The Rogue Crew

“Give me that beaker, please. Hold her head up gently—it looks like she’s been knocked out cold. I don’t know what injuries she may have taken. Dorka says she tumbled the length of the stairs, right into the locked door.”

The Friar watched anxiously as cordial dribbled over the old hedgehog’s chin. “She just pushed past me—there wasn’t anything I could do!”

Foremole patted the watervole’s paw. “Thurr naow, marm. Et wurr no fault o’ your’n!”

To everybeast’s amazement, Twoggs’s eyelids flickered open. She licked her lips feebly, croaking, “Hmm, that tastes nice’n’sweet. Wot is it?”

Foremole wrinkled his velvety snout secretively. “It bee’s dannelion’n’burdocky corjul, marm. Thurr’s ee gurt barrelful of et jus’ for ee, when you’m feels betterer.”

Twoggs gave a great rasping cough. She winced and groaned. “I ’opes I didn’t break none o’ yore fine stairs. . . .”

Abbot Thibb knelt beside her, wiping her chin with his kerchief. “Don’t try to speak, marm. Just lie still now.” He cast a sideways glance at Sister Fisk, who merely shook her head sadly, meaning there was nothing to be done for the old one.

Twoggs clutched the Abbot’s sleeve, drawing him close. The onlookers watched as she whispered haltingly into Thibb’s ear, pausing and nodding slightly. Then Twoggs Wiltud extended one scrawny paw as if pointing outside the Abbey. Abbot Thibb still had his ear to her lips when she emitted one last sigh, the final breath leaving her wounded body.

Friar Wopple laid her head down slowly. “She’s gone, poor thing!”

Thibb spread his kerchief over Twoggs Wiltud’s face. “I wish she’d lived to tell me more.”

Sister Fisk looked mystified. “Why? What did she say?”

The Father Abbot of Redwall closed his eyes, remembering the message which had brought the old hedgehog to his Abbey. “This is it, word for word, it’s something we can’t ignore.

“Redwall has once been cautioned,

heed now what I must say,

that sail bearing eyes and a trident,

Will surely come your way.

Then if ye will not trust the word,

of a Wiltud and her kin,

believe the mouse with the shining sword,

for I was warned by him!”

In the uneasy silence which followed the pronouncement, Dorka Gurdy murmured, “That was Uggo Wiltud’s dream, the sail with the eyes and the trident, the sign of the Wearat. But my brother Jum said that he’d been defeated and slain by the sea otters.”

Abbot Thibb folded both paws into his wide habit sleeves. “I know, but we’re waiting on Jum to return and confirm what he was told. I think it will be bad news, because I believe what old Twoggs Wiltud said. The mouse with the shining sword sent her to Redwall, and who would doubt the spirit of Martin the Warrior?”

8

Each day, as the Greenshroud ploughed closer to the High North Coast, Shekra the Vixen became more apprehensive. She feared the sea otters, those wild warriors of Skor Axehound’s crew, who revelled in battling. Shekra had never seen the Wearat defeated until he encountered Skor and his creatures. The vixen was a Seer, but she was also a very shrewd thinker. No matter what refinements had been added to his vessel, she knew that corsairs, and searats, would be foolhardy to attack the sea otters on their own territory. Recalling the vermin bodies floating in a bloodstained sea and the blazing ship limping off, savagely beaten, Shekra was certain a second foray would only result in failure. Through listening to the gossip of those who had been aboard on that bumbled raid, it was obvious that they were of a like mind with her. However, it did not do to discuss such things with Razzid as captain. Moreover, Mowlag and Jiboree, the Wearat’s closest aides, were ever on the alert for mutinous talk.

Shekra knew it was a dangerous situation to which a solution had to be found. Some serious thinking was called for. The answer came one evening, sitting in the galley with other crewbeasts. It was after supper as they were sipping grog when an old corsair stoat began plinking on an unidentifiable stringed instrument and singing. It was a common vermin sea song, full of self-pity induced by swigging quantities of potent grog. Shekra listened to the singer’s hoarse rendition.

“O haul away, mates, haul away, hark ’ow the north

wind wails.

There’s ice upon the ratlines, in the riggin’ an’ the sails!

“When I were just a liddle snip, me mammy said t’me,

Don’t be a corsair like yore pa, ’tis no good life at sea.

O follow not the searat’s ways, or ye’ll be sure to end

yore days,

beneath the cold an’ wintry waves, ’cos corsairs ’ave no

graves!

“O haul away, mates, haul away, hark ’ow the

north wind wails.

There’s ice upon the ratlines, in the riggin’ an’ the sails!

“I scorned wot my ole mammy said, now lookit me

t’day,

aboard some vermin vessel, o’er the waves an’ bound

away.

The cook is mean, the cap’n’s rough, I lives on

grog’n’skilly’n’duff

I tell ye, mates, me life is bad, now I’m grown old an’

sad.”