"Death comes to us all sooner or later. We cannot escape it."
― Brian Jacques
Sarobando laughed a final time as she lay on the cliff. It emerged a wheeze. Bragoon's paw tightened around hers.
"This is just how we expected to go, huh, Bragoon? Making trouble til the last."
"We had a good run," Bragoon said. "Are yore whiskers gettin' warmer? It feels like it's brighter already."
The sunny meadows awaited them.
Deep in the dark, quiet innards of Kotir, Verdauga Greeneyes sighed on his bed, surrounded by his children.
"A king is passing." His eyelids stayed half lowered over his green eyes.
"Yes, father, we're aware," Tsarmina said, unable to keep bite out of her voice as she retrieved a glass of water. Gingivere hesitated. He reached out and touched his father's hand.
"...father?"
The other king did not speak again.
Never again.
Grath sat on the beach, tying carved arrowheads to her arrows. A pile of unmade ones lay next to her on the pebbly shore. Her body ached. The land behind her was silent. Her fingers bled as the rough twine bit them, and drops of blood plopped onto the bright pebbles, but she continued.
Never again.
The village behind her was a grave. Glinc and Sitch didn't know she was out. She hadn't told them. An uncarved yew branch lay next to her. The sea spread before her. The moon glowed like a distant pearl. Every falling drop of blood was a promise.
Never again.
"No more eggchicks in Redwalls?"
"No more eggchicks." The grey Sparra clicked his beak sadly.
His sister sighed. She fluttered to join him on the Redwall attic window, and her thin legs twinged as she perched. The two sat together. Outside, Redwall Abbey remained bright against the blue sky, and novices crossed the lawn in green habits. Her son, a small puff on wings, chirped and teased the laughing abbeybeasts below.
"He going to be so alone," she said. Long abandoned nests filled the attic behind them. Dust settled on the shells of long-hatched eggs.
"Not yet," her brother said. He leaned on her.
"BRYONY!"
Veil slammed into her and threw her out of the way. An instant later, a spear sank into him. He gasped as his vision swam and a big part of him broke. He hit the ground. Before the world turned upside down, he saw Bryony's horrified face. Pain tunneled up his chest.
I didn't want to go like this.
"Anyway," Kroova continued, sitting on the grass and setting the other bowl of hotroot soup beside him, "I barely managed to wiggle away from Freedom with a bowl for you, since he and Tassel were out t' get me. She's Sleeve's daughter, that one. Sleeve keeps tellin' me the troublemaking part is mine, but that's a flat fib. You can vouch for how honest I am, can't ye, matey?"
He smiled at Shogg's grave. A cropped bundle of flowers lay on it.
Kroova laughed and covered his face with a paw. "You could always see right through me, couldn't ye?"
Tears ran down his face as he bit his lip.
"Hellgates, I miss you."
The shores around Salamanstron were pitch black at night. Stars sugared the sky, gems far out of reach, and the great mountain slept. The waves sent a crab or two skittering away from piles of seaweed. No hares were awake to see the limping form of a fox stand at the shoreline.
He leaned on a walking stick to rest his hindered legs. His ragged clothes waved around him in the beach wind.
"It's been ten seasons since you died and I've been free." Groddil looked out at the ocean. The tide was up already. He didn't need to wait for it to rise.
Groddil spat into the sea foam.
"Rot."
"M'am, if you sing in the infirmary again, we'll have to ask you to leave, wot, it's intolerable to the wounded, and the place is bally crowded-"
"I'll give you intolerable to the wounded," Dotti snapped, and the younger hare shrank. "I outboxed Bucko Bigbones himself, wot, don't think I can't box your ears!"
She shoved her way through the crowd and sat next to the bed in the middle. She sighed as she set her aging harecordian aside, a contraption as old and creaking as she was.
"Honestly, sah, what have I told you?" She patted Lord Brocktree's greying paw. "Don't go where I can't follow. It's downright rude to a lady, it is."
Brocktree, his eyes closed, chuckled.
"I can still outrun you." Tullgrew spoke when she caught her breath. Keyla shook his head, winded.
"I still-whew-beat you out here by a mile-you-wheeze-didn't stand a chance."
Tullgrew snickered at him, but she patted his back until he caught his breath. The two walked to their destination together.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Keyla said. He cleared away the ivy vines, and Tullgrew put her hands on her hips.
"You three are a mess," she said. "What mischief have you been up to while we're gone?"
