“I say, young Cheek, here’s your first chance at a command. Take these fellahs to the back of the ledge, work your way round that dirty great statue thing and come up behind those rodents facin’ us. Give ’em plenty of the old one-two, and don’t forget, m’lad, duck an’ weave!”

Cheek saluted smartly, his fear diminished with the heat of battle. “Righto, Baz old sport!”

Basil watched him go, shaking his head and smiling. Hardnosed young blighter, bit like m’self when I was a nipper, he thought. “Fire! Now drop down an’ reload, shrews. That’s the stuff t’ give the troops!”

*   *   *

The battle raged back and forth as Nadaz pounded the war alarm. The booming drumbeats echoed around the rocks as arrows flew, slingers hurled and spears stabbed. Matthias looked wildly about amid the melee. His forces were vastly outnumbered and still rats were waiting on the causeway steps in droves. Breaking clear of the fray, the warrior mouse yelled aloud, “Retreat! Retreat! Take your wounded and get back to the passage we came in by!”

The Guosim carried Log-a-Log as they hacked their way back to the mouth of the passage. Orlando, Jess and Jabez stood side by side with Cheek as Basil fought a fierce rearguard action. Matthias, weaving in and out of them, helped with the wounded.

Finally they gained the passage, the drum stopped pounding and the rats fell back halfway across the ledge, protecting the causeway steps as their comrades swarmed up, spreading across the length and breadth of the rocky plateau. In the midst of it all, Nadaz stood rattling the mouse skull at the top of his sceptre, pointing at the woodlanders as if trying to cast some sort of spell over them.

*   *   *

Orlando cleaned his axe and set about sharpening it against the rock wall.

“Well, we gave them a good fight, even though we were outnumbered,” he said consolingly.

The warrior mouse sat with his back to the wall breathing heavily. “Aye, if we had the young ones now we could back up and go above ground. Trouble is, I haven’t seen them anywhere.”

The badger licked a wounded paw. “Nor have I, or the fox, for that matter. I’m not leaving here while he still lives, then if I can’t find my Auma at least I’ll know he won’t enslave any more young ones.”

Cheek stood at the mouth of the passage, pulling faces at the ranks of blackrobes gathered a short distance away.

“Yah, tatty ratty! Your silly old statue isn’t worth a crushed acorn. It takes a horde of you to face real fighters, doesn’t it!” he taunted them.

Basil and Jess were trying to bandage the awful wound in Log-a-Log’s neck, which was deep and serious. Basil shook his head.