Redwall Page 3

  ‘Three-Leg and Scratch are dead. Chief.’

  ‘Dead as dirt. The cart crushed ’em, Chief.’

  ‘Stupid fools,’ snarled Cluny. ‘Serves them right! What about the rest?’

  ‘Old Wormtail has lost a paw. Some of the others are really hurt.’

  Cluny sneered. ‘Aah, they’ll get over it and suffer worse by the time I’m done with them. They’re getting too fat and sluggish, by the tripes! They’d not last five minutes in a storm at sea. Come on, you dead-and-alive ragbags! Get up here and gather round.’

  Rats struggled from the ditch and the cart – frantic to obey the harsh command as quickly as possible. They crowded about the undamaged gatepost which their leader had chosen as a perch. None dared to cry or complain about their hurts. Who could predict what mood the Warlord was in?

  ‘Right, cock your lugs up and listen to me,’ Cluny snarled. ‘First, we’ve got to find out where we have docked. Let’s take a bearing on this place.’

  Redtooth held up his claw. ‘The Church of Saint Ninian, Chief. It says so on the notice board over yonder.’

  ‘Well, no matter,’ Cluny snapped. ‘It’ll do as a berth until we find something better. Fangburn! Cheesethief!’

  ‘Here, Chief.’

  ‘Scout the area. See if you can find a better lodging for us than this heap of rubble. Trail back to the west. I think we passed a big place on the way.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Chief.’

  ‘Frogblood! Scumnose!’

  ‘Chief?’

  ‘Take fifty soldiers and see if you can round up any rats that know the lie of the land. Get big strong rats, but bring along weasels, stoats and ferrets too. They’ll do at a pinch. Mind now, don’t stand for arguments. Smash their dens up so they won’t have homes to worry about. If any refuse to join up, then kill them there and then. Understood?’

  ‘All clear, Chief.’

  ‘Ragear! Mangefur! Take twenty rats and forage for supplies. The rest of you get inside the church. Redtooth, Darkclaw, check the armour. See if there are things about that we can use as weapons: iron spike railings – there’s usually enough of them around a churchyard. Jump to it.’

  Cluny had arrived!

  MATTHIAS HAD NEVER stayed up all night in his life. He was just a bit tired, but strangely excited. Great events seemed to have been set in motion by his news.

  Immediately upon being informed of the hay cart incident, the Abbot had insisted upon calling a special council meeting of all Redwall creatures. Once again Cavern Hole was packed to the doors, but this time it was for a purpose very different from the feast. Constance and Matthias stood in front of the Council of Elders. All about them was a hum of whispers and muttering.

  Abbot Mortimer called order by ringing a small bell.

  ‘Pay attention, everyone. Constance and Matthias, would you please tell the Council what you saw tonight on the road to Saint Ninian’s.’

  As clearly as they could, the badger and the young mouse related the incident of the rat-infested hay cart.

  The Council began questioning them.

  ‘Rats, you say, Matthias. What type of rat?’ inquired Sister Clemence.

  ‘Big ones,’ Matthias replied, ‘though I’m afraid I couldn’t say what kind they were or where they had come from.’

  ‘What about you, Constance?’

  ‘Well, I remember that my old Grandad once knew a sea rat,’ she answered. ‘Going by his description, I’d say that’s what they looked like to me.’

  ‘And how many would you say there were of these rats?’ Father Abbot asked.

  ‘Couldn’t say for sure, Father Abbot. There must have been hundreds.’

  ‘Matthias?’

  ‘Oh yes, Father. I’d agree with Constance. At least four hundred.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about them, Constance?’

  ‘Indeed I did, Father Abbot. My badger senses told me right off that these were very bad and evil rats.’

  The badger’s statement caused uproar and shouts of ‘Nonsense. Pure speculation,’ and ‘That’s right! Give a rat a bad name!’

  Matthias silenced the hubbub. Raising a paw, he shouted aloud, ‘Constance is right. I could feel it myself. There was one huge rat with a ferret’s skull on a pole. I got a good look at him – it was like seeing some horrible monster.’

  In the silence that followed, the Abbot rose and confronted Matthias. Stooping slightly, he stared into the young mouse’s bright eyes. ‘Think carefully, my son. Was there anything special you noticed about this rat?’

