X.
TALAGA
The Queen of the Searats had a new favorite spectator sport.
The hapless contestant of the moment appeared to be an adolescent male rat still a season or two shy of adulthood, his unclothed frame revealing a physique which may at one time have been hale and robust but now showed the emaciated deprivations of a forced march to the coast from wherever his home had been, followed by time in a searat rowing galley. Now that doomed ratlad struggled and screamed in the clutches of a cormorant's talons and beak as the murder-minded seabird bore him higher into the sky with labored but enthusiastic flaps, upward and upward until the two creatures had dwindled into a common point, one indistinguishable from the other.
"Why must they be ... ungarbed?" Demetria asked from Regelline's side.
"Because sometimes clothes stick, and that makes things messy." Regelline spared a glance at the midwife. "In your occupation, you see many of your charges in just their fur - including me. Surely an unclothed rat doesn't offend your sensibilities?"
"There's a world of difference between an expectant mother heavy with the promise of new life, and a condemned sacrifice gripped by the terror of their situation in their final moments, Your Majesty. I care only for bringing healthy babes into the world, not for seeing prisoners to their deaths."
"Would you care not to be here then?"
"I ... felt I should see this, at least once."
"Very well then. These 'sacrifices,' as you call them, were part of the arrangements my husband had to meticulously work out to win our new allies, and keep them satisfied. It was quite fortunate for us that the Keelblade pulled into harbor when she did, with a hold full of fresh oarslaves ripe for this use. That ought to be enough to sate the bloodlust of these feathered barbarians for a good many days - hopefully until the next ship can arrive. Now sit back and enjoy the show, Demetria, because our latest victim looks like he'll be dropping any moment."
Regelline and her companions sat in a rudimentary reviewing stand of sorts - just a few simple benches arrayed on a promontory overlooking the nearby target point. A crude wooden canopy covered the seating area, not to offer shade from the abundant sunshine of Talaga but to protect the audience should any overly-malicious cormorant decide to drop its tribute down upon the onlookers in an attempt to inflict additional casualties upon the hated searats. While Demetria sat at one paw of the Searat Queen, Harmata sat at the other, the dedicated head servant always loathe to be far from her Royal Highness's side. Behind them, ever on the alert, sat Trushar, his own retinue of the Queen's personal Guard numbering an even dozen, including him - more than enough, given their loaded crossbows and ready swords, to fend off any ill-advised massed assault the unpredictable cormorants might get it into their heads to mount.
Below them, on a particularly rocky and boulder-strewn stretch of shoreline, lay the spot which had in recent days become the most notorious and feared patch of ground anywhere on Talaga, a place no rat would ever want to find itself, outstripping even the dungeons and torture chambers of Fort Ballaster to the north. Dark stains colored and spattered the rocks there, above the reach of the high tide, grisly testimony to the new rituals now being carried out at this site.
The most interesting feature of the location was not the gore-splattered rocks but what stood directly above them: four narrow stone pillars sunk solidly into the hard ground so that they would not shift or give. The quartet of posts formed the corners of a square covering the area of a small cottage, and rose to a height three stories above the rock-strewn shoreline. Strung between those columns - invisible at this distance but surely there, stretched and taut and unyielding as the stone to which it was fastened - hung a horizontal grid of steel wire, of the fineness and temper Tratton had found so useful in his throne room on Terramort four seasons earlier, when a group of rebellious officers had come to take his head, and he had taken theirs instead - along with many of their arms, legs and tails.
"I hope those stupid birds never learn t' tell the difference 'tween searats an' woodland rats," Harmata remarked, her gaze rapt upon the locked duo far overhead.
"I very much doubt they'll ever be able to tell one rat from another, except by our clothes," Regelline responded with an almost detached coolness as she too sat rapt. "That's another reason for stripping the rats we give them. When they see one stumbling through the designated territory unclothed, they know it's for them."
And then the airborne duo were locked no more, the captive rat flung free as the cormorant lined up the target to its satisfaction. Now those cries of panic turned to a shriek of pure terror as the plummeting rodent fully realized his final moments were upon him - a shriek at first thin and tenuous due to distance, but transforming to a full-throated scream of horrified despair as the rat dropped closer to the onlookers.
"I hope it doesn't miss," Harmata muttered as the falling rat neared his end. "That's always so ... ordinary. And anticlimactic."
"No, I think they got it on the mark this time."
Regelline was proven correct moments later, when the rat fell past their clifftop vantage on his tragic rendezvous with the shoreline below. The cormorant had aimed well; the rat hit the wire grid, if not dead center, then near enough not to make much difference. The tight, cutting sharpness of the mesh did its work, with its latest victim's momentum and body weight doing the rest. The rat, his screams now silenced forever, hit the rocky ground in pieces, not recognizable as anything that had been alive mere heartbeats before.
