User blog:Brockfang/On the Knife's Edge

Prologue
The aged squirrel was no longer young but he kept plodding towards the great bulk of Salamandastron realizing he could get there in time for tea. As he was coming up to the mountain a young hare stepped out of a crevice towards him. "Well now, Elmjo. I didn’t expect you to come around until next season."

"It’s good to see you too Chamos.I had no where else to go since I visited the otters on the eastern coast last season. Besides you were in the neighborhood of my travels."

"Shall we go up into the mountain Elmjo? I’ve been looking forward to a good story if you don’t mind."

"Yes indeed, Chamos. I learned the tale of Ceteruler the Just from the hedgehog colony on the north shore a few seasons back. Maybe the hares would like to hear it after tea." The hare led Elmjo to a wider crevice in the rock which had a door set into it in the back. A short while later after a good meal of summer salad and oatcakes combined with good Mountain Ale the traveler shifted position to begin his story. "Which badger lord do you want to hear about this time?" the old squirrel asked. There was a myriad of answers but a little leveret managed to pipe up, "My pa was talking to Colonel Sanguine about Ceteruler the Just, can you tell his story please?" The squirrel smiled and said, "Aye missy I was just saying to Chamos that I just learned his full story a few seasons back. Let’s see if I could jog my memory a bit and tell the story that I learned. Let’s see it started when…"

Chapter One
A weasel named Vanefur led the little party of searats, armed with poisoned daggers, to the edge of the forest by the badger settlement. The weasel sent out a rat to check for sentries before the party advanced. The rat came running back and said, “Vanefur there’s about five sentries stationed on all sides of the camp. They aren’t armed, just keeping watch.” Vanefur thought for a minute before saying, “We only need to take out two so the captain can get through to get some slaves. So worthless hides moving before I tell the captain.”

The slender male ferret and the rats accompanying him saw the torch waved overhead by the rat in the distance. That was the signal that the sentries were. . . removed.

Ceteruler woke up to a flickering light outside his house. Curiosity overcame the young badger and he got up to see what the light was. Ceteruler crept past his slumbering mother and sister to the door to see outside. When he got to the door he opened it slightly and saw a rat waving a torch back and forth over his head. Ceteruler opened the door fully ran outside to warn the settlement but was hit over the head by a ferret that stepped behind him as he ran outside. Ceteruler saw stars then entered a world of black.

Gone. That single word told where the many badger babes were, including Ryegrass‘s brother, Ceteruler. Ryegrass had seen the searat galley that had landed in a cove on the other side of the island to take on water. Ryegrass seemed to have everything bad to happen to her, she thought. She had gotten up that morning to see her father who had been on sentry duty but had found him with a cut on his neck. She sniffed it and thought it smelled funny. Remembering that she hadn’t seen her brother in the house she silently went around to the different houses in the settlement and found a lot of young ones missing and a few adult badgers murdered. Ryegrass was so overcome suddenly that she sat down and wept.

Since it was mostly badgers on the island the searats kept to themselves, but during the night they sneaked over the island and took a load of the young ones. Now that the searats had left the badgers had no way to get their children and siblings back.