Deathfang was asleep in the orchard like he usually was. He had always been in control of his temper; but tonight he was in a conflict with himself. He kept having a strange nightmare over and over again, he was walking along a path in the mountains where he had lived countless seasons ago, when he reached the top flames and screams of agony greeted him. He walked across the battleground to find a cave with the entrance covered in blood. A foul and familiar odor filled the air around him he new the smell all too well, death had visited the corridors and passages of the cave. Deathfang ran down the passage to his left and found a horrific sight in front of him, a wolverine with blood oozing out between the gaps in its teeth, blood shot eyes with a look that shook him to his core, razor sharp fangs, mangled unruly black fur, claws tipped with blood, and two scythes with blood along the blades. Deathfang reached for his scythes, but he only felt bare fur on his back. The beast in front of Deathfang charged at him and swung a scythe whose blade wedged itself into his side. He screamed an ear splitting scream of agony and woke up.

He placed a paw on his chest and caught his breathe, "What a horrible nightmare," he ran his paw along the place beast from his dream had hit him with the scythe blade and felt no traces of a wound, "it seemed so real. Why did I have it? How did I get to the point that I started to have that one dream over and over again? I'll probably feel better after a little somethin' to eat." He drew a dagger and slashed a few pears, peaches, and apples out of the trees and took the flagon of strawberry cordial he slept with behind the tree, and had a late night snack being especially careful not to rouse the Guosim shrews that served as a guard in case he was driven berserk. When he finished, he placed the flagon back in its usual spot behind the tree and went back to sleep.

This time, he was in the forest near Cluny's vermin encampment, he sat in the bushes and watched for the perfect time to take out a sleeping sentry and bind him to a tree and intimidate him. He was in luck; the ferret in front of him was starting to nod off. Quiet as a church mouse in a kitchen with a sleeping cat on guard, he eased his way behind the guard and grabbed him. Deathfang clocked the ferret on the back of the head and tied him to a tree. He turned around and headed into the camp, using the stealth that he had earned through the many years he'd spent sneaking into the camps of vermin and stealing their food in order to survive. He silently crept up to Cluny's tent and quietly cut a small spy hole and looked around. He found plans for a new attack on the Abbey. He memorized the headed out of the encampment and ended the dream.

It was before dawn when Deathfang had woken up. The sun was a few hours away from rising and rousing the creatures of Mossflower Woods. Deathfang ran to the wall, scaled it, and jumped to the ground and headed off in the direction of the vermin camp. He reached the camp's outer most boundaries and snuck up to Cluny's tent. He quietly crept into the tent past the sleeping sea rat and up to a desk where Cluny's war plan for two days from then lay open. Deathfang memorized the plans; they were the exact same ones from his dreams, and swiftly but silently crept back out of the tent and back to the Abbey. Boy, He thought with a grin on his face, wait 'til the Abbot here's that I successfully took a peak the enemy's battle plans without getting' caught. A sudden rustling from the bushes startled him; he climbed a tree and crouched in behind the leaves in time to see the gigantic body of Asmodeus Poisonteeth slither out and head in a direction perpendicular to the way the wolverine was going. Thank the seasons that I reacted when I did, He thought, breathing a huge sigh of relief, one wasted second, and I would've been snake food. He turned and continued back to the Abbey.

---

Deathfang had slipped over the wall and got back to the tree he slept under every night and carved an exact copy of the diagram he had seen in Cluny's tent. Now that he wasn't in a rush to get in and out of a place he came up with a counter diagram of the plans for the enemy assault on Redwall, he had a diagram of the war plan that he would substitute that night for the real plan, all he had to do was make sure that no beast knew about the war plan, so he clawed up the area he had carved the diagram in and hid the modified copy under the root of the tree. "I just hope that none of the young 'uns play around this tree." He said to himself, "'Cause if anyone finds this the beasts in this Abbey are goin' to turn against me." He looked around and sniffed the air and made sure no one was awake. The sun started to rise and Deathfang knew that the vermin camp would be waking up. I'll have to leave tonight after everyone's in bed, asleep, and make the exchange. He thought to himself as he went back to sleep.

---

Cluny's camp was up and making sure that their leader's plan would go as intended, Cluny was thinking that none of the Redwallers were going to ruin this new plan. He hadn't memorized the plan at all since he made it, but he had been waiting the entire horde would mobilize and take the Abbey by storm. "Redtooth," He shouted at his second in command, "come here, I have something to tell you."

