Waiting for the Worms

by Samadhir

Taking place shortly after the end of Highwing's "The Shrew War", this story follows two beasts, a shrew sergeant and a woodland rat, through an eventful day in the aftermath of a very important decision made by Urthblood.

4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Kopec was surprised when they didn't go to the south as he'd expected, but instead seemed to head directly to the beach. Passing over the mounds of grass and sand that had blocked their view of the shore before, the rats stopped. Down at the shore, someone had built a pier, and at the pier two large ships were moored, their gangways extended to it. At the pier also stood about a dozen more of the badgerlord's soldiers, waiting for their comrades to return with their protégés; they were carrying spears, rather than the bows and short swords of the ones who had brought them to this place.

Once again, the rat was stymied in finding an explanation for this. They were obviously meant to board those ships, but why? Couldn't they travel by foot any further down Mossflower? Was there some remote island where they were going to be abandoned? It didn't make any sense!

Sensible or not, the rats were pushed down the shore and towards the wooden pier, a bit more reluctantly now, as many had the same misgivings as Kopec. After a while, they were all gathered upon the sturdy planks that served as the floor of the dock. Kopec looked closer at the two boats; he was shocked to see armoured rats standing on the deck, wearing studded leather armour and carrying vicious-looking scimitars, watching the beasts beneath them with contemptuous gazes. They didn't look like the kind of beasts Urthblood would have in his service, so who were they? They couldn't be searats, could they?

The squirrels and shrews started to position themselves in a perimeter around the dock and the rats standing on it, many of them arming themselves with spears, and then stood at attention, fixing their cold, hard stares at the rats they had escorted.

Nisha, who had never left his side ever since they left Conwyn, pressed herself closer to her son, wrapping her arm around his shoulder, and he did the same to her. Gazing at each other, her eyes expressed fear and confusion, the same emotions gripping him with their cold, clamouring paws as well.

From the leftmost ship, a rather pudgy rat walked down the gangway with a couple of the armoured beasts at his side, and the shrew commander, Gavin, went up to meet him. Kopec had the good fortune of standing rather close to the two, and he was quite good of hearing, so he managed to pick up most of what passed between them, despite their best efforts to keep their voices down.

"Alright," the shrew said, "here they are, right on time as we promised."

"Yes," the rat responded, sweeping his gaze over his distant kin, "right on time. Now, how many rats are there?"

"Thirty-one from the village of Gleamshire, twenty-six from Torn, and twenty-two from Conwyn, for a total of seventy-nine souls."

"Seventy-nine…," the rat noted the numbers in a writing pad. "You know, that's less than half of the beasts we brought here."

Beasts they'd brought here?

The shrew responded, rather irritated, "Well, it'll have to do for now. You're gonna make several more shipments, so you'll get more than enough replacements to take back to Terramort."

Replacements? And Terramort; wasn't that the home island of the searats?

The rat sighed, "Very well, no point in arguing about it now. So, we split them up between the two ships, as we agreed to?"

"Yes. You can go back to your ship now. We'll take it from here."

The rat nodded and then turned around to walk up the gangway with his bodyguards. Gavin started to walk to the front of the gathered beasts at the dock. Kopec felt his paw tighten around his mother's shoulder, and small drops of nervous sweat started to shine through the fur on his brow. What did this all mean? As he quickly thought about it, he realized that the beasts that the searats, for they could be nothing else, had brought here must've been the freed slaves that Gavin had escorted. And when they talked of "replacements" they must have meant him and the other rats that'd been brought here.

But that had to mean…? But surely they couldn't…? No! No, it just wasn't possible!

The shrew walked to stand before the rats, who all looked at him, hoping for an explanation to what was going on. The shrew looked at all the faces in the crowd, and Kopec was certain that he saw a look of regret on his features, similar to the soldiers they'd given bread to at the meadow, before he took a deep breath and raised his paws to speak to them.

