11
The young day beamed over the grounds of Redwall Abbey. Captain Kludd—or rather, Tuscarawas of the One Blade, as he preferred—took a leisurely stroll through what now belonged to him, the blade of Martin the Warrior strapped to his hip for all of his newfound army to gawk at with their yellow, reptilian eyes.
"Have you found her yet, Darkscale?" he asked the large, stupid lizard he had appointed his second-in-command more-or-less at random, as all of the lizards were equally large and stupid and equally eager to please him.
Darkscale shuffled along beside him. "Uh-uh… Yezz, we have found the one with the many bladez… But zhe hazz zlain many of uzz…"
Of course. Kludd had not expected Alagadda to keel over and die, even with her wounds. She was the one wrinkle left in his plan for complete control over the Abbey, a plan less than a day ago Kludd had not even the slightest formulation in his mind. The idea that he could contest one as shrewd and skilled as Lady Alagadda had never before come to him, and even now the thought struck him with a faint sense of dread. But Alagadda, skilled as she was, was but one beast. Her horde was no more, Kludd—and his lizards—had made sure of that. As Darkscale explained the situation in more detail, Kludd was able to piece together than Alagadda had holed herself in the Abbey library with Vellis and perhaps a few others.
Which was fine. The library had one exit (Kludd himself had learned this when he had captured Fannin there earlier). Alagadda could not escape. Either through relentless assault or starvation or a host of other nefarious plans that flitted through his mind—fire, poison, methods of murder both monstrous and cathartic to a rat who had not long before been lorded over by this same Alagadda with undue cruelty—he would destroy her, and then he would rule Redwall as Tuscarawas the King of Lizards, who were all the army he needed.
(In the back of his mind, however, he made sure never to forget the female lizard who had appeared so much smarter than her brethren and who had challenged Marclaw to duel him. She had disappeared, but Kludd knew she was lurking somewhere, plotting. Were these the kinds of concerns great horde leaders suffered on a daily basis?)
Perhaps he could save himself a lot of time and grief with some good old fashioned diplomacy. Gathering a large posse of his biggest and stupidest lizards around him, making sure to keep most of them arrayed in front of him to block any potential arrows headed his way, he cut a course for the eastern end of the Abbey grounds, where the windows of the library watched over the orchard and the pond and the tranquility of the morning.
"Hail, Lady Alagadda of the Many Blades." He affected the tone of the leader, to which he had grown accustomed. Leading and bragging were similar things, he had discovered. As long as you spoke with enough boldness and conviction, others believed you.
For a few seconds the small, circular windows around the library were dark and empty. Then, Lady Alagadda's head poked out.
"So this is yore doin', Kludd? I knew ye weren't as daft as ye looked. 'Tis why I appointed ye my captain. Think I give away that job to ninnies?"
Kludd didn't come for small talk. "It ain't Kludd no more. You'll refer to me as Tuscarawas of the One Blade, an' nuttin' else."
Any shred of conviviality that Alagadda had attempted to muster evaporated. "Of the—Of the One Blade? You swindlin' cheat, yer swipin' my moniker! How dare you, I worked hard for that'un!"
"Now now, Lady Alagadda," said Kludd. "Ye ain't in much a position t'be clingin' to little things such as names an' whatnot. In fact, ye ain't in much a position at all. Who've ye got in that library with ye, Vellis an' who else? Conredd, Jareck mebbe? A few stragglers?"
"'Tis nobeast but me an' Vellis," said Alagadda, with a note of pride. "An' we'll kill every last one of yore stupid lizzerds afore doin' the same with yore own worthless self, Kludd, just you wait an' see. We already got quite the collection o'corpses stacked in front o'the hearth here, skinned an' ready fer cookin'. Mm, delicious, wouldn't ye say, Vellis?"
The next moment, Alagadda ducked down out of the window and Vellis popped up, bow already taut. Kludd had only an instant to react, diving behind Darkscale as the string loosed its arrow with a twang. The lizard took the bolt in the shoulder without cry or complaint, merely brainless wonder at the shaft caught between his scales. He wrenched it out with a pluck of his curved claws and dropped it to the floor.
Kludd was already back on his footpaws. "Nice try, why don'tcha have another go, Vellis? Ye only got so many arrers, but I got lizzerds to take 'em aplenty."
Vellis had already disappeared from the window, replaced by Alagadda.
