Disclaimer: Really, do you think that if I owned Redwall I'd be writing Fan Fiction?? 'Twouldn't be a Fan Fiction story… It'd be one o' da bally books!! I will stop ranting now.
Note: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Rinkulwho gave me 21 names for otters and Brother/Sisters!
Chapter 2
Ardinya Needlepaw paced up and down in front of the tent. She needed to talk to her mother who was dieing inside. Her mother, Zayliora, was the leader of the Death Shadows, and Ardinya needed to know who would take over!
The tent flap opened, reviling a healer fox. "Lady Ardinya, your mother will see you now," the fox said.
"Took long enough!" Ardinya hissed fiercely, and swiped the fox out of the way. The fox whimpered as she crumpled, she had just learned why Ardinya's second name was Needlepaw.
When she entered the tent, the odour of death hit Ardinya's sensitive nose, Zayliora's time was running out. "Mother?" Ardinya asked softly.
Zayliora turned to look at her daughter with death-clouded eyes. "Ardinya?" Zayliora rasped. "Is that you child?"
"Yes, Mother, it's me," Ardinya whispered.
"I…expect…you…want…to…know," here Zayliora stopped and coughed harshly. Taking a deep breath, Zayliora continued, "Who…is…going…to…take over…for…me?"
"Yes, Mother, I would like to know!" Ardinya murmured.
"Child, your brother, Mahazir, will do anything to be the Head Shadow, but I believe he will only lead the Death Shadows to the Gates of the Black Forest. Your sister, Gernaira, will just sit on her tail and send our best fighters to be slaughtered by that accursed Badger Lord.
"You and your brother Zenerdan are the only ones of my children I can trust. I want both of you to be Head Shadows!" Zayliora knew that now she had turned her duties over to her son and daughter, her life was over.
"Daughter, you are now Lady Ardinya, Head Shadow, do not abuse your new position! Tell only Zenerdan what I have told you, Mahazir and Gernaira will be very angry." Zayliora coughed and said, "Ardinya, I am about to die. Keep the Death Shadows together, my child."
Zayliora shuttered and went limp, her eyes clouded over.
"She's dead!" Ardinya whispered. Then it hit her, her mother was gone. "She's dead!" she wailed. The tent flap was ripped back and Zenerdan bolted in.
"Mother's dead?" he asked, his voice wobbling.
Ardinya nodded, her face tear stained. Then a smile found it's way across her lips. "Long live Lord Zenerdan and Lady Ardinya, Head Shadows!" she yelled.
"Head Shadow?" Zenerdan asked, wide-eyed. Grinning, Ardinya nodded.
"HEAD SHADOWS?" Mahazir bellowed. He and Gernaira stampeded into the tent.
"That's not possible!" Gernaira squealed in her high piercing voice. "Mahazir was supposed to be High Shadow!"
"Not from what Mother said!" Ardinya snarled. Zenerdan stepped back from his usually calm sister. It was true Ardinya almost never had a temper, but when Gernaira or Mahazir were concerned, she had a temper worse than an angry shark.
"Lucky for you, Mother can't say if you are lying or not!" Mahazir snapped. Before Ardinya or Zenerdan could respond, Gerdinzer, their mother's adviser appeared from behind the bed. Gerdinzer was known for favouring Gernaira and Mahazir.
"Pardon me, Lords and Ladies, but Lady Zayliora, Head Shadow did say she wanted Lady Ardinya and Lord Zenerdan to be Head Shadows," Gerdinzer whined.
"And did she give any reasons?" Mahazir hissed. Ardinya glared threateningly at the rat. Gerdinzer read her eyes and realised if he said anything Ardinya and Zenerdan would have his head.
"Yes, she did have reasons, but I didn't hear them," Gerdinzer looked pleadingly at Ardinya. She nodded submissively. Gerdinzer sighed, relived.
"You lie!" Mahazir snarled.
"Lord, I tell no lie!" Gerdinzer squeaked, his voice rising in fear.