"My friends! On this day, we mark a momentous decision that will forever change the lands of Mossflower and the seas of Terramort. Not long ago, his lordship, Urthblood of Salamandastron, signed a treaty with King Tratton, the ruler of the Searat Empire. This treaty stipulated that the two nations would live together side by side in peace, ending the ancient, bloody conflict that has wrought so much death and suffering to both sides. To show his goodwill and respect to the crimson badgerlord, Tratton agreed to release all slaves kept in bondage in his empire, allowing them to come here to these lands of their kin and ancestors to live as free beasts. In turn, Urthblood has decided to show his respect for the searat king by making his empire and people stronger and more prosperous than ever. He has decided to send all rats living in the lands to the searat isles."

The air was deathly still after this announcement. Gavin dared to break the silence by continuing with his oration: "In this way, all rats will have a single, unified empire to call their own. No more will you be separated into woodlander rats and searats, but will live together as a single nation like you were always supposed to..."

The shrew didn't get to continue with his words. For Kopec suddenly understood, realized exactly what Urthblood intended to do with him and with every rat in Mossflower and the Northlands…

"Slaves! They're sending us away to be slaves!"

Every pair of eyes present turned toward him, as he had shouted out his sudden realization to every beast within hearing range.

"Don't you understand? The reason that Urthblood managed to get all those slaves free is because he promised Tratton that he could put us in chains instead! They're selling us, all the rats of the lands, into slavery!"

At first, no-one dared to say anything, so shocked were they at the young rat's outburst. But when the truth dawned on the rats around him, when they understood what fate they had been condemned to, the atmosphere around the pier grew dark and violent…

Gavin tried to voice some words of protest, to deny the rat's allegation, but it was useless. The rats began to shout and raise their fists against the squirrels and shrews. The soldiers pointed their spears against them or raised their clubs, others pulled out their swords and daggers. Some of the shrews, including Gavin, loaded their slings and held them up as a sort of improvised flail, daring anyone to come close to them.

As the two sides approached each other, the air growing heavier and heavier with fear, rage and hatred, one rat dared to run forward to attack to a spear-wielding squirrel. The squirrel was so shocked by the sudden aggression that he lunged forward and impaled his foe through the chest. As the rat's lifeless body fell to the ground, some rats pulled themselves backward, cowed by the soldiers' willingness to use deadly force to accomplish their goals. Others, however, only became more enraged and surged forward against the wall of troops surrounding them, and the fight was on.

Screams, shouts, curses and the sound of clubs or the butts of spears thumping against flesh and fur reverberated in the air, occasionally interspersed with those of blades cutting through skin and flesh or loaded slings cracking bones and the resulting screams of agony wherever the fighting grew most intense. In the background was the crying of children, terrified by all the commotion and violence around them. Some rats tried to break out of the ring of fighting beasts and flee, but they were met by fists and clubs to their faces and pushed back in.

Normally, Kopec would never have dreamed of fighting anyone under these circumstances; he was too much the coward to do so, even if the odds against him hadn't been so unfair. But right now, he had forgotten all about fear and uncertainty. All he felt was hatred; hatred for what was happening to the rats of the lands, hatred towards the beasts having forced them out of their homes to board ships that would carry them to a life of suffering and oppression, hatred towards Urthblood for having caused and orchestrated all this. The knowledge that they'd been so betrayed, sold out by the creature who called himself an undying enemy of all slavers, whom Liam had given his life for in order to bring about his vision of a land where rats could live as friends and equals of all goodbeasts, filled him with a burning, seething rage and left him with nothing but a desire to lash out against the creatures who were doing this to them.

As he stepped forward, Nisha tried to restrain him, frantically begging: "Kopec, no! You have no chance, you'll be…", but he ignored her and pushed his way forth among the struggling beasts.

Despite the rats' best efforts, it was clear that they didn't stand any chance against the badgerlord's troops. There were almost as many soldiers as there were rats, they were trained warriorbeasts while few of the rats had ever been in battle and many of them were ladyfolk, children and elderly, the soldiers were armed with clubs, spears, slings and swords while the rodents had nothing but their paws, and they were surrounded on all sides. It didn't take long before the most aggressive rats had been beaten into submission, or silenced forever in a few cases, and they were gradually pushed back, towards the ships.

