Quest for the Faradawn

CHAPTER XVI

All through the cold crisp days of January they trudged on across the plain. The cloak of winter was heavy on the land; the trees were bare and stark, the grass cropped short and the fields frozen. There was some snow but no rain; it was too cold for that and the animals were grateful, for rain brings damp and damp is the enemy of every wild creature. So the snow froze, coating the trees with glitter which glinted in the moonlight and covering the fields with a crisp white surface which was easy to walk on and left no footprints. But although they were free of rain there was an icy cutting wind which swept down from the hills they had just crossed and nagged at them until it found a way through to their bodies. Beth was grateful for her cloak and all her layers of clothing which, although heavy and cumbersome to walk in, kept her at least moderately warm.

They kept to the same pattern as before; by day sleeping under hedges or in hollows and then as the sun started to go down in the late afternoon, setting out to walk through cold clear nights when the stars twinkled at them and the moon lit their way. For much of the time the Scyttel of standing stones which they were heading for was out of sight but Nab had no difficulty in feeling the currents of Roosdyche. Sometimes as they travelled they would come across a smaller Scyttel quite accidentally; it would perhaps have been marked by a stone or else it would simply be a little mound or a copse of trees or a place where water welled up from the earth. At other times it took the form of a grotto by a stream or a collection of huge rocks. They would stop by these places for a while and feel the power of the Scyttel giving them energy, strength and clarity of thought and, if they were lucky enough to come across one around dawn, they would sleep there for the day and awake feeling marvellously refreshed and invigorated.

Sam’s injuries were almost perfectly healed now and he was in the peak of condition; his coat a deep shining gold and his eyes clear and bright. Perryfoot too was better and had been ejected unceremoniously from his sling by Nab one night when it was thought that things had got to the stage when he was simply cadging a free ride. In fact, without his lift he would never have got better or even survived but now, although he still had a bad limp and would never be able to recapture his former speed, he was very nearly back to normal.

Beth found that she had got used to the grasses, roots, berries and toadstools that Nab found for her and had even begun to enjoy some of them. They at least now kept her going and she looked forward to the spring and summer when she knew there would be far more variety and choice. Now she was able to recognize some and, although Nab always insisted that he look at them before she ate in case they were poisonous, she gathered most of her food herself.

The teaching and the learning of each other’s language, which had begun in the hay bam, continued as they walked along together through the nights and it was not long before Nab had enough command of Beth’s language to be able to tell her of his life and of the purpose of their mission together. She listened in amazement and fascination as he told her of his early days with Brock and Tara in the sett and of how he had been found, and of his adventures and friendships with the other animals in Silver Wood. He related to her the tales and legends of the members of the Council; Rufus, Bruin, Sterndale and Pictor, all of them now dead, and he told her the stories which he had been told of the great heroes of the past and of the early days when the Urkku were first on the earth and of the myths of the time Before-Man. Slowly, as their journey together continued, Beth felt a whole new world revealed to her; a world of whose existence she had previously been almost totally unaware and a world over which the shadow of the Urkku loomed, omnipresent, dark and forbidding. She felt as if her eyes were being slowly opened and when finally Nab retold to her, as best he could, the saga which had been related to him by the Lord Wychnor, then the answers to so many questions which had worried her and puzzled her for so long became clear; now the jigsaw became complete. She felt humble and proud to have been the one chosen by Ashgaroth to accompany Nab and she was pleased that the significance of her dreams had been explained. And she was to play a part in this saga; a part which she and the others would only fully understand at the end when they had completed their mission and Ashgaroth revealed it to them. When Nab had finished he buried his hand beneath his raiments of bark and, finding the casket on the Belt of Ammdar which contained the Ring, he pressed the catch and put his fingers inside to pull it out.

‘Here; this belongs to you. It is your gift from Ashgaroth; given to me as a sign for you by the Lord Wychnor,’ Nab said tenderly.

Beth took the precious ring, which she remembered so clearly from her dreams, and as she did so the silvery threads of mist deep inside it shimmered and moved gracefully in the golden light given off by the jewel deep in the shank. She placed it slowly and carefully on the long middle finger of her right hand and it seemed to cast an aura of light around her, so powerful was its glow. There it remained for ever, never to be removed, and the strength of its beauty never failed to fill Beth with wonder whenever she looked at it, and to help her through the difficult times ahead whenever she felt doubt or fear or uncertainty. It was her link with the world which Nab had shown her; her proof that she was truly chosen, and a constant reminder of the power and magic of that world and the depth of its mysteries.

