Gates of Redwall

[Mattisa Mousethief]

Looks around frantically, no one is hurt, but the Redwallers are trapped in thier own hallways. Everyone looks to Mattisa and Nanalie, hoping for directions. Mattisa seems to want to say something, then halts. Shaking his head, he whispers to the Redwallers:: Everybeast listen. What we have to do is wait it out for a little bit, see what happens, we have beasts downstairs watching that gate, what we have to do is wait for a break in thier firing, then hail 'em with our pepper jars, aim for thier faces, it will blind them for a few days, got it? Now, lets see... ::Mattisa braves a glance outside. Seeing that a small area of vermin on the eastern side of the wall are knocking arrows, he gives a frantic look to ready the hurdle throwers. Pointing to them, he shouts:: NOW! You there, throw! ::They seise the oppertunity and thier aim is true, hitting a stoat squarly in the middle of his eyes, the jar exploding with red, unknown of whether it was from the hotpepper sauce or the stoat's own blood. Near him, ten others go down with similar fate. Although many jars aimed true, many still ended up smashed in the courtyard, thier throwers not quite strong enough to make it very far. Mattisa looks up at them:: Right then, you there, those who didn't make it, I be putting you on watch duty, no use wasting our jars. Those that hit, keep it up, but keep against the walls. ::the creatures all duck to the safety of the walls, the break of arrows relaoding over form that section.::

[duckflesh]

((hmm... uhm, from now on, you just throw the jars, I decide how many of them hit my men.))

**The vermin are now hidden in the wood, safe from harm**

Duckflesh: What the HELL kind of attack was that? Do they honestly think they can stop us with broken noses and sore eyes? Blow the horn!

**ten archers aim at the windows of the abbey. Any beasts who sticks a head, or even an arm out will get an arrow in them. Meanwhile, a Stoat blows on a bugel, a loud, single note. A few seconds afterwards, a flaming barrel flies through the sky, shattering in the branches of one of the abbey's orchard trees. The contents of the barrel, dead leaves and sticks soaked in lard and wine, catch and spread fire quickly, setting the tree alight and throwing chunks of flaming debris at the grass. Another two barrels fly in towards the abbey, one hitting the grass and creating a large flaming spot, another slamming into the main building, just missing a window but managing to send some splinters of wood flying in at the beasts inside, the remains tumbling down the wall and setting some climbing ivy alight. A suprising amount of smoke is being produced by the fires, as it would seem live plants were included in the barrels, and live plants make smoke when burned**

**meanwhile, eleven vermin have their eyes rinsed out with cold water and their noses bandaged up**

[Nanalie]

*A mouse sitting next to nanalie against the wall yelps as a rather large wood splinter wedges itself in his foot.* Ooo..I'd leave that in for now until you get the right herbs to help. *Nanalie gets up and rushes quietly over to Mattissa, making sure to keep clear away from the window.* Mattissa, it seems like they are all attacking us at once. I think, with some neccessary casualities on our sides, and if we have enough arrows, We can beat them back if we put one creature to a window and number them. If we run out of windows on this floor, we can go up to the next floor. All the odds fire at once and reload. all the evens first while odds are reloading, then the jars or whatever other things we can throw at them. I'll go number them, and you clue them in?

[duckflesh]

**Another three barrels are launched, all three of these ones hitting the orchard and starting fires. A large amount of smoke is being blown towards tehe ain building while the fire grow larger**

[Mattisa Mousethief]

((wait a sec, how come if we can't say how many hit them you can tell us when our creatures die? or if you hit somone on the wall or anything, we will soon have a game of, "the redwallers work for days and send a huge attack straight for the vermin, no chance of escape," and then "They miss and the vermin kill everyone" going. I'm just a bit... confused to say the least because this way there is no hope for either side to win or whatever, but that's just me))

[duckflesh]

((Uhm, the trick is to trust each other. If we can call hits like that, then I'll just say **arrows are fired into the windows and fly down the hallways, killing every redwaller** but we can't. I can only fire arrows into your windows and you say what they do.))

