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Redwall

Redwall is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques. It was originally published in 1986, and is the first book of the Redwall series. Coming in at 416 pages long, the book was illustrated by Gary Chalk, with the British cover illustration by Pete Lyon and the American covers by Troy Howell.

Plot
The novel centers around the fate of its eponymous abbey and the characters contained within. Redwall was founded by a great mouse hero named Martin the Warrior, who swore himself to peace when he did, and his followers throughout the ages have done the same. One of its novitiates, Matthias, dreams more of times of adventure than a life of quiet servitude, but he is counseled to patience by his elders. Redwall Abbey is a fixture in the local community, which mostly revolves around Mossflower Wood, and was designed to be a place of refuge for the beasts of the forest in times of trouble.

Trouble arrives in the form of Cluny the Scourge, an evil, infamous rat, and his horde of vermin. The foebeasts arrive at the beginning of the book and make their headquarters at the Church of St. Ninian, to the south of Redwall, with the intention of taking the Abbey for themselves. The Abbey inhabitants refuse to back down and make ready to defend themselves if necessary, especially since most of the inhabitants of the surrounding area are now within its walls. None of them are particularly martial, but Redwall folk, and indeed much of the Mossflower population, are generally described as slow to anger but fierce fighters when aroused, and they are able to make an effective defense. But Matthias, fearing that Cluny will still overrun them, begins a quest to find the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior, which is supposedly hidden somewhere in the Abbey, stored away against a rainy day. He is helped particularly by Methuselah, an old and grizzled librarian mouse. Matthias is a brave-hearted young mouse, if small in stature (obviously), and as the story continues, his natural leadership abilities begin to emerge.

Clues to the location of Martin's sword, as well as his shield and the sword's scabbard, have been built into the Abbey. Matthias recovers the latter two, and with Methuselah's help eventually divines where the sword is hidden. Unfortunately, it isn't there any longer. The continuing search leads Matthias to the Abbey attics, where a fierce and chattering tribe of sparrows live, and then to the lair of the gigantic snake Asmodeus. Along the way he acquires several allies: Log-a-Log, the leader of a local band of shrews; Basil Stag Hare, wandering do-gooder and general cad, and Warbeak Sparra, a princess of the sparrow tribe who becomes Matthias's friend when they are forced to work together against the insane sparrow king. He succeeds in retrieving the sword from Asmodeus's cave (in the process killing the snake) and rushes back to Redwall to save his friends.

Cluny, in the meanwhile, has been attempting a number of unsuccessful strategies to gain entrance to the Abbey. He finally "persuades" the dormouse Plumpen to allow him into the Abbey, and by stealth and treachery Cluny takes over Redwall. However, his victory is short-lived; barely has he declared himself Redwall's new ruler when Matthias returns. He, his allies and the assembled Redwall population turn on their captors; Matthias himself takes on Cluny, and defeats him by crushing him under the Abbey's main bell. The novel closes with an epilogue, stating that Matthias has married the mousemaid he loves and now has a son, Mattimeo (a portmanteau of the names Matthias, Methuselah and late abbot Mortimer), who will doubtlessly succeed his father as the Warrior of Redwall.