Song felt a cool damp cloth bathing her brow as Grandma Ellayo soothed away at the red-hot hammers of pain pounding inside her temples. From somewhere above she could hear her mother’s worried voice calling her back to consciousness.

Gradually her eyelids flickered open. She was lying on the floor of Great Hall with her head resting on Rimrose’s lap. Janglur hovered anxiously in the background, pacing to and fro. When she spoke, Song’s voice came from far off, as if it belonged to some other creature. “Unnhhh! Marlfoxes . . . where are they . . . Nutwing!”

Janglur breathed a sigh of relief. He knelt by his daughter. “My liddle Songbreeze, thank the seasons you got a head as ’ard as yore ole dad’s!”

Groggily Song allowed herself to be led to a chair. She sipped a potion which Sister Sloey pressed upon her, gazing over the beaker rim at her two friends. Dippler’s head was swathed in bandages, and Foremole Gubbio was showing the dazed Guosim shrew a massive dent in the big helmet he had been wearing.

“Hurr hurr, maister, you’m lucky yon ’emlet saved ee. Yore ’ead was loik to ’ave bin sliced in two. Burr aye!”

Dippler touched his bandaged pate gingerly. “Ooh! It feels like this ’ere lump is another ’ead growin’ atop my own. Aye aye, Song, you awake at last? Where’s Dann?”

The young squirrel was sitting hunched on a form, bent forward as Brother Melilot tended an ugly swelling at the back of his head. He winced silently as a compress was applied. The good Brother finished binding the damp herbs and patted Dann. “Pity ’tisn’t winter. Ice would have worked well on that bump, but there you are, Dann, good as new. You’ll live, young ’un!”

Dann stood shakily and stared about, seemingly unable to remember. “Phew! I feel terrible. What happened?”