CHAPTER ELEVEN

The final breath flickered the last candle still alight in the darkened chambers of the Lord of Salamandastron.

Meledan opened one eye, and looked around his quarters hesitantly. Opening the other one, he looked down at the three standing candle stalks in front of him. Two were burnt out, but the third one was just a light, still providing a small amount of illumination to the otherwise pitch black room. The windows and doors were boarded up, and even the cracks around the large entrance to the chamber were sealed with bed sheets and garments. From his cross-legged position on the floor, Lord Meledan turned his great head in the direction of the large, ominous boulder that concealed the mountain's secrets, and saw that it had been heaved to one side. A smile crept across the badger lord's face.

Suppressing the strings pulling on his heart, he calmly walked over to the windows and pulled the wooden boards off them, letting daylight pour into the room. Judging by the life of the candles and where the sun hung high in the sky, he guessed he must have been in a trance for a whole day.

He shook his body, ridding himself of the tension accumulated in his limbs, and then breathed in and out heavily, doing the same for his mind. Once he felt a little more relaxed, he picked up the candle and held it out in front of him, letting it guide him past the boulder and into the secret chamber.

A feeling of odd elation accompanied him on his walk through the crypt-like space, and the further he travelled the less he believed, and the more he knew it had happened. He reached the second chamber, and walked in, looking around at the pictograms littering the walls, swelling with pride at the marked and merited history of Salamandastron. Putting down the candle, he got down onto all fours and found his place. The Great Peace, the chandeliers, the reign of his mother and his birth...

All feeling of goodwill and hope that had inhibited Lord Meledan in the last few minutes deserted him. He could not understand, and nor did he want to, that his eyes were met with nothing but blankness. Nothingness. Pointless, depressing, cold, infuriating...

'AAHHH!'

The badger threw himself onto his feet, spun and slammed like a force of two juggernauts his forepaws into the wall, spinning again and kicking the candle, extinguishing its light and plunging the cavern into darkness. Meledan Saxonos slumped his bulk down onto the floor; his back rested on the rear wall, and did something that he had not done since he was an infant.

He wept.

It must have been another hour or so before he decided to feel his way back out of the chamber, unable to use his eyes in the dark. When he made his way back into his chambers, he opened the balcony door and stepped outside, breathing in the fresh spring air. He looked down at the beach, where preparations were being made by the 7th Antonus Engineers, named after a previous badger lord who had created the engineering brigade for the purposes of building the docks that once stood on Salamandastron's north side, in anticipation of the establishment of the old naval division of the Long Patrol. Now, the seventh incarnation of the regiment, each version designated by the number of times it had been disbanded and reformed or had undergone reorganisation, was being used for perhaps the greatest achievement since the Patroller's Navy.

Whilst observing the preparations, an operation of such scale that it could not be conducted inside the mountain without seriously disrupting the lives of the other regiments, Meledan heard a voice call out from above him:

'Sail to the north west!'

Instead of going inside and making his way to the top of the mountain via the tunnels, Meledan clambered up the rocky side of the mountain until he reached the top, where he startled the young hare on watch when his head popped up over the edge of the summit.

'Good lord, sah, give a young 'un a heart attack, wot?'

'Sorry Private, stand easy. Where's the sail?'

'Ah, right, yes... it's just... wait. Where'd the blasted thing go?'

The hare pointed out to where he had seen the sail, and Meledan followed his paw. He strained his eyes trying to find the sail that the hare had apparently seen, but he could find nothing. Nor could the hare.

'Sorry sah, false alarm. Could've sworn I saw something...'

'That's all right private. Keep your eyes open, better to be safe than sorry.'

'Too right, wot? Me eyes won't leave the horizon sah. At least, until lunch.'

Reminded of food, Meledan Saxonos entered the mountain through the proper entrance from the summit, and walked down to the mess hall to get some. On the way down, his mind still stayed fixed on the problem of the blank space on the wall.

From the research he had done, he had encountered one documented account of a badger lord putting himself into a meditative state, to wake up and find more pictures on the wall. It was incredibly disappointing for Meledan that the same result had not been achieved, but the document, written by the badger lord who experienced it, Sunflash the Mace, said that he had felt compelled to do what he had done by a force he did not fully understand – there had been music that was unknown to him, and that was all he could remember before then presumably he had picked up the hammer and chisel and created the pictograms that ultimately dictated his own reign. This must have meant another badger lord after him had created the next set that stretched further into the future than Sunflash's moment of creative flourish. Or perhaps every badger lord, at the start of their reign, carves out new pictures. It wasn't knowledge passed onto him by his mother, if she had undergone that process. Even if she had or hadn't, why hadn't he experienced it?

