Chapter 6
Former Civilization
It was irritating to be sure. Tiviko Polonuk just wanted to get out of the ship, sweep the island, kill the prisoners, and return to the open sea. But he couldn't run in head-first, he needed to get some sort of idea of what he was dealing with. It was a pain though, he searched his room and the storage area for some kind of map or guide to this island, but it still took him an awfully long time to find one. Eventually, he found a journal that mentioned the island in the storage and went back to his room to read it.
Suffice to say, Tiviko grew very frustrated. Partially because the journal's handwriting was sloppy, but mostly because of what was on the island. The name of the island was Wakestrea Island, and if the journal was accurate, it had been abandoned for a very long time. Wakestrea island was littered with abandoned structures, including but not limited to multiple homes, farms, a castle, a temple, and other buildings. While there wasn't any mention as to why everything was abandoned, Tiviko was annoyed. There could very well still be weapons and other supplies lying around, waiting for the prisoners to use them. Not only that, but the prisoners could hide in the buildings, making finding them much more laborious.
So in all, things didn't look good.
Tiviko sighed and stood up from his desk. Stretching out his body as he knelt down to pick up his longbow. Of course, given the high winds, he was worried about his accuracy being horrible. He was firing at the prisoners as they were running away from the ship, and he was disappointed to find he only managed to kill one of them. He shot one of the shrews, Pinero, but he didn't see that as an accomplishment, as she was just standing still on the beach looking around. Even then, it took multiple shots to hit her.
As a precautionary measure, he also grabbed a dagger and sheathed it in his belt. He moved upwards into the mess hall and looked around at his crew, who were packing stuff and grabbing weapons. Just looking at them filled him with a certain resentment. Yes, as captain, crashes are partially his fault, but he still felt a level of anger towards his crew for not having everything together. He was especially annoyed that some of them were missing, presumably they went ahead to try to capture the prisoners themselves. He sighed and scratched his head, it couldn't be helped.
Well it could, but no matter how angry he was, he couldn't just execute them willy-nilly (and he really wanted to). As soon as Tiviko entered the room, they all stopped talking and looked toward their unquestionable leader. Tiviko looked around at their faces. Respect, fear, hopeful, their expressions boiled down to one of these three. He gazed at them with a fiendish, if annoyed smirk, though they would misinterpret it as a warm smile. His crew weren't the most capable or experienced, but he knew he had their undying loyalty. He knew they would fight until their last breath for him. He knew they'd do what he'd say with every last fibre of their being. Most importantly, he knew that whatever he told them to do, they would go about it without a chance of a takeover or mutiny.
"All right," Tiviko called out as he pulled up his hood, "Let's get moving."
Rianne Wurtil couldn't comprehend what she was looking at. All things considered, the town that stood in front of her was very large, with stone buildings all around her. It would've been a great place to hide, with so many buildings, she would never be found.
The main problem, however, was the fact that every single building around her looked broken way beyond repair. It was almost as if an army of badgers afflicted with the Bloodwrath rampaged through the town, destroying as many things as they could. Most of the buildings were missing at least one wall, and a lot of them had their ceilings collapse. The gravel pathways were filled with rubble, and many of the chunks of rotted wood on the ground had burn marks.
But what bothered Rianne the most were the bones strewn about the town. She couldn't even focus on her original goal because just seeing the bones made her feel queasy.
Oh, right, her original goal. Even discarding the bodies, her original goal of finding a place to hide (from the rain and the guards) seemed impossible. The buildings were way too broken to be of use. Well… I guess a broken building is better than no building at all?
Going to a building she was sure didn't have a body in it, Rianne sat under an area that had part of its roof intact. She sighed tiredly and rubbed her eyes. Without much to do, she went over her plan in her head. First off, take care of the basic needs. Food, water, warmth, rest, and safety.
Food was a bit of an issue, as she didn't know how to go about finding any. But she did know how to identify poisonous plants, so at least she wouldn't poison herself.
Water wasn't an issue right now, but warmth certainly was. Though her habit certainly helped (Red with a golden stripe running down), she knew she'd need more than that to stave off the cold seeping into her body.
The final two, rest and safety, worried Rianne the most. She wasn't a fighter, she was a healer, and while she didn't mind hurting somebeast in self-defence, she knew she could never bring herself to kill anyone. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. It also didn't help that she knew that if she was getting chased or attacked by the guards, she wouldn't stand a chance. She was short, stout, and wasn't exactly the most athletic beast back at Redwall Abbey.
