Chapter 1

The late morning sun shone brilliantly down on the forest of Mossflower occasionally fading as fluffy clouds scudded across the bright blue sky. Birds flitted hither and thither in their excitement, exclaiming it loudly through their chirrups and whistles. Spring bustled on the earth in sweet existence as it revived the earth and its citizens.

Adrin Gair enjoyed this side of nature as she delicately picked up a fresh, green leaf on the ground and tilted the dew into her open mouth. Smacking her lips joyfully as she sucked the water, she then dropped the leaf at the base of a tree and darted off onto the makeshift path in the middle of the forest. She whooped loudly and then threw her head back and howled then burst into the clearing where her house resided. Caught in the throws of her imagination and young age, the mousemaid continued sprinting on the grass gleefully, pretending she was being chased by a specter. Or her mother.

"Adrin! Young lady, you will get in here this instant and help me with the cleaning," Adrin's mother's voice carried to her through an open window and Adrin groaned. The last thing she wanted was to be cooped up in a house wiping away dust bunnies on such a glorious day. Deciding to play dumb Adrin snuck up to the house and sat down beneath a window hoping to possibly hide from her mother if she peeked out of it.

Adrin was a white mouse with spotless fur which was combed to pristine flatness. Her black eyes contrasted sharply with her white fur, but they were warm and currently crinkled into a smile as she tried to fool her mother.

"Adrin, you should get in there and help your mother. It's only the right thing." The voice caused the mouse to jump and she turned to see a much older male mouse standing next to her smoking a pipe. When she noticed him he too sat down beside her and ruffled her head fur. Adrin balefully shook her head and ducked away from his paw frowning at him. If he was going to make her step in there…

She smirked though as he scrunched his head lower at the sound of his wife's voice calling out to them, "Adrin! Didn't I tell you to get in here? Honey, could you also help me? I need you to move this cabinet in here." Adrin silently laughed as her father gave her a stern look and motioned for her to keep quiet.

Her father, Abram Gair, was a brown harvest mouse recently returned from their crop of wheat. He was a few inches short of the average height, but his shoulders were big and his arms were toned with hard muscles from working. And at that moment Adrin's mother poked her head out the window they were currently hiding under. Her mother, Marianna was also a white mouse with equally sleek fur and she surveyed the yard primly with her lips pursed as she tried to find the two culprits ducking out on work.

Adrin stuffed a fist into her mouth and struggled to stifle her mischievous giggles while her father stiffened where he was and dared not to move. How could she not see the pair of them? But her mother didn't since the white mouse pulled her head back inside her house with an exasperated sigh. "Where are those two?"

Father and daughter silently congratulated each other on managing to keep out of Marinna's view then both started sneaking their way to the other side of the house to slip off down the path, which ran in front of the cottage. Soon they were out of sight from the windows and they both erupted into laughter. Clutching her sides Adrin grinned up at her father, "Thanks for not making me go work for mama, papa. I didn't want to dust."

Abram patted her head fondly, "Well, it was either give us both up or get away and I'd prefer not to work either." Adrin broke out into more peals of laughter, clutching her ribs. Her father only grinned sheepishly at the notion of his rather childish behavior.

The laughter was cut short, though, when Adrin's brother, Lee, came barreling down the lane with a look of fright on his face. Abram turned to his son and reached out for his paw after he'd tripped over his footpaws. As he pulled him up he inquired "What's wrong, son?"

Gasping for breath, the younger mouse told him, "Father, I was just playing by the fields when I saw these creatures coming up the road. They were vermin and led by some other creature I don't know. I didn't like the look of them at all, either, so I ran back here to warn you—they're coming this way!"

Abram nodded; grasping his son's paw and then bodily hauled Adrin off the ground he began running back to their own home, the imminent thought they'd be put to work flung from their minds in the possible urgency of the situation. Vermin were not to be taken lightly.

Marianna ran out to meet them ready to give them a piece of her mind until she saw the look on her husband's face. She softened slightly and asked, "What's wrong now?"

"Lee saw vermin coming this way. Come on, we must hide. Barricade the doors and windows. I'm not taking any chances with such a group," Adrin's father said and stepped around his wife to put their children in the house. When Marianna opened her mouth to protest he turned back to glare at her—to emphasize his words and added, "Don't argue with me just go!"

Nodding briskly she took Adrin from her father and carried her in the house. While her son and husband barricaded themselves in their house Marianna went over to a cupboard and cleared the items out of it to put them in a corner of the kitchen. Then she bent down to stick Adrin in there.

