Chapter 25
Gry and Mena heard the sound of a table being knocked over from inside the house.
"Wot was that?" Gry exclaimed, gripping his mallet tight.
The squirrelmaid called Mena shook her head. "Probably our thief escaping."
Gry threw the door open. "Aye, yore right, Mena. 'E's gone through that window! Look! Th' table's also knocked over!"
"Oh, great. Come on, Gry, let's go catch him!"
Kyrin was sitting on the bough of a tall oak tree when Mena and Gry came around the house.
"Kyrin! Get down from there!" Mena called.
"No way, missy!" Kyrin shouted back down. "You've gotta catch me first!"
Mena looked indecisive. Suddenly it hit Kyrin: Mena didn't know how to climb trees. Well! What were the chances of that?
"Do you know how to climb trees?" Kyrin called down to the squirrelmaid.
"I do, thank you very much!" Mena shouted back. Her face was as red as a beet.
"Well, let's see you do it," Kyrin taunted.
Mena stalked over to the foot of the tree Kyrin was in. She closed her eyes and clenched her paws, then jumped and grabbed the tree.
"Congratulations," Kyrin said, clapping his paws. "You've latched onto a tree. Now climb up."
"Shut up! I'm working on it!" Mena shouted, scrambling on the tree trunk. She let out a surprised squeak as she slipped and landed back on the ground.
"Try again," Kyrin called. "And this time, see if you can get more than a foot off the ground."
The determined squirrelmaid bit her lip and latched on to the tree once more. Kyrin could tell by the way she was straining that she was having a hard time.
"You're makin' it difficult for yourself," Kyrin called as she nearly slipped again. "Stop thinking so hard an' relax. Let th' tree do the work for you."
With a good amount of difficulty, Mena made it up to the bough on which Kyrin was sitting. Seeing that her captive was in range, Mena grabbed at his tunic with a free paw. But Kyrin nimbly leaped over to a bough on an adjacent tree.
"Nice try, ol' lass. Better luck next time, wot!" Kyrin called cheerfully, imitating harespeech.
Ignoring the jibe, Mena hauled herself up onto the bough Kyrin was sitting on a moment ago. Kyrin smiled and shook his head. "Having trouble?" he called.
Mena was fuming at this point. "Just wait until I get my paws on you…"
"You're tryin' too hard," Kyrin said. "See the branch I'm standin' on? Did you know you can jump right to it from where you are right now?"
"How do I do that?!" Mena cried, exasperated
"Just let go of yourself," Kyrin answered. "Just let go of everything. Trust me. I won't hurt you, I promise."
Though Mena was in a predicament, something told her to trust the young thief. Closing her eyes, she jumped, feeling herself sail freely through the air. Sure enough, she landed on the branch Kyrin was standing on.
When she opened her eyes, Kyrin smiled at her and jumped to another branch. " Congratulations. How do you feel?"
Hiding a smile, Mena lunged at him. But Kyrin jumped yet again to another branch. "Good, you're learning fast," Kyrin complimented her, jumping away as she jumped after him.
After a bit of "practicing" – jumping around from tree to tree, Kyrin grinned mischievously. "Now, let's speed things up a bit, shall we?" With that, he bounded off into the woods, jumping from branch to branch.
"Gry, follow him!" Mena shouted.
"Right!"
Kyrin looked behind him and was surprised to see that Mena was actually gaining on him, slowly but surely. Setting his overconfidence aside, the young squirrel bounded through the treetops, Mena trailing close behind.
Mena found treehopping to be very easy. Having found her natural rhythm, she bounced freely through the trees, The trees whizzed by like an endless green blur. It felt nice being a squirrel.
Then, her dress snagged on a branch and she plummeted earthwards. It was a rather high drop.
Kyrin saw the squirrelmaid fall. Thinking fast, he turned around and bounded towards her falling form and leaped into the air, catching her. The only problem was landing the jump. With the extra weight of a creature in his arms, Kyrin couldn't plan and execute a good landing in time. He glanced off a branch, slammed into a tree trunk, and fell earthwards.
