Happy to get this one out! It's a smaller chapter, but I didn't like the idea of combining this chapter with the next. Hopefully, will get that one out soon enough. Stuff is finally happening (in real life and in the story!). Excited to see where everything goes!
Please let me know what you think and what I can improve on. Enjoy!
The morning cold woke Samuel up late from his slumber. His head throbbed, and his throat was dry and raspy. Samuel staggered out of his tent and teetered to the riverside to wet his throat and try and wake himself up. The cool water helped for a bit, but the pain came back with a vengeance. Miserably Samuel headed back to his tent and began to pack up his belongings. Eli and Brin had finished tying up their packs as Samuel slowly walked over to meet them by the dead campfire.
"Have a good sleep, Sammy?" Brin asked cheerfully.
Samuel carefully nodded his head wary of making his headache worse.
"Don't worry that'll all disappear once we start home." Her high-pitched voice drove nails into his skull.
Dane left the war room with Log-a-Log and Mori. Dane wore a long winter coat that went down to his knees. Underneath his coat, he wore a blue jerkin and a new pair of heavy winter boots. Eli rose to greet him.
"Log-a-Log will be staying with the holt until I return. Until then Mori and Raglan will lead fishing and foraging parties." Dane said taking a javelin, handed to him by a young otter.
"Are ye still sure you want to come with us? You have a lot to do."
"Aye, ye made the trip to check in on us, least I can do is return the favor." Dane flashed a smile. "It'll be just like old times remember."
Eli laboriously slung his broadsword to his back. "Aye, just like old times."
The Redwallers said their goodbyes to the shrews and otters and headed northwest up the river. As Brin had said, Samuel's headache began to go away once they started walking. But it still nagged at him, like a gnat locked in his room as he slept. Samuel found if he loosely focused on doing something while he walked, the pain became bearable. He decided to search the forest floor for stones for his sling. He chatted with the others as he did so. The worry that had been emanating from Dane seemed to go away once he was traveling with his old playmates. Quickly talk turned to the mischief they made when they were dibbuns.
"How's Sister Beryl? Does she still run a tight ship?"
"She's well. Still running around the Abbey chasing the dibbuns who skip out on bath time."
"Ha! It brings back memories, doesn't it? Remember when we decided we could tie the blankets together and make a rope to escape the nursery?"
"You wanted to escape from Sister Lilac and all the work she made us do in the nursery. Bathing and swaddling the young'uns was Esther's favorite but you and Samuel hated it." Brin chimed.
"Remember when Sister Lilac snapped at us for wrapping the babes wrong? We took the swaddling, tied it into a long rope, and tried to climb out of the nursery!" The riverbank wasn't wide enough for all of them to walk side by side, so they turned and headed through the snow in the forest.
"You hated the nursery so much that once we finished tying all the blankets together you jumped right out the window!"
Samuel groaned at the memory. "Too bad I forgot I was scared of heights."
Brin was laughing. "Yep. But Eli wanted out of the nursery too and started to climb out after you. You started yelling at him to stop but he told you to keep going! All that noise woke the babes. Sister Beryl and Sister Lilac burst into the room thinking the abbey was being attacked! But it was just the Greyfur brothers causing trouble!"
"Sister Beryl put us to work in the kitchen thinking it was a punishment. The look on her face when we found out we were being moved out of the nursery. You'd think we'd been rescued from the gates of the dark forest!" Samuel laughed.
Talk soon turned to raiding the Abbey's storerooms at night and Dane's one-time interest in an otter who had left Redwall a long time ago. It was good they were all getting along again Samuel thought to himself. The mention of Esther hurt ever so much, but Dane and Brin's merriment never ceased to lift his spirits. Especially after his conversation with Dane the night prior. Samuel's head hurt too much to process it all. He supposed he would just wait to see what would happen once they returned to Redwall.
"Looks like our friends are still here. Should we pay 'em a visit?"
Confused, Samuel looked at Brin who pointed to a thin black streak of smoke rising in the distance. Samuel sniffed the wind; the smell of smoke was in the air. Whoever it was they were certainly close by.
Eli rubbed his whiskers. "I think we should. Hopefully, they have some vittles, we forgot to pack ours!"
"I didn't know any beast had moved this close to the holt," Dane said with an edge of concern.
"We saw the smoke while we were traveling yesterday. We don't know who's making it, but we were going to see who it was on our way back."
"We should see who it is. I hope this isn't an issue." Eli said as he changed course from Redwall towards the smoke. They headed into a thick grove of ash and walnut trees, painstakingly working through the snowy maze.
"No, it isn't but I know there was an old house some beast abandoned seasons ago," Dane said as he dodged a clump of falling snow. "My father told me it was haunted when I was younger. I tried to find it, but I felt a beast was watching me. Then I heard it calling out my name! I never ran so fast in me life!"
"HA! Ghosts in the forest, please. Next, you're going to tell me ferrets can fly! Both you and Eli worry too much."
"Brin ya empty-headed squirrel! I swear I saw it with my own eyes!"
"You mean heard it with yer own ears!" Brin winked.
"Have you ever seen smoke coming from the house?" Eli asked ignoring Dane's claims of ghosts. The smell of smoke was more pungent now, along with the delightful smell of an old meal.
"No, and not from around here in a long time. It's probably a traveling band of players or some-"
"Vermin!" Eli hissed.
"Yeah, vermin. That's what I was going to say."
"No, vermin by the house! Hide!" Eli whirled around grabbing Samuel and throwing him against a tree.
Dane and Brin quickly threw themselves behind the undergrowth. Before he knew what was happening Samuel lay slumped with his back against the trunk of a tree. He was all alone with Eli. Thick white clouds puffed from his mouth with every breath. Eli's claw grasped his sword and silently pulled it from its sheath. Samuel fumbled for his sling. Readying it in case he needed it.
"How many? How far?" Samuel whispered. Silence was his only answer.
Eli held his sword firmly in his grasp. Yellow eyes shone fiercely ready for battle. He knew Brin and Dane would be preparing themselves for a fight. Timidly Samuel willed himself to look around the tree.
Well within a stone's throw were the ruined stone walls of Dane's previously noted ancient home. Leaning on the low wall were a rat and a short orange fox.