In order to fix all of those, she had a plan. Her plan wasn't too dissimilar to those other prisoners had: Find other prisoners that had the skills she did not have and work with them.
As she sat there thinking, she felt her body grow heavy and she yawned. Rianne hadn't slept in the past 24 hours, as she was too nervous to sleep while the prisoners were cutting their chains. I'll just take a quick nap, your brain is more effective when it isn't tired.
Getting up, she pulled a table made of rotted wood to try to obscure herself from sight. She lay down on the stone floor and closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep.
Rianne was awoken by the sound of claws scratching stone nearby. Her breath was caught in her throat as she heard the sound move around the outside of the building, moving closer to the doorway. As quietly as she could manage, she grabbed a piece of a stone brick nearby and raised it above her head (so not that high).
When she heard the sound of something metal being dragged on the gravel pathway, however, she realized whoever it was could be a prisoner. Then again, not all the prisoners seemed friendly. Rianne in particular didn't trust the vermin nor the vole (Yos). Or Thaddeus. Or Farshawn.
A figure entered through the collapsed doorway, revealing themselves to be…
"Burr no, oi coom in pace!" The figure revealed themselves to be a portly mole wearing a strange purple jerkin, it was Noruth Peltameo.
… Well. Rianne didn't know exactly what she was expecting, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed. Rianne dropped the brick and looked flatly at Noruth, who was raising his paws high in the air. "I guess this is better than nothing. You're the mole on the ship, right?"
Upon realizing Rianne wasn't dangerous, Noruth broke out into a warm smile, patting his belly with a sharp digging claw, "Gudd mornin' marm! Moi name be Noruth."
"It's a good morning?" Rianne asked incredulously. She tapped her collar with a digit and said, "Good morning for sure, it's raining and vermin are trying to kill us."
Noruth didn't detect the obvious sarcasm, and responded with, "Stranger thing you'm be gladded 'bout, but that's fine." Oblivious to Rianne's nonplussed expression, he asked, "So, you be doin' okee?"
"Uh…" She was very conflicted about how she should be reacting. On one paw, it was nice to not be alone, and Noruth seemed like a nice fellow. But on the other paw, Noruth was too nice, almost aggravatingly so. "I'm doing fine, I was asleep until you woke me up."
"That's gudd," Noruth nodded.
Rianne rolled her eyes and walked back underneath the ceiling, Noruth followed right behind. "I might as well ask, what can you do?"
Noruth looked confused until Rianne explained further, "What I mean is, if we're going to be here, it would be useful to know what skills we have. If we don't have an essential skill, we find somebeast who does, you get it?"
The mole nodded, "Oo arr, oi gots it. Oi baint that smart, but oi be a strong moler."
Rianne let out a sigh of relief, "That's good."
The two of them sat underneath the broken ceiling for a while, neither of them saying anything. Namely, because neither of them knew exactly what to do next. Sitting next to Rianne, Noruth let out a yawn. Rianne took notice and asked, "Are you tired?"
"Justa tid," Noruth answered.
Rianne assumed that meant yes and pointed over to the table, "Why don't you take a nap? I'll watch the door… and the holes in the walls, and the ceiling, and the windows."
Noruth stretched out, crawling over to the spot next to the table, "Thankee marm," the mole murmured. Rianne grabbed the piece of brick she dropped and sat next to the doorway. When she looked back at Noruth, she saw the mole was curled up on the floor, somehow already fast asleep.
Well, let's hope I don't get any unfriendly company, She thought to herself. She wouldn't mind getting more beasts, but would a large group be worse than a smaller one? On that note, how many of the prisoners could she even trust? She felt it was somewhat ridiculous considering they were all on the same side, but the vermin worried her, and she didn't know anything about the other prisoners. Then there were the Redwall prisoners…
As much as she really didn't want to say it, she wasn't even sure how much she could trust them. For all she knew, Durkfor may or may not side with Borsen, no matter how nice the hare was. Herself, Thaddeus, and Farshawn had a complicated history, Kallius was great, and Art… she somewhat liked Art in a strange way, but depending on how Art was feeling on a specific day, he scared her sometimes.