As Kopec looked around, however, he noticed that there was a gap in the ring of soldiers constricting itself around the rats. Through that gap, he could see the shrew commander standing a few yards behind the line of the pier, in the sand of the beach where the fighting had briefly spilled out. He was looking at the violent riot before him, his sling dangling from his right paw, with a disbelieving look on his face. Feeling another surge of rage within him, he darted through the gap, the soldiers on either side being so distracted by handling the struggling rats that they didn't notice him.

At any other time, Kopec would have taken the opportunity to run away, even knowing that there was no real chance of escaping, that the soldiers would soon notice and pursue him. But now, all he wanted was the blood of the shrew in charge of this atrocity, the one who had tried to calm them with honeyed words to make the prospect of slavery seem more palatable.

The shrew was so distracted by the violence before him and lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the rat running towards him from the side. He barely had time to look to his left before Kopec wrapped his paws around his throat, trying to strangle him with a hateful snarl on his features.

"You fucking slaver! My brother died for your master, and this is how you repay us? I'm gonna - "

Kopec was bigger and bulkier than the shrew, but he was no warriorbeast. The shrew managed to break his hold around his throat by giving him a swift punch in the middle of his chest. The rat doubled over in pain, the air punched out of his lungs. He managed to gaze up just in time to see the shrew swing his loaded sling at his face.

There was a loud crack as Kopec felt his jaw shatter and several teeth were knocked out of their sockets. He barely had time register the pain or the taste of blood in his mouth before a second swing hit him square in his right temple. The force caused him to spin around one time before he fell to the sand with a padded thump…

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Gavin was sure that he saw the rat move a little despite having smashed in the side of his head, so he raised his sling a third time and quickly brought it down at the back of his head with a sickening crunching sound. The rat gave few spasms and then lay still on the ground.

As he stood back, his paw rubbing at his throat where the rat had tried to choke him, he could do nothing but stare in chock at what he had just done. His brutal treatment hadn't just been for self-defence or to show an example to the rats being violently herded onto the ships behind him. When the rat had called him a slaver in his rage, something burst within him. He hated slavery, he had fought with Urthblood's army for several seasons precisely in order to eliminate it, and he had been told by others and told himself several times that the rats they were supposed to round up for shipment to Terramort were simply to be sent to establish their own nation along with their seafaring brethren and to make place for the poor goodbeast slaves that they were liberating, and that their eventual fate was in any event Tratton's responsibility, not theirs, not his. And to hear from one of the creatures he had escorted that he was as much a slaver as the searats, that he had betrayed them… It was simply intolerable. He had been overcome with wrath and struck his blows in rage against the creature who had dared to say those things to him… even though by doing so he had, in a sense, proven his accusations true.

As the veil of anger lifted and he was starting to feel the first pangs of remorse over his actions, he heard a piercing, agonizing scream that stood out even against the cries and shouts of the throng of creatures behind him.

"Kopec! No! No!"

Turning around, he saw a ladyrat, presumably the recently killed rat's mother going by her age, managing to disentangle herself from the crowd and run towards her fallen son. A squirrel and a shrew, who had finally noticed what had happened behind them, got to her first and forced her to her knees. Her anguished, tortured cries and the sight of her heartbroken tears felt like they were sending little icy daggers into Gavin's very soul.

Unable to hear the cries anymore, Gavin hardened his heart, pushed aside all sympathy and pity, and grabbed the hysterically sobbing ratmaid by her shoulder and the neckline of her dress, pulled her to her feet and dragged her through the crowd, which the troops had finally managed to get under some form of control, towards the docked ships.

