User blog:Thornclaw Braveheart/The Saga of the Redwall Wars

I give full credit for this idea to Hollyfire53, and her Ultimate War fan fic. Thanks for coming up with it, Holly! Go to Redwall: Users War Characters for info on the characters that were created by Users on this Wiki for more information.

Prologue: The Rangers
Deep in the forests of Mossflower, a hooded stoat walked down an old path. He was very tall, shrouded in a multi-colored cloak, and held a longbow in his left paw. An incredibly long item, almost as tall as the already tall stoat, hung from his back, concealed from vision by the cloak. The stoat pulled an arrow from a quiver also on his back, and sat down on a large boulder in the middle of the path. He pulled his hood down, nocked an arrow to his bowstring, and sat there, waiting.

Meanwhile, the rat chieftain Darkeye was walking down that very same path, with twoscore rat bandits following him. Darkeye was truly a vermin leader, from the eelskin belt holding a scimitar about his waist, to the bloodstained chainmail about his frame, to the horned skullcap on his head. He strained to check his surroundings, and saw a lone, hunched figure sitting on a boulder a few metres away. He nodded to his band of rats and ran forward. He drew his scimitar and yelled in his thick vermin accent at the cloaked figure.

"Halt dere, yew beast! Warra yew doin' in our path?"

The figure, who happened to be the mystery stoat, answered without lifting his head.

"Oh, I'm just an ordinary traveller. Sorry fer blockin' yore path, I didn't know you were here.  Fine, I'll step aside fer you, sir." And still, without looking at the rats, he stood up and walked away from the path, his back turned towards Darkeye. Suddenly, the rat chieftain grabbed the stoat by the back of his cloak, and put the scimitar about his neck. He threw back the hood and murmured,

"Lissen, throw down yer bow an' belongings, an' we'll be on our way, gorrit? Now get to it!"

The stoat smiled at Darkeye, and replied, "Alrighty, I'll give you something." Then, he did the remarkable. He backflipped, kicking Darkeye in the gut and sending him sprawling. The stoat landed perfectly on his footpaws and drew back his longbow, somehow already having an arrow on it.

"Let's have some fun, eh, mates?"

With that, a score of hooded stoats jumped from the trees, each one landing perfectly on their footpaws. Each drew a broadsword, and stood behind their longbow-wielding leader. Darkeye, now fully recovered, picked up his fallen scimitar and shouted, "Cummon, me buckoes, we outnumber 'em! Let's take dose stoaters down!"

40 rats drew spears and swords, and charged. Five were taken down by the stoat leader before they even reached their opponents, and then as soon as the clash started, the longbow-wielder withdrew his weapon and unsheathed the massive pole on his back: A Zweihander, the largest type of sword ever. He twirled the blade, almost as tall as he was, in one paw with ease and jumped into the fight, slicing one rat in half immediately. Another tried to behead him with a battleaxe, but found the axehead stuck in his brain. A third rat snuck behind the stoat, and tried to smash his skull with a sling, but the stoat twirled around and decapitated the rat before he could even reach for a pebble. Darkeye saw the damage being done by the stoats, especially their leader, and groaned in frustration. He racked his mind trying to find out what type of warrior this could be. However, that is hard to do while dueling with an experienced broadsword-wielding stoat. Then, the rat remembered tales told by his parents during his younger days as a bandit soldier. This stoat leader with the huge sword was the Greatsword, the Ranger Lord Thornclaw Braveheart. Darkeye cursed himself for picking on one of the greatest heroes ever, and ran as fast as he could from the broadsword-carrying stoat. However, before he could even reach the safety of a thick ironwood tree, a saex knife pinned him to that very plant. Thornclaw Braveheart smiled with satisfaction, walked to the dying Darkeye, and plucked out the saex he had thrown. Another rat, the only one that had survived the massacre, ran to Darkeye, picked up his dropped scimitar, and fled. One stoat raised a longbow, but Thornclaw stared at him.

"No, mate. He's a coward, so let 'im go.  You know, that group could have been part of a horde, an' that means a deadly warlord.  We better reach Redwall Abbey an' warn them.  We were headin' there anyways, our food supply is low, remember that."

The stoat with the longbow, Thornclaw's deputy Crowley, nodded. "Aye, Thorn. Nobody knows, this warlord could be a difficult one, whoever this feller is."

Thorn sheathed his Zweihander and picked up his fallen arrows, distributing those that did not belong to him. "Aye, but I've killed three warlords in my life. It's high time we fought another."

And so, the Saga of the Redwall Wars was born.