Chapter One
I grew up in a tribe of warrior mice in the Northlands, near the Eastern Sea. We were always in the shadow of the ruined fortress Marshank, which is deserted to this day. The vermin dare not go in, thinking that Badrang the Tyrant's ghost still haunts the old stone edifice, so my tribe always kept near it. Our days were mostly peaceful; we lived in huts by the sea most of the time, fishing and foraging for roots, while the watchful eyes of twenty strong guards kept an eye out for danger.
My father and I lived alone from the early days of my existence. The terrible Dryditch Fever took my mother and grandparents when I was only a few days old. Father used to tell me I looked a lot like my mother; I had her unusual curly fur and her sky blue eyes. The only thing that set me apart from her was the large birthmark on my face for which she named me: a flower, with a petal on my forehead, one on both eyes, and one on each cheek.
My father reared me on bowmaking; by the time I was five seasons, I could shoot my own little bow, with moderately good accuracy. By the age of eight, I could fish beside my father, using the method our ancestors had used for many seasons. We would go to the shore with our bows strung, and with special arrows that had strings attached at the notch. My father would notch the arrow to the bowstring, and effortlessly shoot into the water; each time he drew the arrow back, a fish would be speared upon it. He would then guide my paws through the shot, and one shot out of ten, my arrow brought a fish back for our supper.
One day, in the spring I turned ten, we were fishing, just as we would on any other day, when, from the other side of the village, we heard the guards' shouts of alarm. We ran back to the huts, where we saw the creatures that caused the alarm: an entire clan of Juska, who were from the south, and did not fear Badrang's ghost. We back against the nearest hut, and let fly with our arrows, each one of them striking true into the flesh of a rat, stoat, weasel, or ferret. When the arrows ran out, my father and I unstrung our bows and used them as staves, as we always do for short range combat. We battled on, but there were too many vermin; our tribe was losing fast. My bow was broken into two pieces, and I was struck on the head with some hard object, and fell unconscious.
When I awoke, I saw the still form of my father lying several feet away, his bow broken, his heart pieced with a rat's arrow. I could not get up to go to him; the strike on the head had made me dizzy. As I surveyed my surroundings, I saw that none of my fellow villagers had fared better than my father; the vermin picked through our homes, scavenging for food and weapons. Rage swelled up within me, but I could not move, or I would have died getting revenge on the Juska for the death of my father.
Exhausted, I fell unconscious again.
Chapter Two
When I awoke, I found myself in a hut in the Juska village. An old, grumpy female rat was attending to the wound on my head.
"Awake now, liddle mousey? Been asleep fer two days. Bet you've got a right awful headache, doncha?"
I did not answer. Talking with one of the beasts who killed my father was a repulsive idea to me. The rat ignored the snub and continues bustling about her hut. She prepared a few pieces of roasted salmon, some wild berries, and a small flask of water, and brought them to me.
"Eat up now, mousey, gotta keep up your strength."
Angrily I sat up, and replied, "My name's not mousey, it's Snowflower, and I don't want your fish. Fling it out with the rest of the garbage, rat!"
The rat put her paws on her hips and looked me straight in the eye. "Now look, Mizz Prissy, I don't give one scrap of a fish's tail if ya want dat fish; ye're gonna eat it whether ya like or no. An' if ya keep a-callin' me rat, I gonna call ya mousey f'r da rest a yer born days. Unnerstand?"
When I nodded sulkily in reply, the rat continued. "Now eat up dat fish. An' if ya want me t'call ya Snowfler, or whatever the heck yore name is, yer gonna have to call me Wazky. Mizz Wazky if yer in trouble."
I ate, and sulked, and my hatred for all vermin grew. My mood was not helped at all when Wazky brought me before Mealy Ruck, the chieftain of the Juskaruck tribe. He was an old, fat rat, whose only goal in life was to eat and obtain slaves to cook for him.
"Ooh, pretty mousey. She will make a good servant for me. Keep her with you, Wazky; teach her to cook like you do, and have her bring my meals. Don't tattoo her, it will spoil the nice mark she has on her face."
