Urchin and the Rage Tide Read online

  Text copyright © 2010 by M. I. McAllister

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Omar Rayyan

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-5625-3

  Visit www.disneyhyperion.com

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  For Becky, Adrianne, and all the young people they have brought to Mistmantle

  PROLOGUE

  OLLOWING THE RAVEN WAR, there were years of peace and plenty on Mistmantle. Summers were bright, and harvests so lavish that there was never a hungry winter. The sun sparkled from waters teeming with fish. It was the most wonderful time for young animals to grow up.

  Urchin, Needle, Sepia, and Fingal were loved and honored throughout the island, and were like older brothers and sisters to Princess Catkin, Prince Oakleaf, and little Princess Almondflower. Juniper had become a wise and gentle priest. In those years, King Crispin the squirrel—Crispin Swanrider—continually toured the island, meeting animals in the woods and bays where they lived. It was as if he could never have enough of the island and its good company. Corr the young otter continued to train as Urchin’s page.

  As ever, the young learned the stories of their island. Enchanted mists surrounded Mistmantle, and few creatures found a way through them. No animal who truly belonged to the island could leave by water and return by water, and no animal had ever left the island in any way three times and returned.

  Rarely, only once in very many generations, there was a Voyager, an animal who could come and go through the mists at will. Some animals thought that Mistmantle would never again have a Voyager. But others—King Crispin and Queen Cedar, Urchin, Padra, and Juniper—knew that there already was one.

  Animals had their hopes, dreams, and secrets. King Crispin had a secret that nobody guessed. Corr dreamed of a bright, exciting future full of adventure. And a squirrel called Mossberry had strange dreams of power.

  If Mossberry’s dreams had stayed in his head, he might have done no harm. But already, his earnest speeches, his bright eyes, and the power of his personality were attractive to a few animals who believed whatever he told them.

  Mossberry’s dreams put all the island in danger.

  CHAPTER ONE

  OW THE DAY BREAKS through the night! Here is the year’s turning! Lift your hearts to the Heart! Greet the light!”

  From an open window of the Gathering Chamber of Mistmantle Tower, Juniper the priest called out the ancient words. A cheer rang out from all the squirrels, moles, hedgehogs, and otters crammed into the tower; and the animals on the rocks below the window applauded, cheered, and hugged each other as the first streaks of morning light spread across the sky. In the highest turret of Mistmantle Tower, Hope the hedgehog and Scatter the squirrel lit a candle, set it in the window, and hugged each other for joy. Soon, candlelight glowed from every window in the tower. Everywhere there were ribboned garlands, holly, and evergreens.

  This was a joyous time of winter. After the longest and darkest night of the year, the animals would gather to watch for the sunrise. It marked the year’s turning, and though there was still more winter to come, they knew that from this night on, the days would grow longer and the nights shorter. For days now there would be parties, feasts, entertainments, and gift-giving, to help them face the cold days ahead.

  Juniper breathed in the dry cold with its taste of frost. As lanterns were lit on the rocks, he saw the soft sparkle of frost beneath them.

  “It’s…so…so…so like something in a story!” gasped Princess Catkin as she came to stand at the window beside him. Her eyes were large and bright, and her whiskers and ears twitched with excitement. “Shall we go down?”

  King Crispin and Queen Cedar were behind them. The king put his paws on Catkin’s shoulders.

  “I’ll come with you, sweetheart,” he said, and soon bright-eyed mole maids were wriggling busily through the tower crowd, craning their necks to see over the heaps of soft white mantles they brought for any animals who wanted to go outside and greet the dawn. Young Prince Oakleaf took as many mantles as his paws would hold and threw them out the window.

  “Urchin!” called the king as, with a flourish of his tail, he sprang to perch on the windowsill. “Are you coming?”

  Through the crowd came a squirrel whose fur was pale as golden honey; and whose only deep squirrel red was on his ears and tail tip. On his wrist, he wore a bracelet of faded squirrel hair.

  “I’ll follow you, Your Majesty!” called Urchin. With a swishing of red-gold tails, the whole royal family ran down the walls and began putting on the cloaks, which lay in a soft and tumbled heap on the rocks. Urchin followed them, and, reaching the ground, helped Princess Almondflower with a cloak so big for her that he had to find a mole maid to carry her train.

  Juniper, who had a lame leg, found running down the walls difficult, and, besides, it wouldn’t be suitable for a priest who had just led an important ceremony. He came down the stairs and joined the others on the rocks, where all animal faces were turned hopefully to the eastern sky. They stood in little groups, holding up lanterns where the flames leaned and flickered in the draft. The pools of light made the frost glimmer with gold.

  The otters stood nearest to the shore, the youngest twisting in and out of the shallows. Padra and Arran, both wearing captains’ swords and circlets, stood shoulder to shoulder and paw in paw. Their daughter Swanfeather danced in and out of the waves, while their son, Tide, kept an eye on his little sister, Fionn, who had found a frog and was watching it with fascination. Padra’s brother, Fingal, was pushing out his boat, the Captain Lugg, which was fully loaded with excited, squeaking little hedgehogs.

