Rebecca stood to one side of them, facing the darkness, while around the base of the Stone, among the beech roots gathered there, the youngsters huddled, their mothers forming a final protective rank around them.
The battle was sporadic at first as one quick thrust of attack followed another—a technique already rehearsed by Rune. But it was effective, for the moles of the Stone lost more with each attack than they were able to kill and, the light of the full moon being on them and the attackers coming out of darkness, the advantage was with Rune.
It was to Rune’s credit as a leader that this series of attacks lasted as long as it did before finally breaking down into a concerted onslaught against the besieged moles of the Stone at two different points. On one side, Stonecrop and Bracken, Rebecca and Brome headed the defence; on the other Mekkins and Mullion stood the main ground. All fought differently—Stonecrop with a massive slow soberness that was utterly ruthless, taking blows that would be fatal to other moles as if they were nothing and then launching his own devastating lunges; Bracken was quicker and more subtle, parrying here, cutting there, and killing whenever he could; Mekkins, as usual, swore aloud with every blow, roaring ‘Take that, you bastard’ and ‘Oh, no you don’t, brother’ with every lunge, and ‘Sod it’ when he missed. Brome fought more like Stonecrop but a little less effectively, for he lacked the total concentration Stonecrop had learned; Rebecca was fast, vicious and magnificent, shouting and screaming with anger, snarling at the biggest moles, cutting and thrusting where she could, fearing none. While somewhere just behind Brome and Bracken, Boswell stood firm as well, striking when he could but most useful for the cries of warning he calmly gave to each of the stronger fighters in front of him who were so preoccupied with their individual struggles that they often did not see a threat from another angle.
But one by one they suffered cuts and injuries that slowed them, as around them their colleagues began to fall. Some dead, some too injured to fight, a few too tired to raise their paws and defend themselves. Oxlip, the female who had escaped to the Marsh End, fell and died by Mekkins’ side. Mullion, too, was grimly wounded and fell back behind his own lines, life leaving him.
The moon shone on, its light cold on the terrible scene of carnage it lit so clearly. It reached a peak and then began its waning descent, and still the battle went on with no word of Midsummer blessing said.
The moles around the Stone began to retreat back towards it, leaving their dead and wounded before them as the henchmoles, black and tough as ever, climbed over the stricken bodies and pressed forward.
Then Rune appeared out of the night, the twisted shape of Nightshade at his side waiting by the clearing edge with glee in her eyes, while he pressed forward suddenly into the bloodiest area of the melee, leading his henchmoles on for the last part of the fight. There always seemed to be more henchmoles coming, and more, and always fewer and fewer moles able to stand and face their onslaught. They slowly retreated, back towards the Stone, and as the retreat set in, Rebecca instinctively went behind the front line to rally the mothers of the youngsters behind her so that, if necessary, they could put up a last defence.
The youngsters, seeing now the great floodtide of henchmoles bearing down on them, stopped only by Bracken, Stonecrop, Brome, Mekkins and a few others who stood their ground, began to whimper, their sound a pathetic addition to the screams of triumph and death that rose and fell in the clearing.
Then Brome staggered and fell, lost under a torrent of terrible lunges, and with his death the resolution of the other Pasture moles began to weaken and they all retreated even further back. Seeing his advantage, Rune pressed even harder on them, his black talons cutting and stabbing before him, shiny with blood in the moonlight. Behind him, beyond the mass of murderous henchmoles that backed him up, Bracken could see for a moment the sinister shape of Nightshade, whom he did not recognise, slinking gleefully about the clearing’s edge as if waiting to take her pickings of the dead.
Rebecca rose up magnificently behind him, eyes flashing with anger and determination, the youngsters huddled behind her, the Stone soaring up above them, almost hanging over them all as it tilted over towards the west.