The last thing the fearful mousemaid saw was her mother's ashen, frightened face staring at her with mustered courage and then heard her mother's last words, "Whatever happens stay here until your father and I come to get you. Do not come out if you hear our voices calling you." Adrin nodded then was plunged into darkness as her mother closed the cupboard.

For a long time Adrin sat there, only daring to breathe as the cupboard grew hotter and hotter from the overuse of the air inside, but she hardly dared to open the door a crack to get more air. Then the sounds started. She heard a violent pounding on the door then the horrid sound of wood splintering as the door groaned beneath the onslaught. Abram yelped in terror and anger then she heard another soft pounding—though she did not know it, her father had applied his strength to the door's resistance.

It didn't stand. With a sharp crack the wood broke and the door shrieked as the splinter worked its way across and up the door under the constantly applied pressure. Abram cried out in pain as he stepped back and the door broke without his weight to keep it in place.

The skirmish for her family's lives was quick. Adrin's father, Abram, took several arrows in the chest after the door burst ending his life fairly quickly and sealing the fates of his wife and son. Lee was the next to be removed of his life. The young mouse had turned to run when a creature leapt through the open doorway and plunged his sword into his back. Her brother screamed his death song, the sound reverberating through Adrin's head. She would never forget the horrible sound that would reside in her dreams for the rest of her own days.

Adrin's mother was last to die and she shrieked shrilly until it was abruptly cut off from a quick slash to her throat. Marianna was dead before her body came to rest on the ground. For a moment there was a chilling silence, and then the young mousemaid could hear the creatures which attacked her family roaming around her house, breaking all manner of objects as they searched the house.

Her blood froze in her veins as she heard them enter the kitchen where she was hidden, violently slamming cupboard doors as they searched for sustenance. She listened to their progress intently as they opened cabinets, one after another, coming closer and closer to her own.

The mousemaid's mouth opened in horror and she instinctively scrambled to get away from the horrible leering face of a weasel, which poked into her cupboard. His eyes lit up and then laughed as Adrin struggled to get away into the other side of the cabinet, though she knew the door would still open over there. She had to get away from that killer face!

"Well, well, well, wot do we 'ave 'ere. Looks like a prime mouselet to me. 'ey boss! Come 'ave a look at this," The weasel exclaimed as he reached in to grab her. Adrin hissed and lashed out with her claws to leave three, long, red marks on his paw. He jumped back with a curse and growled deep in his throat.

Adrin almost cheered in triumph when the other cupboard door open and the next think she knew she was being dangled by her tail in front of a creature that looked like an overgrown rat! It was a muskrat, which towered over all his comrades and he grinned nastily, showing his sharp teeth to the mousemaid.

"Well, looks like that family had one more to it as well. We should make sure that she gets to her family. After all, families are supposed to stick together. The muskrat's weasel underling looked up from the pain in his paw to begin sniggering and nodded his head.

"Aye, chief. Families should allays stick tergether. So lets stick 'er with me knife then they'll live 'appily. 'appily in thur Dark Forest. Hahaharr," The weasel replied to the muskrats comments, slowly unsheathing a knife holstered at his belt. Adrin's black eyes widened and her mouth opened to release ear-splitting shrieks and began fighting the muskrat and weasel. Her wild flailing saved her as the muskrat suddenly dropped her and she scrambled out of his reach to hide.

"Ouch! Why that little wench! I'll kill her yet," The muskrat snarled and pulled his sword loose—the sword which had knifed Lee in the back. A tight-lipped female stoat came to Adrin's rescue as she walked into the room, slightly ashen and stood in the doorway. "Chief, that wildcat will be here soon. We need to move now."

The muskrat growled in frustration as he swept his head around to search for the mousemaid. He finally shook his head and shouted aloft, "Move out! Grab what you can and bail! The wildcat's coming!"

From her hiding spot Adrin could hear the panicked scramble to grab items out of her house as the brigands vacated with alarming speed. In just a few seconds the house was utterly silent, only the wind blowing a loose shudder against the house. Adrin cautiously skirted the cabinet she had taken refuge behind and peered around at her surroundings.

What had once been a beautiful, immaculate home was now a dump. Several walls had been torn wide open, revealing glimpses of other rooms and furniture everywhere was overturned, broken, or crooked. The cabinets in the kitchen had been gutted, their contents spilled across the tile floor. All this Adrin saw and trembled over. Then she stumbled over to the cupboard she'd been hiding and climbed into it, shutting the door behind to sob for her family.