Chapter 9 The news spread rather quickly, as by the next morning everyone but the dibbuns knew about the vermin Amber had seen. The abbot, Matthew, who was the abbey warrior and a few other selected ones, held a safety council. For they knew that hardly any vermin ever passed by Redwall and left it alone. It was decided that there would be wall guards posted at every time of the day and night. If anything were to happen, they would yell, "Vimagn" for "Vermin in Mossflower and Getting Near" and that when a bellringer heard it he or she would ring the ringing signal has hard as they could. That night foremole was passing out soup when from the east wall they heard, "Vimagn! Vimagn!" As soon as they had even heard "Vim" they had ran over there and was scanning the area around the east wall. What they saw was a literal fleet of vermin. They had obviously gained more members, as the ground was covered in vermin. However, they noticed they had no weapons, or of any that were actually visible. Sapoak then ran over. He said that an owl of humongous size swooped out of the air, and snatched the letter out of his hand. He then saw the vermin. "I say you bally blighters, go haunt someone else with your faces, scare them away!" And surprisingly they did just leave. For days they didn't come back. However, a week later they came back, and in full force. They surrounded Redwall and started to climb the walls with grapnel hooks. The Redwallers waited until they saw the vermin at the tops of the ropes. They then performed a hacking spree, cutting off all the ropes, right at the bases of the hooks. The vermin went flying straight through the air, cutting the vermin's number in half. The rest ran away in fear, for now the Redwallers had started to throw and sling stones and rubble. They thought they had won the war, but little did they know, that just as they were retreating back to their beds, that again, they were climbing up the wall with hooks, but this time more silent, as they had padded the hooks. The full attack was now on.