Thirty Seasons Later : Book One: The War Torn Tundra
AN: Hello everybeast! A while ago I was reading Highwing's The Shrew War: The Thunder and the Fire and I read the part where Lieutenant Perricone of the Gawtrybe questions whether the war between Badger Lords and searats will ever truly end and what the war would look like with the increasing violence both parties will continue to bring to bear on the other. This story begins some thirty seasons after the death of Lord Urthblood. I hope you enjoy it, please read and review.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the world, characters, events, or locations of Redwall, Brian Jacques does (God rest his soul). I also do not own the characters, events, or official story line of The Urthblood Saga, I have asked Highwing for permission to use his work as an inspiration for this story and he has given it, but this is not the official continuation of his work and he still owns The Urthblood Saga.
Chapter One: Bloodfrost
"Only the dead have seen the end of war"- Plato
The whistle of arrows shrieked through the cloudy, lightly snowing sky. The fierce, harsh melody of war created by the crash of weapon on weapon and armor, the squelch of weapons finding their marks, and the shouts and war cries of those still living. Last, but not least, it was made by the agonized screaming, groaning cries of those casualties not yet dead. Ah casualties! The frostbitten earth of the Lands of Ice and Snow was littered with their mangled remains. The corpses of wolves, weasels, otters, mice, stoats, rats, shrews, hedgehogs, foxes, ferrets, voles, mountain hares, wildcats, wolverines, squirrels, ratels, and mongooses lay splayed against one another. The blood leaked from their various wounds, mingling with the blood of friend and foe and staining the frozen ground red, turning the churned up earth into freezing, bloody mud. Above, the scavengers of the air: crows, ravens, and magpies wheeled and cawed hungrily. But despite their hunger, they dared not land. They continued to wait and caw, each eagerly awaiting the end of the brutal contest.
"I wonder what time it is?" The only leopard on the killing fields thought absentmindedly as he traded blows with an axe wielding wolverine. The leopard was black-furred, and slightly smaller than most of its kind. He had dark green eyes and the lean, lithe, muscular form typical of fighting beasts that used styles of combat based upon strength, precision, agility, and leverage. With scars tracing the fur all over his body he had, the look of a beast that had been at war for most of his life. The dark eyed feline was twenty seasons old Jethro Mortspear, a mercenary from a continent to the far southwest.
To the Lands of Ice and Snow the black leopard brought with him from across the seas a band of one hundred of his warriors: mongooses, desert foxes, and ratels. All were armed to the teeth, fully armored, and woefully unprepared for the northern cold. Eventually they were rescued from the harsh winds and freezing blizzards by a wolf pack. The lupine kingdom they served then decided to employ the leopard and his warriors in an invasion of the neighboring wolverine-controlled territory so as to take the evergreen forest and mountains for themselves, which left the Mortspear captain exchanging blows with his axe-swinging opponent.
The leopard gritted his teeth as he caught a particularly strong blow on his shield. The blow knocked him back a few inches, but the leopard rolled with the hit to the outside of the wolverine's swinging gauntleted paw. The enemy had finally over extended, and now he would pay with his life. Jethro stabbed his spear into the juncture between vambrace and upper arm guard through the wolverine's elbow with a back pawed thrust, rendering the paw useless. The wolverine howled in pain as he dropped the axe and grabbed at his elbow, the forearm dangling by a bit of skin and fur as Jethro tore loose his spear. The enemy warrior had only one or two seconds to lament his arm, however, as Jethro swiftly spun his spear around to the normal position and gored his opponent through the flesh where neck meets chin. He jerked his spear out and let the wolverine collapse as a geyser of blood spewed forth from the wound. Jethro quickly glanced around the battlefield to see where an extra warrior might be needed most. His calculating eyes soon found a knot of struggling warriors desperately hacking, stabbing, and slashing at each other. He speedily began to move toward the rival squads only to be stopped in his tracks by a flash of white fur as an opposing ermine leapt at his face with dirk flashing. Momentarily startled, the soldier-of-fortune took a staggering step backwards as he snapped the shield up to protect his face from the strike and jerked his spear forward in a reflexive jab. The spear blade pierced the ermine's chest and came out his back. The foe slid off his spear, an expression of shock stamped upon his face. Jethro shook his head to clear it as he continued his steady lope towards his beleaguered allies. Still a fair distance away, the black leopard flipped the spear around backwards and slowed his gait just long enough to raise his arm, aim, and throw the spear before drawing his long, curved, single-edged sword. Jethro quickened his pace to a run as he drew closer to the melee.
The spear slammed into the chest of an enemy fox, piercing through the two layers of chain mail as if the armor wasn't even there. Twenty seconds later, the leopard smashed into the flank of the enemy force, the first swing of his sword decapitating a ferret and cutting a rat's throat in a single smooth, downward stroke. Twisting, he blocked a mace on his shield and brought the sword back up with a jab. The sword rammed into the chin of a young, snarling wolverine and protruded up from just above and between its eyes like some monstrous unicorn. Tearing out his sword, he turned, bashing a weasel's face with his shield and breaking its nose as he split open the head of his mace-bearing rat attacker with a stoke of his slim, black blade.
