This isn't my best chapter, very boring to read and write so don't yell at me. I haven't had much time to write since I have quarterlies this week and a book report to start and an English paper. and then I have softball practice Tuesdays and Thursdays…so yeah.

I was really hoping that some of you would attempt the riddle! Oh well, it explains almost everything here, so if you come up with anything mail me at

Please R&R, and of course, thanks for all of your luverly reviews and comments!! ; )

January 14

Chapter 8

The reds and golds of the leaves were tangled about each other in a gentle autumn breeze, drowned in the spotlight of the strong afternoon sun. They rustled against each other, creating a soft noise not unlike that of a rattlesnake. The shadows of the trees danced along the forest floor, creating ripples and waves along the grass. The whole forest was alive, swaying and rocking to the beat of Mother Nature.

Azalea sat in a chair in her tree home, staring out the window. She held a piece of parchment in her paws. The paper was wrinkled and creased so much some of the ink had already faded. Blotches of sweat were splattered in various places, a result of Azalea gripping it much too tightly as she waited for the muscle-toned figure lying in her bed to awaken. She and her squirrel friend had arrived at her dwelling a few hours early. Martin was still fast asleep, and he looked so peaceful it seemed a shame to wake him up.

Suddenly, the Warriormouse stirred. He slowly opened his eyes, and an expression of deep confusion swelled out over his features as he looked at the chipmunk staring out the window. "Azalea," he said, surprising his friend greatly, "I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow night?"

"Er, my dear fellow, today is tomorrow, if you catch my drift."

Martin turned quickly to the source of the voice that had just spoken. There was a deep grey, almost black, squirrel admiring the weapons in Azalea's armory.

"What?!" Martin asked as he sat up rather quickly, causing his head to spin a bit. "Who'n the name of fur are you?"

Azalea chuckled, pushing Martin lightly on his chest back to a laying position. "Whoa, don't get up so fast, you'll make yourself dizzy! An' don't worry, this is me friend, Donovan."

"Didn't mean to startle you there, my dear fellow. It's a pleasure to meet you," Donovan held out his paw for Martin to shake. The mouse noticed the squirrel's large, bulging muscles and felt his rough, calloused paw. He had the classic warrior look about him.

"Were you once a member of the Gawtrybe?" Martin asked, noticing the feather attached to Donovan's headband.

"Lord, no," the squirrel gestured towards his blue feather. "Twas a gift from my father. How did you come to know those fiends?"

Martin sighed and smiled. "Well, to make a long story short, I almost killed their leader, and then the rest of 'em nearly knocked my friends and I off the side of a mountain. A few weeks after that, they joined my army and helped defeat Badrang the Tyrant."

Donovan laughed aloud. "That should make an interesting tale at the least!"

"Uh, may we cut the chit-chat and get down to business? We have quite a bit o' thinkin' to do, yes we do." Azalea interrupted. "Martin can tell you more once we get a few things sorted yet, I'm sure. First off, Martin, we just came back from Polleekin's place, yes we did."

Martin looked puzzled. "But I thought you said you would be gone two days. How come it only took you a day to make the trip?"

"Excuse me, but that's where my first comment, however rude, comes into play." Donovan replied while inspecting an old corsair's sword. "We have been gone about two days."

Martin collapsed into the bed, rubbing his eyes. "I've been asleep for a whole day and night!"

"It probably did your head a cheek-load of good, yup yup," Azalea said. "Anywho, now that you're awake, you can take a peek at this thing here. It's from Polleekin, and she says that if you decipher it and follow it, you'll find the cure to your Bloodwrath n' everything, yes she did."

Martin took the battered parchment from the chipmunk and stared at it. The writing was barely legible and fading already, probably from someone clutching it too tightly. He read the words to himself.

You no longer wish to visit the red

You will find the right cure here

The answer's locked safely in your heart

You alone must venture there.

Start at the hidden dwelling of

She who befriended the fallen one

Move eastward from your reflection

For four rises and sets of the son.

Reach the tribe of the dark warrior

Continue along the rocks set high

Defeat the cruel at the entrance of

A group of plants that touch the sky.

So, dear friend, keep moving south

And soon your sight will clear

This scene if for the troubled only

Please be careful here.

A field of bloody bushes

Tardy to bloom and decease

Accept what you see, the answer is here

And your anger and fear will soon cease.

Martin scratched his chin, completely perplexed. "And this is supposed to help? Sounds like a load of crap to me."

Azalea playfully swatted at the mouse in the bed. "Could you be a bit more optimistic, eh? We have to break it down line by line, and see if we can make anything out of it, yup yup."

"Well, let's look at the first two lines then," Martin said. "'You no longer wish to visit the red; you will find the right cure here.' That's basically just telling us if I want to stop getting the Bloodwrath all the time, I have to find the cure here in this riddle."

"That doesn't tell us much," Donovan replied, who had finally stopped checking out Azalea's many weapons for more than two minutes. "I think we can skip those and go to the next ones."

"'The answer's locked safely in your heart, you alone must venture there'. That doesn't help either, except that the answer's somewhere in my heart and obviously nobody else knows what's in there. Hey, the next ones sound like a clue to me! 'Start at the hidden dwelling of she who befriended the fallen one'."

"Let's see," Azalea thought aloud, "who do we know that has a fallen friend?"

"My son fell down a hole," Donovan replied, sounding more confident than he looked. "But he didn't have any little friends that were female."

