BooksBarbecue
Back Marlfox Save as PDF
Chapters (79)
  1. CHARGE!
  2. THE REDWALL BOOKS
  3. Dedication
  4. Map
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. ACT ONE
  7. 1
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. 4
  15. 5
  16. 5
  17. 6
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 7
  21. 8
  22. 8
  23. 9
  24. 9
  25. 10
  26. 10
  27. 11
  28. 11
  29. 12
  30. 12
  31. 13
  32. 13
  33. ACT TWO
  34. 14
  35. 14
  36. 15
  37. 15
  38. 16
  39. 16
  40. 17
  41. 17
  42. 18
  43. 18
  44. 19
  45. 19
  46. 20
  47. 20
  48. 21
  49. 21
  50. 22
  51. 22
  52. 23
  53. 23
  54. 24
  55. 24
  56. 25
  57. 25
  58. ACT THREE
  59. 26
  60. 26
  61. 27
  62. 27
  63. 28
  64. 28
  65. 29
  66. 29
  67. 30
  68. 30
  69. 31
  70. 31
  71. 32
  72. 32
  73. 33
  74. 33
  75. 34
  76. 34
  77. Epilogue
  78. Epilogue
  79. What’s next onyour reading list?

Stumbling and gasping, they dragged Burble along with them. Two toads and a lizard, who had come from a different angle, leapt out in front of them, spears at the ready. Clasping paws, the three companions charged straight at them, tumbling them flat before they had a chance to use their weapons. Dann felt the toad’s stomach underpaw, the breath whooshing out of the reptile as the young squirrel ran right over him. Into a grove of trees they pounded, dodging between the trunks, bulrush spears clattering off the branches around their heads. Dann knew they could not run much longer, but he staggered onward, looking wildly about for someplace to hide. There it was, a huge rotten elm trunk lying flat in a deep, leaf-carpeted depression, which had probably once been a stream.

“Down there, quick, under the fallen tree!”

They flung themselves under the dead woodland giant, quickly scooping out the thick sodden loam and building it around them. Dann pushed the other two farther under, drawing his sword and fighting his way in alongside them. Surrounded by the nauseating odor, regardless of woodlice and insects that crawled over them, they lay, scarcely daring to draw breath, their hearts pounding frantically, hoping fervently that the hunters would not discover them.

Moments seemed to stretch into hours, then Dann heard the rustle of dry leaves. The drums had ceased and the reptiles had stopped their wailing. Now there were slithering sounds. The pursuers were in the disused streambed, searching for them. The three friends gripped one another’s paws tightly, knowing that twilight had fallen over the area, giving them a slight hope that they might be bypassed. The watermeadow dwellers communicated with each other in a series of sibilant hisses and soft clicking noises, no language that the three friends could distinguish. Then they could sense the reptiles on the log above them. A bulrush spear probed into the hiding place, scratched Dippler’s back and raked Dann’s paw, poked about in the wet underloam, scraped against the log’s underside, then withdrew. Dann, Dippler and Burble lay motionless, knowing that the streambed was swarming with toads, lizards and newts. The foul air was stifling, black mud and a soggy compound of long seasons’ dead leaves pressed in on them. They were trapped.

29

29