Categories > Books > Redwall > The Wicked Ground
As midday wore on toward late afternoon on the day after the earthquake and creatures began to stir in weary imitation of normal motion, a peculiar sort of conflict overtook the survivors. Any conflict seems distorted and its cause becomes questionable when both ends of it consist of individuals who are barely conscious, but the urgent nature of the concepts at play here only increased the air of bizarreness. The point of concern was whether it was more important to expend dwindling energy on scouring the rubble for potential survivors or on trying to reach food, whether in the woods or by uncovering the pantry and cellars of what used to be Redwall. Choosing between sustaining one's own life and potentially saving others' is usually the stuff of hypothetical situations, and while some creatures took more definitive sides, many engaged in this slow-motion version of conflict even within themselves.
Skoilkull, Elsinore, and the other three surviving moles from the railroad crew came upon the scene in the mid-afternoon, their dark eyes less lustrous than usual to match their dust-laden fur. Usually a solid beast of reason, Skoilkull fell to his knees at the sight of the toppled landmark, weeping profusely in his basso profundo. Elsinore stared, an odd edge of being impressed by the toll nature had taken even within her horror. The female mole trundled stiffly toward the circle of beasts containing Ruta. A larger circle had formed around the badger's group already, a rough effort to seek guidance for their dilemma even though the badger was in no state to be particularly authoritative. Nevertheless, Elsinore pushed through the outer circle and stopped before the badger, knitting her digging claws together and breathing deeply.
"Marm. Oi was going to report what terrors had fallen boi the railroad crew, but oi think you have an oidea. Us'uns are foive. We wurr noin. They're still in the graound and b'aint coming aout." Elsinore bowed her head.
Before Ruta could make any sort of definitive determination, what would have been shouted protests and comments in a more lively setting bubbled up as poorly-enunciated complaints. Some creatures insisted that the moles should not have left the dead in their already-filled-in graves and that there was enough edible material in the woods to sustain the effort to dig into the rubble of red sandstone and recover the dead and living alike. The opposite viewpoint presented itself with equal lack of discernible conviction, noting that if the ground could kill off moles, there would be no hope that a woodland creature without such a genetic predisposition to subterranean life could have survived the shaking and collapse and confinement after this long, and that sustaining the currently-countable lives was the proper thing to do.
Ruta lifted one paw, the effort to make such a shift of weight clear in the rest of her posture. She paused, as if the exertion required catching of breath, then offered a phrase that would have come across as weakly evasive in most other situations. "It is beyond my power or will to make a unilateral and official decision here. The decisions must be individual, and they will be the proper decisions if they are made with personal conviction toward the greater good."
Solemn nods and mutters of both agreement and dissent trickled through the masses, yet very few of the displaced Mossflowerites stirred beyond that, as if their decision-making skills had been shaken out of them along with the sense that waiting would make either goal a less-promising one.
In the midst of the impasse, three foxes came up the path leading from the River Moss. The youngest leaned against the one female, and all three appeared to be far more alarmed with the state of Redwall than they should have been considering what had befallen their own home. Tears, previously so stunned as to stay confined in their ducts, welled up in Kinth's eyes and her posture sagged, both in reaction to the scene and in response to Merritt's further slumping against her. Rakarde stayed by their side a moment longer before aiming toward Ruta's circle within a circle.
"What's going on?" he questioned, voice a balance between assertion and concern. "Why are you all just sitting? Is there something I do not know?"
Ruta regarded Rakarde wearily. "There is an issue between finding food and finding survivors. They are to decide, and thus they do nothing."
Rakarde pulled his head back slightly, eyes tightening into a confused squint. "So decide something anyway. My family ran here and we don't want to be undecided away. I don't think anybeast would. You can even do both - dig toward the cellars and pull out anybeast you encounter along the way."
Ruta emitted a low rumble of approval. "There's a reason you were so effective in that war," she told Rakarde, then addressed her citizens. "You heard him." The badger pulled herself upright and lumbered strenuously toward the toppled walls of the Abbey, with Rakarde not far behind her.
