“Flugg, stop bickerin’ and pass me that branch. There! That ought to do it. Hello, cave dwellers. I’m Gurn, the best digger the Guosim have got. Some say my granddad was a mole.”

Orlando thrust forward a huge paw and patted the shrew. “Well, Gurn, I can’t tell you how glad we are to see you. I’m Orlando the Axe.”

“Hmm, big feller, aren’t you? I hope this tunnel’s wide enough to take you. You’d better go last, Orlando. Smallest first.”

*   *   *

It was a painstaking and bruising operation, as one by one the friends were attached to a rope and forcibly pulled through by scores of shrews. Orlando waited until last. The tunnel caved in behind him as he was hauled and tugged along the makeshift rescue shaft.

In the early evening sunlight, Matthias and his friends laughed and splashed in the shallows of the river as they bathed away the dust and dirt of their imprisonment. Sunlight, clean air, fresh water and the sight of green growing things combined to make them realize how lucky they were to be alive. Even Jabez Stump chuckled happily as he splashed water into the air.

“Hohoho, if’n my old family could see me now. It’s many a long season since this beast risked a bath, I can tell you.”

*   *   *

Later that evening they sat around a shrew campfire, eating oatbread baked on flat rocks and drinking fresh river water with herbs crushed into it. Matthias told Log-a-Log all that had taken place from the night of the feast celebrating the Summer of the Golden Plain, up to the incident of the cave.

The shrew leader shook with rage. “Slavers! The slime of Mossflower, treacherous murdering rogues. Our Guosim scouts have heard reports in Mossflower since the end of spring about that masked fox and his dirty crew. I’m with you and your friends, Matthias. We’ll track ’em and put an end to their evil trade. Taking young ones from their homes and families. I tell you it makes my blood boil just to think of it.”

Basil had been munching his oatbread and gazing around the shrew camp. “’scuse me, old Log-a-thing, I know it’s not unusual for you shrew fellers to argue a bit, but by and large you usually stick together. So tell me, what is that small group over there sittin’ on their own around a separate fire for,” the old campaigner wondered.

Log-a-Log sniffed and threw a dead root on the fire. “Oh, that lot. They’re trouble, Basil, particularly that young feller Skan. He’s been challenging my leadership lately. It’ll all come to a head tonight when I announce our new plans. When it does, I’d be grateful if you could keep your friends out of it, Matthias. No offence, but this is Guosim business.”