"Mahazir, please calm down! You know as well as I rats can't be trusted, but it this case we may have an exception," Gernaira said, trying to get the burning hatred out of her brother's eyes.
Mahazir was in mood to be consoled by his whimpering youngest sister. "Gernaira, stop whining all the time, will you! If you haven't noticed by now, I only get more angry when you 'console' me."
Gernaira whimpered faintly but didn't speak. An embarrassed silence followed Mahazir's outbreak, it was broken my Zenerdan. "Mahazir, Gernaira, go to your tents and start packing up, we leave at sundown!"
As Mahazir and Gernaira sulked out of the tent, Ardinya rested a paw on Zenerdan's shoulder, "Zen, where are we going?" Ardinya had only been on one march, and that was from her original den, to the clearing where the entire Death Shadow force was currently sprawled.
Zenerdan's head drooped, as he said in a dejected voice, "I haven't any clue, Ardinya. I do know where we aren't going."
Ardinya nodded and answered in one word, "Salamandastron." The fire mountain was a graveyard for the Death Shadows, taking the life on both Ardinya's father and grandfather.
"We will march the path and see where our footpaws take us," Zenerdan murmured, "only then will we know what we were ment to do."
Ardinya clasped her brother's paw briefly before they stepped outside the tent. The clearing was alive with movement, at least six-dozen wild cats were brandishing whips and bellowing orders. Rats, stoats, weasels, ferrets and foxes scrambled to obey the bad tempered cats, knowing that if they didn't their heads would be added to the forest on pikes that surrounded the vermin tents.
A line of woodland creatures stood by the wild cats' tents chained together by wrists. They all looked withered and half starved, no good for marching. Ardinya, figuring it would take until dawn to completely pack the camp together, beckoned on of her most trusted captains over.
"Lady Ardinya, you wanted a word?" the golden-brown furred female, Gerdet, asked.
Before Ardinya could respond, Zenerdan intervened, "Gerdet, haven't you heard, Ardinya is no longer just Lady Ardinya."
Gerdet looked at Ardinya, her eyebrows furrowed. "Not Lady Ardinya? Oh, Lady, don't tell me Mahazir is Head Shadow?"
Ardinya grinned, "No, far from it. Gerdet, for the first time in over two hundred seasons, the Death Shadows had two Head Shadows, Lord Zenerdan and myself." Gerdet's jaw dropped, but before she could speak, Ardinya continued, "So my first order as Head Shadow is, get some food into those captives! They need strength on the march. Hop to it!"
Gerdet squealed, spin and rushed to the store tent. "You shouldn't have done that, Sister," Zenerdan murmured in Ardinya's ear.
Ardinya's golden eyes narrowed. "What are you implying?" she hissed.
"I'm implying that you should think before you give an order!" Zenerdan snarled. Ardinya shot him a deadly glare and stalked off, her tail held high. Zenerdan cursed under his breath at insolent females.
Aggria watched the scene from afar. The young hedgehog had been a slave of the Death Shadows as long as she could remember; yet the fighting spirit had not yet been beaten out of her.
"Move along, 'edgepig!" the fierce rat captain, Urdez, snarled, flicking a two pronged whip. Aggria instinctively tensed her back against the whip, her newly hardened spikes bristling. The whip struck and bounced off her bristling back. One prong flew up and hit Urdez on his pointed nose and the other whipped harmlessly into the tethering pole.
"Ye'll pay fer that trick, 'edgepig!" Urdez threatened softly. "I c'n make yer wish ye weren't ever born!"
Aggria snorted, "I'd like ter see ye try, Urdez, cherry snout. Ye don't frighten me."
Urdez was getting increasingly angry with the hedgehog maid. "I don't frighten ye, do I? Well, let's just see how mush I frighten ye after a day's march with my whip on yer back."
"Yeah, and me spikes up," Aggria retorted.
Before Urdez could reply, a quiet squirrelmaid by the name of Leikani carefully grabbed Aggria's arms and pulled her out of whip range with a fierce mutter of, "Aggria, will you stop endangering yore life?"
