Brian Jacques - [Redwall 18] - High Rhulain

Chain mail chinked as the wildcat shook his head. “It’s just as well that I’m in command and not you!”

Ignoring Scaut, he turned to Scorecat Fleng and issued his commands. “Take your squad and pursue them from this side until you can find somewhere easy to cross the stream. Keep after them, and make as much noise as you can to let the otters know they’re being pursued. Go now, we’ll follow up before dark.”

Fleng saluted smartly with his spear. A moment later, he and his twenty guards were dashing along the bankside, shouting aloud.

Riggu Felis shouldered his war axe. “Get the rest of our force and follow me, Scaut.” He strode off in the opposite direction, to the right.

Issuing orders to his scorecats, the weilmark got everybeast under way. He trotted forward to the warlord’s side, obviously bewildered. “Lord, twenty guards aren’t enough to defeat all those otters. Aren’t we going to follow an’ defeat’em, like you said you would?”

Riggu Felis moved his axe haft sharply, catching Scaut’s bandaged jaw. He gave the puzzled feral cat a contemptuous glance. “Listen, and see if this sinks into your thick head. I will defeat the otters in my own way. I know twenty guards won’t defeat them—they’ll probably all be slain. But I will have won a great victory over the otters. Do you know why, Scaut?”

Keeping his distance from the axe haft, the weilmark stroked his injured jaw ruefully. “No. Why, Lord?”

The wildcat gave a hissing laugh. “Why, indeed! Pay attention, my idiot friend, and I’ll tell you. Those otters have families, the same as any otherbeast. They want to keep their loved ones safe, so they try to fool me by drawing us off inland. I don’t know of any otters who live at the centre of Green Isle. They make their homes and dens in rivers and along the coast.”

Scaut temporarily forgot his aching jaw. A slow smile spread over his brutal features. “So we’re goin’ to the coast to attack their families, Lord?”

Riggu Felis let his tongue slither out to lick at the gold metal chain mail that masked his lower face. “Aye, Scaut. Imagine how the one called Shellhound and his followers will feel. Picture them coming back, crowing about how they slew a score of my guards, then finding their own families—who I’m sure number a great deal more than twenty creatures—lying dead amid the scorched ruins of their homes. Who will have won the victory then, eh?”

The feral cat officer gazed at his leader in awe. “Truly you are the Warlord of Green Isle, Sire!”

The cruel eyes of Riggu Felis narrowed to slits. “Anybeast who does not agree with that is a deadbeast, Scaut. That is why I left my faithful Atunra back at the fortress today. She will make certain that no upstart brother-killer will ever usurp his father.”

Pitru was still young, but he was a quick learner. Revelling in his position as the fortress commander, he went about his devious plans gleefully. His first task was to seek out minions who would serve him well and obey orders without question. These came in the form of three feral cats: Yund, an old and experienced scorecat; and two of his guards, Balur and his sister Hinso, who were not much older than Pitru. Lady Kaltag largely kept to her tower chambers, allowing her remaining son the run of the fortress, which he took full advantage of. Atunra was not taken into the new commander’s confidence. Pitru and the pine marten had disliked each other for a long time. Pitru knew that Atunra lived only to serve his father.

In the late afternoon, Pitru sat out on the pier with Yund and the other two cats. They basked in the sunlight, nibbling at cooked lake trout and sipping wine. Yund, an intelligent scorecat, knew how to please his young new master. Pitru was delighted with the latest plan they had hatched up together. It concerned the defence of the fortress. They had emptied the catguard barracks and had housed the guards inside the fortress. Half of them were on day duty, some standing by the windows and some up on the sentry posts, armed with bows and arrows. The half who were off duty idled their time away, eating, drinking and sleeping indoors. Each night the rota was changed, and they took the place of their comrades on guard duty. But the master stroke against otter attacks, which Pitru and Yund had devised, was the slaves themselves. They were also taken out of the compound, into the fortress, but only the parents. The young ones and elders were forced to camp in the shade of the fortress, all the way around the building. They would be first to receive the brunt of any assault on the place.

Yund glanced over the shoulder of the slave who was serving the wine. He alerted Pitru. “Look, Lord! Atunra is coming out of the main gate.”

Pitru winked at the scorecat and settled back with his eyes closed. He waited until the pine marten was close before addressing her. “Still skulking about, eh? What do you want now?”

Atunra knew it was wise to keep a civil tongue in her head. “Your father would not approve . . .”

Before she could finish, Pitru sprang up, whipping out the large, broad-bladed scimitar which he now carried at all times. “Silence! You will begin again by addressing me as Commander. That is my title until I become Warlord.”

After a moment’s silence, Atunra bowed stiffly. “Commander, your father would never permit all the guards to be inside the fortress, and all those slaves, too. Lord Felis would never allow it. Guards have always lived in the barracks, and otterslaves in their compound. It is your father’s law.”

The young cat placed his swordtip against the pine marten’s shoulder, pressing forward and then pushing her backward as he sneered in her face. “What some old, half-faced cat chooses to do is none of my concern. I make the rules now as commander of this fortress. Now get out of my sight, you spying lickpaw!”

Atunra did not stop to argue. She turned on her paw and strode silently back indoors. Pitru put up his blade and swaggered back to his seat.

Yund raised his goblet in salute. “That’s the way to deal with your father’s spy, Sire, though I’d watch my back while that ’un’s around if I were you.”

Pitru spread his paws appealingly. “Perhaps if I had three good friends, then they would watch my back for me. And who knows, mayhaps those three friends would know how to deal with a spy in our midst?”

The scorecat replied, with a look of enquiring innocence, “Indeed, Commander, and mayhaps such friends would be well rewarded when your time comes to rule as warlord?”

Pitru closed his eyes and stretched out luxuriously. “A new warlord of Green Isle would need a fortress commander and two trusty weilmarks to serve him. He would remember his loyal friends.”

Yund looked at Balur and Hinso. Both nodded wordlessly. Laying his spear at Pitru’s footpaws, Yund bowed deeply. “We live only to obey your commands, Sire!”

Fleng and his squad had kept up their noisy pursuit of the otters from the far streambank. As darkness fell, they found a narrow rocky outcrop and forded the stream. The otters’ trail was not difficult to pick up. Leatho had halted the clans on a stony hilltop he had chosen to await the arrival of the cats.

Fleng arrived shortly at the base of the hill. He hid his guards in the bushes, ordering them to fire a volley of arrows. The heavy barrage of rocks, javelins and slingstones that came back at them left Fleng’s squad pinned down so hard that they could not raise a paw to retaliate. The scorecat kept glancing back over his shoulder, waiting for his warlord to arrive with reinforcements. Leatho’s forces continued to batter the bushes relentlessly. It took Fleng only a short time to realise that half his squad lay slain around him. If he stayed, he would be killed along with the remainder of his guards. For some reason unknown to the scorecat, both he and his squad had been left abandoned. Signalling a retreat to his catguards, Fleng crawled backward from the bushes and fled.