11

Martin was first to spring upright. He lashed about with the long punting pole as Painted Ones dropped from the trees onto the raft. Several were sent screeching into the water. Furmo and his shrews began laying about them with their logboat paddles, hollow thonking noises sounding as they struck tree rats in midair. Screams and splashes mingled with roars and shouts rent the blackness of the stream between the dark spreading pines. It was a scene of total chaos. Folgrim groped his way to the canvas protecting Chugger and Trimp and stood over them, flailing viciously, the air thrumming as he wielded his long pole. Whack! Thwock! Thunk! Splat! Gonff and Dinny were hard at it with their poles.

Panting heavily, Martin called to them, “There’s too many of ’em—we can’t keep this up. Hold the vessel as best you can. I’ll be back soon. If not, go without me. That’s an order!” He broke his pole over the backs of three who were trying to climb aboard, then dived into the fast-flowing stream.

As soon as he felt himself hurled against the ropes by the current, Martin latched his footpaws onto the heavy vines and unsheathed the great sword from his back. It was tremendously hard trying to swing his blade in the rushing water, but swing it the mouse Warrior did. He hacked and hewed with might and main until his grip was frozen to the sword by cold water and weariness. By a superb feat of will he forced himself to continue. Heavy wet strands struck his face as the razor-sharp blade whipped through them, and water filled his mouth as he roared like a wild beast, battling the powerful woven ropes of wet vine. Lowering the blade underwater, Martin sawed furiously at the ones that he had twined his footpaws into, ducking his head beneath the surface and hunching both shoulders to put more force into his efforts. Then the raft was running overhead, scraping his back as it was liberated from the trap. Martin went head over tail, automatically shifting the sword to one paw and reaching out frantically with the other as the vessel sped forward.

Dinny felt somebeast grab his footpaw as he stood astern, swinging his pole. He was about to deal whoever it was a resounding blow with the pole butt when Martin’s head emerged from the streamwater.

“Dinn, the pole, quick!”

The mole shot his pole into the water and Martin grabbed it. Throwing his sword onto the raft, he struggled aboard with Dinny’s help. The raft was still swarming with Painted Ones. Martin seized the fabulous blade, and whirling it aloft, he gave full cry to the battle call of Badger Lords.

“Eulaliaaaaaa!”

Screeching with fright, the tree vermin threw themselves from the raft, splashing frenziedly for shore.

Gonff threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Hahahaha! Look at ’em go! The ole Eulalia’s worth a dozen fighters, an’ let me say, matey, that ’un of yores was a right blood-freezer. I near jumped out o’ my fur!”

Martin was grinning as he slumped wearily down to the deck. “Let’s just say it was an additional idea to make your plan work. I was far too tired t’do anything except shout. Owow! What’re you villains doing to me?”

Trimp and Chugger scrubbed roughly at the Warrior with clean dry foodsacks. The little squirrel growled, “Be still an’ stoppa shoutin’, we dryin’ you off. Don’t wanna catcha deff o’ cold, do ya?”

The hedgehog maid was hard put to keep a straight face. Her squirrelbabe was becoming quite a one for being severe with otherbeasts. She cleaned Martin’s ears out roughly. “That’s the stuff, Chugg, you tell him. Warriors have to get dry, too, same as any other creature!”

*

Luckily none of the friends were seriously injured, though there were the usual number of bumps, cuts, scratches and scrapes sustained, as in any roughhouse encounter with vermin. Trimp and Log a Log Furmo set about ministering to the slight casualties, while Gonff and Dinny kept a weather eye out for any likely berth, now they had left the pine wood behind. A small midstream island loomed up out of the darkness, perfect as a resting place for the remainder of the night.

However, after their hazardous scrape with the Painted Ones, they were far too keyed up for sleeping. Guosim cooks built a small fire in the shelter of some bushes and cooked up a cauldron of vegetable soup. Gonff took some soft bread and chopped scallions, made Bubbling Bobbs and tossed them in the cauldron. Trimp sat around the fire with the rest, feeling a strong sense of camaraderie with them, laughing, chatting and fishing for Bubbling Bobbs with clean sharp twigs. Furmo regaled them with a comic song called “The Festive Fight.”

