The far northwest fringes of Mossflower Woods are broken by rocky outcrops, gullies, and hills. One could wonder why creatures bothered living there when the woodlands farther inward were so lush and bounteous. But home is home, and often creatures do not like to move away from the familiar surroundings of their birthplaces. So it was with the hedgehog family of Tirry Lingl and the mole kin of Bruff Dubbo, who had shared the same dwelling cave for untold generations. Tirry and his wife, Dearie, had four small hogs, scarce a season and a half old. Not counting his old uncle Blunn and aunt Ummer, Bruff had his wife, Lully, and two little molemaid daughters, Nilly and Podd, to provide for.

However, the dwelling cave of both families was not a happy place. It was a hungry and dangerous time for them, for outside in the gray drizzling afternoon another family waited, a family of five foxes. The old vixen with a hulking son covered the back exit, while the father, an equally old dogfox, sat outside the front entrance with a fully grown son and daughter who towered over him. They had been there nearly half a season, laying siege to the dwelling. It was quite easy to relieve one another for the purposes of eating and sleeping, and still keep up a presence, taunting and reasoning by turns, knowing they had the hedgehogs and moles prisoners in their own home until hunger forced them out.

“Don’t be foolish, come out, there’s food here, friends,” the vixen wheedled.

Tirry Lingl shouted back at them, “Garn, shift yoreselves, vermin, you ain’t welcome ’ere!”

The hulking fox son sniggered as he called into the back exit, “Heehee, there’ll be something tasty here when you come out. Heeheehee. You!”

The vixen nipped him sharply on his ear. “Shuttup, acorn brain, do you want to scare ’em to death?”

The old father fox cajoled at the front entrance. “Come on, be reasonable, we just want to talk. You don’t think we’d hurt yer liddle ones, do yer?”

Inside the dwelling, Bruff Dubbo helped Tirry to shore up the barricade they had made from furniture and the bit of earth they could scrabble from the cave’s rocky interior.

Bruff shook his dark furry head sadly as he spoke in quaint mole dialect to his companion. “Hurr oi wish’t oi ’ad moi ole bow’n’arrers, they vurmints’d soon shift they’mselves, hurr aye!”

Tirry Lingl peered through a gap between an armchair and a table at the foxes sitting outside. “They’ve got time on their rotten ole side, Bruff, we ain’t. Liddle ’uns drank the last o’ the water this mornin’ an’ there’s nought but a stale rye crust stannin’ atwixt us an’ starvation.”

Uncle Blunn’s quavery voice piped up behind them. “You’m rarscalls! Oi’m a cummen owt thurr to beat ee with moi gurt stick, ho urr, so oi am!”

Bruff turned the old fellow round, patting his back. “You’m a fierce ole h’aminal, Nuncle Blunn, but et be toime furr ee noontide nap. Hurr thurr, go’n lay ee daown.”

Back in the cave, the little hedgehogs began weeping for food and a drink, and the two wives, Lully and Dearie, shushed them soothingly. The small group slumped dejected, knowing what their inevitable fate would be.

*   *   *

Sunflash the Mace sat amid the pines and shrubs on a neighbouring hillside, invisible to the foxes as he watched the scene below. Rain dripped from the edges of an old green cloak draped over his head. The warrior looked up now and then, searching the skies for the familiar figure of Skarlath to break through the drab curtain of drizzle, and then rested his chin on his mace handle. Over the seasons he had shaped it into a weapon that would last throughout his life. The handle had a tight binding of whipcord, which formed a loop to go over his paw, and the rest of the club had been fire-hardened, oiled, and polished. Several arrowheads and spear tips were half buried in the wide, rounded head of the mace. Only Sunflash had the skill and strength to wield such a formidable weapon.

Skarlath had seen the foxes, too. He landed out of their sight and crept silently up until he was at Sunflash’s side.

“Friend Skarlath, what news of Swartt Sixclaw?” said the badger, keeping his eyes on the foxes below.

The kestrel edged under Sunflash’s cloak, out of the rain. “Gone east three sunrises back, mayhap we were thinning his ranks too fine for him to follow us safely.”

Sunflash never once moved his eyes from the foxes. “I think you’re right, but he’ll be after us again someday, a little older, angrier, and with a lot more help. His ruined sixclaw won’t let him forget us. Maybe we’ll wait here for him.”

The kestrel’s keen eyes began watching the foxes closely. “They look like they’re all one brood. What are they up to?”