Redtooth ran over and stood at attention, "Yes chief," he said with a large amount of confidence, "you wanted to see me?"

Cluny drew his sword and said, "If you want to show me that you're capable of being a future leader of this horde of vermin, you'll be put in charge of this attack."

Redtooth was overjoyed by what Cluny had said, "Thank you Chief," he saluted his leader and immediately asked, "so where are the plans? Can't I just have one little peak?"

Cluny bared his teeth and growled at his second in command; "You most certainly can…not," Redtooth was disappointed by this, "the reason I made you the head of this attack is so you could make up for the last attack that you screwed up. I'm giving you this position so you can make yourself look like less of a moron than you already are."

"Thanks for making me feel so dignified." Redtooth said sarcastically.

"Shut up you idiot." Cluny snarled, "If you do so much as try to go into my tent before sundown tomorrow, I'll make sure that you'll never live to see another beast in this blasted assortment of vermin soldiers die again." He turned and walked over to a group of vermin who were holding a battering ram and oversaw their progress. As he tormented them to improve their technique he thought, Hopefully this time that stupid wolverine who lives in the Abbey won't interfere with the attack. If he does I'll be in a rough situation and I'll be delayed from conquering that accursed place.

Sylvia had been looking over Cluny very carefully and found that something wasn't right, "Ashclaw," she whispered to her brother, "do you notice anything different about Cluny this morning?"

"Now that you mention it," Ashclaw said looking at Cluny with an expression of curiosity on his face, "he does seem to be unusually frightened behind that normally harsh tongue of his. He seems to be showing some weakness…"

He was reaching for his axe when Cluny's tail whipped around his neck, choking him, "Weakness 'ey Ashclaw," Cluny said with a wicked smile on his face, "is that what you think I'm showing?"

Ashclaw struggled to breathe, "No sir I meant no insult," he pointed to his sister, "'twas Sylvia brought up the discussion, punish her not me."

"I don't care who started it, fox, " Cluny growled with no remorse, "what's bad is you let it put your worthless life in jeopardy." Cluny's anger had gotten a firm hold of him by that time and he grabbed Ashclaw and threw him into Sylvia knocking the two foxes to the ground. Cluny felt his head begin to throb, "Now go make yourselves useful and instruct the rammers while, I find a spot to calm my nerves." The two foxes did as they were told and didn't try to continue their previous discussion.

---

Deathfang was using a scope that he had crafted out of a hollow branch and a couple lenses he had crafted from beach sand to spy on the vermin from the safety of the wall. So that idiot rat is in pain from the memory of that wound I put deep in his leg those many years ago. He laughed with confidence, The oaf probably doesn't know that the attack he'd originally planned for tomorrow will be crushed along with a few members of his bunglin' horde.

Mattimeo had been watching Deathfang and patted his shoulder, "Deathfang are you alright?"

This action snapped the wolverine out of his trance, "Hm, what?" He turned to Mattimeo and said, "Oh Matti, it's just you, for a second there, I thought you were Basil comin' to challenge me to another one of his fancy salad eatin' contests."

Basil strode up behind Mattimeo and chuckled, "Well, I say old thing, that's the same bally question I getting ready to ask you, wot."

Deathfang just chuckled, "Call it my sixth sense hard at work."

"So, my boy," Basil squatted down beside Deathfang, "any signs of an attack by the bounder Cluny? 'Cause I'm jolly well ready to stop another one of his attacks."

Deathfang deviated from the spyglass looked to make sure that no one else was around, "Well actually," he said in a low voice, "don't tell anyone else about this, but the moron's gonna launch an attack tomorrow."

"I say," Basil's ears perked up, "that only gives us until sundown tomorrow to prepare."

"Well actually his original plans will be exchanged for a fake set of plans that I made before sun up this mornin'," Deathfang said with the look of a thief on his face, "I'm gonna exchange it for the plan that Cluny made tonight while the idiot's asleep."

Basil and Mattimeo soon caught wind of the wolverine's clever little scheme and began to want in on the sinister thwarting of Cluny's plan. "I say Deathy," Basil asked, "any room for two more good beasts in this little scheme of yours, wot?"

Mattimeo thought of how to get Deathfang to accept them in his plan. He whispered in the wolverine's ear, "I'll spice up Skipper's Water Shrimp 'n' Hotroot Soup next time he makes it for dinner."

