Disclaimer: I do not own the Redwall series of books, however the alternate universe ideas portrayed here are of my own creation. Some of the dialogue mirrors/comes directly from the book Martin the Warrior. I do not own that book or the quotations taken from it.
Feedback is, as always, welcome.
Five Things That Didn't Happen to Martin of Redwall
1. He was just a little mouse, really. Far too young to be trying to bear his father's sword, or so Windred thought. She'd been following his tracks since noon, traveling north along the furrow the sharp blade tip had drawn in the sand. When she finally spots him chopping wood, she hurries forward to scold him. "Martin! I've been out of my mind with worry! D'you realize you're almost a league from the caves?" She stops then, staring beyond her grandson, frozen. Her worst fear coming to life--vermin. And Luke is not here to protect them this time.
She tries to save Martin, oh how she tries, but he's too brave for his own good, this son of a warrior mouse. "Run Grandma!" he shouts, and his voice is too young to sound so brave.
The vermin surround them, taunt them, but Martin stands strong. She's terrified as the stoat jabs with the spear. "Did he ever tell you about those who could slay with a single spear thrust? Like this… or this?" They're only feints of blows, but the young mouse does his best to parry them anyway, earning the jeers of the group of corsairs. Windred sees the shackles some of the searats carry and her fear diminishes, if only slightly. Slavers. If they're taken to the great red ship, Luke might yet rescue them.
Then the stoat nods, and a weasel runs up from behind Martin. Without any pause he draws back with his pike and runs the young mouse through. Windred cries out as Martin falls, whimpers as the weasel places his footpaw against the corpse to yank his weapon out. Blood stains the sand to a dainty, seashell pink.
"Wh-why?" She whispers, as two searats move to bind and gag her.
"Too feisty. He'd have been trouble one day," the stoat in charge says with a falsely cheerful wink, and then the elderly mouse is half-dragged and half-marched further north.
2. The boat is sinking faster than a stone in a pond, and all their efforts to bail the water out have become pointless when something strikes the ship. Brome's joke falls flat as Rose looks down, only to spot what they fear. There is a fish, a large one, and it's taken an interest in their little boat.
Martin grabs an oar. "This will make a good float, Felldoh. You take this one with Rose and Grumm. Brome and I will share the other. If we get separated, we'll meet at Noonvale."
There's no time for anything else to be said as the water rushes in with one great wave and the rest of the boat finally splinters. The two groups are swept in opposite directions, and despite all efforts to stay together, mountainous waves soon separate them.
Brome eyes the surrounding waves worriedly. "There's no sign of 'em. The waves are too high!"
Martin continues to kick his footpaws, heading for a distant blot on the horizon. "We'll find them at Noonvale, but first we have to reach land."
3. The forces are amassing at Noonvale; otters, mice, hedgehogs, shrews, squirrels, moles. Though they are few, Martin knows they will fight to the death to preserve this peace that they have lived in for so long. He feels prouder by the moment as more and more creatures come forward.
When Rose steps forward, his stomach drops sickeningly. Urran Voh's eyes widen, and he opens his mouth. "I forbid you to go, daughter."
"I want to fight! I have seen the slaves at Marshank--they must have their freedom!" Rose is spirit and fire and ideals, and Martin knows this will only get her killed.
"Daughter, listen to me. The horrors of war are not for one such as you. Try to understand, we are peace-loving creatures. You have never been raised to wield death."
Rose turns to Martin, begging "Please, tell my father the truth! I need to be there!"
Knowing that this may cost him her friendship, Martin exhales heavily. "Do as your father says, Rose."
He turns away from the betrayed look on her face, calling his newly formed army to him and heading toward the ships. When he looks back as the ships pull away, she stands still as stone on the riverbank, with neither well-wishes nor waves of farewell. He wishes he could apologize for the betrayal, but it's for the best.
When he bears the body of Grumm home to Noonvale (to her) he wishes he could apologize for this second betrayal, and he tries to, but the way she looks at him, accusing with eyes of "I could have saved him" makes him wish that he could apologize for her entire life. For all that she is strong, she has always been helpless.
4. Martin, gentle Martin, is possessed by the Bloodwrath. It is obvious to all who have lifted a weapon themselves, the dangerous gleam that enters his eye every so often, there one moment and gone the next. He is a deadly warrior, son of a deadly warrior. The will (the need) to fight roars through his very veins, pumping with every beat of his heart, a tattoo beaten out that sings of seductive, seductive bloodlust to any who can hear it. Martin is a killer, for all that he is a gentle spirit.
