Cluny had awakened feeling confident that his newest plan would succeed without fail; little did he know that Deathfang had switched the plans making it easier for Redwall to achieve victory. He was peculiarly angry today, because he was getting tired of his constant failures of invading the Abbey of Redwall. He grabbed the battle plans and sought out Redtooth. He grabbed his second in command and handed him the plans, "Redtooth, here are the plans as I promised, you have one hour to get the crew organized and ready to mobilize so we can attack the Abbey. If you need me, I'll be in my tent, asleep."

"Aye, aye chief." Redtooth saluted.

Cluny left the red-furred rat to his work while he went to his tent, changed into a red habit and snuck out through the back of the tent. I might as well go find a tree in at the center of the edge of the battlefield. This will be quite an interesting spectacle for my viewing pleasure. He found the perfect viewing point on the edge of the field between the Abbey and the edge of the woods where the horde would soon emerge. The rat couldn't help but laugh, "Soon Redtooth will take the Redwallers by surprise. It is a very nice view point to watch the battle unfold."

---

The horde was fully organized and armed to the teeth, as instructed in the last attack on the Abbey they were to fight even after they were killed. Redtooth drew the cutlass and pointed the tip in the direction of Redwall, "On to Redwall and to VICTORY." The horde began to move toward the Abbey and set off to what would be the greatest battle in the Recorded history of Mossflower.

Fangburn was the only rat, aside from Cluny, who hadn't gone with the rest of the horde, "I'm lucky the chief told me that I was excluded from the attack. If my thoughts are right, the others will probably lose. But I might as well rest up." Fangburn strolled into his tent and laid down for a little nap to replenish much wasted strength and to rest his left leg, he had injured it when Deathfang had gone berserk and made the pain even worse when the horde retreated and ran back to camp. "I just hope Redtooth doesn't mess up during the assault." He yawned, "If he does he'll dangle by his feet until either his head explodes or until Cluny has him cut down."

---

Deathfang sniffed the air, "The horde has begun its attack, everybeast to your positions. Remember the plan, and if you go down, then go down like the heroes that Martin the Warrior wanted to protect the Abbey."

"Spoken like a true warrior of Redwall." Deathfang turned and saw Matthias clad in a suit of armor.

"Matthias," Deathfang said searching through his pack and pulled out a dusty old scroll that was handed down from his clan elders for as long as he could remember, "this isn't written in your Abbey's records, but Martins father, Luke the Warrior, visited my clan before Martin was born in the caves along the coast line. My father told me that if I should ever come across the protector of Redwall, I should give him this scroll. It contains secret information from one of my clan's recorders from hundreds of seasons ago."

Matthias took the scroll and handed it to Cornflower and said, "Cornflower, take this to old Methuselah's study. We'll read it later."

"Of course Matthias," Cornflower said as she took the scroll and kissed Matthias on the cheek, "Good luck to you. Promise me you'll be okay."

Matthias nodded, "I promise on my oath as a warrior of Redwall. I will also take good care of Mattimeo."

"We all will Matthias." Deathfang said as he put his claw around Matthias. "Martin entrusted you the privilege of being the greatest position in Redwall history, do not let his position die in vein."

Suddenly, Foremole came out of the listening tunnels crying out, "They'm rat villyuns be's a 'eaded towards ee H'abbey."

"Everybeast get to your positions." Basil raised the call to arms carrying a javelin in his paw, "I say Deathy, Matthias, let's give those vermin ruffians blood 'n' vinegar, eh, wot."

"You can bet your whiskers on that Bas." Deathfang said with a grin on his face, "Now let's get a move on this cart load of vermin cataclysm, shall we?"

"I couldn't agree more Deathfang." Matthias said heading towards the Western ramparts.

---

Redtooth and the vermin horde came storming out of the woods, and headed towards the Western wall. Cluny watched from the tree his perch, "Excellent, now for the fight that will give me Redwall, the creatures inside, the tapestry, the sword, and my revenge. I should have packed a lunch, I'm feeling a bit hungry."

Redtooth drew his cutlass and pointed the tip at the Abbey, "Let's make the chief proud, CHAAARGE!!" The horde raised their weapons and cheered as they charged the wall.

Natalie Renndclaw raised her paw, "All right, they're charging. Archers stand ready!"

As the Archers, and Iris Renndclaw, drew back their bows Deathfang turned to Matthias and whispered, "She is known as the Reaper's Ears because of her sensitive hearing, she can hear the waves hitting the southern coastline from Marshwood Hill."

"Fantastic," Matthias whispered, "now tell me what your other siblings' unbelievable abilities are after this is over."

Natalie lowered her paw in the direction and shouted, "All ranks, fire!"

Redtooth heard the shout, "What in the name of Hellgates was that?" He looked into the air and saw a sea of arrows swarming up from behind the wall and fell onto the horde like rain slaying anybeast that they hit.

