‘I’m going to look for them. You stay here,’ and he got up from the damp ground.

‘I’m not leaving you again,’ Sam yelled back. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Cautiously they walked over to the edge and looked over. A great blast of heat met them and they gasped for breath. Nab smelt his hair burning and covered his face with his hands. Sam put his head down and they took a few steps down the side of the mountain. Then, above the din, they heard a shout. They stopped and looked at each other for reassurance that it had not been a figment of their imagination. Then it came again, louder this time and seemingly from behind them. Warily they turned around and looked back up the mountain. Over the edge of the plateau they saw Beth waving down to them with Warrigal perched on her shoulder and Brock and Perryfoot on either side. They were as surprised and overjoyed to see Sam as he and Nab were relieved to see them. The boy and the dog ran back up to the top where the six of them, all together again, greeted each other with joy and tears of thankfulness.

‘We were so worried. We were just coming down to look for you,’ Nab said when he was able to speak again without laughing for joy.

‘We nearly got caught,’ said Beth. ‘They were almost on us when the explosions started and then they panicked and most of them ran off. Then we seemed to be drawn towards a track that shone with a bright silver light which I don’t think they were able to see and the few that were left seemed to fall back so that we were on our own.’

They all walked slowly over to the dark hole where the pool had been and Sam told them how he had escaped from the Urkku. Then they sat under the old oak tree and Nab related all that had happened since they had parted on Rengoll’s Tor. They listened intently; Warrigal perched on one of the great roots that were exposed above the peat, his deep round eyes fixed unblinkingly on Nab. He had heard of the legend of the Map of Lines from Wythen on one of the long talks they used to have together sitting on summer evenings up in the Great Beech in Silver Wood, but the legend had been almost lost in the mists of time and even that wise old owl had known very little about it. How fascinated he would have been to have learnt about the part it was to play in their lives. Warrigal wondered whether or not the old owl had managed to escape the final destruction of the wood and, if he had, whether he had followed one of the lines to a tunnel such as they were sitting beside. Perhaps even now he was about to escape down one of the Scyttels and was thinking about them and of the ending of the story that he, Warrigal, had brought to him that first night when Brock had told him of his strange little discovery.

Perryfoot sat by Nab’s side, his ears flat along his back, contented and happy that all their struggles seemed to be at an end. Where they were going none of them knew but as long as they were together then he would have a home, and what a mighty collection of stories he had built up during their travels. Beth sat at his side stroking his back gently. He thought of the first time he had seen her down by the stream on that wonderful spring afternoon and how he had danced and played in front of her to catch her attention while Nab crawled close to see her more clearly.

Beth was also thinking about that afternoon, so long ago. She wondered whether or not it had been fate that they had met or whether Ashgaroth had somehow arranged it. How strangely her life had turned out! She thought of her parents and her brothers. As Eldron she knew they would have seen the lines and somehow she had faith that they had escaped down one of the Scyttels. She remembered the night when she had seen Nab’s face through the window on Christmas Eve and the turmoil in her mind when she had gone with him. How little she knew then of the world she was entering, the world of animals and elves and goblins, and little did she guess what horrors and wonders she would see. Now, perhaps, they had arrived at the end of their journey and all the things she had yearned for in her life with Nab would be possible.

Sam sat at her feet thinking back to his old life with the Urkku and to the early Council Meetings when he used to sneak out of the house to run across the fields and tell the wood of the Urkku plans. He remembered the cold wet evening when he had been shocked out of his peaceful doze by the fire to see Nab standing, wild and frightened, by the foot of the stairs and how he had raced to the wood to organize the escape.

Nab had finished his tale now and they sat without speaking while the earth juddered and shook beneath them. He felt a strange sense of calm and tranquillity as he looked around at the others, all of them lost in their private thoughts. He turned to Brock and saw that the badger, who was sitting at his side, was looking at him. Their memories were the same for their lives had been so intertwined, since that faraway snowy night when Brock had watched the strange couple come walking over the frozen fields carrying their little bundle, that they had shared everything together. They thought of Rufus who had been so suspicious of Nab at first but who had been killed trying to protect him, and of the others, Sterndale, Pictor, Thirkelow, all of them dead. They thought of Zinndy and Sinkka, Brock’s cubs who had left the sett and whom he had never seen again, and they thought of Bruin. Brock could still see the old badger charging at the Urkku with all the strength his tired body could muster and then, as he raced to escape and catch the others up, the way he had been flung in the air by the shot which took his life. And they remembered Tara. How they both wished she could have been here with them now. They thought of her without the sharp pangs of pain that they had felt at first but rather with a numb sense of loss as if a part of them was missing. They remembered all her little ways clearly and could see her vividly in their imagination. Their minds wandered through all the happenings of the past like a series of little pictures appearing in front of their eyes. Nab buried his face in the thick fur around Brock’s neck the way he used to and put his arms around the badger’s shoulders. Then suddenly a gigantic explosion sounded in his ears and looking up he saw the evening sky disappear behind an enormous black mushroom cloud and the world went dark.

‘Come on, old friend,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time we went,’ and he stood up. Then he took Beth’s hand and with Warrigal, Perryfoot, Sam and Brock following, he walked slowly over to the gaping hole in the earth and, without a backward glance, began to lead them down the rough stone steps into the dark void beneath.

This book is the result of an encounter I had some years ago with a strange old man whilst walking in the deep forests near my home. At the time I believed the meeting to be purely accidental but now I am not sure and it may well have been intentional on his part. Why he chose me to tell the story to I do not know. Perhaps it was because I spent many hours walking through the forests and moorland and he had grown accustomed to my face and perhaps also because he could detect my strong sympathies with the animal kingdom and the natural world.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that, after our first meeting, we met on a number of occasions and he related to me each time a part of the story you have just read. We always met by chance, at least on my part, and there seemed to be no particular area he favoured for our meetings so that we met sometimes in the forest and at other times by a mountain river or somewhere on the moors. Also our meetings were sporadic; sometimes we would meet twice in a week and then two or three months might go by before I would see, quite unexpectedly, his familiar shambling figure coming towards me and we would select a suitably comfortable spot for our conversation. I call it a ‘conversation’ but in reality it was more a one-sided monologue with myself doing little more than listen and interpose the odd question to clarify some matter or other over which I was not clear. However, all my inquiries as to his family, background and home were pushed to one side and remained unanswered; he literally seemed to have ‘come from nowhere’.