She sat watching the many entryways, eyes peeled for any shapes lurking in the darkness. As her eyes landed on another set of bones, however, she suddenly felt a lot less confident in her chances of survival.
There was nothing that could take him down. Sure, in his life he got bullied, beat up, some of his teeth got knocked out, some idiot stabbed his right eye out, a hedgehog tried to burn him, he got cast out to sea (that one sucked), suffered diseases and injuries, and most recently, got kidnapped by hooded freaks with his friends, but through all that, Crookedfang was still alive.
He cracked a cocky smile and placed his paws behind his head. Everything was going to be fine. He was sure of that. He just needed to find his friends, and life would be good from there. Bolgash (kind of) and Tornear had the brains, he and Gurnilal had the brawn, and he liked Vhynias a lot. Vhynias was always there for his crew, Vhynias would make everything alright.
It would be so easy to escape, but first, he needed to actually find them. In the meantime though, he wasn't worried at all. His body was one made of pure muscle, and while he didn't have a weapon, he was reasonably confident he could take anybody down.
As soon as the ship crashed, he tackled some rat in an attempt to steal their weapon. It didn't go well. Being the resilient rat he was however, he just kept running and hiding from the rat until they gave up and decided to go back. After that, he spent nearly an hour wandering around, outrunning any beast that tried to chase him, and trying to find someplace to hide from the rain.
Obviously, it wasn't successful, but that didn't really matter. He'd been through so many storms that it hardly bothered him. No, finding shelter was more about finding his friends, all of whom did care about the rain for some reason (not that he had the foresight to realize this, but there was a correlation between how little he cared about the rain and how often he got sick).
After walking around for a while, he saw some buildings in the distance and decided to run there, which is where he was right now.
Crookedfang walked through the streets of an abandoned town, glancing down at the strange amount of skeletons. In his left paw was a tree branch, while his right paw shielded his eye from the rain. He casually leapt through a hole in a building, aiming the branch menacingly around him. "Oy! Any'un 'ere?" He scanned the house, recklessly knocking down furniture as he walked around. Once he determined nobody was there, he did the same to the next house.
And the next.
And the one after that.
Completely oblivious to the noise that he was making.
Rianne froze as she heard the sound of crashing coming from the next house over. Whoever was there was making a huge racket, and it sounded like they were flipping tables over and smashing things. Was it one of the guards sweeping the village, looking for prisoners? She felt a shiver go down her spine as a much louder crashing sound could be heard. She frantically shook Noruth, whispering harshly to him. "Noruth, wake up, I hear somebeast nearby."
The mole woke up groggily, murmuring incoherently as he looked over towards the doorway. Rianne stood up, brick in paw as she inched closer to the doorway. Noruth was about to get up when they heard a voice call out, "Gerrouta der house!"
Any and all fear Rianne felt instantly vanished as soon as she recognized that voice, and was replaced with annoyance. Out of all the prisoners, the two she had to find were the two most annoying ones? "You've gotta be kidding me. Maybe we could hide until he goes away," Rianne muttered in defeat.
Noruth, however, felt differently. "Naw, ee be harmless." He tried to move out of the doorway to go greet Crookedfang, but Rianne tried her best to stop him from leaving.
"Dear Martin, no. I don't want to put up with him, he's just the stupid rat from that band of vermin, letting him join is just going to-"
"Oy! I'm norra stupidbeast!" Crookedfang appeared on the gravel pathway, branch in paw. He let out a roar as he charged toward the pair. As he swung down, Noruth simply ripped the branch out of the rat's paws, holding it away from Crookedfang.
Crookedfang reached his paws around Noruth's body, trying to take the branch back. Rianne could only watch in embarrassment as Noruth giggled, running around the house as Crookedfang chased after him. "Dat's mine! Givit back!"
"Hurr hur, this be fun!" Noruth exclaimed as he climbed up a mountain of rubble that built up inside the house.
Really? Is this really happening? I refuse to believe these beasts aren't children, what is going on? Far past the point of caring, Rianne shouted, "Just stop, both of you! We cannot be acting like children when our lives are on the line. Seriously, I will throw both of you off a cliff." Oops, you gotta stop doing that Rianne, if you keep threatening beasts, they're not going to want to work with you.
