Prologue

"Our lord wants to see you."

Eefga put down his whittling knife with a click. The weasel looked to the entrance of his tent, where a tall ferret in heavy armor stood, holding the flap open. The light of the torches behind her flickered over her armor, turning the steel a warm orange color. "One moment, Chaff," he said.

He moved the half-assembled model trebuchet he had been working on to the side, and folded the blueprints beneath it. Eefga considered taking the carrying case, but no, he'd hardly need it for such a short walk, and it was awkward to hold to boot. He slid his glasses off of the bridge of his nose and tucked them into the front pocket of his vest.

"Ready," he said to Chaff, already stepping forward to duck past her, blueprints in hand.

Myrne the Lean was waiting.

They made their way through the crowd of tents. Almost everybeast stepped aside for Eefga upon seeing his face, and a couple of well-placed prods with the blunt end of Chaff's spear took care of the disrespectful or unwary.

It was nearly dusk, and the camp was alive with the sounds of soldiers preparing their evening meal and the grumbling of the night shift as they took their positions. Eefga could smell fish in the air - clearly their position here, on the shores of Lake Gingivere in the north of Mossflower, had been fruitful. He had made sure to carefully consider the supply chain before narrowing down the list of the places they could make camp, though right now, his only thoughts were for their lumber operations on the far side of the lake.

As they approached the center of the camp, the tents became larger. This was where the armories were kept, and where many of the officers slept. Eefga preferred the shore, where he was only a quick boat ride away from personally supervising the lumber camps. It was best for discipline and work ethic, he found, if his lieutenants never knew quite when he would stop by and talk to them.

They passed one small armory that Eefga knew contained only spears and armor for Myrne's personal guard, and stopped at a tent with a heavily embroidered entrance.

Eefga had been there, the day one of the vixens in the camp presented the tent to Myrne. She had sewn it, yes, but he had been the one to give her the specifications, detailing the exact thickness and material the tent needed to be in order to be both fireproof and impervious to javelins. He had drawn the plans with built-in curtains to allow Myrne to divide the tent as he pleased. He had carefully constructed the poles to collapse to the smallest volume possible. He had been there, heart pounding, as Myrne, his fellow weasel, ran his hands over the embroidery and praised the vixen for her work.

And he had been there that night, when Myrne had given Eefga his thanks.

He felt a shiver run up his spine, and dismissed the memory. "Myrne?" he said, pushing open the tent flap. He stood in the entranceway. "You called for me?"

"Eefga!" Myrne exclaimed, looking up from the letter he was writing. "Do come in." His gaze fell on Chaff, and he dismissed her with a flick of his wrist. "Stay outside."

"Milord," she acknowledged, and closed the tent.

Eefga gave a short bow to Myrne, a more casual greeting than most officers would have dared. "I have the blueprints."

"I can see." Myrne sounded amused. He leaned over his desk, quill forgotten and pushed to the side. "Did you bring the model? I do so love your models."

"It's not finished yet," Eefga admitted. "But the full-scale versions of the earlier models are proceeding to plan."

"Excellent," Myrne sighed. "I can't wait to see them in action. Outside of the Far North, siege engines have been depressingly theoretical."

"They've found some use over the years."

"But nothing like your designs!" Myrne pointed to Eefga, a grin starting to spread over his features. "With your engineering prowess, nothing can stand in our way!"

"Well, yes," Eefga said, preening a little. "But we must consider our supply chain, and the terrain for the siege-train."

"Already done, and you've triple-checked them yourself," Myrne said, waving a paw dismissively. "Honestly, Eefga, sometimes I wonder if you really want to see your inventions put to use."

"It's not that!" Eefga said quickly. His heart dropped at the idea that Myrne, however jokingly, could doubt his loyalty. He held up his paws. "It's just - it has to be right. Theoretically, it's sound, and the test runs have been everything I've dreamed of, but I still worry."

Myrne's eyes softened. He reached a paw across the desk soothingly. "I understand. But they will work. They're perfect. No, better than perfect. Sublime."

Eefga calmed. He stepped forward, close enough to the desk to rest his paw on Myrne's. "The lumber operation should produce enough to build two more machines before I move out, and six in total before the whole horde leaves. That's not counting increased production as we pull more slaves from the wood."

Myrne frowned. "We'll have to move quickly. We don't want reinforcements from Salamandastron arriving before we do, or worse, pinning us in after we've arrived. Are you absolutely positive you don't want slaves working on the engines themselves?"

"Yes, the shape of the parts must be precise. I don't trust anything but loyal hands on my machines."

"Well then. I'm already putting all my trust in you, relying so heavily on these new machines. How you build them is your responsibility."

"I know," Eefga said. "I will do my best by you." He knelt before Myrne, and pressed a kiss to his paw.

Eefga supervised as slaves pulled his wheeled trebuchets from the shore they had been built on.

The two trebuchets Eefga had promised Myrne were operational, in addition to the four that had already been built. All of them had been tested by beasts he had trained himself, and all were fully ready to throw incendiaries over the walls of Redwall Abbey. That was, of course, a last resort. They would try the battering ram first. They wanted the Abbey as intact as possible - its long history had proved it was easily defensible, and it would be a vital foothold in the push south and west.

Eefga heard footsteps behind him, and turned. He saw Myrne, with Chaff and another ferret - he thought her name was Grist - trailing behind him.

"I came to see you off," Myrne said, stopping about a pace away from him. He had his crossbow with him, as he always did outside the tent. Eefga had built that for him, too. Another labor of love.

"I'm glad."

"I can't wait to follow you," Myrne said. He took Eefga's paw. "I want to see the woodlanders dead and burnt before you."

"The ideal is to have them live and working for me. They're no use dead. As slaves, though? They'd have potential. The children might even be young enough to be properly trained."

Myrne chuckled. "Always a pragmatist, my dearest engineer. You'll command the initial push wonderfully, I'm sure."

Eefga felt himself smile. "We'll have Redwall soon," he said. "And then Salamandastron, once we can starve them out."

They embraced. It would be beautiful.