In no time at all, the cormorants flocking all around descended en masse, eager to finish this ritual in their own way as they flew under the lethal grid and congregated on the scene of fresh carnage. Food was food, and they didn't much care where their meat came from.
"Well done!" Harmata lauded. Demetria, queasy, turned her head.
"That should hold them for a while," said Regelline, satisfied that her time here had not been wasted on an errant drop. "Perhaps later we'll let these bloodthirsty allies of ours have another. The Keelblade had a pretty full rowing galley. Don't want to go through them too quickly, though - who can say when the next ship bearing woodland rats will arrive?"
"There are always the enemies of the Empire in Fort Ballaster's dungeons, Majesty," Trushar reminded his Queen.
"We went through half of those waiting for the Keelblade to get here. I'd hate to have to burn through our remaining reserves of turncoat searats unless we absolutely have to. Much better to use all these worthless, untrustworthy land rats Urthblood sends our way, because he's certainly given us enough of them already, and Vulpez knows they're not good for anything else!"
Her latest quota of morbid spectatorship thus satisfied, Regelline rose and led her entourage out from under the protective canopy and back down the winding paths to Talaga Village, Trusher and his fellow guards keyed up to meet any cormorant assault that might be launched at them. But the searats reached the safety of populated territory without incident; the feared seabirds were far too busy elsewhere.
THE REDFOAM
"Ooo, what's this?"
"That's a catapult, Lattie. Ev'ry ship o' the Fleet carries at least one."
Latura clambered over the fastened-down war engine as if she were a woodland tyke playing on a log pile. "Ooo, neat! Can y' put sumpthin' in it an' give it a good fling? Wanna see how far it goes!"
Captain Trangle grinned sourly at his "mascot's" impetuous innocence. "Not t'day, Lattie. Not unless we encounter an enemy ship, or find savages on that isle we're headed for who need t' be put in their place. Doubt we'll run inta any of th' first - King Tratton's made sure there ain't no more enemy vessels competin' with us in our own waters - an' last I heard, the island I got in mind's inhabited by naught but fruit groves an' insecks!"
Latura plunked hersef down on the lashed arm of the catapult, pouting. "Never get t' have any fun 'round here!"
Trangle snorted. "Welcome t' my world, Lattie. Tho' if y' don't fancy havin' free run o' the Redfoam no more, I can allers send y' back below an' slap ye in chains again with all yer friends down there."
"Oh no. Nonono. Like it up 'ere, seein' all there is t' see. Them chains hurt my wrists. 'Sides, it's pewey down there!"
"Yeah, it gets that way, when beasts're chained in place day 'n' night."
"Can Paltryrat come up? He'd like seein' th' sea too, I bet."
"I bet 'ee would. But fer th' fourteenth time, no, 'ee can't come up. Oarslaves gotta be kept in their place, or else discipline breaks down, an' it all goes t' pot."
Trangle felt safe in his continued denials of having Latura's fellow villager freed as well. So far, no further uncanny accidents or misfortune and befallen the crew since the ratmaid's own liberation from the rowing galley, and he'd found he could gently chastise or discipline her - and say no to her on any number of scores - without provoking any of her Seer's backlash. As long as he treated her as a stern father would, rather than a cruel and uncaring taskmaster - and as long as no physical harm was attempted against her - she was his pet prophet to profit from.
Which didn't mean there weren't times when he felt like throwing her overboard himself.
"But y' let me up," Latura continued to wheedle. "Does that mean I'm speeshul?"
"Oh, ye're speeshul a'right, Lattie. No denyin' that."
"He's got my dress, y' know."
"What?"
"That dress 'ee's wearin', all peachy 'n' poofy. Used ta be real nice, 'til them badred squirrlies stole us from Redwall. Now it's all dirty 'n' torn, an' half cut away. Wish I had it back. T'were th' nicest thing anybeast ever gave me."
"Well, it's just rags now. Ain'tcher happy with this fine new shirt I got fer ye? One o' th' best aboard, at least in yer size. Now y' look like a proper part o' the crew!"
Latura picked absently at her nautical style tunic, which almost fit her well. "'Tis nice, I s'pose."
From the crow's nest high above came an enthusiastic shout.
"Land ho! Land ho!"
Trangle's grin underneath his distinctive tricorn hat turned from sour to toothily satisfied. "Now that's more like it! 'Bout time we found this fur-sodden place!'
First Mate Laverty, standing at his captain's side, asked, "Are y' sure it's th' right one, Cap'n sir?"
