Betcha didn't see this coming... ;)

Chapter 10

Knottail awoke slowly. His head was tilted backwards so that he looked upwards. He saw nothing but a red sandstone ceiling, hanging several feet above him. slowly, he brought his head downward. The ceiling arched downward to form a wall, with towering stained glass windows depicting figures upon them. Knottail realized that he was inside Redwall itself now. Finally, he brought his head level with the rest of him, and saw that three beasts stood in front of him, watching the weasel intently.

One, was a tall otter, young in age, and eyed Knottail carefully, a loaded sling dangling from his folded paws, ready to use if needed. The second was a young mouse, armed with a sword, with his paws and head resting on the pommel stone of the sword, with the sword's tip pointed downward at the floor. Like the otter, he eyed Knottail closely, ready to act if need be.

The third was another mouse, this one a female, and was the only one unarmed. She was slightly younger than the other mouse, and seemed apprehensive about Knottail's presence. She held in her paws a tray of food, making Knottail realize just how hungry he was. He absentmindedly reached out with one paw to take a piece of cheese from the tray, but then realized for the first time that he was tightly bound to a stone column, unable to move anything but his tail.

Knottail, being the trained warrior he was, had a knife conveniently placed for him to reach should he ever get tied up like this, but was dismayed to find that it had been taken from him. He looked at his captors, and decided that he didn't like his predicament, and tried to break free of his bonds.

"It's no use, mate." the otter said, seeing Knottail struggle. "We've got ye tied up pretty tight. Yore like a freshwater shrimp against an otter. No chance of escapin'."

Knottail quickly found this out for himself.

The mouse with the sword glared at the weasel. "You are our prisoner." he stated plainly. "But we might let you go if you tell us all you know about Toka and his horde."

Knottail couldn't help but ask, "'Might?'"

"It'll depend on how willing Toka is to trade you for whatever we might want." the mouse answered.

Knottail considered his options for a moment. "I'm Knottail, fifth rank, archer and sword wielder in Toka's horde."

The three waited for the weasel to say more but Knottail remained silent.

"Well, looks like he might need some convincing to tell us more." the mouse said, lifting his sword. He gently prodded Knottail with the tip of the sword's blade. "What do you think I should cut off first, my friend?" he asked the otter, idly. "His ear?"

The otter noted Knottail's look of surprise and suppressed a grin. "I was actually thinkin' about ye choppin' off 'is tail." he answered the mouse's question. "I've 'eard that a vermin losin' 'is tail in battle is a source of great shame and embarrassment."

The mouse rubbed his chin, contemplating that.

"You won't really chop off my tail." Knottail stated, semi-confidently. "You woodlanders wouldn't have the heart."

"Really?" the mouse asked. "We'll see about that. Weylan, if you'll do the honors."

The otter named Weylan bent down and grabbed Knottail's tail, holding it still. The mouse looked the tail up and down, the blade of the sword hovering over it.

"Where do you think I should cut it off at?" the mouse asked next.

"I'd say cut the whole tail off, right at the base, mate." Weylan answered.

The mouse nodded and lined up his blade.

"Might want to look away, Tess." Weylan said to the other mouse. "This won't be pretty."

The mouse named Tess nodded and turned away. The mouse with the sword brought it up over his head. Knottail began to tremble, beads of sweat forming on his brow. Then, without warning, the mouse swung the sword downward.

"Wait! WAIT!" Knottail called out. "I'll tell you everything!"

The sword stopped a hair's-breadth away from his tail. Weylan released the vermin's tail and leaned against the column Knottail was tied to.

"Go on, mate." he coaxed. "We're listenin'."

Toka's horde was being kept busy, building some kind of wooden apparatus that he seemed confident would help him conquer Redwall, and Mokeet was smart enough to not doubt that possibility. He watched the horde build the contraption in the abbey's orchards from his cage, curious as to what it was, how it worked, and whether or not the abbey would have anyway to defend itself against it.

His pondering was interrupted when he was pulled from his cage, paws bond, and dragged off to the gatehouse cottage, where Toka was staying. To his surprise, he found that the interior of the gatehouse had been left all but undisturbed, a trait very uncharacteristic of the horde, but then told himself that if Toka wanted to make the abbey his new home, he'd want to leave it intact as much as was possible.

Toka was in the gatehouse himself, flipping through Redwall's record books, his afternoon meal sitting on a desk beside him, untouched. Mokeet was flopped down before him, as usual. Toka looked his captive over for a few moments, then did something unexpected. He shooed the guards out of the room. The guards, always trusting Toka's judgement, left with no complaint.