The country through which they were going was not as flat as it had appeared from their first view of it; little streams and valleys cut it up and there were large areas of woodland and these they passed quickly in case they were seen by any of the travellers living in them. The existence of Nab and Beth must be kept secret until the end, and talk within a wood would soon find its way out to Dréagg through careless conversations. As they passed on across the plain the land became more fertile, the fields smaller and the Urkku dwellings more numerous. Farms were everywhere and sometimes it was impossible to avoid being within sight of one and they would find themselves crawling along ditches or by the side of hedges as lights from the farm windows blazed out across the fields and the noise of the cows being milked in the shippens, the hum of milking machines or the clatter of pails drifted out on the frosty air. At other times a dog would bark and the travellers would freeze where they were as a door opened and an Urkku stared out into the night to see what had caused the disturbance. Then they would wait until the door had closed again before venturing forward like silent shadows.

It was also at this time that they came across roads; the great bands of concrete which cut across the face of the land. Beth explained the purpose of them to Nab and he in turn told the others although they had all seen them before. Beth told them of the dangers if they were crossing when one of the Urkku vehicles was travelling along, and she always led the way over them, standing on the verge looking out for headlights and beckoning them to go over one by one when she thought it was safe. Sometimes two of them would be safely on the far side, normally Perryfoot and Brock as they went first, and then a stream of cars would appear from nowhere and the animals would lie terrified behind a bank, or hidden in a ditch by the verge, while the cars roared past in a thundering storm of noise and light, choking them with dust and fumes and leaving them shaking with fear. Once they had been crossing on a bend and Beth, thinking it was safe, had motioned Perryfoot across. He had just hopped on to the tarmac when a car screamed around the corner trapping him in its lights. The hare had frozen, mesmerized as Nab remembered from the incident he’d seen in the field at the front of Silver Wood, but fortunately Beth had just had time to leap out and pull him back before he was crushed under the wheels. The driver had seen the girl in the glare of his headlamps and had pulled to a halt further up the road. Beth had gone up to him when he got out and told him that it was her little dog he had almost run over and that she had left him tied to a tree at the side of the road in the ditch. He offered her and her dog a lift home as it was a cold night and it was past eleven o’clock, but she had politely declined the offer explaining that she did not live far away and was just taking the dog out for its last walk. The man had then wished her goodnight, walked back to his car and driven off, feeling slightly bemused by the sight of the wild-looking pretty young girl in the brown tweed cape whose eyes had seemed to transfix him with their depth and intensity and whose blonde hair had tumbled like a mane around her shoulders. She did not live far away, she had said, and yet the nearest house he had passed was eight miles back. Once back in the familiar surroundings of his own car, it was almost as if he had dreamt the entire incident.

Some time later they came across their first town. The previous night they had noticed a red glow in the dark sky and had wondered where it came from. They had stopped at dawn by the base of a huge oak tree and rested all day. That evening they set off again and the glow had still been there ahead of them until, towards midnight, they became aware of a constant hum coming to them on the wind. It was such an indistinguishable mass of sound that it could almost be forgotten about and it reminded the animals of a strong wind rushing through trees. As they got nearer the glow became brighter and the noise louder and more jagged so that now, over and above that level hum, could be heard the occasional horn of a car or the sound of a heavy lorry churning its way through the streets or a motor cycle buzzing along an empty road.

They were approaching the summit of a sharp rise in a meadow: suddenly they were at the top and there, stretched out in front of them, lay the town. It was not particularly big but to the animals it seemed as if it went on for ever. Their ears now felt as if they were being assaulted by the noise and the sky was ablaze with light; gone now was that comparatively gentle red glow, this was a maelstrom of reds, oranges and whites which carved away the darkness of the night in a huge arc above; and all around, like the crooked spolces of a giant wheel, stretched out ribbons of red as the street lights followed the roads out into the suburbs. Sometimes they could see twin pairs of lights travelling along as a car returned home late or a lorry made its lonely way through the town. As they turned a corner, these lights would sometimes, if they were on the outskirts, beam out into the darkness of the surrounding countryside and swing round as the car turned: once or twice they shone straight out at the animals, blinding them momentarily until they continued on their way.

The air was heavy with the sickly cloying smell of fumes and chemicals from a large industrial estate on one side; here also the lights were brighter and there was more noise and activity. The smell stuck in their nostrils and put a strange metallic taste at the back of their mouths; they felt unable to draw their breath properly and they became a little desperate and frightened as every time they breathed they felt this unfamiliar air go through their lungs and make them feel like retching.

