Iuka Goldpaw watched the trees fly by under her with amazing speed, their red, yellow, and orange leaf tops disappearing in the relentless breeze that blew against everything in the way. The beautiful female weasel patted her companion on the back, her paw vanishing into the warm insulating feathers. The falcon shifted slightly under her weight before dipping down and continuing his journey nearly touching the treetops of Mossflower Woodlands.
His name flew through her head fast as a feather caught on the breeze. Akos. She had raised the peregrine falcon from merely an egg after his mother had been slain by vermin. Clutching the falcon's neck tightly, Iuka rose to her paws, singing a song she remembered from her distant life in the abbey, one that she had been taught by Abbot Spiketail, a descendant of the late Abbot Durral.
'High o'er the hills, far o'er the seas,
Fly with small birds, follow the breeze,
Go with your heart, where would you roam,
Back to the rose-colored stones you call home.
Where faded summers will echo again,
Brown autumn trees, or the spring's gentle rain.
Shadows are falling 'cross woodlands you know,
Rest, weary one, in the warm firelight glow.'
Akos halted his flying to rest on the branch of an elm. Iuka dismounted, hopping to the ground as her falcon partner did the same. Akos clacked his beak, screeching: 'Kreekah! Good music, tall mouse!' Iuka shook her head. The falcon had never quite learned her name, anyway, he was only about three or four years of age.
The weaselmaid nipped a dagger out of her robe, striking it against a rock at a small pile of pine needles she had just created. It sparked after several tries, and burst into flame. Iuka heaped a few branches on it and smoke curled up at the stars. The weasel was quite pleased by the way it rose straight up, meaning no storms or rain was coming.
Akos lay on the soft earth, watching the weaselmaid closely. One piercing golden eye observed her as she took out a sling and called back to him as she walked deep into the woodlands. 'I'll be hunting for our dinner, mate! Be back soon!'
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Ten vermin sat around a small campfire under a pine tree. The obvious leader of the small gang was a hefty, fat stoat called Scarnose, who had a dove on a long pointy stick roasting over the hot flames. The unplucked bird released the rank, dirty stench of burning feathers into the air. A scrawny fox named Scamper was protesting at the smell.
'But Chief, its goin' tae attract otherbeasts out lookin' fer us!'
Scarnose kicked Scamper and continued roasting with a careless grin on his ugly face. 'Aye, an' what beast's goin' to want to look fer us, eh? Stupid fox,' he growled, kicking Scamper again. However, the fox had been right all along. Scarnose wouldn't have been so careless had he known what was watching him.
A massive lizard-type beast that looked rather like a dragon watched all through flat yellow eyes. He was at least seven or eight feet tall, wielding the biggest flail that anybeast in Mossflower had ever seen. His gray scales seemed to absorb the dull light that flashed through the canopy. In one massive burst of speed, the Komodo dragon Drakon Grayscale hit the vermin camp like a thunderbolt.
The flail whirled in a circle and smashed into the head of a wildcat, a reasonably young one. It gave a high pitched yowl, pitched forward, and lay still on the ground, three spike-shaped holes molded into its head, skull, and brain. Blood pooled across the ground, wet, crimson, shining red.
Scarnose thrust Scamper forth into the massive beast's path, and Drakon's paws raked down his chest. The fox screamed piercingly and died with a shudder as a weaselmaid and a young falcon appeared on the scene. Akos took a leap into the air, swooped down and picked up the struggling form of Scarnose. Iuka yelled up to the falcon. 'Don't drop him! I'll deal with him later!'
Then three voices answered at once, that of Akos, Drakon, and Scarnose.
'Kreegah! Tall mouse right!'
'You mean we'll deal with them laterz, foolz!'
'Kill dem, mates!'
The weaselmaid whirled her sling, smashing the rock into the head of an oncoming weasel. Drakon's massive claws stuck through a fox's body and his huge flail took another two lives. Iuka took the scimitar from a vermin body and hurled herself into the fight with a wild roar. 'Redwallll!'
Slaughtering the final few vermin, the weaselmaid lay against the trunk of a tree as her falcon friend lowered himself to the ground, still carrying a squirming Scarnose, who flailed about madly. Iuka smashed Scarnose to the ground, murmuring in his ear silently. ' I give you your life, vermin. Run while you still can!'
Scarnose was gone in an instant.
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