As the fox and the badger dislodged the first fallen stones, others started trickling to the site, casting away the damaged stones of their history well into the night. When Cavern Hole and the cellars were uncovered, crews of weaker or slightly-injured beasts that were still determined to assist moved in to clear out the still-ample stocks of food. But when the body of some departed acquaintance or friend was unearthed, all of the workers held off in solemn silence as the infirmary crew - or the funeral detail, for the time being - moved in to clear it out to an increasing row of beasts awaiting proper graves.
-----
The morning of the third day was heralded in by hares, in addition to by the unbroken and glorious weather pattern of the Mossflower spring. Hayward and Walden cleared the last leg of the path with surprising gusto, but as soon as they held in one place, it was clear that their muscles were spasming with exhaustion under their sand-streaked fur. They stood for several minutes awaiting the return of their breath and taking in the disturbing extent of the scene.
Some of the Redwallers had slept for part of the night and were just waking up from a slumber so deep and so necessary that the confusion to location and situation was amply clear in their eyes upon their awakening. Others clustered about the recovered stockpile of food, some sorting and rationing off portions, others eating, slowly and with greater appreciation than they had ever given food before. And some creatures had kept up the digging all through the night, dodging the occasional minor aftershock, recovering fewer and fewer bodies but continuing to pan through the shattered stones of Redwall, almost as if to extend last contact with it before the final parting.
Even in disaster or in the most streamlined of efficiency, hares will be hares. Led by their stomachs more than their brains initially, Walden and Hayward stumbled at the stockpile of comestibles, veritably inhaling as much as the workers would allow them. When that threshold was reached, Walden leaped, his already noticeably replenished, to the wallside, plunging into the effort without as much as a boastful word. Hayward, sighting the badger Winfield among the small subset of beasts who were not doing much of anything, approached his General with a far more measured step. The badger was discussing among his group how refuge could be offered at Salamandastron, and Hayward did not relish the duty of explaining why, quite simply, that was not going to work.
-----
Shortly before noon, the ferret Garlock completed his terror-stricken flight from Darkhill to Redwall. His body heaving from the intense journey and his once-expensive suit torn and stained in a dozen places, Garlock was beyond caring about image as he skidded the final stretch of road and very nearly tripped over himself as he pulled to a stop by the infirmary crew. Eyes shutting tight and teeth flashing at the glance down the row of sorry bodies, Garlock's plea to speak with somebeast who could help him sounded more like a gruff order than anything else.
Charity, occupied in her work, could not have responded in what could be deemed as a polite manner anyhow, and she directed Garlock toward Ruta with a limp and bloodied paw.
In his mind, Garlock's statement to Ruta was a powerful and empassioned stand for the welfare of his townsfolk. In actuality, many of the ferret's words were lost, reducing his point to, "My town, Darkhill - leveled. My wife, Falla - crushed. What will you do?"
The badger studied the ferret for a moment, less familiar with him by sight than with many of the others who had come to her with comparable pleas. "We will do all in our reach to help you, like with all of the other towns in our reach, though that reach is not so all-encompassing now. But can you afford us the same?"
Garlock's lips twitched back at this query, though he ultimately held out against the snarl, nodding in sullen agreement and trying to figure just what his own reach was.
-----
And through all of this, off at an unnoticeable distance, Andreas sat and read. The marten had stopped for the nights to sleep and had drifted from his spot to harvest edible plants from the woods, but these necessities were the only diversions to his diligent and admirably calm study.
He first read through the two old record volumes slowly and thoroughly, going over some pages twice and again, occasionally marking what he deemed to be particularly vital passages with plucked blades of grass or fallen leaves. When he felt he had achieved the full absorption of these source materials, the Recorder opened the small black notebook and began to synthesize with a stub of pencil that he kept sharp with his own claws. He filled page after page, points bulleted, entire phrases underlined, key elements referenced with page numbers in the historical volumes. It was the most extensive and important thing he had written in his entire lifetime, yet confined to a personal notebook for the sake of the hypothetical issues still involved.