Of course, they landed straight in the camp of Orak the Assassin.
The Warlord's soldiers were geared up and lined up in neat ranks, ready to move out. The last thing they were expecting this fine dawn morning were two squirrels dropping out of the trees and landing in a heap in front of them.
"Kyrin?" Mena whispered desperately, shaking the still form lying beside her. "Kyrin, wake up, please…"
"Oy, wot's this? A couple o' lovebirds crashin' through th' trees?" a rat piped up as the vermin moved towards them, weapons at the ready. Upon hearing this, Mena quickly retracted her paws from Kyrin's body, as if she had just touched something disgusting.
"Sorry ter ruin yer 'unnymoon, eh?" an ermine snarled.
Just then, battle cries rang out from either side of the camp.
"Riverpawwwwww!"
"Yaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"
Gry and Firulan crashed through the underbrush, their weapons raised above their head, stopping dead when they realized who they were up against. The vermin just stared. An awkward pause followed. Nobeast moved.
"Wh-where am I?" Kyrin groaned as he woke, the stars fading in his head.
"Take a look around. Nice job, dimwit," Mena hissed.
"Give me your dagger and get behind me," Kyrin whispered aside to her.
"Not a chance!" Mena shot back. In a flash, she zipped forward, knocking down an ermine with eye-blurring speed. The rest of the vermin sprung into action.
"Kyrin!" Firulan called above the mounting noises of battle. As Kyrin turned, his friend tossed him his claymore. Now that he had a weapon, Kyrin got up and charged. "Stay close!" he shouted. "Don't let them get between us!"
Together, the squirrel, the mouse, and the otter constituted a fierce fighting unit. With their backs to each other, Kyrin punched a ferret in the face, Firulan sliced off a fox's paw, and Gry smashed a stoat's skull in with his oak mallet.
Mena, however, was an entirely different entity altogether. She elbowed a weasel grabbing at her arm and swept the footpaws out from under an oncoming fox.
"Fine mornin', isn't it?" Firulan called cheerily as he stabbed a rat through the head.
"What're you doin' here?" Kyrin shouted as he clotheslined a passing ermine with his forearm.
"I could ask ye th' same thing," Firulan replied. "But let's get ourselves outta here first, huh?"
Gry noticed Mena getting overpowered by hordes of vermin. "I'm goin' t' help Mena. Good luck, mates," he said. Roaring, the otter bowled a path towards the squirrelmaid, thus breaking with Kyrin and Firulan, who were subsequently overpowered and pinned down.
The vermin had just succeeded in surrounding Gry and Mena when Orak the Assassin, resplendent in full uniform, strode out, flanked by Deatheye and Kirsharr.
"What in Hellgates is going on here?!" the livid Assassin roared. He was answered by the groans of ten or so vermin lying on the ground.
Grabbing the nearest officer by the throat, the Assassin questioned him angrily. "Lieutenant, what is this?" he snarled, foam trickling on the corners of his mouth. "Why aren't my soldiers ready?!"
The soldier gestured weakly toward Kyrin, Firulan, Mena, and Gry being tied up and forced into a kneeling position by Orak's soldiers. "They lit'r'ly fell into our camp, Sire. We weren't expecting them at all, on me life we weren't!"
Dropping the lieutenant, Orak strode over to the four woodlanders, calmly drawing his rapier.
"Are you going to execute them here, my lord?" Deatheye asked off to the side.
At the sound of Deatheye's voice, Firulan looked up and recognized his parents' killer. "YOU!" he screamed, struggling in his bonds. "MURDERER! SCUM! I'LL KILL Y – " he was cut short by an ermine knocking him out cold with a spearbutt.
Orak turned towards Deatheye, cocking his head as if to say "do you know him?" Deatheye shrugged and shook his head.
The Warlord turned back to his captives. "I won't have you ruining my plans," he growled, brandishing his rapier, "so I'll make this qu – "
In his right mind, Orak the Assassin could, should, and would have killed the four of them on the spot. But when he saw Kyrin, the face of the mysterious mouse flashed inside his mind and morphed into that of Kyrin. That face…the mouse…that…squirrel?
