The Waterpine Chipmunk, Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Zibrome, Rufus, Otto, Christian, Maria, Qualla, Wallawanuck, Colonel Tark, a few veteran gophers, and Yigger planned a counsel of war in the mess hall. “I will tolerate with this! I am not the creature to declare war! I am not going to sign a declaration of war! War does not make peace!” shouted Yigger angrily. “War for conquest is evil, war for liberation is not,” disagreed Otto. “He’s right Yigger,” agreed Tark. “Before we take a vote on this, I have to show you something,” said Rufus. He went over to a table and took a very large book. He turned though the pages for a minute and stopped at a page close to the beginning of the book. “Here, is the book of history during my rule of Sahlstromnod. Here, I had sent a ship to help tribes down south and a few months later,” he turned to the middle of the book, “A Caravel flying Cliffmore Colors had attacked and destroyed the ship.” “I agree that we should declare war but not now. If we declare war now, we would lose but if we declare war later we would have more animals,” said Maria. Rufus got impatient and started the vote, “Mouse tribe votes,” “No” said Zibrome. “Munkrin votes,” for a minute Christian, Otto, and Maria had an argument. Finally, Otto, the leader said, “Munkrin votes yes.” “Bushtail votes, “No” answered Yigger “Isle Otters votes,” “No” answered Wallawanuck, “Isle Muskrats vote,” “No” answered Qualla. “Sahlstromnod votes,” “Yes” said Colonel Tark. All the regiment stacks voted yes and the vote was a tie. “Why did you vote no?” asked Otto to Wallawanuck, Qualla, and Zibrome. “Maria was right.” answered Zibrome, “We would lose.” “We may lose but then we can go to Munkrin for more troops!” answered Otto stubbornly, “Besides, what more can we lose.” Zibrome started a long list but Maria interrupted and said, “We’ve lost our family to those vermin, we can lose ourselves, we need to gather more creatures to destroy him.” Otto realized that he lost the debate. He went down to the shore, and watched the light waves lapping the shore. He thought he saw about sixty dots in the distance, but then they disappeared. There they were again! They were coming for the fortress. Otto realized what was happening! He rushed into the stronghold and up about twenty flights of stairs. He took a path to his right and went to another flight of stairs. He went to a rope and put all his weight on it. The emergency bell had rung. Otto rushed to his bedchamber just as many gophers and woodlanders were doing. He quickly strapped on his rapier and headed to the sandy shore.

Captain Govmam led his fifty vermin on the giant dragonflies. They all were armed with a long pike, bow and twenty arrows, light bronze chain-mail, an iron helmet that covers the whole face, and a few “bombs” that were created by the fort inventor. The “bombs” were a few hollow sticks filled with vegetable oil and crystallized salts. If they light a veggie oiled string and drop the stick, in about four seconds, if it hadn’t hit the ground it would explode. Govmam, who was in the back of his force, couldn’t give any commands so they had already made strategies beforehand. He knew that the creatures on sand he couldn’t defeat and Satama had ordered him not to attack any soldiers, but because he saw there was much more than Satama had estimated, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to subtract their numbers a tiny bit. He bellowed out Blackmore’s current war-cry, “Satama, for Blackmooooooooooore!” which was the signal to start the attack.