Chapter Text
They called him Pattertwig. That wasn't his name of course- the humanoids (and token human) who ran the rebellion either couldn't or wouldn't pronounce the string of high- pitched chattering that made up his name. He'd arrived, eager and nervous and offered to help; he'd been sent to the dwarfs to register and they'd put down the use-name which Trufflehunter had absentmindedly given him in the rolls. It could be worse; the lad behind him had been abruptly renamed "Nuthunter" and told that it was "appropriately Squirrelly" when he objected. If there was some other approach, like, for example, asking him, giving him five seconds to think about it and then taking his response seriously, it had been lost during the Hidden Years. Maybe if they woke the Trees one of them would remember. More to the point, a ninety-foot twenty-tonne Scots Pine is a lot more likely to get attention when they state that their prefer mode of address is something that can't be done with a human larynx.
The Mouseguard had responded slightly differently- they had declared an informal but lethal competition to demonstrate the sort of martial prowess that was apparently the only thing that mattered right now. Between the eight of them they had a terrifyingly large number of confirmed kills and an even larger number of assists. It had earnt Reepicheep[1] a begrudged position on the council.
[1] Again, not his real name.
He was no sort of fighter. Logistics he could do in his head as well as the dwarfs could on their ledgers but what good was that? No one wanted to hear that they needed to lose nine tenths of their communal appetite or they'd starve before next spring. So he scouted- he was fast and quiet and could climb faster than most could run and any Squirrel could memorise the positions of scores of supply caches. Not that their reports were accorded much value; "flighty" the dwarfs said; the larger Beasts weren't much more respectful and the Centaurs had little time for anyone who couldn't or wouldn't track the dance of the stars. The Squirrel everyone called Pattertwig had been enthusiastic about the Prince at the start though, when the human had first come to the Dancing Lawn, and somehow that had translated to marginally more respect for his abilities. Not that a condescending "Pretty reliable, for a Squirrel" was exactly what you wanted to hear from your comrades-in-arms.
So impressed by his reliability, in fact, that they gave him a mission. The prince and his dwarf told him about it. "Very important," they said. Terribly hush-hush, tell no one, all that. It looked ... well, it looked a lot like suicide. Forty miles, with at least two river-crossings - more if you tried to go east around any of the war camps and were forced to cross the Great River, most of the way directly towards Miraz's castle and the heart of the Telmarine occupation. The objective was ... wow. The objective was pretty much unbelievable. The doctor thought that the trip to the lamp-post might be a waste of time. He didn't say it like that of course, but Trumpkin was sent to the coast (straight through Miraz's war camp - arguably an even less safe trip), and he wasn't sure that the magical help wouldn't come straight to the Howe. If it worked at all. If.