The rook butted in again. “Kaah! What a load of old eggshells. It was dark as a northland well, but with moonlight shining through the windows.”

Grubclaw ruffled his feathers airily. “Kragga! Who is telling this, you or us? We know what we saw. But we can keep it to ourselves if you start making fun of us.”

The other rooks silenced the interrupter.

“We saw a shadow in the moonlight,” Ragwing continued. “Well, at first we thought it was a shadow, but when we looked closer it was an earthcrawler.”

Grubclaw nodded solemnly. “A ghost mouse, all in armour. It seemed to appear from nowhere. Graak! It was carrying a long sword and it had no face. It moved like a feather in the breeze. I think it was floating, don’t you, Ragwing?”

“Yes, it definitely floated. And another thing, it carried the long sword as if it weighed nothing. It must have had great spirit strength. The cold lights burned from its eyes like fire in ice—”

“I thought you said it had no face. How could it have burning eyes?”

“Yaggah! Will you shut your beak and listen? It was, it was, er, the white moonlight shining on it, yes, it made the face that this ghost didn’t have look like two burning eyes. Haak! We saw it, I swear on my egg and nest. Isn’t that right, mate?”

“True, true. It seemed to know we were watching it, because it turned to face us. We perched there, ready to attack if the ghost mouse tried anything.”

“And did it? Try anything, I mean?”

“Krakkah! Did it! Well, it pointed with this great sharp sword and said; ‘Death to all who stay in the redhouse!’”

“Aye, that’s the very words it said. But the voice! Kaah! It was like thunder over mountains, I wonder you lot didn’t hear it.”

“We were sleeping. So, what did you do?”

“Haak! I’ll tell you what we did, we shook our claws at it and said; ‘You come any closer, ghost, and you’ll have us to deal with. Stop there while we go and bring General Ironbeak our Chief,’” Grubwing embroidered.

“Aye, we backed off, ready to give a good fight if it came floating up to the galleries. Ironbeak and Mangiz came out, Mangiz was shaking like a fledgling whose mother has left it,” Ragwing added.

“What did Ironbeak do?”

“Kaah, him! He flew about a bit and could not find the ghost, so he said he didn’t believe us and flew off to get some sleep.”

“So where did the ghost mouse go to?”

“Yakkah! I don’t know. To the place where other ghost mice go, I suppose.”

“You mean, there might be others?”

“Kagg! I’m not saying anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all. The big door was open wide, Ironbeak couldn’t deny that.”