Vengeance Quest

Chapter 5: Recovery

She stood the next day, but the act nearly ruined her legs for life. Not yet mended, the weight of the bandage-swathed squirrel on broken limbs jolted the bone apart, bound as it was, sending her to unconsciousness with the black of pain. She received a sound scolding from the healer, Sister Bria, and the admonition to take one extremely minute step at a time. Her protest that she was taking one step at a time made no difference.

“From nearly comatose to standing? I do not agree, squirrel! Warriors! How can anybeast deal with the fools?”

So it was that Sister Bria laid down her own rehabilitation plan, starting with bending every joint several times a day until Riala was sufficiently limber. Riala was shocked by how weak and stiff she’d become with only a couple weeks of bed rest, and followed the healer’s regimen faithfully, spending all of her waking hours doing leg lifts and knee bends, stretches, and anything else she could think of.

Winter passed into spring before Riala managed to get out of bed, and even then her body screamed with pain and trembled with weakness. She held herself upright nonetheless, teeth gritted against the fire that consumed her body, and remained standing until she passed out.

The squirrel ignored the scolding from Sister Bria that assaulted her ears the moment she awoke. “Foolish, I tell you! Absolutely foolish thickheadedness! Pain be the body’s way of tellin’ you somethin’s wrong, but do you listen? Never! Not t’your own body, not to Sister Bria…”

Riala shut the mouse’s voice out, tufted ears pinned flat against her head as she sat up with painful slowness and eased her legs over the edge of the bed.

“An’ you don’t listen t’your experiences neither! Blackin’ out from pain an’ you want t’do it again! Warriors!”

Her footpaws touched cold stone, and she hissed out a long breath from between clenched death as pain shot up her legs, shaking from the exertion of simply remaining upright. “I… will… do this!” she snarled to the pain and her protesting body and the shadows creeping across her vision. “Ah’ll nae be beaten by some wee pain! By a fool rat wi’ a simple bit o’ iron!” Her voice grew stronger with the fuel of anger that beat back threatening unconsciousness and brought out her normally faint northland accent. “Ah’ll naught!”

Shocked into silence, Sister Bria watched with dropped jaw while her patient’s gold-brown eyes misted with red as she fought a tremendous battle against her own body. One scarred footpaw inched forward, her weight shifted, and Riala brought the other paw forward. She grinned savagely at the mouse, a feral sort of triumph illuminating her face. “Dibbun steps, healer,” she rasped, the parody of a grin twisting her scarred features into a macabre mask. “One… wee… step… at… a… time…” The grin never leaving her face, she let the pain consume her into darkness and crumpled to the floor.

After seeing her patient’s blind determination, Bria brought two crutches to aid Riala in standing and walking about. The squirrel stood every day, teeth gritted as she went through her physical rehabilitation regimen while upright. The weeks crawled by, spring giving way to the oppressive heat of summer, and at last Riala was recovered enough to hobble about with the aid of her crutches.

“You be a right stubborn fool an’ no mistake,” the healer mouse told her when she clunked slowly to the stairwell. “Not ready for stairs yet. I should know, I’m the healer! But you won’t listen to me, oh no, not to Sister Bria…”

Shutting out the incessant scolding was automatic now. Riala hobbled to the stairs and looked down them with narrowed eyes. How to get down without falling? She brought her crutches forward, bending to set them on the first step, and then carefully swung her legs down to join them. Grim satisfaction etched a thin smile across her face, and she started down the next step.

She was shaking with exertion by the time she reached the bottom, every muscle protesting against her taking another step. Her knees gave way and she collapsed on the last stair, her head falling into her paws.

Two seasons, and I can’t even walk down a single set of stairs without collapsing!

“Ahoy there… somethin’ wrong, matey?”

Riala glanced up to see a seal brown otter, dark eyes curious and friendly. “Nothing’s wrong,” the squirrel said with her usual brusqueness, but she was unable to keep the edge of despair from her voice.

“Looks like somethin’ ter me,” the otter said with a smile. “Most folk don’t look that blue ‘bout nothin’.”

She grimaced, not looking up. “I’m useless,” she said flatly.

White teeth flashed in a laughing grin, and the otter stuck out a callused paw. “Glad t’meetcha, Useless. Th’ name’s Kaylen.”