"Listen 'ere, Kludd," she said. "'Cuz I'm only tellin' you this once. The only one who oughtta be pleadin' fer mercy here is you, yer just too stupid t'notice yet. Either I'll get ye, or Vellis will, or those stupid lizzerds will when they realize whatever lies you spooned 'em ain't even half true. Y'may think ye've slain my horde, an' mebbe you 'ave. But I ain't Alagadda of the Many Blades simply 'cuz I got a lotta knives t'sling. Ye'll see soon enough, Kludd. Soon enough."
She hurled a raucous guffaw at him before ducking back beneath the window. The lizards on the grounds turned to Kludd in unison to see his response.
He shrugged. "Worthless, self-important beasts as her ain't worth my time, especially not now that I got this whole fortress to mesself." He projected his voice so that even Alagadda and Vellis in the library could hear, but played the words as if they were merely his thoughts. A bit more directed, he pointed at Darkscale. "Find a way into that library and kill the both of 'em, I don't care how ye do it or how long it takes, as long as it happens. When they're dead, show me the corpses, then ye can do with 'em whatever ye please. Or better yet, bring 'em alive, an' I can think of some horrible method of death more suitin' their insolence."
Darkscale saluted with a toothy grin. Kludd strolled away from the window without a care for his former leader and her flighty aide, abolishing the both of them from his thoughts nigh instantaneously upon removing them from his vision. The Abbey belonged to him.
The Abbey belonged to Kludd, no doubt, but many surreptitious creatures scurried in its dark corners, evading capture and certain death at the claws of his lizard army, which had more or less gotten to lazing about hapdash after gorging on the slaughtered bodies of Alagadda's former horde. The Redwallers had fortified their position in the cellar, dismantling a few empty barrels to board the door more effectively. Under the direction of Abbott Walden and Cellarhog Gilmer, the tattered creatures set to work crafting more things of use from the spare parts, including strong wooden shafts that could be used as weapons in conjunction with the knotted ropes they had employed as flails.
Jareck and his cohort of assorted vermin watched their processes from the darkest corner of the cellar, the table upon which they had played card games the night before serving as a barrier between them and the woodlanders. Jareck himself had not spoken in some time, shuffling his cards again and again and gnawing his coin idly. Letcher the rat, however, recovered from his previous injury, had gathered the four remaining vermin and conspired with them in hushed tones.
"They may be a lot o'them," he said, wrapping a paw around Switz's shoulder and pulling him close in confidentiality, "But they're soft, weaklings all. Ain't none o'them used a real weapon in their life, an' aside from that squirrel, ain't none o'them e'en got a real weapon to use."
He indicated Laramie, who still had the sword she had taken during the fracas the night before. She was crouched by the corpse of the lizard, studying it, her eyes squinting in the dim light.
"We take her first," Letcher continued. "'Twill be easy, she's just a maid, an' her back's turned to boot. Then while they're still surprised we go for the hog, he's the only other of 'em that's a threat. Those two down, an' they'll do what we say."
Switz glanced at his comrades for some sort of response. They made none.
Jareck flicked a card out of his deck, watched it sail up into the air, and caught it as it fell. "'Twill never work, an' why should we want 'em doin' our biddin' now anyway?"
"Ye daft or what, ye old stoat," said Letcher. "The exit outta this accursed Abbey's not more'n a good sprint from 'ere. We can send these'uns out as a distraction and let the lizzerds or whatever's out there go for 'em, an' then we sneak out while the coast's clear. Or's that too complicated a plan fer you t'unnerstand?"
Jareck shrugged and went back to his cards.
Not long after, Abbott Walden called an assembly. "All the armament imaginable will not help us," he said, "Unless we put it to intelligent use. We cannot blindly charge into the open without plan or foresight."
"An' how're we s'posed to know what's out there," said Gilmer.
"Somebeast will need to scout the landscape," said Walden, his gaze stern behind his spectacles. "It will be a dangerous task. But I cannot, in good conscience, send so many of the denizens of the Abbey out without at first knowing what it is exactly we're up against."
"We know what we're up against." It was Laramie. The gaze of the crowd wandered to her and her bloodstained habit. She pointed with the tip of her sword at the lizard carcass sprawled on the cobblestone. "That is what we're up against. A lizard, dredged up from some swamp somewhere, foul an' reekin' as any pestilent reptile has e'er been. I've read every chronicle of Redwall Abbey in my short time as Recorder, an' only once have I heard tell of a lizard as large and vicious as this—the chronicle of Craklyn squirrel, who wrote in a time almost forgotten in our modern era. She wove a tale of a distant island and a wizard emperor, who commanded a legion of creatures like this. But those lizards were wiped out, erased from this country to live only in the pages of that story. These are something even more fearsome, even more terrible to behold—"
"Laramie, please, you are frightening creatures with your dramatics," said Abbott Walden.
