Author's Note: Before I begin, let me remind you of how much I like minor characters. There aren't a whole lot of them in this fic so far (and most of them are dead by now, anyways), but you'll find that this chapter seems to oddly revolve around the ones still around. In fact, I take it a step farther and litter the whole second half of this chapter with inside jokes and references none of you will ever, ever get, even if I explained them. So... Just read it and go "WTH?", then we can continue on.
On a better note, we finally get some good characters doing things in the first half of this chapter. Take note of the character's name, BTW... But don't jump to conclusions.
XXIV: The Aftermath
There was nothing to worry about, Ballantyne reassured himself mentally, it's just a young maid with a fancy sword. You can outsmart her. You can outwit her. Don't look nervous or afraid.
"Good day to you, miss," the ferret smiled eerily, tipping his top hat, "Now, why would a kind Redwaller like yourself be out this far? I hear that there is a great feast being prepared there at this very instant. Aren't you worried that you would miss out on all the fun?"
"D-don't try to trick me," stammered the mousemaid, "I was told about your type! You just want me to turn my back so you can stab me with a hidden knife or something! I'm not that stupid!"
"Now, now," Ballantyne spoke softly, "I assure you, I have no concealed weaponry of any sort. I am just a humble traveler, out exploring new lands and making new discoveries. Surely, need for such force is unnecessary?" The tactician truly wished she would put away the sword. He had heard about Redwall, that they looked like ordinary and peaceful woodlanders, but were really skilled, trained warriors. That was why Regner had been so impressed by the lizards.
"No!" shouted the mousemaid, "You're vermin! You're just trying to trick me! I can't fall for any traps! I'm the last hope for Salamandastron!" Skittishly, the sword of Martin the Warrior lunged forward a little bit, the point pricking at Ballantyne's neck. The ferret began to get nervous.
"Please, let's not be so hasty with that sword," the ferret exclaimed, attempting to sound as calm and collected as possible, "And please, don't use that dirty term 'vermin'. It sounds so… plebian. It is an assault on my ears, and it affronts my senses." Ballantyne considered the chances of one of the horde moving outside of Salamandastron and spotting him. They weren't likely; the pair of them had moved behind a dune, and Ballantyne knew how well those humungous lumps of sand could conceal.
"But it's what you are! You'll murder your own mother if it'd get you some treasure! You're despicable!" insisted the mousemaid. Ballantyne realized that there would be no getting through to her.
"Why don't we at least make an attempt to be friendly?" the ferret suggested, "My name is Ballantyne. What is yours?" Ballantyne knew that the Redwallers were honorable and just, and that they would not harm an unarmed creature. At least, he hoped so. This mousemaid seemed so skittish and fidgety…
"My name is Marettia," the mousemaid replied quickly, "Mary for short. But don't try to trick me or anything! I'll c-cut you down if you try anything f-funny, and I'm not j-joking about that!"
"Please, calm down, Marettia," the tactician insisted, "Something tells me you've never slain another creature before. Am I right on that account? No answer? Don't worry, I've never killed a living creature either." It wasn't a lie. Ballantyne had never personally killed anything, although he had been a direct cause for a few deaths, including Alsten and Golding's father.
"I don't believe you!" Mary shot back, "You're just a lying, conniving, dishonorable ferret! Martin told me not to trust any of you! Now, I've got some rope in my pack here, and I'm going to tie you up so you can't try anything! Hold out your paws!"
Pressed by the shining blade, Ballantyne did as instructed. Mary fumbled through her back, pulling out a long, dirty coil of rope. Carefully trying to both keep the sword of Martin the Warrior held up and bind the ferret's paws at the same time, the mousemaid cut a comical figure. It didn't quite help that she didn't exactly know how to tie a knot particularly well. Ballantyne did his best to refrain from laughing at the unfortunate situation, because he knew all too well that one misstep could send him to his grave. Finally, the bonds were tied, if a bit weakly.
"Are these measures really necessary?" Ballantyne asked.
"Don't start talking like that! You just want to break free or something and stab me in the back! I'm not going to trust you!" Mary nearly shouted, keeping a firm grip on Martin's sword.
And thusly, the conversation continued, progressing nowhere.
---
The interior of Salamandastron was a dismal sight. Bodies covered the floor. It was next to impossible to walk through the main hall without stepping on some poor creature that had been speared or stabbed or sliced. Every hare was either dead or dying, having fought bravely to defend their home. Their efforts showed. Out of an initial force of about two hundred and fifty vermin, only about twenty were still standing. If it hadn't been for Deathblaze, it was likely that the horde would have failed in their conquest.
