CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
From this distance, Foxguard's soaring tower resembled nothing more than a mere needle jabbing above the forest horizon, its flared upper dome and jutting balcony visible only by squinting to bring it into focus, and then just barely, to the sharpest-eyed of observers. At such a geographical remove, a solitary creature could not possibly be spotted by those vigilant watchers, even though he sat exposed atop an open, raised trail ridge, unshielded by tree or terrain as he gazed upon his old home for perhaps the last time.
For many days now, Mykola had followed arcane trails and seldom-trod paths in the progress of his slow, measured escape from the Gawtrybe and his fellow swordfoxes, striking out into forestlands little known even to the inhabitants of central Mossflower, pursuing a course that carried him south and east, always south and east.
He'd laid just enough false clues to mislead any possible pursuers into thinking he might be making a break for Redwall, and covered his real tracks just enough to obscure his true avenue of escape. But he could never go to Redwall, much as he likely would have found safe haven there among folk who would resist surrendering a deserter to Urthblood's punishment-minded soldiery. That Abbey was a place under siege now, and he could not see that turning out well, whether the result stopped at strained relations or deteriorated even further into something far worse. The Redwallers would have their paws quite full enough without an accused traitor seeking refuge among them as well. Apart from the fact that Mykola honestly didn't know whether he could ever find a place amongst woodlanders and feel comfortable as a self-delivered prisoner within those friendly confines, those welcoming walls, he would not have done that to the Abbot ... or to Sword Tolar.
Custis and the Gawtrybe he didn't give a diseased turd about.
Mykola certainly didn't consider himself a traitor, but the Gawtrybe might indeed regard him as such, especially if things went badly with the rats at Redwall, and Custis got it into his head that the lame swordfox had somehow aided the rodent refugees. Since Mykola had fled before the squirrel's return, he could only guess and suppose what had occurred in his absence. But he was sure it couldn't have been good.
Even given his precautions, he was surprised in spite of himself when the Gawtrybe failed to swoop down from the surrounding forest to sweep him up in their vengeful dragnet. Not that first day, nor any of the days since. And with each day he went unaccosted, with each stretch of this long march he put under his uneven footpaws, Mykola dared more and more to believe he might just have eluded them for good, might just get away with this.
Of course, one possible reason nobeast was coming after him could be that things at Foxguard grew even worse upon the Gawtrybe's return than even he had feared they might. And while such a state of affairs might prove a boon to his aspirations toward freedom, he rankled at the idea of his noble swordbeast companions and the fanatical squirrel archers being at each other's throats. Tolar didn't deserve that. Roxroy didn't deserve that. Mona didn't deserve that. And while they were all perfectly capable of sticking up for themselves, that wouldn't spare them the ugliness of acrimonious confrontation.
Mykola, on his own meticulous headlong flight, had not succeeded in avoiding confrontation himself. He'd travelled mostly by night at first, giving him an advantage over any of the day-loving Gawtrybe who might have given chase, since his night vision and sharper hearing would betray them to him rather than the other way around. But there were reasons goodbeasts tended not to be abroad in Mossflower after nightfall, and Mykola had encountered such reasons more than once during this gradual escape. He currently wore the simple, dingy tunic of one such fellow fox, a beast approximately his own stature and build who'd been more than happy to trade his poor garments for the limping fox's sharp black uniform jacket.
Then the avaricious ruffian, emboldened by the perceived weakness he sensed in his lame counterpart, had tried to take Mykola's sword too, in a treacherous gambit meant to catch the former Foxguarder by surprise, and lethally so. That ill-fated sneak attack had not ended so well for the would-be murderer, and Mykola had left behind both his uniform and the slain fox wearing it, as surely as he'd left behind his former life of service at Foxguard. If the Gawtrybe ever should discover this evidence of the defector's passage - assuming they didn't mistake the slain creature for the defector himself - here, days out from the fox fortress, they would know only that Mykola no longer wore his identifying uniform, not what manner of garb he'd exchanged it for ... not that he wouldn't still be easily identifiable by his distinctive wobbling gait, or by the splendid badger-wrought blade he still carried.
Others he'd similarly encountered showed the good sense to back down after less lethal demonstrations of his abilities. And as for goodbeasts, they avoided him altogether, even after he took to travelling by daylight, five or six days out from Foxguard. This far from the fortress, this far from Urthblood's influence, even in these lands genteel by the standards of the Northlands, vermin were still vermin, and an armed fox was not to be trusted.