Laramie had raised her arms during her speech. With an embarrassed nod, she lowered them. "Forgive me. What I am trying to say is this: It took ten strikes of this sword to pierce the scales on this creature, and another three strikes to bring it down afterward. A weapon like a spear may do more damage at getting through their natural defenses, but we're on short commodity of such. Rope flails will do next to nothing to them."
"Then what shall we do," asked Walden.
Laramie paused. Everybeast, even the vermin, watched her, unblinking. "I don't know. But a scout—If we send them, it'll be to certain death. Those things are waiting just outside the door—we can hear them scratching!"
Nobeast said a word. The faint scratch of claw on wood was unmistakable.
"But there is no other option," said Walden.
"Pardon me a moment, goodbeasts."
Again heads turned, faced the new speaker. It was Jareck, coin clamped between his fangs.
"This isn't your discussion, stoat," said Laramie.
"I want to survive, same as the lot o'ye," said Jareck. "Currently I've no further agenda. An' since survival is my sole state o'mind at the moment, my mind's been whirrin' an' whirrin' an' comin' up with a few ideas, which I'd kindly share with you goodbeasts if ye don't mind."
Nobeast spoke. Laramie's eyes narrowed; he acted as if he did not notice her.
"If those creatures are queued up outside the cellar door waitin' fer us," he said, "Then it makes sense t'me we make our exit someplace else."
"There ain't no other exit," said Gilmer. "I been workin' in this cellar what seems my whole life justabouts, an' the walls 'ave stayed exactly the same that whole time. Yer speakin' gibberish, stoat."
"There ain't no other exit yet," said Jareck. "Now tell me, yer all creatures've lived an' breathed in this Abbey for some long number o'seasons. Mebbe you know a liddle bit 'bout the architecture of this place. What's directly above us, directly above my head right now?"
He pointed upward at a dark and obscure ceiling.
Foremole Griggs tapped a digging claw to his chin. "Oi'd say, burr, oither th'kitchunn urr th'sturrum."
Jareck mulled the words of the mole over, placing great emphasis on them. "The kitchen or the storeroom. The kitchen or the storeroom. Yes, I do believe either of those'd be good places to make an exit."
"You're an idiot," said Laramie. Although she didn't believe it. This Captain Jareck knew a lot more than she would have expected, speaking of architecture and other things. But he was wrong on this count, at least. "These lizards are hungry. The first place they'd be is the kitchen, probably still in there, devourin' all they can get their claws on."
"Mebbe if lizzerds was normal beasts like you an' me, shore," said Jareck. "But they ain't normal beasts an' they ain't got the tooth for cream-filled pastries an' veggie salads, I don't think. No, they got a hankerin' fer meat, raw meat, an' I reckon they shore found a lot o' that in the banquet hall where my former comrades had gathered to enjoy their feast. That kitchen's the last place I expect any o' them lizzerds t'be."
Jareck reclined in his seat, fiddling with his deck of cards and his coin and all his other trinkets with a smile etched on his face, a smile that indicated he had won, he was right. Which was what a creature like Jareck reveled in, lived for, not accruing mountains of junk swiped from lousy gambling, but the satisfaction of being right, of knowing more than everybeast else, or at least thinking he did. He must have been thinking of an escape plan since the very beginning, and only brought it up once he had surveyed the plan from every angle, assaulted it, came up with an answer for every possible objection raised.
She knew his response to her next objection before she said it, but she said it anyway, to get it over with quicker. She didn't like that he was right, and it took all her mental fortitude to prevent herself from saying any more than she did. "An' how're we s'posed to knock a hole in that ceiling large enough for somebeast to squeeze through, an' do it timely an' quiet-like?"
Jareck pointed where she expected he would; at Foremole Griggs. "Ain't he know a thing or two 'bout diggin' holes?"
"Do you think you could do it, Foremole?" she asked.
Griggs tapped his chin again. Tap tap tap. He walked near Jareck, stared at the ceiling, squinted his eyes, made measurements in his head and with his limbs, called over a few members of his crew and consulted them. The moles whispered amongst themselves, nodded heads, collected the tools available to them, checked them up against the brick walls of the cellar.
As though oblivious to the army of eyes upon him, Foremole Griggs finally turned directly to Laramie and said, "Oi shore coodd, oi rekkun."
Laramie looked to Abbott Walden, who had fallen into the darkness while the others had spoken around him. The venerable old vole roused himself with some adjusting of his spectacles and addressed the crowd.
"Then unless one has a better plan, let's move forward."