They stood at the top of the rise for a while, scared but also fascinated by what seemed like a huge beast breathing fire and smoke and which even at rest was unable to stop the ceaseless turmoil within itself. Nab asked Beth lots of questions and she answered them as best she could because she was not very familiar with town life. As she told him all she knew he became cold with fear for he realized that he would be totally unable to survive in it; to live in the middle, surrounded by that mass of concrete and lights and noise, would be for him a nightmare.

‘We cannot go through it,’ he said to Warrigal, who was standing at his side. ‘I would not be able to feel the Roosdyche and we would lose our bearings. We shall have to go round and hope to pick it up on the other side.’

‘It will take us a long time,’ replied the owl.

‘We have no choice. If we got lost in there it would take us far longer. We should never get out. And we would be certain to be spotted. Beth has said untold numbers of Urkku dwell inside it. No; we must go round.’

They set off on a detour around the town, keeping the same distance away from it all the time. It took them fifteen nights; fifteen nights during which the town was their constant companion. By the end they almost felt as if they had come to know it; to become aware of its changing moods as the week wore on from the desperate gaiety of Saturday through the busy workday clatter of the week to the docile slothful slumber of Sunday, before the pattern began again, to repeat itself over and over, inexorably.

They had to go very slowly because of the multitude of outlying dwellings around the town and the busy main roads down which the cars screeched and thundered but there were no mishaps even though sometimes they were forced to go so close to a house that they could hear voices. When Beth heard the familiar household noises drift out through the night air, the clatter of plates in a kitchen or the whistle of a kettle boiling on a cooker or the thump of a pair of feet going upstairs, she felt very strange. They took her back to her other world, the one of which she had been part for so long and which she had now abandoned, and she was reminded of her parents and her home. At these times waves of nostalgia would sweep over her to vanish quickly in the tension of the moment as they crept behind a wall or through a hedge in a garden.

So, while people watched television or lay asleep in their beds, outside in the cool clear night the little band made their slow and careful way round the town until finally they caught sight of the Scyttel in the distance. It was not long then before Nab detected the earth currents which told him that they were once again on the old way and they set out towards the distant mound with excitement and relief; they felt that they were now well and truly on their way and that it would not be too long before they arrived at the place of the Sea Elves where they would meet the Elflord of the Sea and the first part of their journey would be over.

Soon they reached the mound which they had kept in sight for so long. It was smaller than they had imagined from far off and was simply a large flat-topped hummock with a circle of large standing stones set in the grass. Some of the the first Urkku had, by means of logic, been able to recognize the magic power of these places and had attempted to concentrate and magnify their strength by placing these stones on them for, because magic had been denied to them, they were forced to use logic in order to be able to extract and make use of the power. It was only where the magic force was strongest that they were able to perceive the power of the place so there are myriads of lesser Scyttels totally unknown to them and of whose existence only the elves and the animals are aware, for it is only those who possess magic who can feel intuitively where they are. Thus it was only occasionally on their journey that the animals came across one of these larger and more powerful Scyttels. The day they spent at this one was a wild blustery day in early February when the sky was heavy with enormous dark clouds rolling after each other as the wind howled over the plain. They sat huddled behind one of the stones out of the wind, mesmerized by these armies of cloud passing overhead and letting the strength of the Scyttel flow into them. So aware were they of the energy of the place that they were unable to sleep and in fact they felt no need of it. Stretched out behind them they had a view of the entire plain over which they had travelled while ahead of them was a further small range of foothills to cross and they sensed that beyond those lay the sea.

When night-time came they set off across the small stretch of plain which lay between them and the hills and by midnight they were climbing. Soon the lush green pastures of the lowlands had been left behind and the ground became rocky; the grass poor and short, and instead of cows they saw only sheep picking at the sparse patches of green between the rock and the scrub. The following day the winds brought in snow and they awoke in the late afternoon to find everywhere covered with a thick blanket of white. Fortunately the snow had stopped and the sky had begun to clear so that the moon was shining clearly down on the hills. The going was easier now because the snow was freezing on top of the heather and scrub and they made good progress, particularly as up here there were no Urkku dwellings or any other sign of them.

It took them two more nights to reach the other side of the little range of hills. Eventually they found themselves standing on the top of a steep slope looking down on to a carpet of mist below. It was almost dawn so they rested and slept behind a crag before setting off in the evening down the slope. To their disappointment it had begun to rain again as the weather had grown warmer and soon the exhilaration of the clear crisp nights walking over the snow-covered heather with the moon and stars lighting up their path had evaporated under a pall of dampness.