[duckflesh]

**Duckflesh's eyes widden as a giant object is hurled through the air towards teh main building of the abbey**

Holy f-

**luckily, Snapper hits before he can finish his inappropriate comment**

[Nanalie]

*Nanalie rushes off and numbers all the creatures. She sends those without their own window up to the next floor. By the time she finishes, the 2nd and 3rd floor windows are completely filled with armed redwallers.* What's that smell? ....smoke!? *a mousemaid runs up to nanalie* They've launched burning barrels at the wall!! *Nanalie gasps* Come with me! *the mouse and Nanalie hurry to the bottom floor where all the bad jar throwers gathered. She split half of them up.* This half *pointing to the right* gather and make as many arrows, jars, and anything sharp and pointy that can be thrown. Designate a couple runners to bring the supplies up to the fighters and bring down the injured. The other half get anything you can put water in, some sort of head convering to shield you from arrows, and put out the fires through the windows *Nanalie ran up again towards her window. The second floor was filled with coughing and gagging from the incoming smoke.* Everybody stay low! use blankets or something to filter out the smoke! *Nanalie hurried up to the third floor but ran into Mattissa again.* Mattissa, new plans. Take the second floor, I'll take the third. We'll fire first, you fire after us*Nanalie rushed to her post* Everybody ready? Ok. aim, FIRE!!!! * Arrows and jars flew over to the vermin horde while some decided to shoot at the turtle*

[duckflesh]

**The Vermin horde is very well hidden. Three are wounded and one is killed by lucky shots, but that's about it. Of course, ten of the firing Redwallers have arrows shot directly at them as soon as they expose themselves from the windows, and that's not going to be easy to dodge. In addition to this, three more barrels shatter against the abbey grounds, feeding the flames. Some of the trees are near falling over as the fire eats them alive, black smoke pluming towards the abbey. The Vermin archers pull back new arrows and wait for the redwallers to expose themselves again, making sure they have all the windows covered**



((Don't want to sound like I'm Moding, but my boys are Camoflaged and have tons of cover in trees. Yours only have a few windows to shoot at of, and it's not that hard to aim at a mouse in a window.))

[Nanalie]

*The third floor redwallers duck down as quickly as they could after firing. Several screams are heard throughout the floor. Nanalie, tripping over herself after she fired, was safely leaning against the wall.* I hope those runners tend to the wounded fast enough...*Nanalie thought as the second round of firing continued below*

*In the hallway, three redwallers scurry through the blinding smoke with water and supplies. They headed for the screams and walked into a dreadful sight. In the first room, a rabbit lay on his back with blood spurting out his chest and staining the walls. His feet were kicking wildly in hysteria. The three redwallers looked at each other and turned pale. They ran out of the room and checked the other rooms to see if other beasts had fallen under the similar fate. 8 total had mortal wounds and one mouse lost his ear. The runners quickly deliverd the water and supplies and carried the wounded, the dying, and the dead down to the first floor. They readied themselves for another exhausting round.*

*The fire extinquishers threw all the buckets of water they had with little progress. All had helmets on and only exposed their heads. So much fire surrounded the abbey that they didn't even need to look to see where they were throwing to meet their target. More and more smoke poured into the abbey until the whole building was filled with coughing*

*A mouse ran into Nanalie's room and updated her on the casualties and new conditions.* This is no use.. the only thing going in our favor right now are our brick walls and flaming arrows. But even those are shot blindly! At this rate our entire force will be wiped out! *Nanalie ran out of her room with the mouse tailing her* EVERYBODY PULL OUT!! CLOSE YOUR WINDOWS AND OPEN THE WINDOWS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ABBEY!! MEET ON THE 1RST FLOOR WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED! *Nanalie relayed the same message to the second floor and soon all the windows facing the gatehouse were closed and all the back windows open*

[duckflesh]

**The Vermin take cover, trees protecting them from the next round of arrows but preventing them from firing back. Needless to say, three more barrels are chucked into Redwall, every ingredient in those barrels feeding the flames. The archers facing the rear of the abbey notice movement in the rear windows and ready their bows to fire shoot any beast who pokes their head, paws, or bow out. One rat who is known to have a very convincing, very loud voice yells through a primitive megaphone**

