‘Ah, Brother Fangburn, let me explain. I will tell you why it is that you and all your kind will forever remain servants, while I shall always be the master. Did you not see the faces of those mice today? The mere mention of Martin the Warrior sends them into ecstasies. Don’t you see, he is their symbol. His name means the same to those mice as mine does to the horde: in a different way maybe. Martin is some sort of angel; I’m the opposite. Think for a moment. If anything were to happen to me, you’d all be a leaderless rabble, a headless mob. So, if the mice were to lose their most precious omen, the picture of Martin, where would that leave them?’

  Redtooth slapped his haunches. He rocked to and fro, sniggering with uncontrolled glee.

  ‘Brilliant, Chief, diabolical! They’d just be a crowd of terrified little mice without their wonderful Martin.’

  Cluny’s tail banged down on the rotting lectern, smashing it into several fragments.

  ‘And that’s when we’ll strike!’