Arc One: Awakening
Chapter Two: The Players in the Game
It was a few hours later when Whiteheart returned to the Horde's camp, relieved slightly after spending some time near the pond, but also growing somewhat restless, with an increasing desire to get away from the camp for a bit of time.
Not that he would admittedly, he would never abandon his post or responsibilities, his trips to the pond being one of the only exceptions. Though his Lord did know about them.
Lifting his snout he scented the air and grimaced at the smell of roasting bird, he'd always preffered fish, though he never quite understood why.
Shrugging, he muttered. "Food is food, aunt Drena'll tan my tail if I say anything." He grinned crookedly, "I ain't nearly as dumb as Ceprik."
Snickering to himself as he thought over the last time his father had opened his mouth and got in trouble with his mom, he added. "That was our last stirring spoon too, too bad she broke it over his head."
Ahead of him, Whiteheart could begin to make out the palisade wall surrounding the camp, outside of those palisade walls was a trench twenty paws deep and nearly thirty eight across. A number of beasts were visible across the wall, all standing on the platforms set up behind the palisade wall, which was composed of two layers of logs, sharpened at the top to make it difficult to crawl over.
Approaching the eastern gate, Whiteheart eyed the sub-commander currently in charge over the gate with a weary reluctance.
Sub-commander Buckfang was the very same rat fighter Whiteheart had bested during his first real fight, the fight that had landed him in the Claw.
Buckfang had never truly forgiven Whiteheart for besting him that day, not that the rat could actually do anything about it. Whiteheart was a Claw, far above the basic fighter that Buckfang served as and thus immune to any machinations the petty rat may attempt. Though with his more preternatural qualities, such attempts to catch him off guard almost always failed.
Though his abilities were admittedly not perfect.
A season ago a pair of Long Patrol hares had stumbled onto him at the pond he frequented. He hadn't seen them coming and had had to fight desperately against some of the continents greatest fighters. Though he'd won, he had been stabbed in the side.
Though the Horde's healers had done an excellent job of patching him up.
From that point on, Whitheart had stopped relying so much on his strange memories and battle instincts and his preternatural capabilities. Instead he'd started training himself, pushing his body to the limit repeatedly to grow faster and more skilled, he had also trained his sense of smell and hearing to pick out the slightest variations in the environment around him, or so he liked to believe. In actuality, Whiteheart hadn't really had a lot of chances to test out how trained his senses were.
Not that that was unexpected though, he was Claw, his position was beside Chilldeath and not trundling around the underbrush hounding after scents like a common tracker.
Shifting from paw to paw, Whiteheart nodded to Buckfang and rumbled. "Sub-commander, open the gates if you please."
Grimacing, the rat nodded and motioned to the quartet of fighters on either side of the gate, who proceeded to open the gates—a pair of heavy pine gates with a simple iron bolt as a lock and at least seven centimeters thick.
Swinging outwards, the gates opened to a sight of controlled chaos.
As usual the sight of the camp of Chilldeath's horde always brought warmth to Whiteheart's heart, around seven hundred adult beasts and numerous younglings were noisy, chaotic and rather cramped inside the palisade of the Camp.
But, it was home.
Atop the gate were a pair of iron poles topped with a bronze spearhead, from which soared Chilldeath's emblem. A black wolverine's head on a field of foggy white-grey, this was the image emblazoned on the surcoats of the Horde, on their shields and their banners.
Whiteheart's Claw robes lacked this emblem, though his more battle appropriate attire did have a surcoat and thus his leader's symbol.
Passing the maille—Interlocking rings of iron or steel, or very rarely, bronze—and gambeson—thick cloth capable of protecting against blades and bows—clad gate guards, Whiteheart began to meander his way through the mud and smoke and noise of The Camp. He received a few nods, mostly from the more elite and informed warriors of the horde—the lower ranked and less in the know fighters tended to shy away from him.
The stories they told each other about him were frankly ridiculous.
"Whiteheart!"
Stopping, the pale fox turned and lifted a brow at the tall, female rat standing behind him. She was bedecked in a fine surcoat, proudly bearing the Horde's symbol, with steel and iron plate on her limbs and a cuirass over her torso, a simple kettle helmet with gorget covered her head and she bore sword and poleaxe. Her equipment was much the same as a Claw's battlefield equipment.
While very heavily armoured by vermin standards, especially to those of seasons past, to the standards of the woodlanders—especially those of the Woodlander's Knightly Orders or, Vulpez forbid, the Hareguard of Salamandastron—she was rather lacking in equipment.
