“Crazier than his sister was, if’n y’ask me!”

“Who’s bothered about wot we think? Nobeast asks a slave anythin’, mate, they tells them!”

A water rat soldier prodded the speaker roughly with his spear. “Stow the gab there. Silence, you lot! Back down t’the pens with yer, quick march. One two, one two . . .”

The hefty hedgehog maid, who had made the final remark, muttered to her companion, a grizzled old shrew, “See wot I mean, friend?”

Toolam gestured at the rolled tapestry. He felt nervous and unsure at issuing orders to creatures who had formerly been his superiors. “Er, pick it up!”

Without any argument Wilce and Ullig bent to lift the tapestry. Suddenly Toolam was seized by a wave of confidence he had never felt before. Inflating his narrow chest, he realized that he really was Commander of the army. A slow grin suffused his normally expressionless features. “Be careful y’don’t damage it, you clumsy fools!”

Durrlow joined him, eager to exploit his newfound powers. “Aye, or you’ll feel our spear ’andles, you butter-pawed oafs!”

As Wilce and Ullig staggered to the wall with the tapestry slung carefully between them, Toolam and Durrlow grinned at each other and swaggered boldly behind the subdued pair. They had begun to realize that power was a mighty intoxicating thing to possess.

32

32

Gray afternoon cast its pall over the lake. Sheeting rain swept back and forth, causing the surface to spatter under a ceaseless bombardment of drops. When the raft had been poled clear of the shallows, Gawjo dropped a piece of trout, donated by the Megraw, into the lake. It drifted beneath the water for a moment, then two pike struck, dragging it under as they fought for possession of the morsel. Torrab watched over the old squirrel warrior’s shoulder.

“Methinks ’tis time we sought out the bows, Father.”

Gawjo wiped fishy paws on his jerkin, nodding agreement. “Aye, daughter, this is where the pike shoals start.”

Short bows with thin sharp arrows were fetched from the cabin. Torrab and six other hedgehogs notched shafts to their bowstrings and began firing arrows in a sloping direction at the water. Soon a pike was hit. It thrashed about close to the surface, vicious and hookjawed, a real lake monster. The arrow had wounded it, causing a blood trail in the water, and with terrifying speed it was attacked by a horde of other pike. The hedgehogs shot arrows furiously into the shoal, hitting the big fish indiscriminately, until Gawjo gave the order to stop firing.

Song had watched the whole thing from a cabin window. She did not like to see any living thing slain needlessly. The squirrelmaid questioned her grandpa as he stamped into the cabin, shaking rain from himself. “Why were you shooting at the fish, Grandpa?”