Chapter 7
McKaid lay staring up at the ceiling with mounting despair in the bed that had been given to him. As soft and plush as it felt beneath his back—especially after the hard rock he'd been sleeping on for the last four nights—he found himself wide awake with his mind buzzing on the consequences of what had ensued that night.
The chant had continued even after they'd left the hall, and could still hear it a floor above the dining hall as they were led down the same, grim hallways. Each creature ignored the other on the way to their rooms, with only Colonel Crenshaw muttering darkly under his breath. McKaid was constantly looking around himself, often glancing at Adrin only to see her staring hollow-eyed in front of her face.
He tried to open his mouth and tell Adrin something—anything!—but then he would glare at the back of the colonel's head for their lack of privacy, knowing the hare would probably overhear and refute anything McKaid said. He counseled her, though, by reaching and grasping for her paw, and looked to her for a response. The mouse grimaced when Adrin only gave him a cursory glance, but he squeezed her paw in reassurance.
There wasn't any time for even a small chat as the colonel was in too much of a hurry to wait for them and merely said, "Here are your rooms. Now, if you'll excuse me I've got a battle to fight." Despite his rush he waited until both were in their rooms and the doors were shut before scuffling off down the corridor.
Once inside McKaid was loath to go back out and head next door. When Adrin had locked eyes with him briefly she hadn't looked in the mood or position to want encouraging words, but merely kept her head down. And now as he lingered at his door to the hall he couldn't conjure any supportive words to give her that might not prove false. So, he finally resigned himself to bed and flopped on it with his head turned toward the window, begging silently for sleep to come.
Time crept by, though, and he still seemed no closer to sleep than he had been before the conversation with the badger lord. Total, unnerving silence reigned around him—not even the hares from the hall could be heard!—and he wondered if this was the calm before the storm. Where is the other army? He wondered then and finally decided to satiate his curiosity.
Throwing his cover back and caution to the winds he walked over to the window without any stealth, but when he got there his sense of self-preservation swept back. It'd be incredibly stupid if you just stuck your head out like a cuckoo bird to either get it shot off, or make it known you're in the mountain, McKaid thought bitterly to himself before he carefully stuck his head out to the window, staying close to the ledge.
He was surprised to find the ground was fairly close to where his window was perched, and wondered for a moment if this was Colonel Crenshaw's way of showing his disdain for them. Bringing his eyes from the ground he peered out across the invisible sand below and, without a trouble, spotted the hundreds—even thousands!—of bundles of light, which danced on the dark sand. Fires. The army was vast and McKaid shuddered to think Salamandastron's possibilities of withstanding this attack.
We might not even get out of here alive, he thought miserably to himself, and chanced a glance at Adrin's vacant window before pulling his head back in and making his way toward the bed. A sigh emanated from him as he stared up at the vacant ceiling, a million thoughts reeling through his head. Closing his eyes, he bided for his time to sleep. The elusive creature came back to him quickly, though, and soon he was oblivious to all around him; he even didn't hear the march of the armies preparing to meet each other.
It was only a few minutes after that started his eyes opened alertly and he sat up in his bed wildly looking around himself. Trying to find an escape! Is it true? He mused as he threw on his clothes and darted out the door, glancing left and right only briefly before sprinting the short distance between his room and Adrin's. He slid to a stop and wildly pounded on the solid frame.
"Adrin? Adrin, are you in there? Answer me please," he screamed, not caring whether his shouts carried down from the mountain to the battlefield. Taking a chance, he grasped the door handle and flung it open looking around. No Adrin. "No…" He managed to say when he saw what he had feared; her sheets had been tied together and in knots then flung out the window.
He rushed to it and without preemption practically threw his head out the window, searching the land wildly below for her. His heart nearly stopped in his chest when he spotted her petite, white figure darting forward toward the armies beginning to rally themselves for the battle of the mountain. The opposing force stomped the ground in time and beat their spears together, creating a low rumbling effect that might have been created to intimidate the world renowned Long Patrol. McKaid couldn't see what the hares might be doing.
And he didn't wait to see what they might do. Nearly crawling headfirst out the window he barely managed to keep from toppling onto his head, but still hurriedly slid down the makeshift rope and called her name, not bothering to temper his voice, "Adrin! No, Adrin, come back! Please, come back!" Yelling loud enough for the heavens to hear he sprinted full tilt after her, with his paw already on his sword ready to bring it forth; the armies appeared not to heed any words he shouted, or the approaching figure dressed in her torn and frayed habit.
