Выбрать главу

dust cloud would not betray their position. Trowbaggs strode silently alongside Shangle Widepad. After a while the

irrepressible young hare found himself humming a little ditty called the “Fat Frog’s Dinner,” and he winked at Shangle

and grinned. The glare he received from the grizzled veteran silenced him immediately. Grim-faced and determined,

the five hundred pressed on.

47?

Rapscallion drums pounded savagely, throwing out their wild challenge to the summer skies. Pennants and war

banners fluttered in the breeze, bedecked with tails, skulls, and hanks of animal hair. The little rat informant Gribble

slunk about outside the Firstblade’s shelter, waiting for him to emerge. Damug Warfang strode out, his face streaked

purple and red for battle. Unsheathing his sword, he cast an approving eye over the ranks of snarling vermin before

turning to the rat groveling on (he ground in front of him.

“Speak your piece quickly, Gribble, then get out of my way!”

The rat was already shuffling backward to avoid a sudden kick. “Great Lord, the Seer and the dumb one are gone,

so are the two guards you left to watch them. Also the ferret Rinkul and several others are missing from camp.”

Damug faced west across the valley slope and nodded curtly. “Well, let’s hope they catch those two, for tiieir own

sakes. If they’ve deserted Til find them when this is all over. But now I march west, to find out what these Redwallers

are made of. Stand aside—death waits on anybeast barring my way!”

The Greatrat hurried to the forefront of his vast eager army, with their roars drowning out the pounding drums:

“War-faaaaang! Warfaaaaang! Warfaaaang!”

Away to the west, a green valley basked in the warm sun. Light breezes rippled the vale ferns and stirred the

blossoms of gorse and pimpernel on the broad hillslope. A single rock with moss and lichen clinging to its sides stood

out on the long high ridge like a raised ottertail. Far below, wispy tendrils of mist arose from where the sun’s warmth

penetrated a deep rift that ran like a jagged scar along the valley’s far edge. Small birds, redstart, stonechat, and

wheatear, chirruped and chattered, perching on gorse thorns with sure-clawed skill, bright beady eyes constantly

searching for minute insects. Butterflies and bumblebees visited the flowers of the vale, and sunlight glinted off the

iridescent wings of hoverflies seeking aphids.

The life of the valley hummed peacefully on, lulled by summer’s warmth, unaware that three armies were marching

toward it.

Trapped in the tunnels of old Castle Kotir, far beneath Redwall Abbey’s south ramparts, five creatures sat dozing

fitfully in the gloom. Giving off an occasional flicker, their lantern warned that its light would soon be out.

Abbess Tansy gazed ruefully at the small golden tongue of flame as it gently swayed. “I should never have

encouraged you to come on this silly venture, friends. I’m sorry.”

Craklyn snorted, wagging a paw at her old companion. 11 You encouraged us, you? Hah! Let me tell you, Tansy

Pansy, we’re all down here because we wanted to come. We encouraged ourselves!”

Tansy clasped the old squirrel Recorder’s paw affectionately. “Dearie me, ’tis some long seasons since anybeast

called me Tansy Pansy. D’you remember when Arven was a Dibbun, he was always saying that name? Now what was

it he used to chant at me?”

Craklyn thought for a moment, then chuckled. “‘Tansy Pansy toogle doo.’ Hahaha, he was a proper little wretch.”

Foremole wrinkled his nose severely at the pair. “Beggin’ ee pardun, but do you’m be soilent, oi can yurr summat.”

There was a moment’s silence. Young Friar Butty looked around. “Aye, I c’n hear somethin’ too. Sounds like

water drippin’.”

Shad pressed his ear to the tunnel wall. “That’s water, all right, on the other side o’ this ’ere wall. I can ’ear it drip-

drippin’ away. Sounds like ’tis fallin’ a far way down. Wot d’ye think, Abbess, marm, shall I ’ave a go at breakin’

through the wall?”

Foremole Diggum waved a digging paw hastily. “Ho no, zurr, you’m’ll be a bringen ee tunnel topplin’ on us ’eads

agin fur sure!”

Shad scrambled upright and retrieved the lantern. “P’raps yore right, mate. You all stay ’ere an’ I’ll scout about

further down this tunnel t’see wot I can see.”

While Shad was gone, the remaining four creatures sat in complete darkness without the lantern. To keep their

spirits up, Tansy sang a simple little ditty.

“If I were a leaf upon a tree, Then I would live right happily, I’d grow up flat and green and big, Unless of course I

was a twig, A twig with a leaf upon its end, And then the leaf would be my friend, I’d grow to such a wondrous

length, And from my branch I’d take my strength. If I were a branch upon a tree, With leaf and twig for company, I’d

grow so round and fair and trim, Sprouting from a great stout limb, But if I were a limb all thick and wide, Branch,

twig, and leaf I’d hold with pride, And they would all depend on me, And the mighty trunk of my big tree. Then if I

were a tree with bark for husk, I’d stand up firm from dawn ’til dusk, And limb, branch, twig, and leaf would be, All

through the season part of me!”

She had barely finished singing when Shad’s voice boomed up the passage and they saw the welcome glow of the

lantern.

“Ahoy there, mates! Come an’ see this—I’ve found a way down!”

Stumbling through the half-light behind the fading lantern, they followed Shad down the corridor. He halted in

front of a heavy wooden door, swinging it open with a jarring creak to reveal its other side, covered in fungus.

“Welcome to the ole castle cellars, me hearties, though I don’t see wot good they’ll do us. We should be goin’ up,

not down’ards!”

Dropping his bag of treasure, Friar Butty pushed past the otter. “Look, torches!”

From rusted iron rings in the wall he pulled four hefty wooden bundles, their ends coated thick with pine resin.

Tansy took one and lit it from the last dying lantern flame. “Of course, it makes sense to leave torches at the entrance

to cellars. By the seasons, they do burn brightly!”

Brilliant yellow light radiated around, revealing then—position. Far larger than Great Hall, the cellars stretched

above and below them. Water dripped from long stalactites hanging from a high-hewn rock ceiling, falling down from

a great height to splash far below where they stood. The five questors were on a narrow step jutting from the wall.

Other steps wound their way downward, hugging the wallsides until they ended in the depths below.

Shad lit another torch from the one Tansy carried. “Only one way t’go, mates: down. C’mon, foller me.”

Placing their backs to the wall, they descended carefully, step by step, each holding the other’s paws. The stone

stairs seemed never-ending, and by the time (hey had covered three-quarters of the distance, wet moss and slime made

the going treacherous.

Shad stopped and rested by crouching against the damp walls. “Phwaw! This place is enough t’give a crab the

creeps. You got any rope left, Diggum?”

The Foremole unwound a coil from “round his waist. “Yurr, oi gotter liddle len’th.”

Shad took it and knotted it ’round his middle, then passed it back. “Best rope ourselves together fer safety—

Yaaaaar! Gerraway, yer filthy scum!”

A large, gross toad with sightless eyes was trying to gnaw the end of the otter’s tail. With a swift flick of his

rudderlike appendage, Shad tossed the amphibian in the air and batted it off the step. The toad whirled in an arc, then