And then there were the rats.
Mykola had passed any number of them in his travels thus far, some singly and some in small bands or families, and even one proper settlement. He skirted past them unnoticed when he could, or otherwise minimally engaged them, just as he did with the members of any other species he encountered, even as some small corner of his conscience silently screamed at him to grab them, shake them, rush into their midst and shout as long and as loud as he could for them to flee, to wake up to the danger about to overtake them, to somehow escape to someplace safer just as he was attempting to do. But every time he refrained, and kept to himself, for if the rats in this part of Mossflower were to suddenly stir themselves and seek sanctuary, either at Redwall or in regions more remote, this would only signal to the Gawtrybe that the fox they sought had passed this way, while gaining the doomed rats nothing, for where would they go? Where could they go? Just as bad would be if Mykola attempted to warn the rats of these parts and was met with disbelief, scorn and ridicule, because whether they heeded his warnings or not, they would just as easily be able to tell the Northland squirrels, when they came, of the limping herald of their doom. And if the rats did believe him and chose fight over flight, taking up arms to battle their treebound nemesis, they would face slaughter unparalleled in any of Urthblood's campaigns so far. Either way, the Gawtrybe would then know he was here, and most likely renew their search for him. Perhaps some of the rats he met saw the sadness and torment in his eyes, and may even have wondered at it, but never a word did he utter which might have saved even one of them.
That the Gawtrybe would come there was no doubt. Maybe not right away - which Mykola had counted upon when formulating his escape plan - and maybe not even this season, but eventually, inevitably ...
Mykola gazed west from his perch atop his rocky pedestal. He'd come south, very far south, over the course of so many days, and far east too, so that the Eastern Sea must be not far distant. To his left he knew must lie such Mossflower landmarks as the Big Inland Lake with its hidden island castle where Snoga had met his fate, and the high cliff wall and its wide plateau that gradually, gradually sloped back down again to join the barren desert separating Mossflower from Southsward, and all the swamps and marshes and glades and watercourses and forests and settlements making up southern Mossflower, all hidden from his present view but inarguably there. Through all of it the Gawtrybe would someday sweep, as surely as the Accord was the Accord, but not just yet.
The Mossflower campaign had been meant to start in the north, up by the Icetor mountain and fanning south through predetermined quadrants painstakingly mapped out to catch all the rats between there and Foxguard, on that side of the River Moss - that much Mykola had learned from briefings with Tolar. The idea was to isolate and detain all the rats from those areas quickly enough so that word of the campaign would have no chance to spread and tip off the other eventual targets in central and south Mossflower, who would then be next in line. Whether this strategy had been cast aside in the wake of what had happened at Redwall Mykola could not know, but he suspected the Gawtrybe would not deviate from their initial plans if they could help it. The rats of Mossflower were going away, one way or another, and the Gawtrybe would come for them whether they'd been warned or not.
This insider's knowledge had inspired Mykola to pick this path, away from the heart of where the Purge was set to commence in Mossflower. If he could just stay ahead of it, he might find some hidden den for himself that the Gawtrybe would overlook once they did spread their terror to this region. They would be searching for rats, after all, and one solitary woodland fox, uniform discarded and sword kept out of sight, who only ventured out at night when the squirrels were least likely to be watching the forest, would hopefully not attract any undue notice.
All throughout his travels, with every rat he encountered, either solitary or in groups, Mykola had remained alert for one particular rodent, recipient of a merciful reprieve seven seasons ago who'd narrowly escaped the fate of an early death and burial in an unmarked grave outside of Redwall. But if that one still lived, the fox did not cross paths with him during this venture.
Memories of that incident, and of those vibrant yet tragic times two summers past, had Mykola thinking more and more these days of another rat who'd figured prominently in his soldierly life, Sergeant Liam. He specifically recalled a conversation the two of them had shared during Liam's first and last stay at Redwall, before his death in the battle of Salamandastron. The crux of that long-ago discussion had centered around why, when Urthblood had departed from the Abbey with most of his army to deal with his brother Urthfist at their shared mountain home, he'd left a troublemaker like Wolfrum behind at Redwall. With that badger's prophetic sight, how could he have not foreseen the near-tragedy which almost inevitably had ensued? This line of questioning had led the fox and the rat to speculate whether Urthblood had in fact foreseen it all along, and had set up the conditions for Sword Machus to prove himself to the Abbeybeasts, thus overcoming their longstanding fear and distrust of the vulpine species. After all, no Redwaller lost its life in that affair (although it had been a close thing) and if Urthblood could somehow have known that was how it would all turn out, he might well have considered it a gamble worth taking ... especially if he'd already secretly had Foxguard in mind, as he almost certainly must have, and intended for Redwall and the swordfox brigade to become neighbors.
