Foremole rose and came to the table. Taking the two broken halves of the wooden bowl, he held them up.

“We be loik this hobjeck—splitted up we’m baint much use. But if’n us sticken t’gether, then we’m useful, hurr.” He pressed the two halves together for all to see.

Old Dinny seconded him. “Foremole be roight, Miz Bell. ’Tis wunnerful molesense.”

Columbine was allowed her say.

“Let us do as Bella suggests. Tomorrow we will go to the flood tunnels, then if nothing can be done we will follow her plan.”

Immediate agreement followed.

“See, Columbine,” the Abbess said, picking up the broken bowl in her frail paws, “old and weak as I am, yet somehow I managed the strength to perform a small bit of magic. Let us sleep now. It is late, and tomorrow we can tidy up here and wash the dishes—all except this one.”

The Abbess placed the broken halves carefully on the table.

“Maybe a lesson in mole logic would not be a bad thing for a wildcat Queen to learn.”

* * *

Log-a-Log was in his element as leader of his tribe once more, he roused the entire village an hour before dawn to get the ship under way. With a hundred extra shrews to help, Wuddshipp fairly flew along the river. When they were not rowing, they were punting, pushing or hauling on ropes.

“Come on shrews, hoist sail,” Log-a-Log commanded. “Two of you on this tiller. Make yourselves busy. Double up on the oars there. You two in the crosstrees, stir your stumps, the Chief is back. Let’s show these bunny rabbits how to move a craft up our own River Moss.”

“I beg your pardon, old Log-a-Thing.”

“Steady on with the name-calling there, O Mighty Leader.”

“Indeed, we’re hares, not bunny rabbits, d’you mind.”

T. B. sat on the deck sharpening pikes. “Odd lot those hares,” he remarked.

“Seasoned warriors though,” Martin said, as he counted swords and daggers. “Boar the Fighter taught them personally. Don’t let their silly talk fool you. I wouldn’t have them as an enemy at any price, and I was proud to fight alongside them against the sea rats.”

Gonff sniffed the air. His whiskers twitched in the predawn darkness that shrouded the riverbanks.

“Trees, Din. We must be in Mossflower. Dawn will soon tell.”

The young mole was painting a crude sign to cover the name Bloodwake. It bore the legend Wuddshipp. He shook his head admiringly, wiping paint from his paws.

“Hurr, Gonffen, we’m ’ome again, oi’m a-feelen it.”

The gruff voice of a shrew in the crosstrees confirmed Dinny’s words. “Sun arising eastward, trees growing close, we’re in the forest.”

“Keep her head straight,” shouted Log-a-Log, standing out for’ard. “Furl those sails in before they snag on the branches. Lively there!”

Martin joined him at the prow.

“At this rate we should make Camp Willow around midday. I never noticed us navigating the ford that crosses the path.”

Log-a-Log patted the rail. “I chanced it in the dark. Good sailoring, see. Old Wuddshipp skimmed the shallows with her flat bottom. Nice and deep here though, easy going on the oars.”