Hairmold stormed about the hall angrily, not caring who he stepped on. The rat was completely unharmed due to his evasion of fighting. "Casualty report!" he shouted, "I need a casualty report!" He marched up to Valla, who was cradling her dead sister with the same blank expression. "I need a casualty report, now!"
"U-um… sniff… waaaaaaaaah!!!" Valla burst into tears instead of answering. Hairmold passed by her, muttering angrily. He approached Corzon, who was leaning against a wall, rubbing his head.
"Tell me the casualty report!" Hairmold snarled.
"What izz cazzulty report?" Corzon asked, shrugging. Hairmold waved his cutlass in frustration.
"Can somebeast give me a casualty report?!" he shouted at the meager amount of vermin that were licking their wounds around the hall. They all looked up briefly, but said nothing.
"Casualty report?" sneered Levail, whose luck apparently hadn't deserted him during the battle, although he was bleeding from a head wound and was beat up all around, "Look 'round, ya dumb rat. Almost all of us are dead, y'see? I wager there's a score of us left, if that. There's a casualty report for ya." The stoat stroked his bleeding skull, wincing in pain.
Hairmold grumbled something incomprehensibly, and then said, "Fine. So, I guess we're all gonna be killed when those longears that went after Golding go back home, in that case."
"Maybe not," Levail replied as he inspected his lance, which had been split in half, "Deathblaze can git us outta this mess. He can prob'ly slay 'em all himself, that's wot I say."
They both turned to see where Deathblaze was. The stoat was huddled in the corner of the room, muttering something over and over again. He didn't look like the bloodthirsty warrior that had just destroyed an army of hares. In fact, he looked sort of afraid.
"He don't look so good," Hairmold growled, "Where's that dumb ferret Ballantyne? He'll know what to do about that." Hairmold didn't really want to see Ballantyne ever again, but if the tactician could figure out what was wrong with Deathblaze, who could then in turn save them all from slaughter at the paws of the remaining Long Patrol, then he figured he could endure a few more minutes of listening to the ferret's incessant chatter. However, Ballantyne was nowhere to be found.
"I think he went out," Levail recalled, "Before the battle. Yew know how he is, can't use a weapon or nuttin', useless durin' a fight. Somebeast jus' has to go out there an' tell him we won, and then he'll come back here."
"Well, then wot are ya waitin' for?" Hairmold snapped, "Go out there an' find him! We need him to hyp-no-ma-tize Deathblaze or sumthin' like that." Hairmold didn't acknowledge the fact that they had already been discussing why they needed Ballantyne, making his repetition obsolete. Levail looked at him quizzically.
"Why do I hafta go, eh?" questioned the stoat, "My head's killin' me. Yew should go, there ain't nuttin' wrong with yew. All the res' of us all got hurt when they were, y'know, actually fightin'!"
Hairmold angrily pointed his cutlass right at Levail's chest. Levail made as if to reach for his lance, but then realized that it had been split in half. "Yer head won't be the only thing killin' ya if ya don't do wot I tell ya too! In case yew didn't notice, I'm in charge here now that Golding's gone! 'Ey, where'd the weasel get off to anyways? I saw him sneak in here jus' afore the battle."
The rat lowered his cutlass for a second as he paused, wondering what happened to his leader (he didn't know, of course, that the figure he had seen had actually been Regner). Levail used the opportunity to jump back, seizing a rapier that had lain on the ground, dropped by a slain hare.
The stoat had barely gotten the rapier into his paw when Hairmold leapt forward, slashing down with his cutlass. Levail swiftly dodged to the left, ignoring the pain in his head, and attempted to stab his enemy through the side. Hairmold held out his free paw as if trying to reach out and grab the rapier as it was thrust forward. Instead, his paw was skewered by the rapier, although it did effectively stop the sword from digging into his stomach.
Levail found himself in a tight spot. His rapier firmly stuck in Hairmold's paw, he was defenseless as the rat began to swing his cutlass back around. The stoat released the weapon and ducked, the cutlass soaring a few lengths above his head. Levail frantically searched the ground for another weapon, and it didn't take him long to find one. Before he could grab it, however, a scaly claw grabbed him by the nape of his neck and dragged him back.
"No fighting," announced Corzon, who had a strong grip on the back of Levail's neck, "Fight longearz, not uz, yez."