Setting aside the record book, he grinned at Mokeet. "So, mate, what do you think about day one of my little invasion?" he asked, seeming to be genuinely interested in Mokeet's opinion.

So Mokeet gave it to him. "I think that Redwall stands a pretty good chance against ye."

The ferret sighed, standing up. "Admittedly, you're right." he said, agreeing with Mokeet for probably the first and only time ever. "I did underestimate their fighting abilities slightly. But only slightly, mind you. I was still able to get into their grounds and force them into a state of siege. Better progress than even I expected."

"Redwall will find a way to stop ye from gettin' any further." Mokeet said, praying that he was right.

"We'll see, Mokeet, we'll see." Toka said, now starting to pace around his prisoner, deliberately stepping on the otter's rudder like always. "As I'm sure that even you noticed, they may have warriors in their midst, but they are inexperienced."

"Their casualties where light." Mokeet pointed out.

"As were ours." Toka reminded his prisoner. "Taking Redwall may be my horde's biggest challenge yet, but it is certainly doable. The many seasons we've spent getting here have made sure of that. We are undoubtedly the stronger vermin horde around."

"That reminds me, yore not really from the south, are ye?"

Toka glanced down at his prisoner. "Of course I am." he said, acting offended.

"But their ain't nothin' straight south of 'ere. Nothin' but desert, land were no beast such as yoreself could live."

"Have you ever been out south, mate?"

"I ain't yore mate." Mokeet reminded, before admitting, "No."

Toka face suddenly turned slightly grim and pulled out a dagger. He cut the bonds tying Mokeet's paws together, then pushed the uneaten tray of food towards him.

"Eat." Toka prompted. "And while you eat, I'll share with you a little story."

Mokeet was completely surprised, but took the opportunity to eat the meal, a feast compared to the table scraps he had been living off of in past seasons.

"Ever hear of a place called Loamhedge?" Toka began.

"No."

"Well, these Redwallers have. And like myself, they've discovered that it no longer exists anymore. It disappeared many, many seasons ago, long before even our grandsires were born, no doubt." Toka explained. "And that's where I come from."

Mokeet looked up at the warlord. "But you just said..."

"I did." Toka confirmed. "Loamhedge, as a symbol, no longer exists. But the original structure does, or did. But it had been taken over by true vermin, and it became Malkariss."

Mokeet suddenly stopped eating.

"You've heard of the place, haven't you?"

"A few rumors." Mokeet lied, hoping Toka wouldn't notice.

The ferret didn't seem too, for he was now staring out the gatehouse window, his eyes unfocused on nothing in particular. "Yes, Mokeet, you're life as my prisoner is almost paradise when compared to my former life as a slave at Malkariss..."

"You were slaves?" Tess repeated, bewildered, "At Malkariss?"

"A vermin empire?" Weylan asked.

Knottail nodded. "The rulers of Malkariss would enslave their own kind, they were so low. And all that were slaves were treated liked dirt. I was lucky, hadn't been there much more than a season or so before it fell. Unlike Toka, who had been there his entire life. He knew no other life before that evil empire fell."

"I don't understand then." Mattimeo said. "Even if you are vermin, you've gone through the worst possible life there is, and yet you're out there causing panic, killing innocent creatures, and taking what isn't rightfully yours!"

"The explanation for that is simple." Knottail stated, oddly calm. "The day Malkariss fell, Me, Toka, and few others in the horde where in one of the back tunnels, digging. The tunnel was to be part of a new storeroom for supplies, and it was to be completed quickly, so we were being pushed to work twice as hard than what would be considered usual. Then word got out of an uprising in other portions of the empire, and half of our usual guards were called away to end it. Toka saw a chance to jump the guards, and spread the word to the rest of us, and his plan."

"We waited until the right moment, then we took the guards, easily. Toka then wanted to go and join the fight we knew was happening and we raced back down the tunnel. It was very long, taken about half a season to build, and stretched several, several feet. About halfway through, we felt the rumbling. We continued on, but stopped when we discovered the tunnel exit had caved in, blocking our way out..."

"I knew there was only one other way out there, and that was to go back continue building the tunnel, working upwards, hoping we'd reach the surface before the supply of food, water, and, most importantly, air, ran out, and there wasn't much to go around." Toka continued.

Mokeet watched the warlord, the food before him long forgotten. He was seeing a side of the ferret he had never seen before, and wasn't sure to make of it.

"It took us four days. Four days of non-stop work. We ran out of food after the second day, and water after the third. We probably wouldn't have survived to reach all the way to the surface, had that crevasse not get in the way. As forbidding and dangerous that crevasse was, especially when we climbed out of it, it was our savior."

