Beasts of New York Page 16

  Patch wondered how Karmerruk and Toro would feel about that claim, but decided not to argue. "I'm looking for King Thorn. Where is he?"

  The red squirrels looked at each other. Their fur was really not so different from that of other squirrels, more a dull reddish-gray than the red of a berry, but it was different enough that all other tribes referred to squirrels of the North as red.

  The smaller one asked, "Who are you?"

  "I am Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe. Who are you that asks?"

  The two squirrels conferred briefly. Then the large one said, "We are of the North. Are you alone, Patch of the Treetops?"

  "Yes."

  The two squirrels peered suspiciously southwards, as if Patch might be at the head of some vast army. Then the second squirrel sighed and said, "Follow me."

  Patch hesitated. "Follow you where?"

  "To King Thorn. I am going there now, to report. But whatever your plea, I doubt he will see you. He is busy preparing for battle. The rats and the Meadow are already on the march. War is coming to the North."

  VII. The War for the Center Kingdom

  The King's Guard

  The little red squirrel led Patch up and down steep ridges and muddy hills, past the mind-warping Labyrinth, along the expanse of the Northern Sea, then across a human highway and down into the Ravine. This circuitous course took almost the entire rest of the day, but the direct route passed through grassy fields that were Meadow territory. The Ravine was the central part of the Northern River, which began as a long pond surrounded by willow trees on the western edge of the Center Kingdom, and flowed to the Northern Sea in the Kingdom's northeast corner. Beyond the river, in the triangle demarcated by its waters and the Kingdom's northern and western edges, lay the territories of the North; steep and densely wooded hills almost as wild as the Ramble.

  By the time they arrived, the sun was well on its way to setting. The trees of the Ravine were busy with squirrels, their fur mostly Southern gray not Northern red. They climbed up a sleep slope to a mighty oak tree, its trunk encircled by a dozen watchful squirrels. Other guards high above watched the sky-roads that led to the tree.

  "The court guard," the red squirrel explained. "They watch the King's tree day and night so the Meadow won't ambush us again. Stay here."

  "Here? Why?"

  The red squirrel slowed her pace and eyed Patch suspiciously. "The password is secret. We don't know you're not a spy. Stay here."

  Patch halted just beneath the King's tree's branches and watched the little red squirrel trot up to the court guard. Some of the guardian squirrels were red, some gray. All were very large and strong. And one of them looked very familiar -

  "Twitch!" Patch shouted, and sprinted past the little red squirrel, ignoring her outraged cries. "Twitch, you're alive!"

  Twitch stared as if Patch had grown a second head. "Who are you?" he asked wonderingly. "You look just like Patch. You sound just like him too."

  "I am Patch! Twitch, it's me!"

  Twitch shook his head sternly. "Oh, no. You can't be Patch. Patch is dead. A hawk took him away. I saw it."

  "A hawk took me away," Patch agreed, "but I'm not dead. It's me, Twitch. It's really me."

  The other guards watched in rapt silence.

  "If you're Patch," Twitch said, his voice hopeful but suspicious, "if you're my best friend, then, then - then what's my favourite food?"

  Patch burst out laughing.

  "What?" Twitch demanded. "What's so funny?"

  "Twitch, that's the worst question ever. Everyone who's ever known you more than a few heartbeats knows your favourite food is tulip bulbs."

  Twitch's eyes widened, and then he charged forward, so excited that his attempt to sniff Patch closely instead turned into a head-butt that knocked Patch half-senseless to the ground. Patch had almost forgotten just how big and strong Twitch was.

  "Patch!" Twitch bellowed, as Patch rolled groggily to his feet. "It's you, it's really you, you're not dead, you're alive!"

  "A few more head-butts like that and I might not be," Patch said, dazed but laughing. "I thought you were dead, Twitch. I heard almost all the Treetops died in the war, or swore to the Meadow."

  Twitch's smile faltered and dimmed into a grim expression Patch had never before seen on his friend's face. Patch realized he was not the only squirrel who had changed since their last meeting.

  "It's true," Twitch said quietly. "Almost all of them are gone. Killed in battle or moon-sworn."

  Patch swallowed, and forced himself to ask. "What about Silver?"