Before he knew it, he was sitting in the mess hall eating a slice of ginger cake. He didn't even like ginger.

In the prison cells beneath the mountain, General Bannox Granden was visiting Warbit.

'There's something rather odd about your story,' said the General. Warbit was playing with a band on his wrist. 'And that is the question of why. Why did this ship attack you?'

'Dunno,' said Warbit quickly. The answer seemed too hasty to be honest.

'Of course you do,' said Granden. 'But you think that if you tell me, I'm going to string you up. Oh, don't worry, that's precisely what we're going to do, bucko, but not before I've squeezed every last bit of information I can out of you. Got that?'

Warbit said nothing. He just stared at Granden with uncaring eyes. They then darted to the corner of the room in contemplation, and then the rat readjusted himself in his chair.

'The flag.'

Granden opened the file he had lain out in front of him, and found the picture that Warbit had drawn for him. Underneath that there was another piece of paper with a closer image of the flag's design that had been sketched by a Salamandastron hare under Warbit's instruction. Granden pulled this second sheet out and placed it on the table between Warbit and himself.

'What about it?'

'We've seen it before.'

Granden's blood coursed, and his eyes reddened. 'You said you'd never seen this ship before! That it was a complete mystery!'

'And we hadn't!' responded Warbit quickly, matching the shouting volume of his captor. 'The ship was totally a mystery, I swear! But the flag, well... it was familiar. It didn't really occur to anybeast at the time, but afterward, we realised that it wasn't the first time we'd encountered these creatures. But not on the boat,' he added quickly.

Granden sighed and leaned back in the chair. 'So. You've encountered these beasts before. When?'

Warbit looked down at the drawing of the flag, which had marked out in lettering the colour of each of the different sections, again, according to Warbit's description. 'There was one difference. The cross section was the same: red, white and blue, but the background was white, instead of the lighter blue. That was prob'ly the reason why we never realised it in the first place.'

'Where was this?'

'Sampetra. They 'ad a little problem earlier in the year with a rebellion, an' they're still trying t'get on their footpaws again, wot with the whole slave freedom thing. We reckoned these creatures were there to try and agree trade deals with 'em.' Warbit seemed uncertain of this, and Granden assumed it was just guesswork on the sea rat's part. 'Remember 'ow I said this ship, the Intrepid, was crewed by stoats and otters?'

'You mentioned it.'

'Well, these beasts were the same... kinda. The creature carrying the flag, as a standard, was a weasel, and the main guard was made up of weasels, stoats and otters. Real mix. But the beasts they were guardin'? A mouse, and two female squirrels. They were decked out pretty fancy, and we thought we could get a fair amount of gold for the stuff they were wearin'. So, Dartag ordered an attack. Killed the guard beasts and the mouse, but the two squirrels got away. They weren't fighters, and young by the look of 'em. We didn't 'ang around to check who they were, 'cause it made no odds to us. That's prob'ly why they attacked us. Revenge.'

Granden stared into the rat's eyes, trying to seek out anything that may have been hidden from him. 'Now, is there anything else that you want to tell me? Because I don't want to go away and come back again, only to find out that you've got another, vitally important story for me?'

'That's it. We looted 'em for what they 'ad, and scarpered.'

'What was looted?'

'Usual stuff. Chains, necklaces, weapons. They fought with swords, 'cause it was close quarters combat, but they 'ad those things that fire, well, fire on 'em. If we'd known what they did we'd 'ave taken them too. What we collected weren't nothin' unusual about it.'

Granden believed him. At this stage, there was no reason for Warbit to lie – as far as could be predicted, he would be spending most of the rest of his life behind bars, and the only thing he could barter for would be his rations. Considering allegiances were not factored into a decision made by sea rats, it made no sense for Warbit to owe any loyalty to a fox who, as far as any of the prisoners knew, was already dead. Granden, on the other hand, had received a message from a 10th Honour and Hunt Regiment runner just yesterday.

'Where's your loot now?' asked Granden.

Warbit grinned. 'Why, wanna fill yer coffers?' he joked cheekily. Granden resisted the urge to strangle the rat for suggesting it.

'I ask so that we can be assured it won't lead to a tedious treasure hunt by any of your kind who could use it to build themselves a fancy army,' said Granden monotone.

'We didn't take any wiv us, if that's wot you mean,' Warbit spat back. 'We didn't 'ave time to go and get the loot. All we 'ad was what was in our pockets when we abandoned ship, and that was confiscated by youse lot when we arrived 'ere. I reckon the other ship must've taken the rest back.'

