High Rhulain

Without any prior warning, the dark waters rose in a hump, and Slothunog was among them! The monster was a throwback of some primitive age, covered in jet-black scales with a humped back and a long serpentlike neck. It hissed aloud, blowing out a spray of water, its reptilian head swaying back and forth as it struck with a cavernous mouthful of glittering teeth. The body of Pitru was wrenched from Cuthbert’s grasp into the creature’s jaws, which snapped shut on the dead cat. Tiria and the others, having managed to stop their descent, lay on their backs in the shale, footpaws dug in tight as they gazed in disbelief at their friend.

Cuthbert had scrambled up onto the back of Slothunog, hacking at its neck with the pike axe. It sped out onto the lough, wriggling and thrashing furiously as it tried to rid itself of its berserk passenger. The hare, however, could not be shaken off. He hacked, speared, chopped and stabbed frenziedly, like some wildbeast trying to regain the prey which had been stolen by another. Then, with one massive effort, he plunged the spiked head of the weapon deep, pushing with the last of his strength as he drove it home.

Slothunog hissed loud and long before its head finally fell forward. It shuddered, sent up a crimson gout of its lifeblood and vanished beneath the unplumbed depths of Deeplough, taking with it a hare who had become, in the last of his many roles, a dragonslayer!

Colour Sergeant O’Cragg saluted, blinking through the tears which coursed down his tough face. “Perilous! I think the word was made for Major Frunk. Perilous!”

Captain Granden nodded agreement as he passed Tiria his kerchief. “Perilous indeed, Sarn’t. No Badger Lord in a Bloodwrath could’ve done better. Dry your tears, lady. He went exactly the way he wanted to. Right, Sarn’t?”

O’Cragg sniffed. “Right y’are, Cap’n. Pore ole Major weren’t the same h’after ’e lost ’is lovely daughter.”

He borrowed the captain’s already tear-drenched kerchief from Tiria and dabbed at his eyes. “Tell ye wot, miss. We’ll both stop weepin’ an’ watch the sky tonight for the Major, eh?”

The ottermaid squeezed the sergeant’s big paw. “Thank you, Sergeant, I’d like us to do that. If we spot a specially big star, with a small pretty one close to it, we’ll name them Cuthbert and Petunia, after the Major and his daughter.”

Colour Sergeant O’Cragg gave his eyes another wipe before returning the captain’s kerchief. “Bless ye, miss, that’s h’a very nice thought.”

Big Kolun got the situation back on an even keel with his next remark. “I’ll give ye a very nice thought, Sergeant. Just’ow in the name o’ seasons do we get out o’ this crater?”

Amid the laughter that followed, Kolun could be heard yelling to the watchers on the high rim, “Lorgo! Banya! See if’n ye can’t knot enough ropes together to get us out of here!”

34

Deedero Galedeep was chopping leeks and scallions to add to her stewpot when an otterbabe came bursting through the waterfall curtain into the cavern. Placing his little paws either side of his mouth, he bawled at her, “Mammee, a fink our daddie’s comin’ ’ome!”

Deedero put aside the knife, wiping her paws on her apron. “Wot’ve I told ye about shoutin’, Toobil? I ain’t deaf!”

Toobil climbed up on her lap and whispered in her ear, “I sayed Daddie’s comin’ ’ome, wiv lots h’of uthers.”

Picking the babe up, Deedero stowed him sideways on her hip and shuffled off through the watery curtain. “Hmph, he must’ve smelt my shrimp’n’hotroot soup cookin’. Come on then, let’s go an’ meet him.”

They joined the other families heading for the ledge.

It was an odd but rousing sight. A barnacle goose, twoscore and five hares in regimental rigout, countless clanbeasts and freed slave families, and Tiria, in her full regalia, being carried at their centre, seated on a chair made of spearhafts and javelins. The situation was made more incongruous still: Everybeast was singing lustily, a barrack-room ballad which had been taught to them by Porters and Quarters, the two young subalterns. Some ottermums took the precaution of covering the ears of their babes, though a few elders marched alongside of them, chuckling aloud.

“Pick ’em up laddie buck! an’ put ’em down laddie

buck!

You’ve made it home an’ now you’re out of luck, out

of luck!

Oh ’tis nice to march back home,

when there’s nowhere else to go,

for home is every warrior’s desire.

To see the ones you love, beat each other black’n’blue,

while your dear old granny’s roastin’ by the fire!

Pick ’em up laddie buck! an’ put ’em down laddie buck!

You’ve made it home an’ now you’re out of luck, out

of luck!

To taste your mother’s cookin’,

an’ have bellyache all day,

o what a sad an’ sorry tale is this.

If I could just escape, to some regimental camp,

I’d give some ugly sergeant one big kiss!

Pick ’em up laddie buck! an’ put ’em down laddie buck!

You’ve made it home an’ now you’re out of luck, out

of luck!

But I cannot run away,

’cos my sister pinched me boots,

she bit me nose an’ stole me uniform.