There was no moon and the rain made it difficult for even Warrigal and Brock to see far ahead. They descended slowly down narrow paths turned slippery by the rain, which had not yet melted the ice but instead had polished them with a layer of water, making them treacherous. Several times Beth slipped and once she went rolling

down a steep bank until she came to a halt at the edge of a little stream. From then on Nab kept hold of her hand for some of the paths took them along the edge of deep drops falling into inky blackness which they guessed went a long way down.

When they reached the lowest of the foothills and were almost at the bottom, the visibility became suddenly much worse as they found themselves in the middle of a thick swirling mist. The rain had now stopped but the cold clammy dampness of the mist soaked them to the skin. They carried on for a while with Nab in the lead for he was able to follow the Roosdyche even more strongly than Warrigal, who was perched on his shoulder peering into the murk ahead and steering him as best he could along what seemed to be raised green footways on either side of which the ground appeared to fall away and become black and broken.

‘We cannot go much further tonight,’ Nab said suddenly. ‘I have lost the Roosdyche. We’ll wait here until dawn when we might be able to see where we are.' Warrigal flew down and perched on an old rotten treestump in front. His eyes were red-rimmed and raw with tiredness and his feathers rough and bedraggled with the wet. Behind them the others gathered in a little group, miserable and silent as the mist blew in wraiths about them.

‘We’ve decided to stay here until the morning,’ Nab announced, and without saying a word they all lay down on the saturated ground.

It was impossible to sleep. Somehow an air of evil hung about the place; the mist seemed to form itself into figures which danced and leered at them through the gloom, racing on to be replaced by another and another, each one different to the last until their minds became numb with a kind of dull sick horror. Tiredness eventually overcame Beth and she fell into a restless fitful sleep in which the evil figures which had paraded before her in the mist assumed gigantic proportions. They laughed down at her from the heavens and their long fingers wrapped themselves around her body and picked her up, tossing her like a rag doll from one to the other. Their flesh seemed to be made of some sort of slimy gelatinous substance so that where they touched her she felt terribly wet and cold and the dampness went right through her body, wrapping its icy fingers around her soul and tugging at it as if trying to shake it free. She struggled and fought to release herself from their grip but they only laughed and threw her up in the air again where she waved her arms about in panic until she was caught by another. A terrible fear spread over her, freezing her heart and turning her legs to jelly as the utter helplessness of her situation forced itself into her consciousness. She was about to give up her struggles and abandon herself to despair when she felt herself shaken by another warmer grip and heard her name called insistently by a familiar voice. ‘Beth, Beth,’ it said, and slowly she shook off the webs of the nightmare as the voice brought her back to wakefulness. She opened her eyes to see Nab’s anxious face looking down at her. Although it was so cold she felt little beads of perspiration mingling with the damp on her forehead.

‘Hold me,’ she said in a small frightened voice and he did so, reviving her body with life and melting the chill in her soul with the warmth of love.

‘You were tossing in your sleep, and crying out. We were afraid for you,’ he said.

She told him of her dream and the others sat around and listened in fear. There was silence when she finished; they sat in the damp half-light of the early morning not knowing what to think or to do. Soon a pale watery sun began to try to filter through the mist and around them they saw a bleak landscape of twisted, stunted trees and flat bog which lay dark and oozing for as far as they could see in the unreal light. They had been walking along one of a number of raised paths on which grass grew but the one they were on now came to an end just a few paces further on and sank back into the quagmire. The heavy dank smell of decaying vegetation hung over everything, and they could see, protruding from the bog like fingers, the dead rotten stumps of old trees covered in fungi and lichens and mosses which dripped continuously into the bog.

‘This is an evil place,’ whispered Warrigal quietly to himself as if he was afraid that the bog might hear.

‘We must go back and try to find another path,’ said Nab, but he didn’t move for his body seemed to be sunk into a deep trough of despair and apathy from which he was unable to raise it.

Suddenly Brock exclaimed loudly, ‘What’s that! Look; walking through the mist.’

They could faintly see a tall white figure walking slowly and deliberately through the bog towards them and they could just about make out the regular splashing of delicate footsteps in water.

