They were almost at the door when Silvamord called out, ‘Halt! Who said you could leave without our permission?’
Nagru idly flicked another damson at his mate. ‘Let them go, huh, they’re not going anywhere.’
Silvamord leaped up, eyes blazing. ‘Stop flicking damsons at me, spotblotch, I’ll say when they can go! You just carry on slopping wine!’
Nagru was not one to be insulted. He rose in a hot temper, sending dishes spilling and clattering. ‘You’ll feel these claws if you talk to me like that, vixen! If I say they can go, my word is final! Don’t try taking your sour mood out on me because your joke went wrong!’
All the time the little party were edging further out of the banqueting chamber. Silvamord grabbed a spear from a Captain named Hooktail and pointed it at the Foxwolf, screaming, ‘Put those claws near me and I’ll gut you! Stop those creatures leaving, now!’
Two more rats, Sourgall and Ragfen, drew swords and leaped up. As Gael pushed the others ahead of him into the hall outside, Serena forgot herself and cried out, ‘Look on the windowsill, the red cloth!’
Gael felt Sourgall’s claws clamp on his shoulder. He jumped backward, cannoning Sourgall into Ragfen as he called out to the badger, ‘Muta, out of the window – jump for the moat! Help is waiting there. Save my family!’
Then Gael went down. He was trampled and knocked aside as other rats, led by Silvamord, came charging into the passage. Muta dashed to the window where the red cloth fluttered, sweeping Serena and Truffen with her. Thrusting the little squirrel into his mother’s outstretched paws, the big badger lifted them both bodily over the sill. A spearshaft broke across Muta’s back. She grunted and flinched, then, gathering her mighty strength, she hurled mother and babe outward, so that they would not strike the castle walls in their descent to the moat. Turning, she ripped the dancing-cloak from her shoulders. Muta smashed two rats flat with a single blow and smothered another two with the cloak, shoving them roughly into those behind and causing a mêlée of confusion in the enclosed space.
Now the corridor was packed with rats. Muta could not reach Gael – it was death to try. There was only one way left open to her. Lifting her bulk on to the windowsill, the badger glanced down at the long drop to the moat. Suddenly, claws sunk into her lower back. Silvamord had climbed over the milling rats and seized her tight.
‘Got you, stripehead! Now you’ll die long and sloooooo . . . !’ Without a second thought Muta had clamped her footpaws around the vixen and rolled off the windowsill, carrying her enemy through with her.
Rab’s otters already had Serena and Truffen out on the bank as Muta and Silvamord came plummeting down and hit the water with a resounding boom. Locked together, they plunged beneath the surface. Muta rolled over, thrusting the vixen beneath her, then, stepping on Silvamord’s head, she pushed up towards the surface. Seconds later Muta was hauling herself up on to the bank and scrambling off in pursuit of her friends and their rescuers.
Terror and panic gripped Silvamord – the badger’s footpaws had pressed her down into the muddy moat bottom. The vixen’s ears, nose and mouth filled with water as she kicked and scrabbled furiously, then, coming free with a dull sucking noise, she drifted upward.
Whump!
The drawbridge thudded down on to the moatbank, and the rat horde came pouring out intent on catching the escaped prisoners. Spitting water and mud, Silvamord splashed up and down, screeching, ‘Help! Save me, you fools . . . Glubble . . . I can’t swim!’
The rats halted, fearful of ignoring the Foxwolf’s mate. Several long pikes and spears were stretched out quickly into the water, one so hastily that it clouted the drowning fox, half stunning her.
Nagru came bounding out over the drawbridge in time to see Silvamord hauled dripping from the moat. Her bedraggled skirt of tails clung wetly as she buffeted the head of a rat called Crookneck, shouting, ‘I said save me, you addlebrained toad, not brain me!’
As she sank exhausted to the grassy bank, Nagru berated her. ‘Idiot, why did you let them escape?’
‘Why did I let them escape?’ she shrieked, spitting moatwater and mud at him venomously. ‘Where were you, bogbrains? Still swilling wine and feeding your face?’
Nagru sighted the receding figures vanishing into the trees on the wooded hillside. He pointed to a group of twoscore or more rats standing on the bank. ‘You lot, follow me, I’ll catch them!’
Silvamord tottered upright at the water’s edge, footpaws seeking purchase in the wet grass. The Foxwolf could not resist giving her a hefty slap on the back. ‘You stay here and dry off, vixen!’
