Salamandastron, page 29
‘Mr Furgle, the very idea of it!’ Sister Nasturtium chided him. ‘I know Samkim and Arula and I’ve lived here with them since they were tiny orphaned dots. They could never be happy in any place except Redwall. I’ll wager an apple to an acorn shell they come striding back through that main gate one day. You mark my words, that day will be the happiest day this Abbey has ever known!’
Faith Spinney stood up, brushing off her flowered pinafore. ‘What about pore Mr Thrugg? What’s to become of him?’
Thrugann stifled a gurgling laugh. ‘What? You mean that great lump of a brother of mine? I’ll bet wherever he is right now he’s scoffin’ or fightin’. Don’t fret yore ’ead over Thrugg, marm – he’d live in the middle of a snowstorm on a duck’s back with a daisy in his ear!’
Baby Dumble popped through a gooseberry bush. ‘Yeh, Mista Thugg my friend. ’E carry me inna ’avvysack an’ was gunna fight the heagle. Mista Thugg a brave hotter!’
Foremole gave Dumble a push that sent him rolling downhill. ‘Hurr well, that be all ter be sayed on that subjeck. Tho’ oi do ’opes liddle Sanken an’ our ’Rula be safe. Ho yes, zurr.’
Safety was the last thing on Samkim and Arula’s minds. They sat in a logboat with Mara and Pikkle as it flashed helter-skelter down a long winding stream towards the sea and Salamandastron. The previous night had been spent swapping life stories with their new friends, so each now knew all there was to know about the other. Samkim and Arula felt duty bound to help free Salamandastron and the Mossflower country of vermin; faint-heartedness was not their strong suit.
The logboats had travelled without stopping. Under the twin Captaincies of Log-a-log and Alfoh, they pressed onwards. Creatures ate, slept and paddled in shifts, and sometime before dawn they had left the Great Lake behind, steering into a long winding arm of the Great South Stream that travelled downhill to the open sea. The paddles chunked steadily as high canyon walls swept by the five logboats, and shrews in the bows watched out for rocks and warded off the tall banks with their paddles and long branches. Bowley the cook and Ashnin passed out food from the goodly supply they had brought from the island, while Nordo made his way skilfully between the vessels with a compound of china clay and slippery elm bark for blistered paddle paws. To any creature on land that saw them passing it would have made a curious sight: five logboats stem to stern, hurtling downstream, laden with three badgers, two squirrels, a mole and a crowd of shrews, roaring out a bass war shanty.
‘The Guosssom shrews are off to war,
With our rapiers close to paw.
Woe to him who will not go
To fight the vermin foe.
Logalog Logalog Log-a-log!
Guosssom shrews must live or die
Free beneath the open sky.
Battle on while we have breath,
With no fear of death.
Logalog Logalog Log-a-log!’
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Ferahgo whirled the mace and chain. The spiked iron ball whistled and hummed as he closed in on Urthstripe’s left side. Klitch sneaked in on the right and threw his spear at the badger’s head. Urthstripe whirled with a roar, knocking the spear aside with his own weapon as he spun in a circle, catching the mace around the haft of his own spear and heaving Ferahgo bodily on to the sand. Behind the rocks an armed band of treacherous vermin waited until such time as Urthstripe was forced to turn and present his back to them. Scrabbling through the sand to get away, Ferahgo cowered in the shadow of the badger Lord. Urthstripe kicked the mace and chain towards the blue-eyed Assassin.
‘Pick it up, weasel!’
Klitch dashed in and slashed at Urthstripe’s shoulder. The short sword caught the badger on an open place between shoulder plate and back armour. With a roar Urthstripe wheeled on him, thrusting at the stabbing sword with his mighty battlespear. Ferahgo was still down on the sand as he grabbed the mace and chain. Flinging it, he trapped the badger’s footpaws, and Urthstripe toppled and fell with a crash of armour. Klitch ran in with his sword held high, but Urthstripe pulled himself into a sitting position and lashed out. The metal-clad paw caught Klitch in the chest, sending him thudding into the rocks. The young weasel sobbed for breath as he looked down at his own blood, oozing from the deep bruising scratches the armoured paw had inflicted.
Ferahgo seized the spear Klitch had dropped and advanced on his opponent. Kicking free of mace and chain, the badger Lord came up off the sand, holding his battle spear crossways like a stave. They clashed, and Ferahgo yelled in dismay as his spear was snapped in two like a brittle straw.
