As the otter crew manoeuvred the huge badger onto the huge stretcher, Shoredog gave a surprised bark. “Blood’n’thunder, lookit that!”
Beneath the injured creature a mighty bow and a quiver of long arrows lay half covered in the loose sand and pine needles. The badger had fallen backward upon the bow, his hefty bulk breaking the weapon in two pieces. One jagged half was stuck into his hip. Marinu halted the bearers until she and Sork had extracted the splintered yew wood. The big fellow grunted faintly as they padded and dressed the wound.
Stugg jumped up and down triumphantly. “He be’s alive, d’stripedog maked noise!”
Old Sork looped the birchbark quiver over Stugg’s head. It scraped the ground, the arrows were taller than he. Sork shooed the young one aside. “Aye, mayhap he is. Now you carry those an’ stay out the way.”
A score of otters bore the badger off on a litter of pine poles, sailcloth and rope, padded with dead grass and soft moss. Stugg stayed behind with his father and Shoredog to bury the dead badger. It was only a shallow grave, but they found slabs of rock to top it off with. Abruc wedged the two pieces of broken bow, with the string still joining them, into the foot of the grave. They would serve as a marker. All three sea otters gazed down at the sad resting place.
Abruc shook his head. “Pore old beast, we don’t even know wot name he went by. He looked weak, an’ small. A badger that age should’ve spent out his seasons restin’ in the sun. I wonder wot kin he was t’the big ’un. Mebbe his father?”
Stugg pressed his face against Abruc and wept. He could not imagine anybeast losing a father. He sobbed brokenly. “Who would kill someone’s farder like that?”
Shoredog looked up from smoothing the earth around the stones. “Only beast I knows who kills like that is Raga Bol.”
The name struck fear into Abruc. “Raga Bol! Has he been here?”
Shoredog stood upright, dusting off his paws. “While you an’ Stugg were gone, Rurff the grey seal visited our holt. He saw the Searats’ ship wrecked on the rocks, further north up the coast. Raga Bol an’ about fifty vermin crew came ashore. They headed down this way, but pickin’s are scarce on this northeast coast, so they’ve probably marched inland. They ain’t got a ship anymore. I was just rousin’ our crew to search for you an’ Stugg, when the young ’un comes runnin’ to tell me you need help.”
Shoredog took one of the straps on Abruc’s basket. “Let me help ye with this, mate, ’tis a good haul.”
They set off back to their holt, with Stugg stumbling over the quiver of long arrows.
Abruc shrugged philosophically. “It’s a bad spring, cold an’ stormy. Let’s hope summer’s a bit better when it comes. At least we won’t have Raga Bol an’ his villains to worry about. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky, really.”
Young Stugg hitched the arrows higher on his back. They still dragged along the ground as he muttered aloud. “More luckier than d’poor stripedogs, I appose.”
A brief smile crossed Shoredog’s weathered face. “That young ’un of yores is growin’ up quick, mate!”
Dawn glimmered chill and blustery over the heathlands some two leagues west of the northeast sea. Wet, hungry and dispirited, Raga Bol’s crew of Searats huddled round a smoking fire down a ravine. They stared miserably at a deep, rain-swollen stream running nearby. From further up the bank the vermin could hear their captain’s shrieks and curses rending the air.
Rinj, a sly-faced female, gnawed at a filthy clawnail, glancing from one to the other. “Ye t’ink Bol’s lost the paw? I t’ought Wirga cudda sewed it back on, she’s a good ’ealer.”
A lanky, gaunt rat named Ferron picked something from his teeth and spat it into the stream. “Sewed it back on! Have ye gone soft in the skull? Last I saw, Cap’n Bol’s paw was ’angin’ on by a string o’ skin. We should’ve stayed well clear o’ those two stripedogs!”
Rinj wiped firesmoke from her blearing eyes. “The little ole one wuz no trouble, he didn’t know wot ’it ’im, gone afore ye could wink.”
Ferron winced as Raga Bol’s screeches and curses redoubled. “Aye, but wot about the big ’un, eh? I thought Cap’n Bol killed him wid the first blow of his big sword!”
Glimbo, the captain’s first mate, pushed Rinj away from the fire and installed his fat, greasy bulk close to the flames. One of his eyes was a milky sightless orb; the other roved around the crew as he warmed his paws.
“Never in me days seen Bol ’ave to strike a beast twice wid that blade. But that big stripedog came back after the first whack an’ got his teeth in good. Just as well that Bol struck again, or he would’ve lost more’n one paw. Mark my words, stripedogs are powerful dangerous beasts!”
The heathland was a barren region, made drearier by the day’s unabated rain. Down in the ravine a huge bonfire blazed to dispel the harsh weather. Every Searat of the crew sat watching their captain. Tall and sinewy, with a restless energy that could be glimpsed in his fiery green eyes, Raga Bol was an impressive rat by any measure. He sat wrapped in a fur cloak, his left pawstump hidden from view. The Searat’s right paw rested on the carved bone hilt of a heavy, wide-bladed scimitar, protruding from his waistband. The crewbeasts could feel Raga Bol’s eyes on them. Rain sizzling on the fire and wind fanning the flames were the only sounds to be heard as they waited on their captain’s word.
Finally, Raga Bol rose and snarled bad-temperedly at them, firelight reflecting from his hooped brass earrings and gold-plated fangs. “We march west at dawn. Anybeast who don’ want to go, let ’im speak now, an’ I’ll bury ’im right ’ere!”
Not one of the Searat crew said a word. Raga Bol nodded. “West it is then. Blowfly, get me two runners.”
An enormously fat rat, with a whip curled about his shoulders, motioned two lean crew members forward.
Raga Bol sat looking at them in silence, until they squirmed under his unwinking gaze. His jaw clenched as he moved the stump where his left paw had been. “You two, go back to where I slew the stripedog. Find the carcasse, an’ bring me back his head.”
Each of the runners touched a paw to his ears. “Aye aye, Cap’n!”
Raga Bol stood watching them climbing the sides of the ravine, then turned his attention to an old female Searat crouching nearby. “Wirga, is that hook ready yet?”
“It’ll be ready by dawn, Cap’n.” The old one gave him a toothless grin. “So thee wants the big stripedog’s head, eh?”
Raga Bol drew his cloak tight and sat, staring into the fire. “Nobeast ever took a paw o’mine an’ stayed in one piece, dead or alive. Now get that hook ready if’n ye want to keep yore head, ye withered old torturer!”
2
Far over to the west, a brighter spring day had dawned. Ascending meadowlarks heralded the sun beneath a soft, pastel blue sky. Drawn by the sudden warmth, mist rose from the greenswards, transforming dewdrops to small opalescent pearls amid the dainty blossoms of saxifrage, buttercup, capsella and anemones. Mossflower woodland trees were blessed with a crown of fresh green leaves. Life was renewed to the sounds of little birds, calling to their parents with ceaseless demands for food.
Toran Widegirth loosed his apron strings, satisfied that he had completed his duties as Redwall Abbey’s Head Cook. Leaving his kitchens, the fat otter sought the beautiful spring morn outdoors. Heaving a sigh of relief, Toran sat down on an upturned wheelbarrow at the orchard entrance. He was joined by his friend Carrul, the Father Abbot of Redwall. The mouse sat down beside the otter, both relaxing in silence, blinking in the sunlight and savouring the first good weather that spring.
Carrul glanced sideways at his companion. “Not going with Skipper and otter crew this season?”