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Chapter 48. This is SNN, the Most Trusted Name in Updates
by Nallmian (admin)

Major Regaworth covered the body of Captain Woxley with a tarp, stepping out of the room to try to make some sense out of this extremely disturbing and decidedly bizarre find. Woxley had always been hotheaded and perhaps aggressive to a fault. Regaworth had picked him as her second choice after her first candidate for second in command had nicked himself on a rusty nail during training and come down with lockjaw. Woxley had come highly recommended, but his firey nature had proven poorly suited to this sort of delicate reconnaissance. The two had clashed repeatedly, leading up to the final confrontation where Woxley had disobeyed orders, killing a group of vermin who had been squatting in a building the Long Patrol had wanted to survey.

"So Woxley's death is confirmed, Marm?" Colour Sergeant Holfordley, now the second most senior of the hares, asked her. When Regaworth nodded, the other hare's face showed no sorrow. "Good. Blighter didn't deserve to weat the uniform, disobeying orders like that."

Sergeant Holfordley, you have no idea.. Major Regaworth had brought only Greenclaw with her on the hunt for Woxley, not wanting to put her six remaining hares through the ordeal of having to hunt and potentially kill one of their own. The doe had been appalled to discover how Woxley had apparently spent his last few minutes of life. The sight of that poor wolf had made her sick to her stomach. Long Patrol hares DID NOT do things like that. Furthermore, the wolf had been unarmed, and despite her massive size relative to a hare, the unfortunate beast's face didn't look much older than some of Regaworth's leverets back home. It was times like these that made Regaworth wonder whether she really wanted them to follow in her footsteps after all.

Equally strange was what had happened to Woxley. The mutinous hare's entire body had been crushed, and giant chunks of flesh torn out of his chest and neck, with blood splattered across the walls of the alley. There were no signs of him having been attacked with a weapon. Somebeast had done this to him with their bare paws and teeth.

"Sergeant Holfordley, we may have a serious complication. Please come in here and take a look at Capta—take a look at Woxley."
Holfordley followed her into the room and lifted the tarp. Even the hardened NCO looked shocked at the damage inflicted to Woxley. "Seasons, Marm! His whole ribcage is crushed in, both arms broken, and it looks like somebeast…ate part of him." The last statement was made with special disgust.

Regaworth grimaced. She had hoped that the beast had just gone overboard tearing at Woxley, but she agreed with Holfordley. Woxley's killer had eaten some of the mutineer's body. "I can't think of too many things that could have done this to Captain Woxley. It almost looks…" She paused, aware of the gravity of what she was about to say. "It almost looks like what some victims of bloodwrath have looked like."

Colour Sergeant Holfordley looked up at her in shock. "Marm, surely you aren't suggesting that there is a badger on this island?"

"Sergeant, only Captain Woxley and I were told the exact nature of the item we are seeking, for reasons of security." Regaworth sighed. "But in light of Woxley's mutiny and subsequent death, and the new information we have here, I think I'd best tell you." Regaworth then explained to Holfordley exactly what it was that they were seeking.

"Blimey…bloodwrath in a bottle? That's what we're after? Marm, are you suggesting that somebeast else beat us to the pasty?"

"Yes, Sergeant, that is what I am suggesting. And that presents a serious problem. I made the same mistake Marcion did, Sergeant: I didn't bring enough beasts for a city. An all out assault is out of the question. And by the time we could communicate with Salamandastron to get reinforcements, whoever has the Brandy would have created a whole army. Even without the Brandy, I'm not feeling very confident in Marcion's ability to keep the vermin bottled up here. He's trying to control this whole city, but he didn't bring enough beasts. His troops are good warriors and good woodlanders, but most of them have never seen a city before. The vermin have an advantage here."

C SGT Wolfordley frowned. "I've listened in on a good deal of those Felldoh's Heirs chaps. They're not a happy bunch at the moment. They're taking a lot of losses from those Red Dawn blighters, plus lots of other small groups of vermin, and they feel like they're not getting much for it. Not to mention that Marcion…" The hare looked distinctly uncomfortable, but Regaworth saved him the trouble.

"I'm well aware that Marcion needs a tighter belt on his pants. Apparently he and Lord Garrilan once got thrown out of an otter holt in the middle of the night because Marcion had gotten caught sneaking off with the Skipper's bride-to-be."
Wolfordley looked disgusted but said nothing else o n the subject. "Our hares are made of sterner stuff, and morale's still high. All this sneaking around causes some bellyachin', but that's all it is. Nobody's going to copy Woxley. They just wish they could do some proper blood 'n' vinegar."