Andreas had opened the current recordbook at first, intending to include a more basic summary of the past few days' turmoil for the official histories. But as he opened to the page on which he had been recording the now mild-seeming operatic mayhem when the earthquake struck, Andreas' eyes fell to the peculiar jagged squiggle his pen had left before being forced off the page. The long streak of ink came in the middle of an unfinished word and cut off at the edge of the page, with a full two thirds of a sheet of blank paper below it. This was the quake's own signature, Andreas realized, Nature's own stab at the duties of Recorder, and he felt that it spoke for the event better than any condensed verbal summary could.
Skoilkull, Elsinore, and the other three surviving moles from the railroad crew came upon the scene in the mid-afternoon, their dark eyes less lustrous than usual to match their dust-laden fur. Usually a solid beast of reason, Skoilkull fell to his knees at the sight of the toppled landmark, weeping profusely in his basso profundo. Elsinore stared, an odd edge of being impressed by the toll nature had taken even within her horror. The female mole trundled stiffly toward the circle of beasts containing Ruta. A larger circle had formed around the badger's group already, a rough effort to seek guidance for their dilemma even though the badger was in no state to be particularly authoritative. Nevertheless, Elsinore pushed through the outer circle and stopped before the badger, knitting her digging claws together and breathing deeply.
"Marm. Oi was going to report what terrors had fallen boi the railroad crew, but oi think you have an oidea. Us'uns are foive. We wurr noin. They're still in the graound and b'aint coming aout." Elsinore bowed her head.
Before Ruta could make any sort of definitive determination, what would have been shouted protests and comments in a more lively setting bubbled up as poorly-enunciated complaints. Some creatures insisted that the moles should not have left the dead in their already-filled-in graves and that there was enough edible material in the woods to sustain the effort to dig into the rubble of red sandstone and recover the dead and living alike. The opposite viewpoint presented itself with equal lack of discernible conviction, noting that if the ground could kill off moles, there would be no hope that a woodland creature without such a genetic predisposition to subterranean life could have survived the shaking and collapse and confinement after this long, and that sustaining the currently-countable lives was the proper thing to do.
Ruta lifted one paw, the effort to make such a shift of weight clear in the rest of her posture. She paused, as if the exertion required catching of breath, then offered a phrase that would have come across as weakly evasive in most other situations. "It is beyond my power or will to make a unilateral and official decision here. The decisions must be individual, and they will be the proper decisions if they are made with personal conviction toward the greater good."
Solemn nods and mutters of both agreement and dissent trickled through the masses, yet very few of the displaced Mossflowerites stirred beyond that, as if their decision-making skills had been shaken out of them along with the sense that waiting would make either goal a less-promising one.
In the midst of the impasse, three foxes came up the path leading from the River Moss. The youngest leaned against the one female, and all three appeared to be far more alarmed with the state of Redwall than they should have been considering what had befallen their own home. Tears, previously so stunned as to stay confined in their ducts, welled up in Kinth's eyes and her posture sagged, both in reaction to the scene and in response to Merritt's further slumping against her. Rakarde stayed by their side a moment longer before aiming toward Ruta's circle within a circle.
"What's going on?" he questioned, voice a balance between assertion and concern. "Why are you all just sitting? Is there something I do not know?"
Ruta regarded Rakarde wearily. "There is an issue between finding food and finding survivors. They are to decide, and thus they do nothing."
Rakarde pulled his head back slightly, eyes tightening into a confused squint. "So decide something anyway. My family ran here and we don't want to be undecided away. I don't think anybeast would. You can even do both - dig toward the cellars and pull out anybeast you encounter along the way."
Ruta emitted a low rumble of approval. "There's a reason you were so effective in that war," she told Rakarde, then addressed her citizens. "You heard him." The badger pulled herself upright and lumbered strenuously toward the toppled walls of the Abbey, with Rakarde not far behind her.
As the fox and the badger dislodged the first fallen stones, others started trickling to the site, casting away the damaged stones of their history well into the night. When Cavern Hole and the cellars were uncovered, crews of weaker or slightly-injured beasts that were still determined to assist moved in to clear out the still-ample stocks of food. But when the body of some departed acquaintance or friend was unearthed, all of the workers held off in solemn silence as the infirmary crew - or the funeral detail, for the time being - moved in to clear it out to an increasing row of beasts awaiting proper graves.