  Matthias thought for a moment.

  ‘He was much bigger than the others, Father.’

  ‘What else? Think, Matthias.’

  ‘I remember! He only had one eye.’

  ‘Right or left?’

  ‘Left, I think. Yes, it was the left, Father.’

  ‘Now, can you recall anything about his tail?’

  ‘I certainly can,’ Matthias squeaked. ‘It must have been the longest tail of any rat alive. He held it in his claw as if it were a whip.’

  The Abbot paced up and down before turning to the assembly.

  ‘Twice in my lifetime I have heard travellers speak of this rat. He bears a name that a fox would be afraid to whisper in the darkness of midnight. Cluny the Scourge!’

  A deathly hush fell upon the creatures in Cavern Hole.

  Cluny the Scourge!

  Surely not? He was only some kind of folk legend, a warning used by mothers when youngsters were fractious or disobedient.

  ‘Go to sleep or Cluny will get you!’

  ‘Eat up your dinner or Cluny will come!’

  ‘Come in this instant, or I’ll tell Cluny!’

  Most creatures didn’t even know what Cluny was. He was just some sort of bogey that lived in bad dreams and the dark corners of imagination.

  The silence was broken by scornful snorts and derisive laughter. Furry elbows nudged downy ribs. Mice were beginning to smile from sheer relief. Cluny the Scourge, indeed!

  Feeling slightly abashed, Matthias and Constance looked pleadingly towards the Abbot for support. Abbot Mortimer’s old face was stern as he shook the bell vigorously for silence.

  ‘Mice of Redwall, I see there are those amongst you who doubt the word of your Abbot.’

  The quiet but authoritative words caused an embarrassed shuffling from the Council Elders. Brother Joseph stood up and cleared his throat. ‘Ahem, er, good Father Abbot, we all respect your word and look to you for guidance, but really … I mean….’

  Sister Clemence stood up smiling. She spread her paws wide. ‘Perhaps Cluny is coming to get us for staying up late.’

  A roar of laughter greeted the ironic words.

  Constance’s back hairs bristled. She gave an angry growl followed by a fierce bark. The mice huddled together with fright. Nobody had ever seen a snarling, angry badger at a Council meeting.

  Before they could recover, Constance was up on her hind legs having her say. ‘I’ve never seen such a pack of empty-headed ninnies. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, giggling like silly little otter cubs that have caught a beetle. I never thought I’d live to see the Elders of Redwall acting in this way.’ Constance hunched her heavy shoulders and glared about with a ferocity that set them trembling. ‘Now you listen to me. Take heed of what your Father Abbot has to say. The next creature who utters one squeak will answer to me. Understood?’

  The badger bowed low in a dignified manner, gesturing with her massive blunt paw. ‘The floor is yours, Father Abbot.’

  ‘Thank you, Constance, my good and faithful friend,’ the Abbot murmured. He looked about him, shaking his head gravely.

  ‘I have little more to say on the subject, but as I see that you still need convincing, here is my proposal. We will send two mice out to relieve the gatehouse. Let me see, yes … Brothers Rufus and George, would you kindly go and take over from Brother Methuselah? Please send him in here to me. Tell him to bring the travellers’ record volumes. N
ot the present issue, but the old editions which were used in past years.’

  Rufus and George, both solid-looking sensible mice, took their leave with a formal bow to the Abbot.

  Through a high slitted window, Matthias could see the rosy-pink and gold fingers of dawn stealing down to Cavern Hole as the candles began to flicker and smoke into stubs. All in the space of a night events had moved from festivity to a crisis, and he, Matthias, had taken a major role in both. First the big grayling, then the sighting of the cart; large happenings for a small mouse.

  Old Brother Methuselah had kept the Abbey records for as long as any creature could remember. It was his life’s work and consuming passion. Besides the official chronicle of Redwall he also kept his own personal volume, full of valuable information. Travelling creatures, migratory birds, wandering foxes, rambling squirrels and garrulous hares – they all stopped and chatted with the old mouse, partaking of his hospitality, never dreaming of hurting him in any way. Methuselah had the gift of tongues. He could understand any creature, even a bird. He was an extraordinary old mouse, who lived with the company of his volumes in the solitude of the gatehouse.