"Resa," Whiteheart said coolly. "How kind of you to grace me with your presence today, It has been a while since I've seen you." One that wasn't nearly long enough, he silently growled.
"His Lordship is looking for you, Whiteheart, you and a few others."
Frowning, He ventured. "Why?"
"Redwallers, Or at least what we believe to be Redwallers. The two knights in their party at least bear the red keep and red sky of Redwall upon their surcoats."
"Fighting Redwallers has always been something Chilldeath has avoided," Whiteheart mused, drumming his fingers upon his longsword's pommel. "What could have changed when I wasn't looking I wonder."
Scowling, Resa growled. "One of these days, fox, his Lordship's fondness for you will run out, and I will be there to laugh."
Flashing a smug smirk, Whiteheart said. "That'll be a long wait, rat. Chilldeath's fondness for me is beyond being damaged by such petty frivolities of me using his name instead of fawning all over him."
Stalking past, he sent one last look at the rat before turning his nose to Chilldeath's Courtyard.
Once more a scowl overtook his features, though this time it was directed at himself instead of any others.
He could never explain it, but Resa had always rubbed his fur the wrong way and he just couldn't figure out why. Perhaps it was because she was one of the types of beast that gave their kind such a bad name, being a merciless maurader obcessed with combat and killing, or perhaps it was because of her conceited attitude to everybeast but the Claw—excluding Whiteheart—and Chilldeath. He honestly didn't know.
Doing his best to shrug it off, Whiteheart stepped into Chilldeath's Courtyard, a large clear space of flat, packed earth with the wolverine's personal tent to the north of it and a number of communal Claw tents on the south, east and west of it.
The normally empty courtyard currently had a large and long rectangular table set up in the middle of it, at which Chilldeath and a number of the Claw currently sat.
"Whiteheart!" Chilldeath's deep booming voice called the moment he entered the courtyard. "Come, sit, we've much to talk about."
Nodding, the Pale Fox seated himself to Chilldeath's right and three seats down from him.
Those before him—on either side of the table—were the higher ranked Claws, individuals like Treerunner, Marshhunter, Mooncaller, Vekrek and such.
"Now that everybeast is here," Chilldeath growled, "It is time we spoke of why I've called the Claw together like this."
And indeed, the entirety of the Claw—all forty of them—being gathered in one place was very rare.
Leaning back and crossing his arms, Chilldeath continued speaking. "Earlier today, a patrol of our warrior-scouts ran across what appeared to be a warparty of Redwallers. Two knights, a dozen Beasts-at-arms and a score of Rangers of Redwall, alone they are no threat to us, but the possibility of them running across us and assembling a force to drive us out are there. Thoughts?"
Mooncaller, one of the few other far Northerners like Chilldeath and a snow fox at that, Spoke up. "Perhaps the best option would be to watch them to make certain they don't come near."
"And what would we do if they did?" Betrilis, a Ferret and one of the largest Whiteheart had ever seen, said. "Just sit here twiddling our paws while they discover our existence?"
"No, of course not." Mooncaller snapped. "I'm not sure what we could do if that did happen."
"Emergency Evacuation?" Vekrek, a piebald rat, asked. "We could perhaps even make It look like the entire place was abandoned seasons ago."
Blackpike, a thin and tall fox, piped up. "That wouldn't work, a skilled tracker would be able to see through our deception in an instant. And skilled is perhaps an understatement of the Rangers of Redwall's skills."
Mooncaller, a great big, grey hulk of a fox—who fancied himself one of the mighty wolves—growled "Then if they discover us, me eliminate them before they can get word back."
Whiteheart audibly snorted, "That would certainly be an intelligent action on our part, It's not like Redwall wasn't built on the bones of thousands of our kind, they still know how to deal with us and I guarantee, that patrol won't be moving around without some kind of planned route. And that planned route will lead the Redwallers right to us."
Blackpike nodded, "Our horde is one of the greater ones, with a large collection of metal armour and well trained and disciplined fighters, but Redwall and their traditional allies outnumber us greatly. A fight is the last thing we want."
"Yet a fight is very well what we may get." Mooncaller said, "Woodlanders and our lot," none of them particularly liked the term Vermin, "have never gotten along. If Redwall stumbles upon us, we very well may be fighting for our lives in an instant."
Treerunner, another fox—Whiteheart had always found it slightly curious that Chilldeath seemed to promote foxes and ferrets more often then others species'—spoke up.
"What about leaving?"
