The Sable Quean (39 page)

A terrific thud from outside knocked the door flat—Diggs found himself laid out under it. Then the door was lifted and flung to one side. With awesome strength, the badgermaid reached in and lifted him bodily out. She sat Diggs down against the oak trunk.

This time she sounded calmer, a mite penitent even. “Er, if you’re not a foebeast, then who are you?”

Diggs gingerly touched his snout where it had been hit by the fallen door. “Name’s Meliton Gubthorpe Digglethwaite, Subaltern of the Long Patrol, late of Salamandastron. An’ I think you’ve broken my flippin’ hooter, beltin’ that bloomin’ door down like that. Couldn’t ye have knocked?”

The badgermaid sat down beside him. “Salama . . . what?”

Diggs plucked a dockleaf and dabbed at his snout. “Salamandastron, but don’t concern y’self with that right now. Y’can call me Diggs, everybeast does—an’ pray, what do they call you, when you ain’t knockin’ doors down atop of ’em, wot?”

She wrapped the outsized sling around her shoulders. “I’m Ambrevina Rockflash of the Eastern Shores, but I get called Ambry a lot.”

Diggs was about to shake paws with her, but he saw the girth of Ambry’s paws and thought better of it. “Well, pleased to meet ye, I’m sure, Ambry. I say, you don’t happen to have any vittles with you? I’m absoballylutely famished, ain’t eaten in ages, y’know.”

The badgermaid went back to the bushes where they had first encountered each other. She brought out a large satchel with shoulder straps. Opening it, she produced a few pears, some ryebread and a chunk of yellow cheese.

Forgetting his bruised snout, Diggs tucked in. “Good grief, a chap could lose a few teeth on this bread’n’cheese. Still, the pears are soft, wot. Now, who’s this friend you seek, a family member, mayhaps?”

Ambry passed Diggs another pear. “Do you ever have strange dreams, Diggs?”

The tubby hare nodded. “Cheese’n’pickles for late supper in the jolly old mess, that always does it. Huh, dreams, flippin’ nightmares, more like. But why d’you ask?”

Ambry’s brown eyes took on a distant look. “Back on the far Eastern Shores, I was having the same dream for some seasons. It’s a journey I want to take. I’ve got this yearning to be in a certain place, I must go there—yet I’ve never set eyes on it, except in dreams.”

Diggs held up a paw. “Stop right there, Ambry. Don’t tell me, let me guess. This place you’re wearin’ your paws out t’see, is it a big mountain on the shores of the sea?”

The badgermaid was thunderstruck. “How did you know?”

Diggs took a bite of the cheese, probing with a paw to see if he had loosened a tooth on it. “Remember that word y’couldn’t get your tongue around? Salamandastron, that’s the name of it, Mountain of the Mighty Badger Lords an’ headquarters of the jolly old Long Patrol. Beg pardon, carry on with your story, wot.”

Ambry continued. “After my father died, I could never get along with my brothers. So, early one morning I packed my satchel and set out to find the place of my dreams. That was at the start of spring season, and I had no real direction, just wandering willy-nilly. Well, I had been roaming for some time when one day, it was at the beginning of summer, I noticed I was being followed by a young riverdog.”

Diggs cut in. “By riverdog, I take it y’mean otter?”

Ambry nodded her handsome striped head. “Aye. He had no kin to speak of, and not much to say for himself. Still, we got on well enough, sharing the cooking and foraging, watching out for one another. One night, we made camp by a river, slept under some rock ledges not far from it. I woke the next morning, and he wasn’t there.

“So I thought he’d gone to fish for our breakfast—he was a good fisherbeast. I lay about a bit, then went to find him along the riverbank. He was nowhere to be seen. Then I saw signs of a scuffle. I found the light javelin he had made for himself. I found the vermin pawtracks, too, and I knew he’d been taken. So I had to find him. The trouble is, I’m no great tracker, I lost the trail many times. How I stumbled on this place I’m still not sure. Diggs, do you think he’s somewhere around here?”