‘It’s a heron,’ Brock said. The bird walked towards them picking up its long spindly legs and placing them down carefully in the bog and as it did so its head, with the deadly sharp pointed beak, moved backwards and forwards in time with the rhythm of its walk. The animals had occasionally seen such a creature before as herons had sometimes come to the stream at the back of Silver Wood but that had been a rare occurrence and they had never been this close to one before. It stood before them, its long white wings folded in on either side of its body and reaching down at the back to a little rounded peak, reminding Beth of an old-fashioned tail coat. From each eye to the top of its head stretched a narrow spherical black marking that seemed to continue on into its plume which now was held down so that it pointed from the back of its head at an angle to the ground. To Beth it looked as if it was wearing a pair of glasses with thick black rims. When it spoke the long neck, which was tucked in between its shoulders, quivered slightly.

‘I am Golconda, the Great White Heron; Guardian of the Marshes of Blore. I have been awaiting your arrival for some time since the Sea Elves warned me of your coming. My task is to see the traveller safely through the marshes. We must beware, for with your presence here the atmosphere is thick with goblins. A band of them reside in the marsh and normally we live in an uneasy truce. However they are aware of your importance if not of your purpose and they will do all they can to stop you.’

‘But no one saw us,’ said Nab. ‘We took the greatest care. How could they know we are here?’

The heron laughed; a deep rasping noise which seemed to grate its way up from the bottom of his legs.

‘You cannot escape the eyes of Dréagg. His spies are everywhere. He knew where you were from the moment you left your wood. Do not underestimate him. Now follow me, but be extremely cautious. There is but one way through the marshes. If you step off the way you will swiftly be submerged in the ooze.’

They set off through the marsh, each of them following exactly in the footsteps of the other except for Warrigal, who once again sat perched on Nab’s shoulder. As they walked Nab asked the heron why he was unable to feel the Roosdyche here.

‘It is because Dréagg has blighted this place,’ Golconda said. ‘It belongs to the goblins who have no need for light nor for the power of the earth. Ashgaroth and his gifts are unknown here, it is an empty space for him and does not exist. Can you not feel the Evil One all around you?’

‘Why do you then stay?’ asked Warrigal.

‘I have told you; someone must show travellers across. There is no other way to the sea without going through an enormous detour over the high mountains and that would take far too long and be even more dangerous. In any case it is impassable in winter. And I can survive on what is to be found in the marshes. The goblins do not suspect that I work with the elves; I am a solitary bird and they leave me alone. I am too unimportant for Dréagg to waste his efforts on so I stay and no one bothers me. That is the way that it has been.’ He paused while they walked under the overhanging branches of a small oak tree which swept down almost to the ground. The trunk of it was covered in thick green lichen, and on the roots which stuck up out of the green sludge, grew hundreds of little orange fungi that contrasted strongly with the dull greens and browns all around.

‘But you,’ Golconda went on. ‘I know all I wish to know about your journey and your mission and I bid you the greatest of good fortune for you will need it. But tell me of your wood and of the animals in it, and of your early days, Nab; and the Urkku with you, who is of the Eldron: tell me of her. I see that she speaks to you in our tongue. I would like her to talk to me of the ways of the Urkku.’

The time passed quickly as they talked; they forgot the evil around them as they related the stories and legends of Silver Wood to the heron, and when Nab told him of the early days, sunshine and laughter seemed to fill his mind. But when they got to the end the heron stopped them and asked Beth to tell him of her life and they listened in fascination and amazement as she told them haltingly of how she had lived and of the ways of man.

They enjoyed talking to him for he was a good listener, only occasionally interrupting to ask a pertinent question or add some observation of his own. He reminded them all, in his stature and bearing, of Wythen and they wondered sadly if they would ever see the old owl again. Soon, before they realized it, the darkness began to fall and night started to set in.

‘We must press on, make haste,’ Golconda said when Warrigal asked him if they were going to rest for the night. ‘There is no knowing what the goblins are planning, and the sooner you are safely through the marshes, the better I shall feel.’

The swirling, writhing mist had not lifted all day but the darkness made it appear thicker and more dense so that it felt like a heavy drizzle and their coats once again became soaked with wet. They went in silence now, concentrating on following the heron as he walked ahead of them for they could see very little. Suddenly Nab, who was immediately behind him, heard a muffled thud and a little cry which was stifled almost as soon as it began so that he could not be certain whether or not he had imagined it. He stopped for a second and whispered to Warrigal.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Yes,’ the owl replied quietly.

‘What was it?’

‘Just some creature, I would think. I heard a splash as well. Come on or we’ll lose sight of Golconda.’