Levail wasn't convinced. "Lemme go! He's gonna cut me up if ya don't lemme go!!" Hairmold had pulled the rapier out of his paw painfully, and looked back up at his foe. Great, thought the rat, now he's defenseless. Hairmold lunged forward, his cutlass poised to gut Levail.
However, the stoat had been lucky thus far, and that luck wasn't about to run out. Hairmold froze in mid-lunge, and then toppled to the floor in a heap, a javelin sticking out of his back. Levail let out a sigh of relief. Corzon, frowning, reluctantly let go of him.
"They oughtta call you Levail the Lucky," shouted a groggy voice from the far end of the hall, "First, ya git lucky 'nough ta stay outside while the rest of us gotta go badger huntin'. Then, yer one of maybe twenty that don't get himself killed by the Long Patrol. An' now, I jus' saved yer life right there."
Levail looked up to see who had spoken. Emerging from a darkened hallway was Sawdirge, recently awakened. "Ballantyne told me yew were dead," replied Levail, almost suspiciously.
"Nah, not even close," Sawdirge replied confidently, "This is wot happened. So, we're all lookin' fer this badger, right, an' we all split up. Well, me an' Taroll go up the stairs, and wouldn't ya know, the big stripedog's right there, waitin' fer us. He chops pore Taroll inta two pieces, an' he's goin' fer me, but I'm too quick fer him. He's hackin' an' slashin' an' choppin', an' I'm dodgin' an' duckin' an' everythin'. Then, Ballantyne an' Alsten an' Regner show up, and the stripedog chops off pore Alsten's head. So Ballantyne jus' starts runnin' I guess, an' Regner gets himself killed somehow, but I plunge my spear inta that stripedog's dirty heart, y'know, an' I slays him good. Went down like a rock, that stripedog. Course, he falls right on me, an' I get knocked out 'til now. Good thing I got up when I did, course, or yew would prob'ly be dead too!"
"Wait, Regner was alive?" exclaimed a weasel that was missing an ear, "Ballantyne said he got poisoned!"
"Yeah, well, that was a lie," Sawdirge explained matter-of-factly, "Ballantyne had some big crazy plan, an' he faked Regner's death and everythin'. Course, didn't do pore Regner no good, he went an' got himself killed anyways!"
"I don't believe ya!" shouted a rat with a broken snout, "Regner wouldn't never let Golding take over his horde!"
"Nah, it's true," announced Levail, backing up his friend, "Ballantyne didn't tell Regner. He poisoned him with some special poison that only made him fall 'sleep fer a few days. When he woke up, he was pretty angry."
The main hall suddenly was abuzz with noise, even though there were only a handful of vermin left. Corzon stood in the middle silently, confused by all this. There were some badgers, and then Regner came back to life, and… It made no sense.
Darkscale ran up to him, a long gash running down the center of his face, directly in between his eyes. "Corzon, they all dead, yez. Kalzmar too, all dead. Only uz two left, yez."
Corzon frowned. No wonder he hadn't seen Kalzmar anywhere, or any of the other lizards, for that matter. It was a grim realization, even to Corzon's miniscule brain.
There was only one other silent creature in the room, and that was Deathblaze. The crazed stoat had ceased his muttering, but still sat in the corner, wide eyed. The anger had completely dissipated, and his thoughts were racing again, spinning around in his head like some sort of demented carousal. He was always like this after a battle, but usually Ballantyne was there to give him some sort of drug or wave around his pendulum or do something that would snap him out of it.
Left to his own devices, however, Deathblaze's mind seemed to split. He deeply, deeply regretted what he had done, and for no apparent reason. He just felt sorry, and wanted to go back in time to avert the battle, or something. But still, yelling into one ear was a side of him that wanted to fight more, slice more, kill more. Ballantyne had called this one of Deathblaze's stages, and there was a name for it, but Deathblaze wouldn't be able to remember it if his life depended on it.
If only he wasn't so messed up. If only his head were working right. If only he could kill and slice more! More! If only he could kill every hare, murdering them in the most gruesome, bloodthirsty ways! If only he could have stopped himself. If only he hadn't charged into the mountain. If only he had left, and left for good, never to return to Regner's army. To kill other creatures! Sweet and innocent ones, living peacefully in their homes! Even the young ones, make them scream!
Yes!
No!
Deathblaze sat silently as he felt the sanity that he still clung to desperately begin to unravel. If Ballantyne didn't show up soon… he may just snap.