abstract
| - The Late Rose Summer Wars occurred during the season when Cluny the Scourge came down from the North with a horde of about five hundred rats and put Redwall Abbey under siege. Based initially at St. Ninian's Church, Cluny soon press-ganged and recruited about a hundred rats, weasels, stoats and ferrets from Mossflower Woods. The young mouse Matthias, hoping to save the Abbey, embarked on a quest for the sword of Martin the Warrior which eventually led him to the old quarry where Asmodeus the snake made his lair. During Matthias's quest, Cluny attempted a variety of schemes in order to capture the Abbey. First he stole the Tapestry and captured the Vole family. He attempted to use ladders and grappling hooks to scale the wall, but the Redwallers poured dirt and rubble over the battlements, destroying the ladders. Next he tried to use a plank to bridge the gap between a tree and the wall, Constance dislodged the plank, Cluny fell and was injured. Meanwhile, Matthias and Basil Stag Hare rescued the voles. When Cluny recovered, he had his rats built a battering ram and a siege tower, he also had them start construction on a tunnel. The Redwallers dumped a barrel with a hornet's nest inside on the ram in response. Cornflower set the siege tower on fire with a lantern she happened to be holding, and Constance and the other Redwallers collapsed the tunnel after pouring boiling hot water upon the vermin within. Matthias was able to kill Asmodeus and take the sword back. He returned to Redwall with Guosim and Sparra allies, but not before Cluny had taken it over by forcing a dormouse prisoner to open the gate. He challenged Cluny and their fight across the lawn eventually led them to The Bell Tower. Friar Hugo was at that time tolling the Joseph Bell and upon hearing the fight, hid under the stairs. But as the two were fighting, the mouse sneezed. Cluny, seeing an opportunity, grabbed the Friar and used him as a hostage to try to get Matthias to surrender. Matthias, who had climbed up to the belfry, told Cluny that if he let Hugo go, he would come down. Cluny agreed to this, thinking that this would be the last he'd see of the mouse warrior. He was right, because at that moment, Matthias cut the rope supporting the Joseph Bell. The huge bell came crashing down on Cluny, killing him. The remains of Cluny's army were repelled by the defenders, then slain by Captain Snow and Squire Julian Gingivere, who were waiting for the vermin on the fringes of Mossflower woods.
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