Chapter 4: Given Up

The sound of sliding paws on ice disturbed Mako's meditation. He turned to find the charred fox staring at him with a look of absolute bewilderment. A splatter of seagull droppings had found its way directly to his shoulder; it blended in almost perfectly with the char, sand, and vomit covering his patch-furred body. He waved meekly, a worried smile briefly flickering across his face. Then he abruptly broke eye contact, and started intently examining his footpaws.

Mako felt a small pang of pity for him, despite himself. Deciding to initiate conversation, he said, "You must be wondering where you are."

Smack sat down. No, that wasn't the right word. He didn't so much sit as collapse into a vaguely seated position. He muttered, "A little," before vomiting in his own lap. "Sorry."

Mako waved dismissively. A small crack opened in the iceberg, collecting what vomit had pooled on it, and funneled it down into the water. "We are about seven hours from Sampetra, at our current speed. We should reach land by sunrise."

Smack replied with a head movement that vaguely resembled a nod. Then he got up, stumbled toward the back of the iceberg, and tripped.

Now, when most beasts trip, they usually just fall down. Smack, on the other paw, had mastered the art of doing things in the absolute worst way possible. He tipped forward like a drunken fool, caught the deck with his paws, pushed himself up, slipped on the ice, tipped backwards like a drunken fool, and fell off the side of the iceberg.

Mako stared at the point where Smack had fallen over. The right thing to do would be to save the poor bastard. On the other paw, he had an urgent message, and this would only cause a delay.

It took him less than a second to reach a conclusion. He held up a paw, and the iceberg came to a halt. He rose from his meditative position, stripped off his tunic, and jumped into the water.

Mako is an interesting name. It takes a very special kind of beast to be named after a shark. No, he couldn't turn into a shark. That would be absolutely ridiculous, and it would ruin the already dubious pacing of the story. Nor did he have gills, nor the specially adapted nostrils of a shark. But what he did have was a swimming ability better than an otter's, and very good ears.

And bleak grey fur, and teeth filed to wicked points. I guess all you really need to be named after a shark is a little bit of time and a dentist that doesn't ask questions.

In any case, he moved through the water nearly as well as his namesake. The sound of a madly flailing creature was nearby, and he zoned in on it like a particularly bloody piece of chum-

Sorry, not a shark, I keep forgetting. He zoned in on it like… something, and took off through the water.

Smack, meanwhile, was watching a great white with mild interest. It had chosen to attack a shoal of graylings, and was shaking the life out of its soon-to-be dinner. It had gone after him first, but barely nibbled on him before realizing how bad he tasted.

Who could blame it, though? No one likes burnt food.

Right about now, any sensible beast would be scrambling toward the surface. Smack, on the other paw, was weighing his options. With all the misfortune he'd been thrown through, the Hellgates actually seemed like a reasonable option.

You see, Smack was a unique kind of unlucky. He didn't just have bad luck; it was as if the universe itself made an effort to make him absolutely miserable. The very laws of probability seemed to twist just to give him a kick in the face, or any other readily accessible body part. His youth had been full of bullying, trading families, and general discomfort.

He wasn't necessarily clumsy; in fact, he was quite the model of a healthy beast. He was fast, but something would always trip him. He was agile, but there was always something in the way. He was sneaky, but something always gave away his actions. It seemed no matter how good he was, life made it a point to give him lemons traveling as fast as physically possible.

No matter what, though, he couldn't bring himself to end it all. Once, when he was young and stupid, he figured this was because his conscience was made of stronger stuff than his body. Now, though, he was getting the impression that his conscience was on the same side as whatever dark god kept putting him through this life.

But now what was his conscience going to do? He was underwater, surrounded by sharks, and slowly losing his vision. This wasn't suicide; this was the curtain call, and he was going to damn well exit stage left, prophecy or no prophecy.

As his consciousness was almost gone, he felt powerful arms close around his ribcage, and the water started moving down around him.

Gods damn it.

Abzel was hiding. She had been hiding since yesterday, with a rather large bag of food. She had good reason to be hiding, too. Ripfang was a dangerous boss. If she stayed in sight, she could get hurt. So she hid. She hid in the pile of bodies.

She was munching on a cube of raw potato when she heard the pile shift. She scrambled out, pulling her bag with her, and dashed behind a nearby bush.

When she peeked out, the pile looked normal… No, wait. Slowly, a stoat was dragging himself out of the middle of the pile. His muzzle appeared to have been smashed inwards. His tattered fur hung loosely over his body, like a beast starved for some time.

The stoat pushed against the bodies around him, struggling to free his waist. Something, or possibly somebeast, had caught his cord belt, and was now dragging down his pants. He tried his best to pull his way out of the tangle, but he simply wasn't strong enough.

Abzel, munching on her potato cube again, weighed her options. If she helped the stoat, he could turn out to be dangerous. She might even lose her vittles. But if he turned out to be friendly... Ooh, she might could get even more vittles! And he would be a really good helper with… getting tall things, yeah! And, come to think of it, he kinda looked familiar…

Oh.