‘Klitch, help me, son. Help me!’
All the fight had been knocked out of the young weasel. His blue eyes flooded with tears as he nursed his aching chest. Dragging himself up on the rocks, he spat at the ambush party. ‘Stop hiding there like a pack of halfwits. Kill the badger!’
Ferahgo had drawn two of his knives. Throwing himself flat, he rolled under Urthstripe’s paws, out of the way of the big spear, stabbing at the badger’s footpaws viciously until Urthstripe leapt back and dealt him a tremendous kick. The weasel’s body left the ground in a somersault as the ambushers came flooding over the rocks, spears ready and bowstrings taut.
Spitting blood from a mouthwound caused by the breaking spear, Urthstripe snarled, ‘You treacherous scum, come and get me!’
Ferahgo struggled up, gasping hoarsely, ‘Don’t shoot any arrows until I’m out the way!’
‘So you don’t want to be slain by murderers, eh?’ Urthstripe roared with laughter as he went after the Assassin.
The ranks of spears and blades closed in, cutting Ferahgo off from his enemy, but Urthstripe saw nothing in front of him but the terrible joy of battle. Spear flailing, he bulled in among them, yelling as the lust to slay foebeasts took hold of him.
‘Eulaliaaaaaaaa!’
Ferrets, stoats, foxes, weasels and rats flew everywhere, stabbed by the giant spearblade, hooked with the crosstrees and hammered senseless by the battering spearbutt. Ferahgo and Klitch danced and leapt on the outskirts of the mêlée, shouting:
‘Get him! Slay the badger!’
‘Go on! Get at him! Don’t stop!’
Spears, pikes and swords battered at armour and fur as Urthstripe went down beneath the howling mob. There was an immense roar as the badger surged up, throwing bodies into the air, punching, kicking and biting. The helm ripped from his head and his spear lying on the ground, the badger Lord fought insanely against the overwhelming odds. Down he went again. Blades flashed in the sunlight on the churning sands, barely visible beneath the pack of yelling, screeching ambushers. Again they shot in all directions as, scored by countless wounds, Urthstripe rose like a mighty geyser bursting from the ground with a fox between his teeth and a rat in each paw, hurling the lifeless carcasses into the mob, and went at them again, laughing like a beast gone mad.
Like a pack of wild animals they clung to him, bearing him down to the sand once more. Limbs thrashing and teeth slashing, Urthstripe battled on, the armour torn from him, battered and dented into uselessness. Ferahgo and Klitch hugged each other in delight, anticipating the inevitable outcome.
‘Blood ’n’ thunder, chaps! Eulaliaaaaaa!’
Twoscore well-placed shafts thudded into the ambushers as Big Oxeye and twenty others came charging over the sands, their javelins held short for stabbing action. Straight into the fray they plunged, dealing death wherever their lancepoints found the foe. Completely taken by surprise, the vermin scattered, leaping for the safety of the rocks – but not before Ferahgo and Klitch, who hid among the rocks, calling out frantic commands.
‘Get them! Don’t let them escape!’
‘Finish the badger off!’
Six hares supported the staggering badger Lord. Oxeye and the others backed off swiftly, firing arrows into the rocks to discourage pursuit. Hurrying across the sands towards the mountain, they ducked, returning salvoes of arrows and slingstones.
Klitch and Ferahgo laid about them with sword and knife blades.
‘Get after them, you lily-livered cowards!’
‘Come on, you worthless trash. Charge!’
Oxeye saw them coming and broke his command into three – five shooting arrows, with five behind waiting and another five behind them. As one party fired they fell to the rear, letting the next five loose off their arrows; they fired and went to the rear, leaving the next five to shoot. Urthstripe’s paws dragged twin furrows in the sand as they half carried, half pulled him along.
Big Oxeye was moving slowly backwards with his archers, coolly in command of the situation. ‘Righto, chaps. Fire! Next five, ready, aim, pick y’ targets now. Fire! Well done, the Long Patrol. Next five, steady in the ranks there, draw strings . . . and fire!’
The deadly shafts hissed through the air as the ambushers advanced reluctantly. Ferahgo sent another contingent out from the rocks to reinforce the half-hearted ambushers.
‘Their arrows are nearly used up – look. Get after them!’
