A rain of hard river pebbles struck the rats, felling several and driving the rest back. Stonefleck grouped his force at the other side of the clearing. They stood among the trees and returned fire with arrows. Screams and cries rang out as the battle raged back and forth, shafts going one way, stones flying the other. Basil took charge of the slingers, forming them into three ranks.

“First rank, sling and reload! Second rank, sling and reload! Third rank, sling and reload!” he ordered.

Matthias and his friends did as best as they could, dodging from tree to tree, picking off the odd rat with their slings.

Jess took a brief respite and dropped down by Matthias.

“I’m out of stones. Have you got many left?” she asked the warrior mouse.

“Hardly any. They’re no match for arrows, Jess. Look, there’s more rats arriving by the moment; we’re outnumbered by at least ten to one.”

“At least. They only have to follow us and pick us off one by one, and we can’t make a run for it now, their firepower is too heavy. I’d hate to die this far from Redwall, Matthias.”

“Me too, Jess, but they’ve got us pinned down now. It was a mistake to try and make a stand, but they’d have caught us if we’d kept running. I’ll have to rack my brains and see if I can’t come up with—What’s that?”

“Sparra kill! Kill! Kill! Eeeeeeeeeee!”

Queen Warbeak and her Sparra fighters hurtled into the rats like a winged shower of small beaks and talons.

Jess leapt forward. “Matthias, it’s Warbeak and her Sparra folk. What are they doing here?”

“I don’t know, but they’ll be massacred if we don’t help them. Basil, Log-a-Log! Come on. Chaaaaarge!”

*   *   *

Quickbill and his two brothers Brightback and Diptail had found an easy source of supply for Ironbeak’s fighters. Why forage in the woods when there was a beautiful orchard right in the grounds of the big redstone house?

With the Redwall inhabitants forced to stay indoors, the three magpies had grown bold. Now they did not even bother foraging by night. Each day they would fly down to the orchard and eat their fill before loading up with supplies to take to the roof space. Quickbill was amazed at so much different fruit growing in one place; he had never encountered an orchard before.

“Hakka! The northlands were never like this, brothers; apples, pears, plums and look, look at those juicy red berries!”

The trio stood around the strawberries on the ground, unhurried, each seeking out a bigger strawberry than the one his brother was eating. They were behaving like naughty young ones raiding the orchard.

“Chakka! Look at this one, it is like two stuck together.”

“Yaah, but this berry is more red and shiny, see.”