The tubby hare tossed away a pear core. “I’m pretty sure he was, Ambry, but he ain’t now, matter of fact. None of ’em are. What you were tellin’ me was a familiar story. Y’see, there’s a horde of vermin call themselves the Ravagers. They’ve been stealin’ young uns left, right an’ flippin’ centre. I’m with some shrews, a Warrior mole an’ a chum of mine called Buck. We trailed the vermin an’ the others to this place—Althier, they call it. Trouble was, by the time we got here an’ mounted a surprise attack, the blighters had all taken off. Don’t know where they are, or the young uns. My lot went to track ’em, an’ I got left behind, lost, like y’self, wot. I say, it’d be a super idea if we teamed up an’ got on the trail, wot. We’d stand as much chance of findin’ them as Buck, an’ that confounded Jango Logathing, he’s the Guosim Chief. Huh, Jango ain’t too fussy on me, y’know.”

Ambry stood up, helping Diggs to his paws. She smiled at the tubby hare, to whom she was taking a liking. “I think you’re right, Diggs. We may be the very pair to find them. Let’s scout around until we find some tracks. You take charge. Which way do we go?”

The irrepressible hare waggled his paw in the air, then bent his ears backward. “Er, that way!”

They pushed off into the undergrowth with Diggs leading the way, though he did not have a clue where they were going—small details like that did not concern him. He called out cheerily to his newfound friend, “I say, Ambry, what’s this friend of yours called? Just so I can shout to him if I see a young otter in the distance.”

Ambrevina Rockflash unwound her long, hefty sling. “Flandor, that’s what he’s called. Flandor!”

The unexpected rain at dawn spattered down on the young ones at the watermeadow island where they had been sleeping out in the open. It started the littlest babes crying. Midda rose grumpily. With the help of Tura and the Witherspyk twins, she herded the infants beneath the leafy canopy of a weeping willow, where it was relatively dry.

Tura glanced up at the bruised, heavy clouds. “Wonder how long this lot’s goin’ to last?”

The Guosim maid moved into the tree shelter. She was not in a good mood, never having liked rain. “Don’t matter if’n it lasts all season, we’ve still got t’get some food for the little uns. That’ll mean a proper soakin’ an’ no mistake!”

Trying to be helpful, Jinty snapped off a fern at its base. She held it out to Midda. “My granny Crumfiss always holds one of these over her head when it’s raining, like an umbrella.”

Grabbing the fern, Midda snapped it in two and flung it from her. “Oh, does she now? Well, I ain’t no granny hog, traipsin’ about holdin’ a stupid fern over me head. I’m a Guosim, see!”

“Hahaharr! Ye look more like a wet mousey t’me.”

Triggut Frap had been watching them. He stood a short distance away, with mousebabe Diggla tucked beneath his ragged cloak. The mad hog made an exaggerated bow. “Good mornin’, friends, an’ wot are yew doin’ wid yerselves on this fine day?”

Tura glared at him. “We’re tryin’ t’keep dry—shelterin’ from the rain, that’s what we’re doin’!”

Triggut patted little Diggla’s head. “Did yew hear that, liddle mousey? Shelterin’ from the rain, if y’please. Ole Triggut thought they’d be hard at work, buildin’ my fine house.”

Jinty had plucked another fern. She held it over her head. “Build a house in this downpour?”

Triggut underwent a sudden mood change. He snarled, “Aye, that’s wot yew lot are here t’do. Now, get to work. A drop o’ rain won’t kill yew!”

Midda pawed Jinty to one side. She faced Triggut belligerently. “Lissen, y’can go an’ boil yore crazy head. We ain’t workin’ in this weather, an’ ye can’t make us. Go on, wot are ye goin’ t’do about that?”

Triggut yanked the mousebabe up on his rope lead. “Heeheehee, not a lot, but I think I’ll do a spot o’ pike fishin’. This un should make good bait. Heehee!”

Diggla struggled helplessly as the crazed hog jiggled him up and down on the rope.

“Waaaah! Don’t let ’im throw Diggla t’the pikers!”

