Mattimeo recap

Seasons after the defeat of Cluny, Redwall Abbey is at peace and Matthias, its warrior, is worrying about his headstrong son Mattimeo. A masked fox called Slagar the Cruel brings a band of slavers into Mossflower disguised as travelling entertainers, performs at the Abbey, drugs its young ones and carries off Mattimeo, the churchmice twins Tess and Tim, Sam Squirrel and others, driving them south to sell. Matthias, Basil Stag Hare, Jess Squirrel and Jabez Stump give chase, joined by Log-a-Log's shrews and by Orlando the Axe, a badger hunting the same slavers for his own stolen daughter. Behind them, Redwall is seized by General Ironbeak, a raven warlord from the north, and the Abbey's remaining defenders under Constance hold out by wearing his superstitious birds down with staged appearances of Martin the Warrior's ghost. The trail leads to the ruined abbey of Loamhedge and the underground kingdom beneath it, ruled by the ancient polecat Malkariss. Mattimeo raises the slaves in revolt as his father breaks in; the kingdom falls, Slagar dies in the pit, Ironbeak is killed at Redwall, and the young ones come home.

Previously, in Redwall: the rat warlord Cluny the Scourge besieged Redwall Abbey in Mossflower Wood with a horde at his back, meaning to take it as his fortress. Matthias, a clumsy young novice who idolized the Abbey's founder, Martin the Warrior, went out to recover Martin's lost sword, surviving the sparrow tribe in the Abbey roof and killing the adder Asmodeus to get it, and returned with allies to break the siege. He killed Cluny by bringing the Abbey's great bell down on him. Old Abbot Mortimer died of his wounds after naming Matthias the Warrior of Redwall, and Methuselah, the Abbey's ancient recorder, was murdered by a young fox thief called Chickenhound, who robbed the gatehouse and escaped south. Brother Alf now leads the Abbey as Abbot Mordalfus. Constance the badger, Basil Stag Hare and Jess Squirrel are all still at Redwall, Martin's sword hangs in Great Hall, and Matthias has married Cornflower.

Redwall Abbey is in its high summer, seasons after the war with Cluny, preparing a feast and quietly indulging its young ones. Chief among them is Mattimeo, son of Matthias the Warrior and Cornflower, who fights the other youngsters, trades on his father's name, and is a disappointment to himself as much as to anyone. Matthias is losing patience with him. Beyond the Abbey, a masked fox called Slagar the Cruel has brought a band of slavers into Mossflower. They travel as a troupe of performers, jugglers and tumblers and a fortune-teller, and they work carefully, hiding their weapons and taking care that nobody who might report them is left able to. Slagar is not hunting at random: he has come to Mossflower for Redwall specifically, and he has a private score to settle with the Abbey's warrior.

The troupe presents itself at Redwall's gate and the Abbey, generous by rule and unsuspecting by habit, lets them in to perform at the feast. During the entertainment the young ones are drugged and carried out of the Abbey grounds. Redwall wakes to find Mattimeo, the churchmice twins Tess and Tim, Sam Squirrel and others gone, along with the performers. Matthias takes the sword down from Great Hall and goes after them with Basil Stag Hare, Jess Squirrel and the hedgehog Jabez Stump, whose own son is among the missing. Slagar has planned for pursuit: he lays false trails, splits his route, and drives the captives hard and southward. The pursuers can follow him, but always a day and a decision behind.

The chase moves out of Mossflower and into rougher country. Log-a-Log brings his Guosim shrews to help, and the pursuers meet Orlando the Axe, an enormous badger who has been hunting the same slave band since it took his daughter Auma, and who joins them with no interest in anything but getting her back. Among the captives, Auma proves the steadiest, keeping the Abbey's young ones from despair and from turning on one another. Slagar drives them on in a chained line, feeding them little, and answers any resistance with the whip. The reader learns who is behind the harlequin mask: Slagar is Chickenhound, the fox thief who robbed Redwall and killed old Methuselah seasons ago, who survived his flight from the Abbey with a ruined face and has spent the time since building a slaver's business and a grudge.