Sunflash pointed a huge paw at the cave entrance. “I think they’ve got some likely victims bottled up in there. I was waiting on your return. The foxes are just bullies; I would not feel justified in slaying them, but they must be taught a lesson. If they see me, they’ll be frightened off. Would you go down and speak to those foxes for me, my friend?”

The young vixen and her brothers were running out of patience, and they began hurling stones through the cave entrance and shouting, “Get out here, you stupid beasts!”

“I’ll count to ten and then we’re coming in after you. . . . One!”

Skarlath fluttered to earth between the cave and the foxes. “Kreeeeee! You must go from here!”

The old fox did not appear at all disturbed. “Who are you, bird, what d’yer want?” he said indignantly.

The kestrel treated him with lofty disdain. “Who I am matters not. I was sent here to tell you to go quickly and stop persecuting whoever lives in yonder cave.”

The hulking son and his vixen mother came dashing round from the rear entrance, and the former picked up a stone and made to hurl it at the kestrel.

Skarlath spread his wings wide. “Throw the stone and you will not see nightfall!”

“The bird’s bluffing,” the vixen snarled nastily. “There’s only him! Come on, rush him!”

Before they could move, the mace came hissing through the air and thudded upright in the wet ground. A voice like thunder froze the foxes in their tracks.

“Be still or die! Eeulaliaaaaa!”

They watched astounded as a huge badger came bounding down the hillside. Taking a rock ledge in his stride, he gave a mighty leap and landed among them with a roar.

“I am Sunflash the Mace!”

The vermin had heard the name; they crouched against the earth, trembling.

Sunflash nodded to Skarlath. “See who lives in the cave. Tell them they are safe.”

Peering through the barricade of furniture, Bruff’s wife, Lully, called out, “Yurr, ’tis an ’awkburd!”

Old Uncle Blunn roused himself from his noontide nap. “Did ee say an ’awkburd? Wait’ll oi gets moi gurt stick, oi’ll give’m billyoh!”

Tirry clambered to the top of the barricade, crying, “Lack a day, first foxes, then ’awks, wotever next? Well, my friend, d’you want to eat us too?”

Skarlath kept his voice gentle and tried a smile. “No, I don’t want to eat you, I am your friend. Do you know of one called Sunflash the Mace?”

Tirry’s wife, Dearie, poked her spiky head through a gap in the barricade. “Sunflash the Mace, d’you say? I’ve ’eard of that one—a great warrior, they say. Is he outside? I’d be ’onored t’make his acquaintance!”

It took a great deal of fussing and persuading to get old Uncle Blunn and Auntie Ummer out, but the little ones had no fear at all of the majestic badger warrior. Tirry and Bruff were completely awestruck. The foxes lay face down in the dirt, Skarlath keeping a fierce eye upon them. When Uncle Blunn was eventually coaxed out, he brought his “gurt stick” and began laying about at the foxes. Bruff took the stick from the old fellow, saying, “Yurr, Nuncle, doan’t ee beat yon vurmin ’round, ee gurt zurr Sunflash moight want t’do that hisself, hurr!”

The badger warrior listened carefully as Tirry, acting the part of spokesbeast for both families, explained how the foxes had besieged and starved them. Sunflash listened, stifling a smile as he felt the two tiny molemaids licking rainwater from his paw. Then, grasping his club, he winked at Skarlath and said, “Stand those vermin upright, friend! Let me look at their scurvy faces while I decide what to do with them!”

The mud-faced foxes wept and shivered as they faced the scowling warrior.

“So these are the tormentors of babes and old ones, these are the terrorizers of the defenseless. Well, what have you to say for yourselves?”

The father fox was about to speak, when Skarlath’s wing buffeted him into silence. The kestrel knew the part he had to play. Scowling murderously, he strutted up and down, saying, “Lord Sunflash, these scum are not fit to speak. They are villains and foebeasts; I say we kill them!”

“Whoooaaa, no, please, Lord, spare us, we meant them no harm!” The entire fox family flopped down and groveled on the wet earth, wailing piteously.

Skarlath winked at Sunflash, and the badger twirled his mace thoughtfully. “Hmm, if we slay them here it might upset these little ones, then there’s all that digging holes and burying carcasses. . . .” Sunflash winked at Tirry, who had caught on to the idea. “What do you think, sir? It was your family that suffered.”