"Well, they just might get their wish. We're alone, far away from reinforcements, and the enemy has apparently gained control of the Brandy. However, at this point, they either haven't had it long enough, or don't have enough of it to create a massed army of bloodwrath warriors. We cannot allow them to rectify that." Regaworth sighed, aware that her impending decision was a dangerous one. "Our mission has changed. We need to find out who has the Brandy. Then we need to kill them, and either get the Brandy back, or just destroy it altogether."

"Yes, Marm. Understood."

"Judging from the latest reports, there's two groups who seem the most likely to have it. Sarkleyet, one of the two original inventors, and the only one we believe to still be alive, may have recovered it. Alternatively, there is a large group of escaped vermin prisoners who have lodged up in a..a tavern."

"It's a local landmark called the Oasis, Marm, and I'm afraid it's not exactly a—"

"I know that, Sergeant. Regardless, we need to have eyes on both sites. If we find out either side has the Brandy, we might have to plan a raid. We're not going to try to take down the whole faction, just grab the Brandy and kill anyone who knows how to make more. Also, maybe find some way to kill their bloodwrath warriors. I imagine they'd have to keep them chained up or caged to stop them from getting out of control."

The two hares set about planning surveillance of Sarkleyet's mansion and the Oasis, and tried not to think about the betrayal and ultimate fate of Captain Woxley.

Prellon the mouse still had to work hard to suppress the fear response that was
trying to rise up within him. It was not the first time he had been in the same room with vermin. The Leaping Pike back in his hometown served both woodlanders and vermin alike, and certainly the little trading post got its share of vermin visitors. That as it was, however, Prellon had never been in a place with such a high concentration of vermin. It didn't help that there was a distinct undertone of musk to the place's scent. When he had hesitantly asked a weasel what the Oasis actually was, the mustelid had just guffawed at him.

The only reason the weasel had chuckled rather than, say, torn his throat out and used his corpse as a soup base, was that Prellon was currently disguised as a rat. He had always been large and muscular for a mouse, and with the help of a squirrel couple who had once been part of a band of roving players, he had been able to pass as a rat fairly easily.

It had been Marcion's own idea to put an infiltrator amongst the prisoners. Apparently during his dibbunhood at Redwall Marcion had heard the story of how a rat named Vitch had disguised himself as mouse to infiltrate the Abbey, and had decided to use the opposite to spy on the prisoners. Furthermore, in the even of another escape, he had ordered Prellon to go with the rest and spy on whoever rescued them. If he heard any reference to something called "Red Brandy" he was supposed to pay particular attention, and steal it if they had already aquired it.

Earlier that evening, Prellon had seen a group of beasts come into the Oasis talking about 'the Brandy' and what had apparently been a very dangerous and costly but somewhat successful attempt to find it. One of them, a prim-looking stoat, had been carrying with utmost care an oddly-shaped box. He had later peaked in on the stoat and seem him trying to open the box. Could that box be the brandy? He hoped so, because if it was then he had a chance to get out of here.

Except…he couldn't do it tonight. He, like most of the vermin in the tavern, had bedded down for the night in one of the many bedrooms. Even for a tavern, the place had a lot of bedrooms, but all of them seemed to have only one bed, so many beasts wound up in blankets on the floor. Prellon thought this was a strange way to furnish a tavern, but evidently the owners did something right. It was easily the largest tavern he had ever seen. The mouse wondered vaguely what the draw was.

Unfortunately, earlier in the night there came a roadblock in the form a female rat who he had noticed with discomfort starting at him downstairs. He didn't mind that his rather well-built frame attracted the notice of female mice, but female rats? The very thought of it turned his stomach. Even worse, later on, at night, that same female rat had snuck into the room where he was and laid down next to him. She told him that she had been watching him all day, and found him rather dashing. Prellon had grown increasingly uncomfortable with this conversation,but had been unsure of how to convey this, and apparently the female rat had found his nervousness 'cute' and was only encouraged.. At some point, she had whispered that she could be very quiet if he could be too, and had gone for his belt buckle.

To say Prellon did not take this well would be an understatement. His shouting and flailing woke up every single beast in the room with him, and he had heard angry exclamations from the next room as well. After much glaring and swearing and throwing of objects at him, the room's inhabitants had settled back down, but there was no way Prellon was going to try sneaking out the room tonight. The mouse was just going to have to try to go to sleep in the middle of a room saturated with the scent of predators and then steal the brandy the first chance he got. Prellon silently pleaded with whoever might be out there watching down on him to please make that chance soon.

