Brian Jacques - [Redwall 10] - The Long Patrol

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

hit the liquid below. It vanished with a squelching plop, leaving a small dimple on the surface.

Tansy held her torch out over the stair edge. “That isn’t water down there, ’tis more of a swamp!”

Other toads were crawling upstairs toward them, the dreadful creatures apparently attracted by Shad’s cry and

Tansy’s voice.

Craklyn hid behind Foremole, shuddering. “Ugh! Horrible monsters, keep ’em away from me!”

Butty had been carrying his treasure slung on the end of the silver-headed spear he had found in the rubble.

Untying the bundle, he passed the spear along to Shad.

The otter Gatekeeper began clearing the toads off into the ooze below. Some spread their webs to prevent

themselves from sinking instantly, and these were set upon and torn to shreds by creatures not half their size, who

appeared in packs. At the same time they were being devoured, the toads began eating their tormentors.

The five friends watched, revolted but fascinated by the sight.

“Yurr, they’m all a h’eatin’ each uther!”

“Aye, those small ’uns look like some kind o’ mudfish, they’re blind as the toads!”

“So they all live down here in this slimy darkness, feeding off one another. What an awful existence!”

“Yukk! What are we doin’ in this terrible place? Let’s get out!”

Foremole Diggum tugged against die rope as they began moving. “Hurr no, us’n’s mus’ goiter stay. Lookee!”

They followed the direction his paw was pointing, across the underground morass to a dark hole in the wall at the

cellar’s far side.

Tansy held the torch high. “What is it, Diggum?”

The mole’s reply was prompt and confident. “That thurr’s a tunnel dugged boi moles, oi’d stake moi snowt on et,

oi surrtinly would, ’tis a mole tunnel, ’twill lead oopward!”

Shad shook his head doubtfully. “Are you shore ’tis a mole tunnel, mate? ’S a long way off.”

Diggum Foremole would not be shaken from his belief. “Oi said ’twurr, din’t oi, oi’m ee Foremoler, oo’d know

better!”

Friar Butty stared unhappily across the expanse of cannibal-infested bog.

“If that’s the way out, then how do we get to it?”

A small meeting was being convened in the kitchen at Redwall Abbey, It was for elders, though the Dibbuns had