Despite her dark mood, a smile brushed fleeting wings along the squirrel’s scarred features before disappearing. “Riala Goldentail, actually,” she said, shaking the proffered paw.

“Aye?” She chuckled. “Don’t sound much like Useless t’me.”

“What use is a warrior who’ll never fight again?” Any hint of the earlier smile disappeared with her bitter words, tasting foul as they left her lips.

Surprise flickered across Kaylen’s face, and she sat down beside the squirrel. “Redwall’s founder, Martin the Warrior… he laid down his blade an’ never fought again, an’ he helped t’build Redwall. ‘E still protects th’ abbey e’en now, after his death.” She nodded towards a huge tapestry at the end of the vast hall that the stairs led into.

The laugh that rasped from the squirrel’s throat was a shock to the ears, scraping against the heart with its bitterness. “I’m no Martin,” she spat. “A useless squirrel who can scarcely get down some stairs after two seasons of bed rest, maybe, but no Martin!”

The otter blinked, staring at her with new recognition. “Yore that squirrel I found! With the rats!”

“What?!”

“Two seasons ago… in the snow… with a rat beatin’ ye with a chain…”

“You were the one who brought me to Redwall?” Riala exclaimed.

“Aye. Didn’t think ye’d even be wakin’ again, much less walkin’ down the stairs!”

The squirrel scowled and shoved at one of her crutches, sending it clattering from the stair to the ground. “Aye, but it’s not with the use of my own legs.”

A long silence from Kaylen enticed Riala to glance sidelong at the otter’s face. She was staring at the squirrel with an odd expression on her face, some strange mix of incredulity and disgust. “Most creatures would be happy just ter be alive after somethin’ like that,” she growled. “Mayhap I should’ve left th’ rat ter kill ye!”

“Maybe you should have!” Riala snarled back. “I’m no use to anybeast like I am! If I can’t fight, I’m nothing!”

Dark eyes met gold brown in an angry stare, locking gazes as if to break away would be to lose a battle. The fury faded slowly from Kaylen’s eyes as she watched the scarred squirrel’s face, something akin to pity in her expression that only infuriated Riala all the more. The otter shook her head. “Maybe I should have,” she echoed quietly. “Maybe I should have.”

With a fluid motion that Riala could scarcely remember as once being natural to her own body, Kaylen rose and strode calmly out of the abbey, leaving the squirrel to contemplate the heated conversation in her own unforgiving mind.

“Kaylen!”

It was nearly a week after her initial conversation with the otter. Riala had made several more trips up and down the stairs and could at last get from one floor to the other without having to sit down for several minutes to catch her breath and rest her aching limbs. She had met many of the Redwallers in her stay at the abbey, but had not seen Kaylen again–until now, walking across the orchard to the Great Hall. She turned at Riala’s call, light brown gaze flicking across the grounds, then frowning at the sight of the injured squirrel. The otter turned away slightly as if not noticing Riala.

“Kaylen, wait!” the squirrel shouted, thumping across the dry summer grass, her crutches leaving round depressions in the soft earth. “I need to talk to you...”

Kaylen sighed softly and stopped walking, turning towards Riala with a slightly impatient look on her face. “What d’ye want?”

She flinched minutely at the clipped words, knowing it was her fault that the friendly otter was so cold toward her. “I… came to say I’m sorry,” she said quietly, the words forced past an unwilling tongue. Apologies were not something she was used to making. “You were right. I’m ungrateful and unappreciative of what I have… you saved me and I cursed you for it.”

The otter studied her scarred face, set in motionless stone, but the squirrel’s gold-brown eyes were sincere. At last she nodded. “S’all right. I understand. I s’pose if I was in th’ same position I’d be a bit angry at everythin’ ‘round me as well.” The twinkle returned to her eye and she struck forth a paw in greeting, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. “What d’ye say we start over, matey? Th’ name’s Kaylen of Holt Telera, one of th’ Wanderers of Mossflower.”

Riala stared at the callused paw, uncomprehending and not quite believing it, but then her own scarred paw reached out and took it as if against her will. “Riala Goldentail,” she said, and the slightest hint of a smile touched her face. “Thank you for helping me.”

