Sixclaw, Volume Two

Chapter one

FORT SKULL

After the war with the Dragon Queen ended, the Southlands enjoyed relative peace for about two seasons. The Dragon Regime was ended, and the Three put a puppet leader in place. After a while, civil unrest started brewing, and that brings us to the present day.

Longtail aimed his rifle, his cheek resting upon the gun, looking down the sights towards his target. The cat had taken up marksmanship after the war, to ease his mind now that his vengeance had been taken. He fired, and the lead struck the target, three hundred yards downrange.

While the feral cat had been preoccupied and alone at the shooting range, an unknown figure appeared behind him. The Rogue drew his dirk, but it was knocked out of his paw.

The figure grabbed him by the throat and pressed a sealed scroll up to his chest. "You will deliver this message for me."

Longtail normally wasn't one to back down easily, but he didn't have the advantage in this situation. "Sure, kid." suddenly, a syringe found its way into the feral cat's arm, and he plummeted to the ground like a bomb dropped out of a plane.

REDWALL

Over the journey back to Redwall, Deyna had taken the time to get to know the mysterious stoat. Deyna learned that his name was Burnknuckle, and he was a soldier in the Mechanical hands, looking to recruit new members to his gang in the Southswardian Utopia.

I highly doubt any redwallers will join him. Thought Deyna, staring at the stoat as he spoke furtively into his handset.

On the way to Redwall, Blackpaw had resigned as leader of the Desert Rats, and bid them farewell at the spot where they had found them.

As soon as the party entered the gate, the whole of the Abbey erupted in cheers.

Deyna and his company were hailed as heroes. Blackpaw laughed like a madbeast as he was lifted onto the shoulders of the Skipper and his crew. As the impromptu festivities raged, Deyna somehow managed to slip away, and the otter beckoned Burnknucle over to meet with Mhera.

Burnknuckle sat down at the quiet table in front of the abbess.

"Hello, welcome to Redwall. I'm Abbess Mhera."

"I-" Burnknuckle made as if to speak, but the stoat appeared to have a momentary pause. He then stood up and pulled a three-shot concealed pistol from his suit pocket. The stoat leveled it at Mhera's eye, and pulled the trigger, killing the otter instantly. He then shot her again, this time in the forehead.

Deyna shouted and went to tackle the assassin, but before the warrior got there, the stoat turned the gun on himself, placing the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. A second spray of gore and viscera spewed out of Burnknuckle's head, as the stoat slumped over, dead.

The abbey looked about in shock, as blood dripped from both corpses.

THE SEAHAMMER

A storm rocked the coasts of the Southlands, as lightning hurtled from the skies, and thunder rolled through the air. The Seahammer rocked on it's anchor offshore, and Bootbrain sat in the captain's cabin, trying to get radio reception.

"Goddamn Oil City, selling shitty oil, shitty parts, and shity radios." said the stoat, slapping the radio. At this moment, Ironhook came in the door, his entire body soaked to the core, and clutching his tricorn hat.

"Sir, we found the watchman dead." said the huge weasel, slamming the bulkhead door behind him.

"We're in a storm, Ironhook." said the stoat. "A dead watchman should be the least of our priorities. Now go make sure we aren't sinking."

Ironhook opened his maw to protest, but thought better of it and shut the bulkhead door.

While this conversation was taking place, a small motorboat made its way through the storm to the huge wooden vessel. A huge wave hit the motorboat and capsized it right on the stern of the Seahammer. The little boat was smashed to bits upon the rudder, and several beasts tumbled out upon the stern.

Somehow a few lucky creatures managed to grip the wood of the ship, and not be run beneath and gored upon the barnacle-encrusted hull of the Seahammer like the rest of the group.

The beasts recovered from the shock and the cold water, dug their claws in, and began to climb.

The moonlight shone off the tempered glass of Bootbrain's cabin, as the stoat continued his work on the radio, softly humming a tune as he worked on the radio. Just as he got it finished and managed to tune in to hear the Southland's nightly broadcast, the figures somehow burst through the window, along with a spray of salty water.

Taken by surprise, Bootbrain faltered for a second, before his combat skills kicked in, and he went on a figurative autopilot. He reached into his desk, and pulled out a shotgun, and caught one of the invaders in the chest, knocking them back out the hole and into the unforgiving sea.

The massive stoat then whipped one of the invaders across the face with the barrel of the shotgun, before pointing and blowing off the face of the whipped intruder. He threw the shotgun in the face of a third and shook a fourth off of his arm as he ran for his cutlass.

One of the assassins drew a short blade and attempted to plunge it into the back of the captain, but had his head expertly lopped off by the rusty blade of Bootbrain's cutlass.

The leader of the raiding party drew a dart gun fitted with a lethal injection and handed it to the creature next to him, a scrawny rat. The rat nodded, before Bootbrain's cutlass was thrown from across the cabin, and split his head open as the red mist of death spewed out of the crack.

The leader of the party (The only one left alive at this point drew a black-powder hand cannon and opened fire on the stoat, hitting him in the shoulder, as the captain attempted to open the bulkhead door to let in his crew, who had heard the gunshot and rushed to the aid of their beloved captain.

Bootbrain let out a wild scream of pain, and rushed the leader, grabbing the paw they were using to hold the pistol, and aiming it up into the ceiling.

At this time, Ironhook had managed to open the bulkhead door, and opened up on the unfortunate creature that had attacked the captain. His pistol emptied eight rounds into the body of the beast as Bootbrain let go of the creature and let him drop onto the floor.

It was at this time that Bootbrain finally got a good look at the would-be assassin, and examined it. They seemed to be a lizard of the non-primative variety, smaller than a monitor lizard, but larger than the cannibalistic sort that plagued the southlands on the border between Mossflower Wood and the desert.

It was adorned with a type of tattoo that Bootbrain only knew from one creature. "That's it?" said the stoat? "One-Eye's former gangland cronies did this? I was expecting something more interesting than a bid for power by the Mechanical Hands."

"Boss, let's get you out of this cabin, the Vulpuz-damned place is soaked."

Bootbrain merely nodded, and walked out of the cabin and into the sea storm that raged overhead.

A/N

Woo, another chapter. Only took me a whole goddamn month, and I did half of it in one day for some unknown reason. Other than that, thanks to the RRR for helping with the production

R&R