Tirry Lingl paced pensively across the backs of the foxes’ necks, driving them face down into the earth as he ruminated. “You ’ave a point there, sir, but if you ’adn’t come along, these blaggards would’ve slain us. P’raps you’d best take them somewhere out of sight and finish them off, they surely deserve no better. But I leave it up to you, Lord Sunflash.”

The foxes’ blubbering rose in a crescendo, and Sunflash had to shout aloud to be heard. “I think I’ll do it right here and now if this noise continues!”

The fox family were suddenly struck dumb, pressing their quaking bodies against the earth. Bruff Dubbo’s old Auntie Ummer shook a paw at them. “Burr, you’m villyuns, see ’ow you’m loikes a ladle of ee own medicine, hurr hurr, surve ee roight!”

Sunflash produced a good-sized lilac leaf and, making a slight split in it, he folded the leaf in two. Then he locked it between both paws, put it to his lips, and blew.

Phweeeeeeeerrrrrr !

He passed the leaf to Tirry Lingl, saying, “Can you make a noise like that?”

The hedgehog did, making an even louder noise than Sunflash. “Makin’ leaf whistles an’ blowin’ on ’em, that was one of my favorite pastimes as a young un. Why d’you ask?”

Sunflash turned to the foxes, his voice stern. “All of these good creatures are going to learn that noise, and then they will always carry a leaf with them, night and day. The kestrel can hear it almost a day’s flight away, and if he does not, then other birds will hear it and tell him. Now listen carefully, foxes, because your lives depend on it. You must leave here and travel north. Never, I say never, must you return. Should you ignore my words and come back to these woods, the creatures you threaten will signal, and I, Sunflash, swear a solemn oath upon my mace that I will seek you out and destroy you. Understood?”

Thoroughly cowed, the foxes bobbed their heads up and down, nodding furiously, too scared even to speak. Then Sunflash began spinning the deadly hornbeam mace from paw to paw, his voice rising menacingly to a full-throated roar.

“I have given you your unworthy lives, but if you are still standing here by the time I have finished speaking, I am certain I will regret my decision. So I want to see how fast you can run, due north. Now!”

Wet earth, pebbles, and grass flew as the five former bullies scrabbled into a headlong take-off. In a very short time the sound of their speeding paws was gone. Silence reigned outside the Dubbo-Lingl cave, and then suddenly all present broke out into hearty laughter.

“Hohoho! They went like scalded frogs!”

“Hurr hurr! Gurtly afeared an’ muddy nosed, burr aye!”

There followed a round of introductions, congratulations, and thanks from both families. The four baby hogs and the two little molemaids had never seen anything as big and furry as Sunflash. They clambered all over him, smiling into his face and stroking the broad golden stripe on his muzzle.

“Ee’m be a mounting wid furr on!”

“Big wunnerful aminal!”

The badger stood stock still, fearing to move lest he upset the tiny creatures or trod on them. His huge face was wreathed in a pleased grin; he had never encountered beasts so small and affectionate. Tirry’s wife, Dearie, and her friend Lully the molewife fussed about, throwing their aprons over their faces in embarrassment as they chided the babes.

“Do come away now, leave the gennelbeast alone. Lack a day, sir, wot must you think o’ us all?”

“Hurr aye, you an’ ee ’awkburd be welcome to rest awhoil in our dwellin’ cave. Us’n’s be back at eventoide with vittles aplenty, then us’ll all make ee well fed, bo urr aye!”

Both families fled into the surrounding woodland to forage for food, leaving Sunflash and Skarlath the hospitality of their cave. The two friends shifted the barricade and took their ease on thick woven rush mats. Surrounded by the peace and quiet of the homely atmosphere, they were soon deep in slumber.

In his dreams, Sunflash could hear waves lapping against the shore; he saw pale sand, sea, and the mountain. A great feeling of longing swept over him, and he wanted so badly to be there, yet it seemed distant and intangible. Somewhere a deep voice, that of a grown male badger, was chanting:

Reality seeped back slowly: a warm glowing fire, tantalizing odors, and the mole and hogbabes stroking his headstripe and tickling Skarlath’s wing feathers.

“Wake ee upp, zurrs!”

“Vittles be yurr aplenty.”

“Mum says you two’n’s will take some feedin’!”

Tirry shooed the babes off. “Come away, you liddle rogues, let the pore creatures up now.”

Around the fire in the cave’s center various concoctions were cooling on flat rock slabs. Bruff Dubbo presented them with beakers, which he filled from a pottery jug. “Yurr, friends, ’tis on’y dandelion-an’-burdock cordial, but et be noice an’ cool t’drink, ho aye!”