Kaylen chuckled. “Don’t mention it. Wot else is a Wanderer for?”

“I don’t know… I’ve no idea what a Wanderer is.”

“Y’don’t…” The otter blinked in surprise before laughing. “O’course ye don’t know! Yore new ter Mossflower, roight?” At Riala’s nod, Kaylen grinned and shook her head. “Silly of me ter assume ye’d know ‘bout th’ Wanderers of Mossflower. We’re a group of warriors led by Brook an’ Tamlin. Our mission’s t’protect Mossflower, Redwall, an’ th’ like. We wander th’ forest – ‘tis where th’ name comes from, Wanderers, wander… We seek out vermin an’ report anythin’ odd ter headquarters.”

Tufted ears pricked forward with Riala’s sharpened interest. “Anything odd? Have you ever heard reports of a black wolverine leading a horde of weasels, foxes, and ferrets?”

The otter tilted her head slightly, pondering the question. “Can’t say I ‘ave, Riala. Y’might find somethin’ useful in Redwall’s records or th’ Wanderers’ records.”

“Where would those be?”

“Well, Redwall’s records’re in the gatehouse, an’ the Wanderers records’re at headquarters… y’can’t get ter those yet, not on crutches.”

A scowl flickered across the squirrel’s face at the reminder of her condition, but she nodded her acquiescence. “Thanks, Kaylen.”

“’Ey, I said don’t mention it, matey!” Kaylen grinned and lifted her paw in a wave. “See you ‘round th’ woods?”

“Hopefully so,” Riala agreed, watching the otter walk away with the fluid movement of her species and of a warrior. “Hopefully so…”

Riala scanned the musty scroll in her paws with a gradually deepening scowl. A snarl escaped her throat and the scroll rolled shut with a resounding crack! “Nothing! Still nothing! Nearly the entire gatehouse of records and nothing more useful than herbal mixtures!”

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear…” The wizened old mouse scooped up the fallen scroll with quivering gray paws, replacing it in its holder with tender care. He glared at the squirrel from beneath bushy brows. “These records are older than I, young ruffian!” he complained as she yanked out another scroll and unrolled it roughly, eliciting an indignant squeak from the mouse. “Be careful with that!”

“If they’re as old as you say, Josiah, they can take some rough handling,” Riala retorted, glancing through the contents of the parchment. She let it snap back in disgust and shook it at the aged recorder. “Bumblebees? Why do none of these recorders and abbots and abbesses write about anything useful?”

“Give me that!” Josiah snatched the scroll from the squirrel’s waving paw and inspected it carefully from behind his thick spectacles. Finding no damage to the aged parchment, he replaced it almost reverently. “All of these records contain useful information to different readers,” he told her in his precise manner. “Records on bumblebees are useful to beekeepers. Herbal records are useful to Infirmary workers. Simply because Redwall is not a fort for battle…”

Riala snorted derisively and waved one paw outside at the thick sandstone walls. “What do you call those, then – sunshades? They’ve held up against more attacks than I can count. Half your records are about battles between vermin hordes and this ‘peaceful’ abbey.” She reached for another scroll, one of the few she had not yet looked through in nearly a season of research.

A gray paw clamped down on her scarred arm, and the mouse’s pale brown eyes locked with her gold-brown ones. “You will not look through any more scrolls until you learn to treat them with respect!”

“Let go.”

Josiah blinked, taken aback at the sudden wintry steel in the squirrel’s voice and gaze. “What?”

“Let go of me.”

He dropped her arm as if he’d just noticed that he held an angry adder, staring blankly at her icy visage. “Is something…”

That gold-brown gaze intensified, hardened into deadly steel, and the recorder could not look away. “I have spent my entire life looking for Nightdeath Longclaws.” Her normally rough voice was an angry hiss, as cold as the blood of a snake. “The quest for his blood is the sole reason I am still alive. I care little about what I have to do to kill him. Believe me, mouse… you do not want to hinder my search. Do you understand?”

Josiah’s eyes widened at the implication of the squirrel’s words. “Y-yes… I understand perfectly…” he stammered, backing away. “Just… please put back the records… when you finish?”

A nod was his only answer, every muscle in Riala’s body tensed, her paws curled into fists. With a barely audible squeak, the elderly recorder fled the gatehouse for someplace less stressful.

