A/N: Hi guys, thanks for all your reviews and apologies for my odd uploading pattern. In true Brian Jacques fashion, I'm writing two stories happening at the same time and eventually coming together. Unfortunately I've had massive writer's block on the Salamandastron part, while my writing for the Redwall part was steaming along. Now we have a role reversal- I've got writer's block on part 5 of the Redwall stuff. Please bear with me, and apologies again. Bye! Bethan a.k.a Rubii Firestorm.


Young Warriors' Quest: A Badger Lord for Salamandastron

Part 1: Stalemate on Salamandastron
The hares of the great fire mountain that was called by many 'Salamandastron' were weary. Weary of the night patrols and constant guard watches, weary of never being allowed to leave their fortress mountain of a home, but most of all they were weary of fighting. The Temporary Mountain Commander, Colonel Eyebright, was most fed up. Nobeast, least of all the young leverets, dared disturb the Officers' Mess when Eyebright was there- he had aged several seasons in a surprisingly short time and the stress and strain he was under had certainly not improved his temper, though he looked as dapper as always. Only the young Garrison Captain, Cheeva, could manage him, and even she came in for a tongue-lashing now and then.
Could it possibly be only two seasons since they had first come under siege? It seemed impossible, and yet it was true. Only a few days after Lady Cregga Rose Eyes had marched off with five hundred fighting hares, Lucar Mordeyes had made herself known to the remaining five hundred warrior beasts left behind. Five or so seasons ago, just after the defeat of the Rapscallion army, the massive black rat had set up a kingdom on a small island off shore, a little north of Salamandastron, called it Lucarass and set herself up as tyrant, believing that the Salamandastron forces would be tired after their long battle and unwilling to enter into another full-scale war. She had been right. Besides, Lady Cregga had been totally focused on the remaining Rapscallions and was therefore not interested in somebeast whom she believed to be a small time schemer who wouldn't be around for very long anyway. But now, with half the great fire mountain's fighting force gone, Lucar had moved in on Salamandastron, brought in double her original force from somewhere else unknown to the hares and started the siege on their mountain.

~*~

Lucar Mordeyes was a gigantic female black rat, about double the size of any of her counterparts. She always wore the gold armour that had been part of her greatest ever haul, being a former searat. Her only forms of jewellery were several gold hoops and ruby and emerald studs that hung from her ears, plus a single golden spiked bracelet, while her weapon of choice was a bluesteel scimitar, with its base decorated by bluejohns. This she wielded with breathtaking skill, earning herself the fearsome reputation as the greatest terror on land or afloat. Some said she came from the far south, some declared positively that she was from the east, while others would have staked their life on her hailing from the very far north. She stalked between the ranks of her army of seven or eight hundred pure white ermine, foxes and weasels, all of whom she had outfought at one time or another, teaching them all personally. The result was an elite fighting force that had on occasion even gotten the better of badger Lords. Lucar's horde, the WhiteDeath, were no ragged band of ragtag vermin, but a perfectly disciplined, well trained army of snow-white creatures, with their base on an island just offshore from Salamandastron which Lucar had named Lucarass. Nobeast knew why she had chosen to have only albino beasts in her army- perhaps it was that they were so different in appearance from their jet-furred leader, or maybe it was so that they were easy to identify from a distance, preventing patrols from accidentally fighting one another in night time, and also making recognition and trapping of runaways easy. Not that many of the beasts under Lucar's control ran away- the pickings were good and so their Master could afford to be generous when she split their spoils. Unlike many horde leaders, Lucar was also very unsuperstitious: on the rare occasions she paid any heed to her blind, albino vixen seer it was more out of curiosity to see if her visions came true, or to guard all corners against attack, than an actual wish to know what the future held. The only real reason the seer, Sareeneye by name, was there at all was because the hordebeasts, like many vermin, were superstitious and it helped Lucar's control if she apparently had Fate on her side. Now Lucar sat next to the fire, opposite her seer, watching her captains, the WhiteWatch, as they ate, drank and jostled one another, her strange pale green eyes flickering in the firelight.
"We move in on the fire mountain tomorrow, Sareeneye," she said, her perfect speech in direct contrast to the rough, ungrammatical accents of her hoard. "Tell them now, and fit in a little mysticism along the way, would you? Something about great treasure, and me seeing all and knowing all that is in their minds. I like the sound of that."
Sareeneye merely nodded; she and Lucar rarely conversed. Lucar always did all the talking. Scorning pawholds, for the fox disliked allowing the horde to see her blindness and therefore allowing them to take advantage of it, Sareeneye slipped along by the captains' fire, using her perfect hearing and acute sense of smell to guide her. Blind beasts often make up for their lack of sight by a heightened sense of their other senses, but Sareeneye was still exceptional in that field. She was young, too, an age unusual for a seer. When the heat of the flames told her she had got close enough, she stopped, skilfully blending in with the background, for Sareeneye was said to be a descendant of a Marlfox, the magic foxes themselves. She tossed a pawful of strange glittering herbs onto the fire, letting out an unearthly howl and leaping straight over the embers as the flames leapt high and turned red and purple.
"White is black, and black is white,
Swirling colours of the night.
WhiteDeath sends, to Dark Forest, foes,
Some die quick but most die slow. Owwoooh!"
Recognizing the vixen's eerie chant, every vermin there leapt upwards as one beast, screaming and shouting the same chant.
Eventually the vixen gestured with her paws for silence. When she had it, she finally spoke.
"We move in on the fire mountain tomorrow!" she said. "I have spoken with a wise old owl, who assured me that Salamandastron's forces are weary from their fight with the Rapscallions, and will not be up to a fight. There is great treasure in that fortress- treasure greater than any of you could ever dream of. But remember, your great Mistress sees and knows all that you think or do; you will pay for any treachery, however small, with your lives. But tell me, brave ones, what are you called?"
There was not a single vermin who dared not to screech out the answer.
"WhiiiiiteDeeeeath!"