I don't remember much about the morning except a terrible headache.

"I'm thirsty," I recall saying. "I'm so thirsty right now."

"Dunk your head in the river," Anizev says. It's been such a long time since I heard her talk without a worried bent. The snark makes me grumble, but I'm secretly relieved. Some things don't, can't change. "You'll be refreshed in no time."

"Is Rask alright?"

"No, none of us are alright. We're all feeling like we've become the damned and forsaken."

I stay quiet for a moment, eyes closed. On my eyelids, insects crawl over Anizev and Rask and Dantalion and Saw and Maria and Mother and I, and they're all corpses, dead and rotting, but I'm not and I can feel them all over me. On my arms, my chest, crawling into my ears and into my brain and into my mouth and throat and lungs and heart and I'm lost I'm so completely and utterly lost

"I meant to say," Anizev muses. "Rask isn't doing well, but none of us are models of health and longevity right now."

I open my eyes- no bugs, no corpses.

"I agree," I finally breathe out.

She crosses her arms but seems more or less satisfied. "I just wonder what Dantalion has planned after we take the abbey."

"I wouldn't know. He wouldn't think about heading to Salamandastron yet."

"I've seen him occasionally mill about the Lightning Sunset," the Marten replies. "He's got plans, that's for sure."

"Many of them." I'm really only coasting through this conversation, but Anizev doesn't seem to mind.

"Well," she smiles, clapping her paws together. "I feel like I can do 'em all. Do you?"

"Eh," I shrug.

I feel many things but none of the feelings elicit any emotional response.

My teeth feel strange. I've been told that I have been grinding them like gears during my dream hours.

"This is our personal reckoning, a judgement day, a time for vengeance, rewriting and making history," someone is saying. "We have to stand up and fight. No, we will stand up and fight."

It's not Dantalion, but his rhetoric has been imprinted on nearly every remaining member of the regiment. The camp seems to bristle with a newfound fervor; the end of the song and dance is near, here's our chance to finally get our hands on those Redwallers. Stereotypes be damned. They can think what they want of us, but we're still going to walk all over them.

However, I don't share the infectious enthusiasm. I've run this situation in my head hundreds of times, each with the same events and endings.

We storm the abbey and nearly pillage it, and any dissenters will be run through with the same blades used to slay the abbeymice. The abbott might get killed, someone tries to pull a heroic sacrifice, yet it will appear all for naught. We advance upon whatever goal we see fit. Then we will lose.

I already know how we'll be struck down. Something will happen. A young hero carrying a sword he quested to find. A wall with a "cave-in" trapping invaders. Reinforcements or someone we thought was dead making his or her last stand.

He won't let His perfect kingdom fall. Why should I even throw myself to the gallows?

For them it's war, but for me it's better to just walk away.

Alleviate your guilt; no one feels good at this age.

"Are you feeling well?" Dantalion asks me.

No, not really.

"That's too bad."

Indeed it is.

"Looking forward to our inevitable triumph?"

Sure.

"We're writing history, you know."

Dantalion, if you were to attempt to prove the point that alleged vermin are not bloodthirsty murderous monsters, why would you paint yourself as a bloodthirsty murderous monster by trying to invade an abbey?

"We're no different than the martyrs that died for righteous causes."

What if we die for nothing and everything stays the way it is?

"What if we die for something?"

Why do we have to die?

"We don't have to. We can live on and still taste victory."

We can't win.

"Yes, we can."

Are we going to win?

"Yes, we will. We have to."

I'm not sure what I want anymore.

"You'll have anything you ever wanted."

I never asked for that.

"We ask for what we desire, but we always get what we need when we do the right thing."

I turn to look at Dantalion, but no one is there.