And though Rose accepts these things when he tells her them, he feels that she can't really understand him. What would the peace-loving mousemaid know of death? For all that she has aided in his escape and fought through all the dangers they've encountered, she has not yet seen the heat of battle. Will war, he wonders, break her heart? Will he break her heart?
Deep in the fray at Marshank, with both allies and foes dying all around them, Rose leaps in front of Badrang in an attempt to stop his escape. With a sneer the stoat hurls the gentle mousemaid against a wall, certain that escape is near.
Then a roar of rage rips wildly from a throat and Badrang finds himself face to face with whom he most feared to battle.
Their fight is long and tortuous, each wounding the other, yet for all Badrang's trickery Martin is blinded by the Bloodwrath, fighting with the strength and energy of twenty mice. Soon enough, the stoat is no more than another corpse to be trampled on as the battle carries on.
Martin rushes to Rose's side, hoping beyond hope that she still lives. Yet when he reaches her crumpled body, he realizes that her eyes are wide open and trained on him.
The abject terror on her face makes his chest tighten oddly. He regrets that she has to see him like this, covered in blood and bearing a stained weapon, yet he also can't understand why she doesn't see that he lives in battle. He is a warrior, and no matter how deceptively gentle he pretends to be, he cannot deny his heritage.
5. He doesn't speak at all for more than a season after Rose dies.
Though the others try to nurse him back to health, try to encourage mental healing by sharing their own grief, he cries his tears where none can hear him. He feels his strength returning, but tries not to dwell on it, for once he is fit for battle again he will leave.
Rose is gone. The thought flits through his head at odd times, no matter how he tries to beat it out; sometimes during meals when Polleekin's pies smell so delicious after a day of cutting wood and pouring out his emotions to the uncaring trees, other times when the night is too quiet for his liking, or the weather so perfect he can't help but remember her smiles during their journeys. But she's dead, dead like the dreams he'd once entertained of the two of them living in peace at Noonvale. Hindsight gives him the despair of knowing it was an impossible dream to begin with, crushing his spirit with the nightly dreams of whatcouldn'thavebeenbuthecan'tstopwishingitcouldhave.
He starts his sentences with 'if only' and ends them with 'it hadn't happened.' He never says them, but Polleekin is more than a reader of the future. For all that she had warned him, the future is never certain until it is the past, and even then open to interpretation. For all the warnings she could have given, it is possible that the mousemaid's death was unavoidable. By her own stubbornness, she would have reached Marshank with or without Martin's permission.
It is a long time before he begins to accept her death.
Time and care heals his external wounds, and day by day he regains his strength. And one day, it is time. The others are departing for Noonvale, and he senses it is time to leave as well. After a hearty breakfast he hardly tastes, he breaks his silence. "I am leaving today."
Rowanoak looks up from her own repast, startled. "Will you come to Noonvale with us? We will be leaving to go there today."
For them, the place does not carry so many memories of happy times, something he is sure cannot be regained. For them, the place does not bring to mind bright eyes and laughing smiles, and a voice that so often soothed him in troubled times. No, he would not be going to Noonvale.
"I can never return there," with Urran Voh's accusing, anguished eyes, and Aryah's forgiveness; Aryah, who had perhaps understood the ways of the warrior more than her husband, who had recognized the ties that bound Martin and Rose together. Who had understood what might happen to her daughter. Who would forgive him.
It is a forgiveness he so desperately wants, yet cannot accept. He has not yet forgiven himself. He tests the edge of his sword, almost cutting himself on the steel. "I will return to my father's cave, and try to find him."
Rowanoak nods. "You do realize this might take years. He might be dead. He might be anywhere."
"I know. Have no fear, I will never mention Noonvale, or any of you."
"But what will you say?" Pallum asks, shooting a confused glance at the warrior. "We had such adventures together, maybe in another time and another place you will tell the tale."
"Never!" The determination in the warrior's eyes makes him look as he had in the days before the final battle. All those at the table listen carefully, afraid these will be the last words they hear from him, desperate to understand. "How could anybeast understand what he went through together, the freedom we won and the friends we lost?"
"Marthen," Grumm's quiet voice carries as Polleekin rises and bustles out of the small room, laden with dishes. "Oi woant forget you'm. You'm be a gurt brave wurrior."
The loyal mole can't stop the tears and doesn't bother to try, and Martin feels something more than sorrow stir in his heart. Though small, it is a beginning; he lets himself cry as well, and the four friends grieve for the little mousemaid who won their hearts.
The End.