“Good old Tess, this is the chance we’ve been waiting for!”
“We’ll have to leave it for a bit. I can see the slavers lying down in the mouth of a cave over there. Wait
for a while, until they’re asleep.”
Mattimeo felt Tess sliding the dagger slowly under his outstretched paw. He slipped it up his habit
sleeve. Yawning loudly, he turned over and huddled up so he could inspect the weapon. It was a small
double-edged blade that ran to a sharp point. Mattimeo inserted it into the keyhole of his paw manacles and
twisted a few times. The simple mechanism gave a small click and opened, and he had one paw free. It was
only the work of a moment to open the other. He raised his head carefully and looked over towards the
guards, but they were not yet fully asleep.
“Auma, can you and Jube keep an eye on those guards and let me know when you think they’re well
asleep? Tim, I’m going to pass you the dagger. Work quietly, try not to rattle the chains.”
“Mattimeo, it’s all very well getting our chains unfastened, but there are seven of us, where will we go?
” Tess worried. “Besides, I can’t see seven escaping from here without some noise.”
Mattimeo unfolded his plan. “Listen, all of you. There’s only one way we can go, and it’s the best way:
straight into the river. We can slide off the bank one by one. There must be an overhang, if these rocks are
anything to go by. We hide underneath an overhang, maybe upriver, going south. Slagar will think we
have tried to go in the other direction, towards home. Besides, we can’t be tracked if we stay in the water.
We must find somewhere to hide under the bank and stay there. When all the fuss dies down, they’ll have
to continue to where they’re going. When they’re gone, then we can come out and make our way back to
Redwall. Agreed?”
So it was agreed. The escape plan was to be carried out.
With Matthias’s sword point at his throat and Orlando’s axe resting delicately upon his tail, Scurl told the
best story that his agile mind could think up.
“They be woodlanders. Scurl tried to helpem. Please be easy with your longblade, warrior mouse. I see
Slagar and his villains with slaves, so I say to me, I must helpem, helpem. But no good, weasels drive me
off, stoats, ferrets chase Scurl. I could not help woodlanders.”
Matthias relaxed the sword point a fraction. “Where did you get all these things: robe rope, seasonday
gift, tail bracelet, blue flowers? The creatures that gave them to you, three mice, a squirrel and a young
badger, are they all alive?”
Scurl nodded vigorously. “Oyes oyes, woodlanders all alive. I throw food to them when Slagar not
watching. They give me these and say. ‘Tell others to follow us.’ ”
Orlando watched the crested newt. He did not like or trust the creature.
“Think carefully, lizard,” the big badger said in a low, dangerous tone, “because if I think that you are
lying, then you have seen your last sunset. Which way did they go?”
Scurl swallowed hard.
“S-south … Straight south.” His voice was little more than a nervous whisper as he pointed the
direction.
Orlando and Matthias looked to Jabez Stump. The hedgehog nodded.
“He speaks truth,” he confirmed.
Jess Squirrel gathered up the possessions that her son and his friends had parted with, and stuffed them
into her backpack. “I’ll keep hold of these. If you’ve been telling the truth, you can have them back when
we return this way. If you haven’t, then we’ll find you anyway and make you wish you’d never been
born.”
With Basil and Cheek in the lead, they strode off south through the woodlands, leaving behind them
Scurl the frilled newt, who without a moment’s hesitation started running north, hoping that the grim-faced
searchers would never again cross his path.
Towards evening, the shadows began lengthening. Above the treetops, Orlando spotted twin hills.
“Tracks heading straight there, old lad,” Basil said, reading his thoughts. “Betcher the jolly old young
uns are somewhere up there right now, wot?”
Cheek had begun to adopt Basil’s mannerisms. He struck a pose and tried hard to waggle his ears. “Oh,
wot, wot. Definitely, old feller. Let’s jolly well follow the jolly, jolly old rascals, wot, wot?”
A hefty cuff from Orlando’s blunt paw sent the impudent young otter head over tail. “Mind your
manners, waterdog. Don’t make fun of your elders and betters.”
Silently and with great care they approached the twin hills that reared from the forest floor in the
failing light, Matthias and Orlando with weapons drawn in the lead, Cheek rubbing his head as he followed
up the rear with Basil.
Slagar’s keen eye had picked them out. He lay on the summit of the hill, watching their progress, a cunning
idea forming itself in his fertile mind.
Bageye, Skinpaw and Scringe watched the masked fox. They too had seen the searchers and were
anxiously wondering what their leader would do about the warlike warriors who were getting closer by the
moment. Slagar turned to them, his good eye glinting evilly from the mask as it sucked in and out with his
excited panting.
“Right, here’s the plan. Listen carefully now, I want no mistakes. Scringe, run down and tell Threeclaws
and Halftail to march the prisoners into that cave at the foot of this hill. Make sure they leave plenty of
tracks. Then march them straight out again, cover the tracks coming out and head them south at full speed.
Bageye, Skinpaw, you come with me. We’ll move further along this hilltop until we’re above the cave.
There’s plenty of boulders and rocks lying about. We’ll make a great heap on top of here, right above the
cave.”
Bageye and Skinpaw looked quizzically at Slagar, but they knew better than to ask questions, even if
they did not understand. Slagar the Cruel gave orders to be obeyed, not questioned.
Slagar led them along the crest of the hill, giggling wickedly to himself. Tonight he would have all the
fish in one net and his revenge would be complete. They would die slowly, oh so slowly!
Chapter 19
Late evening shades turned the stones of Redwall Abbey to a dull crimson, the last rays of the sun sending
slender slivers of ruby and gold from behind a purple-blue cloudbank. Beneath the ground, Constance sat
holding baby Rollo as they watched the Foremole and his team working expertly to remove the great
foundation stone. They had bars, wedges and timber props, besides chisels and hauling ropes. The mole
leader gave directions as he scuttled here and there surveying the job.
“You’m a-finisht chiselen thurr. Rooter?”
“Aye, that’ll do et, zurr.”
“Jarge, set they wedgin’s in. Gaffer’n oi’ll sloid these yurr greasy planks under. You’n Rooter set they
ropes’n’ooks in’t stone. Stay a-clear, missis, an’ moind yon hinfant.”
A large solid implement which the moles called a “gurtpaw” had been set up. It was a strange affair
resembling a sideways block and tackle. The busy mole workbeasts attached the ropes to a big round
treetrunk bobbin and began cranking a long stout beech handle. Baby Rollo gazed wide-eyed. He
whispered to Winifred the Otter. “What they doin’?”
“Hush now, little un, and watch. See, the slack’s bein’ taken up on those ropes the more they work that
handle.”
Gradually the ropes tightened and began to creak and strain. The massive stone block moved a fraction,
and its base was now resting on three flat well-greased sycamore planks. The moles began shouting in an