She overbalanced and toppled back, screeching, into the moat.
The four otters rushed Serena along at a cracking pace. Truffen was seated on the sturdy shoulders of a young male called Troutlad. Muta followed up the rear; for all her seasons and girth she was still nimble and swift. Tree shadows threw alternating patterns of sun and shade over the Southswarders as they fled up the thick-timbered hillside.
Nagru halted at the bottom of the causeway steps leading down from the castle plateau. His keen eyes picked up the movements of the small group racing up the wooded tor across the valley. A rat Captain named Gatchag stuck his sword into the ground and sank down on his haunches beside the quivering weapon, shaking his head knowingly. ‘Huh, they’re away like two brace o’ woodpigeons. Nah! You won’t catch ’em now, take my word fer it!’
Swift as a flash, the Urgan Nagru grabbed Gatchag’s sword and slew him with a single, powerful slash. The shock that ran through the rats was registered in a single moan, like a sudden gale running through long wheat. Nagru threw the blade down on the lifeless body.
‘Anybeast got more strong opinions to voice can join him! Up on your paws, slopmouths, before I let daylight into some of your skulls! Mingol, take twelve and circle right. Riveneye, take another twelve and circle in from the left. The rest of you follow me, we’ll go straight up after them. If we shift fast enough they’ll be cut off from three ways. In my horde, a slow rat is a dead one. Now move!’
Rab Streambattle and six of his otters watched anxiously as the fugitives toiled uphill. Rab’s mate Iris fitted a stone to her sling. ‘Those rats are coming on fast, Rab. They’re going to pincer in front of our lot before they get here – what’ll we do?’
The otter leader loosed an arrow, picking off one of Mingol’s front runners. Laying another shaft on his bowstring he took aim, and said, ‘We’ll have to buy them some time by holding off the rats. Lay on and make every shot count!’
The otters attacked with a will. Arrows, slingstones and short javelins whipped skilfully down the wooded slope to left and right, peppering the horderats and harrying their pincer movement. Rab hurtled forward and reached the fugitives. He ran past them, calling out, ‘Keep going, there’s help ahead mates. Hurry! Nagru’s right behind you, I’ll keep him busy!’
Rab Streambattle was a warrior who did not know the meaning of fear. The most skilled weaponbeast among otters, now he showed his mettle. Planting both footpaws firmly, he threw off his quiver and with a speed born of desperation began zipping arrows into the ranks of Nagru’s rats.
The Foxwolf was sorry he had not slain the fierce otter on first sight. Leaping to one side he dodged behind a scrub oak, leaving the rat immediately behind to die by the arrow that was meant for him. Another rat screamed and leapt high, transfixed by Rab’s next shaft. Nagru cursed silently, wishing he had brought a bow and arrows along. Flailing his claws wildly, he shouted, ‘Idiots! Move about, duck and dodge, use your arrows and spears – he’s only one otter!’
A deadly shot from Rab pinned a rat to a rowan tree. Grim-faced, he called out as he strung another arrow, ‘Aye, I’m only one otter, but here I stand, try an’ pass, scum!’
Serena came gasping and stumbling into the outstretched paws of his. The otter embraced her briefly before going back to slinging rocks. ‘Serena, no time to chatter now, we must get you an’ the liddle un to safety!’
‘But Gael . . . and Rab, what about them?’
Keeping her eyes on the target, Iris bowled a rat over as her stone cracked his skull. ‘If your Squirrelking doesn’t escape there’s nothin’ we can do at the moment, Marm. As for my Rab, you know he’d swap his life for friends – that’s what he’s doin’ now. I’ve got to get you away, that’s my job!’
A spear had furrowed Rab’s side. He ignored the searing pain and dropped a rat with an accurate snap shot. Then he counted his remaining arrows. Three.
Using bush and tree cover, Nagru’s rats were surrounding Rab. Without turning his head, the brave otter roared, ‘Get them out o’ here, Iris. Go!’
Snuffling a tear aside, his courageous mate hustled Serena and her babe along with the otters. ‘You heard my Rab, come on, move yourselves!’
They fled over the hilltop, zigzagging north through the trees. All but one.
