Brian Jacques - Redwall #09 - Salamandastron

"Well, I should 'ope you are!"

"Oh I are."

"Be quiet, d'you 'ear me. Be quiet!"

"Dumble quiet. You de one makin' alia noise, Mista Thugg."

Since dawn King Glagweb had been peering over the edge of the pit, watching Mara intently. The toad guards heaved a massive load of tubers and roots down to the captives. There was even some fruit among ita few apples, some half-ripe hazelnuts and late strawberries. Nordo and his shrews gathered it into the little walicaves, keeping the hazelnuts to one side as sling material.

As Pikkle helped to gather up the food he called to Mara, "You've got a royal admirer there, old gel, wot? I think he fancies you on toast with an apple in your jolly mouth."

Mara shook a paw at the King of toads. "Go away, you fat sloppy swamp-walloper!"

"Kroikl! Silence stripedog, Glagweb is King, Krrk!" Glagweb flung a hazelnut savagely at her. "Not fat or sloppy. I punish you when the time comes. Grrk!"

Mara flung the nut back, scoring a direct hit on Glagweb's nose. "Why not come down here and punish me now if you dare, fathead. Or should I say your royal splodginess!"

Glagweb waddled about the edge of the pit, quivering with rage, his eyes bulging and his throat pulsing wildly.

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"Grrroak! I will eat your heart!"

"Hah!" Mara curled her lip scornfully. "Eat my heart? You couldn't eat mud if it hit you in the mouth. Here!" She flung a pawful of slime. It splattered into the Toadking's open mouth. The creatures in the pit had to scramble for cover as the toad guards hurled pebbles down at them.

Glagweb went into an insane rage, spitting slime as he croaked venomously at the badger maid, "Krrikl! I wait no longer. You have angered me, and soon you will all die. Kroik! I will make your deaths so slow and painful you will plead to be eaten. Grakk!"

After the toads had gone, Mara apologized to the other captives.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper and hastened your deaths, but I couldn't stand that loathsome toad staring at me."

Nordo wiped mud from an apple and bit into it. "What's the difference? We're all going to die anyway. Probably better sooner than laterget it over with."

Pikkle nibbled at a strawberry reflectively. "I don't know whether to stuff m'self and give those toads a good scoff, or bally well starve so they won't have much to chew on. What d'you think, Nordo ol' lad?"

"As I said, Pikklemakes no difference. Once you're dead then that's it, fat or thin."

"Here, what's all this?" Mara put a paw around Nordo's shoulders. "You talk as if the end is inevitable. Where's your famous fighting spirit of the Guosssom?"

Nordo sat down heavily in the mud and slapped his paws in it. "Look at thismud, slime, sludge, everywhere! Trapped in a pit like frogs in a barrel, forced to live in this filth. I can't take it anymore, living like a wriggling swamp insect!" He yelled hoarsely and threw himself at the pit walls, slipping and sliding as he tried to claw his way upward.

A grass noose snaked down without warning and settled over Nordo's shoulders. Suddenly the pit edge was alive with a mob of toads croaking and hopping gleefully as Glagweb waved his trident and bellowed loudly, "Knrrokk! Now we eat 'em, one by one. Gurrrrkk!"

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Pikkle dived forward and grabbed Nordo's footpaws. "Come on, chaps. Don't let the scurvy knaves take him!"

Mara waded forward and seized the rope. Several shrews hurried to help her, and the badger maid called to them, "Pull! Pull with all your might!"

On the topside of the pit toads attached themselves to the rope and hauled frantically.

"Krruuuukk! Heave! If you want food, heave!" Glagweb shouted at them.

The toughened grass rope stretched and squeaked taut as creatures at both ends bent their backs into the tug-of-war.

Two young shrews named Scraggle and Wikk climbed over the heads of the others and began attacking the rope with their bare teeth.

Pikkle smiled grimly. "That's the stuffier give the troops, lads. Bite away!"

Several toads leaned over the edge and prodded with their tridents, but they were driven back with a volley of mudballs from the pit below. Scraggle and Wikk bit furiously into the straining rope, spitting dried grass left and right as their sharp teeth worked on the fibers.

The rope parted with a loud snapl

On top the toads went staggering back and landed in a heap on Glagweb. He thrust at them cruelly with his trident.

"Krrrrekk! Off, fools. Get off the King!"

Mara, Pikkle and Nordo fell back into the pit in a splashing deluge of watery mud. Still clinging to the severed half of the rope, a pile of shrews fell in on top of them. Through the slime and sludge they laughed aloud at their victory.

"We won! We won! Hooray!"

"I say, good show, you chaps. That'll teach old Glag guts, wot?"

An arrow came streaking down and pierced Scraggle's paw. Glagweb appeared at the pit edge with several toad archers.

"Krrrg! Kill! Kill them all!"

Mara felt something hit her between the ears. She clapped a paw to her head and caught the object. From the comer of her eye she caught sight of a wren zooming overhead.

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Holding up the acorn, she roared aloud, "Look, it's the acorn! Eulaliaaaaa!"

Immediately, the battle cries of the Guosssom shrews reached their ears. Nordo dived into a wallcave, avoiding arrows as he threw slings and stones forward, lifting his head in an answering war shout to his father's warriors who were pressing up from the riverbank. "Logalogalogalogalog!''

An arrow zipped between Pikkle's ears as he flung off a rounded stone from his sling. There was a satisfying thud as it caught a toad guard in the throat. Toads were everywhere, swinging their vicious flails and thrusting with tridents. Fierce-eyed Guosssom warriors, their heads bound in bright-colored cloths, leapt to the fray, parrying and riposting with their short fencing rapiers.

"Yahaa, 'sdeath to you, scumback!"

"On guard! One, two, slay!"

Mara and the rest whirled stones upward with as much speed and force as they could muster, dodging arrows and ducking long pike thrusts from the toads on top. King Glag-web turned back and forth, trying to divide his attention between the prisoners in the pit and the advancing Guosssom shrews. The element of surprise was working well. The shrews drove the toad masses backwards mercilessly, pushing them into the flames of their own cooking fires as they did. Log-a-log, the fierce-eyed leader of the shrews, fought like a mad beast, throwing himself onto several toads at a time, regardless of danger. Bleeding from a dozen trident and flail cuts, he fought wildly with tooth and rapier, all the time booming out in his gruff bass voice:

"I'm coming, Nordo my son. Logalogalogalogalog!"

Several shrews had been slain by the toads, but the losses on King Glagweb's side were far heavier. The toads were beginning to lose heart. They still fought on, but they were pushed into retreat by the ferocity of the Guosssom attack.

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Down in the pit there were four dead shrews, but the prisoners never stopped for a moment. The upward hail of stones was so fast and thick that they felled many toads. Mara leapt out of the cave she had been slinging from, heaving and throwing anything that came within reach of her paws. For a second she glimpsed the snarling features of King Glagweb, then he retreated from the edge.

"Mara, he's gettin' away," Pikkle's voice called out to her over the melee. "The tridentsover there!"

Two toad guards had been knocked down into the pit. They lay dead in the deep watery mud, still holding their tridents. Immediately, Mara sensed what Pikkle meant.

Snatching the two tridents, she used them as climbing spikes. Paw over paw, up the side of the pit she went, using the tridents to haul herself up, thrusting them deep into the slippery sides and exerting all of her huge strength she thrust her way up to the top. Flailing with the tridents, she sent two toads hurtling into the pit before she took off after Glagweb.