  "Silver?" Twitch's ebullience returned with that one name. "Oh, she's wonderful! When there was no food, after you went away, I was so hungry, she came and brought me acorns!"

  "Then she's alive?" Patch asked, hope bursting in his heart.

  "Oh, yes! I mean, I think so. I mean, nobody told me she isn't. I think somebody would have told me, Patch, I really do."

  "Silver was here two days ago," another guard squirrel said. His fur was streaked with white, but he moved with easy grace as he came over to Patch and sniffed him closely, as if inspecting him for some kind of taint.

  "Where is she now?"

  The old warrior looked suspicious. "I understand you're a friend of Twitch's, but why do you care about Silver?"

  Patch said, outraged, "She's my mother!"

  "Your mother?" The old squirrel took two steps back and looked at Patch carefully. "You're saying you're her son? The son who was taken away by a hawk?"

  "That's what I just said!" Twitch said. "Didn't I say it, Patch? Didn't I just say you were taken away by a hawk? Sometimes I don't think anyone really listens to me."

  Patch said to the old squirrel, "Who are you?"

  "I am Sharpclaw son of Throatbiter, duke of the Strong clan, soldier of the Ramble tribe, and commander of the King's Guard."

  "Fine. Where's my mother?"

  Sharpclaw regarded Patch carefully. "Your mother, if that is what she truly is to you, is away on a mission. Beyond that I cannot speak further. But if all goes well she will return soon enough."

  "Return from where?"

  "I said I cannot say," Sharpclaw said sharply. "We're at war, young squirrel. I don't have time to gossip with you. Why are you here? What is your business with King Thorn?"

  Patch hesitated. He hadn't really had any purpose beyond finding out what had happened to his friends and family. It was true Karmerruk had asked him to translate, but he didn't think this was a good time to claim he had been sent here by a hawk.

  "Do you support the true King?" Sharpclaw asked.

  "I guess."

  "Then you will serve in his army."

  "His army? But -"

  "We're at war, boy," the old squirrel said angrily. "If you don't intend to fight, then get away from here now, for none of us will have any time for you, not even Twitch, no matter how old a friend you are. We don't have time for friendship. The final battle could be tomorrow. Join us or be gone from the North."

  Patch looked around. He sighed. Then he said, "I don't want to go."

  Sharpclaw smiled thinly. "Then I welcome you to the army of King Thorn. I think I know just the place for a wanderer like you. You can stay the night in that beech barracks over there. We'll get you to your post first thing in the morning."

  War-Clan

  Nighteye frowned. "So you're the new recruit. Patch son of Silver."

  Patch nodded.

  "You know it's dangerous here. Death stalks us every night."

  Patch didn't like the sound of that. He looked around, wondering where exactly death stalked. They stood high on a cypress tree just south of the Ravine. The squirrels who lived in the grassy fields further south were distant from their tribal brethren across the Great Sea, but they were still gray squirrels of the Meadow tribe; and from what Sharpclaw had said, Redeye and his army were on the march. But no Meadow squirrels were visible from their perch on the cypress. The only animals in sight were a fe
w distant pigeons, a dozen humans chasing a ball across the fields, and the half-dozen other Ramble squirrels under Nighteye's command, scattered on the branches of the cypress.

  "Did you fight in the Battle of the Meadow?" Nighteye asked. Nighteye was like a younger version of Sharpclaw; a big, strong squirrel with magnificent fur and a casual air of command.

  "No," Patch said, "I wasn't -"

  "Did you fight in the Battle of the Ramble?"

  "No. I got to the Ramble the day after."

  "The day after," Nighteye repeated. "Too late to help. Too late to fight."

  "I was hardly able to -"

  "Because you were carried away by a hawk," Nighteye said, disbelief dripping from every word, "and you had to journey across half the world back to the Center Kingdom, and you just happened to get back just in time to miss the battles."

  Patch said, "That's what happened."

  "And you just convinced this hawk to let you go."

  "I speak Bird."

  "You must speak it very well indeed to talk your way out of a hawk's claws."

  Patch didn't know what to say.

  "Your mother is a brave and daring squirrel," Nighteye said, "and for her sake I will take you into my war-clan. Perhaps we can make a squirrel out of you yet."

