The Golden Anchor. Cameron Stelzer

‘Maybe he’s climbed a tree?’

      Rat Bait raised his nose and sniffed the air.

      ‘Nope,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He’s not up a tree, but he did pass by here. I can smell his filthy stench a mile away. I doubt he’s taken a bath in months.’

      Horace inhaled deeply through his nose.

      ‘Good garlic!’ he spluttered, screwing up his entire face. ‘And I thought Fred’s mouldy pies smelt bad. Eddie’s au naturale body odour is positively revolting!’

      ‘So which way did he go?’ Whisker asked, his eyes focused on the slope ahead.

      Rat Bait sniffed the air again and pointed into the trees.

      ‘North-west,’ he whispered, ‘to the right o’ that slope.’

      ‘The same direction as Hawk’s View,’ Whisker said with a worried look. ‘If he reaches the town we won’t have a hope of catching him. There are too many barns, basements and back alleys to hide in.’

      ‘And too many eagles hunting for us,’ Horace added.

      ‘We still have a chance to capture him in the forest if we’re smart about it,’ Rat Bait said calmly. ‘He can’t be travellin’ fast carryin’ that much gold an’ not makin’ a sound.’

      He cleared the ground with his foot and drew an X in the dirt with the tip of Ruby’s sword.

      ‘This be Eddie,’ he said, pointing to the X. ‘An’ this be us.’ He proceeded to draw a short, straight arrow beneath the X and two longer, curved arrows around it.

      He tapped the shorter arrow with his sword blade. ‘I’ll continue followin’ Eddie directly while ye two speedsters overtake him from the flanks. Once y’er in line with the top o’ that slope, head back in to cut him off.’

      ‘Alright,’ Whisker said, already on the move. ‘You take the high road, Horace. You’ll be the least visible on that slope if Eddie is looking for us. I’ll take the low road.’

      Horace saluted his companions with his hook and began scaling the slope. Rat Bait simply nodded and continued along the level ground. Whisker drew his sword and descended a shallow gully to the north of the slope.

      In seconds, he had lost all sight of his companions in the sprawling maze of pine trunks, fallen branches and rotten logs that littered the gully floor. Patches of snow clung to the sides of grey granite rocks and Whisker felt like he was back in the Erratic Blocks of Cloud Mountain.

      In the gloomy half-light of the gully, Whisker began to doubt that he was heading in the right direction. He reached down for his compass, hoping to take a bearing, but realised he hadn’t reattached his brown drawstring bag.

      Cursing himself for rushing off without being fully prepared, he raised his eyes to the sky, hoping to navigate using the sun. He searched the gaps between branches, trying to locate the exact position of the sun but, with his eyes accustomed to the darkness, every patch of sky appeared to be the same bright white as the next.

      Abandoning his futile efforts, he chose to trust his instinct and continued forward, the winding path of the gully his only guide. He travelled for some time, scrambling under branches and leaping over small rocks until he came to a large log blocking his path. He stopped and sniffed the air, hoping to catch a trace of Rat Bait’s cheap cologne to tell him he hadn’t strayed too far off course.

      The scent that met his nostrils, however, was as unexpected as it was foul. It was a strange mix of mouldy gruel, unwashed fur and rotten eggs, with the slightest hint of earwax.

      Whisker’s entire body froze. He stood rooted to the spot, hoping his footsteps hadn’t already given him away. Only his eyes remained active, searching the gully for the source of the smell.

      The trees were still. The air was silent. He was alone.

      And yet …

      Whisker’s eyes focused on the long object lying in front of him. He sniffed the air a second time and felt the tip of his nose tingle. The foul smell was coming directly from the log.

      A faint tinkle of coins was all Whisker needed to confirm his suspicions. Eddie the Ear wasn’t heading for the town. He was hiding three paces away in the centre of an enormous hollow log.

      The chance discovery set Whisker’s mind racing. From where he stood, side-on to the log, the decaying wood appeared to be hollow at both ends, giving Eddie two possible exit routes. As soon as Whisker crawled in one end, Eddie would hightail it out the other, disappearing into the dark gully before the larger rodent was even halfway through the log.

      If only Horace or Rat Bait were here … Whisker thought.

      He considered calling out for backup, but decided his words would scare off Eddie quicker than it took to say, ‘Over here! I’ve caught the little blighter.’

      He resigned himself to waiting patiently for any signs of his companions, while keeping one eye fixed on the log. As he stared at the patches of pale green lichen and bracket fungi covering the bark, he saw a tiny flicker of movement from the centre of the log. Honing his eyes on a crumbling section of wood, he spotted a small round hole. Staring out at him through the hole was a beady black eye.

      The eye blinked once and then vanished with a loud tinkle of coins.

      ‘Rotten pies to rotten logs!’ Whisker hissed.

      In desperation, Whisker hurled his scissor sword at the closest end of the log and it hit the bark with a clanging THUD, sending fragments of wood flying everywhere. At the same time, he sprinted towards the opposite end, hoping the gerbil would flee in the ‘safer’ of the two directions.

      Rounding the end of the log, he dove into the tight space, his arms extended to tackle the gerbil – only to see Eddie squirming through a large hole in the centre of the log’s rear side.

      ‘Putrid pastries to third exits!’ Whisker exclaimed, stealing yet another line from Horace.

      He tried to raise himself onto all fours to crawl after Eddie, but slammed his head on the low roof and collapsed back down again.

      Eddie was gone and with him the bag of gold and any hope of breaking into the prison. In frustration, Whisker began to wiggle out backwards. His torso had just exited the end of the log when he heard a CRACK of splintering wood, followed by the sound of coins spilling over the ground.

      Baffled, he hauled himself to his feet and rushed behind the log, just in time to glimpse Rat Bait lowering a rotten piece of wood. Eddie was lying unconscious in front of him, covered in splinters and gold coins. Horace stood spectating from the top of the ridge.

      ‘Nice shot, Gramps,’ he shouted out.

      ‘The bligh’er never saw me comin’,’ Rat Bait chuckled, running his paw down his green velvet suit for dramatic effect. ‘Ran clean into me club, he did. Must ‘ave thought I was part o’ the scenery.’ He glanced down at his unsuspecting victim. ‘It’s fortunate for him I wasn’t brandishin’ Miss Ruby’s scissor sword, or poor Eddie would be missin’ more than just his ear.’

      Whisker rubbed his neck and gulped. ‘Let’s just hope all those blows to his head don’t erase his memories. He won’t be much of a prison guide if he forgets the escape route.’

      ‘I hear ye,’ Rat Bait said, throwing his club aside. He pulled out a silk handkerchief from one of his pockets. ‘Best we tie up his legs to stop him runnin’ off again. Three blows to the head an’ he might forget he was a prisoner in the first place.’

      Sometime later, three rats and their limp captive arrived back at the spider’s web to find Ruby sitting on the stump, clutching her remaining scissor sword in both