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Chapter Two
THE BATTLE OF BIGGINTON
It turned out that King Oresgal commanded a secret power of keeping watch over the borders of his kingdom and finding out what was toward. Of this more will be told later. For now, Aldred notes that Oresgal became aware of the uprising on its very first day, even while the Reeve was receiving his condign punishment and long before any messengers could have reached the City. The King at once held his own emergency council, and two mornings later a counter-attacking force set off. It was not a large host, merely five thousands; and its progress was deliberately slow. Lord Ostendil, the King’s general, well remembered the useless charges of Asuldo’s cavalry against the fierce-stinging swarms of punchkin-archers. He knew how vulnerable the horses were, even though the knights could be protected from the small bows. He therefore resolved to dispense with cavalry entirely. Only a few draught-horses clip-clopped along in the rear of the column that now moved down the Wainroad. Its slowness was also dictated by the pace of a wide line of scouts who fanned out across the moors, checking the rear of every crag and the depths of every gulley. Ostendil was well aware of the danger of being ambushed along the road, and the main body of his troops was not allowed to march until he had made certain that the terrain was clear on either side. Thus he advanced at the rate of ten or twelve miles a day, his slowness giving the Punchkins compensation after his first advantage. Presently his patrols encountered Hodgekin’s small bands of scouts and archers. There were a few skirmishes before the weaker side bunched together and withdrew. The screen of soldiers continued to advance on both sides of the Wainroad.
On being informed of this, Hodgekin at once sent out messengers to Ferumbras, begging him to increase his speed. Unfortunately these Punchkins, who happened to be from other parts of the Demesne and thus unfamiliar with the woods and twisting lanes of the North Hundred, all lost themselves during the night. The carrier pigeons fared better. They arrived in Middleton, where their messages were read and relayed by Mr. Graveldrop to the advancing forces of the Constable. Ferumbras increased his speed and marched on into the late evening.
Ostendil’s troops had reached the end of the road that day – the sixth day of the revolt. Bigginton was soon surrounded. Hodgekin rashly attempted to give battle, hoping at least to discourage Ostendil’s vanguard; but the tall Men were strong and well-armoured, and Hodgekin’s troops had little protection against the great swords and spears. When a score of Punchkins had fallen, the remainder rushed for cover and barricaded themselves into three of the strongest buildings. Already, as it seemed, Ostendil’s task was almost accomplished. He had not been ordered to invade Punchkinland, merely to retake the depot at the end of the Road, which was now fully free. Soon, as Ostendil knew, a strong force of engineers would be sent out and the Road would begin to be driven southward through the Demesne. The Punchkins’ attack on Bigginton had offered a pretext for this violation of the Decree; even so, the extension of the Road would be a formidable task, one that he contemplated with no pleasure. The King – who also remembered the earlier war carried on by his father – had pointed out that a scorched-earth defence would be necessary along both side of the new Road. The ground would have to be levelled, and all trees and vegetation removed, to a distance greater than bowshot. Thus a great swathe would be cut right through the heart of the Demesne. Ostendil was sorry for the Punchkins, and for now he could afford a little courtesy. At five in the afternoon he sent a flag of truce to Hodgekin, offering him a safe unmolested retreat to the Demesne-border, provided that his host laid down their weapons.
This offer was rejected by Hodgekin. He had pinned his hopes on being reinforced; and these hopes were not to be disappointed.
As evening fell – a cold unsettled evening of heavy clouds piling themselves against a yellow sunset – Ostendil’s lookouts began to notice twos and threes and sometimes a larger group of Punchkins slipping between the trees, or occasionally darting along the dim pathways of Bootham Wood. Ferumbras had arrived in Bootham, three miles off to the South-west, and the Punchkins were now probing through the wood, looking for a weak spot through which to pierce the forces of the Men and relieve Hodgekin. Ostendil ordered his reserve forward and formed the army into a ring of besiegers, facing inward and outward, with the greatest strength in the southward section of the ring. These men were stationed in a thick semicircular belt with watch-fires burning at intervals. Ostendil ordered them to take very good care not to show themselves against the light. He saw no reason to make any other alteration to his plan. It was a well-tested principle that the Punchkins could not stand up to Men in open battle: their only advantages were stealthy movement and fast accurate shooting over short distances. But their bows were fairly useless in the darkness, and if they should attempt to break through his ring they must inevitably be overpowered and slaughtered. There was no military reason for him to feel worried. Yet he was not easy in his mind; and his unease was shared by his Men. Some time after ten o’clock a shower of rain fell, short but heavy. Everyone got cold and sodden – and increasingly tense. It was not hard to recognise the profound sense of wrongness, immorality, guilt. The ancient role of Protector of the Demesne, as has been mentioned more than once within these pages, was a fundamental part of the Northern Kingdom’s sense of its own identity. Never, until the time of Asuldo, had the Decree of Kedral been broken. Asuldo’s invasions had had a quality of blasphemy. He had died before his projected third invasion could begin, and his death had naturally been seen by many people as a judgement of Dru. His reign had lasted merely nine years, an ignominiously brief span, almost ridiculous when compared with the reigns of the line of Kedral. And had his death been sufficient expiation? Perhaps not. Three years later the Plague had come.