It was dark, sweet, and delicious, and the two friends slaked their thirst. Dearie Lingl pushed two of her brood forward, saying, “Standee up straight, ’oglets, an’ say your piece. C’mon now, stop suckin’ those quills or they’ll never ’arden. Speak out!”

Both the small hedgehogs shuffled about, tugging their headspikes respectfully as they recited:

“Thankee sir ’awk an’ sir badger . . .”

“For savin’ all in this cave . . .”

“From the naughty foxes . . .”

“Aye, naughty, naughty foxes!”

“Bad verminy foxes!”

“Rotten uckypaw stinky ole foxes!”

Dearie wagged a paw at her little ones. “Tut tut! That’s quite enough, thankee!” She turned to the two friends, who were hiding smiles by burying their faces in the beakers, and said, “Wot my liddle ones was sayin’ is that our families would like to thank you for rescuin’ us from the vermin. You must stay ’ere as long as you wish, our cave is yours. Come now, friends, enough talkin’, ’elp yourselves to food.”

Sunflash and Skarlath had never tasted such good cooking. There was young onion and leek soup, hot brown bread spread with a paste made from beechnuts, a woodland salad, and a huge apple-and-greengage crumble. The crumble was a great favorite with the little ones, who spread it thick with honey.

Old Uncle Blunn sipped piping hot soup from a wooden bowl gratefully. “Oi wurr feared oi’d waste away to an ole shadow. Gurr! Vittles do taste gudd arter all that ’unger!”

Sunflash had an enormous appetite, but the goodwives of Tirry and Bruff would not hear of him stinting himself.

“Allus plenty more, zurr, thurr be an ’ole woodland full o’ vittles for us’n’s t’choose from now ee’ve set uz free!”

And so Sunflash the Mace did full justice to the spread.

*   *   *

It was late into the night when he and the kestrel sprawled by the fire, warm, rested, and, for the first time in many a season, unable to eat another mouthful. The old mole, Auntie Ummer, hunted out a curious-looking instrument, a stout pole with bells, two strings, and a pawdrum attached to its base. She plucked the strings, jangled the bells, and tapped the drum with a footpaw. The babes, who were far too excited to sleep, began jigging and hopping around the fire, clapping their paws.

“Whurrhoo! Play ee gurdelstick! Whurrhoo!”

Old Uncle Blunn began tapping his paws and chanting:

The gurdelstick music speeded up, and the little ones whirled and leaped, jigged and tumbled until they collapsed in a giggling heap, yelling for dandelion-and-burdock cordial. Tirry invited the friends to sing, but his guests declined, Skarlath being too shy and Sunflash explaining that he had never learned a song, being in captivity most of his young life.

The homely hedgehog patted Sunflash’s massive paw. “By me spikes, that is a shame! No matter, my Dearie ’as a voice like a lark at morn in a meadow, she’ll cheer you up!”

Dearie Lingl had a jolly, clear voice, and she sang happily:

Laughter and applause greeted Dearie’s song. The two families were used to entertaining themselves, and there followed a whole repertoire of songs, poems, and dances. Then, as the fire was allowed to fall into embers, they took their rest in the warm, dim cave.

Sunflash had never been so happy and contented in his life. He hummed along as one of the small hedgehogs sang herself to sleep drowsily with a curious little chant:

Each time the babe reached the end of this strange ditty, she went back to the beginning and sang it again, her voice growing drowsier and drowsier until it was silenced by sleep. Something about the jumbled, meaningless words and the sad tune kept going round in Sunflash’s mind. Finally he shook Tirry gently, and said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. Are you awake?”

“Hm, mm, just about, friend, d’you need ought?”

“That song your little daughter was singing, what is it?”

“Oh, you mean the one with all the funny mixed-up words and the nice tune. It’s an old thing that my Dearie learned from her mother, she prob’ly learned it from her mother, and so on, way back. All our hoglets know it, pretty tune, silly verse.”

Sunflash gazed into the glowing embers through half-closed eyes, and said, “I don’t know why, but I’d like to learn it.”

Tirry smiled as he settled into a comfortable ball. “I’ll tell the babes tomorrow, they’ll be only too happy to oblige ye, sir.” j/mAF29gBMXpMGbcS9G6iI4U2HGtud85w5460oGxZgNUswcoTYgyWCgyZGom0+q/