The woodlander rats were marched at spear-point up the gangways onto deck, where the searats grabbed them and forced them into the cargo hold. In the commotion, a young ratgirl, little more than a child, who was limping up the gangplank while clutching an arm that had apparently been wounded in the scuffle with the soldiers, was pushed off by the throng of bodies walking up beside her, hit her hip on the side of the pier and fell into the dark, cold water below. She started to scream and beg for help as she frantically tried to keep herself at the surface, but no-one could come to her aid in the chaos and violence above. She wasn't a good swimmer at the best of times, and with her wounded arm and broken hip she could only stay afloat for a few moments before she sank beneath the waves, her cries eternally silenced as she disappeared from view into the sea.

Arriving at the platform to the leftmost ship, the shrew pushed the ratmaid into the arms of one of the soldiers near it, who practically had to physically hand over some of the rats to the corsairs on deck. For just a few seconds, as the squirrel held her waiting for the correct moment to push her up the planks, their eyes met. Gavin froze. He had seen that look, the exact same hateful, utterly devastated look of someone who'd just lost a loved one at the paws of another beast.

It had been several seasons ago, when Gavin had travelled with Urthblood in his campaigns across the Northlands. They had come across a band of slavers, escorting a group of unfortunate creatures with their whips and blades. They had attacked in an ambush, killing as many of the villains as possible before they could retaliate or harm any of their slaves, and made short work of the rest. However, a fox had taken a mouse among his captives as a hostage, holding a knife to his neck, and demanded that they let him go. As Gavin had tried to reason with him, one of the nearby troops had made an unexpected move towards the slaver, and the panicked fox stabbed his knife right into the mouse's throat. The poor creature had had his wife captured along with him, who saw her husband die in front of her eyes and ran up to coddle his body, and when she looked at the fox, who had been restrained and brought to his knees by the soldiers right before his execution, her look of grief-wracked hatred had been the exact same as the one the rat gave him now.

Their eye contact was mercifully broken as the squirrel holding her managed to find the opportunity to hand her over to the searats on deck, who pushed her below into the cargo hold along with the others. Most of the rats had now been forced onto the ships. There had been some risk of renewed violence as rats belonging to the same family had been taken to different ships, the panicking creatures screaming and struggling as they were forcefully separated from their loved ones, but a new round of beatings with fists and clubs had managed to quell it.

It felt like it took forever, but eventually all the rats had been brought aboard and placed below deck. There was nothing more for the woodlanders and the searats to say to each other, so without further ado, the corsairs pulled up the gangways, the shrews and squirrels released the mooring lines, the sails were hoisted and the Seafoam and the Albatross slowly began to drift away from the dock, the sounds of their new captives cries and moans still ringing from within their depths, before the wind caught in their canvas and they began their journey back to Terramort.

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Gavin was sitting on the beach, the evening sun warming it with a pleasant heat, as he watched the searat vessels shrink on the horizon. The soldiers had decided to wait a little to patch up the wounds they had sustained during the fight and get their bearings before they returned to River's End.

All over and around the wooden dock were dropped bags, food, clothes, toys and other items; few of the rats had managed to get any of their belongings with them on the ships. There were also stains of blood dotting the planks and the sand… and, occasionally, the body of a rat that had fallen during the struggle.

Gavin felt… empty inside. He knew that what he and the beasts under his command had done was wrong on so many levels, and that any outsider that had seen what just happened would have been horrified if they didn't know the reasons for them… In fact, they would probably have been horrified even if they did know the reasons. But right now, the waves of guilt and regret that should have washed over him didn't. He could only feel hollowness and exhaustion, as if his soul had been numbed by what had just occurred.

He had heard that when beasts who were good at heart were forced to do morally questionable actions, whether by desperate circumstances or by the orders of their superiors, they didn't really feel remorse and the weight of their conscience right away; you shut off your moral centre in order to do the things you knew were bad but nevertheless felt necessary. It was only later, it could take hours, days, weeks or even longer, when it re-awakened and the consequences of what you had done caught up with you, it was then that the guilt and soul-wrenching torment would begin to haunt you. The shrew felt afraid of that moment, when everything that his heart now locked away would come sweeping over him and wrack him with painful remorse and sorrow. But there was another thing that he feared even more: what if they never arrived? What if he wasn't the good creature that he hoped he was?

