User blog:Clockworthy/Redwall's Hero

=Prolouge= ''Find the sword, stop the Lord was all it said. I paraphrase, but sounds easy enough, right?''

THEY LIE!

''I wish it were that easy. I don’t know where this sword or lord is, no clear indication of where to start for leagues…no indication that I’ll even survive.''

''And who am I to do it? I am only Academy!''

Chapter 1
''I wrap my tail around me as tight as I can; still balancing on a branch. Snow would be better to hide it,’’ ‘’but it’s far too cold for me to handle right now. I hear one crunching on the snow beneath me, seeking me out. After a moment of consultation with another of its smelly brethren, he walks away. Great! Now I can—''

The squirrel hit the ground, landing in a pile of snow. He instinctively went rigid, but soon the hunter had found its quarry.

“No use hidin’, nature’s mistake. Get up, now, where’s half yer crop?” The arctic fox grabbed an ear and heaved him up.

“Now see here—er--Snarek, what’s with this name calling? I think I’m rather suited for these conditions!” Indeed, Academy was snow white, with blue-gray ear tufts and a smattering of the darker color blending with the white on his tail. “Hid plenty o’times before. And, secondish, I’m not even full grown yet. Why does Fangice want crops from ‘’me’’, anyway?” Fangice Coldclaw, one of those ‘Rule over all that he surveys’ type, Academy called him. Strolled up the land one day, declared it his, and set out a whopping great horde to enforce some laws, the Chillfiends.

“You’ve been livin’ off ‘is Iceness’ food fer long enough, ‘e says.” Snarek dropped the squirrel and looked around, “Takin’ advannage o’his kindness. So, where is it, eh? In ‘ere?” he tapped his head with a claw.

Academy straightened himself, “Just a moment.” He tensed his hindpaws, “I stashed my crop away this time, ‘tis right over …‘’here’’!” A pile of snowballs, premade for the occasion, was within paw’s reach as he flung one at the tax taker and darted away through the forest, kicking up snow.

Snarek snarled and shook his head, drawing his spear, and pursuing the young squirrel once more.

Academy took to the trees when he thought the fox was far enough behind. He can follow my prints, and then get his silly self lost! He heard voices, and quickly came to a stop, dislodging snow. Clear eyes darting this way and that, he found the source to be a few Chillfiends grouped around a fire below. A small fish encased in ice was rotating above it. “Whatta haul o’ grain ya got there, Knawblack!” Said a ferret loudly, “Who’d ya lift that’n offa?”

Knawblack grinned and patted the sack of crop, “From that hedgehog family. Wid all those paws, they had too much grain for ‘em all to eat anyway. Though I’d help meself to a little more!” They all broke out in laughter. Academy clenched his paws. Shiffen Sluicespike and his wife, Millya, had 5 hogbabes to feed, and were always glad to have Academy stop by for supper. As one could imagine, having half their grain taken for Fangice’s tax was hard enough, but to have this Knawblack take even more was too much. While still watching the group, Academy began to think up a plan on the fly.