13. Dance Like A Badger, Sting Like A Bee: Meline Melee, The Boattle

[The Grey Coincidence]

Chaos, mayhem, pandemonium. In the calm of a wintry Mossflower swamp, a battle raged on. In truth it was less of a battle, and more of a bar brawl. Unique in that very little alcohol was ingested prior to it. Which was a shame, for Bo had heard that being drunk was the best part of any bar brawl.

The party had found the toad tribe easily, following the path marked by toadprints. It had led them to an icy swamp dotted with half-collapsed mudhuts and roughly-handled tents; no doubt stolen from creatures with superior craftsmanship. The Log-a-log's shrews, determined as they were to avenge the former Log-a-log, had launched a volley of arrows, accompanied by an unnecessary battlecry that completely gave away the element of surprise.

"Logalogalogalogalogalogalogalogalog!"

Led by Orpah, those armed with rapiers had gone straight for the kill. And although their aim was true and their skill undoubtedly great, she failed to notice that the ground she stood upon was the kind of muddy slush that made combat a chore.

Their charge had been halted in its tracks, and all that had been achieved was that the toads, armed with primitive bows, had come together behind a jutting rock.

In this way, the two parties fell into a stalemate.  There was anger and dissent, and several shrews suggested leaving altogether.

"Nobeast is leaving until we avenge the Log-a-log," Rubtus hissed.

"Ranged combat?" the Skipper mused out loud, swaggering to where the Log-a-log stood. His chest was out and a smirk was firmly in place along his muzzle. "Sounds like a job for us."

Yet not even the finest slingers nor the best of javelin throwers could land a single projectile.

The two lines of beasts stared each other down, each side trying to intimidate the other. Like peacocks flaunting their tail feathers, they tried to scare the other into submission. Insults were thrown. Colourful language was used. One toad even stuck their head out from behind the rock to waggle their unnecessarily-long tongue out, only to dart back behind it as a dozen slings and arrows raced towards his position.

"Wouldn't it be just peachy if that infernal mouse isn't even here?" mumbled Bo. Content to let the warbeasts deal with the warlike activities, the badger found a nice tree to nap against and fell into a snooze.

.....

"Sticky! Sticky wake up!"

Bo's eyes slid open just enough to see Peri fluttering in front of him, and unadulterated chaos behind her. "Five more minutes," he grumbled, screwing his eyes shut.

"No! No, I need you now!"

Bo gave her a loud, fake snore for her troubles.

A heap of snow landed on him from a branch above. The abrupt change in temperature was enough of a shock to get the badger's attention.

"I did some scouting!" Peri said quickly, fluttering back to his eye level. "And I found Acer- the toads have him! And they're running off with him now! I'd try and rescue him alone but there's too many of them! Please! I need help!"

Bo closed his eyes again. "Ask Skipper or something."

"He's busy! And so is the Log-a-log! And so is everybeast else! You're the only one doing nothing!"

It was only the fear of the Abbess' frown that got Bo up. He was, after all (partially and less than the other two), responsible for losing the Dibbun in the first place, and he didn't want to do anything more to earn the Abbess' ire.

...

With the air of a Dibbun making the unwanted walk to abbeyschool on a Monday morning, Bo followed the Infirmary Keeper's flightpath around the battlefield and deeper into the swamp.

He did not remember anybeast being this concerned about the poor, freezing bees they had spotted on the way here. Even though their lives were in immediate danger, while Acer's was not; even though they contributed to the ecosystem, while Acer did not; it was unfair that one misbehaved Dibbun had so many beasts coming to his rescue but that nobeast even considered the wellbeing of several hard-working bees. Bees that the toads had put into danger. 

Incensed, the badger quickened his pace. Selfish, uncaring, ignorant. The web-footed fiends would pay for their crimes.

"There they are!" Peri whispered. "Good, they didn't get too far! Okay, Acer is in the bag, we just need to grab him and-"

"No. We're teaching them a lesson," Bo growled, cracking his knuckles. "Poke a hive and you get stung."

In silence the pair circled the slow-moving group of toads. Acer must have been putting up a fight, for they were barely making any progress in their escape.

"Stupid mouse!" one of the toads was hissing, as the sack slung over his back writhed like a nest of serpents.

"Just lemme hit him!" another begged. "The bloody furbiddy bit me!"

"No! No hitting! You'll kill it and then the abbey won't want it back!"

"I won't hit it hard enough to kill it!"

"Coz you can't!"

"Shuddup! Both of you!" croaked a third. "We're trying to escape- no needs to tell everything with ears where we are and what we're doing!"

It was all too easy to circle ahead of the distracted, bickering gang and block off their path.

"Ribbit. Frog."

Amphibian eyeballs bulged at the sight of the fuming badger standing before them. All but one of the gang of toads stepped away.

"You! Badger! We meet again!" cried a toad and Bo supposed they must have been the one from earlier. Grimacing at the badger's lack of expression change, the toad scowled. "This time! I have brought gloves!" And he brandished a pair of oversized oven mitts. "Prepare to feel my vengeance!"