Nab peered ahead through the murk. For an instant or two he could see nothing except the shapes formed by the mist but then to his relief he saw the familiar form of the heron, striding ahead, his tall white figure appearing almost wraith-like as it gathered shrouds of mist around it.

‘Hurry up,’ said Warrigal urgently and Nab felt the talons of the owl tighten on his shoulder. ‘He seems to have got a long way in front. Better not call him in case the goblins are around. Come on.’ Nab moved forward quickly and the others followed and soon they were once again trudging along in silence, sunk in thought, with the heron just visible in front. The little nagging feeling of panic which Nab had felt when he had heard that cry soon passed as he concentrated on following Golconda. Nevertheless there was still something bothering him and as time went on and the figure ahead of him kept going forward resolutely without ever turning around or getting any closer, Nab felt little prickles of fear creep up his spine until he felt as if the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. Nomatter how quickly or how slowly they walked the heron always seemed to remain exactly the same distance in front of them. Why did he not wait for them to catch up? If only he would turn round and they could see his face or if he would just say something. The marsh seemed to be getting thicker and thicker and the smell of damp rotting vegetation was now so heavy on the air that they could almost see it lying like a cloud above the surface of the dark brackish waters and bog moss which lay on each side of their raised path. Around I them the swirling clouds of damp played tricks with their eyes, making it seem as if the dead stumps of the trees were moving; every so often one would loom up at them out of the mist like some malevolent creature of the hog.

Nab’s eyes were fixed so much on the figure ahead of him that he failed to see the ending of the path. Suddenly his feet were enclosed in a mass of green sludge and when he tried to lift them out he found that it was impossible; the more he tried to free one, the further in did the other one sink. Warrigal had flown back on to the path and he called to the others to hurry up. Beth was only just behind but by the time she had arrived the quaking mire was up to his knees. Brock, Sam and Perryfoot ran the few paces to the spot where the path fell away into the bog and saw with horror the scene before them as Nab frantically waved his arms about trying to throw himself towards the bank, but the more he struggled the further he sank. He could feel himself being sucked down with a strength that was impossible to fight: soon he could not move his legs at all for the sludge was halfway up his thighs. Beth lent over as far as she could but still she could not reach his hand and then, through the haze of her memory, she recalled scenes from films and books in which someone had been caught in quicksand. Quickly she took off her cape and rolled it on the grass so that it formed a rope of cloth and then she lay face down on the path as near to the edge as she dared until the stench of the bog filled her nostrils.

‘Brock, let me hold on to you and Sam, you lie across my legs,’ she said.

The animals understood what she wanted and so with her left hand gripping Brock’s front leg as he stood at her side and with the weight of Sam holding her down she threw the cape out with her free hand, but it did not fall straight and dropped well short of Nab’s clutching hand.

‘Hurry,’ he shouted and as he did so he felt the sludge force itself up over his waist.

Beth drew her right arm well back so that the cape was stretched out straight on the path behind her and then with all the strength she could muster she flung it out across the bog. This time the whole of its length was used up and her arm lay out at full stretch. With her heart pounding beneath her she hardly dared raise her head to look, but when she did, to her enormous relief, she saw that he had just managed to grasp the end. Then she could feel him pulling on the cape and her arm felt as if it was being torn out of its socket. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as a wave of pain swept over her. The problem now was how to haul him out of the bog. She tried to bend her arm to pull him but it was impossible; she did not have enough strength. Then she felt her hand begin to slip on the cape but she managed to wedge her fingers against the lion’s-head buckle to stop it sliding. Next she began to wriggle back on her tummy in an attempt to drag him out but that also proved impossible. Desperately she thought for a second and then she called to Brock and Sam to grab hold of her by her legs and pull. They did so, gripping her jeans in their teeth and pushing away from the edge with all their strength. At first nothing happened but then slowly, inch by inch, Beth felt herself moving back.

‘We’re doing it,’ she yelled exultantly to Nab. ‘It’s working.’ She prayed that the cloth of her jeans would hold. Very gradually, Nab felt himself being pulled out of the mire. Soon only the lower part of his legs was left in and he was able to move his hands along the cape to heave himself out more quickly. He would never forget the delicious feeling of freedom as each part of his body fought itself free of the clinging mass that had engulfed it.