Martin scratched his head in frustration. Why did Polleekin always have to give directions in riddles? His mind raced with everyone he knew, trying to think of someone who fell. Pallum, Grumm, Brome, Felldoh, Boldred… "Felldoh!" he shouted. "Felldoh has a form of the word 'fallen' right in his name, and he became a fallen hero after he attacked Badrang."

"Nice job, Martin!" the chipmunk said. "I befriended Felldoh once, and I have a hidden dwelling, yes I do. Do ya think that might mean me house?"

"I dare say, you both sound correct," Donovan replied, handing Martin a charcoal stick. "Write down the directions on the back of the riddle."

Martin turned the paper over and scrawled 1. Start at Azalea's house. "Now we're getting somewhere!" He read the next two lines hurriedly. "'Move westward from your reflection for four rises and sets of the sun.'"

"Well, four rises and sets of the sun means four days," Donovan assumed, "but the line before it stumps me."

Obviously, it stumped Martin and Azalea as well. They all sat about pondering the line of the riddle for a bit. Martin started chewing a hang claw, looking at the yellow piece of parchment before him with an unfaltering stare. He swore he had heard these words before, although he couldn't quite pinpoint from whom. All he could remember from the day before was a very bright glow around…someone. He shook his head, wondering whether the two were connected and then further dismissing the subject from his mind.

"Maybe it means something you can see your reflection in, like a mirror," Azalea finally said, breaking the silence and snapping Martin permanently from his thoughts. "Anyone know where we can find a mirror?"

"Don't look at me," Donovan said, "The only reflection I can think of is the kind that's starin' me in the face right now, but I doubt that's what Polleekin means." The squirrel was holding up yet another sword and gazing at the distorted image of himself that it produced in the shining blade.

Martin retreated back into his world of deep thought. He never used a mirror when he wanted to see his reflection. He needed haversack room for food and drink, not beauty accessories. The image of himself always appeared in water, like two days ago when he met Azalea, he was looking at his reflection in the little pond not twenty minutes from the tree they were sitting in now. "What about that little pond, where we ran into those corsairs two days ago?" the mouse asked his friends. "You can clearly see your reflection in it, and it's not far away from our starting point."

Azalea furrowed her brow. "That makes sense, yes it does. It definitely works with what we have of the riddle so far."

Donovan nodded to indicate he agreed with Azalea. "Write it down, lad. It's better than what I've come up with."

Martin wrote 2. Move east from the little pond for four days on the back of the parchment. "The next two lines say, 'Reach the tribe of the dark warrior; continue along the rocks set high.' Do we know any dark warriors and rocks set high?"

"Ah, a part I can be of some help with," Donovan said with a smirk. "I'm the dark warrior, and I also have a tribe four day's worth of traveling from here. The 'rocks set high' would probably mean cliffs, which goes well with the line before it, as my tribe is along the cliffs."

"But how do we know you're the dark warrior for sure, eh?" Azalea interrupted. "You're a warrior with dark fur, but Martin is also a warrior with dark fur, albeit it is a smidgen lighter than yours, yes it is."

"You never thought there was something about my past you didn't know about, did you Azalea?" the squirrel replied, laughing aloud. "Did you think I was not capable of keeping something to my bloody self?"

"Well spit it out, if you've got something to say!" Azalea fumed. "You think you're so smart, acting like ya know everythin' 'bout everythin', yup yup." The chipmunk comically mumbled to herself.

"Don't be so uptight, Zalie," Donovan replied, sounding extraordinarily like a prissy, female Dibbun.

"Zalie?" Martin asked, one eyebrow lifted and smiling at the grumpy chipmunk sitting next to him. "What'n the name o' fur kind of nickname is that?"

Azalea lifted the pillow of the bed and chucked it at Donovan, who was now laughing hysterically. "Good going, Donno! Way to embarrass me in front of me guest!" She folded her arms across her chest and sat back against her chair in a huff. "Just go back to your riddle and figure it out if you're so smart, yes you will."

"Ahem. Before I was rudely interrupted," Donovan glared in Azalea's direction. She didn't notice him, for she was looking out the window with her fingers in her ears. "I was explaining how I know I'm the dark warrior. For starters, I have a tribe four days east from here along the cliffs. And when I was but a few seasons old, my mother told me once that my name, Donovan, meant 'dark warrior' in some ancient language or another. She named me that because she hoped I would become a great warrior like my father one day, and I had the darkest fur she had ever seen on a squirrel, besides from that of a tale of some great black female squirrel by the name of Ranguvar, or something like that."

"Ya know, you could've just told me that instead of getting' all flippity at me," Azalea said, finally removing her fingers from her ears. "Write it down, Martin."

Martin did as he was bid and thanked Donovan. "I'd love to hear your story after we figure out this condemned riddle. You sound like a great soldier."

Donovan shuffled his paws along the floor. "Well, my life isn't that impressive, but…"

"Just read the rest of the damned poem, will ya?" Azalea blurted out. She obviously didn't like her best friend hogging the spotlight.

"It says, 'defeat the cruel at the-'what the…?"

A small bird unexpectedly flew through the window at the exact moment. He landed smoothly on the foot of the bed Martin was sitting in. It was a dipper, and he pranced around on the blanket, apparently very pleased with himself for coming to the tree dwelling. Martin reached out to pet the friendly looking bird, when he noticed a rolled up piece of bark tied with a ribbon around the little bird's neck.

This was the part of the riddle I am most proud of. If you look on , the name 'Donovan' means 'dark warrior' in an old language called Gaelic.