Rakkety Tam

39

Duge saw the Abbey gates opening. Six creatures emerged, three hares, an otter and a hawk, walking side by side, with a squirrel two paces in front of them. Upon her hurried return, the ermine found Gulo and the other five vermin sitting around, their backs toward Doogy and their once well-lit torches now just butts stuck down into the earth. The wolverine was chewing on the raw carcase of a nightjar which the old fox had felled earlier with his sling. Crunching on a bone, Gulo stared up at Duge through hooded lids.

“Do they bring the Walking Stone with them?”

The ermine nodded. “Sire, the riverdog carries it in a basket around his shoulder. They are all well armed, save for the bird.”

Gulo rose in a leisurely fashion, wiping a few downy feathers from his lips. He swelled his powerful chest and flexed his mighty limbs confidently. “Come, my slayers! Let us taste the flesh of these fools!”

Doogy Plumm had been gagged three times, but still he had managed to rip and shred each binding.

Not a beast to be silenced, the stout Highlander laughed mockingly. “Hahaarr, ye scum-faced braggarts, all ye’ll taste this day is goin’ t’be the soil ye tread on!”

Gulo ignored him, but a white fox climbed up on the wood kindling surrounding the squirrel and struck him a blow to the face. “Silence, treemouse! Nobeast defeats Gulo the Savage. He could slay twice their number with ease!”

Doogy quickly retorted, “Hoho, could he now, the sauncy great thing! Well, let me tell ye, mah bonnie wee vermin, yer Chief has yet tae meet Rakkety Tam MacBurl!”

Then he bellowed forth, “Hawaaaay the Braw, Taaaaam!”

Tam answered the cry as he leaped the ditch ahead of his friends. “Haway the Braaaw, Doogy Plumm! MacBurl for aye!”

Both shouts set off a thunderous roar from the creatures gathered on the high rampart walls. “Redwaaaaaaallllll! Eulaliiiiaaaaaa!”

At a signal from Gulo, Duge began rolling the drum forward, striking it with the basket hilt of Doogy’s claymore as she raised the vermin into a chant. “Gulo! Gulo! Gulo! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Both sides marched forward to within six paces of each other, then halted. Gulo and Tam advanced two more paces. They stood facing, eye to eye. Skipper placed the basket containing Rockbottom upon the ground. Then he stood over it, hefting a long javelin. One of the foxes eyed the basket, his paw straying to his curved sword hilt. A swift rasp of steel was all it took, and Derron Fortindom’s long blade was out and pointing at the fox.

“Come anywhere near that basket before this contest is finished, sirrah, an”tis death to ye. Take my word! We’re here to see fair play. This is a one-on-one fight, Tam against Gulo. All others stay out of it. Clear?”

Gulo and Tam began circling warily, each riveted on the other, their eyes unblinking. With his huge, menacing appearance, the wolverine had created immediate fear in all the beasts he had ever faced. He towered over the squirrel warrior, baring his teeth, flexing his claws and breathing heavily. Showing neither fear nor hesitation, and holding the sword of Martin loosely at his side, Tam looked up at his enemy.

Gulo gave a blood-curdling growl, setting up a small cloud of dust as he stamped his footpaws down heavily. He leered at his smaller opponent wolfishly. “Little warrior, ye are bold to face Gulo. Thy body will add strength to mine. Thy heart belongs to me!”

Normally, this would have set anybeast in a tremble, but Tam’s reply was completely unexpected. “I could not give my heart to one as ugly as ye. ’Tis promised to a fair pretty maid!”

With eye-blurring speed, Tam swung his sword, which produced a pinging sound as it nicked a claw from the wolverine’s paw. Gulo let out an unearthly shriek and charged him. The Borderer’s shield shook as his enemy’s mighty paw struck it. Tam dodged nimbly to one side, avoiding the force of the blow. He swung a counterslash with his blade, but it only shored off a thick bunch of hair. As Tam brought his shield back up into position, Gulo dived headlong. His massive head caught the shield’s centre boss, bowling the squirrel backward, head over tail, and sending him skidding over the grass.