Well, let all that be as it might; they weren’t invading Punchkinland now; Ostendil told Crabanir and Sorquid and the rest of his officers that nothing was to be gained by brooding on the past. Right now, all they were doing was recapturing the King’s own property. Still, to slay Punchkins – to slay Punchkins, as they had done that day, and as they might have to do again tomorrow – was clearly a dishonourable act, something that even Sorquid could hardly be proud of. For this reason everyone was still hoping that Hodgekin would reconsider. The Punchkins were near, as was shown from time to time by the small green-feathered arrows that from time to time came flicking out of the darkness; but they made no sound. The soldiers abandoned all attempt at sleep, sat in front of their tents and conversed in gloomy undertones. Chilly breezes played among the invisible branches of the trees and blew the damp smoke mockingly into the soldiers’ faces. Behind them, amid the gaunt shapes of the sheds and barracks of Bigginton, one high window was still lit with a red light: it stared continually into the darkness like a little angry eye. The time wore on to midnight. Formally, making no difference to the taut nerves of the army, the watch was changed. The feeble watery stars faded out as the rain-clouds returned. The face of Midyard was turned to the barren wastes of the nights, the deep pits of the cold hours.
Lord Ostendil was beginning to feel that he himself might be able to snatch a few hours of sleep. He lay down on his camp-bed. His drowsiness was broken into by a hand shaking his shoulder. It was Crabanir’s. ‘Something’s coming!’ he whispered. Ostendil got up and received his belt, weapons and armour from his servant. Something was, indeed, coming. There was a silent tremor in the earth. It ran into the soles of the feet, flowed up the backs of legs, torso and neck, and caused the hair on Ostendil’s forearms to stand erect: a regular beat, something in the ground, like a footfall, growing slowly more powerful while remaining soundless. It must have something to do with the two points of green light that could now be seen in the sky – below the clouds, yet higher than the trees – and were also coming closer, seeming now and then to turn, to peer from side to side like eyes in the head of some enormous beast. Now the faint misty shape of the Fox was becoming visible: the ears, the chest, the forelegs and the padding paws that were sending the regular pulses through the earth, the head bending down and forward, the tall pricked ears clearly seen for a second against the pallid darkness of the sky; and the muzzle, and the terrible snarling mouth.
The Fox’s head came down to ground level.
Then the whole night seemed to snarl, the whole wood to grin savagely with tree-trunks black like teeth against a luminous green maw. Suddenly the wood vomited a profusion of crazy attackers. All at once the Men of Thandor were assailed by hundreds of black wolves, black bears, black lynxes, slavering black boars and badgers, vicious black flying weasels that twisted and squirmed and bit with rabid fury.With a ‘whoompf!’, a sudden explosion, Hodgekin’s headquarters erupted in a firework-flare of green, of which the smoke resolved itself into black bats, owls, crows and ravens, black moths and flying toads, shrieking and whistling and laughing as they streamed down to join in the affray. Or again, as the veil of perception shifted, Ostendil might see, while standing back-to-back with his officers and stabbing out at their foes, that these apparitions were transformed Punchkins, that the teeth and talons that seemed to fill the air were swordpoint and arrowpoint, that the animal shapes were the product of some spell of wizardry. But the noise was real, the whole battlefield was being dinned with the screaming and roaring, so that it was impossible for him to make himself heard, impossible to give any order at all. Something fastened on to his am and bit with agonizing pain. He tried to shake it off, but it clung; he brought his sword up like a knife and cut the thing in two. He had the impression of the two severed halves wriggling away, perhaps even joining themselves into one again, before some large shaggy creature was lurching at him, flailing with massive claws. He ducked and dodged and turned a great jarring blow with his shield. Sorquid stabbed the creature and it bellowed deafeningly. Something struck Ostendil in the back, so violently that he almost fell. He thought about running away, but where to retreat to? No, stand and fight: the only possible course.
More than half of the army did run away, many of these disappearing into the woods, where the Punchkins hunted them next day, catching them or shooting them with grim good-humour. Others made for the moorland: of these many were drowned in bogs, or fell off crags in the darkness; but some survived to join the main retreat. The north-facing side of the ring of troops was spared the worst of the attack. It managed to compact itself and to withdraw down the Road, where the attacking phantoms were less eager to come. Ostendil’s group of Men was one of a dozen or more that stood fast until the dawn came and the attack died away. In the doorways and among the wheels of the great wains many Men were revealed in the unhappy light, bloodstained and arrow-pierced, sprawled and piled with expressions of terror and agony on their faces. There were only a few bodies of Punchkins. Of black fur or hide or feather there was no trace.
The dead were picked up by their comrades and placed on the wagons. The Thandorians still held Bigginton but it was clear that they would not keep it long. Ostendil ordered the retreat to be sounded.
The notes died away into the silence of the woods, mournful yet challenging. The remnant of the army moved off. The victorious Punchkins followed and harassed their enemies for miles over the bleak hills.
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