But lately another thought had crept into Mykola's mind, an embellishment and expansion of that earlier round of speculation between him and Liam, taking their theory to the next step. What if Urthblood had foreseen not only the incident which might ennoble and elevate Redwall's regard of foxes, but beyond that, to this present campaign? What if that altercation within the Abbey walls had indeed been otherworldly arranged, not just for the edification of Machus and his foxes but also to the planned denigration of ratkind? A scheme to forever disfavorably color the views of rats at Redwall, even as the foxes were recast as respectable champions of peace?
What if ... what if ... True or not, Mykola could do nothing about it now. Such a state of prophetic affairs and manipulation of world events was not his place to prove or disprove, nor within his ability to do so. And as things stood now, he looked exceedingly unlikely to ever have the chance to ask Urthblood about this himself, even if he could expect a straightforward answer from the badger about such a thing. He well remembered their second visit to Redwall, on their way to reopen the quarry for the construction of Foxguard, and the bizarre verbal faceoff between Badger Lord and Abbess, during which Vanessa could not coax a straight answer out of Urthblood about the battle at Salamandastron, no matter how she phrased her questions, no matter how many times she asked. Urthblood could be inscrutable, and immovable, when faced with an inquisition he did not care to indulge in.
If there truly were anything to this line of reasoning, then the machinations which were even now laying ratkind open to the Purge would have rewarded Mykola for simply being a fox ... and he wasn't sure how to feel about that, but it wouldn't be anything good. Of course, if Urthblood's aim all along had been to harden Redwall's hearts against rats to make sure those good folk were accepting of this Purge, that ambition at least seemed to have backfired rather spectacularly, as witnessed by the Abbey's sheltering of a hundred and a half rats. That might have caused trouble between Foxguard and the Gawtrybe, and between Redwall and the Gawtrybe, but it also spelled considerable inconvenience for Urthblood and his plans ... and that provided Mykola some small sense of satisfaction, in spite of everything.
All of which left Mykola sitting on a rock far from any home he had ever known, an unquenchable sadness weighing upon his heart, the internalized lamentation for an entire species.
Heaving a sigh as the late spring morning wore on toward noon, he rose from his seat and turned away from Foxguard once more, away from the lands to the west, away from the past and all its wasted promise. Shouldering his haversack and his healer's satchel, readjusting the sword at his waist, he descended from the ridge into the thicker forest, where he would be shielded from those he'd left behind, just as they would be shielded from him. It was time to be on the move again, and so he pressed on to the south and east, forever south and east.
00000000000
Matowick's absence at Salamandastron did not go unnoticed by Ambassador Erzath.
On this afternoon he wandered the permitted portions of the mountain fortress, just as he so often did, both to while away the time and to glean whatever he could that might be of use for his next report to Terramort. He would have preferred to be down in the central dining hall, where Urthblood was at that moment receiving his latest guests and engaged in talks with them, but the searat diplomat had been squarely barred from those proceedings, weasel guards posted to block all the tunnel and stairway approaches to the mammoth chamber, and mouse soldiers assigned to escort him wherever he went.
Wending his aimless way down one of the outer passages, he came across an open doorway to the exterior mountain slopes, and here he felt he finally hit pay dirt. Sitting out on the open balcony on a rock bench under the wide blue sky was Lieutenant Perricone, cradling her newborn son in her lap. Gentle but persistent onshore breezes ruffled her fur and tail, and she held the babe close to her, making sure the swaddling cloth was bunched just right to form a protective wind barrier.
When Erzath made to proceed out onto the paverstone platform to join the Gawwife, his mouse escorts threw their warning arms up in his way. "Not out there, Ambassador," one said with far less than complete deference. "The Lieutenant doesn't look like she wants to be disturbed." He didn't add, "By the likes of you," but he didn't have to.
