Peace
He found it strange. Unusual. The solitude in the forest seemed at odds with the way he felt at that moment. The clamouring cries of the wounded and the soon to be dead echoed through his head. Shut up! No matter how much he yelled those words the screams dogged him. Through the weeks after the battle, until at last it had chased him in to the forest of stories. The forest of quiet. Matthias sat on a log staring at the trees around him. Dappled sunlight on the ground along with the golden motes of dust gave the feeling of a land removed from reality. How he wished his reality were but another horrible dream. One he would wake up from. He had a wife now. It was more than he could have wished for. It was also more than he felt he deserved. Having a wife meant that life would go back to normal.
The normality of playing with the young ones and eating and enjoying the many feasts to come. The summers and winters in which a legendary sword would have no purpose other than, perhaps, levering the stuck wheel of a cart. Matthias looked about the forest and realised that he would sell his life for that stillness that harboured not the insidious presence of an approaching evil, but of peace and the hope for the future of calm and safety. Of days without sorrow and fear. Perhaps the sword would not be needed in the future, but he knew that should trouble come once again to Mossflower Wood, the spirit of Redwall, once embodied by Martin, and now him, would rise to the challenge. A warrior to stand against the darkness. A sentinel for peace.
He got up off the log and walked to wards St Ninian's Church. As he passed it he thought of the heroes of bygone ages. The badger lords of Salamandastron. He knew that badgers were perilous creature. Constance showed that. But a Badger Lord, whose duty it was to safeguard the lands; how did they bear their heavy burden, as he now did? Did they feel the despair he did? The sense of hopelessness? They surely must. But while they and he felt it, were aware of their task, peace would reign over the whispering boughs of Mossflower and Redwall.