Luckily, they were ignoring her, Crookedfang tackled Noruth to the ground, wrestling him for the branch. The rat finally took the branch back, holding it victoriously over Noruth, who was smiling dumbly. "Gorrit back! Now," he said, aiming the branch towards Rianne, "shaddup lady!"
"No," Rianne said sternly. "We need to get our act together, if three of us decided to hide here, chances are, the guards are also going to be searching here soon. We need to get away, then find someplace to hide from the rain."
Crookedfang groaned loudly, "Why? I want vikkles first, I'm starvin'!"
"Oo arr, oi second that!" Noruth waved his paws excitedly.
"Fine!" Rianne exclaimed. "At least we'd be doing something. Now, can either of you find food?"
Noruth shook his head, but Crookedfang started to smirk, "Yarr lookin' at der best cook in Vhyn's crew, me!" He said as he placed a paw proudly on his chest.
Rianne looked sceptical, "Oh really?" What even constitutes as good cooking when it comes to a small band of vermin?
"Aye! Faller me!" Without waiting for a response, Crookedfang ran off into the nearby woods, not looking back to see if the two were following. Noruth clapped happily and waddled after him. Rianne groaned, guess I am working with these two now… beggars can't be choosers, I guess. She too, followed after Crookedfang, not having much of a choice other than to follow her two new allies.
A dilapidated shack stood in the middle of the woods. Rotted wood was nailed onto the shack's decaying foundation, propping it up against the surrounding trees. The shack's door was broken, and its roof was in tatters. Inside, the fireplace was absent of wood, instead being filled with black soot. The floor was covered in dried blood and scraps of food. Outside, the fence surrounding the shack was overrun with plants. The stone pathway that led to the entrance was covered in moss, giving the shack an eerie vibe.
But for Gurnilal Speareye and Tornear Burke, it was good enough. Having somewhat patched the holes in the ceiling with some woven carpet that was laying around and blocking off most of the entrances with old furniture, the two weasels could get some much-needed rest. Gurnilal sat on the floor, cutlass in paw, while Tornear sat on an old chair, his handaxe on a nearby table.
"Gurn? You holding up okay?" Tornear asked.
Gurnilal smiled weakly at Tornear, unconvincingly responding with, "Aye, just tired."
Tornear got up from his seat and walked over to Gurnilal. He sat down, wrapping an arm around her. "We'll be fine, Gurn. We just have to find Vhyn, and everything will be fine."
"I hope so," Gurnilal said with a downcast expression. Now that the two of them were relatively safe, it only made the fact that the rest of their crew were running around much more obvious. Out of all the beasts in Vhynias' crew, Gurnilal was taking that aspect the hardest. "How long are we gonna stay 'ere? We gotta go find 'em!" She pled.
Tornear was a bit more reluctant to leave the safety of their shack to go find his crewmates in the middle of a storm and tried to reason with her, "We will, but we're not going to have much luck if we go out right now. Besides, if I know them, they're fine. Bolgash and Vhyn are probably hiding in some cave, and Crooked is… probably not dead."
Despite Tornear's attempts, it didn't do much to help Gurnilal. While it'd be nice to know for certain if Vhynias was safe, Gurnilal knew Vhynias well. She knew he was strong and smart enough to stay alive. What worried Gurnilal more was if Vhynias was doing okay emotionally. Out of all the beasts in Vhynias' crew, Gurnilal and Vhynias were arguably the closest. The two had grown up together on the same ship, so it was only natural they'd become friends.
But she didn't voice any of her concerns, and simply asked, "Ya promise they're safe?" Gurnilal asked.
"Yes, it's only been, what? An hour or two? They're fine," he said reassuringly.
Gurnilal smiled meekly at Tornear, "Sorry, justa bit nervous, I'll be fine later."
Tornear smirked and pulled her into a hug, "No, it's fine to be nervous, you don't need to be sorry. If you ever feel worried, just talk to me or Vhyn, alright?"
Feeling a bit better, Gurnilal smiled, "Gotcha."
Tornear patted her back comfortingly and stood up. Gurnilal watched as Tornear peeked out of the broken window, scanning the forest with a watchful eye.
"See anythin'?" Gurnilal asked as she gripped her cutlass tightly.
"Uh… no, 'tis too dark to tell. I can see a little bit though, and as far as I can tell, nobody's there," he muttered.