Silence was his response to that, and around Whiteheart the other beasts at the long table were likewise silent as they too considered Treerunner's suggestion. A suggestion that to many was looking rather nice with Redwall now capable of running across them.
"Where would we go?" The oft quiet and soft spoken Ferret, Messil, said. Twirling a knife between the claws of his left paw.
"West?" Mooncaller suggested, though that was quickly shot down by a number of others.
Whiteheart, after a single run in with the Long Patrol, had no desire to get closer to the mountain to see what the more elite of the patrol—the Hareguard—were capable of. He shivered merely thinking of It.
Whiteheart cleared his throat and said. "East will bring us right through Redwall territory, practically inviting them to come kill us, north is where we've come from. There is only one option left open to us. And that, my fellows, is South."
Abbot Bartholomew sighed wearily as the echoing bang of hammers and chisels and the sound of saws blared all around him. Redwall was changing, the aged mouse had never thought he'd see it happen in his life time, but it was.
Seasons ago, when Skipper Sleekcreek had approached him and suggested an idea that would eventually evolve into the Redguard and its assorted sub-paramilitaries, all the young Bartholomew had been doing—in his mind—was creating a protection force to protect Redwall from Vermin.
Now, Redwall was evolving into a city-state, an idea that wasn't their own. They had copied it from Salamandastron who in turn had copied it from the disparate City-states of the southern lands.
The problem in Bartholomew's eyes was that these City-states seemed to promote rivalry and war between them, Indeed, he hadn't heard aught but war from the south since they'd begun building city-states,.
Arriving at the stairs up onto Redwall's walls, the aged mouse slowly worked his way up the worn and smooth stones. One of these days, I have to get one of the carpenters to build a banister, he mused, finally topping the walls and gazed out.
Seeing the once empty fields and woodlands around the Abbey cleared for seas of tents and temporary dwellings, that were torn down as the permanent dwellings, houses of both timber and stone, were raised around Redwall and other areas were cleared for farms to feed everybeast.
And further past them was the beginning of the new walls to protect everything. Vast walls stretching around the soon to be City-state of Redwall, capable of holding up to ten thousand or more beasts, though there of course wouldn't be that many.
There were, at most, three thousand beasts currently around Redwall—not including the Redwallers themselves. But that number would grow, oh would it grow.
He had seen it happen in the south, whenever a new city-state came into being. Beasts would flock to it.
Before him was the banging of tools and behind the clashing of weapons as soldiers of the Redguard fought and sparred with each other. Mice and otters and squirrels and shrews, all woodlanders of goodly persuasion had a place in the Redguard, they even had some hares and rabbits, though some like voles and moles were rarer, as were sea otters. For a variety of reasons.
All Bartholomew truly wanted to do was retire and finish writing his journal, telling future generations of his—in his own mind—mistakes in allowing things to become as they were. But he couldn't, there were none to take his place that would approach things from a neutral, more peaceful point of view, beasts these days, even Redwallers were interested solely in war.
And the occasional Vermin raids didn't satisfy them, especially as they became increasingly rare. For Bartholomew, all he could see of the future was suffering and death.
It was with the shouted command of "launch!" That the trebuchet loosed its boulder. Arching above the lines of Southsward infantry and falling with a crash among the lines of Weasels beyond. A pained howling set up immediately among the recently crippled and harmed, from the dead there was naught but silence.
King Swiftarrow, the Squirrel-king of Southsward, watched pleased as the trebuchet's two sister machines loosed their own boulders. Reaping death through the enemy lines.
The weasels of Sandhome, a city-state of weasels to the south-east of Southsward had once again assembled their armies and marched against Southsward. This time however, there would be no long, bloody campaign to drive them out, this time, Swiftarrow had new weapons to fight them.
The trebuchet, a weapon originally from a horde of vermin that had assaulted Salamandastron—whose Horde-leader had been something of an inventor, before his death—The Hares of the Long Patrol had taken the siege weapons and disassembled them to better study them, and now, seasons later they had passed the knowledge on to their allies in the south.
Swiftarrow was quite pleased with his new toys thus far, he knew they would be even better against a fortress wall, but invasion was not something he could perform. Not with all the Vermin city-states about him.
Giving a quick gestured command to the commander of his longbow regiments, Swiftarrow watched as scores of squirrels put arrow to string and loosed them into the Weasel ranks, many were pierced and fell, wounded or slain, Swiftarrow cared not, if they lived when their fellows ran he would kill them as well. He had no mercy in his heart for Vermin and no matter who they were, he would kill them.
