Luke threw the first rope up into the darkness. A moment later he heard the wooden bar tied to its end clack upon some rocks. He tugged it, making sure the bar held in the rocks it had wedged itself among. Paw over paw Luke went up, whispering to Vurg, “Follow on with the other rope, mate, but be quiet. We don’t want to disturb any of those seabirds.”
Vurg climbed up after him, and they balanced together, lodging their footpaws in the sides of the fissure. Luke took the second rope and began twirling it, paying the coils out as he swung it wider before throwing it strongly upward.
This time there was no sound of wood striking stone, but the rope went taut. A gruff friendly voice called down in quaint speech, “Oi got et, zurr, oi’ll make ee rope farst whoile ee clamber up yurr!”
Vurg grabbed Luke’s paw in the darkness. “Sounds like a mole t’me. What d’you think, Luke?”
“Aye, ’tis a mole sure enough, though what he’s doin’ up a cliff I don’t know. He sounds friendly enough, anyway. Come on!”
Both mice climbed until they reached a flat ledge, where there were several other moles and some hedgehogs to meet them. The mole who had hailed them took tinder and flint and lit a lantern, rumbling on in his curious mole dialect.
“Burr, us’n’s doan’t be gettin’ mouseybeasts a-clamberin’ up to call on uz, zurr, but welcumm to ee anyways. Oi be Drunn Tunneller, these ’uns be moi fambly, yon ’ogs be ee Tiptip brood, an’ that ’un be Welff.”
A friendly-looking hedgehog wife in a broad rough apron twitched her spikes and curtsied. “Pleased t’meet ye, I’m sure, but what be you goodbeasts a-doin’ up ’ere in the dark night?”
Luke introduced his party as they climbed up to the ledge. Then he explained the reason for their visit.
“We came to take some o’ those berries an’ maybe some young plants while the seabirds were sleepin’, marm. I’m sorry, though, I didn’t realize they were your property.”
Welff brushed the apology aside cheerfully. “Oh, you take all the berries an’ shoots y’need, my dearie. Rain’s washed good soil into this crevice for many a season. We got raspberry, blackberry, all manner o’ berries growin’ ’ereabouts. Ole Drunn’s father tunneled through to ’ere from the clifftops long ago. We’ve got a cave back there. Now don’t ye be afeared o’ the seabirds. We leaves ’em be an’ they don’t bother us a mite. Matter o’ fact, they makes good watchbeasts in daytime, warns us if’n Sea Rogues be a-comin’, so we can go an’ hide in our cave.”
Luke stared questioningly at Welff Tiptip. “Sea Rogues?”
“Oh, lackaday, sir, ain’t you knowin’ about those badbeasts? Why, they comes to this northcoast often as not.”
Luke began to feel the first stirrings of unease. “But there’s nothing t’be had on northland coast. Why do they choose to put in here?”
Drunn Tunneller waved a huge digging paw. “Thurr be nobeast yurr to wurry abowt, zurr, so they’m cummin’ to take on fresh water, patch ee sails, repair ee ships an’ so forth. Burr, they’m all scum’n’villyuns!”
Welff nodded agreement with her molefriend. “So they are. We hides in our caves an’ stays well clear until those badbeasts are gone. Else we’d get slayed, or taken for slaves by ’em. Oh, Luke sir, what be the matter wi’ ye? Do y’not feel well?”
Though the night was cold, Luke felt suddenly hot and sick. “Farther south, down the shoreline, my tribe have lit a big bonfire on the shore. We didn’t think there’d be any danger this far north!”
Drunn’s big digging claws took hold of Luke’s shoulders. “You’m must ’urry, zurr. Do ee take yore mouseybeasts an’ get ee back with all ’aste. Dowse ee flames, an’ put out yon fire. Et be loik ee beacon to Sea Rogues. Oi beg ee, ’urry!”
