Part One
Those Who Seek Death
-1-
Two babes who came so very near
As warriors did Dark Forest find
From pain, ferret with one claw clear
With rage, squirrel with both eyes blind
By fate, the doom that brings them here
Will forever their families bind.
The one with the mind so stark
Shall never be one with his kind
The one with the form so dark
Shall a shattered alliance combine.
Tradition says that only when times of great peril lie on the horizon, does the Seer attain his highest clarity of sight. If this newest vision is indicative of the turmoil ahead, chaos may well envelop us all. I saw the Castle Highkeep falling from its mountain perch upon a burning Lowkeep Village. Beast slaying beast, brother against brother, father and son, friends and loved ones murdering each other. The Alliance fallen: My worst fear.
And yet there was one place yet untouched by the blight of destruction. It was a wooded grove I recognized from my childhood; the Martyr's Glade, the last stretch of real forest until the Triumphant Plain conquers the sight and numbs the mind.
Perhaps the where is not as important as the who. Two creatures were clear to me: a ferret and a squirrel. Maybe there were more; the vision was murky in those depths. I cannot say their names leapt to mind, but they were familiar…somehow. They chanted a rhyme that has burned itself into my mind, and I have written it above.
Now that the thought crosses my mind, perhaps this chaos is not at all far away. It has become impossible to walk the streets of Elmridge or Lowkeep without hearing beast quarreling with beast. Woundings are common now, but killing cannot be far behind.
The Merkhazh nomad clan is nearby; the Zhaer squirrel clan is not far away. Either event is no large incident by itself – sometimes, it's even a cause for merriment. But ever since that strange rift grew between them, this is a recipe for disaster.
No matter what the King believes, there will be bloodshed. I don't need Seer's sight to see that.
Something else – I'm beginning to fear conspiracy among the King's other faithful servants. Spite, fear, and hatred, unbridled hatred, follow me everywhere I go now. The questions spill forth: Do they intend nothing? Will they do anything? Have I given cause for grievance? Has the old propaganda set in again? Not even the visions give answers. There is a foul stench in the air, one of fear, hate, and revulsion. Aimed at me because I'm a fox. These cursed labels were to have lost meaning eons ago!
One thing is certain. I may see tomorrow in my mind's eye, but if I stay here much longer, I may not see tomorrow with my mortal eyes. Unless I can find these two creatures, the ferret and the squirrel, there may never be peace in the east again!
I am leaving in the morning, taking only this journal, my staff, and those few provisions I can carry. The sun is setting, and my candles run short. I will write again when I find the chance. King Runderan will be most displeased with my sudden disappearance. So be it. I cannot let the enmity continue!
The Seer's Journal
As written by Terbin
Seer of King Runderan
The creaking of a door split the silence on the walltops of Highkeep, the castle built upon the west side of Judgment's Gate, the mountain range separating the east of Mossflower Woods and the plains it became from the Forbidden Lands, the land east of the Gate that none dare adventure to – the land of nightmares, they said. Filled with darkness, greed, and hate, the antithesis of what the Alliance was.
Or was supposed to be.
The parapet was empty, save for a single fox on the far west wall, kneeling and muttering arcane spells to himself. The fire in the sky was a mere ember compared to the blazing red of the fox's fur, which waved in the mild breeze like a roaring bonfire in a gale.
Eventually the fox ceased his chanting and tightly screwed his eyes shut, blocking out the world without to glimpse the world within.
"My guide," he intoned, "show me the path I must walk, that I may change that which must not be."
A forceful voice replied inside the fox's head, "The path you must take is yours to reveal!"
"Am I to go where none can see?"
"Your path is longer than it seems, Seer. You seek peace in the east through the actions of the two, yet are the two you seek truly those to bring peace?"
"Reveal this path to me, my guide. I must know my way," insisted the fox.
"There is none who can truly see the path you shall take. This much can be told; those who bring peace shall emerge from those who seek death!"
"Is there nothing else?"
"Farewell, Seer fox of the Sok'oi!"
The fox sighed tremendously, panting with his exertions. Tremulously, he reached a paw to his damp face, pulled it away to find blood trails upon his pads. He had been crying blood.
A dim glow lit up the horizon over the hill, though the sun had set just minutes ago. The camp of grim-faced squirrels had a glorious premonition what was going on – the Merkhazh were camped for the night, effectively sitting ducks. Bows were strung, javelins fire-hardened, slings loaded, blades sharpened, faces painted.
The Zhaer Clan was going to war.
Far east of Redwall Abbey, Mossflower Forest slowly thinned of trees, became an uneven plain, and sharply soared upwards in a near-vertical mountain range – impassable to the unprepared. The cliffs loomed like the shadow of death over the squirrel camp, backed as it was against the base of the mountains.
The Zhaer Clan was going to war.
A score of able-bodied beasts prepared their weapons for the coming slaughter. No doubt, the vermin camp wouldn't go anywhere for the night, so no time was wasted with scouts. Just warriors.
For the Zhaer Clan was going to war.
The ringleader, one Orrin Treeleaf, raged at the kind of beasts getting refuge in Merkhazh bands; washed-up corsairs, ex-hordebeasts, and general riffraff that drifted in from the west. That, besides his vendetta against one ferret in particular, made tonight's raid irresistible.
He stood still while his second-in-command, Stina, paraded in front of his twenty warriors. "Zhaer clan gonna fix dem vermin up good!" she screeched in an awkward voice.
"Yarr!" his clan replied as a chorus.
"Tonight we gonna spare nobeast! Male, maid, child…Fix 'em!"
"Yarr!"
"Give no quarter! If 'e ain't a Zhaer, fix 'em!"
"Yarr!"
Treeleaf stepped forward, the yellow-painted clan markings on his face visible even in the dark. "We finish dis grudge here an' now! Who are we?"
The reply was heard round the plain. "ZHAER CLAN!!"
One moment, it was silent in the Merkhazh camp of nomad ferrets, weasels, rats, and other assorted "vermin". The next, fire arrows blanketed the village where only darkness had been before. The screaming began almost immediately, as the Zhaer warriors swooped down over the hill, hacking and swinging and shooting. Blademane was giving orders to a subordinate when he heard a familiar voice shriek out, "Blood for blood!" He never saw the beast that crushed his skull with a swung slingstone.
The few Merkhazh who managed to run were quickly brought down by Zhaer bows. The few Merkhazh who managed to hide were quickly forced out by Zhaer pikes. The many Merkhazh who managed to die were gathered into a pile and burnt.