"It's gotta be, Lavs. We bore far 'nuff south by th' stars t' hit just th' one we want, an' avoid th' ones we don't. But stay sharp fer any other sails, 'specially th' red, black 'n' green. We don't want anyrat else interruptin' us, or spyin' out what we're doin'. An' speakin' of spies, keep all eyes peeled fer any fleetrunners that may be lurkin' about; much as I wanted t' sight one after we left Salamandastron, right now they're th' last boat I wanna run inta!"
Trangle's bosun Gabbert, also hovering nearby, seemed less than pleased and somewhat puzzled by his captain's choice. "Why ain't we goin' to the market isle, where we c'n just barter fer fruit that's already been picked? Why're we goin' to an uninhabited isle where we'll hafta brave th' wilds t' gather it ourselves?"
"Brave th' wilds?" Trangle repeated derisively. "Y make it sound like climbin' a few trees an' hookin' loose a few melons is like a jungle safari! It'll be an easier detail than many this crew's known - in fact, I envy th' team who gets t' go ashore on this warm an' idyllic isle, 'cos it'll be like shore leave on an island paradise! But, t' answer yer question, we ain't stopped any trader vessel nor collected any tribute since pullin' out from Urthblood's mountain, so we got low stocks t' barter with. More important, Jagtar told us t' go right to Talaga after he left us, an' then t' Terramort to - " He eyed the oblivious Latura, footpaws dangling carefree from the catapult boom. "T' take care o' what we gotta take care o' there. Now, he was headed east t' Salam'dastron with King Tratton, an' we've come about as far south an' west as Tratton's Empire goes, but even tho' we may be at opposite ends of the realm, I don't trust Uroza's fleetrunner spies not t' talk 'tween themselves, or for any other ship o' the Fleet who happens t' see us in these waters not t' go tattlin' about it later on. Now, I'm cap'n exercisin' cap'n's pree-roggertive, an' I got some leeway t' do as I see fit with my own ship, but taking liberties with a direct order from a spyrat escortin' His Royal Highness 'imself, well, that ain't sumpthin' I'm gonna go flyin' a flag about. But we don't get t' these waters too often, an' I wasn't gonna pass up this oppertunitee. So we'll put in nice 'n' quiet an' unobserved while norat's watchin', get ourselves enuff o' them sweet tasty succulent melonfruits t' last us all season, an' still get t' Talaga in good time t' carry out our orders with norat bein' the wiser. 'Sides, with that stiff-britches Jagtar forbidding th' crew from disembarkin' on Talaga, 'tis only fair I make it up to 'em with a day or two at a tropical paradise that'll make 'em ferget all about Talaga!"
Gabbert grinned. "Good thinkin' there, Cap'n. Guess that's why ye're Cap'n, Cap'n!"
"Aye, that's why I am." Trangle turned his attention from where he stood amidships to the forward bow. Their island destination still lay too far distant to be seen from down here on deck, but already the sea air was warmer than before, with a clinging, sultry quality to the languid breezes suggesting a far different climate than the one where Tratton's ships more commonly plied.
Latura too picked up on this atmospheric transition. "Wet air's real icky - makes my fur all sticky. Gotta watch out, or it'll make th' bread moldy too!"
Trangle favored her with an evil grin of reassurance. "Don't you worry 'bout that, Lattie. Any of our bread gets moldy, you'll not hafta chow down any of it. We'll save it all fer the oarslaves down below!"
THE ISLE OF MELONS AND INSECKS
The unnamed island turned out to be far from the tropical paradise Trangle had all but promised his crew. For one thing, it was hardly tropical, occupying latitudes not much farther south than Talaga itself - as indeed it couldn't, to fit with Trangle's plans of making this a brief side trip before moving on. And as for it being any manner of paradise ...
Bosun Gabbert led the latest shorebound party out of the beached landing skiff and up onto the turgid shore, footpaws sinking in pungent muck that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be sand or mud.
One of his companions, a rat named Dittmar, wrinkled his snout at the stench. "Yuck! Did a smack o' jellyfish wash up an' die here?"
Gabbert shook his head. "Nay, that's brimstone stink, risin' up from th' sand itself. Must be a bog somewhere nearabouts that drains out onta this beach."
"Ugh. Loverly. Bogberries can be fine 'n' tasty, but t'ain't 'xactly what we had in mind - or what Cap'n Trangle sent us ashore fer. So, where're these melon trees s'posed t' be about? Or was that all hot air 'n' bluster too?"
Gabbert poked the complaining Dittmar in the belly with his cutlass. "You jus' let Cap'n Trangle hear you sayin' he's full o' hot air an' bluster, an' we'll see how quick you become fish bait. 'Course Cap'n's been here afore, an' our First Mate too, tho' may've been in their younger seasons. That's how he knew about it. Altho' ... " Gabbert gazed about him dispiritedly. "Things may've changed here a bit since their last visit."