Perricone, glancing up at the terse intrusion, interceded on the rat's behalf. "No, it's all right. The Ambassador is welcome to join me if he wishes." In truth, she regarded the constantly-prying representative of Terramort less than welcome at almost all times and in almost all circumstances, but something about the mouse's tone of intolerant reprimand rankled her in just such a way that she felt compelled to undermine her fellow woodlander's brusque authority, even if it was to Erzath's benefit. Scooting aside on her bench, she made room for him, even as her protective, comforting hold on her precious bundle never slipped or shifted. As Erzath availed himself of her hospitality, the two mouse soldiers exited out onto the balcony as well, unflagging in their assignment this day to shadow Tratton's Ambassador wherever in the mountain he went.
Erzath gazed about him. While he had surely passed this point many times, he could not remember with any clarity whether he'd ever actually ventured out onto it to enjoy the ocean view, which he admitted to himself now was splendid. This spot, in times of war, had likely hosted a large catapult or some other similar battle engine, positioned to lob projectiles out into the shallows to menace any enemy vessel that dared draw too near, or perhaps north along the shore to discourage any threatening horde from assembling there; from this vantage, either target would be within easy range.
But there was no catapult here now, if Salamandastron even still possessed any such armaments; the last war with Tratton had dramatically underscored their vulnerability and ineffectiveness, and after losing his entire complement of the giant rock-hurlers to stormpowder blasts, Urthblood might well have not bothered building any more. Now, patterned stonework underpaw and carved rock benches made this terrace seem more like an idyllic sightseer's nook, a spot for taking in the sea and shore vistas and relaxing in meditative contemplation, or enjoying the company of a select pawful of intimates and comrades ... or for nursing one's suckling whelp.
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant. An' how're ye on this fine clear day? I've not seen much of you lately - or your husband either."
This mention of the absent Matowick made Perri realize why she might have bade Erzath join her, if only in observation of formalities. The Ambassador and her husband had spent so much time in each other's company these past two seasons - acrimonious and grudging as that shared time could often be - that one just naturally reminded her of the other now. And if Matti could not be here with her, maybe this other, coarser, furless-tailed rodent might for her carry echoes of her spouse's spirit and personality until the flesh-and-blood Matowick could return safe and sound from his present mission to properly fill that space in her life once more.
"You know how busy Matti keeps himself, being captain of all the Gawtrybe here at Salamandastron. And as for myself, contending with the latter stages of expectant motherhood, and then actually becoming a mother, hasn't exactly left me in any state for casual socializing. So it's hardly surprising that you've not seen much of either of us around the mountain."
"Ah, yes! This's the first time I'm seein' you since the, er, blessed event. Congratulashuns on that!" Leaning in to inspect the squirrel infant, who gazed back up at him with alert, guileless wide brown eyes, the rat remarked, "An' a fine young son he is! Such a shame his father wasn't here fer the joyous occasion ... "
Perricone drew back her babe at this, partly covering his tiny face with the blanket as if suddenly fearful she might be exposing his pure innocence to something unwholesome. "Who says he wasn't?"
Erzath flashed what he meant to be a disarming smile. "Come now, 'tenant. You can't pull th' canvas over this rat's eyes. Your husband's always been busy, from th' time I first set my claws upon the rock of this place, an' that's never kept 'im outta my sight fer so long. An' I pick things up, too - surprisin' what patient ears can hear when nobeast stops t' think about who's liss'nin' in. Seems t' me it'd take a lot fer a first-time father to miss his son's birth. Momentous event fer him, an fer Salamandastron too, him bein' its top squirrel captain. Now, what could've kept him from bein' here for that ... ?"
"Dedicated service to Lord Urthblood often demands much. Look at how many of us died fighting you, before the Accord."
Erzath winced. "No call fer bein' harsh there, 'tenant. An' as I know my history, lots more of us died than you. But history's what it is now, isn't it? We've got the Accord, an' peace too. Wouldn't behoove Lord Urthblood or my own master to go stirrin' anything up that might jeopardize that peace, now would it? So, just what did call your beloved Captain away from Salamandastron at a time like this?"
"You're fishing, Ambassador, and being rather obvious about it too."
"I was only expressin' my concern fer your plight, 'tenant. Pains me t' see you deprived of your better half when he really ought to be at your side."
"And now you're being cringingly disingenuous too. Stop the fishing expedition, Ambassador - you don't make a very good otter."
Erzath seized this new opening even as he was rebuffed at his old one. "Now that you bring up otters, seems to me there've been a lot of those waterbeasts comin' an' goin' here lately. Funny thing, that - 'specially since our intelligence was that all Lord Urthblood's otters quit his service last summer, an' went back up North to their old homes to dwell there in their own way, free of that badger's orders."