He thought about his life, and all the seasons he'd spent in Urthblood's service. He had first met the badger in his youth, when he helped his Northlands tribe to defeat a clan of ferrets that had been terrorizing them. Afterwards, when the badger told them of his vision of peace across the lands and between woodlanders and vermin, he had been one of the first to support him and convince the other shrews to lend their aid to his cause. He had even become friends with some of the defeated ferrets, who also lent their blades to the badgerlord's service after he had spared them. Since then, he had always been a loyal and enthusiastic servant to the standard of the Crimson Badger, and he had seen all the good things Urthblood had done for Mossflower. It was the vision to protect the lands from the coming conflict, to bring unity and prosperity to a land that had been war-torn and divided for so long, and to feel the happiness and gratitude of the beasts they protected and helped, that kept him going.

However, over the years he had also seen the badger do some… questionable things, as well. He had sometimes ordered them to kill their foes to the last one, even if they were willing to surrender, claiming that they were utterly beyond redemption even though the shrew thought that they'd pardoned worse beasts before. If he needed information about certain matters from captured enemies, especially the searats, he didn't hesitate to use methods that many would describe as torture to get it. He would sometimes use lies and misdirection to accomplish his goals, like when he had tricked his brother Urthfist into believing that he had invaded Redwall in order to draw him out of Salamandastron to be able to claim it behind his back, even though that meant manipulating the abbeybeasts he'd previously befriended.

Gavin hadn't liked those things, but he had accepted it as necessary in the long run in order to bring about the greater good. The badger had the gift of prophetic foresight which, while certainly not perfect, still allowed him a better view of the situation than anyone else, and the shrew had always trusted that his actions would turn out to be right in the end.

But in the past year, these kinds of actions had only increased and intensified in their dubiousness. He had acquired new and terrifying weapons that killed in the most horrific ways, like acid that dissolved the flesh of anyone coming into contact with it, flaming oil that burned anyone hit by it alive, and a horrible, poisonous gas that choked you to death or left you permanently crippled. This last weapon was particularly controversial, for it was rumoured that the badger had tested it on living searat prisoners. When he used it to defeat the rebel shrew Snoga, captain Saybrook had been so angered by the horrific aftermath that he resigned from his service, and took most of the otter corps with him. He had allied with the seagull king Grullon, promising him vengeance against the searats for killing and eating his brother, but when the bird had been furious that the badger made peace overtures with them, he had allowed the seagull's discontent subjects to kill him and swear direct allegiance to him instead.

And finally, when he signed the peace treaty with Tratton, he had offered the searat king all the rats of the lands in return for his slaves, whether they were his soldiers or civilians, whether they were willing or not. The first rats to be sent away had been the ones stationed at the mountain at the time, who were marched out, stripped of their weapons and then forced onto Tratton's ship at sword-point, all under badger's emotionless gaze.

Gavin really didn't know what Urthblood was thinking when he made that decision. He had said that any consequences of it were his responsibility, not anyone else's, just as the fate of the rats was Tratton's. Ever since, the shrew had tried to justify it to himself. He didn't want to abandon his master after all he had done for him and for the creatures of Mossflower, he wanted his vision to become reality and fervently hoped that everything would turn out right in the end. For if it didn't, the verdict of posterity would be hard on the badger, and himself, indeed…

Sergeant Shawn walked over to where he sat, glanced at the ocean and then quipped, "That could have gone better."

The shrew looked up at him angrily. "Well, what the hell did we expect? We took these beasts from their homes, forced them to board those searat ships, sent them away to…"

He stopped there, realizing what he had almost said. Even now, knowing that the words the rat had shouted at the dock were true deep down in his heart, he couldn't admit it to himself. He couldn't allow himself to admit it; to do so would be to confess being the kind of creature that he had fought against all his life.

He sighed. "How did we fare?"

"Nothing serious. Sami got his nose broken, and there are some cuts and bruised ribs among the troops, but nothing that will prevent us from getting to River's End on time."

The shrew then looked across the carnage at the docks, at the dead beasts lying there.

"How many rats died?"

