Brian Jacques - Redwall #09 - Salamandastron

As they piled out of the cave they were hit by a pile of watercress, roots, tubers and dandelions that the guards had thrown down. Mara gathered them and heaved them into the cave while they were still dry and edible.

"As you said, Nordo, while there's life there's hope, and we need food to stay alive, so let's eat up and keep our hopes high!"

Pikkle mumbled through a mouthful of roots, " 'Sright old gel, couldn't have said it better m'self, wot!"

BOOK TWO

Warriors and Monsters

Hazy sunlight pierced a pale-washed dawn, sending streaks of gold lancing to banish the sea mists over Salamandastron. Urthstripe the Strong strode boldly out onto the sands in front of his mountain with ten hares at his back. The badger Lord looked every inch what he wasa true warriorclad in shining metal greaves and breastplate with a plumed and visored headgarb fringed in fine chainmail. Across his back a mighty double-hiked war sword was strapped; resting easily in his right paw was his famed spear, which weighed more than a grown hare and was tipped by a long double-edged blade with ornate iron crosstrees a third of the way down its length. He threw back his head and bellowed out the badger Lord's challenge in a voice like rolling thunder.

' 'Eulaliaaaa! I am Urthstripe the Strong, Ruler of the mountain! Who dares trespass on my domain?"

A white flag appeared from behind some rocks on the shore, followed by the call of a high-pitched voice: "Flag of truce, flag of truce. My master would parley with you!" Rap-tail the rat showed himself, waving the flag furiously.

Behind the visor Urthstripe's eyes glittered in anticipation. "Urthstripe does not parley with vermin, he buries them!"

A tall blue-eyed weasel stood up behind Raptail. His voice

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carried neither menace nor challenge as he sidled forward. "I am called Ferahgo. We have no need to fight each other, Lord Urthstripe. Besides, if I did want to fight, you would lose sorely. I see you have only ten hares at your back."

Urthstripe had gone silent. He stared hard at Ferahgo, as if trying hard to call up something from the depths of memory. Sunlight flashed upon the badger medallion around the weasel's neck, causing it to glimmer like fire, and his blue eyes opened wide in a disarming smile. The badger Lord peered at Ferahgo through the slitted visor; voices were calling dimly down the corridors of his mind, too distant for him to make sense of. The hardeV he looked the more the blue-eyed weasel with the golden medal seemed to confuse him. Urthstripe shook his head and lifted the visor.

' 'Ferahgo, Ferahgo ... where have I heard that name before?" He banged the spearshaft down, bringing himself back to normality. "Hear me, Ferahgo. There may be only a few warriors at my back, but there are many more inside my mountain."

The Assassin stopped a few paces from the badger Lord and waved his claws once in the air. In a trice the rocks were bristling with armed vermin behind him. He turned right and left to wave his claws again. They flooded onto the sands of the shore and stood like a pestilence of evil weeds sprung there by magic: line upon line of ferrets, stoats, weasels, rats and foxes, each one armed to the fangs. Banners of blood red and standards decorated with skins, hanks of beast hair and skulls swayed in the light breeze.

Ferahgo turned to Urthstripe with a confident smirk. "You have thirty more fighting hares inside, I know. The odds would be well over fivescore to one. But let us not talk of fighting. I am a visitor to this countrywhere is your famous hospitality? Invite me into your mountain and let me look around, we will talk..."

"Never! I do not allow vermin into Salamandastron!"

As he was speaking, Urthstripe noticed the front ranks of the horde advancing slowly. Behind him he heard the slither of arrows being drawn from quivers. Sapwood and the ten

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hares were readying themselves for trouble.

Ferahgo shook his head. "You say you never allow vermin into your mountain, yet my son Klitch and his friend Goffa took breakfast with you not so long ago."

The point of Urthstripe's spear had been gradually tilting. Now it dropped, centered on Ferahgo's midriff a breath away. The Assassin took a cautious step back.

Urthstripe's short patience was worn exceedingly thin. "Leave Mossflower country, weasel, or you and your scum will die here. I am tired of talking. Take your face out of my sight. You offend me!"

Ferahgo was not short of nerve. He spat scornfully in the sand. "Your mountain is surrounded, badger. If it comes to war there is no way you can win. What do you say to that?"

But Urthstripe was finished talking, except for one word.

"Eulaliaaaa!"

There was a deadly hiss of shafts as ten of the advancing enemy were cut down by the Long Patrol arrows. Ferahgo leaped to one side roaring, "Charge!"

The horde swept forward over the bodies of the fallen toward the badger and his ten hares. The hares dropped behind another ten who had been waiting to back them up with bows ready. They fired into the yelling horde as their comrades fitted fresh arrows to their bows and let loose another quick volley. Carried on by the lust for battle, Urthstripe, instead of retreating into the safety of the mountain, flung himself forward into the foe. A burly ferret wielding a pike charged Urthstripe. The badger's spear took him through the chest and lifted him like a rag doll, hurling him into the seething horde. A weasel flung himself on Urthstripe's back and stabbed the big badger between greave and breastplate. Urthstripe slew him with the backward stroke of a huge mailed paw. Three hares were downtwo to spears, one to slingshot.

"I'll try an' get Lord Urthstripe away," Sapwood called out to Oxeye. "Keep the entrance open till we gets back!"

Oxeye coolly notched an arrow to his bow and felled a fox. "Righty ho, but put a move on, Sap. We can't keep up this

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bally performance all day. Dearie me, what a chap has t' do for these badger Lords!"

Sapwoocl dropped his bow and tore out into the melee. Punching, kicking, butting and hooking, he made it to the badger's side.

"Cook sez breakfast's gettin' cold, sir. Hare you comin' in."

An ill-timed thrust from a vermin spear missed Urthstripe but knocked Sapwood senseless on the rebound as his head met the blunt end of the spearbutt. Urthstripe grabbed the hare in one paw and slung him over his shoulder as he fought his way back to the entrance. Suddenly Klitch appeared in front of him, brandishing his short sword. The badger turned as he thrust, taking the blade in his arm. Burdened as he was with Sapwood, the badger Lord stood for a moment glaring at the young weasel. Tearing the sword from his arm, he stood on it and snapped the blade, snarling angrily, "Better luck next time, brat. We'll meet again. Eulaliaaa!"

Urthstripe went hurtling through the melee like a juggernaut. Scattering bodies right and left, he pounded through to the entrance, dropping the unconscious Sapwood into the paws of two waiting hares as he roared out orders.

"Oxeye, get your hares inside. I'll block off the entrance!"

Within seconds the hares had ducked into the passage and Urthstripe threw his weight against a mighty boulder. The stone rolled into place, sealing the mountain from the horde outside. The badger Lord drove a large oak wedge into its base with a mallet.

Oxeye leaned on his bow, watching him. "Not very friendly those chaps, sir. I take it they want to fight us, wot?"

Urthstripe licked blood from his shoulder and grinned at the irrepressible hare. "Good enough, Oxeye you old battler. We'll give them a fight, one that we can talk about in the winters to come, when we're sitting round the fire growing old and lazy."