Bart Thistledown muttered to Oxeye as the mountain loomed large, ‘Bad show this. We’ll never get Urthstripe up through that windowspace he climbed out of. What’ll we do, Ox?’
The big hare glanced over his shoulder, sizing up the situation. ‘You’d better dash back, Barty old lad. Tell Penny and the others to unblock one of the big ground-level openings. Off y’ go now!’
Ferahgo had followed his ambushers, loping a short distance behind them and yelling a mixture of threats and encouragement. Klitch stayed behind. Standing on one of the high rocks, he surveyed the scene before him. Excitement rose within the young weasel as he called the ferret Dragtail to him.
‘Dragtail, come here! See that? They’ve unblocked a big space near the entrance to the mountain. Go as fast as you can and muster the rest of the horde. We’ll never get a better chance than this to conquer Salamandastron. Hurry!’
Oxeye, Bart Thistledown and some others were having difficulties with Urthstripe. They had lifted and pushed him halfway through the long unblocked fissure when the badger Lord began shoving backwards. Half demented, he had partially recovered and wanted to return to the battle.
‘Never trust vermin. I should have known – treacherous toads. I’ll show them! Where’s my spear, Oxeye?’
The hare scrabbled desperately, clutching Urthstripe in an attempt to stop him escaping. ‘You’re in no shape to fight, sah! Wounds ’n’ injuries an’ so on. Come inside an’ rest now, there’s a good feller.’
Urthstripe sat up on the bottom ledge of the fissure, swaying as he glared groggily at his friend. ‘Don’t talk rubbish, Ox! Day I can’t attend a battle I’ll . . . I’ll. . . .’ As he crashed over unconscious, Oxeye had the presence of mind to tip Urthstripe inside. He fell backwards over the ledge with a bump, landing in the groundlevel corridor. Willing paws gathered round to carry the badger Lord up to his bed, a rush-strewn rock slab in the forge room.
Pennybright stood side by side with Bart Thistledown and Starbob, firing arrows at the advancing horde. She was clearly worried.
‘Oh, Barty, what’ll we do? Most of the rocks blocking this space were pushed outside – we just levered them out to get Lord Urthstripe inside. It’d take simply ages to reblock this crevice.’
Bart Thistledown notched a shaft to his bowstring and dropped a charging rat with unerring accuracy. ‘Nothing much we can do, Pen. Hold the gap and wait further orders from Oxeye. Hi, Starbob, bring your bows an’ lend a paw over here!’
Outside on the shore, Ferahgo’s blue eyes gleamed triumphantly as he was swept along towards Salamandastron at the centre of his horde of Corpsemakers. Now nothing could stop them.
‘Yurr, be this’n anuther o’ those gurt lakes?’
‘No, it’s the jolly old sea, Arula. We’ve reached the sea!’ Pikkle waved his paddle in the air.
The logboats bumped out across a gurgling stream that spanned a short pebbly beach. Mara turned to her right and pointed at the distant flat-topped peak.
‘Look, Salamandastron!’
Framed against a reddening evening sky, the badger mountain stood separate from the ranges to the east. Loambudd placed a paw on Urthwyte’s shoulder.
‘Look at it, grandson. That’s where your brother Urthstripe rules.’
A tear gathered in the corner of the white badger’s honest eye. ‘Urthstripe, the brother I never knew!’
The logboats bounced as they hit the white-crested waves. Log-a-log shouted orders as they backed water and turned the noses of the vessels into the tide, beginning the wide semi-circular tack which would eventually bring them to land on the beach in front of the mountain. As darkness fell they paddled side by side in convoy.
‘What’s that floatin’ up ahead?’ Alfoh called across in a gruff whisper.
Log-a-log peered into the darkness as he called to his paddlers, ‘Take a tack to starboard, watch out for that driftwood ahead!’
A voice rang out from the floating debris of branches. ‘If yore vermin, I warns yer Hi’ll fight fer me life!’
Mara looked at Pikkle in astonishment. Together they echoed one word: ‘Sapwood!’
The Sergeant was hauled aboard. He hugged Mara and Pikkle, staring over their shoulders at the huge white badger in the other logboat to his left. Pikkle ducked and bobbed, throwing a light friendly blow at Sapwood with his remaining skill and energy. The boxing hare dodged it and rapped him smartly on both ears with a left-right combination as he spoke to Mara.
‘Who’s the big white badger over there? Strewth, ’e must be as big as ‘Is Nibs Urthstripe.’