Finally he lay on the firm grass path with Beth at his side, panting breathlessly with the effort of her exertions. The joint where her right arm joined the shoulder throbbed terribly with a pulsating ache and the mouths of Sam and Brock were bleeding but they were almost delirious with relief. When he had recovered a little from his ordeal Nab got up slowly and, having thanked them all solemnly picked some handfuls of grass and began to wipe some of the foul ooze from his body. Everywhere was deathly quiet. Then suddenly, for in the drama he had just been through he had completely forgotten him, his thoughts turned to Golconda. Surely he must have missed them by now and turned back? But there was no sign of the great white heron. Nab peered desperately into the darkness but all he could see were the shapes in the mist, dancing joyfully. For a moment the tiredness of his eyes played tricks and he almost believed they were laughing at him. Had the heron been a figment of his imagination? No; they had all seen and spoken with him. Worse still then, had he been in league with the goblins; leading them all into the middle of the bog by gaining their confidence and then abandoning them to wander about for ever in this terrible place to be swallowed up one by one by the marsh as he almost had been?

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the voice of Warrigal, who had perched on a stump at his side.

‘We have no guide,’ he said simply. ‘We have no alternative now but to go back along this path until we find another and then see where that leads us.’

‘Where is Golconda?’ asked Nab.

‘I do not know but I fear we shall never see him again. You rouse the others; we must be on the move.’

Beth’s eyes were closed and the other animals were asleep. It seemed a great pity to disturb them while they were still enjoying the exhilaration of success and before they realized the desperateness of their situation, but Nab agreed with Warrigal that they dared not delay.

Eventually, after Nab had woken them up gently, they started walking back along the path down which Golconda had led them that evening. The relative happiness of that earlier walk was difficult to believe in now; it was almost as if they had dreamt it. Suddenly, when they came to the spot where Nab had heard the cry, he stumbled over something on the ground and almost fell over, toppling Warrigal off his shoulder. He bent down and saw a bolt lying across the path; the shaft was made of rough wood and the head was a jagged rock. Then he looked up and saw that the others were all staring at a tree stump on the other side of the path. He followed their gaze and then he saw Golconda. His head had been severed and stuck on the top of the stump; the eyes wide and staring and the long sharp beak gaping open. The rest of his body had been dismembered and each part had been attached to a different part of the stump so that the whole represented some ghastly caricature. The snow-white feathers were speckled and streaked with deep crimson where the blood had run. They all stared for what seemed an age, transfixed with horror, and an icy fear gripped their hearts and froze the blood in their veins so that they were unable to move. Then the physical manifestation of that horror took over and they all began to retch violently, their stomachs heaving and churning till they were shaking with weakness. Beth, summoning up from within her a reserve of emotional strength she was unaware she possessed, pulled herself together and shouted at them to move and, when there was no response, she went round to each animal and shook him fiercely by the shoulder until the daze of horror was shaken free. Finally, they all began to move, slowly at first, stumbling as if in a dream but then as the fog in their minds cleared they walked faster and faster until they were almost running in their efforts to get away from that dreadful place. How long they went on for or how far they went they did not know, but finally, and all at the same time, exhaustion overtook them and they slumped down. The awful truth now occurred to Nab. The splash and the cry which he and Warrigal had heard had been when the bolt had struck home and the goblins had pulled Golconda off into the marsh. The figure that they had then followed had not been Golconda at all but some creature of the marshes controlled by the goblins; it may even have been the mist itself summoned up by the goblins to do their bidding and taking the animals further and further into the depths of the bog while they did their grisly work knowing that any survivors would be bound to come back that way. The thought came to him that they were being played with and a feeling of utter and complete hopelessness swept over him. He looked round at the others sitting or lying down on the sodden strip of ground which kept them from being sucked in by the bog. Their coats were saturated and matted with mud and on their faces Nab saw only utter misery and despair. Even Warrigal was staring down at the ground, his eyes dull and listless and his shoulders hunched over in an attitude of weariness and apathy. Beth lay face down with her head buried in her arms, and her body quivered slightly as she sobbed quietly to herself. Next to her sat Perryfoot, staring out over the marsh with his ears flat along his back and at his side lay Brock and Sam like two ghosts. They could go no further, thought Nab. This was it; the goblins had done their grisly work well. Any will to continue had been extinguished completely by the sight they had seen back along the path.

For some time, as these thoughts went through his mind, he had been growing gradually more and more aware of a sound coming over the bog. At first he thought it was no more than the wind blowing through the rushes but as it grew slowly louder he could distinguish an underlying conglomeration of noise which sounded very much like the murmur of low conversation and the splashing of footsteps. The others had also heard it for they had looked up and were staring in the direction from which the noise was coming; the expression on their faces having changed from despair to terror. Nearer and nearer the noise came until suddenly, abruptly, the murmur stopped and all they could hear were splashes as the footsteps continued over the marsh towards them. Then even those stopped and they saw through the darkness and the mist a long line of shadows standing silently and still, just within their sight but too far away to be able to distinguish any features.