The door clicked shut, and Riala crumpled to the ground, staring at her still-clenched paws. “What am I doing?” The question was spoken in a horrified whisper, her eyes blank with shock. Threatening an infirm old mouse because he blocked my way to some musty scrolls that probably won’t be much use anyway? “And I would have hurt him…” A shudder rippled through her lean frame, unstoppable even by the squirrel’s indomitable will. All to avenge my father… all for the Longclaws’ death…

“Game over, Battlecry.”

The hated voice echoed through her mind, the memory sending red mist across her vision. Her face settled into emotionless stone, eyes hardening to steel. One scarred paw reached out and purposefully took hold of the next scroll.

“Rilaaaaaaar!”

Thunk!

Gold-brown eyes narrowed in grim satisfaction at the sound of wood striking wood. One wrist flicked in a practiced motion, the sharp tug on the braided nettle cord sending the thick length of hardwood flying back into the squirrel’s callused paw. The stake embedded in the ground several lengths away now lay in two halves, broken by the forceful throw.

The sound of clapping drew Riala’s attention from her target practice to the sable otter behind her. “Ye’ve come a long way in a season,” Kaylen congratulated her with a broad grin.

It was a difficult expression to resist. The squirrel’s scarred face creased in a return smile. “Thanks.”

The otter glanced at the once-broken legs, now straight and strong; the extra fat collected over nearly three seasons of inactivity beginning to turn back into flat, hard muscle; the once gaping wounds sealed over with scars fading to skin visible as a white spiderweb through red-brown fur. “How’s the ol’ body doin’, matey?”

“Still a little stiff, but better than last month.”

“Good – by winter maybe ye’ll be able ter join th’ Wanderers.”

Riala shook her head. “No, I can’t stay in Mossflower… I have to go after the Longclaws.”

“When ye’ve no idea if th’ scum’s north, south, east’re west? Don’t be a foolbeast.” Kaylen chuckled. “’Sides, ye know how y’are wi’ Mossflower’s winters!”

“I hope I’ve at least learned to wear a cloak in wintertime,” she retorted with a rare twinkle in her eyes. “I won’t be so foolish again.”

“Aye, I s’pose ye won’t be, matey,” the otter said. “Care ter test yore fightin’ skills on a pore ol’ ottermaid?”

The squirrel snorted at the thought. “IF you’re a poor ottermaid, I’m a rat’s babe!”

Kaylen tilted her head and squinted at Riala thoughtfully. “Well, if’n ye look careful-like, an’ ye shaved yore tail…”

“Shaved my tail?” Mock horror widened her eyes and flattened tufted ears back against her skull. “I’ll give you shaved, waterdog!” She drew her dagger with the hiss of finely honed steel escaping its sheath, and the fluid motion was answered by the shing of Kaylen’s saber leaping into her paw. Otter and squirrel circled, each bent into a fighter’s crouch, ready to spring at any moment. Silence stifled the crisp autumn air, the wind itself holding its breath as the two faced off.

They came together as if on cue, charging in and whirling and clashing in a flurry of motion. Steel met wood and was deflected, a dagger sought throat and was parried with the bell-like clang of blade on blade. Back and forth they sparred, a whirlwind of steel and wood and fur, neither scoring a mark on the other.

“Ha!” Cold metal pricked Riala’s throat, and a rueful smile slashed a thin line across her scarred visage. Kaylen grinned back. “Yore right, yore stiff… but not by much, matey. Don’t know many who could beat ye.”

“You just did.”

The otter laughed. “Don’t know many outside the Wanderers who could beat ye.”

“Aye, well, ‘tisn’t good enough,” the squirrel said, sheathing her dagger and gathering up the long cord attached to her roce.

Kaylen knew Riala well enough not to argue the point, changing the subject instead. “Yore actin’ almost cheerful today, treebusher. Wot’s the matter?”

“I have to have a reason to be cheerful?”

“Not mostbeasts, nay, but ye do. Yore usually all serious an’ silent. First time I’ve ever ‘eard ye laugh, today was.”

The squirrel shrugged. “I’m finally getting better, seeing progress… that’s probably all it is.”

“Good thing, too! Any luck with findin’ out about yore wolverine friend t’other day?”

