The watervole sniffed the air, his nose pointing downstream. “I’ve been smellin’ a watermeadow up ahead for a while now. Yiss yiss, I’d know that heavy scent anywhere. But there’s somethin’ else, Dann, somethin’ not very nice. I don’t like it!”

The young squirrel unshouldered his sword. “Well, you’re not goin’ alone, Burb. Whatever ’tis we’ll face it together. Come on, stay together an’ go quietly.”

Late afternoon was slipping into evening when they sighted the watermeadow on their right. It was landlocked on the nearside, though a narrow gap at its far edge filtered out into a river some distance away. The scent of water lilies, crowfoot and bulrushes mixed with the smell of rotting vegetation was heavy on the air. Dippler’s voice sounded unusually loud in the sinister stillness that hung over everything. “Yukk! So that’s wot you could smell, eh, Burb?”

Burble glanced back at his friends as he pushed forward into a high fern thicket. “Ah no, ’twas somethin’ far worse than that!”

They navigated a path through the ferns, the ground squelching under their footpaws as they skirted the watermeadow. Burble steeled himself and thrust forward from the sheltering ferns. “Smell’s stronger now, somewhere around here . . . Yaaaaagh!”

He had walked straight into the half-decayed carcass of a water rat dangling from the limb of a crack willow, its grinning skull seeming to mock at them through eyeless sockets.

Dann froze. “So that’s what y’could smell . . .”

Phfffft sssssstck! Two sharpened bulrush spears came whizzing out of nowhere, one burying itself in the earth alongside Dippler, the other narrowly missing Dann’s head. Drums began pounding, and more spears came hissing through the air. Burble glimpsed the horde of lizards, newts and toads thrashing their way through the watery margin toward them.

“Oh, great seasons o’ slaughter, run fer it, mates!”

Foul-smelling ooze squirted underpaw as they fled, flattening ferns and leaping over rotting treetrunks. A fearsome high-pitched wail arose from the reptiles pursuing them, and the drums throbbed louder. Dann made sure that whenever possible he kept hold of Dippler and Burble’s paws as they ran across the marshy ground. Behind them could be heard the slithering and keening of the cold-eyed hunters, growing closer by the moment. Burble stumbled and fell flat in damp brown sedge, spluttering and coughing. “Run f’yore lives. I can’t go no further!”

Roughly Dippler dragged the watervole upright. “We’re stickin’ t’gether, mate. Move yoreself!”