YOUR CHILDREN WILL CHOKE ON THE SMOKE! THERE WILL SOON BE NOT ENOUGH WATER FOR YOU TO DRINK! YOUR ORCHARD HAS BEEN DESTROYED! SURRENDER, AND YOU WILL BE GIVEN FOOD AND WATER! ALL THOSE WHO SURRENDER NOW WILL BE GIVEN AN EXTRA PORTION OF BOTH, AND WILL NOT BE HELD AGAINST THEIR WILL! NO ONE ELSE HAS TO DIE!

[Nanalie]

*the redwallers look at each other hesitantly as the ones gaurding upstairs run down to the main floor. A wave of distress washed over the room as they knew the vermin were telling the truth of their fate. Nanalie, seeing that some of the redwallers were actually considering the vermins request, stood up and voiced loudly* We can't trust the vermin! Imagine what they would do to our wonderful abbey! the same abbey our ancestors fought and died for! the same abbey that opens its doors to people in need! This is our home! And there is NOWHERE like it! Listen up everybody. I have a new plan.

*nanalie gathers some moles and whispers in their ear. The moles nod and motion a badger to come over to them. They whisper some more and nanalie finally breaks and speaks to the rest of the redwallers*

Everybody? Get your children up and ready. All of those unable to fight, go with those 5 moles. Everybody else arm yourselves with anything you can find. This might be our last chance.

*the two groups of moles, one with 5 moles and one with 10 moles, begin to pry up the floor in different areas. soon, each group is off. The unable redwallers follow the group of 5, and the badger follows the group of 10. The rest wait in anticipation, holding cloths to their mouths and staying low to the ground. Everything is silent except for the crackling of the flames outside, and the occasional cough.*

[duckflesh]

**The woods are dead silent, all the birds and bugs having left to get away from smoke. Two more barrels crash into the court yard, and one directly into their pond, sputtering out, casuing Duckflesh to wince slightly**

Even if they managed to repel us, their orchard is gone. Their next winter is going to be a famine.

**He pauses, thinking**

They haven't moved in a while. What are our forces?

**The monitor next to him hisses softly**

30 is zee trees... and us three herez.

But of course, the fact we have so much cover gives us the ability to take down three times our number worth of charging redwallers, and after that we could easily take the abbey by force.

Yez...

Keep at least one archer on each window, and have the rest cover the gates of the abbey. Shoot anything that comes out saving Snapper.

**meanwhile, the rat with the loud voice keeps blaring his propoganda, oving his job**

YOUR ORCHARDS IS GONE, THERE ISN'T FOOD H TO LAST FOR MORE THAN A FEW SHORT DAYS! YOUR CHILDREN WILL STARVE THE FASTEST, THINK OF THEM! YOUR POND WATER HAS BECOME UNPURE DUE TO SMOKE RESIDUE! DRINKING IT WILL CAUSE CONSUMPTION AND LEAD TO DEATH! WE CAN GIVE YOU CLEAN WATER! DO NOT BE LEAD TO YOUR DEATH BY YOUR COWARDLY LEADERS!

[Muramin al-Wyuli]

(( Only Snapper, eh? Thanks... LOL ))

Muramin was getting fairly annoyed by the one shouting so much, so she made her way up to the battlements, staying low behind the parapet, and over to the side he was shouting from. Her arrow already knocked, she would peek over the parapet, getting an idea of the distance to the shouting beast before moving back to the grounds. There, she would take an aim on the shouting vermin from memory, draw back the string to the firing position, and loose the arrow for the unfortunate beast.

While a hit not the most likely of events, a near miss should have made him atleast wet his pants.

[ZorakBrak64]

Snapper hits redwall just under the Battlements, landing inside. Hes unmoving for about 10 seconds, staying inside his shell. Finally, his arms and legs protrude, and finally his head. He lets out a Bellow, and starts hitting Mice on the head (I remind you that he's huge. That can kill a Mouse, being hit on a head by a thing his size).