  "Twitch says he's all right," another of Nighteye's squirrels said hesitantly. Patch had been introduced but had already forgotten their names. All of them were of the Ramble.

  "Twitch. Yes. Twitch is your friend, isn't he?" Nighteye asked. Patch nodded. "Twitch is very strong and very brave. But he is not good at choosing his friends. Sniffer was Twitch's friend too, wasn't he? And your friend as well."

  "What are you saying?" Patch demanded, angry now.

  "I'm saying you were with Sniffer when you disappeared, and now you come back on the eve of a great battle and claim you want to join the army. If you weren't your mother's son, Patch, I would send you back to the South."

  "I didn't even want to join the army!" Patch protested. "Sharpclaw said I had to!"

  "Ah, so you say you're not a spy, just a coward."

  "I am not! I - you wouldn't believe how many times I almost died coming back to the Center Kingdom!"

  "You're quite right. I wouldn't." Nighteye looked to the setting sun. "Well, we'll see soon enough if you have any of your mother's blood. This is a scout squad, Patch. Our job is to find danger before it finds King Thorn. And we work both day and night. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about darkness and rats and owls?"

  Patch stared Nighteye straight in the eye. "I've seen worse."

  Nighteye glared back, his face stony with disgust and disbelief. Patch's gaze did not waver. A momentary flicker of doubt crossed Nighteye's face; but then his expression hardened, and he said, with contempt, "Fine bold words. We'll soon see if you have any heart to match them."

  Despite Nighteye's ominous words, Patch did not find the first afternoon of scout duty to be particularly desperate or dangerous. The war-clan left the cypress and went south, moving fast, travelling as far as the edge of the Great Sea, spreading out and seeking traces of rats, or Redeye's army, or any squirrels. They found nothing but day-old scents and a few abandoned dreys; the Meadow squirrels who occupied these grassy plains seemed to have retreated further south.

  They returned to the cypress before nightfall, divided into pairs, and spread themselves out along the nearby trees of the ravine, close enough to hear one another's call for help. One member of each pair had to be awake all night, listening for suspicious noises. If they heard anything, the whole war-clan would investigate. At the Battle of the Ramble, the Meadow squirrels had attacked by surprise, climbing trees in the dead of night and killing Ramble squirrels while they slept in their dreys. The battle was over almost before the Ramble knew it had begun. The job of the scout squads was to prevent that from happening again.

  Patch soon decided that the worst thing about being a scout was not danger but tedium. It was so hard to stay awake when the sky was dark, the Center Kingdom was silent, and his whole body was crying for him to crawl into a drey and fall asleep. It helped that his night partner Longtail had suffered a broken nose in the Battle of the Meadow and now snored loudly, but Patch still caught himself nodding off on several occasions that first night. Fortunately, he was awake every time Nighteye came by to inspect his post. As far as Patch could tell Nighteye didn't sleep at all.

  In the morning they went out back out to the Great Sea on another scouting run. Patch tried to be friendly to Longtail and the other members of the war-clan, but all of them treated him with silent disdain. When they spoke, it was invariably reminiscences of the Ramble, and of the two great battles, and Patch had nothing to add to the conversation. He soon gave up. It didn't matter. What mattered was his mother was alive, and he would see her soon. Things would be different when Silver came back.

  Disbelief

  "Hawk!" Nighteye cried, and all his war-clan fled into a big bush on the periphery of the Great Sea. Most of them hid in the bush's dense heart, but Patch stayed at the edge of his, looking up through the branches, trying to see if it was Karmerruk gliding through the cloud-patterned sky above. After a moment he decided this hawk was too small, and retreated deeper into safety.

  "What's the matter?" one of the other squirrels sneered. "I thought you liked hawks. Why don't you go out there and talk to it? Why don't you go to ask it to find Redeye and Sniffer?"

  "I don't know that hawk," Patch muttered.

  The other squirrels laughed harshly.

  "You better find the hawk you do know," Longtail said. "You better ask it to carry you away before the next battle comes. We're not going to let you run away from this one. If you try to run, you lying coward, I'll hamstring you myself and leave you for the rats."