You shall meet your end at the paw of the one you do not know and do not expect you shall meet your end at the paw of the one you do not know and do not expect you shall meet your end at the paw of the one you do not know and do not expect you shall meet…
A scream tore itself from Orak's throat as he stumbled backwards and fell. "Get…get away!" Orak screamed at nothing in particular, scrambling backwards as his soldiers rushed forward. "Get him away from me!"
"Should we tie him up?" Deatheye asked.
"Tie them up! Yes! I'll make their deaths nice and slow!" Orak shouted, grinning a half-crazed grin. His soldiers just looked at each other, perplexed.
Kyrin breathed a sigh of relief as the four of them were hauled off.
Tergen the goshawk understood the importance of his mission. He had to find Tam and warn him about the vermin camp up ahead, as well as help them plot a way to infiltrate the place and find Kyrin. Soaring through the blue sky, above the dew-kissed trees, the bird covered amazing ground in a few hours. Traveling solo was certainly much quicker than traveling with an entire army! As sharp as Tergen's eyes were, however, he was unable to see the search party. So, he did the only other thing he could.
On the ground, the entire search party heard the shrill cries of a goshawk ripping through the air.
"That must be Tergen," Tam announced excitedly. Reaching into his haversack, he took out the cherrywood flute that Abbot Cyrus had presented to him before he left. "Let's see if this works," he said, as he positioned the exquisite instrument and blew into it.
A smooth, warm, even sound echoed through the air mournfully. It was answered with more cries from Tergen.
"Well, keep goin', mate! Yore doin' well!" Skipper urged.
Tam kept playing. The sound of the flute seemed to envelope the entire landscape.
"Look out!" Doogy shouted.
"Duck n' cover, lads!" Ferdimond shouted.
Wham! Tergen slammed into the Warrior, sending him sprawling.
"Haha! Tergen! It's nice t' see ye back, friend!" Tam laughed.
"Wot news do ye bring from the Abbey?" Galwa asked. "Is everybeast alright?"
"Goodgood!" Tergen replied in his strange accent. "Tam, we go quiet from here on now! Melanda unscramble last part of riddle! Say 'vermin army camp!"
Doogy looked back at the riddle. "Och, nae good. It's prob'ly th' Assassin's camp, Tam." he said.
Tam realized what was happening immediately. "Well, if Martin dictates that we're walkin' into a vermin army camp, then we better keep our heads low. Stay down. Tergen, is th' camp far up ahead?"
Tergen shrugged. "Don't know. Tergen go look!" With that, the goshawk shot off like an arrow into the sky. He was back in a moment. "Kraaaa! Notgood! Vermin out there!"
Tam crouched down so he was eye level with the goshawk. "Did ye see Kyrin?" he pressed.
Tergen shook his feathered head.
"Then we have to hurry," Tam said. "Tergen, lead the way!"
They followed Tergen to the camp, taking cover behind a row of rocks.
"Would ye lookit that," Doogy exclaimed. "'Tis a whole army out there! Et's Orak's camp an' no mistake at that!"
Tam nodded. "Alright," he whispered, "Everybeast gather 'round. First things first, we're goin' t' get Kyrin out of there. Doogy, the hares, an' I will lead a group that'll get Kyrin out of there. The rest of ye, find Orak the Assassin an' see if we can't cut off the head of th' serpent. Once we've got Kyrin out of there, we'll join up with ye and try t' find Orak. Are we clear?"
"Sounds capital," Buckshaw answered. "I'd also suggest showerin' those blighters with arrows first and get them with a pincer movement. Wot d' ye say?"
Tam nodded. "Alright. Skipper, Log a Log, circle 'round an' see if you can locate Orak. You attack first an' draw their attention so we can find Kyrin, alright?"
"Got it, mate," Skipper said. "Code word for the start of the charge is "Redwall."
Tam clasped paws with the leaders. "Good luck to all!"
Next: the moment you've all been waiting for! ~The Ghost Writer