Slagar's ambushes begin to cost the pursuers. He uses the ground against them, setting rockfalls and traps and leaving fighters behind to slow them, and the company loses ground and takes casualties crossing open plains and broken country. Mattimeo, chained and starving, stops posturing and starts organizing, and the captives begin working as a group rather than as frightened individuals. Behind them, Redwall has been left thin: with its warrior, its hare and its best climber all gone south, the Abbey is held by the old, the young and whoever else stayed, under Constance and Abbot Mordalfus.

The birds are led by General Ironbeak, a raven commander who has come south looking for territory and has decided Redwall will be his. His force seizes the Abbey's upper floors and lofts and settles in for a slow conquest of the building from the top down. Constance, Abbot Mordalfus, Cornflower and the remaining Redwallers barricade the lower halls and fight room by room, and being badly outmatched in the open they turn to indirection instead. Ironbeak's second, the crow Mangiz, claims the gift of foresight and is deeply superstitious, so the Redwallers begin staging appearances of Martin the Warrior's ghost in the Abbey's dark corners. The birds start losing sleep, then nerve, and Ironbeak's grip on his own captains begins to slip.

The war for Redwall goes on with skirmishes in the corridors and losses on both sides, and the haunting continues to unpick Ironbeak's force from the inside while Constance holds the line by force. Far to the south, Matthias's company crosses a bleak stretch of country and comes at last to the ruin of Loamhedge, the long-abandoned abbey whose surviving mice founded Redwall generations ago. Slagar's trail ends there, and it does not stop at the ruin: it goes down. Beneath Loamhedge is a worked entrance into the rock, and past it a kingdom of hollowed caverns and carved pillars nobody above ground knows exists.

The kingdom below belongs to Malkariss, an ancient polecat bleached white with age, who is spoken of as a god by his servants and never shows himself. His Voice, a purple-robed rat called Nadaz, commands ranks of hooded guards and buys slaves to work the quarries and build his master's endless city of stone. This is Slagar's market: he delivers the Redwall young ones and Auma into the pits and takes his payment. Below ground, Mattimeo, Auma, Tess, Tim and Sam are set to hauling and cutting with slaves who have been there for seasons. Rather than break, Mattimeo begins organizing them for a rising. Above, Matthias, Orlando, Basil, Jess and Log-a-Log's shrews find the ways down and prepare to force an entrance into a place built to be impossible to leave.

Both sieges end. Below Loamhedge, Mattimeo's slave rebellion rises as Matthias and Orlando break in from above; the monstrous brute guarding Malkariss's court is killed, the hooded ranks break, and the kingdom of pillars collapses along with the polecat's rule. Slagar, trying to escape in the chaos, falls to his death in the pit at the centre of his own market. Matthias and his son find each other, and Orlando gets Auma back. At Redwall, the birds have been worn to nothing by the ghost they cannot explain and by Constance's defence, and the last fight for the Abbey ends with Ironbeak killed and his survivors fleeing north. The pursuers come home with the young ones and with the freed slaves, and Redwall takes them all in. Mattimeo returns as someone who led prisoners out of a pit rather than as the warrior's spoiled son, and the Abbey acknowledges him as the warrior it will one day rely on.

Below Loamhedge, Mattimeo turns the slaves into a rebellion and Matthias's company breaks into the underground kingdom from above. The brute that guards Malkariss's court is killed, the hooded ranks break, and the kingdom of pillars comes down: Malkariss's rule ends and the slaves are freed. Slagar, trying to escape in the collapse, falls to his death in the pit at the heart of his own market. Father and son find each other in the ruins, and Auma is reunited with Orlando. At Redwall, the Abbey wins its own war: Ironbeak's birds, worn down by losses and by a haunting they never work out, are beaten in a final fight in which the general is killed, and the survivors fly north. Matthias's company comes home with the young ones and with the freed slaves, and Redwall opens its gates to them; Auma stays at the Abbey. Mattimeo returns changed, no longer the warrior's spoiled son but someone who led captives out of a pit, and the Abbey recognizes him as its warrior in training. The book closes on a feast, on the sword back in Great Hall, and on Redwall at peace with a new generation ready to defend it.