  The other squirrels grunted with general approval. Patch turned towards Longtail, hurt and betrayed; hadn't they shared a post last night, and hadn't Patch done his duty?

  "I'm not a liar," he said quietly, knowing no one would believe him. "I'm not a coward. I've fought rats before. I fought Lord Snout myself."

  At this the other squirrels began to shout with outraged disbelief.

  "Lord Snout!" Longtail sputtered. "Next you'll be saying you killed the King Beneath all by your lonesome. You shut your mouth. You think if you make your lies bigger we'll start to believe you? We know what you really did. You found the biggest tree you could and you hid there while Redeye and the rats were killing us and killing your whole tribe. Now you're running to your mother because you finally realized nowhere else is safe any more."

  "Maybe it wasn't a tree," another scout named Quicknose said venomously. "Maybe it was a deep dark hole. Maybe you met something down that hole. Maybe you made an agreement."

  Patch didn't know what to say. He suddenly felt like he was surrounded by enemies, by rats, not by Ramble squirrels who were supposed to be on the same side.

  "Easy," Nighteye rumbled. "He's Silver's son, he's Twitch's friend. He may be a liar and a coward, but I don't think he's an spy."

  "I am not -" Patch began, his voice hollow, already knowing it was useless.

  "Quiet," Nighteye said. "We've had enough lies from you for one day."

  "He even smells like a rat," Quicknose said.

  Longtail laughed. "He does! Smell him!"

  Patch sniffed, almost involuntarily. Then he stood straight up and sniffed the air again, warily and carefully. There was barely the hint of a smell - but Patch had grown familiar enough with the scent of Rat to be certain of its presence, however faint.

  He said, "There are rats near here."

  "More stories -" Longtail began.

  "No," Nighteye said in a forceful whisper. "No, look."

  From their vantage point they could see, beneath this bush's lowest branches, a thin arc of the ground around them. There was something moving to the south. A group of somethings, gray and furry, with shining wormlike tails. More than a dozen rats venturing north from the directio
n of the Great Sea.

  "Redeye's army," Longtail whispered. "We have to send word. I'm the fastest."

  Nighteye shook his tail no. The movement was barely visible in the darkness. "That's no army. Look, there's nothing behind them. It's just one group. A scout squad, just like us. They're upwind. They don't know we're here." He paused. "But they'll find out soon enough. Everybody ready. We're going to charge."

  "We have to warn the King!" Longtail said, his voice quiet but shrill.

  "No," Nighteye said calmly. "What you have to do is follow my orders. And I order you all to charge when I say. Ready."

  Patch swallowed. He suddenly felt a little sick. His heart thumped faster and faster as he squatted down to the dirt. Around him the others were doing the same. Patch could feel the hot blood pulsing through his body. His muscles felt loose and quivery and he wondered if he would have the strength to charge, if maybe the other squirrels were right, maybe he was a coward after all.

  "Now!" Nighteye commanded - and Patch leapt forward like a dog breaking free of its leash.

  Skirmish

  Unless their advantage is overwhelming, or they are commanded by a strong leader, a rat's first instinct is always to flee. Most of them scattered like a cloud of flies when Patch and most of the Ramble squirrels erupted unexpectedly from beneath the bush. A few were too surprised to move, and Patch charged right into one of those stunned rats, bowling it over, tangling his own forelegs with its tail. His nose was pressed right up against its sour-smelling neck. For a moment he didn't know what to do.

  The rat bit at him. Patch dodged without thinking, just in time; then, while the rat's head was extended in attack, he instinctively bit back. His sharp teeth passed through and met in the rat's fleshy neck, and his mouth filled with the sour, iron taste of blood. Gagging, Patch let go of the rat, and blood spurted onto his face. Both he and the rat backed away from one another, but the rat's motions were twitching and spastic. As blood poured from its neck, it fell over, convulsed sluggishly, and died.

  Patch looked around. He had been so focused on his private battle that he had forgotten the rest of the world. Around him other squirrels were finishing off the rats who had been too surprised to run. Longtail hung back by the edge of the bush, looking around uncertainly, while Nighteye and three others pursued the escaping rats. Patch hesitated a moment. Then he chased after his commander.