Brock could also make out the other members of the Council; Digit the Grey Squirrel, Cawdor the Crow and Remus the Rook. Remus, like Bibbington, had been taken in by a family of Urkku and looked after by them for some three seasons before but, with some regrets for the safety and security of life in this particular household of Urkku, he had flown off and settled in Silver Wood where his knowledge of the Urkku had rendered him an extremely valuable member of the Council.
Suddenly Brock’s thoughts were broken into by the realization that all the shuffling and muttering around him had slowly quietened until there was now an expectant silence. The only sound he could hear was the rustling of a light wind which blew through the bare branches of the tall silver birch trees surrounding them. Perched in the middle of the old trunk was Wythen the Wise, Warrigal’s father and the leader of the Council: an owl who had lived for as long as any member of the wood could remember and whose links with the elves of Tall Wood were well known. Indeed it was even rumoured that he himself had some magical powers and, looking into his enormous brown eyes which seemed to see everything both visible and invisible, it could well be believed. Now he turned slowly round from his conversation with Rufus to address the meeting.
‘Welcome to you all on this cold night,’ he said in his clear magical tones. ‘We are here to discuss two matters; the first, the question of preparations and defences for a Killing that is due to take place tomorrow and the second a matter which I would rather not mention until we have disposed of the first. I will now call upon Sam to inform us as to what he knows of tomorrow’s shoot.’
The owl turned towards Sam as the dog stood up and began to relate all that he had heard his human saying to the Mistress in their kitchen yesterday morning. The main target was to be pheasants and there would be a large number of Urkku from the village involved. There would also be beaters, men with sticks who would walk through the wood from the back, hitting the undergrowth and making strange shouting and whistling noises. This was intended to force the animals to fly up or run away towards the front of the wood where the Urkku with their death sticks would be waiting for them. It was a standard procedure for the big killings and was greatly feared by the animals as, unlike the situation where there were just two or three Urkku walking through the wood, there was nowhere for them to run and hide. Although the main victims were the pheasants, no animal was safe and, if seen, would almost certainly be shot at.
When Sam had finished he was thanked by Wythen and he lay down again next to Brock. He was shaking all over from nerves and panting heavily, little drops of saliva running down his chin. ‘Well done,’ whispered Brock, who himself hated public speaking and knew how his friend felt; particularly as in Sam’s case there were still a number of animals who mistrusted him and would seize any opportunity to criticize.
‘The Killing tomorrow is then one of the most dangerous and none of us is safe,’ said Wythen in a stern and angry voice, remembering the time five seasons ago when one of his sons had been shot. It was not common for owls to be killed but by no stretch of the imagination could they be called safe and it was only an extremely unwise owl who would let himself be seen by the Urkku. ‘You must all organize yourselves as best you can; now we have foreknowledge we at least have a chance of diminishing our losses. Sterndale, you must once again attempt to impress upon your flock the importance of not moving and of staying on the ground as much as possible and explain to them the folly of calling out when frightened. Thirkelow, your pigeons have more chance in the air than the pheasants but the best plan is still to use ground cover. Pictor, you must tell your rabbits to go in their burrows and stay there, and your hares, Perryfoot, would do well to stay under cover where they are and only to risk a bolt for it if they are a good distance away from the Urkku and out of range of their death sticks. Rufus, you and the foxes must stay in your holes; if Sam’s information is correct there will be no hounds, nor will they be using the gas on any of the animals; but still both you and Bruin’s family would do best to remain well hidden. You know what the Urkku are like on these mass slaughters of theirs; anything moves and they’ll try and kill it. This of course applies to all the rest of you animals. We’ll have the usual signalling system; my son Warrigal will be roosting on one of the trees by the pond: as soon as he spots the Urkku he’ll call out four or five times and that will be the signal for everyone to get out of sight and stay quiet.’
There was dead silence in the snowy glade; the moon, shining down bright and silvery, showed all the intent, anxious and fearful faces of the animals as they tried to absorb the instructions given by Wythen. Little clouds of breath froze in the cold air and Brock could hear the frightened panting of the rabbits next to him. ‘Whose turn will it be?’ they were wondering, and through their minds flashed pictures of those they had seen in the past shot and killed or, worse still, injured and left to die with their back legs in pieces. And over all their fear, the eternal question which none could answer, not even Wythen – Why?
‘And now,’ broke in the owl, realizing that he must bring the minds of the meeting back to the second item for discussion, ‘there is another matter to which I would like to draw your attention. I already know something about it as my son Warrigal has had a talk to me, but I would like to hear the matter from the beginning, first hand.’ Brock’s heart missed a beat; he looked for Warrigal and saw him perched low down on an elder branch to his right. The owl looked back and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Brock,’ continued Wythen, ‘would you please relate to us all, slowly and clearly, exactly what occurred last night.’
Very nervously and shakily Brock moved slightly forward into the clear space in front of the Council and began to tell them the events of the previous night. He stuck strictly to the facts, leaving out all his ideas of ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’, because he would not be able to find the right words to express them and in any case they were private feelings which he didn’t really want to share with all the other animals. By the time he had got to the part about going up to the baby and touching it, Brock was dimly aware of hundreds of little whispers and mutterings and he could see the Council all leaning forward intently to catch every word he said. When he got to the end, about taking the Urkku down his sett and his being suckled by Tara, there was a positive hubbub of raised voices and angry interchanges as this extraordinary tale began to register itself, with all its implications, in the minds of the animals.
Wythen let the hubbub continue for some time as he knew it would be useless to try and stop it, for it gave them all a chance to express their opinions before the discussion went any further. When the noise began to subside, he called out for silence and eventually the last mutterings died away. Brock was not so afraid as he felt he ought to be; in fact he felt strangely confident, although this may have been partly due to the fact that he was almost certain Wythen was on his side.
‘I shall now ask Warrigal to give you his opinions and views on the matter before us,’ said the owl, ‘and you may then ask questions. Before we go on, however, I would first like to ask Sam to tell us whether there has been any talk of this in the village.’ Sam stood up again and said that no, there had been no mention of it at all and it was the first he had heard of it.
Warrigal then flew down and stood in the centre of the open space. As he talked he turned round and round slowly so as to address every part of the meeting in turn, and he opened his wings when he wished to gesticulate or emphasize a particular point. His speech was masterful; it was full of references to legend and the time Before-Man and he sprinkled it with many veiled allusions to the Magical Peoples and the Elflord. He recited the legend of the Urkku Saviour with its ending which had been lost with the passage of time and which no one, save perhaps the Elflord himself, knew. Warrigal knew that the animals loved legends and stories and that the thought that they might actually be about to observe a legend at first hand would be enough to at least partly persuade them to allow the Urkku to stay in the wood. Coupled with this, the fear and respect with which all animals treated the name of the Elflord and the implication that he both knew of the Urkku and wished it to remain, should convince the Council and the other animals that it was right for the Urkku to stay.