A deep rumble shook Muta’s huge frame; anger and hatred shone in the badger’s dark eyes. With unbounded strength she seized the thick, overhanging limb of a dead whitebeam. Her sinews stood out like ropes as she tore it from the trunk with a resounding crack. Regardless of twigs and splinters, Muta swung the large limb above her head, and like a whirlwind she thundered forward, launching herself upon Nagru and his vermin. Keen as March wind through a storm-lashed forest, a high-pitched whine tore from her throat. The wide, twigged end of the bough caught Nagru, sending him muzzle over tail, soaring high into the air like a dead leaf. The Foxwolf thudded painfully against a hornbeam, his shocked eyes taking in the destruction Muta was wreaking on his hordebeasts as he fought to regain his breath. Finally he managed to shout: ‘Kill them both! Mingol, Riveneye – surround them! Use arrows, cut them down with spears . . . Anything!’
Back to back, the otter and the badger stood, battering away madly, one with a broken bow, the other with a tree limb. Wounded in a dozen places, they fought like madbeasts as the grey vermin closed in on them.
4
EXTRACT FROM THE writings of Saxtus, Father Abbot of Redwall Abbey in Mossflower Country.
It occurs to me that small bees are as foolish as they are fat and fuzzy, take for example this fellow. Humming and bumbling around me as if I were a flower. Very disturbing when one is penning a chronicle. I think he wants this crumb of honey pudding, stuck to my whiskers. Here, take it, you rogue. No, the crumb, not my paw! Dearie me, are all bees as short sighted as this one?
What a Recorder I am, playing with bees when I should be writing. Alas, the summer is to blame. It makes me want to dash outside and play with the Dibbuns (our Abbey young ones). It is they who hold the hope of Redwall’s future; our Abbey would not flourish without the young. Many old friends have passed on to quiet pastures: Abbot Bernard, Friar Cockleburr, Old Gabriel Quill and a few other dear companions have run their seasons peacefully to a close. But the earth and its creatures continue to be renewed. Please forgive my ramblings and reminiscences under the spell of a warm summer. Let me tell you what has taken place of late at Redwall Abbey.
It all started as I was strolling in the orchard with Mariel’s father, Joseph the Bellmaker. We were enjoying the early morning peace together. Joseph told me that he had been thinking about Mariel a lot and worrying about her. More than four seasons have passed since she went off adventuring with that rogue Dandin, a friend of my young days. He is a wild mouse, but with a good heart. Mariel and Dandin are kindred spirits, both with a yearning to wander.
Joseph’s main worry was the lack of information about his daughter. He had received no news of Mariel from anywhere. Travellers, visitors to Redwall, passing birds – no creature knew their whereabouts, or had heard anything at all concerning Mariel or Dandin.
However, honest ones with troubled minds are often reassured by the appearance of Martin the Warrior in their dreams. Martin is the champion and founder of Redwall Abbey, a great warrior mouse who lived countless seasons ago. His guidance is peerless, and his words, though often shrouded in mystery, always carry a message of hope and truth. Little wonder then that a stout-hearted beast like Joseph the Bellmaker should find Martin, the spirit of Redwall, appearing in his dreams. I must confess that I was full of curiosity to learn of the message Martin had imparted to Joseph as his mind wandered the realms of slumber. But my good friend the Bellmaker was not ready to speak. He had not yet understood the meaning of Martin’s words.
A single loud knock on the gatehouse door disturbed Saxtus from his writing. Without looking up, he called out, ‘I recognize that sound; only Joseph the Bellmaker has a paw like an oak club!’
There followed a deep chuckle from outside as Joseph replied, ‘Saxtus, have you dozed off in there? Come on, dinnertime!’
Hitching up his robe, the Abbot hastened to open the door. ‘Good afternoon, Bellmaker, or is it early evening? No matter, I cast aside the pen in favour of the spoon.’
Joseph was a strongly built mouse, with a neat grey beard and a cheerful manner. He patted the Abbot’s stomach playfully. ‘Aye, I think the spoon is your favourite weapon these days, great Father Abbot.’
Saxtus strode out ahead of the Bellmaker, to show him that a bit of extra weight had not slowed him down. ‘Hah! Great Father Abbot indeed! I’m only slightly older than your daughter. As for you, greybeard, you’re old enough to be my father!’
Joseph matched his stride, eyes twinkling mischievously. Walking across flower-bordered lawns, they headed towards the main Abbey building. It loomed massive against an early evening sky, ancient red sandstone tinged dusky rose, framing a harlequinade of stained glass windows by the glow of a lowering sun. The Bellmaker stepped up his pace, leaving Saxtus panting in his wake.