Unlike Aggria, Leikani had been squirrel-napped a season ago by the Sly Shadows, the Dead Shadow scouts.
"Keep her under control, ye hear, squirrelly?" Urdez growled at Leikani.
Leikani peeled back her lips to reveal ivory razor sharp teeth. "Call me 'squirrelly' once more," Leikani snarled at Urdez, "and you'll feel these in yore neck, and you won't like it."
Leikani and Aggria were shoved roughly into the slave pen where several paws caught them. But Aggria wasn't about to be outdone. With a wild roar, she launched herself at Urdez and the rats at his back.
"Aggria, no!" screeched an elderly female hedgehog. The gate of the pen slammed before Aggria could really harm any of the rats. "Ye shouldn't o' done that," the old hog reprimanded.
Aggria hung her head. "I'm sorry, Mother. My emotions got the better o' me."
"It happens ter th' best o' us, matey," a young male otter grumbled. Flyrann Truefly had just lost his sister to the guard rats because she resisted orders.
"C'mon, Flyer, cheer up" Leikani urged the quiet otter.
"Cheer up?" Flyrann asked incredulously, "Cheer up! Leikani, would ye be cheerful if ye had ter watch yer only sister be beaten to death by rats? No, ye'd be plottin' revenge… jus' like I am. Yes ye would, matey." He stood and limped to his favourite corner.
Leikani looked about to go over to Flyrann and comfort him, but she felt a restraining paw around her shoulders. She looked down into the kindly face of Minary the mole-wife. "Leave, 'im bee, Leikanoi, oi bees thinkin' ee doan't want to bee bothered."
"I know, Mina, but he looks so sad!" Leikani murmured.
"So wudd ee iffin your sister was beeten to death b'fore your eyes," Minary replied wisely. Leikani nodded, her eyes welling up with tears. "Leikanoi, whoi are you sad?" Minary asked, her voice full of concern.
Leikani shook her head, open tears streaming down her face. "It-it-it's j-just, I-I've been h-here exactly a-a-a s-s-s-season a-a-an-an-and n-no o-o-o-one f-f-from m-m-my h-h-h-home h-has t-t-tried t-t-to r-r-rescue m-m-me!"
"Ye never tol' me that, Lei!" Aggria spluttered. She shook her head and muttered something about squirrels. The sun cast a comforting glow about the camp. For a change the slaves were all resting as the rest of the camp hurried to dismantle.
Lord Mahazir watched a group of ferrets bickering over how to disassemble a tent. He sighed in frustration: he was supposed to be Head Shadow, the fox seer Astrum had told him so! Unless… "Gernaira!" Mahazir bellowed.
His little sister was at his paw in seconds, eager to do as asked. "Yes, Mahazir, you wanted to speak to me?"
Idiot! Mahazir thought, I could be ordering her to jump off a cliff, and she'd do it! The scheming cat looked his sister up and down, as if sizing her up. "Gernaira, will you fetch Astrum the seer fox here?"
Gernaira's eyes lit up, she hated Astrum and was glad to turn her over to Mahazir. She cackled softly as she went in search of the seer. She found Astrum sitting by a fire with her mate, Deyra and their child, the healer fox, Hayle.
"You, seer," Gernaira barked. Astrum looked up startled, her face paled at the sight of Gernaira's yellow-green eyes.
"Y-yes, L-Lady G-Gernaira?" Astrum croaked.
The shadows of night hid the expression on Gernaira's face as she pronounced, "Lord Mahazir wishes to see you in his tent… now."
Astrum lost the remaining colour in her face as she stood. "I'm coming." Gernaira's face broke into a wolfish grin as she grabbed the vixen's wrist, her blunt claws digging into the flesh.
Aha! Well how was that?? Oh, sorry about the Aggria part, I just started Triss so… I sort of write what I've been reading… sometimes. Thanks again to Rinkul, I'll take the Abbot in mind. Please review!! Oh, more names, mice, squirrels, foxes, wild cats, normal vermin, and any one else you can think of...
Many thanks,
The Weaving Wheel