  Seated in the Father Abbot’s own chair, Methuselah took his spectacles from a moss-bark case, carefully perching them on the bridge of his nose. All gathered around to hear as he opened a record book and spoke in a squeak barely above a whisper:

  ‘Hmm, hmm, me Lord Abbot Cedric. It is Cedric, isn’t it? Oh botheration, you’ll be the new Abbot, Mortimer – the one who came after Cedric. Oh dear me, I see so many of them come and go, you know. Hmm, hmm, me Lord Abbot Mortimer and members of Redwall. I refer to a record of winter, six years back.’ Here the ancient mouse took a while to leaf through the pages. ‘Hmm, ah yes, here it is. “Late in November, Year of the Small Sweet Chestnut, from a frozen sparrowhawk come down from the far north …” – Peculiar chap, spoke with a strange accent. I repaired his right wing pinfeather – “… news of a mine disaster, caused by a large savage sea rat named Cluny. It seems that this rat wanted to settle his army in the mine. The badgers and other creatures who owned the mine drove them out. Cluny returned by night, and with his band of rats gnawed away and undermined much of the wooden shoring. This caused the mine to collapse the next day, killing the owners.”’

  Brother Methuselah closed the volume and looked over his glasses at the assembly. ‘I have no need to read further, I can recite other misdeeds from memory. As the hordes of Cluny the Scourge have moved southwards over the past six years, I have gathered intelligence of other incidents: a farmhouse set alight, later that same year … piglets, an entire litter of them eaten alive by rats … sickness and disease spread through livestock herds by Cluny’s army. There was even a report brought to me two years ago by a town dog: an army of rats stampeded a herd of cows through a village, causing chaos and much destruction.’

  Methuselah halted and blinked over his spectacles. ‘And you dare doubt the word of our Abbot that Cluny the Scourge exists? What idiotic mice you are, to be sure.’

  Methuselah’s words caused widespread consternation. There was much agitiated nibbling of paws. Nobody could doubt he spoke the truth; he was already old and wise when the most elderly among them was a blind hairless mite, puling and whimpering for a feed from its mother.

  ‘Oh my whiskers, what a mess.’

  ‘Hadn’t we better pack up and move?’

  ‘Maybe Cluny will spare us.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, what shall we do?’

  Matthias sprang to the middle of the floor brandishing his staff.

  ‘Do?’ he cried. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll be ready.’

  The Abbot could not help shaking his head in admiration. It seemed that young Matthias had hidden depths.

  ‘Why, thank you, Matthias,’ he said. ‘I could not have put it better myself. That’s exactly what we will do. We’ll be ready!’

  CLUNY THE SCOURGE was having nightmares.

  He had lain down in the Churchmouses’ bed for a well-earned rest while his army were going about their allotted tasks. He should never have tried to sleep on an empty stomach, but weariness overcame his hunger.

  In Cluny’s dream everything was shrouded in a red mist. The cries of his victims rang out as barns blazed, and ships foundered on a stormy red sea. Cattle bellowed in pain as he battled with the pike that had taken his eye. The Warlord thrashed about, killing, conquering and laying waste to all in his dream.

  Then the phantom figure appeared.

  At first it seemed a small thing, a mouse in fact, dressed in a long hooded robe. Cluny did not relish meeting with it – he could not tell why – but the mouse kept getting closer to him. For the first time in his life, he turned and ran!

  Cluny went like a bat out of hell. Glancing back, he saw all the carnage, death and misery he had caused in his career. The big rat laughed insanely and ran faster: on and on, past scenes of desolation and destruction wreaked by him, Cluny the Scourge. Floating through the red mists he could still see the strange mouse hard on his heels. Cluny felt himself filled with hatred for his pursuer. It seemed to have grown larger; its eyes were cold and grim. Deep inside, Cluny knew that even he could not frighten this oddly-garbed mouse. Now it was wielding a large bright sword, an ancient weapon of terrible beauty. The battle-scarred blade had a word written upon it that he could not make out.

  Sweat dripped from Cluny’s claws like stinging acid. He stumbled. The strange figure was closer; it had grown into a giant!