Granden felt somewhat pleased at that. Although he had no knowledge of the ship or its history, the story so far suggested the treasure was back in the paws of its rightful owners. He gathered up his papers silently, and left the cell, signalling to one of the guards carrying a tray that he could feed the prisoner the full ration.

Next stop was the beach where the preparations were being made. He was supposed to be there, overseeing them, but he had decided very early on to take a personal interest in the whole Intrepid business. So, he had left the commander of the engineers in charge, but he wanted to get up there just in case Lord Meledan decided to come out of his oddly sporadic hibernation cycle. On his way there, he stopped by the prison inventory, where items and weapons confiscated from inmates were kept. Inside, it was fairly bare. After a time, the metal weapons would be melted down and reforged for Long Patrol use, and any non-armoury type items given away if the prisoner died whilst in captivity. Luckily, this had never happened, and so the inventory room's only attractions today were a couple of bows and quivers, a variety of seven swords or daggers, and a few bits and bobs also found on the current inmates.

Granden fished through the assortment of odds and ends, and found two items that looked like they had once belonged to the mysterious Intrepid and its crew. The first was a small silver disc, with the head of a badger on one side and a tree on the other, and strange words that Granden did not recognise around them. On both sides, in bold lettering, the symbol "X" was embellished. The second item was a medal, probably taken from one of the otters, with two crossed swords on them, and a word that Granden did recognise: "Valour". He turned it over, and saw that it was a little stained with blood, and a couple of hairs trapped in the pin. The general pocketed both items and headed outside.

'Well, those are not otter hairs. They're stoat.'

Lord Meledan Saxonos was rather too good at detecting the origin of small strands of hair, and each time Bannox Granden saw this skill at work he became fascinated with his lord's ability to come to such immediate conclusions.

'You sure, m'lud?' he asked. 'I can't imagine a stoat being rewarded for valour, wot?'

'Hmm,' said Saxonos, 'maybe not.' He handed Bannox back the medal and stared out across the brigade from his position on one of the rocks just outside the main entrance of the mountain. The brigade was standing to attention on the sand being inspected by their commander, Brigadier Blithe.

'What about the disc?' asked Granden, holding it out for Meledan. The badger took a second to realise Granden was talking to him, but when he did he took the small item and held it in his paw, holding it right up to his face to inspect it.

'Interesting,' he said. 'Well, what I can tell you is that the "X" means ten. Redwall Abbey still uses the old symbolic system, as do many creatures, but you may not know about it considering Salamandastron converted to the current numerical system many seasons ago, even before the Great Peace.'

'What about the writing? Do you recognise it?'

Curiously, Meledan took some time answering that question. He studied the symbols closely, and then seemed to be mouthing words to himself, and Granden thought he was translating it when suddenly the badger turned to him and said, 'no.'

'Sah? You sure?'

Reluctantly, the badger looked back down at the disc, studying it closely whilst talking to Granden.

'Well, they bear some resemblance to a language I've seen before,' said Meledan. 'In the writings of Urthrun the Gripper, one of the first badger lords. He wrote in common, but he often makes references to Ancient Mustelidae, the name of the tongue spoken by badgers in early times. The two languages aren't exactly the same, but I do sort of recognise this word, "debeo",' Meledan pointed to one of the small words on the tree side, '"debeo" means "to owe".'

Bannox Granden took the small disc back and studied it himself. 'So what do you think the blasted thing's for?'

Meledan frowned, and looked at Granden, surprised. 'It's for trade. It's currency. We may use barter for buying and selling, but this is a kind of more complex system to what vermin use.'

'They put a weight of gold or silver against the value of certain items,' recited Granden, starting to realise the purpose. 'So, this is currency?'

Meledan nodded. 'Worth ten small pieces of silver.'

'I say, that's rather clever!' smiled Granden.

'Perhaps,' said Meledan, rather coldly. 'But what that represents is a system fuelled by villainous practise. Maybe we should treat this unknown ship with more hesitancy.'

The badger lord looked out across the parade, watching Brigadier Blithe finish his inspection, before then barking out commands to his unit. The large assembly of hares then set off in unison south, towards the Great South Stream and the most direct route to Redwall Abbey. Somewhere amongst them was a squad of Salamander Guards, carrying chains alongside their weapons, equipment and rations.

To their backs, hidden high up in the mountains that overlooked the beaches, a ferret, holding an odd telescopic instrument, set this aside and dug around in his pack for a signalling lantern.