A young anthropomorphic mouse named Matthias is a novice monk at Redwall Abbey, where he was adopted as a young orphan, though he dreams of a life of adventure, inspired by the legends of Martin the Warrior, the founder of Redwall. One summer, Redwall Abbey is surrounded by the army of Cluny the Scourge, an infamously evil one-eyed rat. Matthias is guided by visions of Martin the Warrior, while the abbey inhabitants prepare the defense of their home against Cluny's impending attack. Matthias seeks Martin's famous sword, supposedly hidden somewhere within the abbey, helped particularly by Methuselah, an ancient and grizzled mouse who serves as Redwall's historian. Cluny, meanwhile, attempts to gain entrance to the abbey and murders a defector from his horde, Sela the fox. Sela's son, Chickenhound, seeks refuge at Redwall but ends up accidentally killing Methuselah after being caught stealing. Driven from the abbey, Chickenhound is maimed in the wilderness by the venomous adder Asmodeus Poisonteeth, a local terror in Mossflower Wood, the forest that surrounds the abbey. Clues to the location of Martin's sword and shield have been built into the abbey, allowing Matthias to recover the shield, though he discovers the sword has been stolen by a wild sparrow tribe, the Sparras, that dwell on Redwall's roof. He learns from the violent sparrows that the sword was stolen from them in turn by Asmodeus. The king of the sparrows attacks Matthias but dies when the two plummet together off the abbey roof. Matthias recovers and ventures to Asmodeus's lair with his new allies Log-a-Log, a shrew, and Warbeak Sparra, the new and just queen of the aforementioned Sparras. Matthias, Log-a-Log, and two other Shrews succeed in retrieving the sword from Asmodeus's cave, Asmodeus kills the latter two, and Matthias subsequently kills Asmodeus. Alerted to the fall of the abbey by the Sparra tribe, Matthias rushes back to Redwall to save his friends. The Redwall inhabitants have been using boiling water, oil, barrels of hornets, and fire to repel Cluny's horde, but the abbey finally falls when Cluny threatens the family of the gatekeeper, who allows Cluny's forces access to the abbey. Matthias, his allies now including the Mossflower shrews and the whole Sparra tribe, along with the newly captive Redwall population, battles against Cluny's minions. Cluny strikes his poison-barb tail at the father abbot, Mortimer, but Matthias quickly avenges the abbot's injury by dropping the abbey's giant bell on top of Cluny, crushing him to death and cracking the bell in the process. Abbot Mortimer proclaims Matthias the Warrior of Redwall and dies from his wound. The battle ends in victory for the defenders of Redwall. An epilogue reveals that Matthias has married the fieldmouse Cornflower and she has given birth to their son, Mattimeo, an abbreviated version of the name Matthias Methuselah Mortimer. The cracked Joseph Bell has been reshaped into two new bells called Matthias and Methuselah

ISBN: 0441005489