"Jack! Oh Jack! Come look at this! Hurry up!" Victoria Tamworth excitedly turned up the volume on the television and herded her husband into the room. On the air, Mattimeo Lawlor repeated the breaking news.

"That story for you once again. Archaeologists in the Leedsdown Innisvree Heritage Site battlefield in Tundralake have unearthed a large cache of astoundingly well-preserved musical instruments, inscribed with the names of their owners. Among the guitars, drumsticks, violins, harps, and uillean pipes, the names of legends Tori Rubyhaer, Ringo Starr, Rivenna Dyfedfinne, and John O'Lennain are carved, adding further proof to the story recorded at Mossflower's Redwall Abbey by its veterans over a thousand years ago. Reporter Jill Murraine is at the scene."

The image shifted from the mouse to the squirrel. She clutched her earpiece and huddled against the windswept highlands as she spoke.

"Yes, Matt. The underground stone enclosure is believed to have been a storage room of some kind from the old city's Tyne Palace, which historians now know stood on this spot. It was unearthed about a week ago, and experts are still trying to translate some of the messages and poems engraved on the walls. As you can see behind me here to my right--"

Jack grinned and sat down next to his wife. "That's funny. We've never seen it, but I bet yeh we could translate all those easy enough."

Victoria smiled too. "Sure could. Though it's been a fair while since we were there, eh?"

John leaned back in the couch, found the remote between the cushions, and turned off the TV. He and Tori exchanged knowing glances: their respective brown and green eyes twinkled and danced.





TARDANFINNE (freedom's daughter)

She came to Redwall, borne by greed.
Ruby-haired, em'rald-eyed.
Avengence for White Fox did breed:
She'd hunt them 'till the day she died.

Princess who lived in Tyne Palace,
Timeless 'till those foxes came.
You bought salvation from the malice
and sold yourself to buy back names.

Leedsdown Innisvree is quiet now,
Long echoes of a battle half-won.
Fighters carved in stone are immortalized but how
Would the city have remained if Shang hadn't come?

So mark my words, this battle cry,
"Justice!" is for what our friends have died.
How often I see faces, painted in the sky,
And recall our great adventure and unwasted lives!

Liam Gallagher Innisvree
Bard, of Redwall Abbey
(formerly of Manchester Tundralake)