The watchers scattered in all directions as Gulo howled triumphantly and went after his quarry like a thundering juggernaut. Tam recovered quickly. Half kneeling, he held up his shield against an onslaught of blows from both of the wolverine’s ponderous paws. Instinctively, he slashed out with his sword and was rewarded by a sharp grunt of pain as it pierced the huge beast’s footpaw. Scrambling upright, Tam held the battered shield at shoulder height, sweeping beneath it furiously with the keen blade of Martin’s sword as he retreated toward the Abbey.

Gulo came after him, more careful now that he had to avoid the scything blade. He rasped hoarsely at the squirrel warrior, “Ye can back up an’ run, but ye cannot escape Gulo the Savage!”

Retreat, however, was not part of Tam’s plan. He suddenly changed tactics. Dropping the shield to his side, the squirrel warrior brought the sword up and forward in a blurring figure-eight movement, forcing Gulo to back off. But he could not keep up the manoeuvre forever. The moment his pace with the blade slacked, the wolverine leaped forward and sideways. The claws on his footpaw raked Tam from knee to paw. He paused, gasping in agony. Gulo swept a swinging crossways strike at Tam’s midriff. Only by jumping back a half pace and sucking in his stomach could the squirrel avoid a blow which would have opened him through the middle. Gulo missed, but his paw struck the backside of the shield, ripping it from his opponent’s grasp and sending it sailing up and away. The shield landed on the edge of the ditch, side on, its rim buried deep in the earth.

Some of Tam’s friends as well as Gulo’s vermin had been running forward while at the same time following the progress of the two rivals’ life-and-death struggle. To one side of him, Gulo glimpsed the white fox who was carrying Doogy’s claymore. The wolverine held out his paw. “Give me yon blade!”

The fox passed it to his chieftain. Ferdimond De Mayne, one of the least experienced Long Patrol hares, made as if to stop him, but Sergeant Wonwill pulled him back. “Stay out of it, young ’un. No rules say they can’t be armed!”

Now Gulo came after Tam with the claymore, bludgeoning and hacking. The squirrel was hard put to defend himself.

All along the western walltop, silence had descended on the onlookers. It seemed that fate had placed Tam on the losing side. Steel clanged upon steel as the Borderer was driven back by the relentless blows Gulo rained upon him. Back, back he went, countering and parrying as the long-bladed claymore hammered against his own, shorter sword. Tam could not look to see where he was being driven, but he knew he was being forced toward the ditch, which ran alongside the path outside the Abbey wall.

Gulo began roaring as he delivered each crushing blow. “Gulo! Kill! Gulo! Kill!”

Then Tam tripped . . .

He fell heavily backward, striking the ground with a force which almost knocked the wind from him. The last thing he saw was Gulo, flinging himself forward with the claymore upraised.

For a brief moment, time seemed to freeze. Then, none too soon, Tam sighted the wolverine in midair, falling toward him, with claymore raised for the fatal blow. Blood-red eyes ablaze, the Border warrior seized his final chance with the speed of chain lightning. Gripping the sword of Martin, hilt and blade with both paws, he held it up horizontally. A fierce spirit possessed him as he shot both footpaws up rigid at the descending wolverine. A wild howl of rage ripped from Tam’s throat—“Haway the Braaaaaaw!” Then the weight of his adversary fell upon him as Tam thrust upward with the sword and all four paws in a stupenduous burst of power.

Like a stone from a slingshot, Gulo was carried through the air by the impetus of the mighty effort. He slammed to earth, just short of the ditch. His own massive body weight sent his outstretched neck right onto the edge of Tam’s shield, which was buried upright in the earth at the edge of the ditch. Gulo was transfixed for one horrifying heartbeat, his body at the ditch’s edge. Clunk! His head fell into the dried leaves on the ditchbed.

Gulo the Savage would never return to rule the lands of ice and snow beyond the cold north seas!