Gurnilal couldn't help but worry. Even with the entrances blocked off, that would only do so much if somebeast decided to attack them. They did have one back entrance uncovered so they could run, but knowing they could still be attacked was worrying to say the least.
She looked over at Tornear, who was squinting outside the window and smiled. At least he was here with her. Anybeast looking at the pair at first glance would be surprised to know how close the two were. But despite their differences, they formed a powerful duo. Large and sinewy, Gurnilal was, without question, the strongest member of Vhynias' crew, while the shorter and leaner Tornear could be considered the smartest. As long the two of them were together, Gurnilal had no doubt they would survive.
Though Gurnilal didn't believe in fate, it sure seemed like that's what happened. All the way back at their old ship, Vhynias got news about a batch of vermin joining them. For reasons that Gurnilal didn't understand at the time yet Vhynias seemed dead set on, he attempted to befriend the new recruits. Of course, Vhynias was never the charismatic type, so he only succeeded in befriending an intelligent-looking weasel with a gash in his ear. From then on, Tornear, Gurnilal, and Vhynias made a close trio, Gurnilal and Tornear especially hit it off. All was good until… that happened, but she didn't want to think about that right now.
It was then that Gurnilal heard something strange. From the back entrance that the two had left unsecured, she heard something thud against the door. Gurnilal turned to the sound while Tornear slowly reached for his axe. The door was suddenly opened, revealing an unfamiliar rat on the other end wielding a sword.
Gurnilal's eyes opened wide, there was no time to think. Leaping forward and swinging her cutlass in a wide arc, the rat cried out as a deep red slash appeared on his chest.
Behind the rat, a pine marten- the same one that killed Puck, ran forward with a grin, raising his axe in the air.
Tornear quickly ran for his own axe, picking it up from the table. He called out to Gurnilal, "Gurn! Do it!"
She flashed a nod to Tornear, immediately understanding what he meant. She shoved the rat firmly in his wounded chest, knocking him back into the pine marten. With the doorway cleared, Tornear and Gurnilal rushed out of the door, getting on either side of the downed vermin.
Both the pine marten and the rat stood up, holding their weapons defensively. Fueled by adrenaline, the rat lunged forward, swinging his weapon wildly at Tornear. As Tornear began to parry the rat's swings, the pine marten clashed blades with Gurnilal.
Their weapons clashed and danced with a flurry of sparks. Gurnilal began to force the pine marten back. The marten didn't realize what was happening until he felt his back press against the rat. His eyes grew wide as he threw himself to the side in a moment of panic, allowing Gurnilal's cutlass to lodge itself in the rat's neck. The rat gave a garbled gasp and fell to the ground in a twitching heap. Turning their attention to the pine marten, Tornear and Gurnilal were witnesses to a strange sight.
Down on the ground, the pine marten gave a nervous, yet cocky grin. He whipped his gaze towards some nearby trees and yelled, "Now!"
The pine marten clearly did not think this plan through, as the arrow that fired from the trees was redirected by the wind and sailed harmlessly past Gurnilal. Despite the plan not working as he intended, he took advantage of the two weasels' confusion and sprinted off into the woods. "I'll get the two o' ya! Ya won't ferget me!" he called out as he disappeared into the night.
The two weasels stared into the woods in confusion, they definitely wouldn't be forgetting that anytime soon. Their attention was brought back to the sniper in the trees as another arrow flew at them, landing marginally closer than before. Tornear and Gurnilal moved and took cover behind the shack. Better safe than sorry after all.
"Great, we've been found. What now?" Tornear asked irately.
Gurnilal looked around, gazing into the woods, "Should we find Vhyn?"
Tornear shrugged, "Yeah. 'Tis a shame about the shack though, it really would've been nice to stay there for the night."
"Nice while it lasted," Gurnilal commented.
"Yup, so I think we should look for them now, Bolgash is likely hiding somewhere asinine, Vhyn is hiding at a-"
Tornear was cut off by the sound of the pine marten yelling frantically through the trees. "O'er there! By the shack, I swear!"
Glancing at each other for a second, Tornear and Gurnilal ran off, weapons in paw. A party of vermin led by the pine marten burst through the foliage, arriving just in time to see the shadows of the two weasels disappear. "That way!" The marten yelled. Thunder cracked overhead as Gurnilal pulled Tornear by his paw, trying to get away from the beasts that pursued them through the woods.