"Seven, including the gi- eh, the rat who drowned."

Gavin mulled over the matter for awhile before giving his order.

"Bury them."

The squirrel seemed surprised at the command, not to mention rather averse to it.

"But, sir… If you don't want them lying around, we can just throw them in the ocean. It'll be a lot quicker and easier and then we can…"

"No, we bury them, you hear me!" Gavin stood up and fixed his angry, determined stare at the squirrel. "In separate graves! That's an order, Sergeant!"

Shawn was surprised at the shrew's sudden temper, and then sighed, knowing that this meant they would be late to village feast but having no choice but to do as his superior commanded.

"Even the one who drowned?"

Gavin thought about this for a moment, and then relented: "Well… no, not the one who drowned. I don't know if it's possible to get her up from the sea, and I won't ask you to try. But everyone else you will! Now get going!"

He walked past his sergeant, who scurried to relay his orders and get some shovels from the shack, to the body of the rat that he had killed with his sling - Kopec, if he'd heard right from the cries of the female he'd presumed to be his mother. His face was lying down against the sand, the blood pouring from the wounds in his head and jaw, staining the sand around him red.

As he gazed at the body, he was at last overcome with the sympathy he'd repressed during the riot to perform his orders, and he once again felt the pangs of guilt that had started as soon as the rat had died on the beach in front of him. As he was the one who had killed him, he was the one who would bury him; it didn't make up for what he had done, of course, but he felt that, in some sense, he owed it to Kopec.

He would have preferred to carry his body himself, but the rat was too heavy for that, so he had to call over one of his soldiers to help him. As they turned him around, Gavin found something tucked in his belt: a small, carved wooden flute. It was just one of the many affects that the rats had been forced to leave behind, but for some reason, he became curious about it, wondering about its history and what it had meant to the rat who carried it. After some doubt, he tucked it in his own belt, and then helped his comrade to carry the body to the burial site.

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The burial duties lasted for almost an hour, prolonged by Gavin's insistence that the rats were to be buried in separate graves. By the time they were finished, it was growing dark, and it was clear that they wouldn't get to River's End before the night arrived.

Before the rats were laid in their graves, Gavin performed a small personal ritual that he had always done after battles when he was assigned to burial duty. He took his dagger, and then stabbed it in the heart of the bodies that lay beside the newly dug graves. His comrades had always found that rather morbid, but it was something the shrew felt that he had to do. In his youth he had heard horror stories of beasts that had been presumed dead and then quickly buried in the ground, but then woke back to life only to suffocate in the darkness. Although such things, if they happened at all, were probably extremely rare, the very possibility had always frightened him. It was a fate that he did not wish upon the most evil and vile of creatures. As such, he always did these quick little acts to make sure that those about to be buried really were dead, regarding it as an act of compassion.

Immediately after they were done, they gathered and began their march towards River's End. Although they were not burdened by hungry, tired beasts who weren't used to such marches, they had to travel in the dark, upon the road that hadn't been properly maintained. They still made good speed, and managed to get to the village in slightly shorter time than it had taken for Gavin to escort the slaves there. The feast was in full swing, the villagers and the former slaves sitting at long tables or resting under the trees, feasting on food that most of the slaves had never thought they'd see again in their life. A couple of large bonfires were lit, and many creatures danced in its warm light. The sound of song, music, laughter and conversation reverberated throughout the late-summer night.

It was a wonderful feast, but Gavin and many of the returning squirrels and shrews didn't feel much like celebrating. They partook of the food that had been saved just for them, and conversed and mingled with the beasts around them, but they didn't get into the spirit of things too much. When the late hours of the night approached, and the partying died down, Gavin took his troops to a makeshift camp outside River's End to get some rest.

The next morning, he was determined to make good on his promise to escort Caful and the others who wished it to Torn. Shawn was a bit concerned as they were to wait for Altidor, Urthblood's messenger eagle, to arrive so they could give report of their mission, but Gavin insisted that he would do the trip; he'd be back later that day and the eagle could either wait or seek him out at Torn.