“No.” The old shadows crept back into the gold-brown gaze at the thought of the Longclaws and the earlier fiasco in the gatehouse. “None.”

Her flat tone earned her a sharp glance from Kaylen. “Somethin’ wrong?”

Riala turned away, and the otter could almost hear her emotional walls click back into place. “Nay.”

“Easy mate, I won’t pry if ye don’t want ter talk.” Kaylen sighed softly, shaking her head. “Well, I’ve got a mission ter do. Just some random scoutin’, reports of a coupla stoats in th’ woods. Need ter see if they’re hostile’re not.”

That elicited an odd glance from the squirrel. “If they’re hostile or not?” she echoed. “Why not just kill them and be done with it?”

Kaylen blinked, returning the strange look with one of her own. “’Cos they might be peaceful-like.”

“That’s foolishness,” Riala spat, venom thick in her rough voice. “There’s no such thing as a peaceful vermin.”

The otter stared, taken aback by the hatred in her friend’s gaze. “Hey now, matey, ye could offend somebeast talkin’ like that. We’ve a coupla those ‘vermin’ in th’ Wanderers.”

“You actually trust the scum?” Incredulity and disgust contorted the squirrel’s scarred features into a dibbun’s nightmare. “You actually let them join your ranks?!”

“Some o’ those scum’re me friends, an’ ‘ave saved me life more’n once,” Kaylen said, anger flaring in her normally jovial face. “Talk ter th’ ‘scum’ first afore ye judge, squirrel!” She whirled about, slamming her saber into its sheath furiously, and stalked way, leaving Riala alone on the lawn with mouth agape.

The headquarters of the Wanderers of Mossflower was well hidden, but not too difficult for a woodwise squirrel to find. She had traded in her usual forest-hued tunic for white and gray breeches and a long-sleeved shirt the same hue, protection against the winter chill. She was determined not to repeat her mistake of a year earlier.

The Wanderers headquarters was a treehouse, cunningly disguised by woven branches and deadfall. Spring would have hidden the arboreal building more fully though, and Riala had little trouble finding it. She leapt silently to the entrance, a gap in the thick mesh of branches, and padded into the treehouse.

It was smaller than she’d expected. An oil lamp sat unlit on a desk that took up one side of the sole room, papers spilling over the edges of the cluttered table. The two adjacent walls held numerous scrolls in ceiling-to-floor holders. Myriad weapons hung on either side of the entrance.

A floorboard creaked as Riala crossed the tiny room. She froze for several long moments, tufted ears turned in the direction of the doorway, but nobeast came to investigate. Satisfied that she remained undetected, the squirrel drew her dagger from its sheath and a block of flint from her belt pouch, lighting the dry wick with ease. At last she could turn her attention to the records that filled the room, illuminated now by the lamp’s soft glow.

The wick had burned low when the acrid scent of vulpine sent Riala’s hackles on end. Fox…! Unrolling a scroll further with one paw, she worked her dagger free with the other. The same board that had startled her earlier creaked with a hesitant weight. Her cue to act. She leapt out of the chair and whirled, crossing the floor in a single bound and setting her blade against thick black fur.

The touch of chill metal drew a sharp breath from the fox, slitted green eyes widening. “How did you get in here, fox?” Riala’s rough voice was a hiss.

“Used the ladder,” the black vixen said, mouth barely opening enough to let the words out. “What are you doing here? You’re not a Wanderer…”

“And I suppose you are?”

The fox’s eyes narrowed at the implication. “Aye.”

“You’re a fox!” Disbelief was clear in the squirrel’s cold gaze.

“So you judge me by my race.” There was an anger in the fox’s soft voice, and a sadness. “As close-minded as the reset of your kind.”

“I…” Talk ter th’ ‘scum’ first afore ye judge, squirrel! “I don’t… Seasons!” She jerked her dagger away and thrust it into its sheath, movements rough and furious. The vixen didn’t move from her spot in the middle of the room, watching the squirrel with a wary gaze. “There’s no such thing as a good vermin!” Riala said finally.

“You truly believe that?”

“Nobeast’s ever proved me wrong!”