Deathfang's face lit up, he got a sly little gleam in his eye, "Matti, consider yourself and Basil part of operation "Rat in the Pit." You promise you won't tell your father about this."

"We promise." The two friends said in unison.

"Excellent, be ready to start when the Abbey is asleep," Deathfang said, "I'll arrange for you two to sleep outside with me. The Gousim shrews are gonna be let in on what we planned, I told them this mornin' that I would be headin' to the vermin encampment when the Abbey is asleep, so we won't worry about them gettin' in the way. The sentries are also in on what we're up to so we won't have to worry about interference from any of them. No one outside of them is to know about this, especially not Matthias and Orlando. And Mattimeo, in case you ask, your friends and my siblin's are in on our little operation." Mattimeo breathed a sigh of relief before Deathfang continued, "Now listen closely, here's what we'll do…"

---

The moon was full that night meaning the trek through the woods to Cluny's camp would go along much smoother. Mattimeo and Basil had opened the East Wall Gate and allowed Deathfang to slip out of the Abbey and into the safety of Mossflower Woods without making a sound. He bolted through the woods so swiftly that he didn't leave a trace of wear he had been. He stuck to the shadows and undergrowth to mask is presence even further. He reached to encampment and grabbed the fake plans out of a birch bark pack, that he had made himself, and crept towards Cluny's tent and switched the plans without leaving one detail unchecked. He made sure that Cluny didn't make any alterations to the battle plans sense that morning by sniffing the scroll, he only detected his own sent, So the idiot didn't notice a thing, He thought to himself, what a moron, he should've made a few minor changes. He knew he had to get out of the tent through the camp and back to the Abbey and destroy the plans, so he moved like a wraith across the grounds and noticed that his strategy had gone without even a minor set back.

---

When he got back to the Abbey, he threw the plans into the fire and burned them. "Beasts of Redwall Abbey," He said triumphantly, "look closely as you witness the omen that will begin a chain of decisive victories for our forces against the army of Cluny the Scourge. The simple-minded vermin won't know what hit him when the sun sets tomorrow. But enough about the up coming attack that has been thwarted, tonight, we feast." Burntpaws and Auma brought forth a large basket of fruit that they had picked in secret that morning, and everyone was mesmerized by the incredible spread that had been set before them. They said grace to themselves and began eating the victory feast; confident that Deathfang's plan would go, as he knew it would.

Burntpaws was surprised that things were going to be all right inside of Redwall. "Hey, Cheek," He asked the young otter, "do you think that Deathfang's plan's gonna work?" Cheek just looked at him with an expression of confusion on his face, "I mean is he acting a little bit overconfident tonight? I know what he has a good ambition, and that he strives to be the best he can. But he seems to be a little different as far as the look in his eyes."

Cheek looked quizzically at Burntpaws and looked at Deathfang. "You're right," He said, "he's been acting strangely ever since last nights attack by Cluny."

Basil Stag Hare who couldn't help but over hear the young beasts cut their conversation short, "I say, you two, what's with the gloom in your voices, eh? Deathfang's plan went without any failure at all, so enjoy yourselves, wot, wot?"

At that moment, Matthias and Abbot Mordalfus walked out into the orchard and saw the celebration taking. Matthias walked up to Deathfang and asked, "My friend, why are you celebrating, when Cluny hasn't attacked the Abbey in half a week?"

Deathfang was conscientious enough to tell his comrade what he had done and merely told him in a polite tone, "Matthias, we are celebrating a small victory that I had planned from this morning before dawn, I snuck into Cluny's camp and swapped a battle plan that was meant to be used on us tomorrow for a fake set of plans that I made. Tomorrow at noon, the vermin are going to wake up and we'll take them out with the plans that were meant for us."

The Abbot was shocked and said, "Deathfang, that must be the best idea that anyone in the Abbey could have thought up." He paused for a moment, "Why didn't you tell me about your plan earlier?"

Deathfang hung his head in shame at his foolishness and said, "I didn't think that you would approve so I kept you and Matthias out of the plan. The beasts that are here I told only because they haven't had any action in almost a week and I didn't want them to be turned against each other."

"Deathfang," Matthias said putting a paw on the wolverine's shoulder, "it's an attitude like that would make us suspect you of treason. We would never think you were plotting against us, so don't feel bad about not telling us."

"I guess you're right." Deathfang said, "Well let's continue our celebration." They celebrated and soon sleep overcame them until morning. The next day would hold a long siege that would be the greatest challenge of the Abbey's history."