cackled as they dashed to get back to the dormitory, but Ironbeak was swiftly among them, lashing out left
and right, tearing with his claws, slamming with strong wings and hitting out with his vicious beak.
“Yaggah, krakkah! Why did you not fly down and catch the thing? You were closer than I was. Get back
to your perches, you swamp flies. Go on, out of my sight, you soft-beaked craven! You will forget what you
saw here. It was only a trick of the moonlight. If I hear one bird speak of it I will break his wings!”
The rooks fled the scene, with Ironbeak chasing them. Mangiz slipped away quietly from the other end
of the galleries, not wanting to face his General’s rage. Great Hall lay quiet and still once more.
Behind the half-open door, Constance and Foremole folded the black cloth which they had used to make
Cornflower vanish. The three Redwallers slid silently from the Great Hall, out into the tunnel and back to
Cavern Hole, where supper was set out ready for them.
The Abbot took the sword from Cornflower as she unbuckled the armour. “Well, how did it go?” he
asked anxiously.
“Perfect, Father Abbot. I appeared, the birds were terrified, the raven flew at me. It was perfect.”
“Ironbeak flew at you? How did you escape?”
“Easily. Constance and Foremole tossed the black cloth over me, I dodged round the door and we all
hid behind it. Ironbeak searched outside and inside, but he didn’t look behind the door.”
Foremole wrinkled his nose. “Yurr, these scones tastes loik ’otroot. Burr, gimme watter. There be enuff
’otroot in yon soops to set afire to you’m!”
Ambrose gave him a look of injured dignity. “Try some of the roseleaf and cowslip custard.”
The Abbot prodded it gingerly. “Oh, is that what it is? I thought it was a collapsed bird’s nest.”
Ambrose sniffed and went off to the wine cellar with his snout in the air. “Well, I enjoyed it. You lot
don’t deserve a good cook!”
Night had fallen over the copse. Matthias and Orlando sat upon the step, putting an edge to axe and sword
against the stone. Shrews filled their sling pouches, Basil ate his fill, and Cheek and Jess fashioned javelins,
hardening their points over the campfire. Daggers, swords and knives were tested, bows made from strong
green boughs, arrows tipped and hardened in the fire. It was but a few hours to dawn when all the
preparations were completed. They lay down to take a brief rest.
Before they slept, Matthias, Jess, Orlando and Jabez stood above the stone step. They held paws
foursquare and swore a solemn oath.
“At dawn we will go down those steps. We will not come back up without our young ones, nor will we
come up if the fox still lives.”
Orlando turned to the five shivering weasel captives and pointed his axe at them.
“Get yourselves ready, because you’ll be going down first.”
Chapter 44
The fighting rooks of General Ironbeak were badly frightened. At first it had been exciting to perch and talk
of the ghost, when none of them really believed there was one. But now they had seen it with their own
eyes, a terrifying phantom that uttered dire warnings. Ironbeak himself could not harm it; the thing had
vanished completely in a trice.
All through the night the sentry posts had been deserted while the rooks huddled together in the
darkened dormitory, whispering of the awesome event. Grubclaw and Ragwing had been right, so had the
wise Mangiz; the great redstone house was a bad place to be. The advent of a golden sunlit morning did
little to change their minds.
That task was left to General Ironbeak, and he set about it with gusto. Sunrays flooded through the
broken dormitory window, turning the raven leader’s black wings an iridescent green, flecked with tinges
of blue. He paced up and down with an aggressive rolling gait as he confronted his command.
“Yaggah! You cuckoo-brained bunch, can you not see it is all a trick the earthcrawlers are playing on
us?”
The rooks shifted uneasily, inspecting their feathers or staring down at their claws. Some of them
looked to Mangiz, but the crow had distanced himself from the whole thing by perching upon a cupboard
with his eyes closed.
Ironbeak carried on ranting. “Kaah! I flew down to attack this so-called ghost, and did it strike me dead,
did it attack me, did it even stay to defend its Abbey? No, it hid away by some silly little trick. It fooled you
all, but it did not fool Ironbeak, nor did it scare him. I am the greatest fighter in all the northlands. An
earthcrawler mouse with bits of metal does not scare me. I will face it right now, or in the middle of a dark
night. Mangiz, is what I say true?”
The seer crow opened one eye. He knew better than to argue with the raven leader.
“The mighty Ironbeak fears no living thing. He speaks true.”
Baby Rollo was taking cooking lessons. Brother Dan and Gaffer were teaching him to make breakfast
pancakes of chestnut flour and greensap milk, studded with dried damson pieces preserved in honey sugar.
The infant bankvole was far more concerned with the tossing of the pancakes than the mixing of them.
Brother Dan was up to his paws in the sticky mixture, and blobs of it clung to his ears and nosetip. Gaffer
discovered he had a sweet tooth for preserved damson pieces. The mole sorted through the supply for the
choicest bits and promptly ate them.
Winifred the Otter caught all three of them like guilty young ones as she entered the kitchen.
“What’s the hold-up out here? There’s a lot of hungry creatures waiting for breakfast out in the — Well,
swish my tail! What in the good name of bulrushes is going on? Rollo, stop sticking those pancakes to the
ceiling, this instant!”
Rollo was in the act of throwing a pancake from the pan at the ceiling. He stopped, and the pancake
flopped neatly over his head, covering him to the neck. Another pancake slowly detached itself from the
ceiling and began to fall. Winifred grabbed a plate and ran to catch it.
“Brother Dan, stop playing round with that batter like a hedgehog in mud and help me.”
Winifred caught the falling pancake as Brother Dan took a plate in his sticky paws and went after
another potential dropper. Gaffer began trying to remove the pancake from baby Rollo’s head. The infant
had eaten a hole in it to give himself some breathing space. Sensibly, Gaffer began eating from between
Rollo’s ears.
“Hurr, bain’t gonna pull this’n offa you’m, Rollyo. Best scoff away both’n uz ’til it be gone. Hurr hurr!”
Cornflower appeared in the kitchen doorway. She tried to look very forbidding, while at the same time
doing her best to stifle the laughter that was bubbling through at the comical scene.
“Shame on all four of you, hahaha, er, hmph! What on earth are you doing, heeheehee, ahem! Gaffer,
will you stop trying to eat that infant’s head and remove the pancake with some flou-flou-
hahahahaoheehee! Flour!”
As she spoke, a pancake dropped from the ceiling squarely onto her nose and hung there like a
tablecloth.
The five of them sat down upon the kitchen floor, laughing uproariously, holding their aching sides as
tears rolled unchecked down their cheeks.
“Waaaahahahahohohoheeheehee! It’s a good job we hadn’t ordered porridge for breakfast.”
“Hoohoohurrhurrhurr! Nor soo — soo — hurr, hurr, soup, missus!”
The happy laughter rang spontaneously out. It was a great relief to have a pause of merriment after so
much siege and sorrow.