Chapter 3
Shade Darkleg was awakened by Summit Smokey rapping his ears with the halberd handle. Shade was in Leythin's armory, his weapons off to one side. He sat bolt upright, but Summit shoved him back down.
"Mellow out, sah. Leythin whacked ye good," the white hare explained.
Shade let himself be carried off by the bigger, stronger white hare. They soon stopped at Shade's room, a small cave laden with feather pillows and cushions, with barkcloth blankets.
"Thank ye, Summit. You should get back up there, though," the black hare gasped out.
Summit saluted and nipped off to the mountain's crater. Shade smiled and fell asleep, rolling into a barkcloth blanket and fluffing a feather pillow with his ears.
He was visited by a mouse in armor, holding the most magnificent sword he had ever seen. The mouse smiled handsomely. The image faded and some type of strange reptile emerged, an iguana with a bastard sword. Then the sword faded and the mouse's sword appeared in the lizard's claws. Shade rolled over in his sleep, shifting the odd dream, figuring it had nothing ot do with him, when the mouse appeared again, this time stern.
"You, black hare, will one day bring
Happiness and joy, so much one could sing
Follow the lizard, he knows the way,
Avoid the pinefox, he loves to slay.
Follow my words and you shall see,
The day when even you are happy."
Shade awoke a few hours later, heading down to the dining hall. He was met by Struck Swordblade, Sol Kan, and Thistle. The three bowed to him and motioned to a group of scruffy, mice-looking creatures with spiky fur and broad belts, with colored headbands and kilts, a rapier in each one's belt.
"Meet Log-a-Log Gratch, Chieftain of the shrews," Struck bowed slightly to the shrew leader.
"Is there something I can help ye with, shrews?" Shade asked a little confusedly.
"Well, Lord Leythin 'as requested that ye come with us to Redwall Abbey. Ye may take yer friend Summit with ye, but I don't want me food getting scoffed in one hour."
"You don't have to worry about that with these two," Sol Kan explained politely, then added, "Summit and Shade eat about as much as a baby water shrimp."
Log-a-Log Gratch followed Shade and Summit up to the armory, where Shade grabbed his dirk, curving long sword and adder fang javelin. Summit plucked a white longbow with black and grey flights, along with his halberd. Gratch gasped at the fearsome weaponry, ranging from searat cutlasses, to fox warhooks, al the way up to Badger Lord swords, spears, maces, and pikes.
"Pretty impressive, isn't it, old Log-a-Thing?" Summit twitched his nose respectively.
"Aye, that it is, matey. I've never seen so much weaponry," the shrew leader said before he was ushered out of the room and down to the dining room, where they finished their lunch.
Gratch and a few other shrews led the two hares outside. Beached on the river's edge were four large tree trunks, hacked out in the middle and filled with oars. There was a single mast with a square sail and a tiller at the back end. Shade sighed and sat in one, while Summit hopped right in.
After a few minutes of goodbyes and friendly embraces, the logboats set off upstream, heading for Redwall Abbey. Shade instantly fell asleep and Summit soon followed lulled to sleep by the melodious rustling and swishing of the stream, with dancing fireflies all around. Gratch shook his head and smiled at the two young hares.
Up north of Redwall, at the old Abbey Rosebud, a lark threw out his morning song, oblivious to the scenes of carnage and death all around him in the once beautiful Abbey. The pink stone walls were ravaged and decimated, the once great Main Hall and its treasures robbed. The Abbey had once been occupied by squirrels and otters, a defense against the hordes of the Northlands, but it had been decimated, due to frequent raven, fox, and ferret attacks. The most recent, and most successful, raiding party stood around the Chief, who was wiping his war hammer's spiked edges on Abbes Smerh's robe.
"Well, me buckoes, we got rid o' all o' the otters and squirrels in the Northlands, eh?" the big fox Kili commented to his horde. All around were dead squirrels, otters, and ravens, along with a few of his horde.
The massive horde set off, down south, towards Redwall Abbey. As soon as they had gone, a small, sturdy young squirrel stirred, moaning painfully. The white and red speckled creature stood up painfully, searching around for any survivors. He stumbled across corpses of his closest friends, each time sobbing louder.
"Star, Screh, Smerh, Otto, Lert!" The young squirrel fell to his knees, face buried in his paws.
Sethiroth Splinterclaw, so called because one of his claws on each paw was shattered and splintered, sat until nightfall, sobbing and licking his wounds painfully. He groped around for his old scimitar and found it. His eyes flamed red as he descended into the forge room. The Northern Mountains echoed to the sounds of his hammer slamming the scimitar into cold ruthlessness.
At Redwall Abbey, the defense against the Halfbreeds was well under way. Skipper had taken a trident tipped arrow through his tail, and a javelin through his left paw. He still fought on, battering at the attackers with a long wall pike. Ziggy was calmly sending off arrows from his longbow. Mers, Foremole, and Sarthin were firing their siege catapults at a surprising rate, but the Halfbreeds were far too fast to be hit by such a slow moving device.
Zeran, Shoth, Slort, and Kojin, along with Rax, were sitting in the fringes of Mossflower, calmly sharing a wood pigeon. Kojin noticed the reptilian head of Gizzy watching him and he became nervous, shuffling his claws on the ground awkwardly. He coiled his whip around one paw and sighed.
They heard something coming up the water filled ditch. Rax sighted it and tugged his Chief's robe furiously. Zeran regrettably called the retreat.
"Retreat! Fall back! Retreat to the meadow!" Zeran called as his horde leapt over the ditch, whooping and hollering.
The three back stragglers, two ferret/rat mixes and a Werefox were hit by sharpened reed javelins. When they fell, they were set upon by small frilled newts, who stabbed them repeatedly with tiny, poisoned daggers made from thorns, dipped in a deadly toxin. When they stopped, almost four hundred small frilled newts, each one the size of a Dibbun squirrel, were out on the path. They heard something splashing up the river.
In a flurry of twinkling teardrops from the ravaged surface of the flooded ditch, a strange lizard appeared. He had very long hind legs, and a frill around his neck that was at least four times the size of the smaller newts. He landed among them, lashing out with his weapon, a metal staff with a replica of a clenched fist at either end. He slew a score of them before they fled. He looked up at the wall, recognizing Ziggy Longswipe and Gizzy.
"Hoi, Gizzy. What do they call ye now, isn't it Ziggy?" he sneered up at the iguana.
Ziggy glared back down at him, his hand straying close to his bastard sword as he said, "Shut up Zenzar Raznez."
Zenzar looked touched. "Ye remembered me, Longswipe, eh?"
"Oh, aye, Jesus lizard. You are a conssstant pain in me-" he was cut off as Skipper clapped a paw over his mouth.
"What have ye to say, scaled one?" the burly otter called out.
"I have come to assist ye with yon vermin." the Jesus lizard crooked a claw at the Halfbreeds.
"Well, Zenzar Raznez, how do we know we can trust ye?" Ziggy and Skipper chorused out from the ramparts.
Zenzar threw his staff. It landed expertly at the feet of Abbot Kein. He picked it up, shocked at the weight of the slender weapon. He looked to Ziggy who nodded.
"That be a sssymbol of friendship of ussss Marsh Beasstss." Ziggy smiled slightly at his old friend.
Sillian the Gatekeeper opened the gate up to Zenzar Ranzez. The Jesus lizard slunk in, sneaking up to join the other two Redwall lizards. He clapped their backs as he grabbed his staff, wincing at Ziggy's spikes.
"Time to make half-meat outta some Halfbreeds, buddies."