Brian Jacques - Redwall #01 - Lord Brocktree

"Never killed me, did you, smartytails, wot!"

A stern voice boomed from the edge of the camp. "Belaaay, put one paw near the rabbit an' we'll drop you all where y'stand!"

A single-bladed hatchet thudded into the ground between Fleetscut and Jukka. Instantly, the woodland was thick with hedgehogs. The squirrels were surrounded. The hog leader, a massive creature, made twice as big by the grass and leaves stuck to his quills as camouflage, strutted past Jukka and retrieved his hatchet. In the other paw he carried a shield of toughened beech bark, studded with shells. Staring fiercely at the squirrels, he puffed himself out, cheeks, stomach and chest.

"Bushytailed mice, eh! Well, lissen, bullies, I wouldn't stand to see an 'og treated in that way, tortured an' poisinged, nor a rabbit, neither ..."

Fleetscut tapped his quills politely. "Er, 'scuse me, old lad, but I'm a hare an' they were"

Rounding on him, the big hedgehog roared, "Who asked you, eh? Don't dare interrupt when Baron Drucco Spikediggle has the floor, or you'll get yourself chopped up into frogmeat, you will!"

Fleetscut pawed away the hatchet hovering under his nose. "Beg pardon, but don't waggle that thing at me, I'm still feelin' a bit frail, doncha know. I was merely explain"

Baron Drucco went into a fury then, raising his hatchet and shouting in a voice which caused the leaves sticking round his mouth to blow away. "Belaaay that gab, rabbit! I won't stand it from my 'ogs, an' I won't take it from you. If I whack your 'ead off, that'll cure you of talkin'. Wot d'you think, Rabble?"

The other hedgehogs began banging their hatchets against their shields, each vying to shout louder than the rest.

"Hohoh, that's the stuff, baron!"

"Chop that rabbit's 'ead off!"

"That'd stop 'is chatter, baron!"

"Does yer 'onor want us t'chop these bushmice up, too?"

A small wiry female hogwife pushed her way through. Grabbing the baron's hatchet from his paw, she brandished it expertly, clipping the tip off one of his head-spikes. Her voice was almost a shriek, high and shrill.

"Yer blatherin' big pincushion, pin yer ears back an' lissen t'wot the rabbit's tryin' to tell yer."

The baron deflated totally. Picking up the tip of his headspike, he chewed on it like a toothpick. "Mirklewort, yer showin' me up in front of me own rabble." He ducked as she swung the hatchet again.

"Show yer up? Every time you open that great trap o' yourn you show yerself up, breezebarrel!" Then, turning quickly aside, she whispered to Fleetscut, "You 'ave yer say now. Shout out loud, mind. That's all this rabble pays 'eed to, beasts wot kin shouteven rabbits!"

Fleetscut yelled at the top of his voice, and to his surprise the hedgehog rabble went silent and listened.

"I'm a hare, d'ye hear, a bally hare! These squirrels are my friends! They weren't harmin' me, just helpin' me through a serious illness, that's all! No need to go choppin' anybeast up 'round here, chaps, wot! Wot wot!"

Determined to shout louder than Fleetscut, the baron hollered at a volume that hurt the hare's ears, "Well, why didn't yer say so at first, instead o' causin' all this trouble an' strife, eh?"

The baron's wife, Mirklewort, swung the hatchet once more, clipping off another of his headspikes. "Because yer never gave 'im a wifflin' chance to, antbrain!"

Sulkily the baron picked up the headspike tip and stuck it in his mouth, next to the first one. Mirklewort pulled them out and stamped on them.

"Will yew stop that, Drucco? Yll 'ave eaten yerself up one day, carryin' on like that! Ask these creatures if they'd like some blackcurrant an' plum crumble. Go on, snitnose!"

Baron Drucco's offer was readily accepted by Fleetscut and the squirrels. While the latter trooped after Drucco to the hogden, the old hare, well aware of where the ruling power in the tribe lay, made a wobbly though elegant leg to Mirklewort, offering his paw.

