Early mornings in autumn are an excellent time for working outdoors. The temperature and light is soothing, easy on the mind and the body. The gentle backlight illuminated the edge of the West Wall as Gabbro and Amos Stickley carefully eased the old bricks off the top of the rampart. Each ancient stone would be kept within the Abbey as an artifact. Thus their eyes focused on the preservation of said blocks, and not on what was above them.
Mole and hedgehog were never quite able to figure out what the veritable wall of flighted things that appeared above the wall that was supposed to be there was. And as they ran they did not look back to see which wall persisted.
*****
The kitchen of Redwall is always the first room to come to life in the morning. Friar Millet the dormouse had been bustling about for a good hour before any of the other abbeydwellers even stirred, so that his trademark wheat scones could be ready when the first hungry mouths showed up to be fed.
Millet nearly sliced his paw as opposed to the apple he held as a loud explosion rocked his kitchen. In a tizzy about the state of his scones the dormouse bustled to investigate. It did not take a very detailed or thorough investigation to deduce that the flames which suddenly engulfed the back of the kitchen were not caused by an oven malfunction.
*****
Otters are used to sudden alterations in watter current, and birds are accustomed to the same jostling effect from the air. Hares, however, are only acclimated to bumps caused by their own leaps. Bransles was jerked from her after-meal slumber, and as she considered it, quite rudely so. Ears twitching moodily, Bransles harrumphed and rolled back onto her side. She was fully determined to fall back asleep, but her harrumph told her more than she bargained for.
Wide awake with one twitch of her nostrils, Bransles grabbed Rohan and Gregory by the shoulders, shaking the two otters awake. I say, do you smell bally smoke, wot?
As if one unit, Rohan and Gregory concertedly flared their whiskers. Uh...dunno...roight, yes, we surpose... The twins' words melded together as well.
You don't suppose it's them bally scones again? Bransles sniffed in irritation.
Could be, aye, very well could be. We could split up an' search, eh matey, y'know, an see what it is. Aye, hate ter lose a brekkist...
The two otters started toward each other, then in opposite directions. Bransles stopped them before they could change their minds again. But we can get a top hole bird's eye view now, wot. And for the third time in two days, Troyte was thwacked across the beak.
From the instant his amber eyes opened, Troyte's pupils were the tiniest of alarmed dots. Get out! GET OUT!
*****
Following an unusually bad summer for nasty encounters with pikes, the Redwall Infirmary was up to its occupation limit. Beds were full and nurses were running shifts of many hours with no sleep. Perhaps that's why when the nurse attending saw the dark airfleet out of the infirmary window she assumed it was a hallucination caused by lack of sleep.
The jarring collision that rocked the Abbey to its very foundation, as well as the sheet of flame that shot past the open Infirmary window could have been no mirage. Fire reflected in her wide eyes, the nurse summoned strength she did not know was within her to help the worst cases down the stairs. Some of the less critical patients attempted to follow her. Others, seeing less hope, made straight for the open window.
*****
Mattachin slept uneasily, in a constant cycle of falling dreams with no landing, through a tunnel of ceaseless ridicule and accusations of incompetence. The magnificent Sword of Redwall kept hovering just out of reach from his forepaws, the gleaming red pommel stone taunting him; whenever he grew even remotely close enough to stand a chance at recovering the weapon, the blade only nicked at his fingers.
It's said that if one feels an impact in a falling dream, then that person has died in his sleep. When Mattachin awoke after the crash, he knew immediately that the final sensation had been real. The Abbey Warrior rolled off his bed and grabbed the sword, holding it between vicelike forepaws. His weapon and symbol thus secure, Mattachn ran until he was clear of the Abbey building.
*****
Nyctllr and Ustela had not been able to even attempt sleep. Their efforts to seek authority had been in vain, and the anxiety that permeated their conscious and subconscious entities prevented them from combatting their exhaustion. In the end there was simply nothing they could do. In the predawn hours bat and badger left the Abbey, watching the sky for armageddon.
