “Nuts and pips!” Figgle cried, overjoyed but regarding the Pucca shyly. “Where’ve you been?”

  “We were so worried,” Mrs. Tumpin declared, her face unable to decide which smile to wear. “Oh, what a terror this night has been.”

  The Smith set Gamaliel upon the ground next to them, but when they embraced their son he flinched and his hand flew to his shoulder.

  “You’re hurt!” they cried, and Figgle stared at the Pucca accusingly, the unseemly squirrel tail flicking angrily behind him.

  “Rest is all he requires,” the Smith assured them.

  Finnen knew what the Tumpins were thinking and was quick to put them right, explaining that it was the Pucca who had saved Gamaliel’s life.

  “Gave us a lovely licky stew as well,” Tollychook added unnecessarily.

  Figgle and Tidubelle apologized for leaping to unfair conclusions, but the Smith waved their words aside.

  “But where’s Kernella?” Gamaliel asked.

  Figgle’s tail drooped and Tidubelle’s smiles faded completely.