As he prepared himself after having chosen five of his troops to follow him, Myrdden, Estelle and Devon came out to give a warm goodbye and thank him once again. He returned their affections and then left with his small party, not noticing that the otter and stoat behind him shared a deep, loving kiss with each other…

Caful already looked a lot better than he had when the shrew last saw him. While still rather thin, it was amazing what a warm bath, new clothes and a good meal could do to you. He walked eagerly with his new friends, sometimes having to slow down for them in his haste to see his family.

It only took about an hour before they arrived at Torn. The beasts that had followed them ran into the village to meet their families. A particularly joyful scene occurred when a vole found his elderly parents, whom he hadn't seen for ten seasons. The tears in their eyes when they embraced each other, both having been convinced that they would never see each other again, lifted the hearts of everyone present, Gavin most of all.

Unfortunately, Caful reunion with his family wasn't quite so joyful. During the time he had been gone, his wife had met another hedgehog and remarried, convinced that he had been dead. She had a child with her new husband, and Caful's son, who had grown into a fine young boy, had never known him, being only an infant when he disappeared and therefore thought of his father like a stranger, his stepfather being the one who had raised him. At first, Caful had been on the verge of starting a fight with the new hedgehog, but his former wife's pleading had wisely convinced him to calm down, and she and her husband had taken him aside to talk things over.

Although he had really done all he came here for, Gavin wanted to remain in Torn awhile for a little rest. Altidor probably wouldn't arrive for some time yet, and considering what he and his beasts had been forced to do the day before, he figured it wasn't too much to ask for the bird to wait a little. He told his troops to be at ease and meet him back at the road in one hour, while he walked off to be alone with his thoughts for awhile.

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Gavin was sitting under the shade of a large oak that stood at edge of the village, deep in thought. He pondered about the previous day's events, about how they would continue with all these exchanges (they would need far more troops and a more efficient system for transporting and holding the rats, if this whole project was to succeed), about the rats who were probably still on the ships by now, about the future, both his own and the lands', and generally just attempting to work out the complications and issues that were troubling his life at the moment while trying to enjoy the beauty of the landscape bathed by the midday sun.

In his paws, he held the flute that he'd picked up from the body of Kopec, idly turning it around in his grip for no reason other than to find something to occupy himself with. He had never learned to play an instrument, and even if he did he had yet to clean it after taking it from the dead rat. But even so, he didn't want the wooden flute to lie buried and forgotten with its previous owner; maybe by carrying it with him, something of the rat who had died that fateful evening would live on, in some sense…

Torn was built on top of a cluster of small hills, and as such provided a wonderful view of the surrounding landscape. The shrew admired the view of the woods, fields and meadows stretching for miles in front of him. At the horizon, he could see the sea as a thin blue line. Everything looked so calm and peaceful. It was difficult to believe that these beautiful lands would soon undergo such drastic, and violent, changes.

As he was enjoying the view, he noticed that Caful was walking towards him, his shoulders slumped and his eyes downcast. He put away the flute and turned to the embittered beast.

"Do you mind if I sit here beside you?" the hedgehog asked.

"No, not at all, my friend," Gavin answered. "I have to get back to my comrades soon to return to River's End but I certainly have time for a little company."

Caful rested his spiky backside on the ground and leaned his gaunt frame against the oak, same as his shrew companion. He gazed at the landscape with a mixture of bitterness, sadness and resigned acceptance on his face. Finding the silence a little uncomfortable, Gavin asked: "So, how are ye doing?"

"Well, my damn wife has remarried."

The shrew gave him a sympathetic look: "I heard. I'm sorry, Caful."

"Well, how can I blame her? I've been gone for ten seasons, she hasn't heard anything from me, no sign that I'm still alive, she feels lonely and has a kid to take care of… of course she's gonna find someone else. It's just selfish of me to demand that I should be the only one in her life, even though I haven't been there for her for so long."

Gavin was sure he could see tears starting to well up in the hedgehog's eyes.