Chugger had fallen asleep leaning against Folgrim, a soggy Bubbling Bobb still clutched in his grubby paw. After the fight with the Painted Ones, Trimp trembled fitfully, thinking what might have happened had they fallen into the claws of the foe. However, the feeling passed as she looked around at the cheery faces of her friends. Ribbing one another good-naturedly and chuckling, they sat around the fire, finishing off the meal with gusto. Nobeast would guess that but a short while ago, they had been battling for their lives, and hers. Allowing her eyes to close slowly, she snuggled down on some dry moss. Who would not feel safe in the company of such brave creatures?

Murmuring streamwater soon had them all lulled, with the exception of Martin and Folgrim, who sat, outwardly relaxed, but inwardly alert. Fading to glowing embers, the fire burnt down. Somewhere a nightjar called, and moonshadows cast soft patterns through lazy breeze-stirred foliage. Peace lay over the little island in midstream, awaiting the calm hours of dawn.

*

Day broke fine and clear, with a warm summer wind blowing easterly. Log a Log Furmo hopped aboard the raft, wetting a paw and holding it up. “Hoist that sail, mates, an’ ship the paddles. We’re on a good fast run t’the big sea!”

Picking up speed, the raft fairly zinged along the broad watercourse. With his bushy tail blowing forward over both ears, Chugger perched in the bows of a lead logboat, shouting aloud with exhilaration. “Whooooeeeeee! Us goin’ a sea!”

Dinny clung nervously to a stayrope, not too sure whether he was fond of the vessel’s wild ride downstream. “Hurr, zurr Log, bain’t us’n’s a-goin’ ee bit farst yurr?”

Log a Log laughed and performed a nimble jig round the edges of the logboats flanking the raft. “Fast, me liddle fat mate, fast? See the way those banks down yonder take a deep dip? When she ’its there, you’ll know wot fast means!”

The mole shut his eyes tight, grabbing the stayrope tighter as Furmo gave it a mischievous twang. Folgrim and Trimp rescued Chugger from his precarious position and tied a line to his chubby middle, whereupon he promptly hopped back to his former position. Furmo began booming out a song in his wonderful bass voice.

The raft bucked sharply, entering a canyon of buff-hued rock. Everybeast yelled and held on to something. Chugger was thrown into the water from his perilous perch. Trimp screamed in alarm, but Folgrim had a good grip on the line, and with a powerful heave he swung the little fellow back on board.

“Up y’come, rascal. ’Ere, Gonff, look wot I caught, a Chuggfish! Funny liddle critter, never seen one wid a tail that long!”

Shaking water from his ruffled fur, the baby squirrel drew himself imperiously to his full height. “I norra Chuggfish, h’i a likkle squiggle!”

White water boiled about the surface, while high banks narrowed and dipped sharply downward. Furmo gave orders to stow the sail, and his Guosim shrews took up their positions at the logboats’ oars, keeping the vessel in midstream with strong skillful strokes. Soon they were all thoroughly drenched by spray and unable to hear each other talk because of the roaring waters. Log a Log and Martin with long poles sculled at the after end. The Warrior mouse noticed that the shrew Chieftain was no longer singing and smiling. Grim-faced and silent, he struggled to keep the raft on course.

Now the raft really began to buck, side to side and up and down, sometimes rearing high out of the stream and returning to hit the water with a resounding splash. Twice it was whirled completely around on the treacherous current, Martin and Furmo poling furiously to turn it. Trimp knew they were in trouble when Gonff pushed her and Chugger flat, shouting at them to hold tight. Gripping the tough vines that held their craft together, Trimp locked both footpaws around her little friend. Lifting her face, the hedgehog maid took a quick glance ahead. What she saw took her breath away.

A rainbow bridged either bank, shining through a misty curtain of cascading watermist. The raft rushed through it. Then there was nothing!

Martin heard himself yell with surprise as his pole snapped on a rock at the waterfall’s edge. The entire vessel, raft and logboats, sailed out into space. Log a Log’s voice cut across the sudden silence.

“Hang on, maaaaaaaaaates!”

Then the thunderous roar of falling water took over. They were falling, down, down, with a view of beach and sea to the front and an awesome sheet of rushing water at their back. Gripping fiercely to anything within reach, the breath torn from their mouths, they plunged downward, tilting as the raft went head first, for what seemed like an eternity. Down, down, down . . . Whooooooom!

The broad surface of a pool at the bottom exploded with the impact. By its own momentum the vessel was plunged deep into the pool, breaking into pieces as it went.

