Brian Jacques - Redwall #06 - The Outcast of Redwall

“Hurt, a playen in ee water, oi think. “No, that was Sunflash, e was at the stream. Oh, where ave those two liddle villains run off to?

She stared up at Sunflash beseechingly. The big badger radiated calm and confidence as he patted Dearies headspikes gently. “Never fear, marm, Ill find em. Tiny, you circle to the east. Bruff, take a wide loop west. Ill go due south, and well meet up where the big clearing is, the one with the pond, you know it.

Lully threw her apron up over her face to hide her upset. “Burr, theym rascals, oi do wisht zurr awkburd was ere!

Bruff twitched his nose comfortingly at her. “Doant ee fret, moi damsen, usll foind em. Youm stay by yurr wi Dearie an watch tuther liddle uns.

Sunflash did not travel directly south. The late afternoon sun played through the leaves, casting mottled shade patterns on his broad back as he weaved through the woodlands on either side of the faint south path, searching wherever he thought the two little hoglets might have strayed. Birdsong trilled in the stillness of the noontide heat, butterflies fluttered their quiet way from shrub to bush, and bees droned lazily amid clumps of bramble, honeysuckle, and dogrose. But the tranquillity of nature was lost upon the badger as he strode anxiously about, his great mace swinging from one paw, searching for signs of the hedgehog babes.

At last he found something. It was only smalla fragment of apple-and-blackberry-pie crustbut it proved that they had passed this way. They were roaming south. Farther on, Sun-flash chased away a bold blackbird that was pecking at a small morsel of cheese. He quickened his stride. Gurmil and Tirg had to be somewhere hereabouts.

Suddenly a welter of cries and shouts broke upon his ears. Sunflash went thundering and crashing through the woodland and came bounding out into the clearing where he had arranged to meet with Bruff and Tirry. His quick eyes took in the dangerous situation at a single glance. There were the two little hoglets, frightened speechless, clinging on to each other, standing shoulder deep in the pond at the far side of the clearing. Bruff and Tirry, in company with an old squirrel, were circling and shouting. And a short distance from the waters edge, between them, barring their way to the babes, two fully grown adders coiled and reared menacingly. The snakes had not yet seen Sunflash, who slowed his pace immediately and signaled to his friends not to look directly at him and betray his presence to the reptiles.

Tirry Lingl was terrified, but willing to sacrifice his life for the hoglets. He picked up anything close to pawtwigs, soil, grassand flung it at the big scaly adders, his voice shrill with panic. “Leave my liddle uns alone, serpents! Dont you go near em! Gurmil, Tirg, stay in the water, stop there!

The old squirrel joined in the shouting. He obviously knew the snakes and hated them. “Gah, you coldearted slimers, leave the babes alone!

One adder faced the three creatures, menacing them as the other snake began sliding slowly toward the little ones in the water. Cold evil glittered in the snakes eyes, and its forked tongue quivered as it hissed, “Leave here fassssst, while you ssstill have livessssss!

Suddenly, Sunflash made his move. Dropping the mace, he ran into the lake from one side, pounding in a straight line across the shallows toward the hoglets. The adder who had been sliding toward the water speeded up; it was fast, but not as speedy as Sunflash the Mace when his warrior blood was roused. The badger reached the babes ahead of the snake, snatched them both out of the water with a single movement, and carried on hurtling straight across the shallows. The adder was after Sunflash, zipping through the roiling waters in his wake, as duckweed and rushes broken off by the badgers storming speed flopped welly on the ponds surface. The other snake turned away from the three creatures on the bank, its coils bunching and stretching as it raced to intercept the badger.

Sunflash leapt from the water and, bursting onto dry land, he rolled the babes, who had tucked themselves up into the refuge of their soft prickles. They skimmed over the bank like twin orbs, coming to rest way out of danger. Sunflash turned as the adder launched itself from the water and buried its sharp fangs in his side. Its companion wrapped itself round one of the badgers footpaws. Roaring aloud, Sunflash grabbed the snake that was biting him around its neck and plunged back into the water with the other adder still wrapped round his footpaw. Tirry grabbed the hoglets, hugging them to him as Bruff and the old squirrel raced about in the shallows. Unable to help the badger, they splashed and shouted.

Sunflash did not come to a halt until he was in deep, the water lapping near his shoulders. Feeling the snake unwinding itself from his footpaw, he stamped down hard several times until he trapped its head flat beneath his big blunt claws on the bed of the pond and held it there. The other snake had struck him twice, once in the side and once on his back, and now it slid off him into the water. But Sunflash caught it by the tail and began whirling it round above his head. Round and round it went, the creatures on shore hearing the whirr it made as it cut the air in blurring circles. Sunflash roared.

“Eeulaliaaaaa!

He flung the adder far and high, and it sped through the air straight out like an arrow from a bow. Tirry looked up and saw it strike an elm tree limb. The snakes body wrapped round it several times, then it was still, resting draped across the high bough like a soggy piece of rope.

Sunflash ground down hard with his footpaw for a long time, until the wriggling coils beneath the water went limp and still forever. Then, slowly, painfully, he began wading back to land, his side and back one throbbing, agonized mass. The big badger tottered in the shallows as Tirry, Bruff, and the squirrel dashed in and helped him out.

Bruff wrung his paws agitatedly as Sunflash collapsed on the bank. “Yurr, ee been bited by ee surrpints, oi knows et!

The old squirrel grabbed Sunflashs face between both paws and shouted as the badgers eyelids began flickering shut. “Where did yon serpents bite thee? he cried.

Sunflash was sinking into a black pit; he heard the words coming from far away. Making an effort, he answered, “Bitten ... twice ... side ... back ...

Then darkness overtook Sunflash the Mace completely.

7?

The sun broiled the flallands mercilessly, drying up streams to a trickle, baking the earth, and raising dust swirls on the hot wind. It was a hostile waste where even scrub, gorse, and broom barely survived in the parched heat.

Things were not going well for the new Warlord Swartt Sixclaw; there was a murmur of discontent running through the great horde. Swartt sat in his tent, pondering the dilemma facing him: too many soldiers and not enough food or water, and, worst of all, they were lost! The mighty cavalcade had started out on the wrong paw. Some had wanted to go, swayed by Swartts promises of plunder and plenty, but others had wanted to stay, knowing they could get by in the semifertile cliff shadows, where there was at least water and a certain amount of vegetation, birds, and eggs. The whole project had been too unwieldy from the outset, with tents, trappings, and camp followers, most of the hordebeasts having mates and families.

Sometimes Swartt felt as though he were merely the figurehead of a great traveling settlement; and as if that were not enough, he had found himself landed with a wife. Swartt had not known that Bowfleg had a daughter. It was the tradition and unwritten law that she became wife to the new Warlord as a matter of course. Bluefen was her name, and she was quiet and pretty enough. Swartt marveled that such a fat ugly creature as Bowfleg could have sired her. Bluefen largely kept out of Swartts way, as she had with her father, knowing the angry moods and great rages Warlords were capable of.