"It's just that… I've hoped and prayed for this moment for so long, that I would see my family again, when I was free of that awful place the searats made me work in. I never stopped to consider that Kathrin would have a life without me, that she had no reason to think I was alive… It just feels like I went through all that for nothing…"

A tear trickled down his cheek, and the shrew put a comforting paw on his friend's shoulder, similar to the one he'd given after telling him of his new freedom. He wished he had something to say, but he couldn't think of anything that would be of comfort to Caful.

The hedgehog wiped away his tears and leaned back against the oak. "Still, I have talked a little with my son. He doesn't remember me, but he knows what I've been through and how much I've longed to meet him. We have agreed to see each other a little over the next few weeks and see if we can build up some sort of relationship. I might even get to meet the little girl of Kathrin's husband – Gilles is his name – and become friends with her too. The vole family that were reunited today has allowed me to stay at their home until I can find a more permanent place to live, so I will be close to my family."

He turned his head towards the shrew, and his look went from sad to friendly and grateful.

"And whatever happens, I'm a free beast now. I can do what I want with my life. If it hadn't been for you, and Urthblood, I would never have met my wife and son at all. I will be grateful to you every day for the rest of my life."

Gavin smiled at the hedgehog, and then they both leaned back against the tree to look at the lands of Mossflower a little while longer.

However, Caful soon remembered something and turned to ask his friend: "Gavin, I heard from some of the beasts here that there had been rats living in Torn until yesterday, when a patrol of your soldiers came and ordered them to leave to make way for the slaves that would come and settle here. They were told to follow the squirrels and shrews to a "new home" that had been prepared for them. Is this true?"

Gavin looked at the hedgehog for awhile, and then gave a small nod.

"Yes, it is."

Caful gave the shrew a deep, hard look.

"Those rats you sent away… it wasn't as simple as the soldiers made it out to be, was it? There's something else going on here, isn't there? Some other reason you didn't want us coming here yesterday?"

The shrew knew that he really shouldn't tell this yet, that it was best if the news of their true activities didn't spread too quickly. But the hedgehog already realized something was up, and he was going to find out about it soon anyway.

He lowered his eyes, and responded: "Caful, the treaty Urthblood made with Tratton didn't just call for the release of the slaves. It also stated that all the rats of the lands where to be given to him in exchange. We weren't just sent here to escort you to new homes; we came here to take the rats of Conwyn, Torn and Gleamshire back to the searat ships to transport them to Terramort. Eventually all the rats living in the lands are to be sent to the isles of their seaborne cousins. A realm of woodlanders for the lands, and a realm of rats for the seas - that was the true purpose of the treaty."

At first, Caful didn't say anything. Then he broke the silence by uttering a single word:

"Good!"

The shrew looked up, surprised. The hedgehog's gaze had suddenly turned cold and hateful.

"It's wonderful that they're being sent away! I know what rats are like; I suffered under their paws for ten seasons, and so did countless other beasts. They're vile, sadistic and evil creatures who care for nothing but tyrannizing and enslaving others. If they had remained here among the goodbeasts of the lands, there's no telling what misery they would have wrought. If Urthblood's treaty makes sure we get rid of them, I'm doubly grateful to him!"

He leaned back against the oak once more, crossing his paws with a contemptuous scowl.

"Mark my words, Gavin: the sooner Mossflower is free of that scum, the better!"

Gavin looked at his friend for awhile. Then he turned his gaze once again across the beautiful landscape, a sad, thoughtful little smile appearing on his face.

"Perhaps…perhaps…"

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Well, I hope you liked this little story, despite it's faults. Like I've said, I'm rather fond of it. Hopefully it will give you some small continuation for TSW while we wait for Urthblood III.

The part with Caful's wife having remarried was an attempt on my part to show a hedgehog character as being a little more conflicted than we usually see them. They, along with moles, often seem to be the most "untroubled" of the various woodlander species: no dark backstories, no inner conflicts, no truly negative personality traits etc. I wanted to present one of them as going through a personal crisis for a change.

Thank you all for your kind reviews, and I hope to see you all again in the near future!