"Then maybe your intelligence leaves something to be desired. Perhaps Tratton should be looking for a new Spymaster."
Erzath winced anew. He didn't know how much these creatures of the lands knew about Uroza or his dreaded agency, or if they even knew his name and identity; it was entirely possible they'd inferred such things purely on speculation, and the realization that King Tratton could never have held his Empire together without a formidable and ruthless secret police to crush dissent, quell unrest and keep potential usurpers too busy looking over their shoulders to fully threaten their sovereign. And if this impertinent Gawtrybe officer knew, really knew, what Uroza was all about, she would not dare to speak so blithely about him. She would not dare.
"Let us agree t' leave such affairs to King Tratton, hmm? But gettin' back to affairs closer to paw ... " Erzath nodded toward his attendant mouse minders. "Lord Urthblood might be able t' bar me from certain areas inside this stronghold - moreso on some days than others, hrmph - an' he may be able t' limit my movements more'n the respect rightfully afforded an Ambassador can warrant, but not even he can make my house arrest here so blatant that I'm bottled up so tight I can't see anything of note. Like down there, fer instance ... " He pointed downslope and shoreward, at the pier, where even now a small ship rode upon the tidal swells, tied up to the jetty. "I see 'em come an' go, 'tenant. From my chamber, from th' plateau, down on th' beach, from terraces 'n' balconies like this one ... can't always make out the identities of the beasts gettin' on an' off, tho' sometimes I can, spite o' yer master's best attempts t' keep me in th' dark. I see 'em come an' go."
"Well, good for you. I'm glad you've been able to sneak in some sightseeing between your Ambassadorial duties. Your own master must be delighted with you."
"There's all kinds o' sights to be seen, 'tenant. An' all kinds of occasions too - like what's happ'nin' right this moment down in yer dinin' hall. Yer Lord's made it pretty clear he doesn't want me anywhere near whatever's goin' on in there. Wonder why that is? Things're s'posed to be open an' friendly 'tween us now, no secrets to hide ... "
"We're at peace, Ambassador, and that is all. We are hardly friends, or allies, and as far as openness, perhaps Lord Urthblood will open all of Salamandastron to you when Tratton opens all of Terramort to our Ambassador Squillace - which is to say, most likely never."
"Ooo - there you go, bein' needlessly harsh again. I'm only askin' questions here. Would I be far off in assumin' that whatever meeting Urthblood's convenin' down there's got somethin' to do with that vessel moored at your dock - an' the creatures aboard it?"
"You seem to have missed the very obvious detail that I am presently on maternity leave, Ambassador, and not in active service to His Lordship - which leaves me blissfully out of the loop when it comes to the official goings-on at Salamandastron these days. So if you're looking to pump somebeast for useful intelligence, your choice of candidate leaves a lot to be desired."
"Pump? Such a hard word, 'tenant. Can't two beasts whose Lords have made peace have a simple, friendly chat on a beautiful, sunny spring day? T'would be a shame if 'tis not so."
Perricone decided the falsely obsequious rat had finally overstayed his welcome, and wondered why she'd ever invited him out here to join her in the first place. "If you'll excuse me, Ambassador, I think little Elberon needs another feeding, and I gather you'd prefer to give me some privacy for that."
"Privacy? Out here?" Erzath grinned, pointing skyward. "Not with so many gulls always about. They see ev'rything - tho' lately, in th' past couple o' days, there haven't seem to've been quite as many about as usual. An' two days ago, a huge flock o' them flew inland. Any idea what that was all about?"
Perri flatly ignored his question. "I don't mind being seen by gulls; it's their duty to watch these coastlands, after all. And they're built differently enough from us furred creatures that a modest display of nursing should not titillate them in the least. Now, my son isn't getting any less hungry, so if you don't mind, you can go somewhere else to speculate to your heart's content."
"You heard the Lieutenant," the senior mouse ordered. "Time to move along, Ambassador."
Erzath grudgingly rose from the rough-hewn bench, about to follow the mice back into the mountain when a movement out to sea caught his eye, holding him in his spot. Regarding the seascape for more moments than Perri or the mice might have preferred, the searat diplomat gave a sour half-grin at the sight of the approaching sails. "Looks like I'll have even more t' speculate on than I thought ... an' like Lord Urthblood's gonna have more guests this day than he was plannin' on!"