Categories > Books > Redwall > The Wicked Ground

Chapter Ten

by Mitya 0 reviews

In which an important agreement is made.

Category: Redwall - Rating: PG - Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama - Warnings: [?] - Published: 2007-05-12 - Updated: 2007-05-12 - 2050 words

0Unrated
Even with the departure of the four beasts and the continued grim discoveries of dead bodies trapped in the fallen stonework, the number of creatures at Redwall's ruins was actually increasing. The residual populations of smaller towns throughout the land had been going through similar assessment processes to the ones at Redwall - coming to the senses after the quake, replenishing energy, counting the dead or missing, and, too commonly, realizing just how structurally flawed all the buildings in their towns had been. All too many of them were of the unfounded belief that political importance and historical and social standing served to make a building impervious to the effects of earthquakes or other natural disasters, and therefore they all set off for the Abbey of Redwall itself and the metropolitan area several miles to its back. As they trickled in, each creature from each town who might have had false hopes about Redwall's structural integrity had that hope thrown off course as drastically as any road or streambed. Yet their towns were no better, and they had come this far, so they stayed and pitched in to the effort, the only thing that they really had left to do.

And creatures started arriving from the larger cities as well. Many of the citizens of the true capital city behind the Abbey had been at Redwall itself for Nameday, though the collapses of their empty homes were just as thorough - though perhaps less dramatic - as that of the great historical landmark. For those who had remained in the city, though, the swathe of woodland kept in place to retain the image of Redwall being entirely cloaked in forest became more vast. The problems of the collapsed Abbey were replicated many times, though on a smaller scale, in the city, and the search parties and mourners there did not think to bridge the gap until their own problems were slightly more in check. Only then did city officials, newly-homeless citizens, and even the occasional architect make the short trip to the fallen center of the county.

Such beasts came from the more distant cities, too - from beyond Salamandastron, from the urban centers that had spring up around Castle Floret to the south and Noonvale to the north, from the trade centers in the western coastal woods to the outposts on the far northeast coast. These cities suffered the same sorts of internal devastation as the main Mossflower City, but like with the smaller towns and villages, the events alighted an instinctual decision to send representatives and helpers (be they medics, engineers, or anybeast claiming a relevant specialization) to the capital.

In an ordinary situation, this travel from even the most extreme corners of Mossflower County would have been a pleasant and scenic train journey, occupying at most the better part of a long summer afternoon. As things stood following the great earthquake, however, the trains were at a standstill. Either the rails themselves had been torn up and twisted from their proper routes or there were no trains to be had on the lucky surviving tracks. The morning runs had not yet started when the tremors stuck, so all the trains were in their stations at the end of the line, while their conductors were caught up in the turmoil. With this network out of commission, all aimed for Redwall had to walk there and take in what Nature had inflicted upon civilization and upon itself as they came.

But as the population directly around the devastated Abbey increased, the nature of the work there changed. The fresh paws and personalities and tales of woe and commiseration served well to combat the overbearing dirgelike atmosphere that had accompanied the work to this point. The workers began to split into more specialized crews. Larger and sturdier beasts with a higher pain threshold continued to play through the rubble of Redwall in search of bodies, or, for the particularly hopeful among them, in search of survivors. Specialist medical doctors and general nurses alike were able to set up a makeshift clinic, where beasts who had sustained small injuries in the quake could finally have them looked at after so many days. Moles and any other creature who fancied himself a good paw with a shovel set to work digging individual graves for the row of uncovered and labeled bodies, and a few of the artistically-inclined survivors had already set to brainstorming a relevant design for the grave markers of the fallen as well as for a more elaborate memorial to the entire event.

And then there were the engineers and architects, few in number but intense in focus of presence. They discussed what they had seen of the mechanics of the collapse (though this was the bit of the conversation with the least information exchanged, as all of the architects and engineers ultimately admitted to having run off or crouched down with their paws over their eyes), what of the resulting piles of rubble, and of how to handle such a thing. Where would the debris go, as it was generally to o disassembled to have specific reuse capabilities? What could be put up instead and what could be used to do so? How does one solve the problem of keeping a building upright when its very foundation is being jostled about beneath it? Was that even possible, and how could a test for the plausibility of it be conducted? And was it even worth the time and energy to reconstruct with uncertain new types of structures on a land that had just shook itself free of a large amount of life and buildings could very well decide to do it again with just as little warning as the first time? And where to go from that possibility?

