The sun was setting over Redwall. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stood on the walltop. They saw the rat army coming down the road.
"This looks like a full-scale assault," Rainbow Dash muttered. "We'll need every available defender. Fluttershy, go ring the Joseph Bell to warn everybeast."
Fluttershy flew to the bell tower and began tolling the attack warning. All through the Abbey and its grounds creatures stopped what they were doing. Picking up weapons that lay close to paw they assembled at their appointed posts to await further orders.
Applejack and Rarity joined Rainbow Dash on the wall. Redtooth came marching up at the head of the army. "Surrender to Cluny the Scourge," he bellowed harshly.
"I don't see him anywhere," Rainbow Dash replied.
Redtooth became irritated. "I'm acting for him! Surrender before we bring this place crashing down around your ears!"
Instead of answering, Rainbow Dash flew down into the Abbey grounds and disappeared from sight. She returned a few moments later carrying a boulder. She set it down on the catapult and let it fly. The stone crashed into the ranks of the rats, sending them scattering.
"Attack!" Redtooth roared and the rats began shooting up at the Abbey. A bunch of mice with bows and otters with slings ran up on the wall and started shooting back down on the rats.
The battle lasted for a couple of hours. After a while, the rats fell back, but they didn't leave. They set up tents around the Abbey walls.
Once it got dark, Redtooth put the second part of the plan into action. Earlier that afternoon, the vermin had built a wooden siege tower on wheels and hidden it in the woods. Redtooth and a picked band of the best fighters sneaked into the woods and wheeled the tower around to the back of the Abbey.
Cornflower was bringing a pot of vegetable soup up to the east wall. There was not too much action on that side. The only ones up there were Fluttershy and a few moles.
Fluttershy held a lantern up. "Who's there?"
"It's me, Cornflower. I brought you some food."
Fluttershy sniffed the air. "Mm, that smells good! Vegetable soup, my favorite!"
"Naught loik vedgible soop to keep loif in uz moles," Foremole agreed.
But Cornflower was not listening. She was staring open mouthed across Fluttershy's shoulder. Across the top of the parapet a ramshackle wooden platform had appeared as if from nowhere. Redtooth was perched on top of it with a cutlass clenched between his teeth, ready to spring.
Cornflower shrieked aloud and sent the contents of the pot splashing full into Redtooth's eyes. With a piercing wail of agony, he fell off the tower and died. More by accident than by design, Fluttershy spun around and dropped the lantern over the wall. It hit the siege tower, which caught on fire. The rats inside started kicking and fighting each other to get down. Some jumped while others were pushed, screaming as they fell to the ground. The tower tottered, then collapsed in a flaring sheet of flame and sparks.
Fluttershy averted her eyes, horrified at what she had done. "I killed them!"
"None of us'ns wants to kill," said Foremole, "but we'm in ee middle of ee war. We ain't just pertectin' our own skins, thurr's the whole of Redwall an' what it stands fur. You did good, Fluttershy."
After a moment of silence, he spoke up again. "Yurr, you gotten any vedgible soop left, Miss Cornflower? Didn't give it all to those varmints, did ye?"