‘Goblins, ’ Brock whispered to himself under his breath but so quiet f was it that they all heard him.

The line of shadows stood like that for what seemed an age to the terrified animals and then, once again, it began to move forward. They could just make out, now, the separate figures as they walked. Then suddenly, like a shaft of sunlight, they heard a cry echo over the bog and shatter the dreadful silence. It was a pure liquid cry which pealed out through the darkness and seemed to fill the air with light and beauty so that the travellers felt their hearts instantly freed from the cold terror that had gripped them. In it was the happiness of the first call of the curlew after the winter and the warmth and comfort of the first sunshine in spring. Dawn was just breaking and in the golden iridescent light of the early sun as it shone through the mist the animals could see the dark ominous line start to break up and divide as a host of elves fell among them, their swords glinting and flashing in the sun. They watched spellbound as the goblins fell back in disarray and the air was filled with the sounds of battle; the clashing of sword against sword and the terrible cries of the goblins as they were wounded or killed, for they did not accept defeat easily and fought with a dreadful strength, their short squat bodies wielding massive swords and maces as if they were feathers. But they were slow and clumsy and the elves danced around them confusing and taunting them so that they became angry and lunged wildly until they grew tired and their strength left them. Then the elves would quickly and deftly finish them off. The battle raged all morning but eventually the last few goblins fled away over the marsh and the air was once again still. Then the animals saw the elves coming towards them out of the mist. They walked slowly for it had been a long hard fight and they were weary. They were also sad, for killing is not in the nature of an elf and they will avoid it if at all possible. Even the killing of goblins is to them an evil and victory in battle was never a glorious time for them.

Soon the elves were standing on the path and their leader spoke.

‘You are safe,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the land of Sheigra. I am Faraid, battle leader of the sea elves and I have come to take you to Saurelon, Lord of the Sea. It came to us that you were assailed by the forces of Dréagg and you were long overdue. Come now, drink this; it will revive you until you can rest and eat in the caves of Elgol.’

From under his garments of spun silver Faraid produced a flask and handed it to Nab, who raised it to his lips and drank deeply of the sparkling liquid inside. The colour he could not see but the flavour reminded him of the sweetness of sun-ripened clover and he could feel it coursing through his body, reviving and refreshing him. He passed it to Beth and then Faraid took the flask back and poured it into a large bowl-shaped shell inlaid with mother-of-pearl for the animals to drink from.

When they had drunk their fill and vitality and life had begun to appear once more in their eyes, Faraid led the little band out over the marsh with the elven army following behind. They shuddered with repulsion as they walked through the area of battle and saw the black blood seeping out of the goblins’ wounds and mixing with the stagnant oily waters of the bog. The whole area was now thick with the foul stench that escaped from these wounds and the animals found great difficulty in getting their breath. They picked their way between the fat ugly bodies lying where they had been felled and could hardly bear to look at the faces which in death were even more vile than in life. The hideous puffy features were twisted and contorted and the slavering viscous lips had pulled themselves into such an attitude of hatred and contempt that even in death they still made the animals feel afraid. The sight of death reminded Nab of Golconda and he told Faraid of the goblins’ treatment of the heron but the elves already knew because they had passed the awful spectacle on their way.

‘He is once again whole, and will rest content,’ said the elf, and Nab was relieved for he felt guilty that he had ever doubted Golconda’s allegiance and could not help feeling in some way responsible. This was yet another animal who had laid down his life for him and the thought of their love and faith made him feel intensely humble.

Slowly, as they walked, the mist started to become less dense and the ground less marshy and then suddenly they were dazzled by the sunshine of a warm March afternoon. The golden light seemed to bathe them so that all the evil and horror of the marsh was washed away and became a memory. Now they were standing on the edge of a small flat area of trees, heather and tall grass, a patchwork quilt of browns and greens, and at the far end of it they could see, glistening and sparkling in the sun, the sea. None of them except Beth had ever seen it before and that first magic glimpse of blue vastness was something that would live for ever in their minds. For Beth, to whom the sea was as precious as the land, it was like a homecoming, and her heart beat in excitement and anticipation as her memory was stirred by the cry of the gulls and the salty breeze that blew against their faces, and into her mind and soul came recollection of all the enchanted moments she had ever had by the sea in the past.