A second crewrat by the name of Lartaud slapped at a stringing insect on his neck. "C'n we go back to th' ship? At least th' Redfoam's anchored far 'nuff offshore that this stink ain't reachin' her - nor any o' these bloodsuckers neither. Rather have fresh ocean breezes filln' my nostrils than this ... and I'll need a good few buckets o' clear seawater t' wash me footpaws clean after this!"
"Mebbe we just hit upon a bum landin' spot?" a third rat, the scrawny and fidgety Mithermay, ventured without much confidence.
The bulkier Dittmar quickly shot down this thin hope. "Heard from th' first two landin' parties that the sites they tried east an' west o' here were just as smelly, an' just as mucky. We'd hafta sail clear around this isle to see if there's any bay on it not quite so disgustin', tho' I'm guessin' there ain't."
"Maybe it gets better inland?" Mithermay suggested, wringing his paws and refusing to accept that their entire promised shore leave could be as bad as what had greeted them here.
"Oh sure. Let's go find that bog our bosun 'ere says must empty itself out here. That'd be worlds better."
Tired of this bellyaching, Gabbert decided then and there to invoke his scant authority. "Bog or no bog, inland's where we're headed. First two parties didn't find th' melons Cap'n wants, so now it's up to us. Now, I ain't likin' this detail any more'n any o' you, so if we're all agreed this ain't noplace we wanna be, let's get this over with so we c'n get back to th' Redfoam soon's we can!"
Swallowing their gorge along with their further complaints, their company struck out toward the island's interior. They at least showed the good sense to stick together and tread cautiously, which helped them avoid swampy morasses and patches of treacherous quicksand which would surely have claimed less wary and professional vermin. And all the while, with nearly every step came the slap and smack of flattened paws against furred flesh as the isle's voracious insect population, led by mosquitoes and biting flies, mounted a merciless, incessant assault upon head, neck, ear, arm, leg, tail and any other exposed part of their bodies.
"Gah! This's horrible!" Dittmar exploded. "They're even worse here than on th' beach! We might's well turn back now, 'cos even if we do find a grove o' them melons Cap'n wants, we won't be able t' collect 'em without losin' all our blood an' gettin' sucked dry!"
Gabbert was inwardly ready to agree, but dedication to Trangle won out. "We'll scout on just a liddle bit further, circle 'round by a diff'rent way back to th' beach, an' then we'll be able t' tell th' Cap'n we gave it our all. He'll not be able t' gainsay or castergate us if'n we c'n look 'im in the eye an' tell 'im that true, so that's what we'll do."
If their grudgingly-agreed upon strategy was to give them cover for when they returned to the Redfoam empty-pawed, they stumbled by sheer providence upon the very treasure they sought: a stand of the elusive melon trees, their pale green fruit hanging under the frondlike leaves like giant, hardshelled grapes, ripe for the taking.
"Well, ain't that sumpthin'," Dittmar remarked. "Jus' what we was lookin' fer, right here after all, an' th bugs ain't even as bad here neither."
"Too bad they're growin' all th' way up there," Lartaud lamented, gazing up. "Why couldn't th' Cap'n favor melons that grow on th' ground 'stead o' ones that grow up in trees?"
"Would you wanna handle anything that's been lyin' on th' ground in this place?" Dittmar pointed out. "Prob'ly rot on th' vine 'fore they ever got ripe 'nuff fer eatin'. Bigger concern is, will we even be able t' find this place agin?"
"We'll mark our trail real careful on our way back," declared Gabbert. "Make it so that any fool with half a good eye can foller it. Then we'll head back here on th' morrow with poles an' ladders an' baskets, an' gather up more o' these melons than Cap'n Trangle ever coulda hoped for. An' this time, we'll be sure t' wear heavier clothing that covers us more all over, an' leaves less exposed fur where these nuisances c'n get at us.. Might not be comf'terble workin' in this heat that way, but it beats gettin' bit half t' death!"
Lartaud offered, "I heard th' cook once say 'ee knew of a mix a beast could smear all over itself that'd hold bitin' insecks at bay, keep 'em clear away."
"Well, why didn't y' tell us 'bout that 'fore we left th' ship?" Dittmar spat.
"Didn't think it'd be this bad, Ditts. 'Sides, Cookie said it also smelled sumpthin' awful."
"Well, that'd fit right in ... "
"I'll put up with a liddle pong if it keeps these biters away," Gabbert said, slapping at both ears as they all started back toward the beach. "Whatever gets us off this cesspool of an island an' headed off to Talaga all th' quicker is fine by me!"