Tura stepped quickly out into the rain. “Alright, you win. We’ll start work right away. But we’ll need tools—spades to dig, an’ axes to chop down trees, an’ sharp blades to trim ’em up with.”

Triggut wiped his leaky blind eye, shaking his head until a few spikes rattled from it. “Axes, spades an’ sharp blades? Hahahahaaarrr!” He bared his blackened tooth stubs viciously. “Triggut Frap might well be mad, but he ain’t plain daft!”

Jiddle, who had not spoken until now, shrugged. “Well, sir, how d’ye expect us to build this house of yours without any tools to do the job?”

Triggut answered flatly, leaving no room for argument. “Yew kin dig with y’paws. Yew’ve got paws, haven’t yew? An’ there’s plenty o’ fallen trees on this island without havin’ to chop any down. Anythin’ else yew need, well, I’m sure yew can think of a way to get it done. After all, yews are the bright young uns with brains. Me, I’m only a pore crazybeast. Go on now, get to it, afore I decide t’go fishin’ for big, wild, starvin’ pikefish. They’ll rip anythin’ to bits, even a nice liddle mousey like this un. Hahaha ooo hahaarrr!”

Triggut lingered near the water’s edge, stirring the surface and watching the pike rise. They had long, sinister greenish-brown bodies, with lime-hued spots; their ravenous jaws gaped wide in search of food. The sleek monsters gathered, waiting.

Mousebabe Diggla tugged on the rope to get as far away from the water as he could, pleading with his friends, “ ’Urry h’up an’ builda big ’ouse, Diggla not likes this beast. Whaw, ’e smell h’orful, pew stinky!”

Jinty saw Triggut beginning to tug on the rope, eyeing the water. She called sternly to Diggla, “You naughty liddle snip, don’t talk about Mister Triggut like that. Mind your manners, please!”

It was an uneasy truce, and a very wet one, at that. On the tacit agreement that the smallest babes would be more hindrance than help, the main participants began work. With a pointed twig, Tura scratched out a rectangle on the ground. Inside of this shape, they commenced clearing grass, ferns, brush and other vegetation. They toiled away, with steam rising from their sodden coats.

After a while, Jinty complained, “Ooh, my back’s killing me. I can’t carry on like this—I’ll have to lie down and rest.”

Midda muttered gruffly to the young Witherspyk maid, “Just keep goin’, mate. Try not to think of yore aches an’ pains, but just imagine wot we’ll do to that scabby nutbag when we get the chance. That’ll help!”

Surprisingly, it did. Midda smiled inwardly, listening to the hogtwins gritting savagely in low voices as they tore out roots and stones from the muddy ground.

“I’ll strangle Triggut Frap with me own paws when I get hold of the brute!”

“Aye, workin’ us like slaves an’ threatenin’ to have our mousebabe eaten by pike. Oooh, just give me a short time an’ a long stick. By thunder, I’ll show him!”

Tura rubbed shoulders with the seething pair. “Not if’n I gets to him first, ye won’t. I’ll feed him, not Diggla, t’the pikefish, scrap by scrap!”

Midda chuckled. “Who, that dirty, filthy ole scum? Huh, the fish’ll spit him back as soon as they get a mouthful of Triggut, believe me!”

Jinty could not suppress a giggle. “Teehee, maybe that’ll be our way off this island. Feed the crazy hog to the pike an’ poison ’em all!”

Jiddle did a fair impression of a pike which had tasted Triggut’s flesh. “Yurk! Oh, ’elp me, I’m poisoned, goin’ mad an’ dyin’ all at the same time. Hahaha!”

Tura joined him. “Yaarggh! An’ t’think we imagined he was our friend. Gurrrgh!”

Triggut Frap’s harsh voice cut into their merriment. “Sharrap an’ keep workin’. I don’t know wot yew lot ’ave got to laugh about. Now, work, or I go fishin’!”

Saturated, mud-spattered and sore-pawed, the young captives laboured on in silence. However, Triggut could not stop them thinking their vengeful thoughts.

BOOK FOUR

The Battle of Redwall Abbey