The Newcomer of Redwall
Book 2 Combustible: The ability to burn (or Wolf's bane)
Chapter 14
--Rallah Kheme--
Simon was comfortably tucked away, safe in one of the corners of the kitchen. He had fallen asleep moments after her last words to him, his breaths were slow and shallow. He was on the very edge of death, and...
And this was hardly a time to be standing and thinking. She needed to find Kilel and have her heal Simon. But where in this huge damned Abbey was she going to find the two creatures?
--Maliss--
He tossed to corpse of the dead rat out into the dry, moonlit grass. The night itself was slowly winding down, and the first purple touches of dawn were just starting to stain the eastern sky. Maliss knew that the day would only stay sunny for a short while, he could smell a storm brewing to the west. And that was just fine with him. He could use the rain to wash away what the rat had said.
"It bothers you, huh?"
Maliss whirled, his swords coming up to the ready to see...
"The human's twin," the wolf said, crossing his arms to slide the blades in the scabbards at his hip.
"Yeah," Ross grunted, "That's me."
Maliss brushed past the doppelganger and into the tent, saying, "I'll have nothing to do with you, child. Go back to your brother."
Ross's hand shot out and wrapped around Maliss's upper arm. Their eyes locked, one pair in shock and the other in cool control. Ross smiled softly, and that smile sent chills of dread down Maliss's spine. "We're going to talk, you and I, wolf."
--Basil Stag Hare--
His head hurt. A lot.
Every heartbeat hurt, sent pulses of red through his eyes. He knew, also, that if he moved, he would explore hitherto unknown realms of pain. He lifted his head and body up, muffling a howl of anguish behind his throat. This...is...TERRIBLE! He thought, moaning thickly and getting to his feet.
He turned his head and spat what he was sure was part of a tooth out of his mouth and opened his eyes to pitch darkness. Basil's paw fluttered out to find the wall, thinking back...His last memory was getting shoved back by the otter female, but at the last second he saw something... something deeper than Kalil, something that might have been hugely important.
He grimaced as he scuffed a toe in the dark, sending a flare of pain up from his headache. He shifted his foot slightly, dragging it on the ground so not to step into anything else, and heard something shift that hadn't been there before. His digits crunched up against the wood of the door and he swore deeply. Shaking the tingling feeling out of his paw, he gravitated his paw to the location where the handle should be. He pulled inward to the rattle and clank of metal on metal on stone on wood. The light that poured in from the slowly opening door showed that the neat and orderly racks of weapons had caved inward on one another, right where he had been laid out.
Great seasons... He thought, I could have been killed four times over! A small knife nicked his big toe. He hopped over the valley of blades and into the hallway, crouching and looking up and down the dark portal. How long was I out?
"Hurr..."
His ears swiveled to the grunt. A mole had made it out? He turned slowly, rising to his full height to greet the mole, possibly Durral, the female friend of Foremole's cousin. "Durral, old bean, I-..." Durral's fur had started to bald, showing the places blades or claws had cut her. The female was hunched down, baring claws that no longer seemed made for digging but instead cutting and eviscerating. They were sharpened down to a fine point, and stained black with something...
More moles, looking similar to her, stepped out of the blackness. Basil's eyes flickered into the darkened armory. There was a sword, just within reach. The rabbit and the mole looked straight into each other's eyes. In his were weariness, pain, and experienced mistrust. In hers was a dead glaze of gray that sized him up as nothing but prey. "Durral, old girl, please...Don't make me do this." Her lips pulled back to show sharpened eyeteeth, and gums of diseased blue, and grunted again, "Hurr..."
Basil saw the seven other moles grouping behind her. The hallway is narrow; they can only attack two at a time. They charged, he let all the weight off of one foot and lunged for the blade's handle.
--Simon Gilnom--
He giggled thickly, feeling light-headed and sleepy. The tourniquet had worked...A little. Stay awake. "Noo..." he groaned. Yes, came his inner reply.
He coughed once and scratched at the wound on his shoulder. "It iches." It's infected. Keep your goddamn hands off of it. "Oh...Fuck you." He dug his fingers into the wound deeply, clawing through muscle and against bone to scratch. It hurt like a bitch, but felt so good at the same time.
Suddenly, strong, slender, cool fingers wrapped around his flexing wrist and pulled his arm. His fingers twitched and writhed, parts of bloody veins and arteries hanging from under his fingernails. His eyes opened, blurred, showing the figure of a human girl. Her face was perfect, beautiful, and behind her closed eyes glowed the infinite cosmos. "You're...Sleeping," he whispered, to which she smiled and nodded.
"Yes," she replied, "Yes, I am sleeping, Simon." Her cool hand draped over his gaping wound tenderly. "And you shall sleep, too," she whispered, and Simon thought that was the best goddamn idea he'd heard in days.
He slept.