The midday sun sat heavy over the meadow where Buttercup and his young trio were grazing. “Can you head back and check on Mum? I’ll be a tad later,” he bleated softly. After a moment’s fuss, since they would much rather have stayed to frolic around their father, Bramble, Clover, and Aster finally obeyed. “Stay…

“The ground didn’t just shake,” Buttercup said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. “It groaned.  For a heartbeat, Zamba stood frozen, the same fear that had hampered him at the lantern returning with a vengeance. But as he looked into the glowing throat of the earth, he realised the truth. There was no beast.…

“The lantern was dead,” Buttercup whispered. “Total blackness. Zamba’s hooves felt like lead as he fumbled with the lantern, his grip slippery with the cold sweat of a goat who knows time is running out. In the dark, the only sound was the frantic clink-scrape, clink-scrape of stone against iron. Zamba struck the flint again…

“I’d have headbutted it right off the cliff!” Bramble roared, charging a defenceless pine stump with a crack that echoed through the crags. He shook his head, dizzy but grinning broadly. “One hit. Boom! That’s all it takes to be a hero, right Papa?” Clover didn’t even look up from fastidiously cleaning a hoof. “You’d…

“I’m the fastest!” bleated Pipkin, the eldest of the kid goats, his tiny hooves a blur as he zipped around and over his siblings. “Quiet! I’m the strongest!” retorted Poppy, her little horns catching the sunlight as she playfully head-butted her mischievous brother. “You’re both weaklings!” chimed in Percy, the loudest of the bunch. “I…