‘I may be old enough to be your daddy, but I’m still spry enough to be your son. Come on, Father, keep up!’
‘Enough, enough. Slow down, ageless one!’ said Saxtus, catching hold of his friend’s sleeve. ‘Why is it that everybeast seems to be in a hurry today? Look, there’s Foremole, going as if his tail were afire. Hallo Sir!’
The Redwall mole leader halted and, tugging his snout respectfully, he addressed them both in quaint mole dialect: ‘Gudd eve to ee zurrs. Whurr be you uns a-rushen to?’
He fell in step with them as Joseph replied, ‘We weren’t really rushing, just stepping out a bit on our way across to dinner.’
‘We’m gotten guestbeasts furr dinner,’ said Foremole, wrinkling his button nose sagely. ‘Oak Tom an’ Treerose cummed in from ee woodlands.’
Saxtus raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, that is a pleasant surprise. We don’t see enough of Tom and his wife at Redwall. Those squirrels spend most of their time in Mossflower Wood together, never know where they are from one season to the next. Any other guests?’
‘Hurrhurrurr!’ Foremole’s dumpy frame shook with a deep chuckle. ‘Oi’d say ee best step out fast agin zurrs, Missus Rosie an’ Tarquin, they’m bringed all thurr h’infants to ee Abbey furr to stay awhoil.’
Saxtus threw up his paws in mock despair. ‘Great seasons of famine! Tarquin and Rosie Woodworrel with their twelve young hares, that’s fourteen walking stomachs altogether. They’ll eat us out of house and home then pick their teeth with the doornails!’
‘I don’t mind not eating,’ said Joseph, clapping the Abbot on his back happily. ‘My dream is beginning to work out.’
Saxtus halted beneath a drooping lilac. ‘What do you mean by that friend?’
‘I can tell you this much,’ the Bellmaker said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. ‘Martin said some things to me in my dream last night of which I can only speak later on. But the first words he spoke I will repeat now. They went like this:
“With sixteen more faces at table,
Bellmaker recalls his quest.
At daylight’s last gleam you’ll remember
My words whilst you were at rest.”
Foremole scratched his velvety head, saying, ‘Wot do et all mean, zurr?’
Joseph shrugged, but Saxtus nodded wisely. ‘It means that Martin will rev
eal all when the time is right.’
Joseph continued walking to the Abbey. ‘I’m glad you said that, Saxtus,’ he said, ‘because beyond those few words the whole thing is very hazy. I can’t remember anything else Martin said.’
The Father Abbot deliberately steered the conversation away from his friend’s dream; knowing that, if Martin had spoken, all would be revealed in good time. He held up a paw. ‘Listen, Joseph. I love to hear the sound of your bell!’
Scented orchard blossom fragrance lay heavy on the summer evening air as the great Joseph Bell boomed out its warm, brazen message. Calling all Redwallers to cease their chores and come to Great Hall, for the day’s main meal.
A group of Dibbuns – small mice, moles, squirrels and hedgehogs – trooped round the south gable from the orchard. Singing lustily, they marched paw in paw.
‘Give us dinner every eve,
Or we’ll pack our bags and leave.
Where we’ll go to we don’t know,
Up the path a league or so.
If we don’t find comfort there,
Back to Redwall we’ll repair.
We’ll eat pudden, pie and cake,
All the Abbey cooks can make!’
They stopped to let their elders pass indoors first. Bowing politely and scrubbing paws across strawberry-stained faces, they chanted dutifully: ‘Good evenin’ Father Abbot. Evenin’, Joseph sir, evenin’ to you, Foremole sir!’
Saxtus raised his eyebrows. Peering at them over the spectacles balanced on his nose, he said, ‘Well, good evening to you, young sirs and ladies. Pray tell me, where are you all off to?’
Scrubbing furiously at her face, a little molemaid replied, ‘Whoi, furr ee dinner zurr, us’n’s worked ’ard all day.’
Joseph surveyed the guilty-looking band. Pursing his lips in mock severity, he said, ‘Hmm, guarding the strawberry patch against robbers, no doubt. A very difficult job, I’d say, eh?’
A tiny mousebabe, covered from ear to tail in strawberry pulp and seeds, puffed out his chest and squeaked, ‘Most ’ardest job I doo’d in all me life, sir!’