Clad in a flowing smock and wearing a woven straw hat, Lord Sunflash had become the perfect farmer. He sat with two hares named Porty and Bradberry on a high ledge. Their chores for the day completed, they were enjoying a picnic. Filling his beaker with pennycloud cordial, the badger pointed out an area below them, and said, "We'll have to shore the edges of that salad garden with rocks, stop the rains washing the soil away. Leave a few small gaps for drainage, though."
Bella and a hare called Sundew appeared from a side tunnel, carrying a cloth-covered tray between them. Bradberry sniffed, and said, "I say, somethin' smells jolly fabulous!"
Sundew twitched her ears severely at Bradberry. "Keep your grubby paws away from this, gannet face, it was made specially for Lord Sunflash.
Uncovering the tray, Bella set it before her son. A heavy dark cake still warm from the oven gave off fruity aromas. The golden stripe quivered as Sunflash's muzzle twitched. "Bradders is right, it does smell nice! Cut it up quickly- hungry farmers don't like to be kept waiting!"
"It's a plum and almond cake," Bella explained as she cut it into dark, fragrant slices. "Bloggwood the cook used old cider to mix it with; it had to be baked slow to keep it moist."
"Did somebeast say cider?"
Suddenly, Rainbow Dash landed next to the Badger Lord and started in on the slice that Sunflash held up to her.
"Well, my faithful friend," said the badger, "it's more than a season since you last visited me. Eat your cake before you tell me the news."
The pony's throat bulged as she swallowed the last morsel. "That's some good cake. I gotta take some with me when I go. Well, the news is all pretty bad. The Sixclaw is three days from here, with a great horde. Corsairs, pirats, marauders, plunderers, the rakings and scrapings of sea and shoreline, as many as leaves in an autumn gale!"
The big badger's jaw tightened. "What about our friends in Ponyville?"
Rainbow's fierce eye winked. "He didn't go through Ponyville. He entered Mossflower farther east."
Suddenly, the cake was forgotten. Sunflash rose and said, "Come to my forge room, Sundew, and tell the officers of our Long Patrol to meet me there urgently. This is a counsel of war."
The hare officers of the Long Patrol gathered in the forge room, along with some local otters and squirrels who were allies of Sunflash. Sunflash sat on the window seat, and Rainbow Dash perched on the sill.
Rainbow said, "This ferret has a horde greater than any ever seen, far too big to be met in the open. He's got more soldiers than Queen Chrysalis had changelings, more than four times the size of your forces. I've been busy raising help, that's why I got here so late."
Sabretache, a hare carrying a long sword, spoke out. "Help? What sort of help?"
Rainbow pointed north with her outstretched wing. "Griffons. Gilda has promised me six score of griffon warriors to come in and strike at the rear of the vermin when they arrive on the beach. I don't know how much a score is, but it sounds like a lot."
"A score is twenty, so six score would be a hundred an' twenty," said Sabretache.
Sunflash nodded his approval. "That is good; if the horde of Swartt is as large as you say we will need all the help we can get. Have you any other ideas, Rainbow Dash?"
"A few days' flight from here, there's a kingdom of dragons. Their leader, Princess Amber, is a staunch ally of Equestria. If you give me your talisman, I can use it to recruit some dragons."
"Recruit the reptiles, that sounds jolly good, wot wot!" exclaimed Sabretache.
"The Guosim shrews are in the area right now, they can help us too," said Sundew.
"And I can go to Redwall Abbey and see if there are any warriors there willing to assist," said Bella.
Then Sunflash said, "Our main fighting will be done from the mountain. We have supplies here, food and water to last us, and that puts the foebeast at a disadvantage. Their provisions are carried with them and cannot last long. Now, is there anything we can do to harass them while they are down on the shores in front of here? I am open to suggestions."
"We can dig long trenches, line 'em with sharpened stakes, an' cover 'em with rush mats disguised by sand," said a squirrel.
"Good idea, but surely they'll see them."
A female hare called Hedgepaw held up a light javelin. "Not if me an' a few jolly old Sleepers give the blighters a taste of these. They'll run straight into the blinkin' pits."
"What are the Sleepers?" Rainbow Dash asked.
The most senior hare, a rangy male named Colonel Sandgall, winked knowingly at her. "Sleepers, marm, take too bally long to explain what they do, but rest assured that each of these blighters, who fondly call themselves Officers, have a job t' do an' can do it rather well, don't ya know. Beggin' y'pardon, m'Lord," he addressed Sunflash, "But if you concentrate your efforts fortifyin' all entrances an' exits at ground level, then we'll see to the rest. Actually, I think the right form for the present is to marshal an' arm all the troops, wot?"
Sunflash was impressed with the confidence and ingenuity of his hares; he knew that despite their affected speech manner, they were dangerous beasts and expert warriors. But he had a final word. "Good enough, I'll leave you Officers to it. However, stay away from the Warlord, Swartt Sixclaw- he's mine!"
Every creature in the forge room knew by the look on the Badger Lord's face that he would brook no interference in the matter of his sworn enemy. They saluted smartly and went off about their duties.
Overnight, Salamandastron was transformed into a military garrison. The hares emptied both forge room and armory of weapons; and bows, arrows, slings, and rocks were stacked at every rock slit and window in the mountain. Young ones were taken deep inside to the central inner caves. Old ones took over the forge, repairing, sharpening, and creating weapons. Random trenches were dug halfway up the shoreline; sharpened stakes stuck up from the trencher beds. Boulder piles began to grow from halfway up the mountain, ready at the removal of wedges to topple down on any foebeast. Rainbow Dash flew off with the medal, and Bella set out for the Abbey of Redwall.
Sunflash worked with a team he had selected. They moved around Salamandastron's base, blocking off entrances and exits with boulders cemented together by powdered limestone and sand mixed with water. The main entrance was blocked by a large, rough-timber gate. Old harewives began baking extra food, readying the sick bay for wounded and manufacturing poultices.
In the midst of all this activity, Sunflash stopped for a moment, to gaze sadly out at the areas he had cultivated. The salad garden had been stripped bare to allow the hares to set up a large, timber-framed rock catapult. He shrugged, sighing deeply. All this peace and beauty that he was trying to create would be ruined by war.
A war that would begin two dawns later.
