Brian Jacques - Redwall #01 - Lord Brocktree

Blench turned her bag inside out and shook it. "H'ain't a crumb o' vittles left, ole Bram. Yore right, though-it must be gettin' dark outside, the light has faded."

"I could do a spot o' damage to a rhubarb tart right now. Wouldn't mind if it was hot or jolly well cold ..."

Stiffener glared at Willip in the torchlight. "A word in yore ear, marm. Don't start talkin' about scoff, 'tis the fastest way for a hare t'go mad. You'll have everybeast goin' on about feasts they were at seasons ago. All that ripe fruit an' crumbly cheese an' summer salad, aye, an' bilberry cordial. Look, you've got me at it now!"

Trobee's stomach rumbled, and he sighed unhappily. "Yes, let's. Well, what else is there to bloomin' well talk about? My tummy's in a blinkin' turmoil!"

Stiffener peered down the tunnel. "Then think about 'ow lucky we are. Light fadin' means we got a good chance of not bein' spotted under cover o' darkness. There's somethin' in our favor, mates."

Purlow started up, batting at his scut. "Yowch, confound it, somebeast just bit me!"

Stiffener swung the torch in his direction. "Where?"

"Right on the end o' me bobtail, old lad, where d'y'think?"

Stiffener shoved him roughly aside. "I never asked where y'were bit, I meant where was the beast that bit ye?"

Blench held out her no longer empty bag with both paws. "Ah, look, bless 'im, 'tis only a liddle crabthing. Got a spiky back, too. Big claws for such a young 'un, though."

Purlow wagged his paw in the crab's face. "You small cad, how dare y'bite my tail? Wait'll I tell your mama!"

Trobee grabbed the torch from Stiffener and stared wide-eyed. "Zounds! You won't have long t'wait, old lad. Here comes his mama right now, an' the whole confounded crab clan!"

They were spiny spider crabs, with spiked backs covered in sharp spines, long red legs and fearsome-looking claws. Very aggressive crustaceans indeed. Blench tipped the baby crab onto the floor in a hurry.

"Oh corks, there must be 'undreds an' 'undreds o' the villains. Wot d'ye suppose they want?"

Stiffener weighed up the dangerous situation. "So that's wot the rhyme meant, the spinies! Listen to that waternoise buildin' up down therethe tide must be comin' in. We're in those crabs' way. They're tryin' t'get further up the tunnel to stop theirselves bein' washed away by the waves. I don't like the way they're clackin' those big nipper things an' openin' their jaws. Maybe they think we're vittles, somethin' good to eat!"

Scuttling sideways, the teeming masses of crabs advanced, claws held high and snapping open and shut, blowing froth and bubbles from their gaping mouths. The noise of them could be heard over the advancing tide outside. It sounded like a shower of hailstones as their hard-shelled legs rattled against the rocks. The hares looked to Stiffener.

"What d'you think we should do?"

The boxing hare decided instantly there was only one answer to Bramwil's query. "We've got to run for it, straight through the middle o' those blighters, an' not stop for anythin'. They're tryin' to get away from the sea, we're tryin' to get to it, might be a bit of an 'elp. Trobee, me'n'you will take the lead an' see if'n we can batter through. The rest of ye, stay close together. Willip, Blench, stick in the middle, keep tight 'old of Bramwil. Well, 'ere goes, mates. Eulaliaaaa!"

The charge carried them helter-skelter down the tunnel, straight into the crabs. Trobee and Stiffener bulled aside as many as they could, striking about with a couple of javelins. It was an almost impossible task; hares and crabs were so tightly packed in the narrow tunnel confines that it was difficult to make way. Powerful claws tore the javelins from their paws, spiny shells bumped them painfully, pointed legs scratched at them in the wild scramble. Some crabs were toppled over backward and the hares ran over their hard-shelled undersides, avoiding kicking legs and snapping pincers. However, it could not last. The tunnel was far too narrow, and soon became completely jammed with a jumbled melee of hares and crabs.

Stiffener looked up. A gigantic specimen was bearing down upon him with both claws ready for action.

"Trobee, throw me the torch, quick!"

The boxing hare scorched his paws as he caught the torch and thrust it savagely into the big crab's mouth. It gurgled and hissed, latching both claws onto the torch. It was a scene of complete chaos, with trapped hares shouting amid the forest of clacking pincers.

"Aagh, get this thing off me!"

"Owouch, me ear!"

"Leggo, you rotter, gerroff!"

"Hold Bramwil up, don't let him fall!"

"Eeek, there'th one god me nothe!"

Then the wave came.

Peak of high tide sent a monstrous roller crashing up the tunnel entrance with all the awesome power of the stormy sea. Boiling white, blue and green, it shot up the bore of the rocky passage and hit the mass of hares and crabs like a mighty sledgehammer, shooting them hard uphill. Then it sucked them back in a whirling vacuum of seawater. Stiffener spun like a top, jolting against rocks and crabshells, his nose, mouth, eyes and ears choked by the salt water. The entire world became white and filled with roaring noise as he went ears over scut. Stomach down he was hurled flat, his mouth gaping wide as he skidded along until it was full of sand.

A moment later he was upright in the night air, waist deep, with waves bashing him. Coughing up grit and brine, he wiped the stinging seawater from his eyes. A familiar figure waded toward him. Blench.

"Watch out, Stiff, 'ere comes Willip!"

A wave sent Willip crashing into the boxing hare's back. He staggered up and joined paws with her and the cook. "Keep tight 'old, marms. Let's find the others. Where's ole Bramwil got to, anybeast seen 'im?"

"Hi there, young feller, over here, wot!"

Only then did Stiffener realize that it was raining hard. Bramwil was sitting on the shore in the downpour, waving a piece of driftwood, several others with him.

Trobee came swimming along, his head popping up alongside Stiffener. He saluted, sank and resurfaced, spitting a jet of seawater into the air. "Phwah! All present an' correct, I thinkthere's Purlow floppin' about upcoast. Ahoy there, Purlow, how d'ye do!"

"Fine, old chap. How're you? Lots of weather we're havin' for the time o' season, wot wot?"

"Keep yore voices down, mates," Stiffener called out in the loudest whisper he could muster, "there might be vermin patrols around. Bramwil, we'll meet ye in the lee o' those rocks."

It was a cold, windy, wet and moonless night as they huddled together on the north side of a ragged rockspur. Bramwil could just make out the shape of Salaman-dastron's dark bulk to the south of where they sat.

"This chunk o' rock is part of our mountain, a great spur, buried beneath the sand an' stickin' up again here by the sea."

Willip crouched down and scuttled toward the end of the rock protruding into the sea. "Bramwil's right," she reported when she came back. "I saw the mouth of the tunnel we came out of, though 'tis so thickly overgrown with seaweed a body would never know 'twas there, wot."

Bramwil shivered, shaking his saturated fur. "Well, we made it, chaps, we're alive an' free. But with no weapons or food. What next, young Stiff, eh?"

Stiffener blinked rain from his eyes. "Can't stay 'ere, that's fer sure, mates. We'd best move while the goin's good. There's some rock ledges an' dunes east of 'ereI picked blackberries there last autumn. Let's take a look over that way, eh?"

In the hour before dawn they topped a rise in the sandhills. Some white limestone cliff ridges loomed up on their left. The rain was becoming heavier, whipped sideways by the wind. With both ears plastered flat to his head and his fur thoroughly sandgritted and wet, Stiffener looked back in the direction of Salamandastron.