The Heir of Mistmantle Read Online Free PDF Page B

lantern, Urchin’s fur bristled as he walked farther underground. His first memories of this place still held their power.
    “You still find it creepy down here, don’t you?” said Juniper.
    “It’s all right,” said Urchin. These tunnels had been cleaned and changed since he had first come this way. Lamps shone softly on the walls. There were no nameless creatures anymore, scuffling about where you couldn’t quite see them. But water still ran down the walls, leaving green patches and, here and there, a strange-colored puddle. He strained to listen for any shuffle of paws, or the squeak of a baby.
    Long ago Lord Husk used to come this way to a hidden chamber with a history so terrible that it had been left locked for hundreds of years, and never spoken of, but Husk had found it. Its clinging air of ancient, creeping horror had drawn him and fed the evil inside him. It had been a place of nightmare.
    Since Husk’s downfall, Brother Fir had quietly and sensibly taken control of the situation. He had told the islanders of the long ago time when a squirrel king had committed murder and sacrifice in that chamber. He had opened it, blessed it, filled it with candlelight, watched, prayed, and sung in it, night and day, cleansing it of its past. It was now the Chamber of Candles, a place of prayer and peace.
    “Sh!” said Juniper sharply. Urchin twitched his ears to listen and heard nothing.
    “Not sure,” said Juniper, but as soon as they started walking again Urchin heard the quick pattering of paws from somewhere in the tunnels.
    “It’s to the left of us,” whispered Docken.
    “There must be a passageway parallel to this one,” said Urchin. The paw steps stopped again, and it occurred to Urchin that they didn’t have a sword between the three of them. That was all right if you were dealing with a frightened squirrel who mustn’t be alarmed. It was a bit unsettling if you were wedged underground with an unknown animal running about just out of sight. The paws grew louder.
    “It’s ahead of us,” muttered Docken and stepped forward, but Juniper laid a paw on his arm. Urchin had already seen what Juniper had seen. His eyes were on a small cleft in the rock a little way ahead of them.
    Something was moving. Urchin, stretching out a paw to the others for silence, crept forward. Whatever animal was wriggling through that tight cleft it must be a small one, and unarmed. He was about to ask who was there when a small voice said, “Oof! I’m squashed!” A small hedgehog pushed its nose forward, sniffed, and peered shortsightedly about. “Hello, Urchin!” He wrinkled his nose to sniff again. “Hello, Daddy!”
    “What are you doing down here?” demanded Docken.
    “Hello, Hope!” said Urchin. Irritated as he was at the scare the little hedgehog had given them, he was more relieved than anything else. And nobody could ever mind Hope. He was the son of Docken, and Thripple, the hedgehog who had carried Catkin at her naming. Hope was always so eager to please that he frequently ended up in danger, but somehow, he had always emerged in one piece.
    “Hello, Brother Juniper, sir,” said Hope. “I didn’t have any orders so I thought I’d come after you, and I found a tunnel to explore so I explored it.”
    “Well, you shouldn’t,” said Docken. “It’s dangerous, you’re on your own, and what’s more you nearly scared the spines right off me. Does Mummy know where you are?”
    “I said I was going to look for the princess and she said to stay in the tower so I did and I have and I am,” said Hope.
    “I know you’re good at tunnels, Hope,” said Urchin gently, “but it’s dangerous for you to come down here alone. There must be all sorts of tunnels we don’t know about.”
    “Yes, I just found one,” said Hope. “And there’s a whole other layer under this one, I think, I can tell from the echoes and the way it feels.”
    “Well, don’t go looking for it,” said Docken. “We’ve already