His allies now had all the breathing room they needed, and they leapt back into the fray with a will, shouting war cries as they went on the offensive. The foxes and hedgehogs hacked with their axes and machetes. The otters and mongooses stabbed and jabbed with their javelins and spears. With Jethro spearheading the assault, the formerly imperiled soldiers pressed forward and crushed their rivals. The sword-for-hire soon found himself fighting side by side with a mountain hare armed with a scimitar in one paw and a flanged mace in the other. "Bet you chaps never signed up fer this!" Mortspear yelled jokingly to the hare as he slammed a weasel in the chest with the rim of his shield, breaking the mustlide's sternum and capitalizing upon the ineffectiveness of chain mail against blunt force trauma.
"You must be jestin' ol' lad! We've been dyin' to teach these boundahs a lesson or two for seasons, wot! EULALIAAAAA! " The hare replied, blocking a strike from a mattock with his scimitar as he snapped the offending rat's left knee with a single well-placed kick. The rat shrieked with pain as his leg gave way under the blow, but only a half-second later the razor-sharp edges and bone shattering force of the flanged mace put him out of his misery with a blow to the side of the head. The rat's face was torn half-way off by the unforgiving weapon.
"Good hit! Good hit!" The leopard laughed fiercely at his comrade's victory as he decapitated a stoat with an almost casual swipe of his sword. A lull in the battle occurred as one of the northern wildcats finished off the last of the opposing platoon, and Jethro took the opportunity to extend his paw toward the hare, switching the sword to his left paw "Jethro Mortspear, Captain of the Freelancer mercenaries. You are?"
The hare shook his gauntleted paw warmly. "I'm Corporal Smith Jaggs, hundred-and-eighty-first division of the Northern Long Patrols. Never thought I'd say this to a merc, but it's good to meet you. You pulled our chestnuts out o' the fire just in time."
"I'm glad to 'ave been able to. Now if you'll excuse me I 'ave a paycheck to earn." The leopard said with a grin and a nod. The Mortspear Captain rallied his troops with a shout and a wave of his sword and dashed off towards another group of fighting beasts who, although did not need any help in holding their own against the blood-crazed wolverines, were evenly matched against their foes and sudden reinforcements on either side would quickly tip the scales and decide the outcome. The seven mercenaries (eight counting the southern feline) charged towards the embattled wolves and wildcats, silent as the snow and just as bloodstained.
Avek, a twenty-four-seasons old mongoose sergeant armed with a short sword (which in truth was the snapped off head of a glave), snatched one of the twelve throwing knives from one of the two bandoliers he wore across his chest and threw it, whipping the knife through the air as fast as he could. The knife flashed through the air, embedding itself up to its hilt in a broadsword-wielding wolverine's eye.
The wolverine howled in anger and agony, its lupine opponent raised his maul and swiftly brought the crushing weight of the eight pound head of the edged hammer crashing down on top of the tortured wolverine's skull with a sickening CRACK! and a fine mist of blood. The wolf then turned to his partner's opponent, who was far too preoccupied with his dual-saber swinging foe to notice the swinging maul that ended his life with a well-placed blow that severed his spine (and also half of his neck).
The southern mercenaries hit the flank of the wolverine platoon like a hungry hare to a food storage building. Jethro smirked as he drove his retrieved spear through the frothing jaws of a war-crazed wolverine while ducking the horrific threat of his victim's morning star. His ears twitched as he heard the morbid hum of the weapon and felt the soft breeze created as the spiked ball and chain swiped over his head.
Suddenly, a wolverine attacked from his right. Stuck with barely any time to react, Jethro sswung his shield over his right arm to cover his side. His attacker's mace slammed into his shield in an upward strike. The mercenary took a half-step back to help dissipate the force of the blow, or more correctly, he tried to and slipped on a severed paw. Jethro crashed to the ground, landing on his back and gasped for air as the breath was driven from his lungs. His spear, levered between the gore-covered earth and the rim of his shield, broke in two with a loud SNAP! The berserk wolverine raised his mace over his head and struck with a roar. Jethro tensed as the mace met his shield in a terrifying display of force. "Shit, he has got me where he wants me now."
As it turned out, Jethro needn't have worried. . . sort of. The wolverine got two more blows in before Avek came out of nowhere and blindsided the wolverine. The fearless mongoose drove his short sword beep into the enemy's thick neck. The wolverine howled in pain and fury, snatching the mongoose off his shoulder in his gauntleted paw with a vise-like grip and crushing force. Avek gasped in pain at the force being applied to his ribs and frantically stabbed the wolverine through the narrow gap between gauntlet and vambrace with one of his knives. The foe bellowed and hurled the mongoose through the air as he sank to his knees. Avek's form, hurtling through the air, struck a mouse, killing the rodent instantly. Avek didn't get up either.
Jethro grabbed a battle-axe from the nerveless paws of a dead wildcat and came up swinging. The axe sheared through the wolverine's helmet, finishing it off as it lodged itself deeply into his nemesis' brain. The leopard wasted no time, dashing to where Avek had landed. He left the axe where it was.