Hillgorse, Felldoh, and Barkjon, their aligned graves buried beneath posies and ivy vines, mischievously kept their silence.
"Me ole luverly, this seems like a good place ta stop, doesn't it?"
"It sounds like a plan ta me, Flinky."
The two aging stoats stopped on the patch of clovers. They sat carefully, and leaned on each other for balance. One they were situated, Crinktail sighed in contentment.
"Tis far quieter out 'ere. Nice to be away from the rabble." She leaned her head on Flinky's shoulder. He lay his head on top of hers.
"Crinky?"
"Mm?" Flinky's paws threaded with hers.
"You remember what 'appened at Redwall?"
"How could I not?" She nosed into his patchy fur. "But t'was a long time ago, that. So many things an' beasts we knew were."
"Still worth tellin' a story or two about."
"Then put yore silver tongue ta use and tell me one."
He held her paws in the breezy clovers, and he did.
Storm lashed the boat, it groaned and thrashed, and the chained slaves aboard screamed. Rangavar caught her balance on the slick deck.
"Fight me if you can, vermin!" She chattered her teeth and lunged after the next group of slavers. Ahead, in the blinding rain, Luke crushed Vilu to the wheel, and the ship barreled towards the rocks.
Nothing but rage coursed through Rangavar. She bit, clawed, kicked, and punched even as the slavers overwhelmed her and the ship crashed into the rocks, and the ocean swallowed them all.
Rangavar's anger kept her warm as the cold water pulled them down.
The slavers took everything from her. The world took everything. But they couldn't take this.
"Arven? Are you alright?"
"Hmm? Yes, I am." Arven stared out the window from his infirmary bed. The squirrel absently tucked his covers closer. "Thank you for your concern, though."
Tansy hesitated before she closed the door and disappeared. After the door closed, Arven remained in silence. A cold spring breeze blew into the room. The blossoming limb outside the open window still had a clump of snow on it. Several floors below him, the abbey and its warm inhabitants hummed.
It took a while for Arven to register it while he lay in the bed-was that Tansy he'd seen?-but Arven found he didn't mind. He was so young, and the abbot robe on him and champion status were so new, but his body felt as fragile as the icicles in the thawing spring outside.
As another breeze and sharp birdsong began outside, Arven closed his eyes.
Lantur threw her poleaxe down, and Ascrod flinched. She hated the look of amusement on Mokkan's face, and the disdainful smile on Ziral's. Predak, Gelltor, and Vannan hung back.
"Mokkan, leave her be," Vannan said. "She'll be so loud she upsets mother."
"You know it to be true," Mokkan said. "Either none of us die, or all but one of us do. Mayhaps my little sister is so upset because she has no partner but father to watch her? What a petty ghost you'll make."
"You shut up," Lantar hissed. Angry tears rose in her eyes, and she hated the blurry view of her siblings.
She would rather outlive them all, and celebrate the hideous silence, than deal with the bitter knowledge in her bones that she'd died with them.
He knew how to handle needles, daggers, and glares. Noonvale was a peaceful place. Not a quiet one. Brome was everyone's older brother, younger one, confident, and the town hen. He knew how much love meant. He treasured every laugh and well-meaning slight.
Still, the house was always quiet this time of year. Brome handled all subtle condolences and tucked them and the food away into the cottage.
And still, she knew how to catch him off guard.
Brome started when the rose pricked him. A hidden thorn sent blood running down his thumb. He blinked before he smiled.
"Nice to see you're still here," he said.
He held the rose until he had to wipe the tears from his face.
The list never changed: first, he carved a boat, because the shrew children always argued and broke theirs, and then a chair, because everyone needed a good chair, a sewing spool, two bowls, three little grasshopper toys that ran on strings and whirred, two spoon and fork sets, a ball-and-cup toy, and two small chests perfect for hiding little treasures in.
Maybe sometimes he helped the holt work on a boat, or made a table for an old lady or the abbey, but overall, the list didn't change. Blaggut knew what his customers wanted.
And every day, when it grew too dark to work, he settled into his cottage and brushed the wood shavings from his scarred hands and rested in the chair he'd made himself. Everyone in Redwall always insisted he move in with them-it's lonely out there, they said. You're fifty seasons old, Blaggut, why don't you come home?
Blaggut opened his own little treasure chest and looked at the pile of acorns, pins, shiny pebbles, and thank you notes written by dibbuns that he couldn't read, all things he'd gathered over the seasons.