  “One quick trip around the bay,” Fingal was saying. “Look out for starfish!”

  Moles peeped up from tunnels, peered shortsightedly at the sky, grunted a greeting to any animal who was near, and went back to bed. But Tipp and Todd, the grandsons of Captain Lugg, stayed with their friends on the beach, watching the sunrise. Their friend Spade, who was a Circle mole, joined them.

  “Daft idea, staying up all night,” he remarked, rubbing his paws together for warmth. “But I suppose you have to make the effort,” and they knew he was enjoying it as much as they were.

  Urchin followed King Crispin and his family to the jetty where the waves shushed softly against the staithes. His old friend Needle the hedgehog—one of the sharpest and most skillful hedgehogs on the island—was bustling about giving orders to the pages.

  “It’s time to serve the spiced wine,” she was saying, “and hot berry cordial for the little ones. And someone—yes, you, please, Pepper—go to Miss Sepia and tell her we’re ready for the choir.”

  The choir were already gathering, holding out paws to help each other clamber to a high
point on the rocks and giggling if they slithered or fell. Their white robes, gathered up in their paws as they climbed, gleamed clearly against the night sky, and in the poor light and the confusion of white robes Urchin couldn’t even see Sepia of the Songs, but everyone would recognize her voice when she sang.

  “Urchin!” called a loud female voice. “My Urchin!”

  It was Apple, his foster mother. He turned, smiling, to see her pressing through the crowd with such determination in her elbows that animals fell away before her. She wore a new embroidered cloak that Needle had made for her, but her hat was the same as ever, and as she drew near, Urchin saw that it was decorated for winter with holly leaves. No wonder her passage through the crowd had been so easy. She carried a lantern in one paw and was carefully adjusting her hat with the other.

  “A happy dawn, Urchin, ooh, what a lovely dawn, too, what a night, all frosty, mind you don’t slip,” she said, and paused to take a few deep breaths before she could go on. “My Filbert’s just getting me a spiced wine, they do a lovely spiced wine in them kitchens, I just come to wish you a happy dawn, now, off you go, you should be with the king, or guarding something, or whatever Circle things you’re meant to be doing, you go and do your Circley things, my Urchin.”

  Urchin hugged her (keeping a watchful eye on the holly) and did as she said. Juniper and the king’s family were now all on the jetty, watching as the sky slowly grew lighter. Princess Almondflower splashed her paws in the water, gasping and giggling with the cold. Urchin’s page, Corr, appeared from somewhere with a silver jug and cups on a tray, and Princess Catkin grinned at him and helped him pour the wine. She and Corr were old friends.

  “Corr,” said King Crispin, “Urchin tells me you’ve completed your training.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Corr, bowing as he presented the king’s cup.

  “And that you’ve done well,” said the king.

  “Yes, he has, Your Majesty,” put in Urchin, seeing that Corr didn’t know how to answer.

  “Then I’ll have to speak to him,” said Crispin, with a swift smile past Corr at Urchin. “See what we’re going to do with you next.”

  A bell rang. Conversation died away, and all animals turned to gaze up at the choir. A sweet pure voice reached out like a swirl of silver.

  Turn for the east and yearn for the waking,

  Warmth after winter, light after night,

  Turn for the east where daylight is breaking…

  The rest of the choir joined in, then all the islanders, singing the ancient song of the turning of the year as their parents and grandparents had sung it. They repeated it, singing it in rounds and in harmonies, and before it was finished, the animals with young children were wrapping them snugly in their cloaks and carrying them home to nests and burrows. Soon, all except the tower animals were on their way home.

  “Urchin,” said Crispin quietly as they walked back to the tower, “we need to talk about Corr. He’s growing up: it’s time for him to know who he is. Have a word with Padra—I want to know what he thinks about it. And Juniper.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Urchin. He turned to look for Captain Padra—the Senior Captain, and Crispin’s oldest friend—and saw him at the shoreline, beside Juniper. He would have spoken to Padra straightaway, but it seemed as if Juniper and the otters had something important to attend to. There was an air of concentration about them. They sniffed at the scents on the air, turning from side to side. Then Juniper waded out into the bitterly cold sea—Urchin shivered just to watch him—and stood waist-deep in the lapping waves, his eyes closed.

  “Tide?” he said at last. “Come to me, please.”

  Tide, Padra’s son, swam to his side. “Yes, Brother Juniper,” he said.

  “Swim out a little,” said Juniper. “Feel the tides. Smell the air and water. Tell me what you think.”

  “I’ll go with him,” said Padra.

  As the otters swirled away Juniper waited in silence, stilling his mind, listening with his heart, sometimes dipping his paws in the water to feel for the tide. When he saw the otters returning he waded back to meet them on the shore, shivering and breathing wheezily.

  Urchin took off his own cloak and wrapped it around him.

  “It’s not good,” gasped Juniper hoarsely. “What do you think?”

  “There’s going to be a rage tide,” said Tide, “but not yet.”