Adrin ignored the pain in her footpaws as the pain shot in spasms up her legs, protesting loudly to the sharp rocks she stepped over trying to make her way to the impending melee. I've got to stop this. I must! I can't let them do this, she cried silently to herself and increased her speed. Her ears twitched when she heard McKaid call out to her—beg her!—to come back within the safe confines of the mountain, but she dared not turn back. I'm sorry, McKaid, she called back to him, wishing her message could be spoken aloud to him and in person.
Wincing at the pain in her feet from being unable to put on her shoes before the armies had begun marching the mousemaid turned toward the middle of the masses. She'd needed to get out in front of them; she reached the edge of their lines. Several weasels and rats glanced her way curiously as she dove straight into the alley both had created with the halt of their separate forces. The hares, having witnessed the reasons she was there glared at her with mounting irritation, and Lord Broadstripe followed her progress through the rift with narrowed eyes. A weasel warlord in the far back of his horde seemed to share the same feelings toward the mousemaid as he too glared at her with growing frustration.
She ignored them both and stopped only when she felt she was in the middle of their masses, and then held up her arms with her palms facing them in a halting motion. "This has to stop! Please, don't fight! We can come to a truce," she screamed to the creatures around her. Several of the vermin around her all at once turned toward their comrades and began muttering, whispering behind paws to one another as they viewed this display before them. The rest of the horde just stared at her incredulous, while the hares, Lord Broadstripe, and the warlord just continued to simmer at each other.
"What is this nonsense?" The rough, grating voice of the warlord sounded out from the back, twirling the curved blade of his cutlass around in a circle. He stopped it occasionally to grasp it and motion a violent slash with it before continuing with his sword handling, as though he longed to slice a creature open with the blade. The weasel glanced around at his seemingly stunned horde and cried screamed at them in fury, "What are you waiting for! Kill the badger! Don't hesitate! Just kill it!"
"Charge, charge," the chant began at the back of the horde, and slowly spread to the front as the fear for their Master overcame their desire not to kill the mousemaid in front of them.
"You heard him, chaps! He'll mutilate that poor gel unless we do something about it! He only cares to conquer," Colonel Crenshaw suddenly piped up from his position on the edge of the front line. "We should charge while we can! For Redwall!"
Lord Broadstripe hardly acknowledged his colonel and merely raised his broadsword pointed to the sky and roared, "CHARGE!"
"Eulalia! Eulalia! Salamandastron! Blood and vinegar," the battle cries sang out from the Long Patrollers in near unison as they worked themselves up into frenzy, bearing their teeth at their enemies and pretending to lash out at them with their knives. Despite the hostility of the Long Patrol, Adrin glared at them from where she was and refused to move from her suicidal position.
"No, don't listen to them," she turned to the vermin and addressed them directly. "Look at you, you're better than them! They are like barbarians, just yearning to cut your throats, but do you really want to cut theirs?" A few creatures smart enough to be befuddled by this only stared at her, while half of them shouted their own battle cries and responded with a positive to her question. The last half simply seemed to want to drop their arms and leave.
"Don't you dare desert me, or I'll make you wish you'd never been born," the weasel warlord shouted from behind, stepping forward to grab a hesitating rat by the ear and haul him backward. It squealed allowed, protesting and begging for his master not to kill him, but with no avail. The cutlass flashed iridescent in the sunlight then a lifeless body with one, deep slash across its chest lay at the feet of the creature with his eyes still wide. Those who'd heard the screams cut off sharply shuddered and began to jog forward, driven by their fear.
"No, no, wait," Adrin screamed forcefully, trying to stall them. But suddenly the Long Patrol was sprinting forward, desperate to meet their foe. The mousemaid stared back between the two titanic forces for several moments before the barest trace of fear registered in her deep blue eyes. Closing her eyes, she waited with her arms still spread trying to stop something that refused not to.
"NO! NO! Adrin, NO," McKaid screamed so loudly his voice was shrill. His heart pounding he brought forth his sword, his eyes bloody with rage and desperation, and rushed into the conflict. Martin's sword shined as he brought it up, and then down, on any foolish enough to get into his way. The only thought pounding in his head was that he had to get to Adrin. I have to see her safe, I have to see her safe, I have to see her safe…
He'd never seen so many creatures cover a fairly short distance so fast, no matter that they were contesting to fight each other's blood. And he'd seen her, standing there in the middle of it all without any motion of ducking or finding her way out of it before they engulfed her. She was somewhere in the thick of the fighting.
Several minutes passed and yet he felt no closer to the middle, but now he had several long cuts tracing up his wrist to his elbow, dripping blood. He ignored them and pressed forward, intent on finding his objective and planned on using vicious means to extract her from the battle, which raged like a hurricane around them.