-----
The morning of the third day was heralded in by hares, in addition to by the unbroken and glorious weather pattern of the Mossflower spring. Hayward and Walden cleared the last leg of the path with surprising gusto, but as soon as they held in one place, it was clear that their muscles were spasming with exhaustion under their sand-streaked fur. They stood for several minutes awaiting the return of their breath and taking in the disturbing extent of the scene.
Some of the Redwallers had slept for part of the night and were just waking up from a slumber so deep and so necessary that the confusion to location and situation was amply clear in their eyes upon their awakening. Others clustered about the recovered stockpile of food, some sorting and rationing off portions, others eating, slowly and with greater appreciation than they had ever given food before. And some creatures had kept up the digging all through the night, dodging the occasional minor aftershock, recovering fewer and fewer bodies but continuing to pan through the shattered stones of Redwall, almost as if to extend last contact with it before the final parting.
Even in disaster or in the most streamlined of efficiency, hares will be hares. Led by their stomachs more than their brains initially, Walden and Hayward stumbled at the stockpile of comestibles, veritably inhaling as much as the workers would allow them. When that threshold was reached, Walden leaped, his already noticeably replenished, to the wallside, plunging into the effort without as much as a boastful word. Hayward, sighting the badger Winfield among the small subset of beasts who were not doing much of anything, approached his General with a far more measured step. The badger was discussing among his group how refuge could be offered at Salamandastron, and Hayward did not relish the duty of explaining why, quite simply, that was not going to work.
-----
Shortly before noon, the ferret Garlock completed his terror-stricken flight from Darkhill to Redwall. His body heaving from the intense journey and his once-expensive suit torn and stained in a dozen places, Garlock was beyond caring about image as he skidded the final stretch of road and very nearly tripped over himself as he pulled to a stop by the infirmary crew. Eyes shutting tight and teeth flashing at the glance down the row of sorry bodies, Garlock's plea to speak with somebeast who could help him sounded more like a gruff order than anything else.
Charity, occupied in her work, could not have responded in what could be deemed as a polite manner anyhow, and she directed Garlock toward Ruta with a limp and bloodied paw.
In his mind, Garlock's statement to Ruta was a powerful and empassioned stand for the welfare of his townsfolk. In actuality, many of the ferret's words were lost, reducing his point to, "My town, Darkhill - leveled. My wife, Falla - crushed. What will you do?"
The badger studied the ferret for a moment, less familiar with him by sight than with many of the others who had come to her with comparable pleas. "We will do all in our reach to help you, like with all of the other towns in our reach, though that reach is not so all-encompassing now. But can you afford us the same?"
Garlock's lips twitched back at this query, though he ultimately held out against the snarl, nodding in sullen agreement and trying to figure just what his own reach was.
-----
And through all of this, off at an unnoticeable distance, Andreas sat and read. The marten had stopped for the nights to sleep and had drifted from his spot to harvest edible plants from the woods, but these necessities were the only diversions to his diligent and admirably calm study.
He first read through the two old record volumes slowly and thoroughly, going over some pages twice and again, occasionally marking what he deemed to be particularly vital passages with plucked blades of grass or fallen leaves. When he felt he had achieved the full absorption of these source materials, the Recorder opened the small black notebook and began to synthesize with a stub of pencil that he kept sharp with his own claws. He filled page after page, points bulleted, entire phrases underlined, key elements referenced with page numbers in the historical volumes. It was the most extensive and important thing he had written in his entire lifetime, yet confined to a personal notebook for the sake of the hypothetical issues still involved.
Andreas had opened the current recordbook at first, intending to include a more basic summary of the past few days' turmoil for the official histories. But as he opened to the page on which he had been recording the now mild-seeming operatic mayhem when the earthquake struck, Andreas' eyes fell to the peculiar jagged squiggle his pen had left before being forced off the page. The long streak of ink came in the middle of an unfinished word and cut off at the edge of the page, with a full two thirds of a sheet of blank paper below it. This was the quake's own signature, Andreas realized, Nature's own stab at the duties of Recorder, and he felt that it spoke for the event better than any condensed verbal summary could.
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