Behind the wall, Natalie signaled to the archers to reload and fire quickly. Burntpaws was up in one of the terraces, out of harm's way making sure that every shot counted. Iris was on the opposite end of the wall firing oak arrows tipped with poisoned barbs, that way if she hit a vermin in a non-lethal area the poison would do him in. James Renndclaw had a sharkskin sling of which many vermin feared, this gave him the name, Darkforest Slingshot. Each time he hurled a projectile at the rats, he launched a poisoned barb that that could ground spikes that immobilized a vermin stupid enough to step on one and get poisoned. James was in charge of the slingers, ordering otters left and right to throw after the archers let loose a volley. Marian, Matthew, and Deathfang were left out, mainly because they were close combat warriors, so they armed the army of the remaining warriors for later in the plan that Deathfang switched.

Mattimeo was waiting to open the gates and let the army out to meet the vermin, he, Auma, Sam, Tim, and Tess were very eager. Cheek was with Basil Stag Hare commanding the flow of orders to the soldiers by observing an exact copy of the plan that Deathfang had made the night before when the others were asleep. Starpaw was with Cornflower in the Infirmary waiting to treat any and all Redwallers injured in the fight, "Oh I hope that Mattimeo is all right, I hope he won't be hurt by anything."

"Don't fret yourself Cornflower," Starpaw said placing her paw on the mousemaid's, "If your son does get injured, or if worse comes to worse, I heal him to the point that he is as good as new. I can actually revive a deadbeast who has passed on three days before I performed a revival. But I did leave an "ace in the hole" if you will, when I resurrected the rats in Cluny's old horde, you see, if I were to die I'd take the resurrected horde down with me. That's why I put that poisoned dagger into my paw. If I betray the Abbey, I betray Cluny and go back on my word to him."

"Well let's just wait an see how many in beasts on our side fall to Cluny's horde." Cornflower said, "Then we'll see if you are as good as you say you are."

"You won't be disappointed," Starpaw, said, "I stay true to my word."

Deathfang was literally armed to the teeth. He had a pair of poisonous war fangs in his mouth; he wore a pair of poisoned tipped claws on his paws; and he carried his two scythes, Agony and Turmoil, in his hands. Matthew was clad in his suit of armor; his shield was in his left paw and his huge broad sword was in his right paw. Marian had a large, heavy club with a hollowed out head that contained liquid jinn sing that entered a rat's body and turned its muscles into rubber, the spikes on the head of the club. Deathfang turned and asked his siblings, "You two ready for this?"

"Are you, kidding Deathfang?" Marian asked.

"We were born ready." Matthew replied to the statement.

"I had a feeling you two would say that," Deathfang said, "it comes with the clan spirit. We Renndclaws have a very strong sense of pride in our spirits."

A shout from Natalie told Deathfang it was no longer to talk politics, and time to fight with honor. Deathfang twirled his scythe, Turmoil, in the air and pointed it, blade side first, in the direction of the front gate and Mattimeo, Sam, Auma, Tim, and Tess pulled the gate open and the vermin flooded into a flurry of rocks, arrows, metal, and blood. Matthias ran into the army with Deathfang at his side, they stuck down vermin left and right while the archers and slingers released a hail of stones and arrows on the vermin. Deathfang kept his eyes set on the front gate where three rats had the young Redwall defenders pinned down, he fought his way through the army to the gate and beheaded the three rats who were terrorizing Mattimeo and company, and gave them all a sharpened wooden sword and a hard wooden shield and shouted, "Charge the horde!" and with that the fierce group of warriors charged and hit the horde's back and began felling rats, ferrets, stoats, and any other vermin who got in there way.

Orlando charged into the horde and cut down several vermin getting in between him and the goal of reaching his daughter, Auma. He shouted above the horde, "Hold on Auma, I coming, hold on!"

Cheek and Basil swiftly boxed their way into the vermin, "Egad, old boy," Basil commented to his junior companion, "we ought to bally well bathe ourselves down with a stiff bristled brush when this is jolly well over, wot."

Cheek looked in agreement at his proctor, "Yeah, Bas. But I have a feeling these vermin need a bath more than we do." A rat came close to Cheek but fell in front of him and went limp like a dead fish.

"Well a bath ain't gonna do him much good old thing." Basil commented on the dead rat. "He must've gotten hit by one of those poisoned arrows when he outside the blinking Abbey, wot." A rat ran at Basil with his spear drawn but an arrow that hit him in the neck knocked him back. Basil looked behind him and saw Burntpaws firing arrows like it was going out of style at the rats. The hare looked to the left and saw a large group of rats running up the staircase toward the young ferret, "I say somebeast," He shouted to Natalie, "get those vermin before poor Burntpaws is bally well massacred."

Like a blessing in disguise, Natalie pointed the archers to fire a hail of arrows that knocked all of the vermin off the wall and outside of the Abbey. Burntpaws didn't know what had happened, he was too busy trying to get a fix on Redtooth and end the siege. Redtooth however was being chased out of the Abbey shouting, "Retreat you idiots, retreat."

The rats and vermin, who were left standing, turned and fled the Abbey. The Redwallers cheered in their victory, they headed into the Abbey to get their wounds healed.