The political council representatives engaged in similar discussion, though in a different light. While things seemed to be functioning surprisingly well in the present, what when a greater sense of order as needed? Who would fill in the positions that had been crushed into emptiness by the quake? And where would that all take place? Throughout the region, the central legislative buildings had taken the hatreds hits from the shaking. Many had indeed been designed after Redwall itself, and even those which had not were still constructed on a principle of being the highest and most central point for a town. In line with the principle of falling chimneys even if the rest of a smaller building remained standing, those high elaborate buildings had the farthest to fall - and most had fallen as far as they could. So what to do with those thrown-out centers? Should they all be rebuilt as before, only with more supports? Should Redwall be restored to its former shape but the others all redesigned? What was symbolically necessary? Should reconstruction be done in the same place at all?

As such thoughts were bandied about, the number of creatures present grew ever larger, bringing more assistance, yes, but also more opinions, diversifying but also creating further impasses as the discussions drew out longer.

Though all of the activity around Redwall was of very mixed company in terms of species representation, the appearance of a large group comprised primarily of weasels, ferrets, and stoats, with the occasional rat or fox thrown in streaming slowly but steadily toward the site of the Abbey was more cause to take notice than the trickle of mixed-species arrivals that had become common over the past several days. Many of the newcomers were dressed in dirty and torn specimens of what had once been respectable clothing before the wearers had had to dig out of disaster, but just as many were dressed in the more formless outfits characteristic of the less urbanized, sometimes still nomadic, citizens of the far north - or, in short, the irregialr uniform of a vermin horde. Yet their fces, even with their tangled fur and myriad scars, showed not even ambient aggression. The general posturing was destitute, wracked with disappointment and with the shock of unforeseen natural terror that had so quickly managed to surpass the effects of any war that they had ever waged. And, be it from collapsed armories or in reaction to that unimaginable loss of life, the larges object that could bee construed as a weapon that any member of the horde carried was a mere utility pocketknife.

The bedraggled column was headed by several of the better-dressed beasts. The most striking among them was a tall female weasel, her fur a light silver entirely unrelated to her mere middle age, her eyes a peculiar dark stormy green. Clad in a neatly-cut militaristic suit that oddly matched the color of her eyes, she indisputably stood out as the leader among those following her. This throng, however, halted before imposing upon the space used by the Mossflowerites for regrouping. The silver weasel alone progressed into the scene, looking about gravely, ears twitching sensitively to judge the content of the conversations that had grown softer and less focused with the arrival of her followers. After some deliberation, the weasel strode purposefully toward Ruta's circle of political envoys from other cities.

The badger gave the weasel a long lookover, more weary than wary but not entirely off guard. Her expression in itself spoke a request for identification that had been repeated until the words were so practiced that they were no longer necessary.

"You are Ruta, yes?" the weasel chanced, her voice tired but still possessing a peculiar strength.

"I am," the badger responded, squinting slightly at the weasel, then gazing past her to consider those who had come along. "You are from Darkhill?" she asked, evaluating the species distributing and wagering an assumption.

"I am Rhynn of the Northridge Horde," the weasel returned. "I am our liaison with Darkhill, and as neither their mayor Garlock nor his mate Falla seem to have survived, I feel it is my responsibility to step to the fore."

Ruta nodded slowly. "Garlock is alive. He arrived here two days after the earthquake and has since left on an expedition to determine its causes."

Rhynn's silver brows raised slightly. "It is good, then, that Garlock has chosen to compensate for abandoning Darkhill and leaving it in the paws of a hordebeast," here the weasel smiled inwardly, "by making an effort to understand what destroyed it."

The badger let out a rumble of consideration. "If it is not your town, why are you so invested in it?"

"We share a boundary," Rhynn explained simply. "A matter of coexistence since the war, with Darkhill and thus also with Mossflower. It has worked quite well."

"And now your Northridge Horde is here unopposed," Ruta stated evenly.

"Please," Rhynn cut back, a slight edge to her town. "It's hardly Mossflower anymore, is it? Everything that made it Mossflower has gone to dust, all the landmarks and their history. All that's left is struggling creatures on the land, same as before any of this was built in the first place, same as in Darkhill, same as in the far Northlands." The weasel waved a wide sweep in the air, indicating the entire scene. "We're no better off than you are, and you're not better off than we are any longer. All those political boundaries are effectively gone, and supposing we were here on the premise of invasion, imperialism would be pretty useless without the boundaries. It's a perfect case to undo so much the past has done."

Rhynn extended a steady silver paw toward Ruta, hard green eyes locking in to the brown irises of the badger. "I offer you the Northridge Horde - anything we can provide for you in this time of mutual hardship - if you can bring it upon yourselves to come down and do the same for us. Foodstuffs and agriculture, workforce beastpower, defenses and armaments. If you can afford it for us here, or on ships leading away from this broken land if that's where it all goes, we are there. I, at least, can offer that this ancient rivalry crumbled as completely as the ancient buildings did."

Ruta considered the weasel and her words, as well as the words that she herself had spoken so recently to Garlock, and she enveloped the offered paw in her own.
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