Welff called after the party of mice scrambling down the cliff, “Good luck go with ye, sir Luke. We’ll follow ye on in the morn, with baskets o’ berries an’ wotever plants you may need. Aye, an’ Drunn’s moles will show ye how to hide yore dwellin’s from the sight of Sea Rogues!”
Welff’s words were lost upon Luke and his friends. They were already down and charging along the shoreline headlong, with old Twoola hobbling in their wake.
*
Dawn came wild and angry. Cold howling easterly gales swept the shoreline sand, piling it in buttresses against rocks and whipping grains widespread across the ebbing tide. Drunn Tunneller and Welff Tiptip led their little band along the beach, bearing between them the promised baskets of berries and young plants. Wearing cowled cloaks and mufflers over their noses and mouths, they pressed on gallantly toward Luke’s encampment, heads bowed against the weather’s onslaught. To cover her anxiety Welff chattered feverishly to her molefriend.
“Now if ’twere late spring an’ the weather milder, a body would expect Sea Rogues visitin’ our shores. Anybeast afloat in stormy seas like we get this time o’ season is nought but a fool. I know ’twasn’t wise for Luke an’ his mice to light great fires in full view onshore, but I reckon mayhap no harm will’ve befell them, eh, Drunn?”
The mole was about to agree with her when a fierce gust of sandgritted wind caused him to turn his face seaward. He groaned aloud and dropped his basket. “Guhuuuurr noooo! Look yon, ’tis ee gurt redship!”
Through the fleeting spume of sand and seawater, Welff glimpsed the mighty bulk of the Goreleech, her crimson stern riding high on the main, red sails bellying tight as she sped westward out onto the deep. The good hogwife stood watching the fearful sight, tears mingling with the grit sticking to her face, and she moaned like a stricken beast. “Waaaow, lackaday, the redship! Fortunes an’ fates ’a’ pity on those pore mice!”
Drunn grabbed her paw, signaling to his friends to follow. “Coom on, missus, ee beasts be needin’ our ’elp!”
*
Vurg was covered in swirling wood ashes from the scattered fire embers. He sat on the shore, lost in a dumb trance. Between them, Drunn and Welff shouldered his paws, steering him to the meager knot of survivors who huddled forlornly in the mouth of Luke’s cave. Old Twoola was the only mouse who seemed able to explain what had taken place. “Friends, you come at a terrible time for us. Many graves will need to be dug in these bloodstained sands.”
Welff spoke softly to the old one. Now that she had recovered from her first shock, she was all business. “Aye, ’tis so, but first we must attend to the living. Drunn, will you light a fire in this cave and set water to boil? Our family will prepare food for you. Dig out any ole linen you possess—we’ll need bandages!”
As the moles and hedgehogs took care of the shore-mice, their dreadful tale came out piecemeal.
“There was hundreds of ’em. We didn’t stand a chance!”
“It was a massacre. Only those out lookin’ for firewood escaped. We could do nothing to stop those evil killers!”
“Windred was lucky. She ran out on the shore with the babe, stumbled an’ fell. Her cloak was over them both, an’ the wind covered it with sand an’ hid them. ’Tis a wonder little Martin wasn’t smothered.”
Windred sat by the fire, washing sand from the babe’s face with warm water and the hem of her dress. “Aye, an’ he never made a single sound the whole time. Pore liddle mite, they slew his mother. Scum, they are! I’ll remember that ’un’s name to my dyin’ day. Vilu Daskar! She tried to fight him off with a stick, but he had a big curved blade. He was shoutin’ his own name, Vilu Daskar, an’ enjoyin’ what he was doin’. That stoat was laughin’ as he cut my daughter down. Laughin’ like a madbeast!”
Drunn looked up from a wound he was attending to. “Ee maister o’ redship shows mercy to nobeast, marm. Yurr, but whurr be zurr Luke gone to?”
The young mouse Timballisto, who had survived by climbing the cliff face, nodded toward the sea. “Luke’s out there, but nobeast can come near him, sir.”
Waist deep in the sea stood Luke, buffeted by the cold waves, with ice forming on his tear-stained features as he gazed westerly after the red ship which was now naught but a blurred dot far out by the horizon.