Toka sighed, undoubtably remembering the moment. "We had no way to reach the other side of the crevasse, so we back-tracked back to Malkariss, to find most of it caved in and abandoned."

His eyes narrowed suddenly and his temper rose. Mokeet fought the urge to back up, away from the ferret.

"We had been left behind." Toka spat viciously. "For dead."

"We pulled from the wreckage of the empire enough materials to build a simple, hazardous, bridge, which worked for us to get across the crevasse." Knottail went on. "We traveled until we came to a river, then we followed it downstream to the coast of the eastern sea. It was there that the horde began to form."

"But why?" Mattimeo asked. "After all you had been through, you would have surely realized that the life the common vermin leads is almost the same as the life the rulers of Malkariss lead!"

"Toka took getting left for dead personally." Knottail explained, "And decided that he wanted revenge on whoever it was that had done that. He considered that act alone worse than any act that Malkariss had ever done."

For some reason, he stared right at Mattimeo when he added, "And the rest of us agreed with him."

"I knew that in order to carry out my promise, I would need an army, and not just any army. One that was skilled and powerful enough to take on the only ones who had been powerful enough to defeat the mighty empire of Malkariss, a feat no one else could do." Toka said. "We had found evidence that whoever they were, they went back north, and so that was the direction we gradually started to head."

Mokeet stared at the warlord, long lost as to what to make of this.

"We met up with other vermin hordes along the way, and after I found them worthy, allowed them to join in." Toka continued. "Then, the training began. We began taking over villages, dwellings, everything that we came across. Almost immediately, our wins began to outnumber our losses, and I began to lead us northward, in search of our greatest enemy."

"Do ye know who it might be?" Mokeet asked, very worried now.

"I have a pretty good idea." Toka said. "I suspect those at Salmandastron were behind Malkariss's fall."

"But, ye 'aven't tried to invade the fire mountain, have ye?" Mokeet asked.

"No, we weren't ready then." Toka said. "We ran into one of their patrols, and even though we beat them, it wasn't without heavy losses on our side, and we outnumbered them. That was shortly before we found you, remember, mate?"

"Yes." Mokeet answered. "Ye sank my ship, took me captive, an' killed everyone else that was on my ship because they fought against ye."

"That was almost routine work by that point." Toka said. "But I knew after our encounter with that Salmandastron patrol that we weren't ready to face our goal just yet. So we went around the mountain and continued on, looking for other things to fight against. That's why I took so much interest in your treasure, Mokeet. It wasn't for the gold, or whatever is in there, it was for whatever we might run into along the way. That's also why I asked you so much about it, I was hoping you would let slip about someplace like Redwall here. The final test for my army."

He stared out the window at the horde working below, almost like a parent admiring how much it's child had grown.

"Wot if Salmandastron isn't the enemy yore lookin' fer?" Mokeet asked rhetorically.

Toka shrugged. "Then the stronger my army will be." he stated plainly.

"So this has all been some kind of test?" Tess asked. "Just to see if you can take Salmandastron?"

Knottail nodded. "Toka thinks that once we take Redwall and finish a few other things here in Mossflower, we'll be ready." He turned to Mattimeo. "I'm finished now. I have nothing more to tell you."

Mattimeo nodded numbly, then began to walk off. Weylan followed urgently. Tess remained where she was, her head hung.

"Should we go warn Salmandastron, mate?" Weylan asked as they walked across the Great Hall.

Mattimeo shook his head. "There's no need. We simply need to worry about Redwall right now."

"But Toka wants to take Salmandastron..."

"He won't until he takes Redwall. If we stop him from taking Redwall, then maybe we can stop him all together." Mattimeo stated, staring at his reflection in Martin's sword.

"Ye know, I'm glad that Knottail fella chose to talk when he did." Weylan suddenly spoke. "I really don't think ye could 'ave gone through with choppin' off 'is tail."

"Oh, I would of, Weylan, because I had to know." Mattimeo answered, sheathing the sword.

"Know wot?" Weylan asked.

Mattimeo turned on him. "It was the forces of Redwall that defeated Malkariss." he said, fighting back tears, "And just as I had always wondered, always feared, since then that there was some soul down there we hadn't rescued. And now I know."

He walked on again. Weylan stood where he was for a moment, in total shock. He raced to catch up with Mattimeo.

"Ye do realize, that if Toka ever figures out who really did defeat Malkariss..." Weylan began.

"That he'll double his efforts to take Redwall." Mattimeo finished. "I know."