Mara rummaged in a sack of provisions. ‘Oh, you’ll find out soon enough. It’s too long a story for tonight – we’ll need rest if we’re going into battle tomorrow. Here, take this food. I’ll bet you’re hungry, eh, Sergeant.’
‘Huh, ‘ungry ain’t the word, missie. Hi could make a stew o’ me own ears an’ enjoy it!’
‘I say, Sarge, no need for that sort of thing, wot.’ Pikkle pulled a face and shuddered. ‘Tuck in and have a good supper, have a nap and wake up bright ’n’ breezy tomorrow, eh!’
However, it was some time before Sapwood was allowed to sleep. The shrewd old badger Loambudd questioned him closely about what was going on at Salamandastron. Later she held a conference across the boat sides with Mara, Urthwyte, Log-a-log and Alfoh.
‘From what I gathered off Sapwood, I think that my grandson’s mountain is in a perilous position. Our help is sorely needed there. When do you think we’ll make land, Log-a-log?’
The shrew leader watched the moonlit wake of his small fleet. ‘We’re running with the current and the wind is behind us. If the weather holds out, we’ll probably hit the beach by dawn – though if I put on extra paddlers we could be there in the hour before daylight.’
Loambudd did not hesitate. ‘Then do it right away, my friend. There’s not a moment to lose. Now, let’s hold a war council and make plans . . .’
Only the rolling night waves were witness to the five logboats cutting speedily through the sea towards Salamandastron. Grim-faced shrews dug their paddles deep, keeping the boats abreast of each other as the leaders conferred urgently.
Salamandastron had been breached – the horde of Ferahgo was within the mountain!
Bart Thistledown and his little band had fought a gallant action. Firing into the oncoming masses until their arrows ran out and thwacking away at vermin bodies, they defended the open fissure heroically until Oxeye sent Seawood and ten others to pull them out. Javelins clashed and slings whirled as they fought a fierce retreating action, having to desert the opening and back off into the maze of tunnels that honeycombed the mountain.
In his forge room at the middle level, Urthstripe lay sorely wounded, bound to his bed by restraining bandages as he hovered between life and death. Ferahgo’s Corpsemakers flooded the lower corridors, crowding into caves and chambers – harassed by the hares, who, though overwhelmed by numbers, fought guerrilla style, popping up at intersections and appearing in the most unlikely places to loose arrows at the vermin.
Oxeye was now in sole command of the Long Patrol. He used all his warrior cunning and skill to contain the horde within the lower levels; hares appeared, attacked, then vanished like smoke along the winding tunnels. Big Oxeye used the forge room as his centre of operations, issuing instructions as he stayed close to the delirious badger Lord.
‘Moonpaw, take Lingfur an’ Penny. Stay at the south stairwell an’ give ’em blood ’n’ vinegar. I’ll send a relief as soon as Catkin an’ Barfle get back.’
Moonpaw took the two younger hares, saluted and set off at a trot for the stairwell. Oxeye watched them go, shaking his head despairingly as he slumped down beside Bart Thistledown. ‘It’s no good, Barty old lad. We can’t hold ’em back for ever – there’s too many of the vermin.’
Wounded and battered from his defence of the opening, Bart grinned lopsidedly through a half-open eye. ‘No use shiverin’ over lost fur, Ox. What’d you sooner die of, old age or battle?’
Oxeye shook his head admiringly. ‘Battle, I suppose. By the left, Barty, you’re a cool one!’
His friend stroked a lancebutt with an injured paw. ‘Cool nothin’ – I’m quiverin’ like a jolly jelly inside, but don’t tell old Urthstripe that.’
Oxeye took a damp cloth and bathed the badger Lord’s heated brow. Urthstripe was oblivious to all about him. He lay struggling against the restraining bandages, muttering, ‘Winter. . . . golden medallion. . . . cold. . . . Father, Mother . . . where are you? . . . White snow, white brother . . . cold!’
The pale moon glinted off Ferahgo’s medallion as he sat out on the sands with Klitch. For once father and son were in agreement over their strategy.
Ferahgo drew his skinning knife and pointed at the mountain top. ‘I’ll take a hundred and get up there; you keep up the attack inside – we’ll have them trapped both ways.’
Klitch’s blue eyes shone gleefully into the night. ‘You took the words out of my mouth, backstabber. By tomorrow night the mountain will belong to us!’