Water rushed into Trimp’s mouth. Her eyes opened. Everything was cold, silent and vague. Half conscious, she stared about. Somewhere high above, the water was billowing in thick white clouds, and she tried to fight down panic as she felt Chugger pawing feebly at her. They were both trapped under a log from the raft, which had become wedged in the rocks at the pool’s bottom. Then the little squirrel’s paws went limp. Panic surged through Trimp with the sudden realization that both her and Chugger’s lives were going to end, trapped underwater and alone. Bubbles burst from her mouth as water flooded relentlessly in. Forgetting her plight for a moment, the hedgehog maid felt a tremendous wave of pity tug at her heart for Chugger. The little squirrel was still a baby. What a sad way for him to end a tragically short life. She reached down and held his paw, thinking that at least he would have her with him. Then the arrival of Folgrim jolted her failing senses.

Setting himself between the rocks, he bent his body, levering outward with all four paws, veins standing out on his neck as he added the strength of his rudderlike tail and the back of his broad skull. Folgrim pushed until the scars on his face stood out like blue ropes. There was a grinding crunch, followed by a muffled clonking noise. The log floated upward, free, the rocks trapping it having been forced apart by the otter’s wild strength. Folgrim seized Chugger by his tail and Trimp by one paw. Setting himself firm in the sand, he thrust mightily upward, tail and footpaws working in unison. In a stream of bubbles all three shot to the surface. Willing paws pulled them ashore.

Martin took a quick check of his crew. “Dinny, where’s Dinny?”

The words had hardly left his mouth before Folgrim plunged in again, streaking underwater like an arrow. White sand and shell fragments, together with weeds and grains of rock, clouded the bottom a pearly gray color. Folgrim swam to an overturned logboat and wormed his way underneath. The otter’s head broke water in a small air pocket trapped in the upturned vessel, and Dinny’s head was facing him. The mole tugged his snout in polite relief. “Gudd day to ee, zurr. Oi ’oped sumbeast’d cumm afore ee air runned out in yurr. Oi doan’t moind tellin’ ee, oi’m gurtly affrighted o’ liven unnerwater. Us moles be loik that, ’appy unnerground, but sad unnerwater, ho urr!”

The otter showed his filed teeth in a smile. “Then shut yore eyes, ’old yore breath an’ ’ang on t’my paw, mister Din. Soon ’ave y’back on land, matey!”

*

Chugger shot fountains of water everywhere as he recovered. Trimp, who was no worse for her ordeal, sat watching Furmo anxiously. “Oh, say he’s going t’be all right, sir?”

Chuckling, the Guosim leader pressed gently on the little squirrel’s stomach and another jet of water arose. “This ’un’ll be fine, missie, don’t git yoreself in a fret. I seen shrewbabes swaller twice that amount—it never seemed to ’arm the liddle fellers a bit!”

Chugger opened one eye, his paw rising to point accusingly at Furmo. “You keep punchin’ Chugga’s tummy an’ I swirt water in you eye, sh’ew!”

Furmo held Chugger upside down and shook him thoroughly, letting the baby squirrel go as he snapped at his footpaws. “See, I told yer, miss, he’s stronger’n a growed eel!”

Dinny rolled himself into the warm sand until he looked like a white moleghost. He went and sat by Martin, who shook his head and burst out laughing.

“Have a rest, go to north shores, make it a holiday, take all summer! Some rest, eh, Din? Some holiday!”

Gonff dug a big raft splinter from his tail and sighed with relief. “Well, look at me, mates, I’m enjoyin’ meself no end. Only one thing missin’ though . . .”

Martin knew what was coming, so he interrupted Gonff. “Food! That’s what it is, isn’t it, you felonious famine-faced soup-stealer!”

Gonff picked his teeth nonchalantly with the splinter. “How’d you guess, noble britches? Ahoy there, Furmo, wot’s the position on vittles, matey?”

One of the Guosim cooks answered for his leader. “Flour’s ruined, fruit’s all right though, plenty o’ fresh water in that pool. Biscuits we baked this mornin’ are lost in the stream. I reckon we could stand a few fresh supplies of wotever the land has to offer ’ereabouts.”

Martin took charge, issuing orders. “Right, anybeast who feels up to it can forage for food. We’ll split up around these hills and dunes on the shoreline. Dinny, you stay here with miss Trimp and Chugger and take a rest. See what you can salvage from the wreckage.”