Quest for the Faradawn - страница 22

Finally, after a number of calls had met with nothing but silence, Nab spotted the black tip and white stripes of the badger’s face making its way up the passage and Brock agreed to go off with them for an afternoon walk. Nab picked a handful of the delicate young beech leaves which were just beginning to emerge and started to chew them as the three made their way from the sett to the old stile. Then they walked along the far side of the brook to where, in a bank in the middle of the new young birches, Rufus had his hole. When they reached the fence at the back of the wood they walked along it until they came to a hedge which ran out across the field and which they could use for cover until they got down to the stream. They stopped there for a while in the shade of a great ash tree and looked out at the wood basking in the spring sun. Nab went off to explore on his own leaving the other two meditating under the tree. He walked down to a thicket of rhododendrons and young birches, made his way through them and emerged on to a carpet of bluebells which stretched over the floor of the wood until they reached a number of enormous elms.

Nab knelt down and buried his face in the heady scent of the blue flowers; he felt he could almost drink their fragrance and as the smell pervaded his senses he could see, in his mind’s eye, every perfect spring day he had ever known. He stayed there for a long while, kneeling with his face on the ground as if he were praying while the sun sent little shafts of golden light through the branches of the trees. He lifted his head and looked around exultantly; these were the times when his whole body seemed so full of energy that he felt he would explode and his soul sang with joy. He got up and ran like the wind back to the ash tree where Brock was sleeping and Perryfoot sat on all fours, his great ears laid flat along his back, quietly contemplating. They woke the badger up and made their way under the rusty wire of the old fence and into the field under the shelter of the hedge. They went past some warrens in a little sandy hollow, where the rabbit, greeted them and asked for news of Pictor and the woodland rabbits, and then walked up a fairly steep slope until they reached the top of the bank. The wood was now quite far behind and below them and ahead there was a gentle slope down to the stream. It was a perfect afternoon; little white clouds scudded about in the blue sky and there was a gentle breeze which blew delicious gusts of warm air against their faces. Nab’s heart was light and free.

‘Race you to the stream,’ he said, and he and Perryfoot scampered away down the slope through a belt of small willows and over; velvety green carpet of new grass while Brock pottered along behind When they got to the bottom, Nab and the hare began dancing around, each trying to land little cuffs on the other’s cheek. They often played this game although Perryfoot nearly always won; his huge back legs could shoot him out of range so quickly that Nat seldom caught him and then, while the boy was thinking about his next move, the hare would be in and out, cuff: cuff, before Nab could blink. Still, it didn’t matter, they both loved playing, and this afternoon Nab was feeling so good that he managed to catch the hare once or twice. Brock sat under the cool shade of a willow next to the stream and enjoyed watching them. Since that night so many seasons ago when he had found the baby, Brock’s life had been devoted to caring for and looking after the boy. There had been little talk of Elflords or saviours or any ‘grand purpose’ since that time, although Warrigal sometimes intimated that the Elflord was well pleased with the progress of the boy and Wythen occasionally came to visit Brock and Tara to see how they were managing and to guide them on difficult issues.

After a while, when Perryfoot and Nab had grown tired after their game, the three animals decided to wander a little further along the stream. On the other side of the stream there was another green field which sloped steeply down in a sharp bank, so there was little need to be cautious as they were well out of sight of any farm and in any case even if they did see an Urkku there was plenty of undergrowth in which to find cover. Thus they were ambling along quite carelessly, stopping every now and then to pick some berries or young leaves to nibble, when suddenly, upon turning a corner of the stream, they froze. Ahead of them the little steep-sided valley along which they had been walking opened out so that the slopes became far more gentle and on their side of the stream there was a little cluster of yellow gorse bushes surrounding three sides of a hollow. Inside this hollow they could hear the sounds of laughter and talk and there were other unfamiliar sounds which they could not recognize.