The toad charged, leaping into the air to land a fly kick on Bo's gut. The badger did not flinch and watched with mild curiosity as the toad pulled free with ease and threw itself at his face. Again, the toad came unstuck far too quickly for Bo's liking and landed a punch between the badger's eyes. None of it hurt very much, of course, but Bo was still amazed that they hadn't gotten stuck yet and was even using his natural stickiness to pivot and swerve for more impressive strikes.

"Just go down already!'' The toad gasped, panting for breath now, exhausted from the effort of trying to single-handedly take a badger down. It was in this brief moment of respite that Bo saw through their trick. The toad wasn't getting stuck to him; the socks and gloves they wore were. Which meant it was only a matter of time before...

SPLAT!

The toad's bare fist slammed (uselessly) against Bo's lower back. And when they tried to pull loose, they found their arm stuck there.

"Oh no, not again!" they cried, aware of their impending doom.

"Nice trick," said Bo. Without further ado, the badger sat down and squashed them into oblivion.

"RUUUUUUUUN!" screamed the toads, as they scattered. "Back to the camp! Back to the camp! They've got a badger with them!"

While Bo peeled the groaning sock-toad off his rump, Peri dived towards the toad clutching the frantically squirming sack with Acer inside. Before she could get a grip on the sack, however, the toad noticed her and tossed it towards his nearest companion with a cry of alarm.

"It's the mouse they want! Don't give it to them!" he croaked, attempting to slap Peri out of the air.

The bullfinch dodged the blow, going straight for the sack, only for it to be passed over to another toad.

"Slow down!" Bo grumbled, waddling faster than usual in pursuit of the nimbler creatures currently playing a high-stakes version of the Dibbun-in-the-middle ball game popular amongst the older abbey children.

Peri only won by the time they got back to the toad camp- where the battle still raged on. The toad carrying Acer had refused to pass the sack and ran straight into a mudhut when he had turned around to taunt the bullfinch.

"I've got him! I've got Acer!" Peri cried, shooting upwards and dodging the toad's retaliatory tongue-shot.

"Don't let them take the baby!"

At once, the toads formed a chain, leapfrogging on top of one another to get to a higher vantage point. The biggest, fastest toad still standing clambered to the top and launched itself from atop the tower (causing it to fall down behind them from the force of his take-off). Their slimy webbed fingers managed to latch on to the sack. Already burdened by the overexcited mouse, Peri plummeted towards the ground, not even her most frantic flapping enough to stay airborne.

"I've got it!" cried the Skipper and Rubtus in unison, rushing towards her with their arms stretched out in front of them. Each oblivious to the other's presence, the chieftains crashed into each other and were promptly run over by Bo, who just managed to catch the Infirmary Keeper.

"Are you alright?" he asked, simultaneously wrenching the squealing toad off of her. It flailed about in Bo's grip, almost pleading.

"Gimmedebaby! You furbiddies don't geddit! If we don't keep the baby we gonna starve! No food! Need baby! Give baaaaaabyyyyyyy!"

"I'm fine," Peri shook herself back into shape as Bo tossed the toad over his shoulder at a tree lined with edible pine bark.

"Good. Then we're done here." Bo sighed in contentment as all around the fighting shrews and otters brought the mudhuts crashing down into piles of dust.

"I think you spoke too soon," Peri gestured with her beak at a large group of toads currently approaching them, led by one wearing a headband.

The bullfinch took flight again, Acer in tow, as a dozen toad's leapt at his face. Bo stumbled backwards, blinded by the tangle of limbs and webbed toes that now clung to him alongside several dozen pairs of socks and gloves. Bo fell backwards into the mud, still wrestling with the amphibians on his face. He tried to bat them off but they held on. They were stuck to him and he to them in a wild tangle that put the Gordian Knot to shame.

"Stupid frogs!" Bo growled, rolling around in the mud so that his far greater weight knocked them senseless. He spat mud and dirt from his mouth and, half-blinded, managed to regain some semblance of balance. Entangled, caked in generous servings of mud and weighted down by two dozen dazed amphibians; somewhere in the distance a warlord approaching Redwall with their vast host caught a glimpse of Bo rising from the swamp, screamed and high-tailed it back the way they came.

Booting the nearest toad off of himself, Bo searched the battle with his one unobscured eye in search of Peri and Acer's sack. The Skipper slammed his tail into a toad's shaking legs, and headbutted a second toad while Rubtus dueled three carrying rusted daggers. Bo looked on in surprise as Redwall's third badger, the Recorder, burst out of the very same earth he had kicked a toad into, flanked and followed by the Friar, the Gardener, the Foremole and the Cellarkeeper.


"Under 'ee urthen core!" came the voice of Mrs Flowers, smacking the nearest toad across the face with her obscenely long digging claws.

"That's for my garden!" Jaskia howled, tossing a rakeful of mud into a toad's face and following it up with a blow to the gut.

"I should have packed some champagne!" the Cellarkeeper was saying. "Oh well, more for the victory feast!" And many a toad got a face full of quills.

"Sticky!" the Friar raced over to Bo, who was nothing less than impressed the Friar had even recognised him. "Where's Acer? Is he here? Is he safe?"

"He's fine. He's in a sack. Peri has him." the badger replied, watching Elsine rip the roof right off a mud hut and slam it into the toads attempting to swarm her.

"And where is he?" Timothy pressed.

"Well..." Bo gestured at the ongoing battle.