All motion stopped, though, long before he reached the center. Her scream cut through the air like a deafening clap of thunder, suddenly bringing the mass to their senses. Vermin and hare eyes alike widened in horror and astonishment when realization reached their dazed minds. McKaid thought his heart stopped when the scream screeched through the air, seeming to shatter reality around him. He reeled back as though he'd been struck a heavy blow, with his sword dragging a furrow into the sand. The mouse somehow regained his balance, and hunched over clutching his heart with a free paw. Tears already clouded his eyes.
No, no, it cannot be. I can't possibly have failed her, McKaid thought to himself as he slowly, tenderly began pushing the crowd aside to make his way to Adrin. Vermin noticing this stepped back from him with widened eyes and they followed his slow progress through the masses surrounding him. They stepped back.
It seemed to take forever, but McKaid finally broke through the file surrounding the mousemaid in the heart of the battle. And there she was. Adrin blinked slowly at him and smiled weakly, one of her outstretched hands from where it had fallen twitched as she struggled to reach him. He regained a measure of his mobility and ran out to meet her; he grabbed the paw gently and sank to his knees, staring unbelieving into his greatest friend's weakly smiling visage.
Blinking her once clear blue eyes at him she opened her mouth to say something to him. He cut her off before she could, "No, don't talk. Just stay quiet and wait. We'll save you, don't worry." Though he knew it was fruitless looking at the great, long gash working its way down from her breast to her leg.
Adrin only shook her head at his hopeless comments, but the smile did not disappear from her face. She opened her mouth again, and finally said, "T-thank you, Mc…Kaid. Wh-what you said th-the other day r-really helped me. I-I couldn't have…done it without you. D-don't mourn me to-too long."
McKaid was already trying to respond, but his throat constricted and he was choked by tears. Struggling to gain breath and tell her something the tears flowed unrestrained from his eyes as he stared down at her, before shaking his head in refusal to believe that her mortality became evident that day.
And then she was gone. Her beautiful blue eyes were glazed over in her final ascent to the Gates of the Dark Forest, and her hand fell limp in his grasp. The red gash was the only, ugly reminder that she was no longer among the living, and not just sleeping. McKaid shook his head in protest in her having left so soon and finally managed to whisper one word, "No."
As his mind continued to grasp the understanding of what had just undertaken him he heard voices above and noticed for the first time, the weasel warlord standing at paw, his cutlass wreathed in tiny veins of blood as they dripped from the tip. He wasn't staring at Adrin's broken figure so much as he was staring at the crowd around him. Hares standing shoulder-to-shoulder with vermin slow, but all in unison turned their gaze from the dead pacifist to the one who murdered her. The sneering, gloating expression of victory over the hindrance was suddenly replaced by a panicking fear.
Vermin who'd only minutes before wanted nothing but the Long Patrollers blood flowing on their blades were peering at their leader so coldly McKaid was only slightly surprised snow wasn't already falling. His mind struggled to grasp the situation at hand still when a rat stepped forward and whispered, though it was loud enough for all to hear, "What 'ave you done? There is no 'onor in that. You killed 'er! 'e killed the mousemaid!"
"What do you mean?" The weasel tried to sneer bravely, but a tremble could be heard in his voice, and he involuntarily stepped back, bringing his sword up to point at the soldier under his rank. "We kill plenty of innocents all the time. Even children! Why should her death matter?"
"You kill those innocents," McKaid suddenly whispered for her side. He'd brought his eyes up to lock with the green ones of the warlord, and he stood up slowly. His paws, still numb from the impact of Adrin's death, clenched and unclenched as though they begged for the feel of Martin's sword in their paw to take the offending weasel's head off. "You drive your horde to kill those innocents! They only kill them to spare their own lives! You monster, you kill them!"
A rumbling shout of ascent started from the front and made its way back through the ranks as the hares and vermin picked up their arms and bristled with them. They closed in around the warlord who began gasping painfully for breath and swinging his sword haphazard at the creatures calling for his blood. McKaid widened eyes darted around as he took in this display and suddenly screamed, "Stop this! It wasn't just him who killed her! It was you! All of you! Even the badger lord of Salamandastron! If it wasn't for your hate toward each other, your refusal to make a truce this could've been prevented. But no! She gave her life for the peace between our two kinds. Honor her that, at least! Her death will not be repaid by such hostility. No, give him a trial then give him a fate that suits him best. Justice is required."
Short, choppy sentences were all he could manage as he tried to shelve his grief and play the diplomat in place of Adrin on short notice. But with every word he spoke brought him that much closer to the dam he'd made to crumble and unleash the howling within him. With every word he could feel his heart tearing itself apart within him.
He broke from the proceedings immediately after, and then sprinted his way to a place on the other side of the mountain, with only the thought of getting away. It was several miles later he collapsed on the ground, unable to go any further, and prayed aloud, "Why, Martin, why!"
McKaid's question remained unanswered.