The trackers were camped in the old cultivated garden land, shrew fires burned red against the twilight, and a delicious aroma permeated the air. Cheek took a taste from the end of a ladle. “Gaw, marvellous. What is it?”

Log-a-Log chopped wild chicory with his sword and threw it in the pot. “That’s special. There’s so much still growing round here that we have a wide choice. I’m calling it hunters’ hotpot. There’s only water to drink, but I’m making apple fritters in honey to follow.”

Jess Squirrel looked over towards the twin black silhouettes of the badger and bell rocks in the distance.

“What an amazing sight, Matthias. You’d think for all the world that those shapes were real.”

Matthias was busy with Jabez Stump and Sir Harry. They were studying the map and poem again.

“Well, that’s the badger and the bell, but this next part sounds pretty desperate:

‘Face the Lord who points the way

After noon on summer’s day.

Death will open up its grave.

Who goes there . . .? None but the brave.’”

They sat in silence around the fire, weighing the ominous words.

Sir Harry waddled across to sniff the aromas of the cooking pot, and returned heartened.

“Dread words do not alarm me

When food is on its way.

No parchment threat can harm me,

Lead on, lead on, I say.”

Basil gobbled a lettuce leaf. “Well spoken, me old featherface. I feel exactly the same. I can face death after dinner any time; only thing bothers me is that I might miss tea and supper, wot?”

Robbed of his noble moment, the owl glared at Basil and stalked off.

Matthias tapped the map. “This thing here bothers me. It’s like two lines, one at an angle to the other, with sort of little splinters sticking off all along it.”

Log-a-Log banged the side of the pot with the ladle. “Come on, come on, never mind death and doom and mysteries, this hotpot’s ready. Form a line. No shoving in ahead, Basil. Get to the back, go on!”

Amid much jollity and laughter the shrews lined up with Matthias and his friends to be served. Basil was eagerly holding his bowl out for a portion of the hunters’ hotpot when an eerie voice rang out:

“Doom! Dooooooooommmm!”

Log-a-Log paused, the ladle deep in the pot. “What was that?”

Basil waggled his bowl. “Don’t know, old chap. Fill the bowl, please, there’s a good fellah.”

Matthias and Orlando grabbed their weapons, but a call from Cheek reassured them:

“It’s all right. An old rabbit’s showed up over here.”

The newcomer was an ancient rabbit. He even had a wispy white beard. He staggered into the firelight, waving his paws and shouting in a wavery voice:

“Doom, death, destruction and darkness. Doom, I say. Doooom!”