Twoola shook his head sadly. “He will not even look upon his own son, or his wife’s mother. Alas, he has no ship to sail after the murderers. But he would have ended up slain if he did. Either way, I think Luke will die and be swept away when the tide turns. His life has been destroyed and he cannot exact a warrior’s vengeance upon the Sea Rogues. Luke has no will to live.”
Welff hitched up her apron decisively. She turned from the sight of the forlorn creature standing in the sea to those who stood watching. “I ain’t havin’ this, by the paws’n’prickles I ain’t! You there, Cardo, go and fetch a stout rope. Vurg, give that stave you carry to Drunn. That liddle mousebabe’s not growin’ up without a father. Twoola, get every able-bodied beast out here. Move!”
Galvanised into action by Welff’s no-nonsense manner, they dispersed quickly to their allotted tasks.
Drunn Tunneller tied the rope end around his middle and gripped Vurg’s stave tight. “Hurr, oi never was one furr pagglin’ in ee sea, marm.”
The hogwife eyed him sternly. She was not about to be disobeyed in any circumstances. “Go to it, Drunn, afore Luke freezes t’death!”
The mole trundled dutifully into the sea. “Hurr, ’tis a good job oi trusters ee, missus!”
Luke was totally unaware of the mole wading up behind him, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the Goreleech had disappeared from sight. Drunn heaved an unhappy sigh. “Whurrrr! Oi ’ates t’do this, zurr Luke, but ’tis furr thoi own gudd an’ furr ee h’infant, too, burr aye!” With one blow of the stout beech stave he knocked Luke unconscious. Looping the rope about Luke so that they were bound together, Drunn called back to the watchers onshore. “You’m ’eave away farst. Oi’m most colded t’death out yurr!” Willing paws pulled the rope swiftly in to dry land.
*
The days that followed were hard upon the survivors. They buried their dead and would have gone on mourning all season, but for the help of the moles and the hedgehogs. Welff chided them ruthlessly and Drunn bullied them cheerfully, until they began to pick up the pieces and get on with the business of living. Luke recovered, but he spoke to none, sitting silently at the back of his cave, gazing into the fire. Every once in a while, he would wander out into the night, and then sleepers would be awakened by his roaring down at the water’s edge, shouting one name.
“Vilu Daskar! Vilu Daskar! Vilu Daskaaaaaaar!”
The morning following one such night, Luke’s cave had become the meeting place for everybeast. They were gathered around the fire, breakfasting on hot oatcakes and blackberry preserve. Welff brewed a big pot of mint and comfrey tea, which they sipped as they ate. Luke had returned from the sea’s edge, and he lay on a rocky ledge, wrapped in his cloak, sleeping. Cardo had a flat driftwood board, and his knife was heating in the flames as he announced to the gathering, “I’m going to burn the names of our lost ones onto this wood with my knifepoint. Don’t let me forget anybeast. I’ll fix it in the sand on top of the big grave, agreed?”
Young Timballisto sniffed and rubbed a paw at his eyes. “Will you put Fripple’s name on it, sir?”
Cardo took his blade from the fire. He smiled sadly. “Of course I will, Timbal. How could I forget my own daughter? I’ll put a little flower after it, she’d like that.”
To break the atmosphere, Welff turned their attention to the baby Martin. “Dearie me, will you lookit that mite, he’s out of his cradle again. Where’s he a-crawlin’ to now?”
Windred knew. “He’s after his father’s sword again. Watch.”
The solemn chubby mousebabe crawled over until he could get his paw on Luke’s swordhilt. He sat quietly enough, trying to lift the weapon, which was twice his height.
Drunn squinted his eyes admiringly at the babe’s efforts. “Ee vurmints beware when that ’un grows!”
Windred looked across to Martin’s sleeping father. “Aye, an’ bad fortune to any Sea Rogues when Luke awakens properly. He will, you mark my words. I know him!”