"Allow me to escort you, marm. A pretty hogwife should never jolly well walk alone, wot!"

She accepted. "Well well, ain't this grand? That 'usband o' mine wouldn't give yer a push off a rock!"

Baron Drucco's tribe were known as the Rabble. They lived in rabble conditions, even though their camp was nought but a temporary one. However, neither Jukka nor Fleetscut could pretend that Rabble blackcurrant and plum crumble was anything other than first class. The guests seated themselves on a rotten elm trunk and dug into sizable bowls of the stuff, steaming hot and covered in sweet maple sauce.

"Yew'll 'ave ter forgive us," Mirklewort remarked casually. "The camp's a bit untidy. Of course, it ain't wot we're used to, is it, Drucco?"

The baron licked white sauce from his snout and sniffed. "I should wifflin' well 'ope not. Still, wot's a liddle untidiness atwixt friends, eh, that's wot I alius say."

Jukka shifted to accommodate a beetle grubbing its way out of the rotten log they were seated on. "A little untidiness indeed," she murmured low to Fleetscut. "Methinks the place looks like a battlefield in the midst of a midden!"

The area was littered with chopped-off headspikes, broken bowls, fruit and vegetable skins and other debris, far too dreadful to mention. Fleetscut coughed politely and made conversation, lest anybeast had heard Jukka's remarks.

"Ahem, I take it that you don't live hereabouts then, marm?"

Mirklewort wiped spilled crumble from her lap with a withered dock leaf, which she then devoured. "Ho graciousness no, we're only up 'ere lookin' for our babe, liddle Skittles. The wifflin' wanderin' wogglespikeer, haha, I mean the darlin' h'infant 'ogwent an' got 'isself losted. We've seen neither nose nor spike of 'im for a frog's age. Oh, I do 'ope 'e ain't been consoled by vermins."

Baron Drucco looked up in the midst of stealing a dozing compatriot's bowl of crumble. "Don't yew mean consorted?"

Fleetscut chipped in, making sure his tone was loud enough. "I think the word you're lookin' for is consumed, chaps. Actually, we met up with two hedgehog types, Grassum and Reedum they called themselves, couple o' days back. They found your babe an' adopted him, but the little tyke escaped from them and wandered off again, wot. We're keepin' a weather eye out for your Skittles, though. Some goodbeast should find him sooner or later. Don't you jolly well fret, folks."

Baron Drucco succeeded in filching the bowl of crumble from his rabblemate, placing his empty bowl in the hedgehog's paws and digging into the fresh one. "Aye, long as 'e don't get consecuted by vermins, wifflin' liddle nuisance. Oh, did I tell ye, one o' the reasons I wanted to come up this way was to enter the contest. Hah, I 'spect that's why yore wanderin' this neck o' country, too, eh?"

The old hare put aside his bowl. It was grabbed by a rabblehog who began licking the inside of it thoroughly.

"Contest, what contest, baron? First I've heard of it."

Baron Drucco cuffed the sleeping hedgehog alongside him into wakefulness. "Wot, eh, wossamarrer?" the rabblehog spluttered. "Oi, somebeast's etted me pudden!"

The baron cuffed him another few buffets. "It's etten, not etted, swillbrain! Never mind that. Gimme that contest thing you found."

The hedgehog searched his spikes, ruminating aloud, "Where'd I putten it? Sorryputted it. Aha, 'ere 'tis!"

An extremely grimy birchbark strip was thrust into the hare's paw. He opened it gingerly. Wiping off remnants of bygone meals and a few unidentified smears, Fleetscut read aloud:

"Come mother, father, daughter, son,

My challenge stands to anybeast!

I'll take on all, or just the one,

Whether at the fight or feast!

Aye, try to beat me an' defeat me,

Set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down!

Just try to outbrag me, you'll see,

King Bucko Bigbones wears the crown!"