Oh, deeps.

Abzel rushed out of the bush and grabbed the stoat by his arm. Bracing herself against the pile, she pulled as hard as she could. Something snapped, and the stoat tumbled out. She looked over at him, then quickly looked away when she realized he'd lost his… well, his dignity.

She reached into the pile and grabbed the rags that had served as his pants. The cord that used to hold them up had been severed, but no matter; there were plenty of other belts here. She stripped one off a rat, then headed back to the stoat.

He'd shambled off toward the beach, and sat down facing seaward. She deposited the garments in his lap, then pulled his chin to face her.

"Welking?"

The stoat gave her a blank look. "Is that my name?"

Abzel opened her mouth, then shut it again. He certainly looked like Welking, but if he didn't know whether he was Welking, how could she know?

Then again, she had watched him die, from a blow to the face by some kind of badger or something. That had to have messed up his mind. "Yeah, I think it is," she said. "Now, put your pants back on."

Welking looked back at the sea, then at the clothes in his lap. Slowly, as if every action took the entirety of his mind to focus on, he picked up the ragged trousers, slipped them onto his legs, and stood up. He pulled the drawstring on the old cord belt, then a confused expression crossed his face as the belt came free. He held up the cord and opened his mouth to ask a question.

"Here," Abzel said, holding up the new belt. Welking took it with a gratified nod and put it on. Then he looked out across the sea again.

"Well, what now?" asked Abzel.

Welking looked down at her. Abzel was... small, for a fox. Quite small, in fact; she barely stood higher than Welking's waist. Her ears almost made up for it, being a fair deal bigger than those of a normal fox, but even with that height bonus she still was shorter than the stoat.

He studied her with vague contemplation, then looked up over her head into the forest. "East," he stated, and began walking. Straight into her.

Abzel jumped sideways to get out of his path. "Wh-HEY!" she exclaimed indignantly. He didn't seem to hear; he continued plodding forward, in a single-minded effort to do exactly one thing: walk east.

Abzel shrugged and started following him, then remembered something: her bag! She dashed back to its hiding place, fished it out of the brambles, and then scrambled off after Welking, with a cry of "Wait for me!"

Deep in the forests south of Redwall, Charlemagne caught sight of a fire. Keeping to the shadows, he edged closer to it, curious.

In the middle of a large clearing stood a pile of bodies, caught up in a blazing pyre. An overpowering stench of herbs and spices filled the smoky air, but it did not completely hide the scent of charred flesh.

Surrounding the fire, bowed in respect for the dead, knelt scores of weasels in tribal garb. The Flitchaye…

Charlemagne stepped into the firelight. Several weasels scrambled up, spears in paw, and formed a weak defensive line. Several were red-eyed with tears, and all wore expressions of bitter rage. Charlemagne held up his paws and stepped back a pace. "Woah now, what happened here?"

One of the weasels lowered his spear a fraction, and his face shifted from rage to confusion. "Morzar?"

Charlemagne nodded. "Paxel, what happened here?"

The weasel began frantically describing the event in his native tongue. "Nago afutade, kadara, gurara Flitchaye! Stefera, gurara Ginko!"

"Ginko is dead?"

"Je, Ginko nikora! Afutade gurara Ginko! Afutade stefera Ginko, koera suka a Ginko, pesaara-"

"Paxel, slow down; I haven't mastered your dialect yet, remember? Now, let me see if I got this straight: a black knight came and crushed Ginko, and killed a lot of the Flitchaye?"

"Yesyes, black knight come, kill lotta Flitchaye! Ginko go, say Flitchaye war cry, black knight crush skull!"

"What did this knight look like?"

Paxel started emphatically gesturing. "Bigbig black armor! Black like you, but spiky, not round! Talltall, crush Ginko with fist!"

"Oh dear. Which way did he go?"

Paxel pointed off into the forest. "Go thatta way! Morzar know blackknight?"

Charlemagne nodded. "I believe so. I pray I'm wrong."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!

Ahem.

It would seem I have some pretty horrible time/character management skills. Among my various mistakes are Mako shaving five whole days off Charlemagne's travel time to Redwall, Smack apparently staying asleep for the entirety of Mako's time in Mossflower (yet somehow replying to a battle cry at the same time), Ranga seemingly forgetting that he visited Sampetra (even as an oarslave), and a sentence that wasn't finished (thanks, Thomas). A few edits have been made to Chapters 2 and 3 to fix these.

To my mysterious guest reviewer, ask and you shall receive. I've been in a bit of a rut because I had no idea where to go next, but now things are flowing. I do wish you'd leave some contact info; there are a few things in your first review that I'd like to clarify a bit, but I can't just go discussing them here, now can I?

Shout out to Dynamic Renegade, first to follow the story! I'm working on Chapter 5 already; I'll get it up when I can.

EDIT: I feel I should restate this.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!

I may have made a number of egregious mistakes in later chapters, specifically concerning internal consistency with earlier chapters. As such, my editing spree continues; I think at this point every chapter I've got up is subject to change.

Credit to Linkin Park for the song title.