A brief frown passed across the fox’s face. “It’s easier to believe that, I suppose. Makes it really simple knowing who to trust, doesn’t it? Foxes are vermin, so they’re all evil. Squirrels are goodbeasts, so they’re all good. Right?”

“You make it sound as if I think all vermin are evil merely because it’s easier,” Riala said.

“That might be part of it,” the vixen agreed, “but I’m sure much of it comes from experience…”

“Aye, it does! I’ve seen the worst sides of your kind, not just foxes but weasels and ferrets and wolverines. I’ve hunted and killed your type, killed the slavers and the murderers…”

“And yet you become a murderer yourself in the process.”

“I bring justice!”

“Your idea of justice. Does that include mercy?”

Riala turned away from that unwavering gaze. “It did once. But vermin don’t respect mercy.”

“You think you’re the only one who’s been hurt by vermin?” A hint of disgust colored the fox’s tone.

“I know I’m not. I’ve seen slaves. I’ve seen creatures who have lost all they loved to vermin. As did I…”

“And as did I.”

Scorn laced the squirrel’s voice. “You’re vermin.”

“So I can’t love? I can’t grieve? I can’t have a family, a mother, brothers and sisters?” Her voice rose in volume with each word, choked with threatening tears. “I can’t lose my family to a brood of my own kind?!”

Riala turned, slow and stunned, to stare at the black vixen’s grief-ravaged face. That can’t be faked… I know that look too well. “Your own kind…?”

“Aye, a brood of foxes. Like killing like for no reason… none but that we would not join them. And I just a kit… Who do you trust when you can’t even trust your own? It’s easy for you. You can trust all goodbeasts, distrust all vermin. I can’t even trust goodbeasts. I can’t even hate vermin because I am one and I know they’re not all evil!”

Shock froze her into eternity as lifelong beliefs crumbled around her, fractured by the undeniable truth of the vixen’s words, backed by the all-too-recognizable grief and pain in her voice. Distantly she realized that her head was swiveling from side to side in slow denial, as if of its own will. “No… I…”

“Don’t.” Her green eyes hardened at the shadow of pity lurking behind the shock in the squirrel’s gaze. “I don’t want your pity or anybeast else’s. Just don’t judge so quickly.” She turned to go.

“Wait,” Riala called, finding her voice at last. “What is your name?”

The fox stopped, silhouetted against the entrance. “Shadow de Vulpes. And you?”

“Riala Goldential.”

“Well met, I hope.” And she was gone.

“So you wish to join the Wanderers.”

Riala met the mouse’s scrutinizing gaze levelly, unperturbed by the flat tone. “Aye, I do.”

Brook’s eyes narrowed, never wavering from the squirrel’s face. “I was told that you may have some problems with the race of certain Wanderers,” she said.

“Ah… that’s been resolved,” Riala said quietly, looking to the wood-planked floor of the Wanderers headquarters.

“Then you won’t be fighting our members every chance you get?”

She shook her head. “I’ll fight only those who show themselves to be evil.”

“Good.” The mouse glanced over the form in her paws, filled out minutes ago by Riala. “You’ve been a lone fighter most of your life… are you willing to take orders?”

“Aye.”

“You would have to do whatever those above you in rank commanded you to do,” Brook continued. “You’d start out at the lowest rank, a scout. You’d have to follow mission instructions to the letter. Some missions will have you scout out a situation or spy on some vermin and not harm them, only report back your findings and nothing else. Are you willing to do that?”

She hesitated for several moments, protests scampering through her mind until her words betrayed her. “Aye.”

The mouse nodded, satisfied with the reluctant agreement. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“I’m not certain,” Riala said, shadows turning gold-brown eyes dark. “Only until I hear news of the Longclaws’ whereabouts.”

“Very well then.” Brook dipped a quill into the inkwell and jotted a few notes onto the sheet. That done, she reached into the desk and pulled out a small object, handing it to the squirrel. “Your rank insigna,” she explained. “We don’t have uniforms since most of the Wanderers prefer their own attire, but this will mark you as one of us.”

It was a smooth circle, wooden so as not to catch an enemy’s eye with a stray gleam of light. Riala clipped it over the simple clasp of her pale cloak. “Thank you.”

Brook’s answer was a slight nod of acknowledgement. “Welcome to the Wanderers, Riala Goldentail.”