Jethro knelt beside his sergeant. "Sergeant Avek, respond. Are you okay?" The mongoose coughed up blood in response. Waving his sword over his head, Jethro shouted "Aroth, get over here!"
The desert fox in question helped his lupine partner finish off their wolverine before sprinting over to the leopard and mongoose. Kneeling beside them, Aroth swiftly removed Avek's body armor and felt his chest. Avek yelled in pain. "Just about all of his ribs are broken, sir." The medic said. "I can't tell if any of his vitals are punctured. " The fox was interrupted though by the javelin-sized arrow that brushed his whiskers as it sped past and slammed into the fallen mustlide, pinning him to the earth. "Well now we KNOW he's fucked." The fox said as Jethro dragged him by his armor under the shelter of his shield.
"Get down and get that bow of yores out!"
The leopard needn't have said it, the vulpine was already stringing up his short, composite recurve bow. Gesturing to the vivid blue and green markings on the massive arrow, Aroth growled "It's that filthy, mange-ridden traitor Telos."
The wolf archer (and traitor) Telos, snarled angrily from where he stood upon the battlements of the wolverine's fortress as he watched his shot narrowly miss the leopard captain and his medic, and his chance to kill the southerners vanish with the raise of a shield. The wolf nocked another arrow and drew it to his ear. His aim did not fail him again as his shot took a hare through the eye. His next finished a mace-bearing wildcat, and a third sent a wolf to Vulpuz as well. The archer smirked with satisfaction, now this was more like it!
"Okay, I got the bastard." Aroth murmured "One, two, three, now!" The fox leaped out from behind the shield, drew the arrow to his ear sighted and fired.
Telos only got a fleeting glimpse of a blur at the edge of his vision and a sharp, piercing pain in his belly. He looked down at the short bamboo arrow lodged in his abdomen, an expression of shock stamped upon his light grey face. "Well Damn." Thewolf thought before his knees buckled and he slipped through a murder hole in the battlements and fell to the plains below.
Aroth grinned "Got 'im, sir! Straight to the guts! The bastard didn't even see it coming!" The desert fox looked around and his triumphant grin turned into a wry, slightly annoyed expression at the sight of his commander jogging away toward the next struggling knot of warriors. "Well that jest figgers now don't it." The vulpine medic muttered as he put up his bow and took out his tomahawk and dagger. "Well," he said with forced cheerfulness ", back to earning my paycheck."
The battle continued to rage for the next six hours. Both side continued to suffer heavy casualties and the bodies continued to pile up, the spilled blood turning the churned up frozen earth into freezing mud. But eventually the steady, strong, seemingly endless endurance that characterized the lupine warriors outlasted the insane blood frenzy of the wolverines who, in their exhaustion, were killed in ever increasing numbers. Finally, a massive, middle-aged wolverine dressed richly in purple and scarlet shouted down from the battlements an order that had never been heard from a wolverine and in all likelihood, would never be heard from a wolverine again. " Fall back! Retreat to the citadel!" The soldiers, despite all they had been taught in contradiction to the order, were too tired to disobey and disengaged from their allied opponents. Many, however, did not even make it half-way to the gates of their short, squat, blocky Cliffside fortress before being cut down by the arrows and slingstones of the soldiers (woodlander and vermin alike) of the Greatest Pack, Freelancers, and the Northern Branch of the Long Patrol. The allied soldiers cheered and roared their victory as they loosed their missiles and clashed their weapons against their shields.
"Run ye liddle cowards, run!" an otter standing next to the gore-slicked leopard jeered as he brandished his two-pronged, double-ended fishing spear. "Yeah, you better keep on runnin' ye spineless bit-" The otter suddenly seemed to notice the dark-furred officer standing next to him listening to every word he said with eyebrows raised and an amused expression on his blood-spattered face. The otter quickly regained his composure and coughed to hide his embarrassment and cleared his throat before extending his paw. Captain Jethro Mortspear struggled to hide his chuckling at the otter's suddenly formal behavior as he shook the otter's paw. "Ahem, good work Cap'n, very smooth victory we got here…." The otter said before awkwardly hesitating." First Mate Pike Strongcurrent at yore service, Cap'n Mortspear."
Jethro nodded, "Relax Strongcurrent, no need to be overly formal. And I wouldn't be so quick to call this a 'smooth victory' if I were you. The party ain't over yet." The leopard advised, bending down to rip off a large piece of tough fabric from a slain stoat's tabard and began to more thoroughly clean the gore off his sword.
Looking around at the torn and broken bodies splayed across the battlefield, First Mate Pike Strongcurrent let out a deep breath "Not much of a party though, is it matey." He said solemnly.
An image of Avek's crushed corpse, followed by the images of every other soldier the mercenary captain had lost in the northern lands flashed behind his eyes. "Yeah." Jethro paused for a moment before standing back up, shaking his head to clear it "That's it, after we finish this we're going south for an easier contract, I refuse to lose this many good creatures for a land I don't give a damn about." Jethro brought himself to attention and saluted the otter (who did the same to his superior). "Speaking of such, I must go and attend to my dead. Take care o' yore self, Pike."
"You too, sir."