He was beginning to move to the right round the tree ahead, expecting the third mole to come forward and challenge him at any moment, and then—and then he made his move. Realising he was heading into unavoidable moonlight, he swung back sharply to the left, giving him an advantage on anymole who might be waiting for him by the tree and throwing whatever mole was behind him off balance. With a mighty thrust, he pushed narrowly past the beech tree, with the clearing and the Stone to his right, scattering beech leaves behind him.
The uneasy silence of the night suddenly shattered. As he passed the tree, he caught the briefest glimpse of the biggest mole he had ever seen, in the moonlight. His talons were swinging round in the air, his body was arching round as if he had been facing the wrong way, but his snout was already round towards Bracken, huge and horrible. Mandrake!
Bracken deliberately ran close to the clearing before swinging off into the wood, to draw Rune and the others away from Hulver, who was on the far side. It worked. He heard Rune call, some shouts, and then there was a rush of moles from the clearing adding to the noise of Mandrake and the others following behind and on his left. Then he swung away into the wood, taking them all with him and leaving the clearing free for Hulver. He felt alive and full of energy and ran at great speed through the wood, weaving in and out, listening to the confused shouts of the rushing moles behind him. His instinct was to burrow to safety and again he regretted that he had not found a way into the Ancient System. But there were so many moles chasing him that he felt a safety in their confusion. The wood was dark, for the moonlight could not penetrate the thick canopy of beech leaves above them, and there was so much noise that nomole seemed to know where he was going. But Bracken did. He started on a long arc towards the slopes, much the same route he had taken so nervously before.
Behind him, beyond the clearing, old Hulver rose slowly to his paws as the noise of the fleeing Bracken and his pursuers died off into the wood. He approached to the very shadow of the Stone. There he crouched still for a moment or two, for a mole must be calm to say a ritual properly. Then, as if there was all the time in the world, Hulver began the ritual of Midsummer.
Bracken ran on through the night, twisting and weaving among the trees, working his way towards the fallen beech that he had passed on his way up from the slopes with Hulver. He knew the moles about him were confused— indeed, one of them had called forward to him, thinking he was Dogwood, and told him to cut off to the left, which he had obligingly done. He heard Mandrake shouting from time to time, and Rune; and he realised that nomole knew exactly where he was.
It was then that he saw the great dead beech ahead of him and hid in the shadows among its dry branches, his chest heaving with the effort of running. The chase continued around and about him until, one by one, they came to rest in a group on the ground not far from where he lay hidden in the fallen tree.
It was some moments before any of them had caught breath sufficient to speak, and then it was Rune. ‘He has escaped, Mandrake, and gone down to the slopes where he lives. At least he cannot do the ritual now.’
They were gathered in a spot dappled with moonlight filtering through the gap in the canopy by the fallen tree where Bracken lay hidden. Bracken peered down to look at Mandrake. His presence was huge—he was massive, more like two moles than one. He seemed blacker than the night itself and Bracken could see that he held his head forward and low, as if about to attack the whole world.
‘You say he has escaped? But who has escaped?’ demanded Mandrake. ‘I do not believe that the oldest mole in the system, who appeared to be hardly alive at the last elder meeting, could run through the wood like a youngster and elude the’—he looked around him sarcastically, as if he was not one of them—‘the toughest moles in the system. That was not Hulver.’
At this, they followed his gaze down to the slopes. Then, quick as a flash, as they looked back up towards the distant Stone lost somewhere above them in the night, the realisation came to all of them that they might have been fooled. They all started back for the Stone as one, and as fast as they could—Mandrake at their head.
Bracken decided that he must follow them. It would be easy enough to avoid them now, and they were making sufficient noise to cover his sounds.
One makes faster progress than six, and so it was that Bracken arrived on the far side of the clearing when Mandrake came to it from the slope side.
Hulver was there, clear in the moonlight, back to the Stone and paws raised towards Uffington. He was in the final stages of the ritual, his figure commanding in its calm, his voice awe-inspiring in its aged strength. Behind him the Stone towered up into the sky.