Gericault the otter was having an even worse night than Prellon, the worst of his life, in fact. The battered, bloody lutrine sat in chains in a small room that had once served as a wine cellar in a private home, his fur matted by tears. His life had begun to spiral out of control just hours earlier, when he had been standing in the Customs House guarding the arsenal and trying very hard not to think of killing Marcion...

The room was just quiet enough that Gericault could hear his own teeth grinding together as he stood outside the weapons room wondering if it were conceptually possible for someone to have worst taste than Marcion. He had had to endure the indignity of seeing Althra walk past him to get to the stairs to the third floor. Marcion had summoned his sister, one of the Heirs' supply officers, to 'conduct an inventory review.' The smug mouse who had delivered the summons hadn't even tried to keep a straight face while delivering this news.

Dammit...he had warned Althra against getting mixed up with Marcion. It was bad enough that he was a squirrel, and the sordidness of the whole thing was made worse when it quickly became clear to everyone that this was far from an equal relationship. Althra had tried to break things off several times, but Marcion had made it clear that there would be very serious consequences for both her and Gericault if she tried it. So she stayed on call for whenever Marcion had some free time. He knew Althra was unhappy. The look she had given him walking past to go meet Marcion...she had looked miserable and embarassed, and had tried so very hard not to look at him.

The otter started as there was a sudden scream of fear from upstairs. Without a second though, Gericault rushed up the stairs. The scream suddenly stopped only seconds after it had started, and Gericault pounded on Marcion's door. When there was no answer, the otter drove his shoulder into the timbers...

And gasped as he saw Althra's body on the floor, a broken otter javelin driven into her chest, blood pooling on the floor. Looking up, he saw Marcion, a snarl of anger still on the squirrel's face. The squirrel looked up at him, eyes narrowed.

"Nobody in the Felldoh's Heirs disobeys me. She forgot that. Now..."

Gericault didn't here the rest, because he was charging forward, paws seeking Marcions neck. However, he never got there because Marcion threw a punch into his side that drove the wind right out of him, and then a roundhouse punch that rattled the otter's skull and made him dizzy. The squirrel was unbelievably strong for his species. Gericault tried to struggle up, but Marcion's next punch to the side cracked two of his ribs. The squirrel grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into the wall with enough force to crack it. Barely conscious, Gericault struggled on nonetheless, but Marcion would have none of it. Lifting the otter up, he slammed him into the wall again, then threw another punch that broke another rib and made Gericault collapse to the ground, gasping and couching. The otter spat up a spot of blood as Marcion slammed a fist down onto his back.

The squirrel knelt down next to him, shaking his head. "You poor simpleton, Gericault. My grandfather, my father, my aunt and my brother were the four previous Warriors of Redwall. Did you really think you could best me?"

Gericault could barely talk. "You...you kil--"

Marcion chuckled. "Now what was your first clue, the javelin in her chest or the blood? I've been thinking this over for a while, Gericault. We've had some drawbacks around here. I thought I had more than enough soldiers to take this city, but I didn't. I can admit when I've made a mistake, Gericault. I know many of the Heirs are not happy with the slow progress and the high casualties. They need a scapegoat. They need someone to blame. And you just volunteered..." The squirrel slammed Gericault's head down onto the floor, knocking him unconscious, then stood and shouted down the hall.

"Guards, get up here immediately!"

A mouse and two hares rushed up to Marcion. The squirrel pointed into the room. "I've found the Red Dusk infiltrator who has been sabotaging our operations. He tried to kill me, but one of our supply officers who was in a meeting with me sacrificed her life for mine. She was his sister, but apparently the Red Dusk paid him more than blood was worth to him. Put him in the brig. The whole force will learn of his treachery. The assistance Gericault has rendered the Red Dusk has cost the lives of many of our comrades, and may well be to blame for the setbacks we have suffered lately. Chain him well!"

Nobody had treated Gericault's injuries, and the otter drifted in and out of consciousness. He wondered how his holt back home was getting along, and he wondered if somehow his parents or his other siblings had some inkling of what had befallen their kin. He also thought of the vermin he had helped earlier, of Zula, the lizard, the rat and the harlot vixen who had unknowingly spared Althra some of Marcion's attention. He wondered where they were and what they were doing. Gericault did know one thing, though: the otter was praying to every spirit or folk deity he had ever heard of or believed in that in the end they would kill Marcion.