  “He’s right, I’m afraid,” said Padra. “You can feel it in the depths. It’s still a long way off, but the currents are stirring. When it comes, it’ll be enormous. We’ll have floods.”

  Juniper nodded thoughtfully. “I thought so,” he said. “But if it’s a long way off, we have time to make ready. We’ll tell the king after the festival.” Not tonight, he thought. The island faced a terrible flood tide, perhaps the worst it had ever known. But that was not all.

  There was another threat, something unseen. Juniper frowned as he tried to concentrate. The threat was from within, from somewhere on the island. Not far away some great danger was stirring, and Juniper’s fur prickled at the thought of it.

  Soon, the king must be told—but tonight, he could sleep in peace.

  Mossberry lay on his back on a hillside and turned his face away because the light from the tower was in his eyes. But lights still flashed in his head and all around him, and he thought he could hear a voice—what was that voice? Was it the voice of Brother Juniper, calling out from the shore? But Brother Juniper was no true priest. He had tried to explain something most important to Brother Juniper, and Brother Juniper hadn’t listened. He couldn’t understand.

  Whatever Juniper said, Mossberry knew himself to be different. He was called by the Heart. Why didn’t Juniper understand? He was Mossberry, the chosen one, and one day the islanders must follow him or die.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HERE WERE MORE DAYS OF PARTIES , music, and dancing, followed at last by the day when sensible animals—and even, finally, the not so sensible ones—began to tidy their nests, burrows, and chambers and settle down to catch up on sleep. On the third day, Crispin called together the senior members of the Circle to the Gathering Chamber.

  Juniper stood side by side with Whittle the squirrel, who had taken over from Mistress Tay as the island’s lawyer and historian. (Tay was still alive but very old, and Crispin had insisted on her retirement. She could still walk about her own chamber alone, but for anything more she needed a wheelchair, from which she growled, grumbled, and shook her walking stick at whoever annoyed her. She no longer attended meetings of the Circle.)

  Urchin and Needle were there, and the three captains—Padra and Arran, and Docken the hedgehog. (Docken’s wife, Thripple, worked with Needle on the Threadings, the pictures telling the story of Mistmantle, and their son, Hope, was Juniper’s assistant.) Spade the mole was there, quiet and sensible, and Moth the mole, Mother Huggen the hedgehog, and Russet and Heath the squirrels. Padra’s brother, Fingal, was in attendance, too, but Urchin could sense that he was restless to be out in the sea. Princess Catkin and Prince Oakleaf now joined in the Circle meetings with their mother, Queen Cedar.

  In the years since the war, the queen seemed to have grown beautiful with a solemn, wise kind of beauty. More than ever, she looked like a queen of Mistmantle. Princess Catkin still liked a good argument, but had learned when to avoid one, hold her tongue, and listen, however difficult that might be. She even knew that she might not always be right. And Oakleaf was very much like a younger version of Crispin.

  King Crispin was thinner, and his face narrower than when he had won his famous fight against the Archraven. Those who knew him well knew that his old wound from that battle still hurt him.

  The king smiled. “Brother Juniper,” he said, “will you begin?”

  “May the Heart hold us in love as the mists fold our island,” prayed Juniper aloud, “and may the Heart be in our council at the turning of the year.”

  “Now let’s get the morning’s business dealt with,” said C
rispin briskly. “Then we can all go and do something more important. Even you, Fingal. Padra, anything to report?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Padra gravely. “This is not good news, but the island has seen far worse. There is a flood tide to come, and more than a flood tide—there will be a rage tide.”

  “Heart keep us!” whispered Mother Huggen. Fingal took her paw.

  Urchin saw Moth bite her lip. Princess Catkin was looking anxiously up at her father.

  “A rage tide!” said Crispin. “The younger animals here have never lived through one, or anything like it. I’m sure you’ve all been told about them—how the sea rises, and comes in on a rush. The waters sweep the island and wreck all that stands in their way. We’re not talking about any ordinary high tide, or a storm, even the worst storms you’ve ever seen. This is the full force of the sea, and a small island is nothing but a toy before it. Captain Padra and I both lost family in the last rage tide. Most animals did.”

  “I remember that,” said Arran, with a glance at Padra. “Padra’s father and mine were helping to rescue the old and slow animals who couldn’t get away fast enough. Padra’s father was swept away to sea that night, and we found him on the shore in the morning.”

  “I remember that morning, too,” said Crispin. He had never forgotten the way Padra had looked that day, a young otter promising to take care of his younger brother. “But that came in such a rush, with no warning. This time, we can prepare for it. Have you any idea when?”

  “No,” said Padra, “but it’s still a long way off.”

  “And from which direction?”

  “I’d say from the southeast, Your Majesty, but it’s hard to tell.”

  “Then that’s where we begin to clear the island,” said Crispin. “We must dig new burrows and tunnels in high ground. Squirrels must find the highest and strongest trees. Food supplies must be moved and kept in the hills or deep underground in the driest and safest of caves, and the Mole Palace must be opened again.”