He didn't feel lonely or away from home at all.
"Rab. Rab, sit down."
"No."
Iris grabbed his arm and his jaw with her other paw. "Rab Streambattle, you listen to me."
Rab stopped. His chest heaved slightly, and Iris sighed at the look on his face. She released his jaw. He stayed looking at her.
"Rab, this isn't something you can fight." He had a spear anyway. She was grateful for the blanket he'd brought her, and she rested on it again.
"I don't want you to do this alone." Rab held her paw to his face, and Iris let him. She ran her thumb across one of his many scars. "I've almost died before. It wasn't pleasant, Iris, there was no Dark Forest, no field with any of my friends, no mist or light-it was dark and painful and there wasn't an end. I don't want you to head there."
"You weren't ready to go," Iris said. She moved her paw up his cheek, and Rab's palm hovered atop her fingers, letting her do it. "This is different. I'm out of time, and t'isn't a bad thing." She smiled sadly at Rab. Even now he looked stubborn, and not ready to surrender without a fight. That was her Rab, alright. "We all do this alone. Even if you die next to someone, you don't really die together. But that's a part of this whole living challenge."
"I'm not ready for you to go." Rab pressed her paw to his muzzle and closed his eyes. Iris gently tapped him on the nose.
"You'll meet me there later."
They took Lugg from her and she hated it.
Every time she saw Zwilt the Shade, broken grass and anger stabbed her heart, and every time she walked forth to serve him, it was like walking on sharpened oyster shells. After Lugg had died, Zwilt took an hour. Then a day. Then a week. All time she could've had with her mate, and lost, because Zwilt thought sending Lugg to kill the eel was amusing.
Gliv ran over every moment Zwilt had stolen from them in her mind. Not only bigger events in their lives, but smaller ones, too-walking together back to camp, or handing each other their spears. She counted each one that had happened and would never happen again, or ones that could've happened again if Lugg had lived.
And every following day, as the time Zwilt had stolen grew bigger, Gliv swallowed the anger and grief and the feeling of walking on blades and held it in her while she bowed and looked him in the eye.
She would steal all the time from him.
The instant Rillflag saw Deyna, he knew he was perfect. Filorn was beautiful, and baby Mhera was perfect too, and Rillflag couldn't believe he had them and the sun and stars and fate shining on him. No hole marred his world.
In the seconds when he had Deyna in his arms and the stream around his ankles, and when Vallog stepped out of the trees and fired his arrow, Rillflag realized something.
He himself was it. He was the hole.
Joseph the Bellmaker studied the new bell one last time before he wrapped it in canvas and gave it to its new owner. The sea otter in front of him shook in excitement.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm in your debt. I don't have anything t' pay you besides any treasure I find in the future and what I've got in my pockets."
"It's fine," Joseph said. He patted the bell, and The Finnbarr-silver, hard, and sturdy-glowed beneath its canvas wrap. "Be sure to tell me what adventures you run across in your new boat. That's all I ask of you for payment."
The otter grinned, wide and daring, and Joseph saw Finnbarr in it as though he'd never died.
"You got it."
"GONFF! Columbine! Bella, Skipper, someone!"
Chibb flew for help, and Martin stared at the sky.
Redwall's lawn was lush under his back. The clouds floating above the abbey drifted by, and the sandstone walls almost rose to touch them. They were beautiful, Martin thought.
He remained on the ground as he heard shouting approach and watched the clouds pass. His breath grew louder in his chest.
Redwall was so big, he thought, and he'd seen so many big worlds before it-the hard northlands, searing cold and scars into him, a distant fortress, chains and soft touches around his wrists, the halls of Kotir, all the forests and oceans in between, Luke's boat in the cliffs, Salamandastron's burning forge, the warm meadows of a place he'd known once, and all the hundreds of faces that filled the space in his life, even if he couldn't remember them all.
One misty place drew him.
You can rest now.
The yelling faded, even though Martin knew it drew closer. He closed his eyes. With the grass beneath him, he remembered the thousand things he'd done, from forging a sword to holding a friend's hand.
Welcome home, Martin.
Their voices spoke to him from the mist. Mask, Timballisto, Sanya, Dinny; Rose, Felldoh, Brome, Keyla, Tullgrew, Barkjon, and so many people he'd lost in between. For once, letting go didn't hurt.
And the world stopped.