I said nothing, mostly because of the surprisingly gentle warning dig Wazky gave me with her claws. So, I had been spared simply for my pelt?
That night, I softly cried my heart out over my lost friends and family in the cook's tent. There was nothing I wanted more than to leave the tent and attack any of the vermin, but my feet were tied.
Wazky heard me.
"Ya miss yore family?"
I nodded, but turned my face away.
"Know wot that's like," she muttered. When I looked at her in surprise, she nodded. "Aye, 'ad a mate, an' three young'uns. Never 'armed anybeast, just lived by the river an' fished. Twenny seasons ago, the Juskaruck attacked, killed 'em all 'cept me. Been a slave e'er since. Don't attack anybeast, really, I'm just a cook. Followed the tribe after the attack. When I saw ya laying there, ya reminded me of my daughter. So, I co'vinced Mealy t'let ya live, an' be my helper."
I hung my head, ashamed. "I'm sorry; I didn't know."
"I know. You just put yer head down now; y'need sleep t'live."
Chapter Three
For the next five years, I worked full time as Wazky's kitchen assistant. It was never easy, with Mealy awakening in the middle of the night to order a snack, or with the general argumentative nature of the tribe. But, with Wazky's help, I gradually got used to it, and learned to let go of my grudges toward Mealy.
I soon found that there were many creatures like Wazky living within the tribe. They soon took a liking to me, even though I was the only woodlander in the tribe, and I became fast friends with many of them. It amazed me, however, to see that Wazky was the only slave, besides me, there who was not dead-set on getting revenge for the wrongs Mealy did to them. I realized that such pursuits were pointless, and only made a beast's life worse. I didn't criticize my friends, because I too once felt like that, but I did try to guide them away from that attitude by positive example, as did Wazky.
The old female rat became the mother I never had. She talked roughly (but so did I, after living there awhile), and she yelled whenever she was hard-pressed for time, but at nights we would sit together in her tent, and she would tell me all the stories she knew. As I got older, and grew out of fairy tales for the most part, she told me about Redwall; how it was a place where woodlanders lived in peace and plenty, safe within large sandstone walls.
"What a wonderful place," I would say in a whisper. "Maybe someday, if we get away from here, you and I could go and live there together, Wazky."
"It'd be grand," she would reply, "but I don't reckon that the beasts there'd let an old rat like me come an' live with 'em."
"They would, if I said you were my friend, and that I would keep an eye on you. Good, kind beasts couldn't refuse a dear like you."
Wazky died of old age in my fifth year with the Juska. I wept, but in private, because the new cookm didn't allow crying during work hours. He was an old, sour-tempered stoat. He was lazy, so Mealy Ruck's meals ended up late most of the time, a penalty for which Ruck punished us both. I got double the punishment, for the cook blamed me for every misfortune that happened to him. Finally, Ruck got fed up with the new cook, and had him executed; he installed me as the replacement, since Wazky had taught me to cook.
About a month after all this occurred, the tribe had a successful raid on a shrew settlement. They had many prisoners, and were taking them to the sea to sell as galley slaves to whatever corsairs happened by. A few days before we could reach the sea, Mealy Ruck ordered me to cook a banquet for all his warriors, with the help of the current slaves.
I saw our chance of escape. Wazky had taught me how to make Silent Night Pie, a delicious recipe that contained many powerful sleeping agents. I told the other slaves about my plan, and they heartily agreed, watching out for the tribe members who would squeal to Ruck.
At the night of the banquet, the warriors voted my dessert as a phenomenal success, and fell asleep shortly afterward; the pie was so strong, that they were most likely asleep for two days. Everything else went according to plan. A few big, brawny male slaves knocked the guards unconscious, and a vixen who worked for the slave drivers released the shrew prisoners. We apprehended a few more of the slave, who were crazy for vengeance, even to the point of murdering a sleeping enemy.
When everybeast was free of their chains, we all went our separate ways; the shrews took the boats and sailed upstream, the other slaves ran to the desert, the woodland, or the sea. I went toward Redwall, like I had always dreamed; but, one night, while walking through the woodland...
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