  Cluny’s lungs felt as if they were bursting. He realized that he had slowed up and the mouse was getting closer. He tried to put on an extra burst of speed, but his legs would not obey. They ran more and more slowly; more and more heavily. Cluny cursed aloud at his leaden limbs. He saw he was trapped in deep icy mud. For the first time he knew the meaning of mindless fear and panic.

  He turned slowly. Too late. The enemy was upon him; he was rooted helpless to the spot. The avenging mouse swung the sword up high; a million lights flashed from its deadly blade as it struck.

  Bong!

  The loud toll of the distant Joseph Bell brought Cluny whirling back from the realms of nightmare to cold reality. He shivered, wiping the sweat from his fur with a shaky claw. Saved by the bell.

  He was puzzled. What did the fearful dream mean? Cluny had never been one to put his faith in omens, but this dream … it had been so lifelike and vivid that he shuddered.

  A timid paw tapping on the door snapped Cluny from his reverie with a start. It was Ragear and Mangefur, his scavengers. They slunk into the room, each trying to hide behind the other, knowing that the poor results of their search were likely to incur the Chief’s wrath. Their assumption was correct.

  Cluny’s baleful eye watched them as his long, flexible tail sorted through the paltry offerings which had dropped from their claws. A few dead beetles, two large earthworms, some unidentifiable vegetation, and the pitiful carcass of a long-dead sparrow.

  Cluny smiled at Ragear and Mangefur.

  With a sigh of relief they grinned back at him. The Chief was in a good mood.

  At lightning speed the big rat’s claws shot out, and grabbed them both cruelly by the ears. The stupid henchrats yowled piteously as they were lifted bodily from the floor and swung to and fro. In a fit of rage, Cluny bashed their heads together. Half senseless, they were hurled towards the doorway, with his angry words ringing in their skulls. ‘Beetles, worms, rotten sparrows! Get me meat. Tender, young, red meat! Next time you bring me rubbish like this, I’ll spit the pair of you and have you roasted in your own juice. Is that clear?’

  Mangefur pointed an accusing claw at his companion. ‘Please, Chief, it was Ragear’s fault. If we’d gone across the fields instead of up the road—’

  ‘Don’t believe that big fat liar, Chief. It was him who suggested going up the road, not me—’

  ‘Get out!’

  The scavengers dashed off, bumping clumsily into each other in panic as they tried to get
through the door together. Cluny slumped back on the bed and snorted impatiently.

  Frogblood and Scumnose were next to report.

  They bore news that cheered Cluny up somewhat. They’d obtained over a hundred new recruits, mainly rats but with a good scattering of ferrets and weasels, and the odd stoat. There had been some who needed convincing. These had been press-ganged by a savage beating from Frogblood coupled with the threat of a horrible death. They were soon convinced that the wisest course was to enlist in Cluny’s horde. Others were hungry nomads, only too willing to join up with the infamous Cluny. They were greedy for plunder and booty and pleased to be on what they were sure would be the winning side. Lined up in the churchyard, the recruits were supplied with weaponry by Redtooth and Darkclaw. Impassively they stood in ranks awaiting the Warlord’s inspection.

  Cluny nodded his approval. Scurvy rats, hungry ferrets, sly weasels, bad stoats: exactly what he needed.

  ‘Read ’em the articles, Redtooth,’ he snapped.

  Redtooth swaggered back and forth on the churchyard paving as he recited the formula from memory. ‘Right, eyes front. You’re in the service of Cluny the Scourge now, me buckoes! Desert and you’ll be killed. Retreat and you’re under sentence of death. Disobey and you’ll die. I’m Redtooth, Cluny’s number one rat. You will obey the word of your Captains. They take orders from me. I take orders from Cluny, remember that. Now, if any one, two, or a group, or even all of you together want to try and beat Cluny and lead the horde, this is your chance.’

  Without warning Cluny charged headlong into the new recruits, lashing out wildly with his scourging tail. He bowled them left, right and centre with his massive strength. Baring his teeth and slitting his eye, he whipped fiercely away until they fell back and scattered in disorder, hiding behind gravestones. Cluny threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘No guts, eh? Ha, it’s just as well! I don’t want dead ’uns on my claws before I find a proper battle for you to fight. And make no mistake, when the right time comes I’ll see you fight, aye, and die too. Now, raise your weapons and let’s see if you know who your master is.’