“This should do. Pull in here, and hide the boats under those trees.”

The female Marlfox, Ziral, leapt ashore and watched until the last logboat had turned into the inlet. When the water rats had disembarked she called two of them. “Allag, Ruheb, take six trackers apiece, spread out and go separate ways. Find our brothers and sisters and bring them back here.”

Mokkan stretched wearily out beneath a spreading sycamore, glad to be free from the confines of a logboat’s prow. He snapped out orders to the water rats standing to attention along the bank. “Get the nets, find fish. Archers, bring down some birds. You four, collect wood and get a fire going. Dry wood, mind—we want as little smoke as possible. Bring fruit and berries, only the ripest ones. You, spread my cloak carefully over that bush to dry out.”

As the rats scurried to do his bidding, Ziral sat down beside him, nibbling at a juicy grass blade. “The Abbey of Redwall is not far west of here.”

Mokkan closed his eyes, savoring the sun’s warmth. “I know that, but we don’t make a move until the trackers find Vannan, Ascrod, Gelltor and Predak and bring them back here. Relax, vixen, there’s no hurry.”

However, Ziral was unable to rest. She paced the bank, honing her ax blade on a sliver of shale. “I’ll relax when we’re back on the island with that mother of ours. Halfwitted old fool, you’d think she has enough possessions, but no, all she does is witter on from morn till night, ‘I must be surrounded by beauty, I must be surrounded by beauty!’ I don’t know how our sister Lantur stands it. I’d like to surround her with a couple of boulders tied to her neck and drop her in the lake, then she could be surrounded by fishes!”

Mokkan opened one eye. “It’s treason to speak about the High Queen in such a manner, you know that?”

Ziral snorted contemptuously and flung her ax. It buried its blade deep in the sycamore trunk.

Mokkan sniggered dryly. “Temper, temper, sister of mine! That sort of behavior won’t do you any good.”

Ziral’s pale eyes blazed. She pushed aside a water rat, sending the creature staggering into the shallows as he tried to hold on to the bundle of kindling wood he was carrying. The vixen Marlfox jerked her axblade viciously from the sycamore trunk. “High Queen? Silth is nought but a doddering old wreck who hides behind silken curtains. Why doesn’t she die and leave the island to us, her own brood?”